An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations: Episode XIV

When you think you’re sliding your phone into your pocket, but you actually slide it into your waist band, and it goes down your pants and out your pant leg.

Likewise, when you swear you put your car keys in your pocket at girls camp, but they’re not there, and after frantically searching everywhere you can think of, you discover there’s a hole in your pocket, and your keys are in your pants, which are, thankfully, very tight and, therefore, holding your keys against your thigh, preventing them from falling out and getting lost in the woods.

When the person at the ordering box sounds like a cartoon, and you’re disappointed in how normal he looks when you meet him at the window. 

When you think someone is coming in for a hug, and you realize mid-embrace that that wasn’t what was happening.

When you put on self tanner and take great care to not get any orange spots in your creases but forget to wash your hands. 

When your self tanner sweats off in your garments.

When you see a guy in a truck slumped over his steering wheel on the side of the road and you don’t know if he’s dead or sleeping, but if he’s sleeping you don’t want to wake him up so you decide to give him 20 minutes before you check him, and you spend that 20 minutes driving back and forth watching for movement.*

When you’re behind your friend in the McDonald’s drive thru, and you holler to her to say hello, and the guy in the ordering box thinks you’re yelling at him.

When your kids go visit their primary teacher, and she’s not home, but they tell you how the front door was unlocked so they went in her house and looked for her but didn’t find her. 

When you already have ear buds in your ears, and you try to put in another pair of ear buds.

When the Chick-fil-A employee asks you if you have any “big plans” for the day, and you’re on your way to the mountains to bury your dead brother under a pine tree.

When your Apple Watch says, “Sorry, I didn’t quite get that,” during the moment of silence at your brother’s memorial service… twice.

A pine tree for James - my sisters used to like to dress James up like a girl, so they made sure to tie one last bow for him. A portion of his ashes are buried here on some mountain property of my parents’.

*He was sleeping. Phew.

Oh So Humble Me

I’m forgiving.

Even when I have a bad fast food experience, I always give them another chance. Two times, three times… I’ve gone through the Chick-Fil-A drive thru seventy times seven times. 

I’m generous.

I recently donated $18.25 in fines to the library. When it comes to the fight against illiteracy, I do my part by keeping books for an especially long time.

I’m health conscious. 

I enjoy eating lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles between two pieces of bread on a bed of ground beef and cheese. That’s basically all the food groups!

I’m math-minded. 

I can work formulas like 1/2 cup sugar plus 1/2 cup sugar equals 1 cup sugar, thereby producing twice as many chocolate chip cookies as originally intended.

I’m productive.

I can drive a car, yell at my kids, drink a soda, and listen to an audiobook all at the same time.

I’m honest.

My mom likes to tell Eva that she’s 30 years old, and I advocate for truth by telling Eva that her grandma is actually 60 years old.

I’m fortunate.

I currently have $30 in Cafe Rio rewards with which I can feed myself.

I’m giving.

Sometimes I use my Cafe Rio points to feed my kids.

I’m knowledgeable.

If anyone ever needs to know Donny Osmond’s favorite Christmas song ("It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”) or Matt Damon’s birthday (October 8), I gotchu. 

I’m prepared.

I keep a grand selection of useful things on my kitchen counter so I always know right where to find them. Sewing machines, Rubbermaid containers, bottles of lotion, and random food items are at the ready!

I’m calm.

Sometimes when my daughters are fighting, I dissociate, lay on the couch, and let them work out their differences around me. 

I’m fit. 

I carry all our laundry up and down three flights of stairs, and since I have a large capacity, top-loading washer, I do heel raises to reach the clothes in the very bottom.

I’m youthful.

I have acne, and I dress like it’s 2009. I’m eternally 25.

I’m observant.

I can tell you what my neighbors bring home for dinner every night. 

I’m talented.

I’ve acquired many useful skills in life such as being able to pin boutonnières, do boondoggle, and smell burps from several yards away.

