I Think, Therefore I Write

Ode to a tree

2025-05-12T16:40:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, there was a house in need of a tree.

A tree was planted, though it was hard to tell at first. Small in size but mighty in strength, it survived a few years of being tripped over, snow-heavy winters, and almost being ground to bits by a lawn mower to become a fixture of the neighborhood.

As it grew, it became a natural backdrop for first-day-of-school pictures

and Halloween costumes.

It provided ample shade for bike-riding summers

and plenty of leaves to play with during the fall.

Shoes are for sissies.

It weathered rain

and snow.

It endured many, many years of Christmas lights

and even more risky firework activities.

But as the tree grew taller and taller, its roots grew too, damaging the driveway of the house. No one remembered what the front of the house looked like anymore, having been overshadowed by the tree that would not stop growing.

Even climbing the tree had lost some of its appeal, as most weren't keen on risking their lives to do so.

Can you spot Tyrel?

And so the tree was removed, and the house was without a front-yard tree once more.

But the spirit of the tree lived on.

Thank you, dear tree, for the memories.

2024 books: Something new, something old

2024-12-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

Readers never get tired of talking about books and bookish topics—it's one of the reasons I love them. This year, I noticed that one topic in particular kept coming up among the readers I know or follow online: old books vs. new books.

Some of these readers revere the old stuff, whether they're the classics or childhood favorites. If a book is still being read decades after it was published, then it should pass the "this is worth my time" test.

Other readers are always chasing the new shiny thing: the current best-sellers, the latest award winners, the books everybody is talking about. These books may enjoy some time in the spotlight, but, given how many books are published each year, will most likely be forgotten about in a few years.

I'm more of a new-release book gal. New fiction is a fascinating way to gauge the mood of our society in the moment. New fiction, even if it's set in the past or on another planet, reflects what we value and believe in today (or, at least a few years ago when the book was written) and is a fascinating way to document and explore history.

I also have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about the so-called classics. I'm a recovering English major who read many of the "greats" for homework—and hated a good number of them. I'm convinced that many of the classics have only stood the test of time because teachers weren't willing to break free from the status quo and teach something other than what they were taught in school. And so we continue to have people claim that Moby-Dick is the great American novel when there are hundreds of newer books much more worthy of the title. (Full disclosure: I have never read Moby-Dick, nor have I ever met anyone who said it was worth their time.)

That being said, I did get a little burned out on all the forgettable new releases I read last year, so this year I made an effort to mix the old with the new. And you know what? It made my reading year better.

Reading trends

I tracked my reading on StoryGraph this year because they have cooler and prettier stats than my other tracking systems. (I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many places I track my reading, so you're just going to have to wonder.) One of my favorite stats was book moods:

It's ironic that StoryGraph says only a sliver of my reading was relaxing, when "to relax" is the number one reason I read.

StoryGraph also lets you rate your books with quarter stars! Because sometimes you just need to rate something 3.75 stars.

One thing I didn't like about StoryGraph was that it didn't let me assign genres myself, but still, the genre breakdown is pretty accurate, with my top five being literary fiction, historical fiction, romance, fantasy, and contemporary fiction.

I reread Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive this year to prep for book 5, which skewed my books-per-month chart a bit. I loved revisiting Roshar and was glad I refreshed my memory on some key plot points before diving into Wind and Truth, but it came at a cost. Because the books are ridiculously long, I had to sacrifice a lot of my fall and holiday reading—my two favorite reading seasons—for Brandon Sanderson, and I did resent Brandon for it at times. (Even though I was sacrificing something I loved for something I loved. You get it.)

I started my Stormlight reread in August. I read 3-4 normal-sized books between each Stormlight book to keep my reading fresh. It was a good system.

Recurring themes

Most of the time I pick books based on my mood, not the topic. So it's always fun to see which themes and trends emerge over the course of a year, because they're usually unplanned. Here's what kept popping up in my reading this year:

Artists and art collectors. I don't really care about the art world, but the publishing world sure seems to. SO MANY artist type people showed up in my reading in 2024 and it's looking like that will continue into 2025.
Absurdly rich people. I get it, we're all fascinated by how the wealthy live. But each "encounter" with a mega-rich character had me more convinced that billionaires should not exist.
Weddings that last a week. See "absurdly rich people" above.
Magical doors. This is something I'm always in the mood for.
Fake dating. This used to be my favorite romance trope, but I'm pretty sick of it now.
Copyeditors—we're not as boring as you might think!
People going for really long walks. Which also isn't as boring as you might think. Sometimes it's even life-threatening! (More on that below.)

Other book stats

Books read: 85

Pages read: 38,547 (453 pages per book). Book length definitely skewed long this year.

Books abandoned: 11. StoryGraph had some interesting insights on the book flavors I tend to abandon.

This doesn't 100% explain why I DNF books (there's no option here for bad writing, for example), but a lot of the categories from my other book moods chart are flipped, which is interesting.

Rereads: 9

Fiction vs. nonfiction

This year was a little more fiction-heavy than normal, but most of the nonfiction I read was excellent.

Male vs. female authors

Longest book: Wind and Truth, by Brandon Sanderson, 1,330 pages. Stormlight was responsible for about 15% of my page count this year. In fact, I think Wind and Truth might be the longest book I've ever read. I've read some 1,500-pagers, but they were all trade paperbacks. Wind and Truth was a full-sized hardcover with tiny margins, so the word count should be higher. The internet has been exceedingly unhelpful in verifying this for me, so I'm just going to call it.

Shortest book: Prophets See Around Corners, by Sheri Dew, 112 pages. If you only read one church book in 2025, this would be a good one to consider.

Favorite books from 2024

Best fiction: The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon. This is historical fiction at its best. Set during a time that hasn't been exhaustively covered (America, 1789–1790) about a real person but not a well-known one (Martha Ballard), this book doesn't just bring the past to life—it transports you directly to it. Everything from the family dynamics to the midwifery to the legal system is fascinating to watch unfold. This was my most satisfying reading experience of 2024.

Best nonfiction: A Walk in the Park, by Kevin Fedarko. This book falls under the one of my favorite genres: "miserable adventures I would never go on." The adventure? Walking the entire length of the Grand Canyon, a 750-mile trek shockingly few people have finished. I'm glad a good writer took on this quest so I could learn more about a truly weird place without risking life and limb to do it.

Best reread: The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson. Bridge Four is just special, you guys. There's nothing else like it.

Other standouts from 2024

I'm straying from tradition this year and not putting the rest of my favorites into fun categories. I always leave out a few fantastic books when I do that, so I'm going the boring but efficient route this time.

The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank (nf). Believe it or not, this was my first time reading this book. I read the play version in 9th grade, but all I remember was the debate over how to pronounce Margot's name and my English teacher (who was also the drama teacher) urging me to read my lines with more feeling. Still, despite basically knowing the story already, reading Anne's own words for the first time really struck me. Such a remarkable, yet ordinary, person. So much potential, lost forever. Times that by 11 million and the Holocaust was, and continues to be, a staggering, incalculable loss for the world.

One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson (nf). I've never had a burning desire to know what was going on in America in 1927, but in Bill Bryson I trust. Turns out, this was a pretty crazy summer. Not only did I learn a lot about baseball, flight, and the murder trial that gripped the nation in 1927, I saw a lot of parallels between the 1920s and the 2020s and have been wanting to learn more about the period between the two world wars ever since.

The Book of Doors, by Gareth Brown (f). I'll read just about any book about magic doors, but this one really felt like it pulled some of my own portal fantasies out of my head and used them as inspiration. The magic books in this world are just cool, and the story was fun and interesting from start to finish.

Daddy-Long-Legs, by Jean Webster (f). My friend Jamie introduced this book to me (thanks, Jamie!), and after I read it we saw the musical together, which was equally lovely. It's such a charming, funny, and smart book, and it centers on one of my favorite themes: how education can change a girl's life and open up a world of possibilities. It made me want to give more old books a chance, too.

Romey: A Reckoning, by McKay Coppins (nf). One of the best biographies I've ever read (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Romney fan). It gave me a lot to think about regarding the state of America—its leaders, its constituents, and its future. Still thinking about these things, in fact.

Challenger, by Adam Higginbotham (nf). I've always thought that space travel is one of the coolest things humans have ever accomplished, but after reading this I felt complicit. Space travel is insanely expensive and insanely risky and I'm no longer sure it's worth pursuing. Regardless of where you fall on the space-travel debate, this is a well-researched, well-told history of the doomed Challenger expedition and space flight in general.

The Spellshop, by Sarah Beth Durst (f). Sometimes you just need a cozy escape. This book checked all the right boxes for me.

The Women, by Kristin Hannah (f). I haven't loved Kristin Hannah's latest releases because I've grown tired of her emotional manipulations. IMO, she's ruined some perfectly good books (The Great Alone and The Four Winds come to mind) by ramping up the drama at the end for no reason other than to collect her readers' tears. The Women is definitely a tear-jerker, but I felt like all the melodrama was earned this time. This book helped me understand a little better that there is more than one way veterans sacrifice their lives for our country, and I've never been more grateful for their service.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith (f). Another book about the power of education. This is a book I've held off rereading because I was afraid my fond memories wouldn't hold up, but that fear was unfounded (even though I didn't love certain things about the ending this time around).

The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson (f). After the reading year I had, I can't not mention the Stormlight Archive here, my favorite Sanderson series. I'm well aware of Sanderson's faults as a writer and am not immune to being driven crazy by certain Sandersonisms, but what he does well he does better than anyone else. This series showcases some of his best work, and I'm glad he waited until he was a more experienced author to tell these stories the way they deserved to be told. (Fun fact: Brandon Sanderson married one of my neighbors, and when we got their wedding invitation in the mail, my dad said, "Emily is marrying a writer, so they're going to be poor.") I finished each book feeling like I had just run a marathon, but fortunately I find the idea of a reading marathon exponentially more enjoyable than a running one.

All the books I read in 2024

Bolded = rated 4.5 or 5 stars

DNF = did not finish

* = reread

Defiant, Brandon Sanderson
The Echo of Old Books, Barbara Davis
Ruthless Vows, Rebecca Ross
The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon
Wellness, Nathan Hill
Hello Stranger, Katherine Center
The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz
*The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, Bill Watterson
Immortal Longings, Chloe Gong (DNF)
Heart of the Matter, Russel M. Nelson
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld
The Keeper of Happy Endings, Barbara Davis
The Fox Wife, Yangsze Choo (DNF)
Dune, Frank Herbert
Family Family, Laurie Frankel
One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson
With This Pledge, Tamara Alexander
Colors of Truth, Tamara Alexander
The Book of Doors, Gareth Brown
Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma
Proven Guilty, Jim Butcher
White Knight, Jim Butcher
The Phoenix Crown, Kate Quinn & Janie Chang
Mercury, Amy Jo Burns
The Book of Love, Kelly Link (DNF)
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, Seanan McGuire
Expiration Dates, Rebecca Serle
The First Ladies, Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
Daddy-Long-Legs, Jean Webster
Romney: A Reckoning, McKay Coppins
The Familiar, Leah Bardugo
*Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Yours Truly, Abby Jimenez
The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, Hwang Bo-Reum
A Short Walk Through a Wide World, Douglas Westerbeke
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
*Mandy, Julie Andrews-Edwards
Funny Story, Emily Henry
Summerlost, Ally Condie
The Husbands, Holly Gramazio
Red Rising, Pierce Brown (DNF)
Vengeance is Mine, Barbara Jones Brown & Richard E. Turley
Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff (DNF)
The Bullet Swallower, Elizabeth Gonzalez James (DNF)
A Walk in the Park, Kevin Fedarko
Piglet, Lottie Hazell
The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali
The Way Life Should Be, Christina Baker Kline
Walking: One Step at a Time, Erling Kagge (DNF)
Dragonfruit, Makiia Lucier
The Paradise Problem, Christina Lauren
The Leftover Woman, Jean Kwok
For Times of Trouble, Jeffrey R. Holland
The Wager, David Grann (DNF)
Same as It Ever Was, Claire Lombardo
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan
Challenger, Adam Higginbotham
You Are Here, David Nicholls
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
Kismet, Amina Akhtar
The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman
Five-Star Stranger, Kat Tang
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (DNF)
*The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson
The Wedding People, Alison Espach
The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson
The Women, Kristin Hannah
The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Prophets See Around Corners, Sheri Dew
The Editor, Sara B. Franklin
*Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson
Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Stories, Tillie Olsen (DNF)
*Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson
Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin
Dark Waters, Katherine Arden
Empty Smiles, Katherine Arden
The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
River of the Gods, Candice Millard (DNF)
*Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson
Believing Christ, Stephen E. Robinson
I Was Anastasia, Ariel Lawhon
Go As a River, Shelley Read
*Rhythm of War, Brandon Sanderson
A Winter Wish, Emily Stone
The Romanov Sisters, Helen Rappaport
Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson

Previous book recaps

2023
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

Faith is action

2024-11-26T21:13:00.001-07:00

I have this recurring dream. It's the first day of school, and I don't know what my classes are, where they are, or when they start. I don't know if I have homework or reading to do or who my teachers are. All I know is that I can't go to any of my classes until I know where I'm supposed to be, so I spend most of the dream frantically racing against the clock as I try to track down my schedule.

If I'm in high school, I'm looking for it in the junk mail stack at home, because in the early 2000s you had to wait to get your schedule in the mail and then call your friends to see if any of your classes matched up. When that doesn't work, I have to execute my worst-case scenario plan: go to the front office and ask them to print out a copy for me.

If I'm in college, I'm trying to remember my BYU login and how to navigate millions of drop-down menus to find the precious page that will be my blueprint for the semester.

I haven't quite figured the lucid dreaming thing out, but I've had this dream often enough that I can sense the importance of preserving the information I seek so I won't be caught unprepared the next time. If I manage to get my hands on my schedule, I'll store it in a secret compartment in my backpack or the pocket of my jeans so that when the next first-day-of-school dream comes, I'll be ready.

