The tropical storm off the coast of Florida gave me a perfect evening lying on my bed, listening to the rain.
Lost in the Mix
I’ve had a goal for a while to go through old photos and delete a portion of them. I finally went through my folders for March and April tonight and came across several events and photos that never quite made it onto the blog. I feel bad about leaving photos to waste away on my hard drive, so I thought I’d share them now even though they’re a few months old.
More Cemetery
Here are just a few more photos from our visit to the cemetery last Sunday.
Peter loves visiting the cemetery because it has lots of green space to run around in and lots of in between spaces perfect for hiding.
I recently found out about a blog called Coffee Shop, that has lots of free tutorials and actions. I’ve never played around with that kind of stuff before, but I decided to give it a try last night. Here’s the result:
It’ll be fun to play around more with some of their tutorials.
Around This Time Last Year
Yesterday, our little church congregation grew by 5 new members. They are all Teach for America teachers that recently finished their summer institute and moved to New Orleans. They come from Ohio, Washington, Wyoming, and Colorado. Two of them sat behind Amanda and me before sacrament meeting started, so we said hello and started talking. When we asked them what brought them here, and they mentioned Teach for America, I recognized in them the same nervous anticipation that I had last year. I recognized the same resistance to the worried responses people, including myself, gave in reply.
I’ve been thinking a lot about last year around this time and even more so with these new additions. I didn’t tell them at first that I had done a similar program last year and only lasted three months, but it came up. I felt so awkward telling them. It’s still hard for me to admit that I quit, and even though I know quitting wasn’t necessarily an admission of defeat because it was the right decision for me, I often worry that to an outside observer it looks an awful lot like defeat.
And I remember how last year around this time, I never thought I’d be one of the ones who quit. I had such an awesome experience at my summer institute. It was hard work, but I loved what we were learning. I loved my summer teaching experience where the 3 teachers to 9 students helped keep everything in check. I knew at the time it wasn’t reality, but I hoped my real life situation would be similar. But it wasn’t.
I have a really bad memory about some things. A year later, I often think that maybe it wasn’t that bad (but it was). And the appearance of these 5 new teachers has kind of stirred up all those memories, the good and the bad. I can empathize with their excitement and anxiety. I really hope their experience is better than mine, and I definitely hope they stick around for a while. I like to see our little congregation growing.
Silver Lake
I’m a little embarrassed to admit how seldomly I visited the mountains when I lived in Utah. To me, they were simply something to be admired from a distance. I enjoyed having them surround me. I like how comforting they are. I like driving along the foothills and seeing the valley lights below. But I don’t really like hiking. And my family and friends never really went camping. Other than girls’ camp for church, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have slept in a tent. I guess sometimes I would go for a drive up the canyon. I know, it’s pretty sad. I took them for granted. So on my visit to Utah (yes, I’m still blogging about it), I wanted to at least visit the mountains. Did this mean camping or hiking? No. It meant a nice drive up Big Cottonwood to Silver Lake, where we could take a leisurely stroll across a boardwalk. Hey, it’s still the mountains, right?
And bonus, I even went to the mountains twice on my trip. I met up with friends in Millcreek Canyon for a cook out that included peanutbutter smores, Mexican cokes, delicious hotdogs, and great company but I didn’t get any good pictures of it, so obviously, no dedicated blog entry.
Wherein I Reveal the Contents of My Reader Folders
I’ve had several people ask about what’s actually kept in my ‘Stalking’ and ‘Funny’ folders on my Google Reader, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite links with you.
The Funny folder is the easiest to divulge since they are basically huge blogs that probably everyone reads already. But just in case, here are some of them:
- Go Fug Yourself: I really want to be friends with these two. We could drink diet soda and talk about soap operas all afternoon.
- Awkward Family Photos: I have several photos I am planning to submit to this. Eventually.
- Happiest People Ever: They’re not, really.
- My Religious Blog: I’ve posted about my friend Matt’s blog before. Still just as awesome.
- Cake Wrecks: I would love to get my own cake wreck some day.
The Stalking folder is a little bit harder to describe. Basically, they are blogs of people I don’t really know or have never met, but maybe I know someone that they know. Or maybe I came across their blog at one point in my clicking and liked it enough to add them to my reader and keep them. Somehow revealing some of the blogs I stalk makes me feel a little more exposed since they are not the big impersonal blogs with thousands of subscribers. Here are a few of my favorites:
- O Charm of Nothingness so Madly Decked: My sister taught English in Russia with the writer of this blog, but I have fallen in love with her photos.
- American Crumpet: My friend Kristy told me about this blog of another ex-pat living in England. She also takes amazing photos.
- Happy:Blissful: Lacey does the music guides over at your heart out, and I think I’ve deduced from links on other blogs that she knows people that I know. Also, she takes amazing photos. (I’m beginning to sense a theme!)
- Yesterday A Moment Later: Robyn is the wife of a guy I know through the Internet, and even though I have lots of other friends who are friends with her, I have never met her. Thus, she falls into the stalking category. Anyway, another incredible photographer.
- Biggest Little: Another friend of friend of friends. And she doesn’t post as often as she should because her posts are seriously hilarious.
- Acte Gratuit: I have actually met Emily a few times, but it was at least 10 years ago, and she was more friends with friends of mine. But now she lives in Japan with her husband and 3 boys and writes amusing accounts of their adventures.
My folders are fluid, though. Sometimes stalkees turn into friends. For example, my brother-in-law’s brother used to be considered a stalkee, but then we hung out in Seattle and now he’s moved up to the Friend folder.
I’d love to know of any other blogs I should stalk or add to my funny folder. If you have any, leave the links below! And if you stalk me, I’m totally flattered, but I’d much rather have you as a friend. Let me know!
The Fourth
I always feel a little nostalgic around Independence Day. I think of my dad making homemade ice cream so thick and delicious it left cream on the top of your mouth. I remember sitting crammed in the middle of my two brothers in the backseat of our Ford station wagon as we decided last minute to try and look out the windows at fireworks. I figured it would be appropriate to use a nostalgic photo format to show off Independence Day 2009.
The only disappointment was that I lost track of time and missed out on the fireworks. That’s two years in a row. I hope I see some next year.
Salt Lake City in Bloom
I forgot how beautiful downtown Salt Lake City is, especially in the summer. Temple Square and environs are bursting with blooms. After visiting the library with Kellie, I walked around like a tourist.
That’s Just Great.
Google Reader has added a new feature to make me feel even more self-conscious about the popularity of my blog. Just when I was successfully telling myself that it doesn’t matter how many readers I have or how many comments they leave (and I was really, kind of, starting to believe it), they made it possible for you to leave your seal of approval within Google Reader by saying you “like” it. All you have to do is hit the L key. Now I’m going to start obsessing over which posts people like and wondering why no one liked a post when I thought it was brilliant. That’s just great, google. Thanks a lot.
p.s. You can try this out yourself. Go ahead. Say you like this entry. Just click the L key (but that might only work if you have shortcuts turned on).
p.p.s. The above post-script is in no way meant as a tactic to get a lot of people to say they like the post, thereby validating me as an individual. It’s just a selfless way to allow you the opportunity to try something new.
UPDATE: It has been at least 5 hours since I posted this blog entry and only 7 people have said that they like it. What does that mean?! Also, I think I might be digging the like thing afterall. It’s so fun to give a little nod of appreciation to blogs I would otherwise never comment on (because I’m shy).
Carbon Copy Archives 