Services have been delivered at St. Francis of the Mountains at Fallen Leaf Lake for 90 years. Photos/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

FALLEN LEAF LAKE – Many people say their church is found outside immersed in the mountains. The chapel at Fallen Leaf Lake takes that to another level.

Bells ring through the forest to announce the start of the 8am service on Sunday.

And while St. Francis of the Mountains is a traditional church in most ways, it embraces nature. Walking up the slate path it’s like being in a lush green garden. A chill is in the air on this last Sunday of July.

This seasonal church welcomes more than those who call Fallen Leaf Lake home.

Inside it’s like the walls are a warm coat – even for those who prefer a church of granite.

The stone – even on the floor – and the wood interior bring the outdoors inside.

This chapel was a vision of those who helped establish the enclave at the base of Desolation Wilderness on the South Shore. It was in 1921 that the stone foundation was laid by William Price and Walter Hansen.

A variety of fundraisers were conducted to raise the money to make the sanctuary a reality.

The Rev. David Evans delivered the first service in 1923; with the chapel being dedicated to Price.

When first built, the church was non-denominational. It was in 1978 that the Price family deeded the chapel to the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California.

“The cross upon the altar came from the temporary chapel at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco after the earthquake and the fire of 1906. The marble credence table is made from the only unbroken pillar of the communion rail of the old Stanford University Chapel that survived the quake,” Janet Beales Kaidantzis writes in the book “Fallen Leaf: A Lake and Its People 1850-1950”.

The interior is simple – proving that opulence is not needed to commune with God.

Debra Warwick-Sabino, in white, welcomes first-time congregates Cleo Reed, Sue Wood and Pam Valentine.

Guest ministers deliver sermons on a rotating basis. On July 28 it is Debra Warwick-Sabino from Grace Church in Fairfield at the pulpit. She has been coming to Fallen Leaf Lake for 13 years.

“We are all one. We really get that at this place,” Warwick-Sabino tells the more than dozen people gathered for the first service.

Most people have attended previous services. This is also a more packed room than usual for the early session. Warwick-Sabino asks how long people’s roots at Fallen Leaf Lake go back. Fifty years for two people.

Someone has requested music. Warwick-Sabino’s husband, Rob, is quick to accommodate. He is a music director at a Catholic church. He uses the tiny piano off in the corner to provide the accompaniment for the small congregation.

A memorial garden is to the left of the chapel. Names of those who have died line a wall of stone. One area is dedicated to volunteers for Fallen Leaf’s fire department. A large round is set aside for remembrance to people’s four-legged family members.

This area is a bit overgrown in a natural way that allows one to commune with Mother Nature while remembering those who are gone.

—-

Notes:

• The chapel is located at the far end of Fallen Leaf Lake just before the fire station.

• Services are June-September at 8am and 10am; and are open to anyone.

When Burning Man launched in 1990 all of 60 people showed up. Thousands more than that number will be allowed to gather in the Nevada desert this year.

The Bureau of Land Management has granted a four-year special use permit to event organizers. The maximum number of people allowed is 68,000; with the event being Aug. 26-Sept. 2 this year.

In 2012, 56,000 people attended.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Vanessa Allen, Daily Mail

If you’re middle-aged and miserable, don’t despair: Give it a decade or two and you’ll be feeling like a carefree young person again.

Researchers have revealed that life satisfaction peaks at 23 and 69. People in their early 20s overestimate their future life satisfaction by an average of around 10 percent, before the disappointments of life kick in.

They face decades of declining expectation before hitting their lowest point in their mid-fifties, when regrets over unrealized dreams are at their greatest.

Satisfaction levels finally start to rise again after 55 and peak once more at 69, according to a study by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

Those aged 68 underestimate their future happiness by 4.5 percent, meaning they no longer face disappointment, the researchers found.

Previous studies have found that human contentment follows a U-shaped pattern, with those in their early 20s and the retired ranking highest.

The pattern has been observed in more than 50 nations and across class and financial divides.

And a study by the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. found evidence that even great apes can suffer a mid-life crisis.

The CEP paper, published last week, is the first to examine how our expectations compare to reality at different life stages.

Researcher Hannes Schwandt, 30, analyzed happiness levels for 23,161 Germans aged 17 to 85.

Schwandt, who is based at Princeton University, but is a visiting researcher at the London center, said: “One theory is that the U-shape is driven by unmet aspirations which are painfully felt in midlife but beneficially abandoned later in life.

“People in their 50s could learn from the elderly, who generally feel less regret. They should try not to be frustrated by their unmet expectations because they are probably not feeling much worse than their peers.”

Peter McGugan

Peter McGugan, a best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker and international speaker, will be giving two presentations at the Boat House Theater on the South Shore in August.

His goals are to boost people’s careers or a business or organization’s success.

McGugan will talk Aug. 28 and Aug. 29 at 7pm.

Cost is $10.

For more information, call (530) 541.4975.