Except my plans never quite work out. Sure, the schedule I saved carries over to my next dream, but the writing is smudged or my jeans have gone through the wash so the paper is mush or the wind snatches that scrap of paper out of my hand. No matter what I do, the one thing I can count on is that I will be stuck, unable to move forward until I know where I'm going, while everyone around me is walking from class to class with purpose and confidence.

It wasn't hard to figure out why my brain keeps replaying this dream. I want to have a destination before I start moving. I don't want to waste time or risk failure or rejection by charging recklessly ahead. So in life, as in my dreams, I often find myself treading water, making no progress because I don't know which direction to go. I focus on the answers I seek, when what I probably should be doing is taking a leaf out of Fred Weasley's book: making up the plan as I go along (his favorite kind of plan, as he tells us in book 7). In other words, take a leap of faith.

In his October 2024 General Conference talk, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught:

"We should not expect to understand everything before we act. That is not faith. As Alma taught, 'Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things.' If we wait to act until all our questions are answered, we severely limit the good we can accomplish, and we limit the power of our faith."

Our society celebrates those who take action. Who visualize exactly what they want and then make it happen. I'm all about taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be acted upon, but I'm finding that I'm often able to go further and accomplish more when I let myself be guided for a while. No vision board, no goals, no end game in mind—just the surety that none of my logical, thought-out plans have worked out and a hope that God will first untangle the knot I've gotten myself into and then send me the help I need to get going again. All I have to do is take the next step. In the dark. Possibly off a cliff.

It goes against my nature to relinquish control, but usually the first thing that happens when I surrender to God is that the awful feeling of stuckness goes away. I may still not know where I'm going, but I finally feel like I'm moving somewhere, toward something that matters, even though I don't have the steps mapped out for me. Somehow, the answers come as I go along, but only if I keep walking with faith.

I still get caught unprepared on the first day of school in my dreams from time to time, just like I freeze in real life when I don't know what my next step is. But walking into darkness is less panic inducing than it used to be. Yes, I still think things through and plan ahead as much as possible, but I'm learning that moving forward without answers doesn't have to be my last resort. It can in fact be the only way forward, and often leads to better outcomes.

The Lord lays out the promise of faith in action in Alma 32:43:

"Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you."

Faith isn't the easy part of the process, but in the end it's what makes it all work.

5 things I learned at BYU Education Week

2024-08-25T16:34:00.002-06:00

I attended BYU Education Week for the first time last year and loved it so much I decided to attend every year for the rest of my life, provided I had the availability, ability, and vacation time to do so. People seem to think it's weird that I take a whole week off work to go to school, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I could pay the bills by being a professional student, I would do it. It would be a far more fulfilling career path than any I've stumbled into so far, that's for sure.

This shirt spoke to me.

My enthusiasm for Education Week stems partly from my love for BYU campus. It's one of my favorite places to be and always feels like home, even if it's been years since my last visit. On a deeper level, Education Week also (somewhat) quenches my insatiable desire to learn. This week feels like drinking from a fire hose of spirituality and intellectualism, and it's exhilarating, exhausting, and invigorating—and worth every one of those vacation days.

I'm wearing the same backpack I used through all four years of college. It's carried a LOT of weight over the years and is still in one piece!

My journal entries of Education Week are always bursting with rambling insights, but I wanted to capture the main themes here in a more "official" format.

Truth can be found just about anywhere

One of the best lectures I attended was the "holy envy" series. Holy envy essentially means finding the good in other faiths and beliefs. This is one of the main reasons I love to read and learn so much—I love finding gospel truths in secular places. During this class we looked at the writings and teachings of non-LDS writers, leaders, saints, and more and compared them to Latter-day Saint scripture and teachings. We have more in common across cultural and political and religious divides than we think. Sure, we don't agree on everything, but truth is out there for anyone to find, no matter their background.

The ultimate goal of covenants is to bring you closer to Christ

Covenants have been in the spotlight a lot recently, which carried over into Education Week. My understanding of and appreciation for temple covenants has deepened quite a bit this year, and some of the classes I took this week added more to what I've been learning. Temple covenants are more than a list of standards required to maintain a temple recommend. The main purpose of temple covenants is to draw us closer to Christ, and that is one of the most important relationships any of us can have. Keeping covenants requires sacrifice, just like any other relationship worth keeping, but those sacrifices set us up for continual joy and progression, which is what keeps us close to Christ, too.

When you're wandering in a wilderness, the worst thing you can do is give up

We see a lot of wandering communities in the scriptures. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Lehi's family left a life of comfort to wander through many wildernesses. The early Saints moved from place to years for decades before settling in Utah. While I've never had to leave my home and way of life to live in a tent for months or years, I do know what it feels like to wander aimlessly through life, wondering what the point of it all is. When you're stuck and feel like you're getting nowhere, it's tempting to just throw your hands up in the air and stop trying. The scriptures show us again and again that God is able to lead his people to more fertile places—eventually. But if you're set on camping out in your troubles forever because you're tired of trying, he can't lead you to something better. The only way through a trial is through it, and nobody knows better than God how to get you through it.

Creativity can change your life

Creating things is part of our nature as human beings, but it's hard to be creative in a world that demands conformity and where bills must be paid. But taking the time to create—even if you're not the best at sewing or painting or writing or baking—not only has the power to make your life better, it can also change your perspective on things and bring more joy into your life. I've struggled to prioritize creative pursuits when the realities of life must be answered to first (the dearth of posts on this blog is just one of many examples), but I'm feeling some hope now that there are actually solutions to be found that will allow me to live a more meaningful and useful life AND pay the bills. Cool things happen when you let yourself think outside the box and try new things.

Christopher Columbus wasn't the villain we make him out to be

It's very "in" these days to villainize Christopher Columbus and the American founders. In the case of Christopher Columbus, he's taken all the blame for the atrocities that happened in the Americas, both during his lifetime and for hundreds of years afterward. But primary sources—writings by Columbus himself and by those who knew him—tell a different story. I'm not saying that atrocities like slavery and sex trafficking didn't happen, just that there's no real evidence that Columbus was the perpetrator of them; oftentimes he wasn't even present when they happened. Obviously Columbus wasn't perfect, and his actions did have unintended consequences. But it's unreasonable and unfair to judge those from the past based on what we know now. I hate to think what people will be saying about us in a few hundred years.

Bonus thing: BYU Creamery ice cream is delicious

I missed out on a lot of quintessential BYU things while I was a student: hiking the Y, going to games and concerts, partaking of various culinary delights, dating. I like to blame it on being a poor, working student who had no free time or money—and that was certainly a huge part of it—but my shyness held me back from living the full college experience, too. I've made up for it somewhat in the years since graduation, though. This week I went to the Creamery on 9th twice, an iconic spot I've only been to a few times in my life, and was kind of astonished how good the ice cream was. I usually prefer my desserts to be in cake or cookie form, but if BYU Creamery ice cream was an option I might pass up my old favorites and spring for the ice cream. (The BYU brownies—WITHOUT mint—will always win the day, though.) For a church that's known for its "health code," aka, the Word of Wisdom, we sure know how to put the unhealthy in the foods we love.

Plain and precious truths

2024-03-10T18:22:00.000-06:00

*I gave a talk at church today and a few people have asked for a copy of it. I decided to post it here, minus the lame intro and nervous jokes.*

I spend a lot of time with the written word, both when I’m being paid to do it and on my own time. I’ve been a big reader for as long as I can remember, and anyone who has been to my house can attest to the fact that I have a bit of a book buying problem too . . . but that’s a problem I’m okay with having.

I read primarily for one of three reasons. First, is to escape. Whether my life is boring, difficult, or just complicated, it’s always a relief to escape into another world or to deal with someone else’s problems instead of mine. Second, reading is one of my favorite stress relievers and a very necessary part of my wind-down routine at night so I can be relaxed enough to sleep. And third is, of course, to learn. I love collecting little nuggets of wisdom and seeing the world—real or imagined—through others’ eyes.

I get especially excited when those bookish life lessons I find are also gospel truths. But the scriptures and words of latter-day prophets are the best source of plain and precious truths, so this year I’ve been trying to focus more on the lessons they have to teach me.

God is a god of miracles

One truth that has been on my mind a lot the last few years is that our Father in Heaven is a god of miracles.

In the April 2022 General Conference, President Nelson said:

Moroni assured us that “God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.” Every book of scripture demonstrates how willing the Lord is to intervene in the lives of those who believe in Him. He parted the Red Sea for Moses, helped Nephi retrieve the brass plates, and restored His Church through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Each of these miracles took time and may not have been exactly what those individuals originally requested from the Lord.

In the same way, the Lord will bless you with miracles if you believe in Him, “doubting nothing.” Do the spiritual work to seek miracles. Prayerfully ask God to help you exercise that kind of faith. I promise that you can experience for yourself that Jesus Christ “giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” Few things will accelerate your spiritual momentum more than realizing the Lord is helping you to move a mountain in your life.

It’s not hard for me to see miracles in other people’s lives, but I struggle to see them in my own. After Pres. Nelson gave this talk though, I decided to follow his counsel and seek and expect miracles from the Lord. I did this the only way I knew how—by praying for help. I prayed for the miracles I wanted, even though past experience had left me a little bitter on that point. I prayed for help seeing the miracles that were already there, too.

I’m not going to tell you that all my dreams suddenly started coming true. But I did start seeing tiny little miracles in my own life that I was blinded to before. I became a much happier, more grateful person. I grew in ways I wasn’t expecting, and in ways I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t focused on the Savior. And as I searched for, and found, these little miracles, my faith grew as well. One of the biggest blessings is the continual realization that I love the life I have, even though it wasn’t the one I planned for.

Not all miracles are obvious and life-changing, though. In fact, most of them aren’t. More often than not, it’s the quiet miracles that help us become who we are meant to become and get where we need to go. The better I understand this, the more I'm able to see that our Father in Heaven is eager to shower us with blessings and miracles. Pres. Nelson has also said that “God will do everything He can, short of violating your agency, to help you not miss out on the greatest blessings of all eternity.” A lot of times, all we need to do is simply pay better attention.

“Salvation is free”

When I was baptized at age 8, my grandma gave me my very first journal. I wrote about my baptism when I got home that day, and have kept a journal ever since. I am currently on journal number 34. (I did say I spend a lot of time with the written word.)

I’ve thought a lot about this gift over the years, and the gift giver as well. One of my grandma’s special talents was gift giving. For her, Christmas shopping wasn’t something she did only during the holidays. She spent all year shopping and making gifts for her grandkids. She was so on top of it that even though she passed away in February, many of my cousins got presents for Christmas that year that she had bought or worked on. She also gave gifts through service. Even though she had 9 kids of her own and not a lot of money, she opened her home to any kid in the neighborhood who needed a hot meal or love and safety, and was always quick to prepare a meal for a neighbor in need. And for the last 20 years of her life, she did this while battling cancer.

I say all this not to put my grandma on an impossible-to-reach pedestal, but to provide a little bit of context into why I still think about this gift, even decades later. My grandma had a lot of grandkids. A lot of people to take care of. A lot of her own problems. I don’t know where she found the energy to get to know her shy little granddaughter who sometimes spent more time in her garden eating all her cherry tomatoes than inside visiting with her. Somehow she saw past all of my louder, more entertaining relatives and the walls I put up around myself to understand that a journal would be the right gift to give me for my 8th birthday.

Because of that gift, journaling became a huge part of my life. It’s how I work through my problems because, as I suspect my grandma realized, I’m not the kind of person to talk to people about my problems. Writing is how I make sense of the world and my place in it. It helps me remember my life and what I’ve learned. It’s alarming the number of times I’ve reread old entries where my past self was having a grand realization about life, while my current self was thinking, “I thought I learned that for the first time a few weeks ago.” Human beings, by nature, are forgetful. It’s why the word “remember” is repeated so many times in The Book of Mormon—if we don’t make a conscious effort to remember what we’ve learned, we could lose it completely.

The journal I got on my baptism day is a gift that keeps giving, both because it was profoundly personal and continues to bless my life today.

All of us have access to an even greater gift, one that is exactly what we need, more than we deserve, and always there to bless us. That gift, of course, is the atonement. Lehi teaches us in 2 Nephi 2:4 that “salvation is free.” He didn’t mean “free” in the modern sense of the word. We don’t have to qualify for it. There are no preexisting conditions or circumstances that disqualify us from it. And we won’t be bombarded with ads for the rest of our life because of it.

This gift is free because it was given out of love. All we have to do is accept it.

In this month’s issue of the Liahona, President Jeffrey R. Holland teaches us:

Jesus Christ has made it clear that all Heavenly Father’s children have equal claim on the blessings of His gospel and Atonement. He reminds us that all “are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden” (2 Nephi 26:28).

“He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).

“He inviteth them all”—that means all of us! We should not place superficial labels and artificial distinctions on ourselves or others. We should never put up any barriers to the Savior’s love or entertain thoughts that we or others are beyond His reach. As I have said before, “It is not possible for [anyone] to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”

Instead, as Sister Holland and I taught just a few months before her passing, we are commanded to “have charity, which charity is love” (2 Nephi 26:30). This is the love the Savior shows us, for “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him” (2 Nephi 26:24).

This, the atonement, is the most precious truth of the gospel. It is profoundly personal and will bless us through the eternities. Our Father in Heaven knew we would need it, and he prepared the way for us to have it through his son who was willing to sacrifice everything so that all could be made right for each one of us, no matter how trivial or beyond saving we feel.

The most plain and precious truths of the gospel are centered on love. I know that God loves each of us individually and is an expert at personalizing our miracles. I may not know exactly how the atonement works, but I do know it does work and that it is a gift that has already been given to everyone who has lived or will live on this earth, and that it will never expire.

The cost of convenience

2024-01-31T16:23:00.004-07:00

It's a generally accepted fact that when presented with two options, humans will opt for the more convenient one most of the time. Entrepreneurs know this. Marketers exploit it. Teachers and students (not to mention parents and children) battle over it.

