my life is on repeat...

       It's been bizarre for me to feel, this summer, that I'm just experiencing parallel universe versions of last year's blog posts—though Past Me and Current Me are somewhat different people, they have pretty much the same activities.
(Current Me likes to think that she knows a fair bit more than Past Me does. But in all honesty, one of the things that Current Me has learned is that I am really just learning the same lessons over and over again. All the iterations of myself that I've observed seem to have the same thick head.)

 Once upon a time I bought a cat shirt and a Led Zeppelin shirt.

 Then, I sent a picture to Sofie and she sent me a picture of HERSELF WEARING THE EXACT SAME SHIRT. IT MADE MY LIFE.

Then we lived happily ever after as best friends. The end!

Park City retreat (with the youth council)

 Silly Jish. We love you.

BEKAH YOU BABE!!! OW OW!!!!

       School starts in two days. Every conversation turns to the AP English assignment, or the madrigals retreat, and how woefully unprepared we are for each respectively. I haven't even STARTED the AP english assignment, and I'm not even the only one. Procrastination is real, folks, and it is rampant. Technically, we've stood as seniors since last year's class graduated—but it is now, in the face of school's beginning, that our true identity as procrastinating, senioritis-ridden dirtbags shows true. 

       Just kidding. We're suffering from only the common cold of senioritis viruses. It's in third term that the Senioritis Plague™ hits. But, as The Jenk-Dawg would have said in AP calc last year, it is our responsibility to "choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong by not taking the excuse of senioritis. At university you can't have senioritis."

       

       Writing this has actually boosted my enthusiasm for the school year to start. I've been a bit melancholy toward school because of those who've graduated and helped make my years SO fun. Thinking about class without them is a little sad. But there are still so many wonderful and fun people, I know this year will be a blast, and I can't wait now:)

       I interrupt with these pictures because we just barely took them. Jens, I love you so much, and I'll miss having you around, but you're just gonna be fantastic at Utah State.
       Time to go rehearse with the madrigals. wish us luck.

live to laugh.

[disclaimer: this letter is a joke for my own entertainment, so please do not think I am some sort of ANGRY WARRIOR who is REALLY WORKED UP about injustice against animal sock lovers. Also, I'm pretty sure ALL of my friends have told me that I'm unhealthily obsessed with animal socks.
Also I have to explain how I came to love animal socks. This last year at Christmas, Sound Ideas did a secret sister type gift exchange, and Audrey had me, and she got me some socks with lemurs on them. That's a sort of funny, fun gift, so I really enjoyed them. And so did everybody else. And when you're wearing something awesome like lemur socks, you just HAVE to show them off, so they got kind of well-known among my classmates. I would wear my lemur socks whenever I had a test, or when I needed an extra boost of motivation to live life, etc. Anyway, the point is that they became something of a dialogue among my friends. Because they're AWESOME, obviously.
So I've got lemur socks from Audrey, and I bought sock monkey socks on the choir trip to San Francisco, and this week I was at Station Park with friends and I bought fox socks.
okay, moving on: open letter, meant to be ironic, sorry if I'm not as funny to you as I am to myself. the blog's for my benefit, not yours.]

       An open letter to the guy who said I have an unhealthy obsession with animal socks:

       You are right. You are absolutely right. 
       You're dead wrong.
       Well, actually, it's both. You are, according to the dictionary, right that I may have a mild obsession with animal socks (obsession: a state in which someone thinks about something or someone constantly or frequently especially in a way that is not normal. So, yep—taken at its most literal definition, I have a minimal obsession with animal socks, since I think about them slightly more frequently than is normal.) but I think this is the opposite of unhealthy. In fact, may I dare suggest the opposite? That really, I am better off for the amusement I derive from animal socks? 

       The answer is yes. We have to take the amusement we can get in life. We have to learn to amuse ourselves by doing pointless, harmless things and enjoying them. 
[This is something I learned from my father, who changes the names of all the piano songs from things like "Etude" to things like "Evil Mysterious Killer Evil Music Box Song." And, sometimes he tells me that "amusing yourself is an important life skill." I think he first said that because Ethan and I were finishing our AP calculus end-of-year project, which happened to be Judson's face floating in the void of space with a box of chicken nuggets.]

