Holla! Back in the House

I'm officially back in Provo. . . .

• I love my apartment,
• But I don't know any of my roommates.
• I had a blast all weekend with my parents and sister,
• But it was really hard to say goodbye last night.
• I'm still recovering from surgery,
• But I didn't have to lift anything while moving in.
• I depleted my bank account,
• But I have a flat of Diet Pepsi under my desk.
• I had fun putting away all my fun new kitchen stuff I got for my birthday,
• But still need to blog about my birthday.
• Mine and Emily's car bit the dust on the way to Utah,
• But . . . I can see no upside to this.
  
• I have church at 11:50, so it's technically morning,
• But still.
  

I'll give a more thorough update of my week--birthday, road trip, ugly tablecloth, phantom roommates and all--soon.

Sickly: Brief Update

I had my surgery today. It went well. So far the recovery has gone well. I'm a little swollen and a little achy but am loving the Percocet. I slept a lot today and cried when I woke up from the anesthesia because I didn't know where my parents were. Mom brought my rag of a teddy bear with her to the recovery room. That was pretty awesome. I have an appetite and had homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner, and I might have a piece of birthday cake in a minute. Emily and I are watching Winning London in a minute; convalescence is perfect for Mary Kate and Ashley. But I'm doing well and should feel fine to drive out to UT on Thursday.

Phew. Surgery is over.

another sign of growing up

A week ago yesterday, my first childhood friend got married. Mom, Emily, and I helped out a lot, and we ended up having so much fun! Karen was my friend by the time I was about three. We had sleepovers, went to the pool in the summer, made lemonade stands, canvassed garage sales, played "hotel," had feet wars, played with pogs, went to each other's birthday parties, went to seminary together, etc., etc. And now she's married! Back in the day, she told me that she wanted to marry someone with the last name McBride; she ended up marrying a Stratton. Potato-potaato. (I hope I conveyed that inflection okay--haha.)

The party was beautiful. I think everyone had a fun time, and it was just fun seeing my old childhood friend so happy and radiant, ready to start that next phase of her life. Congratulations, Karen! You were beautiful, and your party was classy. I'm so so happy for you!

I wonder if they'll let me hug the polar bears. . . . Safari Day 2009

Wondering where this particular sign was? Read on. At the beginning of the summer we siblings planned to have a safari day sometime during the summer. Safari day came into being when I lived in Provo for the spring, and my siblings were quite taken with the idea. So finally on Thursday we went to "Africa" via the Denver Zoo.

Emily was "looking for wild animals" on our way to the zoo. Silly girl :)

We went to Predator Ridge first. That's where Emily put Sarah into the lion death grip. See sign above.

We mimicked several wild animal behaviors, to which John replied later when we were showing Mom our pictures, "Yeah, Mom. We were in public." Haha.


In addition to imitating the maned wolf walk, Emily and I made faces like the monkeys. John really loved that one. He stood on the other side of the room.


When we saw the leopards and cheetahs, Emily responded with, "I have a sweater that looks like you!" And just as we got out of the car, she looked at the pimping-out leopard print ribbon and exclaimed, "Look! It's from the wild!"

We couldn't really convince John to take many pictures with us, but we did get him next to the fake polar bear (on our way to the zoo, Emily matter-of-factly wondered if they'd let her hug the polar bears. . . .). John is so mammoth that he can almost touch the polar bear head! And he did get more involved with Safari Day when he stated, "I wouldn't mind being a pachyderm in the wild." Ha!

After the zoo, we went home and watched "The Lion King." It was a fun day with a fun ending. I love being friends with my siblings--it makes life pretty great :)

And no, Emily was not able to hug an actual polar bear.

Six for Saturday

1. I ordered my books online. Some are from Amazon, and some I'm letting the bookstore employees gather for me. Since the BYU Bookstore organized the textbook section by author instead of by course (dumbest decision--seriously), I refuse to navigate my way through that chaos.

