Whoa.

I graduated from college. I got a real job. Whoa. When did this all happen? How did I grow up so fast?

Lovely flowers and an Asian woman. Enjoy.

The heavens delivered. Literally.

This past Tuesday, I decided that enough was enough and it was time to finally bite the bullet and fork out the money to get my car washed. I haven't washed it in probably . . . um . . . 3 months. Ew. But before you judge me, you have to understand two things:

1. My car is 19 years old. It's an old lady. It has a dent dents. It is shaped like an oversized Easter egg. The paint is slightly oxidizing on the top, which creates the pleasant appearance of balding. It has a few age spots (rust spots). Do you get the idea? Washing doesn't make much of a difference because the car is not exactly a beauty queen to begin with. 
2. My car leaks. Really leaks. It leaks through the windshield. It leaks through the air conditioner vents on the ceiling. (Also, the air conditioner is broken, which is ever so lovely, especially in the summer. If you love the feeling of your flesh slowly melting off of your skeletal structure, come take a drive with me.) And when I say leak, I don't just mean a slight drizzle. I mean full on waterfall, Niagara Falls status, coming in the car. To make matters even more fantastic, the leak in the windshield is positioned precisely over the steering wheel, which makes for very interesting driving experiences. Let's just say it gets a little slippery.

Anyway, after making the fatal mistake once of somehow momentarily FORGETTING that my car suffers from leaky syndrome, and then proceeding to drive it into an automatic car wash, and then REMEMBERING my car's syndrome moments too late as car wash water came flooding into my car at an uncontrollable rate, I have avoided washing my car. In that moment, when all I could do was just sit there and allow the water to seep into my clothing because the stupid red light was on and I was trapped, I vowed I would never subject myself to this torture ever again.

So you could say I've had traumatic experiences.

But, after totaling the number of bird poops on my car and finding it to be an embarrassing amount, and after my cousin's hand became covered in black grime after closing my trunk, I decided it was time for an intervention.

I went to bed Monday night fully intending to wash my car the next evening.

And then . . . 

. . . it rained! REALLY rained. It rained so much that the sun-baked bird poop fell from my car like crumbs from a cookie. It was a beautiful thing. Even though it meant I had to drive home from work with a steady stream of water pouring all over my jeans and the steering wheel, and even though it meant I had to frantically use my small little red rag to try to dry the steering wheel while stopped at red lights, I endured it all with a happy heart, because every precious raindrop that landed on my car was the sound of dollars staying in my pocket and of avoiding an experience I find to be quite unpleasant and quite unnecessary.

So when I finally pulled into the safety of my driveway, I gave my car a once-over, wiped off one remaining stubborn fleck of bird poop (with a baby wipe, not my hand), and deemed her appearance acceptable.

No car wash today, ladies.

Thank you, clouds. 

I think I'm in love.

That magical moment when you stumble across this song on Spotify . . .

. . . and then you google the artist so you can see the face of the heavenly voice that is like silk on your eardrums, and this is what you're met with . . .

Hello, my good sir.

Also, did I mention he's from Australia? Well, he is. Which means he talks like an angel. And he's from the land that pops out adorable creatures like this one:

So much beauty in one man.

Moments from lately.