Battle of the Best South Shore Bands is returning to Lakeview Commons.

The free event is a fundraiser for CASA El Dorado. The event is Aug. 23 from 3:30-8:30pm.

The Cash Only band will be returning to defend its title. The audience decides who wins by voting with their wallets.

In addition to the music, there will be food, a beer and wine garden, raffle and live auction. All proceeds from everything goes directly to helping abused and neglected children.

Park at the recreation center for free.

For more info, call (530) 573.3072.

The El Dorado County Health and Human Services Agency, Public Health Division is offering back-to-school immunizations for eligible children.

Public Health can provide all childhood vaccinations required for school entry, as well as those vaccinations that are recommended to keep children healthy.

Schools are required to verify each child’s immunization record to make sure all shots and boosters are completed before entry to kindergarten and seventh grade. Kindergartners need a total of five DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), four polio, three hepatitis B, two MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and one varicella (chickenpox) shot.

In addition, since a California law was signed in 2010, students entering seventh grade need to show proof of the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccine before starting school.

Parents who do not have a health care provider and wish to have their child vaccinated through a scheduled appointment at Public Health may call the Public Health Clinic at (530) 573.3155 in South Lake Tahoe or (530) 621.6100 in Placerville.

Any child on Medi-Cal, who is uninsured or under-insured (insurance does not cover vaccinations), is eligible for Public Health’s immunization services. A $10 administrative fee is charged per shot, though no child will be refused a vaccination due to inability to pay. Parents are asked to bring their child’s immunization record.

By Betty Hechtman

They’re called second acts, encore careers or reinventing yourself – they’re the completely new and different jobs people take in midlife or later.

Today, making that jump is more likely to be a matter of following the heart than it was during the throes of the economic recession, when professionals caught up in corporate layoffs discovered they were too old to find jobs in a poor market and too young to retire. They started second careers not to follow a vocation but to pay the bills.

I’m glad to see the tide turning again – especially for all the baby boomers who don’t want to retire but do want to do something gratifying.

I’ve had a lot of practice reinventing myself. I volunteered as a farmworker on a kibbutz in Israel, waitressed and worked in retail sales, and made connections as a telephone operator, among a host of jobs.

I’ve held jobs just for the paycheck and I’ve pursued my passions, so I know how profoundly different it is to do one versus the other. No matter what age you are, if there’s work you feel called to, you should most definitely give it a try — you may well experience a joy unlike any you’ve ever known.

Here are tips for people considering an encore:

• Do your homework. There’s nothing more disappointing them jumping in to something new only to become disillusioned and frustrated because you didn’t take the time to prepare. If your dream is to open a particular business, research the market. Is there a demand for what you hope to sell? Should you give it a trial run as an online business before investing in shop space and other overhead? Start by checking the resources at Score.org, a nonprofit supported by more than 12,000 volunteers dedicated to helping small businesses off the ground. For other encore pursuits, you might take classes or spend a few hours a week working as a volunteer to learn the ropes.

• Join a group of like-minded people. This is particularly helpful for aspiring artists who want to paint, play music, write a book or indulge some other creative talent. You can brush up on your skills and make valuable contacts by becoming a part of a community theater, joining a writers circle, or finding a group of hobbyists. You may find your skills develop much more quickly with the support and guidance of collegial peers who are all helping one another achieve a dream.

• Consider working in one of the five most popular encore fields. Most people seek second their careers in health, education, government, environment and non-profits — all fields expected to provide abundant job opportunities in the next couple of years, according to Encore.org, a non-profit that supports second careers “for the greater good.” If you need training to qualify, now is the time to get it. Invest now in the education, and you can soon have a job that feeds the heart, the mind – and the body.

Betty Hechtman is the author of “Yarn to Go,” the first book in the Berkley Prime Crime Yarn Retreat mystery series, as well as the author of the best-selling Berkley Prime Crime Crochet mystery series. The eighth book, “For Better or Worsted,” comes out in November.

Regional authors Conrad Buedel and Steve Achard will appear on Book TV airing on C-SPAN2 starting Aug. 3 at 9am.

The program is called “Carson City Weekend” and features the history of Carson Valley, Carson City and Virginia City from the 1800s as told by regional authors. Tiffany Rocque, a video journalist for C-SPAN, filmed the interviews on July 8 at the Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park in Minden.

C-SPAN created Book TV to showcase top nonfiction books and authors. Book TV features 48 hours of nonfiction books on C-SPAN2 every weekend from Saturday at 5am to Monday at 5am.

Buedel and Achard wrote “Lost Legacy of Carson Valley, The Rise and Fall of the H.F. Dangberg Ranching Empire”. It is the first comprehensive book about the history of Henry Fred Dangberg and his family. It details the exhilarating rise and the devastating fall of one of Nevada’s most prominent pioneer families. The book contains hundreds of personal family photographs along with rare documents and letters never seen before. It reveals the private lives of the legendary Dangberg family and the secrets that were kept quiet for generations.