It's why so many things get invented. We humans like the path of least resistance.

As someone who hates wasting time/effort more than just about anything, I live on the path of least resistance. Anything that saves me a trip up the stairs, eliminates a meeting, combines two grocery store runs into one, or frees up time for leisure has high value in my life.

But I've noticed something the past few years. Our society expects convenience at a level it never has before. When we're constantly hustling from one thing to another, convenience becomes pretty important, but lately it feels like convenience is about more than just, well, convenience. It's about avoidance, too. Why endure a grueling commute to go to work when you can do the same work at home? Why make dinner when you can have someone bring it to your door? Why endure an awkward party or date when you can just message people from the comfort of your own home?

We've gotten used to modern conveniences making our lives easier. That's nothing new. It's what we've sacrificed for it—human connection—that has changed.

When the world started to open back up again after the pandemic, I recognized that I needed to put myself back out there—or else. It wasn't like it was when I was a teenager, when the worst thing that could happen to you was to be a social outcast. The stakes were much higher this time; it wasn't just my reputation that was on the line. After spending over a year at home alone, I was fighting for a smidgeon of a chance to live again, and that meant being out among the people.

It took some time. A lot of efforts went nowhere. There were—and still are—a lot of failures. But then, one day, I realized that I had more of a social life than I'd had since college. Even though having coworker friends was kind of off the table since I mostly worked remote, I had regular people in my life again outside family. I even valued random interactions with strangers more.

As much as I hate to give covid credit for anything good, my life is better today because of what I learned while spending a year at home. It forced me to prioritize relationships—of any kind—above comfort and convenience.

That being said, I still spend a good amount of time alone and I still opt for the convenient, less fulfilling option more times than I should. I'm also paying attention to what society as a whole is doing, and my observations have led me to believe that even though people have resumed normal life, most people spend less time socializing now than they did pre-covid. And it's not just because we're all busy working and raising families and catching up on all the TV shows. We've simply gotten used to our more efficient routines. Making plans and then following through with them feels like it requires more effort than it used to.

Our American independence is partly to blame, too. A lot of us got used to relying on ourselves when we were cut off from the world during covid, and that, my virtual friends, is a very hard habit to break. After all, why do something with people when you can just do it yourself (and probably more efficiently, too)?

These shifts in how we've spent our time the last few years, and who we spent it with, weren't always super noticeable. That is, until you saw the uptick in headlines about the rise of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Until you started seeing it in yourself and seemingly everyone around you.

There's always been plenty to be depressed and anxious about. This isn't a new reality for 2024. Strong relationships have always made these things easier—but prioritizing them is harder than it's ever been.

But prioritize them we must. The comforts of convenience can only get you so far.

2023 books: A greedy indulgence

2023-12-30T21:16:00.002-07:00

This year, I reached a new level of bookish nerdery. I've always had a disconnect between what I think I can read and what I'm actually able to read, but in 2023 I deluded myself into thinking that I could keep up with all the latest releases and catch up on some old titles. If you want something badly enough, you can make it happen, right?

As a result, my TBR (to be read) stack on my nightstand became an alarmingly high tower I fully expected to topple over one night while I was stress-dreaming about all the reading I hadn't gotten to yet.

July 2023. This book tower looks pretty reasonable compared to what it looked like in early December.

I also enjoyed several library binges, where I stretched my holds max (50 books) almost to the limit and established myself as one of those special patrons who regularly enters the library with a giant bag over one shoulder.

I was too scared to make a tower out of my library books, so I divided them up by genre and lined them up against the wall instead.

I was greedy about books this year, but still emerged from 2023 with far more unread books than I wanted. Something that always baffled Deluded Angie when she returned stacks of unread books to the library and her TBR stack kept getting taller, not shorter.

I was disciplined enough to read a good chunk of the books I bought or checked out from the library, but would have needed to quit my job or acquire speed-reading superpowers to devour even half of what was taunting me just at my house.

One thing I wasn't delusional about, though, was how good the reading was this year. 2023 was an exceptionally great year for new releases, and I've gotten pretty good at choosing books that are a good match for me, too—a crucial skill for any voracious reader who can't afford to waste time on bad or disappointing books.

Book stats

Goal: 80 books

Books read: 96. As much as it pains me to get so close to another 100-book year, I don't regret falling short. It means I had a life outside of the book world too, even if it doesn't look like it.

Pages read: 36,744 (about 368 pages per book). Is it just me, or are books getting longer? Seems like the average book length used to be 200–300 pages.

Books abandoned: 13

Rereads: ZERO. Considering how hard I tried to read all the new releases this year, this shouldn't surprise me, but it really does. Rereading books has been a part of my reading identity my whole life—I've never once gone a whole year without rereading something. I have a hunch I'll be rereading a lot of books next year, so equilibrium will be restored.

This graph demonstrates why I always have trouble answering the "What kinds of books do you read?" question. I don't know how to get straight to the point without leaving out important genre preferences.

Ratings

I've gotten less stingy with my star ratings the last few years, and it's rare that I finish a book that earns less than 3 stars from me. The result is a happier reading life.

Fiction vs. nonfiction

I read nonfiction much slower than I do fiction, but both are constants in my reading life.

Male vs. female authors

I could almost use the same pie chart for fiction vs. nonfiction and male vs. female authors. Most of my nonfiction books were written by men, whereas most of my fiction books were written by women.

Longest book: The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (724 pages).

Shortest book: Long Chills and Case Dough, by Brandon Sanderson (67 pages). Hilarious, considering Sanderson often gets the "longest book" callout on these recaps.

Favorites

I almost didn't pick favorites this year because narrowing it down to just two books felt more impossible than usual. But after I finished compiling this post I realized that I hadn't talked about a few of my favorites yet, so I decided to feature them as my official favorites. But just know that they share this honor with at least 10 other books.

Fiction: Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano. This is a story about four sisters, which was all it took to pique my interest, coming from a family of four girls (and one boy) myself. While this book isn't exactly a retelling of Little Women, it is an homage of sorts, and the sisters reference the March sisters much like my sisters and I did. I found a lot to relate to in this book, and it checked all my literary boxes.

Nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver. I found this memoir about a family that only ate locally grown food for a year fascinating. Food, in general, is a topic that interests me to no end (this isn't the first time I've picked a food-centric book for my favorite nonfiction pick), but this one made me want to overhaul my life and center it on nutritious food. I wouldn't go so far as to grow all of my own food, but a career pivot to something in the nutrition realm did cross my mind.

Book pairings

One of my favorite things about reflecting on my reading year is seeing the random themes that emerge. This year a lot of the themes came in pairs, so I decided to highlight some of them in book pairings.

Pandemic novels

I didn't seek out pandemic books this year, but two of my favorite books ended up being set during 2020. Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett, is about a family with three adult daughters who move back home to wait out the pandemic and help out at their parents' cherry orchard. It was such a lovely, comforting book, and it made me wish I could have spent the spring of 2020 picking cherries with my mom and sisters while our mom told us stories about her life.

Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim, is also a family story set during early covid, but it is anything but cozy. Instead of reminiscing together, this family is focused on figuring out why their dad disappeared, an event that had only one witness: his son who can't speak. I don't usually go for true crime / murder mystery type books, but this one had me hooked. It had so many layers to it and I learned so much about so many things as I raced through it.

Creepy guys stalking actors

I read a lot of books about actors this year, which definitely wasn't planned because I don't enjoy spending time with narcissists. Two of those actresses unfortunately had stalkers, as seen in The Eden Test by Adam Sternbergh and With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson. I actually enjoyed The Eden Test, but With My Little Eye really creeped me out. Parts of it hit a little too close to home, I guess. I don't think I'll be picking up another book with a stalker any time soon.

Aquatic POV characters

I kid you not—this popped up more than once this year. First was in Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which is about an octopus who helps solve crimes. Well, one crime. Which is more of a family mystery than a crime. The premise sounds gimmicky, but it actually works in what feels like a realistic way. Really enjoyed this book.

The other book, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, had an even weirder premise. In this world, people can get a strange disease kind of like Alzheimer's, but instead of slowly losing your memories and sense of self, you gradually transform into an animal. Lewis, a newlywed and drama teacher (again with the actors!), turns into a shark. It's a beautifully written love story, but was kind of an uncomfortable read. Seeing people turn into another species was a little bit too weird for me, even though, again, it was written in a way that felt very true to life.

Dinosaurs coming back TO life

I finally got around to reading Jurassic Park, and it was excellent. A zombified dinosaur makes an appearance in Jim Butcher's Dead Beat too, which was also very entertaining. Why are dinosaurs so much fun?

Opioids

One of my first nonfiction reads was Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain, which is about the Sackler family and the opioid crisis. A few months later I read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, thinking I was getting a reimagining of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (which it technically is), and instead getting another devastating account of how OxyContin destroys lives. Both were troubling reads, but well worth the time. I still think about them both often.

Maine

When I have a trip coming up, I like to read a book about or set in that place shortly before I leave. This is partly the Hermione in me wanting to do my homework, but it also amps up my excitement for the trip. I love getting to know a place in the pages of a book and then geeking out over it shortly thereafter in real life.

So with a family trip to Maine in September, I knew I would be reading at least one book set there. But apparently Maine is a popular place to visit in the literary world too, because it kept showing up in the books I was reading. (No complaints here—Maine is pretty great.) Happy Place by Emily Henry was my favorite of the batch. I love Emily Henry, and this was my favorite novel of hers. Flying Solo by Linda Holmes mentioned Bar Harbor (where we stayed) a few times, which made me very excited, but was otherwise kind of a lame book.

Epic races

This one is a bit of a stretch, but I wanted to make sure I talked about both of these books. They're both about racing to a finish line, in a way, so I'll make it work.

First is The Emerald Mile, by Kevin Fedarko, which chronicles the fastest trip down the Colorado River via boat, and wow it was a ride. The 1983 record was broken after this book came out, but it's still a thrilling read. Kind of surprised no one has turned it into a movie yet.

The epic race in The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer is much more my style, though. Instead of risking life and limb to shatter a record racing through the Grand Canyon, the characters in this book are on a quest (in Maine!) to win the last book written by a famous author. It's basically Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but with books. This was one of the biggest surprises of my reading year and is a great one if you need a little more hope in your life.

Year of Sanderson

I can't finish out this year without touching on the Year of Sanderson publishing experiment. I have no problem giving Brandon Sanderson more of my money, so I signed up for the subscription box on Kickstarer pretty much the moment I heard about it. The subscription included one box a month full of Sanderson goodies, including four secret novels Sanderson wrote during covid (plus a bonus short story from his college years).

I was mainly there for the books, obviously, but it was the fun swag items that impressed me the most. Lots of high-quality stuff (my Sanderson collection now rivals my Harry Potter collection) and so many creative ideas. Every time I opened a box I imagined how much fun it would be to be on Sanderson's marketing team. Maybe some day.

As for the books, I felt like they weren't up to Sanderson's usual standard, but I really enjoyed two of them and all of them are beautiful to look at. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was my favorite of the batch, in part because of this quote, which perfectly encapsulates why I don't enjoy endless sunny days, especially during the summer:

"There was a certain enervating effulgence of sunlight, sapping away strength, making him lethargic. Perhaps, Painter thought, that was what the sun subsisted on: burning as fuel the willpower of those who lived beneath it."

August 2023. The bookends I got in the Mistborn box prompted a full-on library reorganization, with Brandon's books taking the coveted spot at the top. The rest of my Sanderson paraphernalia is displayed on the little bookcase on the far left.

All the books I read in 2023

Bolded titles = books I rated 4.5 or 5 stars
DNF = did not finish

A Fire Endless, Rebecca Ross
The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende
Five Winters, Kitty Johnson
Keeper of Enchanted Rooms, Charlie N. Holmberg
3rd, 4th Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction, Daniel Beccera
We Are the Light, Matthew Quick
The Untold Story, Genevieve Cogman
Where the Drowned Girls Go, Seanan McGuire
The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman
Lunar Love, Lauren Kung Jessen
Someone Else's Shoes, Jojo Moyes
River Sing Me Home, Eleanor Shearer
The Perishing, Natashia Deon (DNF)
Blood Rites, Jim Butcher
American Gods, Neil Gaiman (DNF)
Georgie, All Along, Kate Clayborn
The Priesthood Power of Women: In the Temple, Church, and Family, Barbara Morgan Gardner
The Invisible Woman, Erika Robuck
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas
The Soulmate, Sally Hepworth
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Brandon Sanderson
The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman
Us Against You, Fredrik Backman
The Wilderwomen, Ruth Emmie Lang
A Court of Wings and Ruin, Sarah J. Maas
These Precious Days, Ann Patchett
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction, Adam S. Miller
The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley (DNF)
The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies, Ben Fritz
Sign Here, Claudia Lux
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
Love and Other Words, Christina Lauren
The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Brandon Sanderson
Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales
Travel as a Political Act, Rick Steves
The Once and Future King, T.H. White (DNF)
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
The Eden Test, Adam Sternbergh
Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life, Sutton Foster (DNF)
The Bookshop on the Shore, Jenny Colgan (DNF)
Happy Place, Emily Henry
The Last Thing He Told Me, Laura Dave
Heartburn, Nora Ephron
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, Kevin Fedarko
Watch Us Shine, Marisa de los Santos
To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (DNF)
Pandora, Susan Stokes-Chapman
Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture, Tom Hanks (DNF)
Ether: A Brief Theological Introduction: Rosalynde Frandsen Welch
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
King: A Life, Jonathan Eig
Recipe for Persuasion, Sonali Dev
I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, Nora Ephron
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, Brandon Sanderson
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, David McCullough (DNF)
With My Little Eye, Joshilyn Jackson
Lost in the Moment and Found, Seanan McGuire
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Torzs
Yellowface, R.F. Kuang
Same Time Next Summer, Annabel Monaghan (DNF)
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard
The Wishing Game, Meg Shaffer
The Gifts, Liz Hyder
No Two Persons, Erica Bauermeister
Homecoming, Kate Morton
The Collected Regrets of Clover, Mikki Brammer
The Secret Book of Flora Lea, Patti Callahan Henry
Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, Gretchen Rubin
Shark Heart, Emily Habeck
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
The Northern Reach, W.S. Winslow (DNF)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver
Apples Never Fall: Liane Moriarty
Flying Solo, Linda Holmes
The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For, David McCullough
Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
Moroni: A Brief Theological Introduction, David F. Holland
Dead Beat, Jim Butcher
Scarlet, Genevieve Cogman
Starling House, Alix E. Harrow
A Mirror Mended, Alix E. Harrow
Dead Voices, Katherine Arden
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic, Breanne Randall
Spells for Forgetting, Adrienne Young
The Sunlit Man, Brandon Sanderson
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (DNF)
The Lost Queen, Signe Pike
The Forgotten Kingdom, Signe Pike
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles C. Mann
Adult Assembly Required, Abbi Waxman
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano
The Mysteries, Bill Watterson
Love, Holly, Emily Stone
Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking, Adam S. Miller
The Last Russian Doll, Kristen Loesch
The Christmas Bookshop, Jenny Colgan
Long Chills and Case Dough, Brandon Sanderson
Happiness Falls, Angie Kim
A Winter in New York
Mr. Dickens and His Carol, Samantha Silva
Cytonic, Brandon Sanderson
Burning Questions, Margaret Atwood
Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson (DNF)

Previous book recaps

2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

A case for two types of vacations

2023-10-08T20:55:00.003-06:00

I recently returned from a vacation to Maine with most of my family. Getting 11 people, ages 4 to 60 with varying levels of adventurousness and budget constraints, to agree on the same itinerary is nigh unto impossible, so we didn't attempt it.