I’m craving breadsticks (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: My husband’s legs and arms are always covered in scratches and scabs. From the look of him, you would think he spends a significant amount of time roaming the backwoods and cutting his own path. I always ask him where he gets these owies from, and he never knows! 

Fact #2: Nicky is the same. Today I saw a scab on his leg and asked, “Is that part of your old scratch, or is that a new one?” He then pointed to part of the scab and said, “This is my old scratch that I reopened, but this part is new.”

I asked, “How’d you get the new one?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

Help me out here, friends. Do your husbands and/or sons have this problem, too? Scotty works a desk job and Nicky plays on his phone all day. What’s with all the open wounds? 

Fact #3: Any time I see a social media post that states, “I don’t know who need to hear this, but…” my first thought is, “Not me!” And then I skip right over it. I refuse to be the one that needed to hear it.

Fact #4: I think I respond the same way to "In case no one has told you lately..." 

I'm like... you don't even know me! Don't be telling me anything! 

Fact #5: Things I didn’t buy at DI today:

Fact #6: Last week I derailed and drank a Dr. Pepper after being soda sober for the entirety of 2023. With that regrettable mistake, I decided I wanted a fountain vanilla coke the next day, so I went to Maverik to seek my indulgence. To my dismay, vanilla coke had been removed from the fountain! I was devastated! Then I realized... it happened because of me. Why would Maverik get rid of vanilla coke? Obviously it's because I stopped drinking it! 

I never knew I had such power!

Fact #7: My cereal cupboard currently looks like this:

Follow me for more pantry organization tips!

Fact #8: This week has me all out of whack. I don't know what day it is. My normal routine is out the window. I haven't re-centered myself yet from vacation and girls camp. Half my family is gone for the week, and I'm tired. I hope I can get back on track and be a functional person next week. 

Fact #9: I was going to cut back on electronic use in our home this summer. Here’s how that’s going:

Fact #10: Is it time for Mission Impossible yet? I need a Tom Cruise and buttered popcorn fix.

Loving Explorer

As a young child, I dreamed of having an older brother. When I was eight years old, my dad dated a woman for two weeks and then married her.

True story.

My friend Jenny found me at recess on the day of the wedding and told me my dad was getting married that night. Why did my friend Jenny know my dad was getting married, and I didn’t? I don’t know. But I can unpack that in therapy some other time. 

My teacher had a routine where each afternoon, we could line up at her desk if we wanted to tell her something. I needed someone to talk to, so I approached her desk and announced, “My dad is getting married tonight.” She started asking me questions about the wedding, and all I could say was, “I dunno. I just found out at recess.” 

I must’ve sounded like a story teller.

That night, I was instructed to put on some church clothes because I was going “somewhere” with my dad. My dad came and picked up my younger brother and me, and off we went to what ended up really being his wedding.

With that impulsive marriage (lasting over 30 years so far), I got an older brother (as well as four older sisters, which was another dream of mine!)

Older Brother: Mullet Edition

James was everything I thought a big brother should be. He was funny and playful - always rough housing and wrestling with everyone. He was a blast to hang out with but could also be super annoying and pig headed. There were times I looked at James and thought he was so cool. Other times I thought he was a complete idiot. He called me “Butt” (short for “Buttany”). 

“Hey, Butt!”

“How ya been, Butt?”

“Buttany’s here!”

Above all, James was loving and protective in the way of big brothers. Despite his tendency to fart under blankets and then hold them over my head, James was good to me. Every time I saw him, he greeted me with a big hug, and a “Hey, Butt!” which I had to act annoyed by on principle, but secretly, always found humor in.

James was always up for a challenge no matter the level of stupidity. Jump onto the hood of a moving car? Sure. Swallow a live fish? Check. Suck down a raw egg? No problem. That thing with the sunbreeze essential oil? I will never write about that here.