2. I'm starting to pack up my stuff. Weird. There's not too much to pack since most of my stuff is in the storage unit in Provo. And, oh yeah, I have to have it all packed by tonight, pretty much. See point 3.

3. **Potential TMI, FYI** I need surgery. I went for a follow-up ultrasound to check up on my cyst, and it's bigger. Tuesday morning at 5:45, I'll be checking into Lutheran Hospital for my procedure at 7:30. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I'm a little nervous. And recovery time will cut it close with moving in to my new apartment. Good thing I have a big, strong dad who can carry everything up the stairs for me.

4. My insurance status with my parents' insurance changes when I turn 22. Good thing the operation is on the last day I'm 21.

5. I bought some new MAC colors with a giftcard. That deserves a post entirely to itself. Wait for it.

6. I'm turning 22 next week, but because my birthday is the day before we're leaving (plus now we're leaving only a couple days after I go under the knife), I decided to observe my birthday on Monday. That'll be the quit-life day and the birthday dinner night.

Happy Saturday :)

Operation Superhuman Reader: Summer Book #11, Reread #2

Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is another reread, and I love it. I'm not usually into Indian stories, but this book is different. The lurid cover is offsetting, but don't let that deter you from reading this book. The writing is pretty good, and the story is incredible. I learned so much about the Comanche way of life and seriously sympathized with the People as their entire world was destroyed. I loved reading about how Naduah becomes one of the People, and my heart broke as their entire life and civilization fell apart. I fell in love with Wanderer and felt involved in the Comanche ways. The end is tragically sad, but it was compelling in its sorrow. The last twenty pages or so dragged a bit, but apart from that I loved it. It's a beautiful story narrating and documenting the end of a people.

View all my reviews >>

reunion!

My freshman year of college I spent many evenings over at my cousin Jessie's. It was a needed second home when I was living in the dorms and feeling lonely. When Timm graduated and they all moved across the country, I was seriously disappointed that I wouldn't even see them a few times a year, much less a few times a week, as before. Late last month, Jessie came out to Utah for a few weeks for a Tanner reunion and to visit Michelle & Co. plus other friends, and luckily for the Woods and Petersens in Denver, she booked a flight to Colorado for a few days during her stay. I got to see her for the first time in two years!

She was only here for a few days, but I loved it anyway. We all ate good food, played Bananagrams, went thrifting (the picture below is me sporting the cute girls' top Jess bought me for $3 at ARC), and just had fun talking and catching up. One of my favorite things about Jess is that we can go for two years without seeing each other or even talking on the phone much and come back like no time has passed.

Plus, I got to see Bella again and meet Fiona! Bella and I used to be best buds back in the day. I didn't know if she'd remember me, but after a funky hello, she warmed up to me a bit and we had fun.

Me and Bella from two and a half years ago.

Me and Bella now!

Hello, Fiona!

I'm not sure when I'll be able to see Jess and the girls (Timm, too) again, so I milked this trip for all it was worth. I was sad to say goodbye but was grateful for such close extended family. I love being friends with family :)

my apologies

Dear readers, I apologize for my seemingly long (to me) absence from the blogosphere. I've been in a serious funk. I've felt averse to blogging and reading blogs. Weird, no? Today I had almost fifty unread posts in my GoogleReader. I've whittled it down to ten. And if I haven't commented on your blog posts yet, I'll try to. This past week has just been weird. Really weird. And, at times, not too much fun. I'm working on it, though. I'm working on refocusing my priorities and such. Don't get me wrong, I've had good moments and almost completely good days, but I've been having to work harder at it than usual.

I've been thinking of this line from a Hilary Weeks song: "Well, I should not have found it strange that growing causes growing pains, 'cause the more we learn the more we know we don't know anything." That's me right now: growing up and sometimes having a hard time with it. I'm a college senior and am realizing more and more that I don't know as much as I thought.

