Yellow Wallpaper

Just when you start to forget what short sleeves and bare feet feel like, you wake up one day and realize that the sun is shining and the air feels clear and warm(er). I can tell that I have overcome my California childhood and acclimated to Utah because the temperatures have been in the 50s lately and I have stopped wearing socks. Well, until today when winter weather came back and I got my coat out again. Spring in Utah is pretty fickle. Last week was Spring Break at the university I work for; what that meant for me was the execution of a rather big project. We have a satellite campus that is about 45 minutes away, and last week we needed to inventory and relabel all the books that are in the small campus library branch. There were about 10,000 books total, so each day two of my coworkers and I drove up with several students and spent about six hours a day re-labelling books. It was an adventure and a lot of hard work, but mostly went smoothly. That took us through Th...

On Friday morning I experienced another run-in with one of the Annoying People at Work. I know all of us have had to work with at least one Annoying Person. They are varied in their presentation, but generally make life difficult. This person complains and makes the atmosphere negative, no matter what we try to do. After dealing with this person I went back to my desk and began to complain to two of my coworkers. While I was in the middle of my little diatribe, the Annoying Person came walking by and we immediately stopped talking. Of course Annoying Person noticed and said something, and of course I felt really bad because I was acting like a petty little junior high student instead of a professional. Then yesterday in Primary we began learning the song "If the Savior Stood Beside Me". And I had to sing the line "If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say?" about twenty times in a row. I felt bad. Because it's true--this person is difficult a...

Friday night I didn't want to come home from work because the kids were here. I just wanted to come home to an empty house and not have to fix anyone dinner or anything. It didn't help that I was out of groceries and out of good meal ideas. Finally I decided to make creamed tuna and serve it with leftover rice that was sitting in the fridge; it was a major hit with the kids, surprisingly. Everyone had two helpings. Last night turned out to be a better night than I thought it would after all. I realized the other day that part of why I feel like I have blogging writer's block lately is because I spend so much of my time at work, but I can't write about work. My job is not great for many reasons, but I don't dare blog about it. I'm also still trying to figure out my emotional balance in order to not let my job dominate my life. It's hard sometimes. For a while I was only listening to NPR in the car. Then last year I switched to listening to pop music on th...

I feel like I'm still trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to best use my time. I know this is a universal problem and that no one has the time or other resources needed to accomplish all that they would like. It's just that I used to feel like I had a better handle on things and now the last two years of my life feel like a constantly shifting landscape I'm still trying to navigate. Last night I worked late and didn't get home until 9:30. My original plan had been to go right to bed by 10:30 and catch up on sleep. Instead, I started chatting with a friend on Facebook and we played a round of Words with Friends. I stayed up later than I had planned to. On the one hand, I needed the sleep. On the other hand, I also needed to talk to someone. For a while now I've been debating the value of my time, because I spend a lot of time chatting online with this particular friend. I value our friendship. I need connections in my life and I don't feel like ...

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman I love a good historical novel that I can really escape into; this one one really fit the bill as far as the plot went, especially for the first part of the book. I really liked the characters and the action in the beginning, until it became clear that there really wasn't a good way to resolve the story. I still have mixed feelings about how the book ended. Generally, I liked it quite a lot but it was not an easy read. Blame by Michelle Huneven This book surprised me. I was expecting a different tone and style of writing based on the fact that I found it through Amazon when it was suggested as a similar book to another one I read last year. Despite the fact that the plot seems like the sort of melodramatic problem novel that I sometimes enjoy as a guilty pleasure, the quality of writing was much higher than that and the story more complex. Once I got used to the fact that I was not reading the book I had expected, I really enjoyed i...

Monday seems to be my new day for posting. Happy Monday to everyone out there in blog land. I actually like Monday morning; it's the day I go in to work late so I can stay later in the evening. Once I get the older kids off to school I have a few hours to run errands, catch up on housework, and recover from the weekend before starting a new week. (Don't ask me how I feel about Mondays later tonight. A busy morning followed by 8 hours of work usually leaves me exhausted by 10).  I've been re-learning a few lessons these past few weeks: 1. Not everyone is going to like me or like the things I do. I recently got called to be in the Primary presidency as the secretary. While I'm thrilled to be in a more active calling and I love being in Primary with the kids, I'm remembering what it is like to serve in a presidency and to be more exposed to the gossip/complaints/opinions of those in the ward. I've been running into similar problems at work,...

