A Little Rambling

Ah, summertime, those eight months of the year where it is miserable to live in the Valley of the Sun! The break between semesters is dedicated to seeking as many opportunities to get out of the scorching heat as humanly possible - and I have only escaped for a matter of hours. Alas and alack, and woe is me! I miss the annual camping trips of my youth, 1o days every summer spent on the East Fork of the Black River with my family and some of our dearest friends. I miss wading in the creek and catching crawdads, playing cards and dice during the afternoon rainstorms, huddling in the tent every night with Larissa. I miss the silence of the forest in the morning before everyone else is up, the pungent smell of the campfire in the chilly air, the trance that falls around the flames, gazing up into a velvet black sky pierced with countless crystal points of starlight, and the warm gooeyness of s'mores. S'mores! That's the one part I can enjoy while stuck in the desert! ...

The giant hail storm of last October that decimated large areas of Phoenix (and by decimated I mean smashed a lot of windows) collapsed a part of the ceiling in our house. Fortunately, the only room really damaged was our storage room, which then gushed its contents over the rest of the house while the roof was repaired. Things are now being re-stored, nicely and neatly on new shelving. In the process, all kinds of interesting things from our past are resurfacing. I've enjoyed - and been mildly horrified by - some prime examples of my elementary school writings. I wrote horribly depressing endings into almost everything, it seems. Today, mom handed me a piece of paper, containing a poem apparently inspired by my 8-month old self. It is sweetly written, and it makes me smile that my mother enjoyed my small self enough to be moved to verse. However, joining with the loving sentiments is a stanza that points strongly to the idea that babies and their accompanying sleep deprivat...

I have always loved drawing with pencils. If you look at any notebook of mine from any age, I can guarantee the margins are filled with scribbles and doodles. My teachers used to get so very frustrated with me because I was always drawing. I can't help it! Sitting and listening to a lecture and not doing anything makes my mind wander to far off universes, and I miss whatever is being taught. If instead I can sit and doodle, my mind has sufficient occupation to tether it to the here and now. I remember checking out every "how to draw _____" book that our school library had to offer. My favorites were the horse books, and I filled countless sheets of paper with sketches of horses of every shape and size. I used up a lot of tracing paper before I was confident enough to try out my own hand. I used to be able to draw a really good horse - they're slightly less proportionate now, as I'm rather out of practice. This hobby grew for quite some time, until I finally...

I am not a big shopper. Yes, I like shopping - provided I have money to spend, and preferred when it's not mine! But I don't shop often, and usually only when I'm going with someone else for a specific purpose. This week, though, I have been to a mall on three separate occasions, as well as many other stores in between - and I'm still not done! I need a dress for a recital I get to give in about a month. Having a bunch of other things I needed, and not liking to go alone, I called up the lovely Chantel and we had a delightful day. We got stamps, school supplies, school shirts, organizing stuff, and a perfect dress in concert black - but not one I want for this particular performance. We wandered all around Arizona Mills, which is a very fun mall. Malls vary a great deal in their atmospheres. AZ Mills - large, open, busy, clean, bright, fun. It's enjoyable to walk around shopping there. Since I used to work there, certain corridors smell like work, and it brin...

Productivity is such a wonderful thing! Lately, I've been in the terrible summer habit of stay out (or just up on facebook) until 2 am or later, sleep in till 9, don't get out of bed until 11, get up and do something trivial, then sit around with a book, or more facebook, or my ipad, or just kind of lazing in bed until work. Then I come home and do more of that nothing. Eventually, I feel so bleh from wasting time that I kind of mope around and can't even sleep, because I exerted basically no energy all day. When people ask what I'm doing this summer, I say, 'being a lazy bum.' Today, I changed that. I went to breakfast with Ashley, delicious oatmeal and a matcha from Jamba. :) I came home and vacuumed the living room and watered plants and cleaned the bathroom. I vacuumed and dusted my room, cleaned off a bookshelf and put it in, filled it up, organized my desk and books and movies, threw a bunch of stuff away, took out several trashes, wrote a couple pag...

The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997, when I was 9 years old. I don't believe a copy came into my life until I was 11 - the same age as young wizards begin their time at Hogwarts. My grade school required all books to be read and approved by parents before being put on the shelves, and my mother had heard that this book was supposed to be some kind of phenomenon, so she brought it home. Her intention was to read it out loud to us every night as family time, at which idea my sister and I groaned. We were not interested, we didn't want to be read to, but we were grudgingly dragged into it. It grew on us quickly. Every evening, mom would sit down on the couch, dad in his chair, and Elisabeth and I would get ourselves comfy. My mother is a wonderful reader, and her voice brought the story to life from the pages. We were enchanted, to say the least. Every night we'd want to hear more and more, not wanting to be done and go to bed. By the time the book ended, we...