You can probably sense where this is going; I’m speaking in past tense. We lost James unexpectedly last week. On Monday night he left my parents’ house in the rural foothills of Sanpete County and tragically went missing. I found out on my way from Saint George to girls camp that James had been missing for over 24 hours. The circumstances were strange and eerie enough that there was no denying there could be a bad outcome, but we were clinging to hope for a good turn around.

On Thursday morning, while still at camp, I got word that a hiker had found James deceased near an ATV trail. On one hand, I’d felt it coming. On the other, I was completely stunned because that’s not how the story should have ended. It should have been a mistake. He should have been just fine and come back with a wild and adventurous story. 

At this point it’s believed he died from hypothermia. There’s more to be learned there, but there is a lot we will never know. 

Now we have a big hole in our pieced-together family. 

Over the last few days, as I’ve thought about and remembered James, I’ve tried to come up with the best way to describe him. It wasn’t hard to pick the best words for James. If I had to concisely describe him to you in two words, I would choose “loving explorer.”

Loving was his character and exploring was his passion. 

James was a friendly guy - never one to shy away from saying hello and starting up a conversation. He was an initiator of many embraces, sometimes squeezing extra hard, boa constrictor style, just because he could! James didn’t have to say he loved you. You just knew. 

He also loved animals and always had pets - a blind dog… a stinky ferret… a hermit crab that got lost under his bed and died (we found the body later when we were cleaning out James’s room after finding out he was allergic to dust mites). James kept bees and could catch fish in a lake or river with his bare hands. He was always snuggling with our family dogs and letting them lick his face. 

James was an outdoorsman and preferred being in the mountains. He liked to hike, fish, and camp. He was a big fan of waterfalls and rock formations and was always excited to share photos and stories of his adventures. He enjoyed exploring nature but also liked going to see man-made ruins and relics, and well… let’s just say… he wasn’t afraid of trespassing. 

After I found out James had died, I wasn’t sure when it would actually feel real. Grief can be a strange thing. Mine hit Saturday night after his obituary was posted. I’d already read it, so I knew what was coming, but there was something about having it officially published that made me go, “Oh, boy! James is really gone!” Scotty and I were at our friends’ house playing games and celebrating Scotty’s and Chad’s birthdays (an annual tradition), and suddenly I burst out crying and said, “My grief just hit!” I laughed at the absurd timing and wiped away my tears. They kept randomly starting up again throughout the evening. Then, during a round of Risk, Scotty attacked one of my territories, occupied by a single reinforcement, and I looked him deadpan in the face and said, “You know my brother just died, right?”

Then I cried and laughed some more because James would be so proud of me for having such a sick sense of humor. We do grief wrong and inappropriately, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m sad for the loss of James, but I’m also mourning for my step-mom who lost her son and for James’s blood siblings who lost their brother. I find joy in imagining James reunited with his biological father who passed away when we were kids, and I laugh envisioning him with our Grandma Romney (if you know, you know). 

I think my siblings would all agree that we each have a James-shaped imprint on our hearts. 

So long, Loving Explorer.

And Then There was Girls Camp

After our family vacation to Saint George, Daisy and I headed straight to our Young Women (church) camp. As in… we literally got dropped off on the way home. Everyone else got there Tuesday, but we came a day late. We had dropped off an extra car at the campground on our way to Saint George. We didn’t really need our own car there, but I kept feeling like I should have one available just in case. Then we ended up having a family emergency, and it was a huge blessing to have my car AND to be at a campground in Nephi, which is an hour closer to my parents’ house… where I was able to head straight from the campground (that is a story for another day, but I would just like to throw out there that the Lord gives us tender mercies in our time of need). 