Instead, everyone kind of did what they wanted to do, switching groups (or breaking off alone) as necessary. Two main vacation strategies emerged from this shuffle, resulting in two very different trips that took place at the same time, same place.

Vacation type 1: Rest and relaxation

We've all fantasized about perfect getaways when life wears us out. And I think for a lot of us, that getaway involves a whole lot of peace and quiet. Preferably somewhere pretty with reasonable temperatures.

For me, that "someplace pretty" looks a lot like this: tucked away from the world and surrounded by trees.

For those of us with R&R at the top of our vacation wishlists, Maine delivered.

Imagine waking up to this view just outside your bedroom window every day. It's a lot better than looking at the back of your neighbor's house, that's for sure.

All I need for some good R&R is a cozy reading spot. This house had several. (A word to the wise: if you ever decide to Airbnb your house, a library is always a good idea.)

For those wondering, I read four books on this trip. Started and finished two and read about half of two others, totaling to about 1,100 pages. Complete and total book nerd wish fulfillment right there.

The hammock was also a popular reading spot, but it was hard to get a turn on it unless your name was Shannan.

Of course, relaxation doesn't have to take place indoors. One of the great things about Maine is that you don't have to choose between a mountain or beach for your relaxation. You get the best of both worlds in the same spot.

Your R&R will come to a painful end if you try to get in the freezing water though. But if the sound of the rushing waves is your jam, you can get that here.

I never really got used to being able to see the ocean from the mountains. It was a difficult concept for my desert brain to compute.

My number one priority in Maine, however, was to eat well. Because even the well rested needs to refuel. The food lived up to the hype and forever ruined me for normal food. Everything I've eaten since then has been disappointing.

It's okay to slow down for vacation and just rest. Sometimes that's what we need most from our hard-earned vacation days: a chance to heal.

Vacation type 2: Adventuring

If taking it easy sounds like a waste of your time off, might I offer another suggestion: adventures from sun-up till sun-down. After all, if you're going to visit a new place, you might as well explore every inch that you can and do stuff you wouldn't be able to do at home.

While I'm more the type to find great joy from staying home, I'm up for the occasional adventure. So I joined the Searles (aka, the adventure crew) for one of their hikes. Which basically amounted to rock climbing. Something I, a scaredy cat about heights, have never enjoyed.

I told myself that if my 8-year-old nephew could do it, then I could. Even though, let's be honest, my nephews are way braver than I am. But that mantra helped me hold on to some of my dignity while I was clinging to the hand rails.

I'm still a little mystified that I not only got through the hike, I enjoyed. Like, it was a highlight of the trip for me. Maybe it was because it wasn't a very tall mountain. Maybe it was because I always had something to hang on to. Maybe I was just too focused on climbing over boulders to ever look down and think about falling.

The only regret from this trip is that we were there a few weeks too early for New England's famous fall leaves. But we saw more colors from this elevation than we did anywhere else.

Of course, any time we got to a spot that allowed us to spread out and take a break, I stayed as far away from the edge as possible. You don't have to stand at the edge of a cliff to enjoy a view, after all.

The Searles might disagree with that statement, but I stand by what I said. Where it's safe. Away from the edge.

I went on a couple hikes during girls camp that made me hate hiking, but after 20 years or so I've forgiven my young women leaders for their unintended lies about "easy" hikes and have been more open to the idea lately. After this hike, I was ready to go home and make it my new hobby.

Adventuring is about more than facing your fears, though. Sometimes all you need to do is explore. The Searles' exploration escapades led them to Thunder Hole, which is a hole in a rock that empties and fills up with water for all of eternity and makes a crash like thunder whenever a big wave comes in. It's mesmerizing to watch.

Hard to photograph properly, though.

This little spot had lots more boulders for my rock-climbing nephews to master, but by then my adventuring mood was waning with the sun, so I sat back to enjoy the view, ready to go back to my R&R sanctuary.

An attempt to compromise

There was one activity the relaxers, adventurers, and hermits all wanted to do: whale watching. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. Our first tour was canceled because the ocean was still too tumultuous from Hurricane Lee, and our second was canceled because the boat broke down. (While we were on it, might I add. But they turned around and took us back to the harbor before things could get interesting.)

Waiting for the boat to take off was thrilling.

The verdict

You've probably already picked a side regarding which type of vacation is best. But, as someone who did it both ways on this trip, I'm here to tell you that they're both great. And if you're looking for a place that appeals to lots of different personalities, I would give Bar Harbor, Maine 5 stars.

A temple for Saratoga Springs

2023-07-20T16:20:00.006-06:00

Eight years ago, I watched from a distance as my secondary hometown, Payson, Utah, got a new temple. I attended the ground-breaking, open house, and dedication, so I suppose I was a more active participant than "watching from a distance" lets on, but I knew this wouldn't be a temple I visited regularly. When you live in Utah, an hour is more than most of us are willing to drive to get to a Latter-day Saint temple.

A few years later, another temple was announced for Utah County: Saratoga Springs. I lived in Midvale at the time and was happy to hear that new temples were getting a little closer to Salt Lake County (my temple, Jordan River, was always insanely busy), but didn't know at the time that this would one day be my hometown temple.

Construction started making real progress in 2020, after I'd lived in Eagle Mountain for two years and had made the field that separated the temple from my neighborhood one of my walking routes.

I've been dreading the extra traffic on Redwood this temple will bring, but it's easy to see why they picked this spot for the temple. The view of the lake and mountains is spectacular.

While we were stuck in COVID limbo, construction on the Saratoga Springs Temple was one of the only things in my life that was progressing at all. Once those walls started to go up, I took a temple selfie every time I was out in that field to mark its progress. Having grown up in a semi-remote town that required a car to get anywhere, living within walking distance of something so majestic made me feel, well, cool. That's when it really started to feel like my temple.

October 2020. Yes, I was ridiculously late to the wireless headphones party.

After some supply-chain delays, the open house finally started earlier this year, and lasted for 12 weeks, the longest open house in the history of the church. This gave me plenty of opportunities to volunteer. I provided background music in the chapel next door three or four times and served once as a counting usher. Of course I was happy to help with the music, but I was also excited to put one of my other natural gifts to good use as a counting usher: sitting silently in the corner.

About halfway through the open house, my giant singles ward was split into three. I ended up in one of the new wards, helmed by none other than the guy who was in charge of the ushering committee at the open house, a role that was basically a full-time job and involved working with thousands of volunteers—not to mention visitors—every day. He and his wife got the call right there in the temple.

My entire bishopric, in fact—and their wives—was heavily involved with the open house ushering committee. Amidst the chaos of building a brand new ward from scratch, the bishopric arranged to give our ward a private tour of the temple, which would include walking through rooms that weren't part of the regular tour.

Despite the early start time—7:30 a.m. on a Saturday, before the regular tours started at 9—many of us jumped at the chance. I was especially looking forward to seeing the bride's room and the children's waiting area. (Mom, you would have LOVED the adorable, exquisite table and chairs in the children's waiting room.)

But I soon realized that the bishopric had more in mind than a special VIP tour. This truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Many wards do ward temple days, but most have never had the opportunity to book the entire temple for just their ward. To not only look around, but to be instructed and inspired by their leaders, like the early saints had done during Joseph Smith's time.

We did.

Seeing the stained glass windows and beautiful artwork (so much artwork!) and intricate architectural details is a sacred experience on its own. But it was the times we gathered together in the larger rooms that I'll remember most years from now. As we sat in a couple of the chapels, a sealing room, and an endowment room, each member of the bishopric and their wives took some time to bear their testimonies and share some of the miracles they had witnessed during the open house. Our brand-new Elder's Quorum and Relief Society presidents shared some thoughts as well. And when we were in the Celestial Room, we sat in silence for about 10 minutes, pondering and soaking in the sweet spirit that surrounded all of us.

It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. One of those times where you don't just feel the Holy Ghost on the inside—you feel it outside of you too, in the very air around you. It was a feeling so all-encompassing it took days to wear off completely—I had an unusually good week after that, which are hard to come by in the summer.

If you need help finding me, I'm the one who's having the most trouble keeping my eyes open with the sun blasting us in the face.

Latter-day Saint temples are more than beautiful edifices. They're not meant to be a status symbol, or a reminder of the church's wealth. They are literal houses of God, where we can feel peace and do work that has eternal significance. Even seeing the Saratoga Springs Temple when I'm driving around or out on my walks gives me hope. Temples dotting the earth are a blessing for everyone, and I'm excited to continue to be a part of the newest one in Saratoga Springs.

Temple lights + supermoon = pure awesomeness

How Harrison Ford became my grandpa

2023-05-25T20:52:00.009-06:00

I'm not sure when I first noticed the resemblance. Possibly as early as 2013 when the Ender's Game movie came out, but it was probably around 2015, when all the Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens hoopla was happening. Harrison Ford was all over the place, in all his silver-haired glory.

In fact, it was the silver hair that finally clued me in to something I hadn't seen before: this man looked an awful lot like my grandpa.

It's true. All of it.

I mentioned the uncanny resemblance to my dad, and he agreed, saying, "He looks a lot like Grandpa Rushton." From his tone, I gathered that he had made this connection decades ago, but I was still reeling somewhat from the realization that one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors looked like someone in my own family. (An uncle and at least one cousin also got the Harrison Ford gene, so his legacy lives on in the Rushton line.)

The resemblance only grows as Harrison Ford (80) approaches the age my grandpa was when he died (84). This week, I started watching Shrinking on Apple TV, which has been a bizarre experience. My sharpest memories of Grandpa Rushton are from the end of his life, so watching current-day Harrison Ford onscreen is like watching my grandpa live an alternate life, one where he still has Parkinson's but is spared Alzheimer's, and is a therapist into his old age.

What Harrison Ford looks like now.

What Grandpa Rushton looked like then.

Now, you might be thinking that there's some resemblance there. The white hair, obviously. The sort of crooked smile. The similar jaw structure. But it's not like they're identical.

But that's the funny thing about memory. Our memories change over time, and if you go long enough without seeing someone, you might start thinking you have a special connection to some guy you've never met, simply because he reminds you of someone you've lost.

Malcolm Gladwell did a Revisionist History episode about memory once. He used 9/11, an event everyone over the age of 25 remembers, to illustrate how our memories aren't as reliable as we think they are.

Researchers conducted surveys of what people remembered about the 9/11 attacks. They compiled their first set of answers a week after the attacks, then again a year after, three years after, and 10 years after. And while people were confident that their memories of that day were accurate, the data told a different story. Often, the accounts from the first week were different from accounts documented years later.

I've seen this phenomena play out in my life. My brother said for years that he got in his infamous bike accident on 9/11. He crashed his bike, the road scuffed up his face, our neighbor rescued him, and then he drank bean and bacon soup through a straw until the swelling in his bottom lip went down.

His telling never seemed quite right to me though, so I dug out my journal from that day and had one of my very first "Well, actually" moments. Because I documented this traumatic event the day it happened, I captured important details my brother hadn't retained—like the date. It was the following Tuesday, September 18, not September 11. He probably just saw the Twin Towers news coverage on TV at our neighbor's house and merged the two events together.

Grandpa Rushton died when I was 18, and I don't remember a whole lot from before he had Alzheimer's. Still, he's a solid presence in a lot of memories of Christmas parties, 4th of July gatherings, and softball games (he had an umbrella hat!).

But sometimes I think I might be merging my memories of Grandpa Rushton with his real-life doppelgänger. Was Grandpa actually a crusty old guy, or do I only think that because some guy who looks like him often plays the crusty old guy on TV? Did Grandpa Rushton actually have a crooked smile, or is Harrison Ford's smile just filling in the holes in my memory? Was Grandpa Rushton really the kind of person who makes snarky comments, or do I just think that because I've seen Harrison Ford make snarky comments in interviews?

It can be hard to separate the two, but I think I've come to a compromise. I have four grandpas now, not three. Grandpa Rushton, Grandpa Jackson, Grandpa Bill . . . and Harrison Ford.

A gift that never expires

2023-04-16T19:52:00.002-06:00

A few years ago, my sister invited me over to her house for dinner. When I arrived, my nephew answered the door. He looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said, "You were gone too long."

It had been eight days. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it amount of time for me, but a long wait for a three-year-old.

