Mi Sombrero and Me

Typically, I'm not a huge fan of hats (they hide the natural beauty of my golden locks and make my head feel squeezed), but sometimes it's good to mix things up a little. Several days ago, I spent 5 or 6 hours doing yard work at a neighbor's house, and by the time I got home I was hot and tired. But was I done yet? No! I got to go water a bunch of palm trees in my backyard. At one point, we had over 4,000, and even though some have died, and we've planted and sold others, todavia hay muchas plantas. So it was the middle of a typical Arizona summer day, which I had already been working and burning up in, when suddenly, inspiration struck:

 I can't believe more people don't wear these things. Not only was I shaded for the entire hour and something minutes that I was watering palm trees, but something about wearing un sombrero made it that much more exciting. Plus it was nice and spacious inside, so my head didn't feel too confined! The next day, I decided to go running with a couple people from my cross country team one last time, and once again it was hot, so I thought, why not? (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it, but it shouldn't be too hard to imagine what it looked like). The hat's been hanging out in my room for quite a long time, so you can bet it felt appreciated after all the attention! And yes, there was a lot of attention. I even got funny looks from the horses I ran past.

I won't be bringing the hat to college, but I'm glad I was able to spend some quality time with it before leaving. It's the little things that matter, after all.

Broccoli Soup

I've heard that there are some societies in the world where wisdom teeth aren't a problem and they don't have to be removed.  Apparently, the people's mouths are big enough to accommodate the late-comers. I've also heard that the reason the rest of our wisdom teeth wreak havoc is because our mouths are too small, because our ancestors started to eat unhealthily. And that is your fun fact for the day! (If junk food actually tasted like junk, the world would be a better place).

I finally got my wisdom teeth removed a couple weeks ago! It was definitely overdue, seeing as they had already started to push and shove the other teeth that had worn braces for two and a half years to be perfectly straight.

Getting them removed wasn't too bad. Obviously, I don't remember the actually extraction, and they've hardly hurt at all (and I didn't even take pain killers very much). And my face didn't even puff up like a chipmunk! In fact, everything went pretty great... except that I starved for a week. Humans are not meant to live off foods that don't need to be chewed. I ate yogurt, refried beans, a little bit of ice cream, a fruit shake... unsatisfying things like that. At one point, my mom got the idea to make me a cheese and broccoli soup. I'll admit that it tasted pretty good, even though we didn't have any chicken bouillion cubes. Otherwise I might not have been able to eat it, because the texture was kind of awful. But hey, it was healthy.


Mmmm.... Broccoli Soup...

And here's another picture of it!

Maybe it wasn't great. What IS great is that my mom put in so much effort to make sure there was something I could eat besides yogurt! Yeah, she's pretty awesome.

And it's also awesome that I can eat tortilla chips again.



Rain is a Good Thing

As my dear friend Nefi reminded me last week, I have clearly been slacking when it comes to blogging. Sorry, Nefi. Sorry, anyone else who cares. However, that's actually not why I'm posting now! The real reason I'm typing this post is because a couple weeks ago, something exciting happened! (Yes, it was almost two weeks ago... I better cure the habitual procrastinator part of myself before I get to BYU)... what exciting thing happened, you ask?...

IT RAINED.

See the glossy shine of the concrete? The deep, rich colors of the plants? The white sky? Yes, this is rain alright (the picture doesn't really show how hard it's raining... but take my word for it, the rain is coming down hard). For desert dwellers like myself, rain is always a good thing. But when you're also a running addict, this much rain is so much more than "good." To quote myself in a recent facebook status:

"Just because it's time to run, doesn't mean it will rain; but if it rains, it's always time to run."

 It was only sprinkling when I ran out the door, but I had my figurative fingers crossed. The wind was pretty impressive though, I got blown all over the place. Then the rain stepped it up a notch, and the wind certainly didn't slow down at all, and ouch! I was having a ridiculously good time though. Anyone who saw me definitely thought I was crazy, running and leaping and splashing, and periodically ending my hysterical laughter long enough to say "OW OW OW OW!" Before long it was downpouring, and the wind was helping me sprint with minimal effort. I wound up in the nearby church parking lot, where I did my good deed for the day by pushing a couch behind a thrift-store trailer (Of course, the couch was already drenched, but it's the thought that counts). Then I heard thunder, and I love thunder, but I don't like getting struck by lightning in the middle of my runs. So I took a short cut back home, which involved leaping over a couple of typically nonexistant rivers, and the next thing I knew I was wading through some very clingy mud.

Right, well, I still had a ways to run when I emerged from the mud pits, and by the time I reached a camera my shoes were squeaky clean. I have, however, attempted to recreate what the shoe looked like as much as possible. This picture is quite accurate.

I just barely thought of something profound! (I do that sometimes): there may not be "rain" in "ran," but there's "i ran" in "rain!" I'm so clever. Anyways, it was absolutely fantastic, and I hope you run in the rain too. There's plenty of joy to go around, I promise.

I live for runs like that.

Well It's About Time!

I am lucky to have some amazing friends! They influence my life in positive and crazy ways, which is why I now find myself writing a blog. The friends primarily responsible are Nefi Oliva and Meghan Simonson. Nefi's been relentless over the past month (or two, or three) in pestering me to start blogging so he can stalk my life, plus he has a blog of his own that I enjoy reading. And Meghan is a fantastic blogger, I love reading hers, she makes it look so fun that I wish I had a blog for my senior year too. Too late! But now I'm almost a freshman again, I turn 18 today, and basically, this is the beginning of an entirely new part of my life… so it seems like a great time to start!
I wasn't sure what exactly to start with, but Nefi suggested I simply write some basic things about myself, and I liked the idea, so here I go!

First of all, I'm passionate about running. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it, but usually I love it! I'll definitely write more about running later.

I live in Arizona, and I do consider Arizona my home. However, I used to live in St. George, Utah, and I still consider myself a St. Georgian as much as ever! I miss it a ton, and I can't wait to live closer when I go to college at BYU.

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I love it! My religion has made me who I am more than anything else, and I can’t imagine where I’d be without it.

It's not much, and if you already know me then you actually know all of this already, but it still seems like a good way to start! Now, my life is about to get really crazy... you know, figuring out college and all... but I'll do what I can to post about whatever exciting happenings life hits me with!