       And so if I have a better day when I wear socks with charming creatures on them, I'm really the one better off here. Hating my animal socks is like hating pokemon go, according to the internet: "They are having TOO MUCH FUN with something MEANINGLESS somebody STOP THIS MADNESS!!!!" 
       Besides, I don't even waste a ton of time on animal socks the way some people (*cough* also me) do on pokemon go. It takes like ten seconds to put on socks. And then for the whole rest of the day I get to think about my socks and tell people about my socks. They love it. I'm just doing the world a service by providing my friends with something to laugh at. —Oh, did I say laugh at? I meant with—my friends are laughing with me and my lemur socks, of course.

       In conclusion, I like my lemur socks. 
       (because they became a reminder for me to seize life and enjoy it.)

Love, Grace :)

summer in summary (a tiny fraction)

I had the BEST summer job.

 (different job but still great)

best job pt 2

NUGGS (also Ethan one of my best friends)

 youth council fourth of July thing

Jack and Gabe are really cute.

best job pt 3

Jack and I are really cute.

 best job pts 4 and 5

babysitting is fun

 throwback to the choir trip....

 Bear Lake wow!!! I love Mikell so much!!!

Oh man. My feelings on this picture and what it represents could be a blog post. I'll say this: I love my friends so dearly, and have been missing them very much. But I am very proud of them for choosing to go on missions and immerse themselves in serving the Lord. They are a huge part of what made my junior year so fun, and their presence will be sorely missed this next school year. I'm so grateful to have had them and their examples in my lives for the last four years. I guess being a year ahead in the math has a benefit after all.

different job but still great pt 2

throwback to Gabe last summer...... (fun fact: as I type this, he's saying incessantly "Grace. I need ta go to bed. Grace, I need ta go to bed. I need ta go to bed. Grace. I need ta go to bed. Oh Grace, that's Gabe! That's Gabe's layyow [yellow] shirt! Grace, I need ta go to bed! Grace. I need ta go to bed.")

 babysitting is fun pt 2

the socks....

This is today. Jack and Jens and Gabe are REALLY cute.

(Gabe is now in the other room lying on his bed shouting, "Grace, binky for Gabe, gray blankey for Gabe!" over and over, the way he was telling me, "Grace. I need ta go to bed."

Sunday Mornings ft. aimless rambling

Heads up—this post has no point whatsoever. :)

       It just started raining; I can hear it from my room in the basement. My window is open, it always is. The rain makes me happy. Thunderstorms are even better.
       There are two spiders living in my windowsill. Opposite corners. They don't have to get along because a windowsill is a big traverse for a spider. Still, I imagine that if one day I discovered that one had eaten the other, I'd be upset enough to revoke the aggressor's clemency. Goodbye, hungry Harry. And then I don't think I'd let any other spiders take up residency.
       Leonard is brand new. He lives in the right corner of the windowsill. Harry lives in the left corner of the windowsill, and has been there for a couple of weeks. He was just Leonard's size when he moved in;) They have names because I'm silly and because Bekah is too—she came over this week, and she and Jens banded together to pick names for my spiders.
       I don't take enough advantage of sunday mornings. It's the perfect time to do lots of spiritual edification stuff, and I don't. That's something I need to be better about. It's a funny thing about human nature—I looove my study time. I often take my study journal and drive somewhere to do extra study. I really value that. Yet, at home I rarely take the initiative to do any sort of study at all.

There's no rain anymore, it only lasted a couple of minutes. But there's still wind sort of whooshing and I love wind.

Have a fantastic week:)
Love, Grace :)

basement room 

i think its raining from my basement room
but basements make for faraway ears
and rain dries up so quickly
i still think it was rain

i think a wind is blowing up above
but wind is such a meaningless thing
invisible and always gone
i still think it was wind

i think im up there with the wind and rain
but dreaming is done in bed
and so many winds and rains are dreams
i still think it was me

—Andrew Clements

(p.s. this poem is from one of my very favorite books. Years after first reading it, I still go back to it sometimes. It's just a really charming read. The book is called Things Not Seen.)

Update: the day after I wrote this, Harry disappeared from his web. Since I can't tell spiders apart by sight, the next time I see Harry he is going to get squished. Because that's what happens to nameless spiders in my house.