I've thought about this moment a lot since then. And not just because it's one of the sweetest things a niece or nephew has ever said to me. It reminds me of the kind of love our Father in Heaven has for us.

My relationship with God is, in many ways, a relationship like any other. I update him on my life. Ask for favors. Tell him I need my space. Get frustrated about our communication issues.

It's also unlike any other relationship I've had. God asks far more of me than anyone else does. He's always trying to teach me a lesson and is often slow to answer prayers, which leads to a lot of resentment and anger on my end. Sometimes it feels like the only healthy thing to do is break up with him and strike out on my own. Find new friends who don't make me work so hard.

I always end up coming back, though. I agree with what Pres. Russell M. Nelson said at the October 2022 General Conference: "The truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it! However, when you yoke yourself to Jesus Christ and do the spiritual work required to overcome the world, He, and He alone, does have the power to lift you above the pull of this world."

The coolest part of having a relationship with God is that he doesn't care how many times we've cast him off. He's not keeping track of how many chances we have left. He doesn't get annoyed that the lessons he's trying to teach us don't seem to stick for long.

And he notices how long we've been gone, even if we don't. And for him, it's always too long, even though he understands why we're keeping our distance.

So like my nephew did that day, he waits at the door for our knock. And when that knock finally comes, he opens the door right away. Not with a rebuke and an "I told you so," but with a hug and an invitation to sit by him at the dinner table.

We're not perfect, but God's love for us is. There aren't a lot of things we can count on in this world, but God's love is a gift that never expires.

828 days

2023-04-06T20:29:00.011-06:00

The last time I updated this blog, we were all talking about the results of the 2020 election and the Covid vaccine, which wasn't yet available for the general public. I was eagerly awaiting the season 2 premiere of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and preparing myself to return to an unfulfilling job after a rejuvenating Christmas break. It was the day before my last grandparent died and a week before I found my first gray hair.

I didn't expect to come back.

In fact, last summer I officially declared my blog dead. Cause of death: not enough creativity and passion to keep it going. I was no longer a person who wrote for fun. So I compiled the last few years of posts into a book to store next to my other blog books, a relic of my past that I could remember fondly but couldn't revive.

I like to blame Covid for killing my creative mojo, but it really started about a year earlier due to a job that was sucking the life out of me. Then Covid came along and finished the job. Career angst followed by a pandemic did a real number on my mental health, and after a while I accepted that I was permanently altered. I had evolved to be the type of person who enjoys others' creations but doesn't create any of my own.

Halfway through 2021, things started to get better. The world was opening up again, adding some much-needed variety to my life that had become a comfortable form of solitary confinement. I got a new job that was enjoyable and fulfilling, with management that valued me for my strengths rather than dismissed me because of my weaknesses. I went back to a singles ward.

I made the changes I needed to get my life back on track, and my life significantly improved. I was more well-rested than I'd ever been as an adult due to my work-from-home lifestyle. I went on a few dates. My hair may have started turning gray, but it was also curlier than ever due to not needing to straighten it into submission as often. I could watch sports with real people in the background rather than cardboard cut-outs and glitchy Zoom attendees.

While all of this improved my mental state, it wasn't enough to re-light that creative spark. I could do enough to stay employed, but nothing more. Which wasn't the worst side effect of two years of pandemic living, all things considered. I was painfully aware of how much worse things could be, so I accepted that I had different priorities now and moved on.

Things continued to improve in 2022. After my carefully-thought-out New Year's resolutions in 2020 were blown to bits, I was hesitant to make optimistic plans again, but I did make one resolution for 2022: spend less time alone.

So I joined my ward choir. I dubbed Wednesday my mandatory, midweek get-out-of-the-house day, which usually involved either going in to the office or going out to lunch. I became a regular at institute. I tried to take advantage of the fact that my whole family lives within an hour's drive of me and, like, hang out with them more.

I did big things, too. I signed up for BYU's organ workshop so I could check "learn to play the organ" off my bucket list, and basically had the best week of my life pretending to be a BYU student again. (This is what book nerds do for fun when they aren't reading.) I joined the Stadium of Fire Chorus partly so I'd get a free ticket to see Tim McGraw, partly so I could use "I was once a backup singer for Marie Osmond" the next time I got roped into a Two Truths and a Lie game, and partly to stay busy so I could stay on top of my seasonal depression tendencies. (I am one of those special people who gets it during the summer, rather than the winter.) I went on vacation with my family and checked off another item on my bucket list: "go river rafting." (This was sadly a disappointing experience. I think everyone in my party would agree that it was a huge pain in the butt.) I went on a few more dates, tried a few new dating apps, and then swore off dating apps forever for the 80th time.

I was happier than I'd been in years, and that little creative spark even flickered from time to time. My boss's comments on my writing at work changed from "You're a great technical writer, but can you make this more exciting/creative?" to "Looks good!" on pretty much everything. I started entertaining the possibility of starting a brand new blog, one with an actual focus and a URL that makes sense to people outside my family.

Of course, this put me up against an old foe of mine: laziness. Starting a new website is a lot of work; I didn't have the energy for that and the writing. So, again, I accepted that I wasn't really a creative person anymore anyway, and focused on the good thing my life had become despite what I lost during Covid.

Which brings me to 2023. So far, my only real complaint about this year has been the always-winter-and-never-Christmas time warp we're stuck in. Like, this week ski resorts in Utah had to close because there was too much snow. In APRIL. Usually snow makes me positively giddy, but breaking all the records this winter kind of broke me too.

But while I've been bundled up for cold evening walks or enduring more treadmill workouts of doom in my depressing basement, I've noticed something a little different about myself the past few months. I spend more time thinking about all the things than I do listening to my favorite podcasts, the ones I'm only allowed to listen to when I work out. Even more annoyingly, I've been losing sleep at night because my brain won't stop constructing sentences and paragraphs out of all those thoughts.

I haven't felt this way in years. It was all this overthinking, in fact, that inspired me to start this blog in the first place, 13 years ago. I told people it was meant to be a creative outlet, but I really just needed something to help me sleep at night.

Last night as I was ruminating on my creative journey the past few years (and definitely NOT sleeping), I felt like I was reverting back to my fresh-from-college self. But it didn't feel like backsliding. It was more like my brain was demanding that I make room for something I used to love, now that it doesn't have to work so hard to keep me mentally neutral.

A lot can happen in 828 days. You can lose a part of yourself, grow in other ways to fill the void, and then bring something you thought was gone for good back to life.

So here I am, back in the blogging space. It may not be the most sophisticated platform, it may not be the most relevant or respectable hobby, but I'm reclaiming this space anyway. Not just because my journal is no longer cutting it as a way to get thoughts out of my head, but because writing has, against all odds, become fun again. As in, you-don't-have-to-pay-me-to-do-this fun.

It's a nice feeling. One that I hope lasts.

2020 books: Easy reading for a hard year

2020-12-30T14:24:00.001-07:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the year of 2020 sucked.

That's why my 2020 reading year was all about escapism. I did not challenge myself. I didn't learn anything new. I didn't "make the most of my free time" by tackling all 950 books on my TBR (to be read) list. (I did, however, finally get to a lot of the TV shows I've been meaning to watch for years, so at least I can say I accomplished something worthwhile.)

This year I simply needed to be entertained. Distracted. Which for me meant a lot of chick lit, a lot of fantasy, and a lot of re-reads. 2020 was a blacked-out Bingo card of Bad Things, but at least the books were good.

Let's get to it.

Goal: 52

Books read: 87

Pages read: 38,765 (446 pages per book, 81 pages per day)

This stat really surprised me. Last year was my banner book year at 101 books read, but this year I surpassed last year's page count by a couple thousand. All year I thought the pandemic hadn't affected my reading volume that much, when in reality I read more pages than I've ever read in a single year. See the next stat.

Longest book: The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (1,443 pages)

But Brandon Sanderson's Rhythm of War deserves a shoutout too. It's "only" 1,232 pages, but I'm pretty sure the word count is higher.

18 of the books I read this year were over 500 pages. Length does not intimidate me.

Shortest book: Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler (192 pages)

Weirdly, this book shares a similarity with the two books above: slow plot progression. It was a quick read, just not heavy on plot.

First reads: 68

Rereads: 19

Books not finished: 14

Another pandemic effect on my reading was that for months I had a reeeeeally hard time focusing, especially during the summer. So if a book didn't grab me right away or required too much concentration, I tossed it.*

Really surprised I only abandoned 14 books. It felt like much more than that.

*I only count the books I finished as "read" for the year. So these 14 books aren't included in any of my stats except this one.

Ratings

I wasn't as willing to settle for mediocre or difficult books this year, so naturally my ratings are higher than usual.

Fiction vs. nonfiction

Not a lot of nonfiction this year. Reality isn't an escapist destination of mine.

Speaking of destinations, this year I tracked the settings of the books I read (when the setting was relevant). This isn't a bad overview of places I turn to when I want to get away from reality.

This graphic is hard to read so here are the highlights: US (54%), UK (17%), Hogwarts (8%), other/unnamed fantasy world (8%), the Middle East (3%), Sweden/Russia/Panem/Mexico/Middle Earth/Switzerland/France/Roshar (1%).

Male vs. female

I think 2020 was the most female-heavy year I've had since I started doing these yearly recaps. Probably because of all the chick lit I read. (I don't love the term "chick lit," but for simplicity's sake I'm going to use it anyway. Just know that I don't consider chick lit a mere guilty pleasure but rather a genre that has produced some really great writing and stories.)

Where all these books came from

Another area where the pandemic effect comes through. With libraries being closed for a couple months and then having to wait much longer for holds to become available, I turned to my wallet quite a bit more for my book needs.

Plus I was trying to keep independent bookstores in business by myself. I'm proud to say that none of the books I read this year were purchased from Amazon.

A quick plug on book subscriptions: they are my favorite gifts to give myself. If you're looking for ways to bump up your reading, the Book of the Month Club usually has some great selections (two of my top fiction picks came from this subscription). Peace and Pages is a fun one if you want the book to be a surprise—you also get some other goodies with it!

Favorite book, fiction

You're getting three books this year. Each checked all the boxes for a perfect-for-me book:

Great writing
Complex and interesting characters
Relatable in an unexpected way, made me see the world in a new way, or made me feel things deep inside my soul
Satisfying ending (which doesn't necessarily mean a happy one)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Literature is full of doors acting as portals to other worlds. That concept is beautifully explored in this novel.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

This book is marketed as a bank robbery that goes comically wrong, but it's really about adults who are failing at adulting in some way. This year, more than any other, I often felt like I wasn't measuring up. Backman captures the fears and anxieties—big or small—that may lie dormant at times but never leave you. Every few pages I found myself thinking, "This book gets me," or "Oh, good. I'm not the only one."

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Addie Larue makes an ill-advised deal with the devil that grants her immortality, but with a price: no one will remember her. Schwab doesn't hold back on exploring the heartbreak of this kind of life, but Addie finds a freedom in it, too. Of all the superpowers I've considered for my hypothetical superhero life, invisibility has the strongest pull for me. When you're invisible, you don't have to act the way society expects you to act. You can go where you're not supposed to go. Find safety from social anxieties and real-life demons. Try things you would never have the guts to do with someone's eyes on you. This book really made me think about what makes life worth living and the sacrifices you have to make to keep what's most important.

Favorite book, nonfiction: Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

If you don't count my road trip to the Grand Canyon, I ate inside a restaurant just 2-3 times this year. Reading this book during dine-in and travel restrictions only made me yearn to travel more, but it also helped fill the void. Reichl's food descriptions are so good you can taste the food along with her, and the disguises/personas she created whenever she went out to eat were fun as well. A very well written, entertaining, comforting read.

Favorite reread: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

This book has all the qualities my top fiction picks have. I picked it up again because I remembered being fascinated that each flower has a meaning, but I got much more than that the second time. This is a story about a young girl who triumphs, despite everything in her past working against her. It's a difficult book at times, but a hopeful one.

Book recommendations for every pandemic mood

The books I read this year directly correlated with whatever pandemic mood I was experiencing at the time. Here are some of the highlights.

Let's all make bread: Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Not to brag or anything, but I've been making bread for years. So when it became everyone's favorite hobby this spring it was super irritating because I couldn't buy yeast for two months. But, I get it. Everything about bread-making is comforting: the labor, the taste, the smell, the trial-and-error learning process. The Little Beach Street Bakery series is about a woman who loses everything—her job, her house and car, her boyfriend—and moves to a tiny Cornish town by the sea to open her own bakery. Through her I got to live my fantasy of leaving the corporate world forever for a simpler, more charming one, and it helped me get through the worst month of my life.

Novice gardening: The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

While I was making bread before it was cool, I did jump on the gardening bandwagon this year. My backyard is about the size of a sandbox, so I haven't done anything with it except let the weeds take over.

Summer 2019

So I joined the throng of people flooding Home Depot's website to do something about my weed patch. Armed with long sleeves, gloves, and allergy medication, I waged battle on those weeds and won. It was a lot more work than I anticipated and it took my back weeks to recover (which was less time than it took my back to mostly recover from sitting on a bad chair during that first month of working from home, go figure). But in the end I had an obviously-not-professionally-done woodchip "backyard" to enjoy while I read outside on those glorious summer nights.

Summer 2020

Around this time I also read a book about a character who joins a gardening club as a way to help her work through the grief of losing her husband a few years earlier. Manual labor is a gift in situations like these, whether you're mourning the loss of a loved one or the loss of normal life. It puts you to work, keeps your hands busy and your mind engaged on a simple task. It certainly helped me get through part of a really rough summer.

(If you are bookishly nerdy at all, I highly recommend Abbi Waxman's next book, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. It's funny and relatable in the most delightful ways. And it confirms my theory that introverts are the funniest people.)

