Lost in a world of words

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with words. What joy it was when I learned how words make up something magical called a story. And then you get introduced to new people and places as you read stories. The best ones are strong enough to create an entire world right inside your head.

I was a hopeless bookworm as a teenager, and many hours were spent reading about new places, people and experiences. Yes, I was a Harry Potter fan, and yes, I did attend at least one midnight event to get one of the books. Even as an adult, I still love getting lost in a great book. I love strong characters, interesting plots, new worlds, oh and some quality romance too. That always makes things more interesting.

Even though commuting to work isn’t always fun, it’s been nice to know I get an extra hour of reading time in every day. I’ve made plenty of trips to the library to keep a nice supply of reading material on hand. Rarely do I find one I absolutely can’t stand.

For whatever reason lately I find myself completely obsessed by reading. Normally the hour of commute time a day (less if I find friends on Trax and chat instead of reading on the way to work) is enough to keep my literary appetite satiated, but that hasn’t been the case in the last month.

Instead, I find myself completely sucked into books and unable to put them down. I take care of things I need to do in the evenings, but as soon as I’m done, I can’t wait to pick my book back up again and get lost in it. I’ve spent way too many nights of late lost in a good book until WAY past my bedtime. Yikes!! Guess how fun it is to get up for work when that happens?

I guess now that I’m aware I have an addiction that’s causing me to lose sleep (an innocent enough one I suppose, but still serious enough it needs to be dealt with), it’s time to find a way to fight it. It’ll probably be easier said than done, but I’ll do my best.

Getting lost in a world of words is fantastic, but like everything else it just needs to be done in moderation. I can work on cutting down my time spent reading.  It’ll take some effort, but I’m confident I can do it. Wish me luck!

Salute to where I come from

Anyone who knows me well also knows that I’m pretty much the queen of pictures. At any event I’m at, whether I’m with my family, friends or even co-workers, I like to document it with pictures.

So, I was distressed to discover that I seem to have a serious shortage of pictures of my grandparents. While I was home for Labor Day weekend, I set out to fix this problem! I love my grandparents very much and they’ve always been an important part of my life, especially since we lived so close to both sets of grandparents. (My parents’ choice, which has benefitted me for my whole life.)

Anyway, it was my Grandma’s 88th birthday while I was home. Here we are helping her celebrate. With the cake and with the girls. Lou-Lou, on the left, is actually named after her (her middle name Louella).

My other grandparents know this grandma as well, and when they heard it was her birthday, they wanted to come wish her a happy birthday too. So, we had to get some group shots with them in it. Each family had their children have a picture with them. Since I don’t have kids, I saw with my cute little shadow, KK.

And at breakfast the next day.

I give a lot of credit to the person I am today to my parents who taught me, loved me and encouraged me to always be my best. However, they learned it from somewhere. I know at least some of it came from my  grandparents who have always lived exemplary lives … and who are the ones who taught my parents in the first place.

It’s a pleasure to have captured some important history while I was home. And it’s even better to be able to share it here.

Summer roundup

I’ve had a lot of great adventures this summer. Some I’ve written about and others … well I wanted to write and just didn’t have the time. So I decided the best decision is to write a roundup post where I talk about an overview of my summer adventures that I haven’t covered in here yet. Here goes.

The first Saturday in June I went for a drive with some friends up Butterfield Canyon. It has a great overlook where you can see the Kennecott Copper Mine. We went right at sunset and the view was spectacular!

In June I got to attend my cousins’ temple day when they took out their endowments. It was very special to be a part of it.

My dear friend who moved across the country a year ago came to visit for a couple weeks. I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with her and her darling kids who are getting so big!

Over the Fourth, I went to my sister’s house to enjoy the Logan fireworks show and spent some quality time with the fam. My roommate came with me, and we had a great time.

I had some other fun adventures in July, which I’ve already written about in other posts. So, I’ll skip along to August and the Parade of Homes. I wasn’t quite as into it this year as I was last, but I still saw some beautiful homes. The showpiece this year was a gorgeous mansion in Draper, which I’ll post below. This house was ginormous, and they had a full ballroom! Can you imagine?

A few others I like:

This is from a 100-year-old historic renovation in Holladay. It was beautiful. Unlike modern homes, the ceilings are not uniform so they have interesting spaces to work with. I loved it!

Okay, one final adventure and that will conclude this summer roundup. I had the chance to go to Bear Lake with two of my sibs and the kids in August, and it was such a wonderful trip! The water was warm and we spent three hours playing in it.

Oh, I forgot to mention, since we’ve been doing the punching bag in personal training for the last 6 weeks and I got to shoot arrows while interviewing a fantastic company in Salt Lake City that hand makes the bows Olympic archers use, I’m now a tough warrior chick. Just in case you’re wondering. My supervisor already is.

Oh and I’m officially an adult now because I finally graduated from a twin bed to a queen bed. This is my major purchase of the summer – a brand new bed. And it’s fantastic!! I’ve been sleeping wonderfully ever since.

Now do you see why I’ve had no time to blog?!

Saturday morning hike

I still have many blog posts to catch up on. However, I’m going to start from yesterday and work my way backwards to see how far I get.

I went on a lovely fall hike yesterday with my roommate and a few others. With the fall colors, it was absolutely stunning in the canyon. See!

We hiked up to see Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I’ve only been there once before and that was snowshoeing last February. Needless to say, it looks a whole lot different when there’s not several feet of snow on the ground. Here’s what it looks like.

Here’s my roomie and me at the bottom of the falls.

It was a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning. And it was worth it to give up my Zumba for a day, especially since I don’t know how long the nice weather is going to last.

Here’s one last beautiful shot. I love the sunshine coming through the trees.