I don't pay any attention to football, college or otherwise, and hadn't heard of Manti Te'o until his "fake girlfriend" story hit the news this week. I find the story oddly fascinating and have spent the week reading all kinds of articles about similar internet scams (good links here and here ). The interesting thing to me is that so many people lie on the internet for no other reason than boredom, loneliness, and curiosity about how other people will react to them. There usually isn't any kind of tangible physical gain for the perpetrators, and often there isn't a tangible loss for the victims. It almost seems worse to me, though, to be stealing things like trust and intimacy rather than money. These types of stories make me a little uncomfortable too because they bring to the surface the feelings I have underlying many of my internet interactions: is this a 'real' event? We are sharing ideas and writing intimately about ourselves, and my mind ...

I kept waiting to post on my blog until things calmed down a little. And of course, they never did. I'm trying to convince myself that life will never just go along smoothly in any semblance of a 'normal' routine, and as I look back at the last seven years I've been writing on this blog I realize more and more that this is true. It has been harder during the last eighteen months doing this by myself; I miss having a partner to go through this with. Someone to help hold down the fort and clean up the messes, and give me a hug at the end of the day. But, I'm here and I'm doing it and most of the time I think I'm surviving all right. December and the holidays went well from what I remember. The kids got great presents this year that they actually love and use. Buying presents is hard because I never know if the kids are going to like them or not. Some things I thought they would love have been total duds and others have worked out better than I imagined. Li...

(previous years: 2011 , 2010 , 2009 , 2008 , 2007 ) I read 97 books last year. I didn't think the total would be that many since my reading has slowed a lot during the last six months, but I read a lot at the beginning when I was reading Whitney finalists. 80 of the books I read were fiction and only 17 were nonfiction. That's a much smaller ratio than I have had in the past. It's partly due to all the Whitney finalists and also due to the fact that this year I have favored easier, fluffier books. I've still read some good ones, but I've been on a light reading kick for a while and nonfiction doesn't always fit into that very well. Only 27 of the books I read were by men and 70 were by women; that ratio has also been changing year by year. I think in this case the books by women category was weighted so heavily because I've read fewer nonfiction books (I tend to read more fiction by women and nonfiction by men), the Whitney categories I read tend to be d...

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell This book was slow to start for me; Mitchell's writing style is dense, there were a large number of characters, and the author drops you into the action immediately without a lot of explanation of what is going on. After a taking a break from the book a few times, I managed to get into the story and I really liked it. It was nice to read a good, meaty book for a change. Code Name: Verity by Elizabeth Wein This book was surprisingly meaty as well. I'm not sure why it's been marketed as YA because the characters are not teenagers and the story isn't necessarily a teenage-oriented one. Either way, it was a fabulous book with great characters and a really unique writing style. And it's one of the few books I've found that actually passes the Bechdel test . One of my favorites this year. The Winds and the Waves by Dean Hughes Dean Hughes is one of my 'comfort food' authors; I know I can alwa...

Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson I'd heard a lot of good things about this book, but I wasn't that impressed by it. It wasn't bad and it wasn't good--just a light little read for a Sunday afternoon that left me feeling kind of 'meh'. Are You My Mother? by Allison Bechdel I really love Bechdel's Fun Home and looked forward to reading this follow-up. It was just as poignant and insightful, but in a different way. Despite the fact that it is a graphic memoir (and be warned, there are a few graphic scenes), the text is quite dense. It is much more self-referential and more complex than Bechdel's earlier book and took a lot more work to read. Several weeks after reading I still finding myself thinking about it--that to me is one of the signs of a good book. Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green I wanted to like this book much more than I did. The plot was interesting and most of the characters were well fleshed-out. But the author decided to j...

I didn't do a check-in post last Saturday because I was exhausted. Tomorrow my youngest brother leaves to go spend three years in Guam with the Navy, so last weekend we had a quick family-togetherness weekend. It even worked out that my second-youngest brother was passing through town on tour with his band so we all got to be together for a short while. Last Friday night I drove up to Salt Lake to watch them perform in a somewhat sketchy location (the music was great despite the surroundings). Then I got a very small amount of sleep and turned around to drive back up to Salt Lake in order for us to have a family breakfast together before he left to drive with his band to Boise. Then I spent the rest of the day preparing for the party we had last night to say goodbye to my little brother. The weekend was quite nice and everything went well, but there were a lot of things crammed into just a few days. I have also spent most of this week feeling exhausted and stressed out. I didn...

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton Lupton is one of my new favorite writers; I like how she not only creates a good, complicated plot, but she also writes elegantly and in a more descriptive style than most mystery writers. In this book she made a fairly different narrative choice. It bothered me at first, but after a while I liked it and I really enjoyed the book. Miracle by Elizabeth Scott This book was generally pretty good except that I felt like it was too short. I know that it is YA but it still felt like it ended before the plot got going. I thought the writer's descriptions of PTSD and how people react to a tragedy were well-done, but I had a hard time relating to the protagonist and it seemed like the book ended without a good resolution. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton I read The Forgotten Garden several years ago and I absolutely loved it. Unfortunately I was really disappointed by Morton's other two books and I spent some time debating reading this one. Th...