• During a work meeting, my boss passed around a video she took on her iPhone of me "surfing" on the indoor Flowrider. It was from our company party that was held at Provo Beach Resort. At first I was embarrassed. Then I got the guts to watch the movie and realized I looked pretty awesome. And then I watched myself fall face first and get water blasted into every crevice of myself. Not so awesome.
• Moongazing. And stargazing. On a rooftop. Listing every single verb we can think of that starts with the letter "p." And then, out of the darkness, two giant water balloons. Hurtling down from the sky. Smacking on the roof. 3 feet away from our bodies. Horrifying. Images of water balloon murderers flashing through my mind. What if the water is poison? What if the balloons are only a preliminary attack? What if they have guns? Afraid to stay on the roof. Afraid to get off the roof. Sitting on the roof and thinking that this must be how it feels to live in a war zone. Discovering who did it. Feeling stupid for being afraid. Realizing my imagination makes my life 1,000 times more dramatic than it actually is. Writing the last line of this paragraph and feeling like the whole thing reads a lot like a MasterCard commercial? Priceless.
• Running through the neighborhood, pausing only to pet the cats and to watch the clouds become liquid gold as the sun sets over Utah Lake. Admiring the gardens and the elderly people who work in them, hunched over and then looking up, smiling wrinkly smiles that feel like melty ice cream.
• My mom telling me she had a surprise for me and it turning out to be the most cozy and beautiful cardigan, complete with pockets.
• A customer at work ordered dozens of lemon cakes from La Jolla Grove to be sent as a gift to the corporate office, which just so happens to be where I work. They were perfect, yellow mounds of sweetness, with bright raspberries and cool mint leaves placed delicately on their tops. They were divine.
• 99 cent bowling games topped off with half-price mini Coconut Cream Pie shakes from Sonic, sipped under the sky of a clear summer night.
• Experiencing the consequences of parking under a telephone wire. Counting the number of bird poops on my car. Total: 9.
• Going camping up in American Fork Canyon with wonderful people. Cuddling up with two of my closest friends in a 5-man tent. Losing the shape of myself to the mounds of sleeping bags, pillows, old blankets from hotel rooms, and a quilt stitched together from pieces of my old blue jeans. Falling asleep in the middle of the conversation, cheeks still swollen from smiling.
• Wearing my new tiger face t-shirt with jean shorts, sprawled on my friend's couch, watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for the second time and thinking about how the lessons it teaches correlate with the Parable of the Talents. Wearing the same shirt the next day because I like it so much.
• Celebrating Father's Day. Watching my dad open his card from the family with tickets to see Bill Cosby. Giving him a Turtle Pecan cupcake from this place, which he promptly scarfed down, before eating his dinner, claiming the right to eat dessert first in the name of Father's Day.
• Thinking about how excited I am to go to Nebraska for the wedding of one of my best friends in a few weeks. Imagining how much fun we're going to have at the Omaha Zoo the day before, how stressed she's going to be the morning of, and how beautiful she's going to look dressed in white when the moment finally comes.

Man, I love summer. I love the long days and the dewy mornings. I love the breezes, the shaved ice shacks, and the ease that seems to nestle itself into everybody's heart. Don't leave, summer. You're too much fun.

Oops.

I accidentally bought toilet paper with roses on it. Oops. Sometimes it makes me feel really classy, but mostly it just makes me feel like an old lady.

7 Reasons

I had a particularly refreshing weekend. Thankfully, it's not over yet (I have about 4 hours left), but what has happened so far has been wonderful.

It was especially wonderful in contrast to the rather dull and slightly melancholic week that preceded it. 

Here's why:

1. I went to see "As You Like It" performed by the Grassroots Shakespeare Company. It was so good! First of all, the setting was beautiful. They set up this small stage in Rock Canyon park, so we brought our blankets and laid them out on the green grass and watched the play as the fluffy white clouds floated across the background and the soft breeze sifted through the trees. It was positively lovely. One of my friends brought scotcheroos, so we passed those around as we laughed until our sides hurt at the love quandaries of Rosalind and Orlando.

2. After the play, we all came back to my house and sat around on my magnificent couches and talked about things that had happened and things that might happen and threw pillows haphazardly at each other. After most everyone had left, two of my friends and I ended up going into a deep spiritual discussion that went until 2 in the morning. I have so many questions. And they usually have answers, even if their answer is nothing more than "I don't know. Good question."

3. I hiked to Stewart Falls and discussed the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith with some of my study abroad peeps. It was the first of what will hopefully be many book club rendezvous. It was so fun to get back together with them and recreate a small part of what we spent three months in the UK doing together. Here is one of many beautiful passages from the book:

      "Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for."

       "The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed."

        "That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."

        "If that is so," commented Katie bitterly, "then we Rommelys are rich."

   Read it. I definitely recommend it.

4. I got my hair cut. I don't look like a fledgling polygamist anymore and my hair is 1,000 times more touchable.

5. My friend was house sitting a beautiful and very expensive home for a few days. She had the privilege of inviting some of us over to swim in the lovely pool and to hang out on the patio and make s'mores with Symphony chocolate bars on the fire pit while the sun set. It was fun to feel like I was rich and lived in luxury, even though it was only for a night and I had to return to my less-than-luxurious home and squeaky bed afterward. 

6. Sunday. Going to church and walking through the sunshine with the breeze lifting my hair off of my neck. Eating fruit salsa with cinnamon and sugar chips, and washing it all down with mint lemonade. Listening to this song on repeat. Taking three hour naps and waking up to the sound of leaves brushing across my window. Feeling both exquisitely exhausted and exquisitely refreshed at the same time.

7. Thinking about this quote from the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty":

        “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

And dreaming about all of the things I want to experience in life, like volunteering at an orphanage in Ecuador, buying my own car, traveling to Santorini, Greece, and going on hikes with my family and my dog (once I get a family and a dog of course).

There you have it. 

Weekends refresh the soul.

Each day of life is a gift.

“Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” 
― Robert Brault

Arriving at our hostel on the coast of Tintagel, England. I miss this beautiful episode of my life so much it hurts. I can't believe it's been a year already!