So just some very basic updates:

--I quit my job before I left to Michigan, which means a lot of free time for the past week and a half I've been back.  I have a nannying position at night but I haven't actually started.  Here goes being a pretend mom five days a week.  I think I will enjoy it.

--I started crossfit with a very handsome professor and it is kicking. my. butt.  I don't think my body has ever done anything like this.  It is the toughest class I have this semester, which is saying a lot, but I like it.  I am trying to eat paleo, but I can usually only do it for two meals a day so far.  I am hoping it will get rid of at least some of my stomach problems. 

--This is my last semester of college.

And besides the basics, I am realizing that I don't really want to leave school.  I have not felt like this until now and so I am trying to figure out what to do with it.  When it comes down to it, I love wandering campus a little bit too much.  I love my english classes this semester and searching for TC in corridors all around (I am still creepy).  I love FOOTBALL games, which I had never experienced until this semester.  There is something to be said about college, so maybe I will be a forever student after all....or at least a five or six semester one.  I guess we will see how my classes go this semester.

I feel so happy about my life right now. 

If I went to confession, what I would have to admit today would be this:
   That when I am going to Catholic church with my grandma, I purposely leave my nail polish chipped and ready to be picked at so that I have something to do during the service.

This isn't because I don't like church (even though sitkneelstand is a hard concept for me) but mainly because her priest is Indian and I can't understand a word he says.  Plus, everyone is like, 90, and always coughing loudly into the air. 

I think, if I was allowed to be more selfish, I would stay here forever.  There are so many things to be baked, so many forests and lakes and lighthouses to explore, so many happy Canadian accents.  There is my darling grandma, who has been reading to us from her high school diary every night.  My favorite gem from the other night's reading?
"Jim didn't call tonight.  DAMN DAMN DAMN."
This is the woman I want to grow up to be like.  The strongest, most patient, wonderful woman.  Someone who has lived on her own for the past 17 years and never complained.  She thinks of my grandpa daily but she keeps living, living living, refusing to be forever sad, and I love her all the more for it.


But my heart is starting to accept that I have to go home.  The Midwest is the most wonderful place on Earth, I truly believe it.  The air is thick and smells wonderful, everything is green and there is finally open space.  But, I have a church.  I have a select few people counting on me, and those few are enough to keep me from cutting my ties to Utah, ties I'm not sure actually exist.  And then there is school, and my fun new job.  So there are those reasons.  I may be accepting it, but my heart isn't ready to be content with it yet.  I am afraid of the same thing that always happens, which is that I end up itching to go right back.  This place feels like home to me, more than sleeping in a bed in someone else's house. 


God is good.  This is going to be a wonderful fall.  I will think of Michigan fondly every day, but there are just things I need to finish.  I must finally be growing up.

"This tastes like five different kinds of dairy, all at the same time!"
-Garrett Anderson, eating creme brulee.

"You are not just a sinner saved by grace.  If that is what you think you will just keep sinning. You are a SAINT, and if you realize that you will act like one." 

-a poorly paraphrased Bill Young.  

I love this.  

The three iPads went off on another adventure today to somewhere with an ocean and humidity.  I wish I could accompany them on these adventures, but I am left with temperamental PC to watch the house and water the flowers.

I have gotten worse at writing because I save my words for the notebooks and weekly cross country phone calls.  These things are making me anxious to travel again.  Forty-four days until I am back in Michigan.

For now, here are some photos of recent Utah adventures (and they're all from a phone, so ignore the poor quality)

Mexi-mochas and candy

Bummed about Collin's musical taste

This old train was pretty cool, and scary.

 

one of my recent favorites, from Steph:

"I have the kind of blood I can give to the whole world, but I just keep going to Mexico all the time."

It may just be the sickness talking, but when I watched Kristen Wiig's farewell on SNL today I got a little bit teary-eyed. They were all fighting back tears too and it showed the intimate part of that relationship you don't see on TV. But anyways.