Soaking up sun

You may have noticed that the color scheme has changed a bit. The pink was getting to me : P

So the past while has actually felt more like the summer you'd expect by June and while I'm not much for the outdoors, I've been taking my own kind of advantage of this warm, sunny weather.

One of the first words I'd use to describe myself is "cold." Not because I think I'm a cold person in relation to people [not all the time anyway, lol] but because I am almost always physically cold. Ah, the plague of the skinny person who can't create their own body heat, not for lack of trying. Generally this is something manageable, esp with the rising temperatures I'm beginning to deal with the opposite problem more, but only when I'm outside [or in my apartment which current has broken A/C].

So, if the weather's getting warmer by the day, why am I still seen carting a sweatshirt up to campus with me? I've gotten my fair share of weird looks from fellow students trying to figure out what kind of crazy I have to be to bring a coat to campus in 88 degree weather. If only it were because I'm crazy. I honestly think that would be cooler, haha

But no, I'm not crazy, just on my way to work in an office seeping with A/C and a nasty draft whose current runs straight through my work area. Because I open at work I get the front desk for most of the day and I swear it is at least 15 degrees colder there then at any other station in the office. My coworkers will vouch for that too. All of this means that, on any given day, no matter how sunny, I can be seen at the front of the office bundled up in a sweatshirt, most often Tim's big fuzzy one, while the rest of the office either works in comfort or complains mildly about how warm it is in here. Who knew so much irony and contradiction could reside in such a small space?

All in all, by break time I'm generally feeling at least a little chilly and my hands are usually frozen so this girl who prefers to eat in the quiet of reclusive bathrooms takes herself outside into the sunlight. There are little raises grassy areas on either side of the library entrance and I've taken to perching on the caps of the wall surrounding them.

Today is one of those days with a blazing bright sun in which reading may not be the best for my eyes but I do it anyway, somehow surprised by the blindness that comes when I return inside. It's taken me a while and a silly mix up for me to get my hands on the second Hunger games book [the first was given to me as a birthday present] but now that I've got it I've been devouring it which explains why very little food was actually eaten on my break today. It felt good to have the sun on my back, head, and arms. I always know it's summer when sitting out in the sun for an hour makes my head itch from the heat : P

The grounds crew rotates out different flowers in the beds outside the library as the seasons change and thanks to the extensive watering system here all the grass is green, lush, and slightly damp [nappers beware!]. Something a girl said in testimony meeting really struck me this week and I'm trying to incorporate it consciously into the way I'm looking at nature. She said that, while pondering how she knows the Lord loves her, she realized that she knows that because of all the beautiful things in the world - flowers, grass, leafy trees, gorgeous skies. The knowledge that the world was created for us is not new to me, but I'm not sure I've ever looked at it quite that way. The world isn't beautiful on accident or just because we've learned to work with the plants and landscapes we've been given. No, nature is breathtaking precisely because He knows it makes us happy. Just realizing that He cares so much about me that He's concerned with my environment and filling it with things that I find beautiful makes me smile.

It's interesting to me, in a way, that I've never made that connection before. Moving away from the east coast, I was worried about a lot of things and was keenly aware of how much I was going to miss the green leafy things that saturated my youth with tree filter light and expanses of soft summer grasses. And, to be sure, green is in the minority out here, but all the same there is an incredible amount of it where I live. There are rows of trees and flowers on my way to work and well watered lawn. It's just a short drive up the canyon to find even more greenery, even evergreens gathered with aspens, shaking silver in the slightest breezes. For a state that's so dry and bare, I think I may have found myself in the greenest part of it, something that I find comforting and a very personalized blessing for me. : )

The Eye of the Tiger just came on Pandora and I immediately remembered going up to one of Tim's brother's houses a few months ago for dinner and playing a dance game on the Wii with his two little daughters. I felt absolutely ridiculous throwing punches and following along with the atrocious choreography that accompanied this song, due to its age, but it was fun and absolutely adorable to see Tim's little nieces doing it too. The same little nieces that are so inexplicably scared of Tim that the oldest, who has a birthday coming up, asked if Tim could be invited to the party but then not come. I have to admit that this still makes me laugh. I can't wait to be an aunt to these girls. They're going to be amazing to watch grow. And, since they seem to like me well enough, maybe we can get them to get just as fond of Tim since where there's one of us there's generally the other as well ; )

My roommates and I went to finally deliver Amber's and my wedding gift to our roommate that got married in early May: a beta fish. We got the idea when Amber bought our apartment a beta fish on a whim a few weeks ago, cleverly naming the gorgeous blue creature Alpha [get it?!]. Anways, Hannah's poor fish sat on our kitchen table for about two weeks before we got over to see her. Not so secretly, I was glad to see it go because even though it was very pretty, it was a total creeper. No lie. If you sat at the table next to his bowl he'd stare at you. It was getting a little ridiculous by the time he left. We let Hannah know about his habit so they'd be sure to not keep him in their bedroom or the bathroom because, really, who wants to be stared at all the time? Even if it's just a fish.

Just when you get to thinking that a city is a vast place full of people you'll never know, you get a new roommate who, come to find out, knows your old roommate's husband's family like the back of her hand or find yourself in the same apartment complex as someone from your home stake. I don't think we really ever needed technology for the world to be small, it's just something that happens on its own : )