A yearning to travel: The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

Garlic and Sapphires is the obvious pick for this category, but since I already talked about it here's another book that made me want to travel (to Scotland, specifically). It's a book about a writer. She stays in a cottage in Scotland and writes, and when she's not writing she's meeting handsome Scottish men. I cannot tell you how deeply I envied her non-traditional work life. Most of us have to sell our souls to the 9-to-5 corporate life to acquire and sustain independence—a steep price that's worth the cost, however much it sucks at times. Traveling temporarily frees you from whatever keeps you tied down, and this book make me yearn for that freedom.

I am under house arrest: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I've spent most of my year alone. I live alone, work from home, and don't have many social opportunities these days. I'd still say quarantining alone is 1,000 times better than quarantining with roommates—even quarantining with family would be difficult—but it's had its challenges. Too much time with my own thoughts, going a little crazy, time passing differently, that kind of thing. Piranesi is about a guy trapped in a strange house all by himself, and even though this wasn't written to be a quarantine novel, the novel captures the essence of what it's like to be trapped inside a familiar space while the world outside rages with uncertainty. Really strange but cool book.

Escape to a simpler time: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I'm not an Austenite, but I do have an academic appreciation for her work. This year I pulled out my Austen anthology because I wanted to go to a simpler world with simpler problems. And I actually enjoyed it for its entertainment value, rather than just as a literary classic! Jane Austen is a clever, funny lady.

Understanding the darker side of humanity: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Books on racism and social issues surged this year, but I wasn't one of the many people seeking those books out. The civil unrest I saw in the news every day maxed me out. This book was the exception. Gladwell makes some fascinating points about how bad we are at judging people based on first impressions, which leads to some disturbing situations. This is the book that opened my eyes to the prejudices I have that I didn't realize I had. Highly recommended.

I wish time would go by faster: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I don't read a lot of thrillers and crime novels, but I went through a "just give me lots of action" phase this summer. The way time dragged in 2020 probably had something to do with it. I couldn't force this horrible year to skip to the end, but I could distract myself with books where lots of stuff happens. Most of the thrillers I attempted I abandoned, but I really enjoyed revisiting The Da Vinci Code. English major snobs like me don't have a lot of love for Dan Brown, but I'm not ashamed to admit I like this book. The symbology stuff is fascinating.

Just take me to a whole new world: The Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty (City of Brass, Kingdom of Copper, and Empire of Gold)

Technically these books didn't take me off of planet Earth. They take place in the Middle East, but inside hidden cities only magical beings know about. So it counts. This is one of the best new fantasies I've found in a long time. It takes a little effort to learn the world (at least, it does when your pandemic brain doesn't want to focus), but it ends up being a unique, fun, and diverting reading experience.

All the 2020 books (my favorites are bolded):

The Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley
Terror in Paris, Dave Admire
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow
Black Tide, Brett Diffley
Black Dawn, Brett Diffley
Abigail Adams, Woody Holton
Until the Iris Bloom, Tina Olton
A Noble Story, David Drayer
Something Fierce, David Drayer
The Shortest Way Home, Elaine Reidy
Little Beach Street Bakery, Jenny Colgan
Pearl Tail, M.A. Burk
Someday, Someday, Maybe, Lauren Graham
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, Jenny Colgan
Tuesday's Child, Carolyn Gibbs
Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery, Jenny Colgan
The Fiery Cross, Diana Gabaldon
Writers and Lovers, Lily King
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
In Five Years, Rebecca Serle
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know, Malcolm Gladwell
Beach Read, Emily Henry
The Night the Lights Went Out, Karen White
I Miss You When I Blink: Dispatches from a Relatively Ordinary Life, Mary Laura Philpott
The Dream Daughter, Diane Chamberlain
The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
A Million Junes, Emily Henry
I'd Give Anything, Marisa de los Santos
Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler
A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Diana Gabaldon
The Last Flight, Julie Clark
The Perfect Couple, Elin Hilderbrand
The Infinite Atonement, Tad R. Callister
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, Erik Larson
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, Ruth Reichl
Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen
The Last to See Me, M Dressler
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, Abbi Waxman
The Garden of Small Beginnings, Abbi Waxman
The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Klune
The City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Midnight Sun, Stephenie Meyer
Summers at Castle Auburn, Sharon Shinn
Princess Academy, Shannon Hale
Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale
The Forgotten Sisters, Shannon Hale
Why We Sleep: Unblocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker
Storm Front, Jim Butcher
Fool Moon, Jim Butcher
Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
Heidi, Johanna Spyri
Kind of a Big Deal, Shannon Hale
Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
One to Watch, Kate Stayman-London
Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh
28 Summers, Elin Hilderbrand
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution, Nathaniel Philbrick
No Unhallowed Hand: 1846-1893, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab
The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Charlotte Bronte
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand
Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand
This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens
Intertwine by Nichole Van

Previous years:

2019
2018
2017

2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

A silent summer

2020-09-16T20:23:00.004-06:00

Hello darkness, my old friend.

That's how I greeted most mornings during the Covid summer of 2020. It's the opening line of a song everybody but me knew, "The Sound of Silence," until a TV show educated me. It's been reverberating in my brain ever since I heard it on Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist in April. It haunts the silence of my quarantined life.

Working from home full time while living alone was never a lifestyle I wanted. It's the main reason I never seriously pursued a full-time freelance career because that much aloneness, even for someone who is 92% introverted, is not a healthy way to live. But as a society we've decided that the only definition of health that matters right now is being virus free.

So my life entered a silence I've never experienced before. The pandemic took away most of my reasons to leave the house and all the variety that comes with each excursion. Live TV entertainment went away for a while, unless you were desperate enough to watch corn hole or golf. (I was not.)

Something had to fill that void, and the void was too big for me to fill with hobbies, exercise, and family visits.

"Fools," said I, "You do now know
Silence, like a cancer grows"

I had a job, my health, my family, and my faith. A solid foundation for a good, happy life. But the quarantine lifestyle hampered my ability to focus, to be content, to find any silver lining. I wanted to create and learn during my quasi house arrest, but that meant facing the nihilistic boredom first. Something I did not have the energy for.

People writing songs that voices never share

Life was about surviving now, not living.

But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

These are not silent times we live in; we've been shouting at each other for months about masks and Black Lives Matter and the 2020 election.

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening

The silence I'm talking about isn't a simple lack of noise. It's merely the result of exchanging a complete life for a lonely, unfulfilling one. Our weapon against COVID-19 demands that we do something humanity is not evolved to do: stay away from each other. For months. And months and months.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone

This kind of silence consumes you, defines your very existence.

Until one day you start to believe what you've been telling yourself all along: this, too, will end. Nothing on this earth lasts forever. Not happiness, not suffering.

The song that narrated your life will become a memento of your past. Your favorite season will begin and you'll start talking about the hard times in the past tense. You'll finish the blog post you've been writing for weeks.

You'll find that you can, in fact, manage the silence, even if your situation is unchangeable. And, like this flower in my home-office window, reach through the shadows for the life-giving light.

The great creativity drain of 2020

2020-05-13T16:10:00.001-06:00

Document what you're going through, they say. Future generations will want eye-witness accounts of these—here comes the overused phrase we all hate now—unprecedented times.

As someone who writes as a way to navigate through life, I want to regale you with worthwhile reading about challenges we're facing in 2020. But my creative ability has been yet another casualty in a year that has been defined by loss.

But wait! they say. Now you have the time to do all the things you always said you'd do! Power through and make the most of it while you still can!

Instead of jumping aboard the productive optimism train, I fill my free time indulging in comforting activities. Watching TV shows like Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and Schitt's Creek. Baking bread. Gardening. Walking. Reading the books. Sleeping, even.

That's my contribution for prosperity: I got through a pandemic by making the most of the solitary, no-thinking-required activities available to me. Without feeling guilty about it. Because #Selfcare.

Let someone else write the next great American novel. I'll be outside pulling weeds.

How COVID-19 made Harry Potter more relatable

2020-04-19T15:09:00.001-06:00

I allow myself the pleasure of revisiting the Harry Potter series for one of two reasons: 1) the strong desire to be transported back into the wizarding world becomes too distracting to ignore, or 2) I need to escape my present circumstances.

For the reread I just finished, it was the latter. Starting a new job during a pandemic hasn't exactly been a picnic; almost as stressful as the brief unemployment stint that preceded it. "Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home," J.K. Rowling says, and I needed home—a familiar home unaffected by personal and world events—in a big way.

But still the coronavirus would not be ignored. Not only had it changed my work life, my home life, and my social life, but it was bleeding into my imaginary life, too. I started seeing Harry Potter/COVID-19 parallels everywhere.

Book 2, for instance, might as well be a COVID-19 allegory. Hogwarts is threatened by a monster no one understands. Quidditch is canceled. (I feel your pain on a whole new level now, Oliver Wood.) Lockhart is that guy who thinks he understands what's going on better than people with PhDs and decades of experience. Ernie Macmillan echoes what everyone has been preaching lately when he says, "We're all in the same boat."

There are little moments scattered throughout the series that brought me back to reality, again and again. Witches and wizards just trying to get their essential shopping over with so they can return to their homes, away from the boarded up shops and worried shoppers. Dementors making everyone more stressed, worried, depressed. When the trio is camping for months, Harry feels the isolation deeply, even though he knows his isolation is necessary for his safety and, ultimately, the liberation of the wizarding world. Fred and George can't go to work with Death Eaters after them, so they try to run their business via mail order from their aunt's house.

Art reflects life, and in this case art became an unwelcome prophecy fulfilled. A picture of what life would become when our world was threatened by something so big it would change even the smallest details of our lives.

But at least in Harry's case, he got a magical education and exciting adventures. We only get the residual effects of a contagious virus, without J.K. Rowling's hilarious asides to lighten the mood. Harry had foes he could go out and fight, while our best defense is to hide, knowing that there will be casualties whatever we do.

But what I envy most about Harry Potter is this: his battles had endings. He left the Dursleys and found friends. Love. He won Quidditch matches, the Triwizard Tournament. He escaped Voldemort several times, and eventually defeated him. He made mistakes and sustained heavy losses along the way, but always, he got an ending.

What we're dealing with right now doesn't feel like a story with an ending. It feels like a new reality that we're just going to have to get used to. People keep talking about "when life goes back to normal," but the normal we remember may be gone for good.

We're living in unprecedented times. Not the kind of historical moment that captures people's imaginations and inspires novels about time travelers. But the kind that people read about in history books and say, "Boy, I'm glad I wasn't alive for that."

Closing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the last time always leaves me aching. Not to mention reluctant to return to my world. Even more so this time, since the thing I wanted to escape when I dove into these books just over a month ago is still here. Harry's story ended, but ours is still going, frozen in an unending stream of gray days.

Nobody really wants to live during hard times. Harry didn't particularly like living through unprecedented experiences, either. But he survived it. The bullying, the dangers, the pressures, the heartbreak—all of it. And what are stories for if not to remind us of the resiliency of the human spirit? Maybe we don't get an ending just yet. Maybe we have to settle for a simple reminder that we have what it takes to keep going until one day things are better.

It doesn't seem like much. But, as Harry learns, it's "the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew—and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents—that there was all the difference in the world" (Half-Blood Prince, chapter 23).

I'll leave you with a few more stray thoughts before I resume my Potterless life.

This reread was unique because I read the UK editions. I figured it was time I experienced the books in their original language. The differences were most prominent in books 1 and 2; by book 4 the only differences I noticed were spelling and punctuation/grammar. For the most part I loved the covers, but I did miss the Mary GrandPré illustrations. Something to look forward to next time.
My favorites order has been disrupted again. It's now 7, 3, 5, 6, 4, 1, 2. (My last reread left me at 7, 4, 3, 6, 5, 1, 2.) 5-7 were especially good this time.
My new favorite character is Harry. That boy doesn't get enough love from the fandom.
It took me 20 years to get here, but I finally started to develop some sympathy for Percy. Not joining a Percy Weasley fan club any time soon, though.

Why the shallow things matter

2020-03-17T14:43:00.000-06:00

"It's just a game."

"I'm not saving lives, just serving coffee."

"Why don't you get a real job?"

It's hard to argue against logic. A person's life is more important than a basketball game. Doctors do save more lives than servers do. There will always be an easier path to making a living than the starving artist route.

It's true that we don't need sports, dine-in restaurants, conferences, entertainment events, and social gatherings to survive. Technically we only need food, water, and shelter, and the money to pay for these things. A network of loved ones helps, too.

But when life becomes about just the essentials, like it has with the spread of the coronavirus, logic doesn't have as much of a leg to stand on.

I was gutted when the NCAA basketball tournament was canceled. My evenings feel empty without Jazz games.

And while the countrywide quarantine is basically an introvert's dream come true—stay home? I was born for this!—I miss having the camaraderie of coworkers. I was already between jobs/working from home for five or six weeks before everything was canceled and was very much looking forward to face-to-face workplace interaction again. Got two days of it, and then was banished back home indefinitely. Since I live alone, I likely won't talk to a human being in real life until Sunday when I go to my parents' house for home-based church.

All of these non-essential things are feeling pretty important right now. When the world is chaos and nothing feels normal, you need an escape from reality more than ever. But the escapes many of us have relied on to complement our normal lives are no longer available to us.

Only time will tell if we overreacted to the coronavirus or we averted a deadly crisis. But right now, the prevention feels like it's hurting more people than it's protecting. I understand the importance of protecting our vulnerable populations and know we should continue to do so, but we're all missing something right now—because of a virus. My heart goes out to those who aren't getting the income they need right now. To those whose dreams have been shattered because of a pandemic no one understands. To those who are extra stressed because there are fewer things to turn to to help manage that stress.

The shallow things matter. They help transform us from living husks to human beings. They bring us together, give us something to share.

So check up on your neighbors with one of the many virtual tools we're blessed with. Stop hoarding toilet paper. Read a Harry Potter book. Stream a forgotten classic on Disney+. Buy a gift card from a local business. And when there are no more restrictions on public gatherings, show some appreciation for those who live off-the-beaten-path lives so we can be entertained. Enjoy the freedom of being able to hang out with people, even if you hate crowds.

Things suck right now. But life will be extra sweet when we get the missing pieces of our lives back.