Sunrise at camp

Let me tell you something… Girls Camp is a lot like childbirth. You remember some things and you forget others. Then when you’re going through it again, you recall all of the things that slipped your memory from the last time, and you’re like, “Holy crap! I forgot about this part!” It’s rewarding and beautiful one moment and emotional chaos the next. You feel such love for the girls, but they also drive you nuts. Then you hand them back to their mothers at the end of the week, and you’re so glad it’s over, and you’re like “Please! Take them back!” but then you can’t stop thinking about them, and you kind of miss them and look forward to seeing them again on Sunday. 

I hiked with a few of the girls to watch the sunset

This year I helped a lot with planning camp, and I realized I absolutely love planning Girls Camp! Executing camp… a whole other story. That part is exhausting! The part where I’m actually there and trying to make things happen? That is some hard stuff! But the planning and organizing part? Right up my alley! I will make grocery lists, sew 22 pillowcases and 25 mess kit bags, type up informative letters, organize supplies, accidentally bake 80 gluten free cookies, meticulously keep notes regarding every detail to help with future camps, and laminate and label anything you want!

Mess kits (mine is the classy Walmart bag, but I sewed drawstring bags for the girls with some fabric a ward member donated)

But getting girls to pack up their junk and put a tent away so we can go home and then listening to them fight over which car they get to ride home in nearly does me in! Herding them to the volleyball pit? Getting them to wear a helmet for the challenge course? Making them clean up after themselves? Keeping track of where they are at every moment of the day? For the love of Pete! I need to spend a week alone in a cave to recover from that stuff.

Looking down on the camp from the "Hill Cumorah"

But camp was good overall. At least I think it was. I find that things tend to appear positive, fine, and dandy for a few days after we come home, and then stuff starts to surface. We find out about conversations we didn’t hear and feelings that were hurt and behind-the-scenes drama. It’s impossible to please everyone, so there is always going to be some type of flack, but I know we did our best as leaders. 

The camp we went to was a new one for us, but we really liked it. They had a lot of fun activities - archery, axe throwing, a water slide, nine-square, a challenge course, and more. We also had a really nice spot with plenty of shade and trees to hang hammocks from. I really liked having camp in June and getting it done early in the summer. Last year we had stake girls camp in July, and it was so stinkin’ hot. This year, it was a little on the chilly side for the water activities, but I think it’s good for the girls' souls to freeze a little now and then. 

The water slide (we toured the camp about a month ago, and the slide was still being built)

The challenge course

On a personal level, camp was a bit brutal. Coming straight from vacation with no time in between is not ideal. I was already exhausted, and then I got to experience the added fatigue of camp. I think I got about six hours of sleep total while I was there. My air mattress gave up the ghost, so I slept laid on the ground for two nights. I arrived at camp with a headache that I still have, and my hips are bruised from my attempts at sleeping. There's a slight chance I have a double ear infection - I might have to look into that in the next day or so - as I have some pain in my ear/jaw area on both sides. I was also dealing with the emotions of my family's emergency and trying to keep it together. I spent a lot of time pacing and looking for phone service. But none of that is really related to the girls themselves - it was just my own circumstances. Now that I'm home, I'm wiped out in a different way than I have ever been wiped out from Girls Camp in the past. I need a really long sleep. 

On the way home, after going from vacation to camp to my parents' house, I broke and drank a Dr. Pepper. So I've done it, folks. I've abandoned my six month long streak of no soda. I don't know where I go from here, but I have to say... the sauce is good. My stomach instantly inflated by eight inches, but it was the most wonderful thing I've tasted. I was a little worried about driving home for two hours with as tired as I was, so I opted for caffeine. And after not really having any for six months, it worked mighty fine. I was awake and alert the whole drive home and stayed buzzed until 10:26 pm when I suddenly hit a wall and fell asleep instantly. 

As I continue to progress into the summer months, I'm happy to have Girls Camp checked off the list. Next year, believe it or not, Zoe gets to go to camp! That will bring a whole new adventure!

