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 ...