Hope vs. despair

2020-03-11T20:24:00.000-06:00

"Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom."
–Doctrine & Covenants 88:118

It's not a shocking revelation that the scripture above is one of my favorites. Literature exists so we can learn about ourselves. We write things down to document what we've learned.

Which is why I want to start writing about nuggets of wisdom I find in books I read, as a sporadic feature on this blog. It's not like I ever talk about books, anyway.

And since I opened this post with a scripture, I thought I'd kick off this series with a book many consider to be scripture: The Return of the King.

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy explores hope and despair, but it's illustrated most beautifully in Book V after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. It's the calm before the real battle starts, a battle that makes Pelennor Fields and Helm's Deep look like warm-up games. They know what's coming because the Palantir has shown them what would appear to be their doom.

Denethor takes this information and despairs. He saw what Mordor was about to throw at them and came to the logical conclusion that humanity could not possibly overcome such odds—and gave up. He justifiably assumed that the only choice left to him was when/how he would die. So he died by fire before the bad guys could take him.

Aragorn and Gandalf saw exactly what Denethor did and came to the same conclusion: we can't beat these guys. But instead of succumbing to despair, they chose to have hope that perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps they just weren't seeing the entire picture. So they drew the armies of Mordor out, that massive army they knew they couldn't defeat, for the sliver of hope that it would help Frodo destroy the ring of the enemy and the source of his power.

We all know how it ends. Frodo succeeds, the world is saved. All because of hope.

I've gotten a lot more cynical as I've gotten older. One side effect being that I've started to view hope as a useless emotion. Hoping for the best is not a plan. Saying "hopefully" before the thing you want will not make it happen. The hope you feel about any given situation will not spontaneously change said situation.

Despite Denethor being the Worst Dad Ever™, I sympathize with him more than I ever have. He gave up when he knew he couldn't win—isn't that the smart thing to do? What can man do against such reckless hate, after all?

Movie Aragorn has the answer: Ride out and meet it.

The king is here to remind us that that's the moment hope changes from a useless emotion to an action. Being hopeful about a situation may not change it, but your actions can. Even a fool's hope can change how you react to a challenge or setback—and as we see with Frodo's quest, that makes all the difference. The Lord of the Rings trilogy would have had an ending similar to Denethor's if Aragorn and Gandalf had chosen to act on their despair rather than their hope.

It's much easier to let despair dictate our actions. You're much less likely to be disappointed that way. But the changes that needs to happen in our world will only happen if we allow hope to drive our decisions.

It all started on a farm

2020-02-23T20:34:00.001-07:00

There once lived a young boy who lived in a simple log cabin with his family. He worked hard alongside his siblings and parents and was generally considered a good kid.

But like most teenagers, he had questions. One question in particular troubled him, so one day he went into the woods by his house in search of an answer. What he found there would change the world.

If you've ever read a fantasy novel, this story should sound familiar. It's almost always about a youth who lives in a small town who discovers a dragon in the woods and goes on to fulfill a great destiny and save humanity. It's a formula that works—people just want to see the little guy win.

The origin story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is similar. Joseph Smith went from a country farm boy to the founder of what would become a worldwide religion. One that has millions of members today and that blesses the world with its message of Jesus Christ and its charity work fueled by tithes and an admonition to serve others.

Whether you believe that prayer is a way to communicate with God or a useless waste of breath, there's no denying that the result of Joseph Smith's prayer regarding which church to join made an immediate and lasting impact on the world.

The Sacred Grove, circa July 2018.

President Russel M. Nelson has urged members to ponder the First Vision story and how it's affected them personally. Trying to figure out where I would be without the founding of the church that is the central focus of my life can be fun to think about; it also makes my brain hurt.

But thinking about who I would be without the gospel isn't as fun of an exercise. It's hard to imagine who you would be without your core foundation. I know many, many wonderful non-members who don't need religion to make them better people and who don't need faith to drive their everyday lives. But as for me, I need these things. And most importantly, I don't know how I would make it through difficult trials without access to all the gifts the Restoration of the gospel provides: prayer, priesthood blessings, knowledge of why we're here and where we're going, even callings. Life is hard enough with the peace and hope the gospel brings. Take that away and life would just be unbearable most of the time.

I visited the Sacred Grove a couple of summers ago with my family. I always find nature peaceful, but this grove of trees took that feeling to a whole new level. Even as I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I felt the sacredness of that space. We Latter-day Saints love our historical landmarks, but this one is especially worth visiting because of the question that was asked in these trees that shaped the lives of so many: "Which church should I join?"

Joseph got more than he bargained for when he asked that question. I wonder if he ever had a Frodo Baggins moment, wishing the monumental task of restoring the Church of Jesus Christ upon the earth could have fallen on someone else.

"I wish the Ring had never come to me," Frodo said. "I wish none of this had happened."

Gandalf likely expected Frodo to be discouraged and afraid, so he was prepared with a response Frodo wouldn't forget. "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil" (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II).

Joseph knew he had seen God the Father and his Son in that grove. He knew it wouldn't make his path any easier, and that many people would remember him for evil instead of good. But he stayed the course, sealed his mission with his blood, and the gospel he restored lives on today.

Even for little old me, a tiny speck in the universe who doesn't have a grand destiny. The church was restored for everyone, but after pondering how it's blessed my life for 32 years, it feels profoundly personal. No gift could be better.

Good news, indeed.

New year, new things

2020-01-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

"How do people do this professionally?!?"

That's the question I asked my brother as I stepped onto the ice at Seven Peaks Arena, clutching his arm as my legs attempted to find firm footing on a surface that's meant to reacquaint you with the consequences of gravity. We were there for my niece's 5th birthday party, and I hadn't ice skated since I was a teenager.

It wasn't just like riding a bike, in case you were wondering. But it was a blast.

Ice skating is a strange sport for the casual skater. All you do is skate around in circles, but it's essentially a free-for-all obstacle course. Everyone starts at level one, where you shuffle your feet along until you gain the confidence to take longer strides. If you can progress that far, you get a variety of new challenges, depending on your preferred speed. Dodging the people who fall down in front of you. Swerving around groups who are going slower than you, now a pro, want to go. Flailing in panic as you try to figure out how to avoid a collision—a common occurrence when the rink is crowded.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is taking a not-blurry picture while skating.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I survived almost an hour of this without falling. I was on my last lap, headed to the exit, when it happened. My traitorous shoelace on my right skate got caught on my left skate—one minute I was skating, the next I was airborne. I figured since I was going down anyway I might as well go out flying—literally—so I stretched my arms into a dive formation and sailed through the air. I must have gotten 15 feet of air before I bellyflopped on the ice, landing smoothly in a shower of white stuff.

(My dive probably didn't look as graceful as I imagined it, because a guy who witnessed my epic fall was laughing at me as he skated by.)

It's a fitting metaphor for the new year. Jumping into something new with confidence only to fall flat on your face an hour later. But that fall was the most thrilling part of the afternoon. It was the only moment I wasn't playing it safe and it was the part of the day I talked about the most afterward as we ate our unicorn and rainbow-themed birthday cupcakes.

Try something new this year. Fail at something new this year. It might end up on your 2020 highlight reel in December.

Moments after the fall, miraculously uninjured, aside from a few bruises that showed up the next day.

2019: No Dalmatians, just 101 books

2019-12-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

These yearly book recaps usually write themselves, but I struggled getting this one out. Because 2019 was a very gray year for me: drab, disappointing, creatively draining.

Which is the perfect set-up for a good reading year, really. When you can't catch a break, a book is the perfect break from reality. When you can't create, you consume. Books are my preferred coping mechanism for life, and I bring them along for all the good times too, so books and I got a lot of face time this year. Enough to break all my reading records.

And because I'm not enough of a book nerd already, I tracked my reading more extensively this year—so this blog includes blurry charts! I know you're all giddy with excitement.

Goal: 100

Books read: 101

A light reading month is a good indicator of a bad month. I'm looking at you, August.

Some books I whiz through, some I take my time on (Hamilton, for example, took me months to get through), so the average amount of days I spent per book—11—isn't really indicative of how long it takes me to plow through a book. Especially considering how many pages I read per day—101. If you're picturing me spending every spare second with my nose in a book, that's not what's going on here. Most of my reading happens during my treasured bedtime reading hour, leaving me plenty of time to "have a life." Like watching Netflix and stuff.

Pages read: 36,575

Average # of pages per book: 362.

I read more this year than I ever have, both in page count and book count. It was kind of an accident.

Longest book: Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon. 1,059 pages.

Shortest book: Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin. 33 pages.

First reads: 87

Rereads: 14

Books not finished: 12

I'm proud of that number, though it probably should be higher. I'm still hesitant to abandon a book before I finish it because I think there's value in reading books that aren't really for you—sometimes. But that feeling when you toss aside a book you're not into? It's like dropping dead weight from your life.

Ratings

One of the best things about my Book Spreadsheet of Nerddom is that it allowed me to track my star ratings in half-star increments. Because sometimes you need to give a book 3.5 stars—simply rounding to 3 or 4 will not express your reading experience adequately.

Sadly, I did not hate any book enough this year to dole out my first 1/2 star.

Fiction vs. nonfiction

I've always been more of a fiction reader, but 24 nonfiction books isn't too shabby.

Male vs. female

I don't make an effort to read male or female, so it's always interesting to me to see what the numbers say in this category. Women won this year.

Where all these books came from

This was my favorite stat to track. It looks like I bought a lot of books this year, but this was a frugal book-buying year for me. A lot of those were rereads of books I've owned a while, and—this is the miraculous part—I actually made it to the bottom of my TBR (to be read) pile on my nightstand. Some of those books have been collecting dust for years, and before Christmas that spot was empty for a month. Super weird. Must buy more books.

I need to give a plug for libraries, too. The simple concept of enjoying a service without any money being exchanged doesn't happen much in this money-driven world, which is what makes libraries so great. Not all library systems are as great as Salt Lake County's (I am now a paying library-card carrier because SLC's system is a bajillion times better than northern Utah County's), but all libraries are doing a tremendous public service.

Favorite book, fiction: Circe, by Madeline Miller. This is one of those books that left me a little speechless; I loved the book, but, even months after finishing it, I'm not sure what to say about it. All I know is that it checks all my boxes for an excellent book: great writing, great characters, great story.

Favorite book, nonfiction: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson. My third Bill Bryson book, and probably his most famous. Bryson writes the kind of nonfiction I wish I could write: funny, informative, thought-provoking. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Favorite reread: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I didn't like this book the first time I attempted it. Or the second. It wasn't until after I graduated from college that this book finally spoke to me, and rereading it this year only made it more dear to me. It's one of the most intensely relatable books I've ever read and had me crying my eyes out several times. This book gets me.

If you've followed my book recaps in the past, you'll notice some new categories below. Some weird themes emerged in my reading this year, so I decided to highlight some of those rather than stick to my usual categories.

Libraries: You can take the book out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the book. That's my 2019 reading year in a nutshell. There were libraries that were portals to alternate realities, libraries that were evil, libraries that were forbidden. Books were stolen from libraries, long journeys were made to libraries, and the history of libraries was told.

But one of my favorite library stories came from Jojo Moyes' The Giver of Stars. Set in Kentucky prior to World War II, five women travel on horseback to deliver library books to residents living in remote areas. Because a library is more than a source of free books. Knowledge is power, and libraries are the great equalizers in the pursuit of knowledge.

18th/19th century: If I wasn't happily trapped in a library, chances are I was transported to the 18th or 19th century. For a while there it felt like I was taking a course on early American history, with texts ranging from David McCullough's 1776 to book 4 of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series to Octavia Butler's Kindred.

I finally took a ride on the Hamilton bandwagon as well, soldiering through Ron Chernow's massive biography that inspired the musical (still haven't listened to the soundtrack, though—sorry, Hamilton fans). Learning about Alexander Hamilton made me want to learn more about his wife, Eliza, which led me to My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. I love American history, and this book brought the American revolution to life better than anything else I've read. Those who framed our constitution were actually living the "let's invent our own government" game. It wasn't a class assignment or a hypothetical debate. It was real life. They would face very real consequences if they failed. Seeing the revolution play out through Eliza's eyes—a woman who knew 16 of the U.S. presidents—makes what the American experiment became seem all the more miraculous. America should not have become the great nation it is today. But it did. Despite the country's problems, we still have so much to be proud of, so much that's worth fighting for.

Weird diseases: Yep, this was a real thing this year, probably because I read a lot more sci-fi than normal (including eight Orson Scott Card books—there's some weird stuff going on in the Enderverse). But my favorite veered more on the dystopian side of the scale: Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles. The rotation of the earth starts to slow down, slowly elongating the 24-hour day Earth has provided so faithfully, causing lots of social, economic, and physical ramifications. Really cool concept, and very well written. Walker wrote another "weird disease" book this year that's also quite excellent: The Dreamers, about a sleeping epidemic. Loved them both.

Business/self-improvement:

This is a very general overview of the genres I read in 2019. One anomaly is the self-help/business category at a whopping 8.9%. I don't read many books in this category because they all tend to be the same, but in an effort to make some career changes I read a bunch of them. And guess what, they didn't change my life. But I did appreciate how some of them helped me get out of my head a little and see the world differently. Honorable mentions are The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (a dumb recommendation because I think I'm the only person on the planet who hadn't already read it) and Radial Candor for those working the 9-to-5 grind.

Nerdiest book: Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston. Yes, I read a book about punctuation. And I liked it. Being an editor only enhances my interest in nerdy subjects, and this one was a really cool way to look at the small things that helped shape history.

And, that's it for this year. I read many more books that deserve a shout-out, so pay extra attention to the bolded titles below.

