me + my autumn sweater

We rolled into town Sunday at 4. Running on 5 hours of sleep (3.5 caught in half of the back of James' CRV [the other half was filled with our stuff. Neither of us remember anything between lying down and the bling of the alarm at 6 am] in the parking lot of a Motel 6, 1.5-ish on the road when we weren't keeping the other awake). Ward prayer, some unpacking (I ate a meal made by humans. I heard James ate a leftover blueberry cobbler MRE). I was up at 6 to finish some stuff up before teaching at 9.

Welcome back to Fall.

Fall is my favorite season. Today I'm wearing an aqua sweater and my blacks. Monday night I got to break out my kitten cardigan. After sleeping Tuesday night Business Kjerstin reemerged and started to work on the to-do list. Work on syllabi. Call the Financial Aid Office. Throw away a year's accumulation of student papers and handouts. Color-code my classes. Etc. etc. etc.


The week before Hawaii was pretty hectic. Graduation+family reunion+prospecti+moving+grading. Little sleep, lots of diet coke (remember when I was off for a minute?). We ended up speeding down to Vegas to make our flight in the middle of the night in the rain. I was chomping sunflower seeds and blasting Marina and the Diamonds and Vampire Weekend, chanting something about being young and reckless and alive. Lucky for us that corridor is made for speeding (if I go 95 from Cedar City to St. George I can make up for the 85 I have to go through the Arizona bit to survive the turns). Lucky for us the Nevada state line brings with it an extra hour and we were both distracted enough to be pleasantly surprised.

We slept on the plane (someone got sick? We had to reroute to LA? If sounds nightmarish and I only sort of remember it happening.) And woke up in Hawaii.

Palm trees! Balmy weather! Abandoned North Shore! We got a house a block away from the beach and spent the first couple of days napping in the sun and in the shade and in the sun.

We ate at Ted's and spent a lot of time at Sunset Beach (with like 7 other people) and swam with sea turtles (I had to step out of their way so they wouldn't wash into me. And they were huge and sad-eyed and adorable). We rode horses on the beach (I got a stubborn blonde who refused to do what I asked) and ate fresh garlicky shrimp and watched a lot of sunsets and picked guava from the tree outside our door for breakfast and did some PCC stuff and spent time in Honolulu and ate sushi and spam.

Hawaii was magical. Gorgeous. Perfect.

It was part one. Part 2 was even better though it was shorter and, um, more physically intense. We got off the plane in Vegas (having left one of our drivers on the island...it's a long story but ended well I think?) in the early morning. Ran to Walmart for food for backpacking and fuel. Ran some other errands (we stopped into Dick's Sporting Goods and almost napped in one of their tents. I bought a sunhat and a couple of water bottles for a dollar and fell in love with the new insulated aluminum straw-ed Camelback water bottle (It's soo pretty.) and decided I need more clothes that wick moisture. Then did we head for the trail? We meandered a bit and got there and packed and on the trail by 6 or so. Hike hike hike. We stayed the night just outside the village (Supai), headed in the morning, found our group, set up our hammock and went to sleep. There were falls and hiking and some brushing of teeth, but mostly mostly we napped.

We camped (illegally it turns out) next to Havasu falls--gorgeous red rock and aqua water and lush viney green out of this desert canyon. We all had hammocks and the people were great. I dunno. So quiet and beautiful.

Hiked out Saturday afternoon. Started driving at midnight or so (if we drive all night we can make 9:00 church bahaha).

And that's the story.

And now fall's here. Hurrah!

I am not dead

but haven't showered since Tuesday. And have brushed my teeth 3 times also since Tuesday. I will blog about everything later. Everything=awesome.

ke

confession

I may have lost my testimony of English.

I like reading books.

I think I have some stuff to say about organizing ideas and putting words together in aesthetically pleasing ways.

But.

But.

(best of the week, late)

I think I'm going to stop pretending, at some point soon here, that my best of the weeks don't almost always revolve around James.

On Saturday he surprised me with flowers.

Oh things are going to get real gooshy here, real fast. :)

For Scout:

Some of you have already seen this. My niece, though, gets full access to videos I post here and I love the image of her (she'll start 1st grade in the Fall) watching/falling a little bit in love with this.





Also, can we talk about the best part of this song, I think, which is that is has all the synth-y magic of the 80's without any of the lusty angst? Right? I feel like its infusion of goofy (Norwegian) indie optimism pushes it from good to magical.

Enjoy.

Grasshopper v. ant

This morning I read this. And the sentiment is important and the piece is lovely, but I'm taking the selfish road on this one and talking about how reading this morning I was reminded that I need to write.

Because I stop writing in the face of uncertainty, and I haven't been writing because I haven't been certain. Things seem precarious (delicious, certainly, the summer and the gentleman caller) and I don't want to ruin the magic with certainty, you know, like butterfly wings or whatever.

And because it's time to start inhabiting myself again.

The advent of August is weighty every year. In August I reassert and renew. I make plans and budgets. I pull out my planner. Fall is on its way and August never lasts more than a minute and the thing left to do is write everything down: take stock. And the daze I've been floating through (what a fantastic summer it's been) has been so important...and now I'm left wondering how to keep the joy I found this summer while trying also to live my busy crazy life.

I think, soon, I'll write a little more about what I learned this summer...and about words being like water. Because I can't stop thinking about it.

Yes.

Best of the Week+August

This week was hard. I did hard things and had hard conversations and I failed some. Which I don't love and suppose I'm going to have to come to terms with. (Hey, there, reality. Nice to see you again.)

But, there were lovely bits:

the new Jeunet (Micmacs. It's charming, but is no Amelie) with Alea. It was a lovely evening.

contacts rained like manna from heaven. (This is the summer of the windfall, which is entirely welcome.)

fasting.

long talks with James. And playing with James. And sitting by James at church. :)