Veteran Reno pilot Gus Pappas has written “If Airplanes Could Talk II”.

This book is the continuance of his first book “If Airplanes Could Talk.”

Pappas retired from the air National Guard after serving for 36 years, during which time he introduced many of the air technician programs still in use today. After retiring he entered the civilian aviation industry as a flight engineer for Southern Air Transport. He helped to improve their pilot-upgrading program by writing system-knowledge texts and quick reference handbooks of the L-100 and L-382, the civilian versions of the military C-130 airplane.

“If Airplanes Could Talk II” is a 84-page paperback with a retail price of $20.

By Mandy Kendall

I want to get healthier, I just don’t know where to start?

Start with being honest with yourself. How happy are you with your health at the moment, honestly? The best way is to give yourself a mark out of 10 for different areas of your health. We tend to be more objective when we put a number value to something. For example, you could rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on the following areas … (10 being totally happy and 1 being I’m beyond unhappy). How happy am I with my weight? How happy am I with my stress levels? How happy am I with the amount of exercise I’m doing? How happy am I with my levels of energy, etc. Once you have a number for each area you can then prioritize which area to start on.

Then what do I do?

Mandy Kendall

Once you have an idea of what area of your health you want to (or need to) start with, you can decide on how you will get there. Chances are the number for your priority area will be fairly low. To make changes a little less daunting it can help to break them down into manageable and achievable steps. If your happiness with your weight is at a 2 out of 10, you might not even be able to imagine being at a 10 out of 10.

Setting a target of 5 out of 10 might seem much more doable. Then imagine where you would need to be with your weight in order to give yourself a 5 out of 10. Maybe it’s a weight goal (releasing a certain number of pounds) or maybe it’s a dress you would like to fit back into. Try and give yourself a goal you can truly see yourself achieving.

The next step is to set a realistic timeframe to achieve it in. Change takes time and, especially when releasing weight, you should not try to rush things with fad diets that promise a large amount of weight loss in a short period of time.

Next, you need to consider how you will get to this first level. Will it be through more exercise, better diet or both? Will you do it alone or with a friend or maybe join a group of people all trying to achieve the same thing. Research shows that those people who join a group have significantly better results than those who don’t.

How do I find the right group?

Try asking friends and family who have succeeded what’s worked for them? Check local media for groups in your area, (Meet Up Groups are a great resource for this) and it’s a great way to make new friends too. Some people prefer online groups, so you could check with your Facebook friends for recommendations (you can always private message them if you don’t want to broadcast it to the world). If you search for specific groups on Facebook, try not to be too swayed by the number of “likes” they have, it is better to go by the “talking about this” number as this indicates how many people are active on the site. Maybe a friend is looking to do the same as you — there’s nothing like having an accountability coach to help you over the bumps and hurdles along the way and help you celebrate the successes.

I’ve tried all that before and it either doesn’t work at all for me or it works for a while and then I go back to square one or worse … what am I doing wrong?

OK, this happens to a lot of us in one way or another. First, it is always worth checking with your doctor to make sure there aren’t any medical issues that are hindering your progress. However, much of the time we just get in our own way. We try to change things, with the best of intentions, but something in us prevents us from moving forward. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy and years of external, or internal, negative talk has convinced us on some level that we are not worthy/capable/deserving/able to change (if you feel like checking all those boxes, don’t worry you’re not alone).

If you’ve honestly tried the steps above and you still can’t make those changes then chances are you are going to need some more specific help. There are many ways to address these mindset issues and it all depends on your circumstances and your personal preferences as to how you go about resolving these roadblocks to your success. Some holistic practitioners are very experienced in helping you work through emotional and behavioral blockages. Again, you can ask friends and family for recommendations for particular therapies or practitioners. Find out if a prospective therapist is willing to chat with you on the phone for a few minutes to let you know how their treatment works. This will give you a chance of finding out if you resonate with them. Emotional/behavior release therapy is very personal and it helps immensely if you get along with the practitioner as a person. There are also some techniques that you can do on your own.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or the tapping technique as it’s sometimes known, is an extremely effective tool at unblocking and releasing emotional issues.

As with many self help techniques, it is often advisable to find a professional to take you through the basics before you branch out on your own (a bit like having a lesson with a trainer before you try to train on your own in the gym) as it will help you get the most out of the therapy. You can find out about EFT online. There is also a book that I highly recommend which will walk you through the why and how of this wonderful technique – “The Tapping Solution”.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at connect@healthconnective.com.

Mandy Kendall operates Health Connective in South Lake Tahoe, which aligns wellness seekers with their ideal wellness provider. If you have questions, would like some advice, or would like to request some Qwik-e tips on any health and well-being topic, drop her an email at connect@healthconnective.com or keep an eye out on Lake Tahoe News for regular Qwik-e tips on how to make healthy changes one Quick and Easy step at a time.