I love trying new things - new countries, new activities, new people, new foods, it's just fun. (Also, if you look at the word 'new' too many times it starts to look verrrrry strange.) I enjoy a little bit of exoticism in my every day life, and as I'm stuck unable to travel for a while, why not travel by taste instead? In a moment of adventurousness, I got to try African food for the first time. My friend Tiffany and I went over to Zanzibar African Restaurant tonight, in hopes of discovering a new ethnic food to love. Well...that didn't pan out so well. As we were at one of only two occupied tables in the restaurant, our host had ample time to wait on us. He explained various things on the menu, and how one is supposed to eat them. We ordered, and before our food came out, he brought us a bowl of water to wash our hands with first. The appetizer was a meat pie (they were out of the yummier-looking sausage rolls), and it was an experience in itself. It looks ...

There are some songs that have a way to speak right to your heart. They reach past your ears and instead delve into the deepest part of you, digging around in forgotten secrets, exposing thoughts long since hidden, pushing on bruises thought to be healed. You can't just listen to them at any moment, because to listen is to invite tears. This is one such song for me. "Believe" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, originally a Savatage song. So after all those one night stands You've ended up with heart in hand A child alone, on your own, retreating Regretful for the things you're not And all the things you haven't got Without a home a heart of stone lies bleeding And for all the roads you followed And for all you did not find And for all the dreams you had to leave behind I am the way, I am the light I am the dark inside the night I hear your hopes, I feel your dreams And in the dark I hear your screams Don't turn away, just take my hand And when you make your fi...

My birthday was Wednesday - happee birfdae to mee! I'm now 23! It's a grand rhyming spree! With a lot of double ee's! Obviously, age is not a sign of maturity. For my birthday this year, I met with a group of friends at Mary Coyle's Ice Cream Parlour , which has fortunately not gone out of business! It was actually two distinct groups of friends: high school/Palmcroft friends and new-this-semester ASU friends. As such groups are wont to do, they kind of split down the middle. As I see the 'new' friends every other day or so, I spent most of the time catching up with my 'old' friends, which was fun. I love my friends dearly, and get sad that I don't get to interact with them all as often as in the past. Life just takes people so many different directions! After the ice cream deliciousness, we came back to my house for some games and movies. Taboo will always be a favorite game of mine, and my team won :) of course! Ryan and I as a team are p...

I love the fourth of July! I love red white and blue, I love America, I love fireworks, and I love time with friends. It always manages to be a memorable day. Last year was my first back in the United States, and I spent it with my parents and Amy on Coronado Island, enjoying life immensely and watching fireworks over the bay. The year before, I celebrated Army Style in Baumholder and Rammstein, lots of grilling and volleyball and fireworks. The year before that, we didn't really get to notice the 4th, as we were embarking on an epic bike trip , all along the Rhein and Mosel rivers in Germany. Last night, we went over to Shantel's house for a massive amount of food, including very patriotic desserts. Julia had never had a hot dog, so we introduced her to that most American mixture of miscellaneous meats. We played games (our favorite seems to be 'human knot') and went swimming, waiting for the sun to go down and the fireworks to start. While in the pool, being th...

Have I mentioned enough that I really love summer? The school year so often seems nothing but on-the-go, and while my summer has certainly been very busy, it's all a fun kind of busy. It's filled with hours and hours of things I want to do, rather than things I have to do. Friday I got to hang out with some old friends from SWC. None of us are there anymore, and life has taken us each in different directions. We're scattered about as far across the valley as you can get from one another, two of the four of us are married, and Brooke 's even a mommy! We got to play with baby Tyler, who is just an adorable chunk of a cutie. We hung out and caught up on each others' lives, and as always, played some MadLibs. Brooke bought her husband a Kinect for father's day, so we played with that, as well. Hilarity ensued, as we are (meaning I am) largely uncoordinated and look silly when boxing with the air. (click to see the picture larger) Steph, Brooke, me & Ty...

Good morrow, dear reader! By my troth, yesternight were but little fun if I could say how much. I shall refrain from silence, though, as a lack of words maketh a poor blog. At the insistence of one Sir Real the Dreamy , those most ubiquitous knights I name my friends gathered for a reading of the Bard's Much Ado About Nothing . The reading was replete with extravagant accents, most notably a French messenger and various Russian personages. Upon the opening of each act, we drew names to determine our characters, and I was o'erjoyed to be both Benedick and Beatrice at some time or another. Whilst round the room we sat, noses buried in our books, bowls of ice cream melting in our midst, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. In faith, Much Ado is by far my favorite of Shakespeare's comedic plays, and to hear it thus read caused my heart much gladness. Marry, it is the source of several of my most loved quotations. I do but wish I could adequately emulate the grandiose style of...