Summmmertime!

We had two family reunions this summer--three if you count the pre-reunion mini-reunion before the official reunion. My sister's family couldn't make it to the scheduled reunion, due to a new church assignment--her husband had been called as mission president, and they needed to report two weeks before the reunion date. So those of us who could make it early met at my parents' house in Utah (my parents had just returned the previous month from their mission to Portugal) to have the opportunity to see my sister's family. Southern Utah in the summer is super hot, so the visit was very laid back--mainly  we sat around, talked, swam, and ate--visits to Cafe Rio and Iceberg are always important events. We love food.

Mmm, food. Let's talk about food. Tonight for dinner I made Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Soup, which turned out to be quite tasty. I'm happy about that, as it's nice to have another soup to add to the soup repertoire. Other noteworthy foods of late: my husband made a strawberry pie on Sunday. And on Saturday, we went to the Nestle Cafe where you could design your own ice cream cookie sandwich. Oh the joy! I didn't know this place existed, but now I'm not likely to ever forget. You chose your cookies, you chose your ice cream, and they put it all together for you in sandwich form. I had a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie and an oatmeal scotchie with double-fudge brownie ice cream in the middle. It was sooo tasty, and I wish I had one right now, and did I mention I've been trying to get back on track for losing weight and by "trying" I mean, "trying except when there are Costco muffins in the house or when my son brings out the smoked salmon and cream cheese after I already made myself a sandwich, because, come on, that smoked salmon is really good."

Hey, at least I'm exercising, right? I even tried my new Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown DVD today. So far, I haven't melted down, but give me time.

Side note: I am eating a piece of Dove dark chocolate.

Anyway . . . summer was busy. Besides, the reunion, it was crunch time for my September release, Shadowed, with edits and proofing. My publisher has posted the first chapter; you can read it here.

Once all the reunions and book stuff were finished, it was time for girls camp (good timing, right?). A couple of days before I left for camp, my daughters showed me the Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots. Loved it. In the movie, the hero's mantra is "All is well"--a phrase that came from his town watchman who would cry out "Alll izzz well" as he patrolled the town, reassuring the residents--though it turned out the watchman couldn't see well at night and didn't have a clue what was going on; he'd just call out "all is well" anyway. I kept thinking of that phrase at girls camp--all is well, all is well. And it was--problems cropped up here and there, but nothing that wasn't manageable, and all truly was well. When I was called as Stake Camp Director three years ago, I'd never been so terrified by a calling in my life, but I've discovered that there are a multitude of blessings associated with the calling.

Now that things have quieted down, I'm working on dejunking the house, a little at a time. Today I cleaned under the stove burners, which was a horrible mess. Problem is, you can't see most of my work, since it's, you know, under the stove top. I should take a picture and put the picture on the fridge, except to get the real effect, you'd need "before" and "after" pictures, and the "before" picture would be too embarrassing. Maybe I should take a "before" picture of my garage and either submit it to a reality show in hopes they'd adopt me as a project or I could enlarge it and call it art representing Angst and Confusion. I would title it "Junk Avalanche with Black Widow Spiders."

Hey . . . maybe that could be the title of that Halloween novella I'm supposed to be working on . . .