Shaina Day

 Shaina Day! Shaina Day was Sunday, June 22nd this year. [Birthday + Mother's Day = Shaina Day] I had to give a talk in church, so it wasn't the full day of pure ease and celebration that I would've preferred, but at least the day was completely my own--no shared birthday, no scrambling to wish all the mothers I know and love happy mother's day. It was a day just for me. Wow, that sounds so selfish, but half the fun is having a day that I can call MY OWN! It's the only day in the whole year where I am allowed to be completely selfish, so I let myself enjoy it.

Church Talk: God With Us

I spoke in church today! I had one week to prepare my talk, so at least the anguish was somewhat limited this time around. The process of writing a talk is intense. I have to struggle through and write something right away to soothe my nerves, but my first draft is never anything like the final draft, so I feel like a failure and hate what I wrote until I manage to redo it the next day. It would be nice to skip that stressful first draft step, but I can't write the final draft without first writing the lame first draft beforehand. Hence the anguish. Thankfully I had my talk finished in plenty of time to fret over minute details like word choice for five days before T-Day. It had been almost 2 years since my last talk, but getting up front never gets easier. The good news is: I survived! 

Beautiful flowers from the funeral I helped at two weeks ago.

Raspberry Central

Hello from raspberry central! We are buried in tender fresh sweet juicy raspberries, and we are not sad about it. Highlights from our week include: raspberries, Father's Day, raspberries, hanging a tree swing, raspberries, running, raspberries, a date, and raspberries, a youth temple trip, and raspberries.

Our 7''x11'' pan was full of raspberries after one quick picking session.

Summer is here!

Early morning runs, long sunny days, bright blue skies, oppressive heat waves, nefariously persistent weeds, lingering glow-y sunsets, sweet abundant fruit, and no school: summer is here! 

An early morning view of our homestead from across the canal, taken during my Friday morning run.

The days that got away

Track season may be officially over as of Monday, but this week was still go, go, go! We just didn't have 2+ hours of track practice in the mix everyday. It felt like every day got away from me and I was just along for the ride, going from one task, location, or event to the next. Thank goodness for my journal, which refuses to allow days to completely get away. Each day this week could have been its own blog post, but instead I matched journal entries with pictures from each day of the week. 

A zoomed-out view from the kitchen of the track awards banquet in our backyard.

The May Sprint Finish

Usually May mellows out after Memorial Day weekend, because high school track season ends, but this year's later sports schedule yanked the state track meet all the way to the bitter end of May. It was only one week longer than usual, but May is crammed to the brim with all the concerts, activities, awards, and parties so extending track season to May 31st was intense. It felt like a sprint finish to the end of May.

Monday was Memorial Day, a day off of school and a day for all the yardwork we could manage. Tuesday was a normal school day, but with back to back concerts at night: Rose's middle school band concert, and Jay's high school orchestra concert. On Wednesday (May 28th), Jeff left for the state track meet, held in Tacoma, WA 3.5 hours away. He was there until Saturday (May 31st). During that time, I attended a mother daughter activity at church with Amber, went to the temple, had my last physical therapy appointment, and did a whole lot of monotonous driving to and from the schools. On Friday night, Rose, had her 8th grade party and Jay had his orchestra awards night. Amber and I stayed home together and watched the Mario movie...or I watched it with her for as long as I could stand the videogame-ish-ness of it, which was about 20 minutes longer than I expected to last. On Saturday, I played the piano, ran, did yardwork, got groceries, and took a nap. Jeff got home from the state track meet at 10pm.