The Time We Kicked Tony Finau’s Family Out of Our Lounge Chairs at the Pool (and Other Saint Georgey Tales): For Real This Time

When I last left you, my family had just checked into a resort in Saint George. A resort! Who are we?

(Spoiled is what we are!)

Anyway, the guests, in addition to our family, included Scotty’s dad and step-mom and five of Scotty’s seven siblings (on that side) and their families (for informational purposes, Scotty has a total of 13 siblings, and I have 11. Our family stories often require a diagram). 

19 of the 25 grandkids

Instead of doing a full play by play of our vacation here are ten things we did once we arrived at our destination:

1. Hung out at the pool for hours and hours

2. Played games - contests and jacks for the kids, poker for some of the adults (myself included, though I’m still reeling from a big mistake I made that took me out of one of the games!)

The kids learning to play jacks

3. Ate 

4. Hiked the Red Reef trail (which had a lot less water than it did three months ago)

Grasping for tadpoles

Thank you for having shade, Mother Earth

5. Had a family golf tournament

6. Tried Pink Box Donuts

Blueberry croughnut on the bottom right was my favorite!

7. Stayed up way too late

8. Caught lizards and tadpoles

This one shed its tail

Lizard

Tadpole (ew)

9. Played in the club house

10. Hung out in the cabana 

Which brings me to the Tony Finau story. If you don’t know who Tony Finau is, it’s time you learn. He is a professional golfer - originally from Salt Lake, and we Utahns love our Tony! 

On Tuesday, our family had a cabana rental at the pool, and after dinner, we journeyed back to our cabana for the umpteenth time, and there was a family sitting in the chairs in front of our cabana. I didn’t think anything of it because I didn’t think we had any claim on the chairs, but when my father-in-law came to the pool, he kicked them all out of the chairs and told them they were ours. The family got up and moved, and then not a single person from our family used the chairs for the rest of the night. My brother-in-law went over and chatted with the family and apologized and asked them how their vacation was going. They said they were there celebrating a birthday and that they were from Lehi (LEE-high), Utah.

After that family left the pool, Scotty came over to me and said, “I’m pretty sure that was Tony Finau’s family.” I was like “Nah! Tony Finau’s family could have rented their own cabana or had a house with a private pool.” But I started googling photos of his family just to see, and I couldn’t make a determination based on my research. For sure, the family didn’t have a father with them… and Scotty knew that Tony was at a tournament in Connecticut. One of the women looked (to me) a little like his wife, but since they were gone from the pool, I was limited by my memory and had no live samples to compare online photos to. 

Later that night, Scotty saw the family, who happened to be staying in a house right across the street from us. He said, “Hey! You’re the Finaus!” and the kids got all excited. Yes! They were the Finaus - Tony’s wife and kids and their aunt and grandma. The kids were excited to be recognized. They said “Wow! We’re famous!” and it was super cute that they don’t know. 

Nicky was excited because he was able to identify their van from watching the Tony Finau episode of Full Swing on Netflix. He came into our house saying, “Mom! I just found Tony Finau’s van!” And, as is indicative of living a very normal family life, the kids had written all over the dusty windows, “Finau.” 

So if the family of a famous golfer ever takes over your space at a pool, and you're not comfortable asking them to move, just call in my father-in-law. He's gotchu. 

The Time We Kicked Tony Finau’s Family Out of Our Lounge Chairs at the Pool (and Other Saint Georgey Tales)

Last weekend we headed to Saint George for a vacation with Scotty's dad's side of the family. This was our third year going together over Father's Day. 

We headed down a day early because we always enjoy an excuse to extend a vacation. On the way, we ventured to see a few new sights.

First, we stopped for lunch at Ashton's Burger Barn in Delta. Scotty attempted the "Meathead Challenge" - 2 lbs of burger with cheese and fixings on a bun, plus a pound of fries. He didn't really want to do the challenge, but he wanted the burger, so he asked it they would let him buy it to share with his son. They have a rule that you can only get it for the challenge, so he said, "Okay, I will try it and fail, then!" Now he has his photo on the Wall of Shame. But he got the burger he wanted, and even though he suffered a gracious round of the meat sweats and spent a good chunk of time on the toilet later, he has no regrets. 

