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I hate coming up with blog post titles. Options you can choose from for this post: "Summer when you're not on vacation", "A bunch of random things I've been thinking about", "Writing helps me sort out my feelings", "Sometimes I read books". Anyway, this can be like a choose your own adventure type thing but with titles. Partayyyy.


Since our New York trip, we haven't been up to anything super exciting. If I'm being completely honest, I've spent a fair amount of time this summer feeling really frustrated. I AM BORED. A lot of how I imagined this summer to be is not how it actually is (haha isn't that weird? life usually goes exactly like you plan;) I am working at Deseret Book and it's kind of frustrating because 1. I only work like 20 hours a week, 2. The hours I do work are the very few hours that Tanner isn't at work, 3. I have NOTHING in common with anyone I work with, and 4. I barely make any money. And like Jim Halpert says on The Office, "With all due respect to this job, I'm definitely just in it for the money." (If you thought I would ever have a blog post without quoting The Office you were wrong.) Anyway, I just haven't clicked with my coworkers and I work weird hours and only working 20 hours means I have A LOT of free time. Like WAY TOO MUCH. And as much as I wish I spent those hours volunteering at an orphanage or something I usually just waste the day watching unhealthy amounts of television and cleaning the kitchen (Why is the kitchen ALWAYS dirty?). I just feel quite unfulfilled. It's like I have all of these dreams and ambitions to be an amazing teacher and help others and I just can't do that right now because I'm not done with school! And all of the full time jobs won't hire me because I have class in the fall, and all the part time jobs are sucky and I just feel like I'm not helping anyone or doing anything I love and my life feels quite pointless. I just feel stuck in the middle, educated enough to want to be making a difference and have a real job but uneducated enough to be a licensed teacher and professional boss lady. Just stuck. But... that's ok! As Tanner always says, (and as I always ignore and roll my eyes at), there is always good to look for. And I really am so lucky and so blessed. So here are a few fun things I've been up to:

I've read some good books!

(Please enjoy the nice backdrop on the side of our house haha). I'm bad at giving star reviews because it's hard for me to be concrete and say THIS BOOK IS 5/5 or whatever because there are a lot of aspects to a book and just because I may hate one part I may love a certain quote or whatever so it's hard to just plain and simple rate them, but I'd probably give this one a solid 4 stars. Also, I just finished this book yesterday so it's still pretty fresh and possibly not fully digested in my brain but  JOHN GREEN. He is the man. I love his writing style, it's simple enough that his books are easy to read (I finished this one in two days), but it's so thought provoking and beautiful (If he had written that sentence it would have sounded a lot better.) In this book, I love the complexity of the characters and the exploration of grief and friendship and the importance of seeing people as they really are, not as you want them to be. 

I don't want to really tell you about the plot bc spoilers, but it's just a good book. 

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.”  

"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present." (This was really profound to me. And it's so true, I do it all the time. I always think about how great the future is instead of just living right now. Heck, the entire first part of this post was about how I can't wait for the future haha)

"When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are." 

Also, when I was reading this book, I was getting close to the end and I was like "I haven't even cried yet I am so tough" and then like 2 pages later I started bawling hahaha. It's not really John Green unless you cry your eyes out. So if you need a good cry, like seeing into the mind of teenagers, and like reading about epic pranks, pick up this book. And if you're wondering what order I would rank John Green's books it would probably go An Abundance of Katherines, Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and then Paper Towns. And GOOD NEWS EVERYONE, he's coming out with a new book in October! YAY! And if you are lazy and don't want to read an entire book but still want to partake of John's (we can be on a first name basis, right?) brilliance, you can find an article he wrote that I think is really good and really important here. Or just go watch his Crash Course YouTube Videos. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I'd give this one a 3.5/5. The story is narrated by a high functioning boy with autism, and it was really interesting. It helped me to more fully understand people that may struggle with autism and hopefully be able to be more kind and understanding. The narrator, Christopher, only likes prime numbers so all of the chapters are prime numbers and he thinks very logically like when he says: "“People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, 'I don't like you,' unless that person has been horrible to you." I just loved hearing his honesty and logic, it was a refreshing, quick read that was uplifting. A few more things I loved:

"And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something."

"I will get a First Class Honors degree and I will become a scientist... And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything." (I love that attitude. I did [insert any task here] so that means I can do anything. If only we all had this kind of confidence in ourselves and in our goals.)

