Interrupt...

I interrupt your regularly scheduled Saturday to bring you this.

Look HERE. Pants from Downeast. As part of their fall collection. That's Fall 2011. Not 1991, just for the record. Oh. Dear. Heaven. Maybe you could pair them with THESE not so pretty things for Halloween?

Week in Pictures

Random shots from our week:

Sammy's first library card. Which he used to check out 3 Scooby Doo DVDs and the Wubbzy movie. Oh, and the movie version of his favorite book, The Scrambled States of America.

The view from our hotel balcony. Sigh. I REALLY love Park City.

Have I ever mentioned how hot my husband is? No?
Isaac on top of the mountain after the chair lift of doom; the top of the mountain, overlooking Park City; me trying to psych myself up for the ride down.



Our weekly farmer's market haul. How pretty!

Sammy, sneaking lettuce (his favorite, go figure...) as I wash it all.

The awesome note Sammy wrote. Notice the sign language "I love you" illustration? Hee!

Sammy. Using straws like chopsticks. You know, "like they use in Japan!". What a smarty pants.




(home, depeche mode)

Jemima J

I first read Jemima J by Jane Green 15ish years ago. Whenever it first came out. And loved it enough to put it on my favorite books list. So when it was picked for book club last month, I was curious to see how my feelings had changed, if they changed and if I was still going to love it. So I read it. All in one day, nearly in one sitting. Which NEVER happens anymore, with any book!

First the good: I love Jane Green. She holds a special place in my heart. I like that her writing has grown up with her and because we are enough similar in age that I related to every 'stage' of her writing. Which is probably why I love her so. It was fun to read a book about the very beginning of the internet. Because, oh, how I remember that well. Email was something my college professors had to BEG us to use (the thought!). So it was a fun little memory lane trip. I remembered why I loved it to begin with - especially the part where she is with her boyfriend and receives a package all about the one she REALLY loves. That passage just speaks to me. I felt I lived it and I think, the first time around, is the reason it became a favorite.

Now the eh: The story, while a tale for the ages, does date itself. Which is sometimes funny. I'm not sure it's held up as well as I would have liked, but that is the way of making SUCH a cultural thing a centerpiece in a book.

The bad: I don't think I loved it quite so much this time around and I chalk that up to growing up. I feel things differently now than I did 15 years ago. While I still loved the overall message, some of it just rubbed me the wrong way, now. Like how she was described. Yes, she was overweight, but the way they talked about her was as if she was 600 pounds, not the barely over 200 she actually was. I felt the point when she was starving herself and being obsessive about her weight was SUPER glossed over and was given an air of "ok" when it shouldn't have. But the biggest thing that has changed, for me, is that her true love only REALLY noticed her after she lost the weight. I know, I know...it was well on the way BEFORE he knew about the weight, but I wish it had been handled differently. I wish she'd had more of a back bone. I wish she had been stronger and not relied on approval from a man so much. Sheesh! I've become such a feminist!

I'm glad I reread it. I really am. And I still love it. Maybe just not *quite* as much as I did when I was 22 and clueless. Which is the biggest indicator of all that maybe, just maybe, I've grown up a little.


(i want you to want me, cheap trick)

So Bizarre

Some random stream that is all connected...at least in my head.

1. It's so weird to know your child is off having adventures of their own. Separate from you. It completely blows my mind. Especially since anything he's ever done before in his five years has been right by your side.

2. As we were leaving art camp yesterday, we were several yards away, nearly to our car, when a tiny little girl behind us yells, across the parking lot, with this big booming voice, "Bye Sammy! See you tomorrow!!!" and waves her little heart out. My son, true to form, looked back and said, "Uh...bye." and then launched into a diatribe about something else. Those poor girls his age will never stand a chance.

3. He is absolutely loving art camp. My sister asked yesterday if he had any hesitancy about leaving me. Yeah, no. He had nightmares the night before and didn't sleep well, but I think that is because he is his mother's son in that regard: he likes to know the ending before he begins. Once he's there, though, he's fine. It's the anticipation and element of surprise he hates. So he's loving it and I'm pretty sure didn't even look back this morning.


4. Me, on the other hand? I nearly cried that first day and can clearly see that his first day of school will be the thing that kills me. Good to know.

5. On the other hand, this has highlighted that we have been SPOILED the past 5 (Sammy) and 7 (me) years with no schedule. Something WILL have to give when school starts because the last few days have not been working for me, routine wise. I don't enjoy having laundry and dinner going concurrently.