Gosh it was a bummer to not get that “free” t-shirt though. 

 The Starting Line

The Challenge

The Leftovers

(about 1/4 lb of meat and a lot of cheese)

The Meathead Challenge 

Wall of Fame & Wall of Shame

From there we went to see some solar ruins. It's hard to find a good, informative article that explains what these are, but the short story is there was some type of fraud where people invested in these solar spinning thingies, and they never ended up producing any power across a ten-year span, and someone got in a whole lot of trouble. Now there's just this field of decrepit solar "trees" in the middle of nowhere, Utah. 

Whatever the story is, this field would make a fantastic set for some kind of sci-fi movie. 

After we saw the solar ruins, we went to the site of the Topaz Internment Camp. 

There isn't much to see there - just a few plaques and a lot of open land. The structures are all gone, and they just have signs that show what used to be where. You can drive around and look at things, but it’s really just dirt, sage brush, and ant hills. 

In the week prior to this trip, we picked up a nail in the van tire and a screw in the truck tire. We were able to salvage the van tire, but we had to get new tires on the truck. At Topaz, we saw a bunch of nails in the dirt, and we joked about how crappy it would be if we got a nail in our van tire again. 

It's hard to see in the photo, but this is a bunch of gravel and nails

Sure enough, we had a low tire by the time we got to Saint George! Scotty had to take it in to get repaired on Tuesday. The culprit? A nail.

BUT... before Saint George...

We also stopped at Cove Fort. This is one of those places we always talk about stopping at, but we'd never actually made it. Cove Fort has been striked from the itinerary a few times, so this time we made sure to stop! (This is where Scotty's epic post-food-challenge bathroom break took place).

Cove Fort is a boring bit of Utah history that I don't really care about. I mean, don't get me wrong... I don't mind seeing Cove Fort. I just don't want a lesson about it, nor do I want to tell you about it. 

Mormon history... Pioneers... Something to do with Brigham Young... bla bla bla...

(Sorry, ancestors and stuff).

After we left Cove Fort, we finished driving to Saint George. We stopped by a couple of parks, and our kids were pretty uninterested in playing (darn that Saint George heat), and then we checked into our hotel, ate sandwiches out of our cooler, and took the kids to the pool. 

Forced play for photo ops

The next day we went to Snow Canyon and did a hike. Even though it was on the cooler side temperature-wise for Saint George, it was still way too hot. I don't like hiking in the heat, especially when I'm fully exposed to the sun. So I was a good sport, but inside, I couldn't wait for it to be over!

Butterfly Rock

(I was not impressed)

Snow Canyon Scenery

Lava Tubes

I've been in Snow Canyon a few times, but this was the first hike I'd done there. The funny thing about Snow Canyon is that they have signs warning you to watch out for tortoises... as if they'll just come running out in front of your car any second! I feel like they are false advertisements. Where are these tortoises of which they speak? I've yet to see a tortoise anywhere in Utah! I think there's a tortoise scam!

After we hiked, we were lucky to find a picnic table in the shade, so we ate lunch and watched some birds - quail (two adults and lots of little babies!), Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays (tons of them - they wanted to steal our food), and a roadrunner (which is always fun to see, and we go "Meep, meep!" because we have to). 

Scotty and the kids walked to see a granite tortoise statue, and it was just as disappointing as the lack of actual tortoises in Snow Canyon. 

After Snow Canyon, we still had hours to burn before we could check into our lodging, so we went to a shaded park and slept on the ground. The park was right by a church, so we woke up to a bunch of families walking around us on their way home.

We stopped at a grocery store and picked up dinner from Cafe Rio, then checked into our resort. 