Ok, unpopular opinion here- this book has RAVING reviews. Like over 4 stars on Goodreads and I've heard a lot of people talking about it. But honestly- I didn't really like it. I'd probably give it 2/5. It's about a 16 year old black girl that witnessed her friend Khalil be fatally shot by a police officer. It is an important subject- we all need to be more kind and more educated about race and inequality in America, and I know that I need to be more conscious and aware of the privilege I have, so as to better respect others that aren't so privileged. So, although I believe that what the author was trying to get at is really important, how she did it was not effective, at least for me. First off, it was SO LONG. SO SO SO unnecessarily long. I felt like the story was lost in too many inconsequential details. Second, it seemed a bit hypocritical. The whole time that Starr is fighting for justice within the black community, she keeps telling her boyfriend that they should break up solely because he is white! Like isn't that what you're telling people not to do, Starr? Shouldn't you respect those of other races just like those of other races should respect you? It just bothered me that she was completely contradicting what she was fighting for. 

That being said, this book could be a great way to start conversations that need to be had. Here are some good quotes: 

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.” 

“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?"

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.” 

I just ordered these three books (The Glass Castle, The History of Love, and The Kite Runner) that I'm excited to read next! And public service announcement, check out ThriftBooks. I got all three of these books for $10. It's amazing. 

Now that I'm done talking about books (shoutout to all of the people that have made it this far! You're the real heroes), we can talk about some other things that have been up lately.

We went to the Karie Anne's foodtruck to get some shaved ice with custard and it's way good. 

All of these flowers have been popping up in our yard and I love them! 

We went on a hike and saw some sort of water rodent (after further research, I think it was a muskrat), some butterflies, and a dead snake. And to think that people say there isn't wildlife in Logan ;) 

We went camping for an early celebration of Tanner's birthday. (And yes, sadly, this is the best picture I got. And it is terrible.) Me, Tanner, Eric, Mitch, Kallin, Blake, and Spencer roasted hot dogs (and brats for those who like disgusting things) and marshmallows and shared funny stories around the fire. And the best part is- I wasn't even cold all night! The morning after (Saturday), we went to breakfast at Herm's and it was delicious. 

That same Saturday we also went to see Wonder Woman, and I already gushed about it on social media so I don't need to do that again but I still will because it was AMAZING. I didn't expect to be so touched by it but to see a female main character that is not only tough but that also shows that power comes from compassion and love and self-confidence and that femininity is a source of strength was just awesome. All of my feminist dreams came true. And I read this quote from the director, Patty Jenkins, that I love. She said, "I'm tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It's been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that's what the kids like. We have to do the real stories now. The world is in crisis. I wanted to tell a story about a hero who believes in love, who is filled with love, who believes in change and the betterment of mankind. I believe in it. It's terrible when it makes so many artists afraid to be sincere and truthful and emotional, and relegates them to the too-cool-for-school department. Art is supposed to bring beauty to the world." YES. YES. YES. 

After the movie, we went to Great Harvest for some delicious sandwiches and then walked around Summerfest and looked at all of the super expensive art that we would never buy. But it's still fun anyways. 

Monday was Tanner's actual birthday. TWENTY SEVEN. Can you believe it? Tanner is my favorite thing to ever happen to the world and I'm so lucky to get to hang out with him every day. 

For his birthday I decorated the house... Please appreciate how funny I am. I am so funny. 

In case you don't get the reference, in which case, please repent, it's from this scene in The Office:

We also had a nice dinner at Olive Garden where Tanner sported his new shirt and shoes (I'm a lame gift giver, I know). And then we just watched TV and went to bed haha because Tanner worked all day and we were tired. 

And the last thing for this post I need to tell you about- I started coaching cross country! Back in February I talked to the Skyview coach about his coaching plans for the new high school, Green Canyon, that's opening up this fall. He said that he would love my help and I jumped at the opportunity! Practices started last week and it feels like a piece of my heart has been put back into place (while simultaneously the pieces of my body fall apart. It's only been two weeks and I already have a nasty case of shin splints. Curse my frail old lady body.) It is just so nice to be a part of a team again and to be doing something that I love. I have missed this. I can't wait for meets to start this fall. I'll keep you all updated. 

And that is all for this summer update. Enjoy this picture of Tanner and I holding small bouquets of flowers: