Orange Juice

1. going treatless
2. Mom making mint chocolate cookies
3. singing, swinging, and the whole backyard to myself
4. my pink running shorts
5. wispy top knots
6. biting the bullet
7. ironic phone calls
8. texts too good to reply to
9. a neighborhood gallon challenge
10. fireworks a la the Flannerys
11. the coldest green water
12. the crack of dawn
13. running out of gas
14. a Western Grebe
15. the second Chinese fire drill just for the sake of footage
16. Leah
17. picking guys for Gretchen
18. "I'd rather eat carbs than see you in my crown!"
19. Five Finger shoes
20. today and yesterday and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that

Essay Contest Follow-Up

So...remember that really obscure essay contest I entered a few months back?  Well, I heard from them aaaannndddd....I TOOK SECOND PLACE!  My essay will be published in Sunstone Magazine and there's 450$ to be shared between the winners.  How much of that I'll get I'm not sure.  The funny thing is:  of my three entries, they picked the one I thought was least likely to win.  I didn't post it for that very reason, but I will now.  It's called Fawn.  (it's about Gretchen and I and my Aunt Karen's girls, I combined our two families for ease of explanation and flow)

Fawn


Six girls in six years is crazy, it really is. I can tell sometimes from the way Uncle Chuck laughs and shakes his head, or when he asks Pop whether he’s a cattleman or in the business of little girls. Never mind all the little brothers that came along later. But two sets of twins do help hurry things along. First is Abigail Ann, twelve and tall with dusty feet. Not far behind is brown, boyish EJ at ten and we two of straw hair and forget-me-not golden eyes: Jerusalem and Bird. Bird is me and we are nine. Last are redhead Fran and round Mary May Amelia. Despite their seven years all they share are blue-as-anything eyes that trade gleams of thought in our house on the side of a hill.


In a stair step line we sit on the edge of the stair less porch and watch Uncle Chuck mutter and chug: John Deereing the tall alfalfa fields. They stretch to each of the humble hills that surround this empty little valley, green as green, our best playground. Uncle Chuck passes our only real tree—as tall as this valley is wide—and stops. We six exchange looks in an assembly line of authority until we are all looking to Abigail Ann and she is looking at us. We heard the hitch in the mowing sounds and we know. Uncle Chuck sits in the harvester a moment; his brows undoubtedly knit, then continues on. We know that this is the bride price to keep us in rubber sandals and Sunday suppers. We know of chicken dinners that were strutting a few hours ago and where the steers are taken every fall. Farm girls have leather feet and practical hearts. But this is not quite the same: small brown bundles of spindle legs hiding in our almost-hay that will never grow up to have their doe eyes or six graceful prongs; spotted backs obeying their mistaken mothers’ worried commands: never, never move, baby mine; not a muscle, not a nose; I’ll come back for you.


Anywhere but our tempting fields these instructions would be wise, but their mothers never seem to learn this bit of anti-wisdom. As the light dims and we pretend we haven’t been summoned for supper we can see a slim gray figure slip from the hill into the field. We see her daintily, fearfully step toward our tree. She is unnerved by the way the shield of green has been laid flat in watermelon stripes. We can see her tremble in the emptiness from way up here. What she seeks is no longer there. We kick our dangling legs and gulp against the dry heat. Redhead Fran tries not to cry.


I met a mother once, face to face. I was walking the dirt road, leather footed and alone. She looked at me, standing on her stubborn spindle legs and I saw her peaceful eyes in a world of fast, fat, fierce coyotes. So in the morning we will run down that dirt road, kicking off our rubber sandals and leap fawn-like back and forth over those watermelon stripes and smell the sweet alfalfa musk. We will run and bound wild rare in the stubble and say I’m sorry and thank you and I won’t forget. Then we will climb our only tree and somehow unknowing know that we are fawn girls, farm girls and someday, someway we will be chewed up and spit out too. But something, like this thing, a good thing will come of it. And we will have peaceful doe eyes in a howling coyote world. And these fawns will not have been a waste.

Transitory Art

1. drowning a miniscule spider in the fish bowl only to discover that Curly likes live bait
2. a paper lantern floating under the widespread arms of our apricot tree
3. tan=feeling skinny
4. Bart
5. awkward date+worst vomiting moment+nasty jobs=I almost died laughing stories
6. writing in equations, even though I despise math
7. a Jane Austen movie spree with Gretchen
8. eating a whole jumbo box of Gobstoppers by myself
9. Ragnar
10. an exercise in letting go

Puck and Peaseblossom

1. Leah Sonntag...and all that comes with her
2. "who says?"
3. kickball and scraped shins
4. a tattered flag on the mountainside
5. Midsummer
6. the first corn cobs of summer
7. discovering the teacher I've been all along
8. watching America's Funniest home videos with Mom, laughing 'til we cry, then asking why that was so funny
9. warm dirt in the garden
10. cutting fresh spinach
11. my first real/Real soccer game
12. tossing out my guilt reaction when caught lost in thought
13. being happy as I am, happy as the grass is green
14. faith and patience and job hunting
15. flooding/rainstorms=cat living in psychotic fear
16. cooking experiments
17. dancing in my red ballet flats
18. trampoline jumping in the wind as another storm blows in
19. finally proving to Mom that I am not allowed to use her Costco card on her behalf
20. walking on the tar stripes to get the mail

She Lives!!

I survived.  But now the job hunting is killing me! But all this is temporarily distracting me from said frustration:

1. belatedly becoming a Trekkie
2. Zumba and trying convince Dad that the guys who come are not gay
3. organizing
4. plotting my summer projects
5. riding bikes to the library and Smoochies on the way home
6. lying on the trampoline in the sun
7. Alec's track meets and intense basketball games
8. training Banshee to not sleep in my clean laundry
9. Muddy Buddies
10. my own bed
11. a new Phillips!  this one's blond...Welcome to the world Sawyer Abraham!!!  We're so glad you're here
12. mosquito bites
13. training Banshee not to claw the screens open
14. my new set of tea cups
15. barbeque season coming soon
16. the first outdoor parties and freezing cold bare feet
17. wearing my Salt Water Sandals again
18. the new Harmons...it has a gelato bar...what could be better?
19. packing for Moab
20. having no plans whatsoever

Friday Afternoon

When I moved out as a freshman I only had two goals:  1) finish my bachelor's and 2) make sure to be around for my siblings as much as I could.  Numero uno is very nearly accomplished and numero two...well, I think I've succeeded.  Gretch and I are the best of friends again and the boys only pretend to hate me:  Alec carries my stuff to my car with minimal complaint, Sam tells me stories, and Thomas hugs me.  Here's why Friday Afternoon makes me happy.

1. crossing off another week on my graduation countdown calendar
2. hurry!
3. checking things off my take-home list
4. no homework
5. walking off campus as fast as my short legs will take me (it's awkward to run with a backpack)
6. not wanting to even make time to eat
7. the window down
8. singing Taylor Swift or Aretha Franklin or Bob Marley at the top of my lungs
9. looking for the V
10. a nonchalant O-la
11. favorite foods for dinner
12. when no one's there when I get home and I have to laugh
13. begging to go to the DI
14. sibling slumber parties
15. watching TV with Banshee on my stomach
16. cookies!
17. dumping Gretchen's clothes off my bed
18. seeing friends at church
19. leftovers
20. reluctant brother side hugs

Spring Break Scandal...

Buahahaha!  Just kidding.  It's none of your beeswax!  BYU is the epitome of lame and does not have spring break.  So yesterday I skipped my only class and, as usual, spring break came to me in the form of an uber darling girl!  Lacey and I ate Swiss Rolls and Gobstoppers and Mike and Ikes and Nerds and Junior Mints, went to the mall and bought matching swimsuits (mine is pink and hers is...bet-you-can't-guess... black), spent hours at the dollar theatre watching Tangled and Megamind, painted all our nails, swung at the Behind Walmart Park (thanks Corinne!), played phone games, talked for hours, got lunch at Panda, and stayed up way too late.  Then today she and Jill came back after I got off work and we stuffed ourselves silly at Olive Garden.  Sneaky Unofficial Fun-Size Spring Break is the best. :)  So here's the happy...

1. scandal!
2. losing all sense of direction in the mall
3. fake engagement rings
4. re-enacting Made of Honor with our cake
5. shopping show and tell
6. matchy matchy
7. "You broke my smoulder!"
8. squirting peppers
9. "Put it down and walk away..."  (darn that blue polka dotted dress, and the green shirt, and the red shoes, and the other red shoes, and the red sweater to go with them, and the...oh, nevermind)
10. the car smelling of dryer sheets...really badly