Oh, hello again. Apparently my blog is going to devolve into weekly check-in posts. I hope that doesn't scare off the few readers that are left. Oh well. Last week's goal was to go to bed by 10:30 for four nights of the week. I managed to do that on Sunday night and I felt great the next morning. Then I didn't on Monday night because that's the night I work late. Tuesday I was going to be in bed on time but I forgot about laundry that I needed to get done before Halloween the next day. The next night I was exhausted so I did go to bed on time, but stayed up a bit late finishing a book. I don't remember what happened on Thursday and Friday nights but it didn't involve going to bed on time. Physical : I ate too much candy this week and I feel like a slug. Now that we are heading into the holidays I feel an even greater urge to be more active and feel healthier. I just need to start doing something. I've also been craving salad and fresh food all week but I ...

I meant to get another post or two in at some point during this week, but obviously that didn't happen. It's hard to believe that an entire week has gone by since I last wrote. Time sure flies fast around here. This week was actually pretty uneventful, which is always a good thing. Work was moderately stressful since we had five brand-new people start this week; thankfully we had everything in place for training and they all seem like good, competent workers. As far as my goal of getting more exercise during the work day ( from last week ), I didn't do such a great job of accomplishing that but I will try again next week. I did go to the temple Tuesday morning since I was a bit ahead on hours and that helped me feel better about a lot of things. Here's the update on how I'm doing right now: Physical: Generally feeling good, just tired. I heard back from the doctor's office that all my tests were normal, including my thyroid levels and blood iron. That means th...

My friend Josh Weed recently started doing a thing on his blog where he does a 'weekly check-in' post about how he is doing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He encouraged readers to respond with their own check-ins through comments, but I'd rather just put it up on my own blog. I might try doing this for a few weeks and see how it goes. This week went by quickly. Things were a little hectic because work had a lot of crazy stuff going on (including two coworkers who were on vacation and a bunch of new hires that need training), plus my sweet sister-in-law and dear friend suddenly lost her father about ten days ago and couldn't babysit for me all week. I certainly don't hold it against her at all and I've spent all week thinking about her, but making different arrangements in ours schedule can be a bit tricky. Thankfully everything worked out well and we all survived this crazy week. Hopefully next week will be a little more calm and happy for everyone. ...

I'm sure everyone is dying to read a play-by-play account of our Fall Break vacation. Right? Well, even if you're not, I'm going to write it down so I can remember it all some day. This year I decided to take the kids on a little road trip down to Zion National Park. I don't remember when I got the idea exactly, but a few months ago I realized that I had never been there and that it would be a fun place to go for Fall Break with the kids. Plus I had not used any of my vacation time this summer (because I hadn't really earned any yet), and if you work while your kids are in school then you have to figure out something to do with them when they have time off. I'm not going to take time off during all of their holidays, but Fall Break seemed like good timing. We left on Thursday afternoon; I had planned to leave a little earlier in the day but I ended up going in to work for a few hours and we just weren't ready to go until later. I thought it would be fun to...

Daughters of Jared by H.B. Moore I have liked most of Moore's other Book of Mormon novels, but this one just didn't really work for me. I really liked the main character, Naiva, but her motivations weren't always clear to me. I also felt that the world-building in this novel was incomplete; her other novels based on the Book of Mormon had a fair amount of background taken from the scriptures and it felt like she included a lot more details about the characters and their world. In this book I felt like there were gaps and inconsistencies in the setting and elements of the story, which was made even more frustrating by the fact that the scriptural story the action is based on was fairly flimsy as well. I'm curious to see if Moore continues with the Jaredite-era stories or she will go back to her original series and continue from there. Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson I have heard a lot about Stephanie over the last few years and I occasionally read her blog. I...

I don't know if I've blogged before about how much I love October. I love the cooler temperatures, the fall leaves, the fact that the first weekend is almost always a mission reunion for me and General Conference. Next week the kids have a few days off for Fall Break and we are going on a little trip down to southern Utah to see Zion National Park and a few other things. I love going on road trips and I hope this will be fun for everyone. Today we had parent-teacher conferences at the kids' school. I always like hearing about how other people perceive them and getting feedback on how they are doing. S-Boogie's teacher loves her and thinks she is very sweet. Interestingly, her school teacher, her Activity Days leaders, and her church teacher always describe her the same way: 'such a little doll--such a sweet girl'. S-Boogie is right on grade level as far as her skills go; she is a very fast reader, but her comprehension scores are a little low. I have noticed t...