Author: Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Our Ninth Honeymoon

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

During these past eight years that we have been married, Tony and I have occasionally reflected on the difficulties of having an anniversary two days after Christmas. In fact, getting married on December 27th was inconvenient from the start. On the Christmas day before our wedding, we had to drive to the regional FedEx office to pick up several dozen black roses, which had been misdirected in the Christmas rush.

Since then, we’ve encountered various obstacles to celebrating our anniversary. First of all, after planning and executing Christmas, we’re always a little burnt out. It’s extra work (of which Tony always does the lion’s share) to plan a special event for the two of us.… Read more

Running Away to Home, La Bella Lingua, Dune, and the Woman Who Laughed at God

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I keep starting more books, and can’t seem to finish many of them. But here are a few reviews to start off the year:

Running Away to HomeRunning Away to Home by Jennifer Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having done a very similar thing myself, I enjoyed reading Jennifer Wilson’s account of how she took her family to the Czech Republic in search of her ancestors. I loved all the little details of their acceptance into her ancestral village, and how she and her suburban American family learned a different way of living and seeing the world. However, the book lacked a certain internal consistency and completeness.… Read more

Christmas Wedding Bells

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Well, I’ve finally gotten around to downloading some photos from over the holidays. The most momentous occasion in the family this Christmas season was my sister’s wedding. The week before Christmas my little sister Hannah got married to her charming sweetheart Tim.

This is my parents’ fourth Christmas wedding. Which means that so far, they’ve only been able to have wedding receptions for other people’s children in their lovely backyard. The closest we got at Hannah’s reception was sending all the kids outside bundled up in coats to roast marshmallows in the fire pit. However, my parents do still have one child left.… Read more

Mormon Women in Tunisia

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Sorry for leaving you in the lurch for the entire second half of December. We had a family wedding, and it just all ended up busier than I thought it would. But nicer too.

I’m still not going to blog here on Casteluzzo today (well, any more than I am right now), but I do have a post featured on Heather’s Women in the Scriptures blog. I discovered her blog just a month or two ago, and have been enjoying both current articles and her extensive archives. As the title denotes, Heather focuses on studying the women in the scriptures. It seems like that would make for a pretty short blog, right?… Read more

Like a Tea-Tray in the Sky

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

One of my favorite pastimes as a young teenager was organizing periodic Mad Tea Parties with my siblings. We would all dress up as characters from the book, and then read the text verbatim out of our multiple copies of Alice in Wonderland (after a while, we mostly had it memorized).  Our tea service was composed of every one of my mom’s large white corelle tea cups (we always laid the table for a great many more than three), which we filled with weak herbal tea and abundant milk and sugar.

Hannah sometimes complained about having to always be Alice, but she was the only one with golden hair.… Read more

Tooth Fairy, Meet Santa Claus

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

My little girl is growing up. She lost her first tooth yesterday!

After this picture, she promptly lost the tooth again, this time literally. Even Grammy’s thorough sweep of the kitchen floor failed to unearth it. So I gave her a pearl to substitute for the tooth under her pillow. And I suggested lamely (how could I not?) that she write a letter to the Tooth Fairy explaining the reason for the substitution. She laughed.

“Mommy, that would just be writing a letter to you!”

True. I confess that I try no harder to perpetuate belief in the Tooth Fairy than in Santa Claus.… Read more

King Arthur, Tolkien, Bells, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Pillars of Hercules

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We spent our Saturday morning at a different  library (the central library for Kern County), and I had the feeling I often do when visiting a new library: that I would like to move in and live there forever, take possession of the whole, as it were, like a dragon reclining on his hoard of gold. As Patricia McKillip puts it in her latest novel of my acquaintance,

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more. Judd knew that about himself: just the sight of Ridley Dow’s books unpacked and stacked in corners, on the desk and dresser, made him discontent and greedy.

… Read more

He Asked Me Out!

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I love going on dates. There is nothing better than leaving it all behind to spend a few hours of exclusive, romantic quality time with my favorite person.

When Tony and I met, he was under the impression that a successful date mandatorily had to be ingenious, elaborate, and expensive. Just to give you an idea, our second date was a 12-hour extravaganza involving a trip to San Francisco, a picnic, ultimate frisbee, a walk on the beach, a tour of the Japanese tea garden, and dinner at a Thai restaurant. He had originally planned to take me to a movie as well, but ultimately ran out of time.… Read more

Italian Christmas Memories

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Well, we’re going on three months now, and cultural acclimation is progressing. I still can’t figure out why I keep seeing people walking around in shirt-sleeves when it’s almost December. My mother-in-law says it’s because all they have to do is walk from warm cars to warm buildings. I (and my children, according to me) can’t survive outside without sweaters, coats, scarves, and hats. I guess this is how the Florentines felt seeing my bare, scarf-less neck in springtime.

The one thing I can’t get used to about Christmas in the United States is the maniacal shopping. Tony convinced me to go to Black Friday once, but I’ll never go again.… Read more

Secretariat and Jane Eyre

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Secretariat

I was in love with horses as a child, and read every book about them that I could get my hands on. So Secretariat (along with Man o’ War and Seabiscuit) was one of my early heroes, and I was thrilled to be able to see this movie. It was even better than I had hoped. I think I sighed more over that horse than I ever have over an actor. He was gorgeous. This movie didn’t have too many bad points, other than one really bad French accent (or maybe I’m just not familiar with Canadian French?).

I really liked the story line.… Read more