Girls' Night

A decade or two ago (I can't remember exactly when), my Mom got a "foot treatment" kit which had three bottles of different scrubs, rubs, and lotions for feet. She shared it with her daughters, and the Foot Treatment tradition began. I don't think she has ever let me give her a foot rub, but I have lots of memories of my mom giving me "foot treatments" aka amazing foot rubs with lotion. The most recent was for my birthday two years ago. Some girls go get pedicures together, but my Mom gives foot treatments at home. 

When Jeff and Jay both had things to do at the church last Wednesday night, it seemed like a good time to have a girls' spa night with my own daughters. My salon skills may be limited, but we felt like being extra fancy. So I dug out my only lotion (plain unscented), the girls tracked down their collection of nail polish, and we had some fun. We've painted each other's toenails and done each other's hair plenty before, but we had never done foot treatments. So we combined the best of both worlds: foot rubs plus nail polish. Personally, I could've done without the nail polish, but that was the most exciting part for Rose and Amber, so I let them scribble away on my toenails with their heavily laden pink paintbrushes.

The Olympic Trials!

Last week, our coach friend (and Jay's middle school running coach), Dan Winger, sent us a text: "I have three tickets to the Olympic Trials next Thursday. Do you want to come?" Our answer was an immediate "We're in!" It would be a five hour drive to Eugene, Oregon from our house--right on the edge of doable round trip in one day. We figured with three drivers, it would work great. So we cashed in all kinds of familial and neighborly goodwill to find places for our kids to stay while we were gone, and the big day quickly came!

A birthday to remember

My mom turned 60 last week! My siblings and I concocted an epic surprise visit that involved more dishonesty and stressful half-truths than I've ever told in my life. It was worth the effort. She loved our surprise! The celebrations lasted for days, beginning with a family dinner on Wednesday night and culminating with a major ten-cake-fest on Saturday. My mom is a genius at creating fun food traditions. For her birthday, she likes to make as many cakes as possible and then share them liberally with anyone and everyone. Her cake fest was extra sweet this year, with extra family visiting. It was a birthday to remember!

A few journal clips to tell more of the story:

May Books!

Some books are such a joyful escape. Other books are excellent brain exercise, like lifting weights with my mind. Even though I read far more relaxing escapes than muscle-building non-fiction, I appreciate both. The non-fiction books ground me and take work to read; the fluffy fiction provide rest, recovery, and fun. It feels good to alternate between the two. The way I do that is I read a little non-fiction every day, always before any fiction, usually while I eat lunch. Feed the body, feed the mind! 

The End of the School Year of Beginnings

The strangest school year of all time is OVER at last! Yay!

The strangest school year of all time is over ALREADY! Boo!

With all of the pandemic stops, starts, restrictions, and guidelines, this school year was full of beginnings. The kids had something like five "first days" of school, from online to hybrid to full-time in person, and a couple in between around their Covid quarantines. It was a year of beginnings, and now it has ended!

The 100 Day Dress Challenge

Back in March, I ordered a Rowena Swing Dress from the Portland-based company, Wool&, and started their 100 day challenge. Challenge requirements were simple: wear the dress for 8 hours per day, for 100 consecutive days, and take a picture every day. The prize was a $100 gift card for another dress. I figured if I loved the dress enough to wear it for 100 days in a row, I would probably want another one in a different color, so the gift card would be welcome. If I didn't manage to complete the challenge, I had nothing to lose. It was a low stakes, high reward situation. Count me in!

Shaina Day!

I haven't had a day to call my own in twenty years. One of my best friends in high school had the same birthday as me. When we went our separate ways for college, I ended up sharing a birthday with my beloved college roommate. Since we're still best friends, that birthday sharing didn't end with college graduation. And now on top of that, I also share a birthday with Amber. I love and value all of these people greatly, but November 4th does tend to feel a bit...crowded.

Since I share a birthday with a daughter (and my BFF), and I share Mother's Day with track season (and all women), my family gave me a randomly selected day that was all my own. Sunday, June 6th was Shaina Day, and even though it wasn't perfect, it was ALL MINE, complete with gifts and singing and thoughtfulness that helped me feel loved. I didn't have to tell anyone else happy birthday or make anyone else's birthday dinner or make sure to send cards to anyone else. It was a day where I let everyone else take care of home, food, dishes, cleaning, argument-diffusing, etc. I don't know why women need an official titled "day off" to take a day off from all of these everyday responsibilities, but I seized my day and enjoyed the mental break from the normal litany of life. I also enjoyed the novelty of my family putting actual effort into actually putting away food, dishes, toys, etc. that they got out. It was most welcome and had me plotting ways to get them to care and be aware like that all of the time. (Hah!)