6. I REALLY don't like pulling out a load of towels from the washer and finding an earwig on the bottom. Yada...my towels were rewashed last night at about 8 pm. Sigh...

7. The other night I had to close Sammy's window in the middle of the night because he was actually cold. He slept so well, snuggled in, under a mountain of blankets - sleeping in until just past 7 (!). I really love that we live in a place that cools off every night to the point you can sleep with the window open, buried under blankets. I don't think Isaac's bald head loves it nearly as much as I, but I love that he tolerates it and humors me.

8. I am currently reading Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. I'm pretty sure when I'm done I'll have a LOT to say on the matter.

9. 29ish days to Def Leppard. Not that any of us are counting...


(apartment, beyond my control)

Summer List Update

Half way down. Not too bad! How's your half way point?

Tawnya Family Summer o' Fun:

-Spend the day in Jackson Hole
-Campus ice cream / games on the quad
-Brace my soul for a trip to Utah county for sandwiches
-Salt Flats or Antelope Island
-School shopping in Park City / SLC
-Def Leppard with friends
-Picnic and feed the ducks
-Dinner on the patio at any of our favorite restaurants
-Walk to get ice cream for dinner
-Movie outside - either at a drive in or park or rent a projector
-Convince Isaac I need a Jeep (ok, just kidding. Sort of...)
-New school friend play date
-Paint bedrooms
-Dinosaur park / zoo / SLC groupon passes
-Find screen door. And porch rockers.
-Read on the porch at night with lemonade

Already done:

-Family vacation
-Summerfest
-BBQ with friends
-U2 concert
-Day in Bear Lake
-Overnight trip for our anniversary
-Our town's annual Main Street sidewalk sale, complete with stopping for lunch (dinner...and we were rained out of it, but, well...)
-Convince Sammy that riding a bike is fun
-Fireworks! My favorite!
-Indulge in sno cones at every opportunity
-Curl up on the bed, a/c blasting, under a blanket and READ.
-Schedule family pictures
-Isaac's family party
-David Gray concert
-Research weekend in Moab. Or St. George. But probably Moab. (or Vegas...I think we're going with Vegas...)
-Invite friends for picnic / games for family night (or, you know, accept an invitation!)
-S'mores. Which require a fire pit... (sigh...BBQ will have to do this year!)
-Water balloons (Sammy's birthday party?)


(summertime, the sundays)

Our Annual Pilgrimidge

Last weekend we went to Park City for our annual anniversary trip (a month early!). I just love Park City. I really, really do. I love that we've stumbled onto this little tradition. And I love that we celebrated this year when I wished we had been married and not our actual anniversary. But that's another rant for another day...

Some random notes about our weekend:
*I didn't really miss my kid. I mean, I MISSED my kid, but I had no qualms about leaving him and really enjoyed my time away. Maybe it was because I knew he was having a great time (Movies! TV while he ate! Licorice! Games! Aunt Sharon!) or maybe it's because we are both growing up, but I was ok with it. Though it was nice to have the extra snuggles and I love yous when I got home. Even if he DID tell my sister he didn't miss me at all...

*Should you wear a skirt on a chairlift and it's just a little breezy, you WILL get a weird sunburn on the tops of your knees. And flash all of main street. And the chair lift operator. And, well, yourself. Consider this a friendly PSA.


*The one thing that will cure you of you immense fear of heights (and stop the chant of "I hate you" directed to your husband) on said chairlift are the myriad adornments of undies in the tops of the trees and making up silly scenarios of how they got there. Seriously. Bras, I get. But undies? That takes talent...

*I realized the only time I had been skiing in my life was when I was in college. It was in Rexburg Idaho, at night, while it was...icing and I was cold and miserable and couldn't believe people regularly paid for that kind of torture, but I was with the boy I loved at the time, so that seemed to make it slightly better. Upon telling this story, Isaac said, "See the crazy things you do for boys?" in reference to him convincing me to go on the chair lift to begin with. Sigh...

*A trip to Whole Foods for my daily Kefir shot made me hate my town just a little bit. A trip to Cost Plus World Market made me hate it a little more. I'm sure it will go away, but...

*I love that summer is the off season and the Waldorf is semi affordable every year. I also love feeling so fancy for a couple of nights every year. Well worth a ding to the vacation budget!


*We ate at Market Street Grill (my weight in shrimp!), Squatters (the best breakfast skillet and gravy and scones and...) and Blue Iguana (tacos and fajitas!). I loved each one so very much.

*I'm already looking forward to our getaway next year. That's wrong, right?



(have love will travel, the black keys)