I never intended this story to span multiple posts, but for the sake of us all, I'll end this portion here and pick up tomorrow...

Which means... I leave you wondering about the Tony Finau thing. 

Dun... dun... dunnnnnn....

Seriously with the Eddies

As you’ve probably noticed, I really enjoy reading. It’s not unheard of for me to read about three books a week, but since my kids have been out of school, I haven’t read a single book! Time is not the issue, though.* It’s focus. My kids turn my mind to mush! 

Prior to summer break, however, I was keeping a log of common things I was finding in the books I read. You see, there are always things that carry over from one book to the next, and I’ve always thought it was a pretty funny phenomenon. I remember once I read three books in a row (unintentionally, of course) that had characters named Nina. I never would have thought a character named Nina would be a reason for me to not finish a book, but by the third one, I just couldn’t read another Nina book, so I quit and put it back on my “to read” list for another time.

Here are the last 8 books I’ve finished and some of the connections from book to book:

The Choice by Eva Eger: Auschwitz survivor, danced for Mengele

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jakur: Auschwitz survivor, mentions Mengele, author goes by Eddie in English

Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen: character named Tommy

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls: character named Tom, character named Eddie, character named Sallie, character named Nell

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh: character named Eddie, character named Tommy

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center: girl working with a bunch of men hasn’t hugged anyone in a long time, character with last name Callahan

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes: girl working with a bunch of men hasn’t hugged anyone in a long time

Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kegan: character named Sally, character named Nell, character named Eddie, and character with last name Callahan

Interesting, isn’t it? And what’s with the Eddies? Never in my life have I been exposed to so many Eddies in such a short amount of time. Eddie has far surpassed Nina! 

Does this happen to anyone else?

*Here’s a post I wrote about how I fit in reading time.

Sounds

It’s 9:50 on a Friday night, and these are the things I can hear:

Zoe is singing in the shower. 

There’s a really loud robin chirping right outside our living room window. Abnormally loud.

Eva is in our bedroom watching Disney+ and howling like a wolf.

There’s hammering coming from one of the 920 construction sites nearby.

And Scotty is tapping his leg with his hand.

Cue the screaming from the city carnival.

Now would be the perfect time for the guy with the loud, annoying car to drive past. 

(Everyone who lives within a mile of here knows about that guy. Can I get an amen?)

Update at 10:07… how about some fireworks?

20 things

1. A recent picture of you

Tuesday

Just keeping it real with my crazy summer hair and my Chinese food.

2. The meaning behind your blog name

My name is Britt, and I am fluent in Brittish. 

3. A picture of your animals

They don't appreciate the photo op. They're too busy indulging in kitchen scraps. 

4. Favorite super hero and why

Wolverine.

Because Hugh Jackman.

5. A picture of somewhere you’ve been

I hope you weren' expecting anywhere more exotic than Costco.

6. A habit that you wish you didn’t have

Donuts & Deli... my favorite! This batch was hot and fresh.

7. A picture of someone or something that has had an impact on you

8. Short term goals for the month

Survive girls’ camp.

9. Something you’re proud of from the past week

Keeping my wits about me while preparing a sacrament meeting talk, having kids home from school, prepping for girls’ camp, and getting ready to leave on vacation.

10. Songs you listen to when you need to get hyped up

11. A picture of you with friends

12. Why you started a blog

I was bored at work.

13. A nickname you have

Britt the Sh*t

14. A picture of something that makes you happy

15. What makes you different from everyone else

I don’t like swimming. 

16. Something you crave a lot

Coke. But I haven’t had any since New Year’s Eve. 

17. Three books from your bookshelf

How about five instead? Despite what you may think, I don't actually own a lot of books. 

18. Something you’ve learned in the past month

I can handle a lot if I stay ahead of the game and get things done early. I can’t function if I wait until the last minute.

19. Something you love doing

20. One of your character strengths

Maybe I'm creative?