Operation Superhuman Reader: Summer Book #10

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Meh. I expected a lot from McCarthy, and I wasn't that impressed. Maybe it's my passion for punctuation, but McCarthy's serious lack of punctuation was frustrating for me; I thought it was a bit pretentious. Also, the frequent Spanish dialogue was aggravating; McCarthy seems to expect almost too much out of his readers. As a reader--and an avid one at that--I didn't feel like McCarthy cared if I was there, figuratively speaking (and maybe he's one of those writers who doesn't care). The story was okay but sometimes seemed a little cliche. The plot didn't impress me much.

I'm not going to write McCarthy off completely, but I found this book more on the frustrating end of literature.

View all my reviews >>

Really? No Way.

I can't believe the summer is almost over. Do I really go back to Provo in three weeks? Seriously? I can't believe it. And what's the most mind-blowing is how much this summer has not gone as I thought it would. Instead of going to work everyday, dying in a sauna house, and living the single life, I've been involved in friends' weddings, dealing with limited employment and the financial ramifications of that, enjoying an air conditioned house for the first time, trying to figure out my oh-so-painful ovaries, inexplicably losing weight (because of previously mentioned illness, I'm thinking), watching multiple episodes of Bones a week, and excessively texting a boy.

It's been a good summer, just a different one from what I expected. And now it's almost over. For real.

I'm excited for this next school year; I mean, it's my last one. I want to make it a good one (all my college school years have been overall good). I love being an English major; I love being a hideous editor; I love apartment living (granted, roommates can be fodder for frustration on occasion); I love it that BYU allows me to create myself.

But the summer has gone fast. And while I'm ready for school and excited for Provo, I'm never quite ready to leave home.

Operation Superhuman Reader: Summer Book #9

Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Incredible. This is a beautiful book. The story was already familiar (because of the October Sky movie), but this memoir far surpasses the excellence of the film adaptation. Not only was the writing beautiful, but the entire narrative was so purely honest. Sonny's emotions and recollections are untainted by pride or shame: he recounts his adolescence with palpable honesty, lacking any affectation.

The relationship Sonny has with his father is intensely complex, the reader not knowing how to feel. The pain of both father and son is real.

Besides the fact this is a memoir, the characters are accessible and real. I came to know the characters in some semblance of how Sonny knew them. Just as important as any of the characters is the town itself. While Coalwood as a mining town is dying, it's an integral aspect of Sonny's adolescence, a representation of all that Sonny wanted to run away from and couldn't ever abandon completely. All of Coalwood was the Rocket Boys; the Rocket Boys' success was not the six boys' alone but rather an achievement of the entirety of this fading mining town.

I could go on and on. I will reread this book several times over throughout the rest of my life. It makes it onto my top 10 list. It's beautiful.

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oddly satisfying

I use this blog to document my life and record aspects of myself that illustrate who I am at this point in my life. So I would be remiss to go without documenting this.

Confession session: I like to do the dishes. I find a special kind of satisfaction in loading the dishwasher, scrubbing pots, and Cometing the sink. Most Sundays I do the dishes. It doesn't bother me; in fact, I quite enjoy Sunday dishes. The mess always looks worse than it actually is. I bring in my iPod dock and kitchen dance or talk with Mom while she clips coupons. Today, we had grilled salmon, brown rice, corn on the cob, angel biscuits, and watermelon. So good. This was the kitchen mess.

So I decide to tackle it with John Mayer in the background. Ready . . . set . . . go!

I start out my dish washing by putting away all the excess food and organizing the mess a little bit (you know, stacking dinner plates, collecting silverware, gathering pots and pans and pressure cookers). My next step--and second favorite--is loading the dishwasher. Dishwasher loading is most satisfying when I have a completely empty dishwasher to work with. That way I can load and organize exactly how I want.

Beautiful, huh?

Then I fill the sink with hot water and Dawn and go to town scrubbing and rinsing. I usually have someone or two helping dry and put away dishes. (Tonight my helper was Emily.) Then after all the dishes are scrubbed I get to drain the dirty water and get to the best part: scrubbing the sink. At Grandma's I use Comet, and at my house I use diluted Soft Scrub. But regardless, the effect is the same.

Stainless steel perfection.

Tonight's final product?

Now that's what I call domestic bliss.