All the 2019 books:

The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Behold the Sword Maiden: A Storyteller's Introduction to the Heroine's Journey, Dorothy Cleveland & Barbara Schutzgruber
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
1776, David McCullough
God Is Out to Get Us: At All Costs—the Life of Abraham, Carol Bond Wagner
The Knockoff, Lucy Sykes
Harry's Trees, Jon Cohen
The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Wood
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, Kerry Patterson
From Tolerance to Equality: How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage, Darel E. Paul
Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver
Lacks Self-Control: True Stories I Waited Until My Parents Died to Tell, Roy Sekoff
The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker
The Summer Dragon, Todd Lockwood
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Power Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer
I'll Be Your Blue Sky, Marisa de los Santos
Ghosted, Rosie Walsh
Saints: The Standard of Truth, 1814–1846, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
The Library Book, Susan Orlean
Rapunzel's Revenge, Shannon Hale
Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott
Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield
The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull
Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, Keith Houston
Delicious!, Ruth Reichl
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English, Lynne Murphy
Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
Logan Likes Mary Anne!, Ann M. Martin
Circe, Madeline Miller
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown
Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey, Alice Robb
The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker
Field Notes on Love, Jennifer E. Smith
Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh
The Book of Dreams, Nina George
The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding, Jennifer Robson
In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job, Sally Helgesen
The Accidental Beauty Queen, Teri Wilson
Recursion, Blake Crouch
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, Chip & Dan Heath
The Golden Hour, Beatriz Williams
This Must Be the Place, Maggie O'Farrell
The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, Peter Hessler
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, Ruth Reichl
Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
Time After Time, Lisa Grunwald
Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes
Voyager, Diana Gabaldon
Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon
The Mother-in-Law, Sally Hepworth
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
The Clockmaker's Daughter, Kate Morton
Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo, Obert Skye
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
Kindred, Octavia Butler
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
After You, Jojo Moyes
You Have Arrived at Your Destination, Amor Towles
Still Me, Jojo Moyes
If I Could Only Tell You, Hannah Beckerman
Summer of the Monkeys, Wilson Rawls
Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
Shadow Puppets, Orson Scott Card
Shadow of the Giant, Orson Scott Card
One Plus One, Jojo Moyes
Summer Frost, Blake Crouch
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years, Bill Bryson
Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson
The Non-Obvious Guide to Emotional Intelligence, Kerry Goyette
Fate of the Fallen, Kel Kade
The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes
My Dear Hamilton, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings
One Day in December, Josie Silver
Starsight, Brandon Sanderson
Emergency Skin, N.K. Jemison
The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman
Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos
Ink and Bone, Rachel Caine
A Return to Christmas, Chris Heimerdinger
Christmas Bells, Jennifer Chiaverini
The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
Stepsister, Jennifer Donnelly

Previous years:
2018
2017

2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

8 things to do on the beach besides read

2019-07-31T16:55:00.003-06:00

The reading community loves to discuss beach reads: what counts as a beach read, the newest releases they're lugging to the beach, how many books they devoured on the beach. You would think it was the books that brought people to the beach, not its blue waters, white sand, and sunshine.

I had my books picked out for my Bahamas vacation weeks in advance. For me a good beach read is either a light, breezy novel (Liane Moriarty and Elin Hilderbrand come to mind) or nonfiction, preferably essays or a memoir. I had three books picked out, and they sat on my nightstand forever, taunting me with hopeful expectations.

I read those books while vacating my life, as planned, but not on the beach. Because paper is hard to preserve when you're surrounded by sand and water, and because when you spend the majority of your life in a desert, you take advantage of the novelties the beach has to offer and catch up on your reading later.

I did most of my reading from my private balcony on the cruise ship. It was glorious. (Although this book was a massive disappointment.)

The balcony is also a good place to practice your selfie skills, although it's so humid out there your camera lens will keep fogging up. Super annoying.

While reading is one of the best ways to have adventures, I found eight other ways to have fun on the islands.

Play in the water

I mean, duh. Especially if you're in a place like the Bahamas, it's too hot to do anything else, and the water is beautiful and warm and calm. Unless you're squeamish about fish swimming around your legs, there's literally no reason to stay out of the water.

Play in the sand

My family's not one for sandcastles; they usually end up being uninspired, lumpy blobs. It's much more fun to bury someone. Even as kids, it was usually Tiffany who ended up getting buried. (Sadly, I couldn't find the old picture to showcase alongside this one.)

Snorkel

Snorkeling masks are not designed for heads with hair attached. My hair got tangled in that thing more than once.

It's astonishing how much life and color is under the sea. True, the ocean is a sight to behold when you're above the water.

This multi-colored water is SO COOL.

But dip your face underwater and you literally feel like you've become an extra on the set of Finding Nemo. Provided you pick the right spot, fish are everywhere, of a variety of sizes and colors, and it's all the more astounding considering how good they are at avoiding you. If you were just treading water, you'd have no idea the activity taking place mere centimeters from your flailing limbs.

Speaking of Finding Nemo, sometimes sea turtles will pop above the water, but most of the ones we saw were swimming lazily along the ocean floor. What a way to live.

Hey, man.

"Do you have your exit buddy?"

Cruise in the boat

Noah told us many jokes during this vacation. One of my favorites:
What did one snowman say to the other?
Do you smell carrots?

When you're tired out from the playing and the snorkeling and the treading of water, it's actually quite relaxing to cruise around on the water for a while. Our driver showed us some of the many beautiful views of the Bahamian islands while providing complimentary hair-drying services.

5 minutes later...

I didn't even pack my flat iron for this trip. When it's this humid, you just let your hair go crazy.

Get sunburned

Guys, I tried not to get sunburned. I thought applying sunscreen three times in six hours would be enough. I thought putting chapstick on every chance I got would protect me from the horrible experience of sunburned lips.

But my skin was just not ready for the midday Bahamian sun. I still suffered the second worst sunburn of my life and came home with an entirely new skin color and really attractive blisters on my bottom lip.

Kayak

I'd never been kayaking before so I made my brother go with me. Turns out the hardest part of kayaking is syncing up with your fellow paddler, a challenge when both paddlers are used to being in charge.

"Follow my lead, I totally know what I'm doing!"

Water slide

Turns out some beaches have water slides! In fact, the water park at CocoCay has the tallest water slide in North America. I hopped right in line, hoping to come away with bragging rights, but only made it about halfway up the tower. At that point there was still an hour to wait, and I was already panicking about the height, so I abandoned my post and zoomed down the "drop" slide instead. (You stand on a platform and it makes you wait an eternity before dropping you into a tube. I only went because my dad, who is also afraid of heights, went, and I couldn't let him out-brave me. We all survived the experience.)

The drop slide is the yellow tube. There's another one on the other side so you can race.

Jet ski

This was a major highlight of the trip for me. I was a little nervous at first, but once you get a feel for shooting across the ocean in your own little automobile, it's hard to keep the grin off your face. Zooming across that vast, beautiful ocean at the 37 mph max speed is an experience I'll never forget.

Lightning cut our kayak excursion short, but luckily it stayed away while Tyrel and I were jet skiing (still got rained on, though). It would have been truly tragic to cut that ride short, even with a refund as consolation.

The cherry on top of two days of beachy entertainment? No books were harmed in the experiencing of these activities.

The journey of a book

2019-04-29T13:35:00.000-06:00

When I'm planning a trip, one of the first items on my to-do list is to find an independent bookstore nearby. And when it's time to pack, I make sure to leave space in my suitcase, strategically staying under the weight limit despite my tendency to overpack, and dedicate most of my souvenir money to bringing home a new stack of books.

My latest haul, from Symposium Books in Providence, Rhode Island, has been somewhat disappointing. I loved the book on punctuation I picked up at the ACES conference, go figure, but the stack I carefully selected during my bookstore wandering has so far yielded two 3-star books and one DNF ("did not finish," for those not fluent in book nerd lingo). Already, two of the eight I plan to take to a local used bookstore—in exchange for different books, of course.

This is my "I just spent too much money but simply had no choice" face.

Returning or exchanging any other purchase is an annoyance, but I don't mind it so much with books, even if I lose out on money. I make sure they find a good home elsewhere (unless I hate the book; then I make it suffer). I like to imagine one of my book finding its way to someone who will appreciate it. Even if it had to travel from Rhode Island to Utah to a yard sale to a bookstore in Colorado—there's something beautiful and serendipitous about all the exchanges that must happen to get a book to where it belongs.

It's one of the reasons I like to check out used bookstores occasionally, too. By taking home a book that used to belong to someone else, I'm adding a little bit of their history to my own library.

Take Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, for example. I bought this at Marissa's Books in Murray for $6. The former owner (male, I would guess based on the handwriting) had underlined passages throughout and left comments in the margins. For example, this passage on page 19 was underlined: "If you can't got first class, don't go at all." Next to this the reader wrote: "Reading this in first class STL–SLC. Ha!"

Now isn't that lovely? I have a clue as to where this book may have come from, and insight into the person who enjoyed it before I adopted it. Maybe he was traveling for work, or maybe he was a rich man who loves to cook (many of the recipes had markups, too). Maybe he was reading it for a school assignment, which is why so many of the philosophical passages are underlined.

This book wouldn't have meant as much to me without the personal insights the original owner added to its pages. Now it's one of my favorite books, purely because of the way it connected me to a stranger I'll never meet.

Any reader will compare books to friends at some point. Books go through quite the journey to find us, after all.

Fear

2019-04-12T15:50:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, I took a couple long plane rides to Providence, Rhode Island for what I like to call my annual word nerd vacation (an editing conference). I went a day early so I could attend a writing workshop, where I expected I'd pick up a bunch of tips to bring back to our writing team.

Instead, I got group therapy.

Dave Ursillo, the guy running the workshop, wasn't there to teach us how to write. He was there to help us figure out what our main blocks (he called them "shadows") are that prevent us from writing, and to help us overcome them. We all took a quiz to find out what our main shadows were, and then the group therapy commenced.

Of the three shadows—guilt, shame, and fear—I scored highest in fear. I got the highest score in fear out of the whole group; in fact, no one scored that high in any category—except for me.

I wasn't surprised by my results. Fear drives just about every decision I make, whether I realize it or not. There's the fear of failure. Fear of wasting my time. Fear of rejection, of looking stupid, of making the wrong choice, of making a mistake. The bigger, outward things like riding roller coasters and traveling alone and pursuing a master's degree I can handle, but the less abstract, internal things I tend to sit out. Send a dragon my way and I'll fight it eventually, but invite me to do something I don't think I'll excel at and I'll respectfully decline.

But there is a bright side to this writing shadow. Those who score high in fear have a knack for finding a sense of home in their writing, like journaling. As someone who has journaled regularly since the age of 8, I am much more comfortable sorting through my thoughts in writing than I am in confiding in someone I'm close to. In that private writing realm, there is safety.

Dave's recommendation to me was to write under a pseudonym or as an alter-ego of a character I want to explore. Which is spot-on advice that I intend to follow, but the past few days I've thought more about how this might extend to other areas of my life. If I pretend to be someone else, would that make it easier to take risks? Could my instinct for avoiding the spotlight be the shield that protects me as I try new things? And maybe there's more truth to the "fake it until you make it" mantra than I realize.

If nothing else, this workshop reaffirmed one of my core beliefs: some solutions can only be found when explored through writing. And that word nerds are kindred spirits.

And a little child shall lead them

2019-02-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

During those dark years when my younger siblings were no longer cute and I had no nieces and nephews, I thought of myself as "not a kid person." I wanted kids of my own some day, sure, but I certainly didn't want a career that involved kids, and I never felt the need to hold every baby I saw.

Seven years and six nieces and nephews later, I still don't consider myself a kid person, and I still have no desire to spend all day with other people's kids. But the minute the first nephews entered the scene, it was easy to find my kid mode again, and watching my little brood grow and discover new things is one of the best things about my life right now.

I adore my kids, but other people's kids? I don't care about them. (That sounds less harsh if you say it in Jim Carrey's Count Olaf voice.)

Except, even that is changing. Early in my "try family ward" experiment, I was given the calling of primary pianist, my dream calling and one of only a handful of family ward callings that didn't terrify me. So before I could jump ship and set sail for mid-singles Mormon land (would it be creepy? pathetic? not so bad? Only one way to find out!), I snatched up my chance for an easy, fun calling, and the ice around my heart began to thaw a little. I started loving those kids very quickly. You try listening to kids sing every week without turning gooey inside.

Having gone so long without kids as a part of my day-to-day life, I had forgotten a few things. Like how much they have to teach you. How they give love away freely, are unashamed of what they love, are far more forgiving than adults are.

And since it's been even longer since I was a kid, I've forgotten some of what it was like to have childlike traits myself. For example, the memory of being a shy kid is painfully clear. But surely I never made an unprompted, public display of affection about something I loved unashamedly, like kids do every week in primary. Surely I've never been capable of letting loose like that, in any form of my personhood.

But perhaps I'm wrong on that, too. Yesterday during my drive home, the song "The Power of Love" came on. This was my absolute favorite song when I was about 8. I wish I could say I was talking about the cooler and more socially acceptable song by Huey Lewis and the News, but no, my little heart wanted Celine Dion.

I loved this song so much I kept the karaoke tape in my Walkman (when my mom didn't need it for singing gigs). It had one track with Celine singing, one without. I would listen to Celine sing first, and then I would step onto my imaginary stage and belt out the words on my own. One night I was singing so loudly my dad had to come in and tell me to be quiet so he could hear Sports Center.

It boggles my mind that there was ever a version of me who didn't care who heard me singing a solo. I've always liked singing, but I hate singing in front of people. I thought it was always that way, but then this memory popped up to contradict me, reminding me that there was a time I was comfortable enough, unashamed enough, to sing the song I loved before checking to make sure the house was deserted. I am in awe of that little girl; I wish I had her lack of restraint.

A lot of the time, kids aren't angels. They're loud, disobedient, messy, mean, exhausting—you know the list, whether you've procreated or not. The admonition to "become as little children" shouldn't be taken literally in every sense. But there's a reason we spend a short span of our lives being told to "act more like a grown-up" and the rest to "become as a little child." Kids are generally untainted by the complexities of adulthood. If they're taught good principles, being their best selves just comes more naturally.

Kids these days.