Thirty-nine

Jeff turned a venerable zesty 39 years young on Tuesday, June 1st. We love him. Whenever I think I'm low maintenance, I look over at Jeff. The man is so easygoing, it's hard to make a day special for him! When I asked him what he wanted to get, do, and eat for his birthday, he didn't have much to say beyond "brownies and ice cream, please." Jeff finally admitted to wanting a new Garmin heart rate monitor, some headphones, and a sampler of chicken sandwiches for dinner. I had actually already ordered the heart rate monitor and ended up giving it to him two weeks early so he could enjoy accurate data from his athletic activities. He ordered himself new headphones and I wrapped the box (ahem, shoved it into a gift bag) so he could open it on his birthday. 

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was a taste of summer. It was hot and sunny. It was a four day weekend. We barbecued with local family and watched the kids swim. Our dishwasher died and we did a lot of handwashing. Thankfully our landlord had the dishwasher replaced after only 4 days, so it wasn't too tough. I am so thankful for labor saving devices that liberate me to do more meaningful activities!

On Sunday, Jay gave his first ever official talk in sacrament meeting on May 30th. His topic was prayer, and he did a wonderful job writing his own talk. Jeff checked it once to make sure Jay was on the right track, and he was, so we left it to him. It was a thoughtful personal talk. We love our Jay.

April BOOKS!

Books books books books books. I love books, so I read twenty books during April. I'm not big on social media marketing... unless it's for books. I follow several beloved authors on Instagram, and they often share other good books written by their likeminded author-friends. This social media book marketing has become a gold mine for my discovery of several new delightful authors recently. 

In April I fell in love with Sariah Wilson's snarky fun love stories, and I embarked on a quest to read all of her books. It was an enjoyable quest. She writes fun celebrity and royalty love stories, and I thoroughly enjoyed escaping into those sugary sweet worlds after feeding my brain its daily dose of healthy whole grain nonfiction. I did think that her kissing scenes were too long, though. Like, we get it! They enjoyed their kiss! Let's move on! Haha, nothing more than kissing happens, but it just feels... long sometimes. Kiss-a-thons aside, Sariah Wilson adds just enough grit to ground her fluffy unlikely celebrity love stories so the sweetness isn't cloying. And her humor kept me grinning!

The South Sound All-Comers Track Meet

While searching for open track meets for Reid, Jeff found a family meet in western Washington called the South Sound All-Comers Track Meet. It was scheduled for Thursday, May 27th at 6pm. After doing the math to see if we could make the 3.5 hour drive to Olympia in time for the meet after school that day, we decided to sign our entire family up for some races, each kid for a different race. We signed up a week before the meet, so I barely had any time to feel prepared to run my first track race in 14 years, but I did join Jeff and Reid at the track for one pacing workout. The workout eased my mind about running on a track just enough for me to feel excited about my race!

First, we had to get there. Google Maps informed us that Olympia, the illustrious capital of our large state, was a 3.5 hour drive from Sunnyside. But once we had picked everyone up from school and headed west in the van on Thursday afternoon, Google told us that there were three accidents on I-5 that were causing 51 minutes of delays. The alternate route was on curvy narrow highway 12 through White Pass. We decided to stick to wide smooth freeways to prevent our carsick-prone daughters from puking. We figured that the accidents would be cleared up in the 2.5 hours it took us to get to I-5. We figured wrong! In true Seattle style, the traffic was still there waiting for us in a slow sludge when we reached I-5. We sat and rolled and sat and rolled and the clock kept ticking closer and closer to the projected 6:40 start time for Jay's 1600 meter race. Tensions mounted in the White family van. Jeff and I both snapped at our antsy inquisitive kids. "For the hundredth time, we don't know when we're going to get there!" Sorry, kids. Jeff and I had several moments where this all seemed so pointless. But we were stuck in traffic, so we kept trudging forward.

Home Improvements

Memorial Day weekend marks FOUR YEARS since we moved into our house. We never thought we'd rent this little place for so long, but now we don't want to live anywhere else. Over the past month, we have had several significant home improvements: book sorting, basement overhaul, a fresh coat of exterior paint, and three door replacements. But first, a bird horror story that also kind of falls under the home improvement category. 

I. Birds

For a few weeks, I noticed that every time I opened our garage door, a bird would fly in. It would perch on the handlebars of a bike or sometimes even venture further inside the garage. Every time I closed the garage, though, it would fly right back out again, so I figured it was just an oddly inquisitive bird. Our garage door is pretty decrepit, so on nice days I often leave it open while I'm home to avoid the battle of closing the warped door (our landlord has a new garage door on backorder). Sometimes the kids would open the garage to get their bikes out and then forget to close the garage over night. The weather was nice and we live in the country away from many prying eyes so it didn't seem like a big deal.