Quirks

Sometimes I am awfully aware of my quirks. This week was one of those times.

For the record:

-I add salt to my Ramen.

-I throw away the last 1/4 cup of cereal in the bag because I don’t want to pour cereal dust into my bowl.

-I blow on cold food like you blow on hot food.

-Sometimes I avoid reading emails so I am not responsible for knowing or acting upon the material contained in those emails. Like, I have to psyche myself up to open emails, regardless of who they are from.

-Windshield wipers make me feel anxious.

-I don’t like using cruise control.

-I have a least favorite billboard on I-15

It’s this one. The house looks like it is on fire. Not a good idea.

That is all. Mostly food and driving related.

Chalk the Block

Went to Chalk the Block this weekend and saw some cool street art! I especially loved the colors.

Mapleton Barn

It seems like every time I have a reason to go to Mapleton, I drive past this barn and want to do a photo shoot there. So I finally did! This shoot not only features Natalie and her typewriter, but also our school desk that we got this summer from DI for a dollar. It has served us well. Also, props to Ryan for helping us lug stuff around and for dictating a story for Natalie to type on her typewriter.

Sunshine & Summertime

In the last 10 days I…

…won the Intramural Softball Championship for my division.

…finished the exhibit I have been working on. (Here’s a sneak peek of my favorite wall)

…played with puppies at the Puppy Barn in American Fork.

…ate the epitome of decadence at Waffle Love…

…with my homegirl Natalie.

…manned my own booth at the Provo Farmer’s Market.

…documented Nathan eating corn.

…and did another typewriter photo shoot, featuring a barn and a desk.  

Angel’s Landing

To provide some background, my father is a camping/hiking fanatic. Our traditional family vacation is a week-long camping trip in a national park (usually a different one every year). On these camping trips, we hike. And that’s about it. That being said, not only have I hiked hundreds of miles in my lifetime, but my dad has hiked like twenty times that. (In fact, it would be fascinating to tally up how many miles he has hiked in his lifetime.)

Now to Angel’s Landing. I have been hearing about this hike since I was born. According to my dad, this hike is the most spectacular hike he has ever been privileged to traverse because of its unique difficulty and breath-taking vistas at the top. It is even better than Machu Picchu. He would recount his experience hiking Angel’s Landing at every dinner party, every camping trip, and every church function I can remember. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but he would talk about it a lot.)

So naturally, when I found out that we were going to St. George for the family reunion, my only real desire for the trip was to be able to finally hike the storied Angel’s Landing trail, since I wasn’t alive to experience it during the original Whitaker family camping trip to Zion National Park 25 years ago. Thankfully, my brothers also wanted to do this hike, so it was a go!

View of Angel’s Landing from the shuttle

The hard part

Looking down

We all made it!

Breath-taking vista

Portrait of a landscape

Treeline

Afterwards

One of my new favorite pictures

Now I can finally say I hiked Angel’s Landing! I went into it expecting the hike to be super long and scary, so I guess I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was only 2.5 miles to the top and that the part with the chains and steep drop-offs on either side of you are only on the last half mile. The last half mile was definitely a different kind of hiking than what I have ever done before, and the view was gorgeous. However, my favorite part of the hike by far was doing it with my parents and older brothers. It felt like old times again. (I also enjoyed when my dad took out his massive map on the top and was telling a fellow hiker about all the other trails he hiked 25 years ago in Zion.) Definitely a memorable and worthwhile experience, despite my expectations having been blown out of proportion.

St. George: Day 1

I just got back from a Whitaker Family Reunion. My grandparents rented condos (Thanks!) and we spent a week down in St. George. On the first full day we went to Zion National Park. That was my first time ever going, so it was nice to cross something off the bucket list. We didn’t hike the Narrows at all, but here are some pictures from the Riverside Walk that leads to the Narrows. (I’m not so good at shooting landscapes, so my photography goal for the week was to capture the personalities in my nieces and nephews.)

The day started off with Brooke latching onto my leg trying to avoid sunscreen.

At last she was captured.
Climbin’  Runnin’Packing up the baby
Then we rode on the shuttle to the trail.We saw mountains.
This was Alicia’s first real family reunion. More rocks. Steven came too. Token squirrel picture. They are basically too fat to move.Because they raid people’s bags for food.This map is a relic from 25 years ago when Dad first came to Zion National Park. It’s life-sized.
Mom was also there.At the end of the walk, the kiddos went swimming.
“I’m really wet!!” -Wyatt after requesting to be dunked in the water

Next up – Angel’s Landing!

Midnight Musings

Right now I have a handful of incohesive thoughts running through my head that I wanted to jot down.

1. Write the book you want to read. Sage advice from Austin Kleon. I was just thinking about this because while I have access to so much information, the content on the Internet bores me real fast. And that is when I want to make my own stuff to put on the Internet.
2. To combat feelings of being unproductive, I like to make lists of things that I did do. Here’s a list of productive things I did today:

• Went to the gym at 6 AM (And saw Elder Christofferson there!!)
• Practiced softball for a couple hours.
• Canceled a freelance job that I couldn’t handle (Burden lifted)
• Toured the residence of Rose Marie Reid, the woman I have been studying all summer for work. (Fun fact: The Osmond family later bought the house and lived there after she passed away)
• Tried out my new tripod and took some sick self-portraits (and edited them and posted one on Instagram). (I don’t know who I picked it up from, but lately I like to use the adjective sick to describe things that are awesome.) I kinda rotate through all my hobbies because I get bored and have to switch it up. It is things like getting a tripod and experimenting with new forms of my hobbies that get me interested in them again.
• Went grocery shopping.
• Made brownies and packed for the family reunion while they were baking.
• Wrote in my journal, took a shower, responded to a long overdue Facebook message, had quality conversation with my roommates, wrote this blog post, worked on planning a storyboard for a film I want to make.
• And I even made time for a nap. Naps are my favorite. I can always make time for a good nap.

2. b. I feel like this list I just made is super pretentious. But, like, this is who I am. It’s amazing how many things you can actually fit into one day if you try. It takes longer to motivate myself to do some of these things than it actually takes to do them.

3. As a bonus for reading through my pretentious list, here is one of my pretentious self-portraits:

I was not expecting to enjoy taking a picture of myself. I just wanted to test out my new tripod and document the fact that I hit myself in the face while playing softball this morning. But, I’m weird and find a busted lip, acne scars, uneven skin tone, and frizzy hair enthralling.

And now my midnight musings come to an end.

Published!

There’s something about putting your work up on a wall that makes you feel cool.This is one of the posters I designed hanging up in the BYU Library on the 5th floor. There is another one on the main level right by the security desks when you walk in. Fun stuff.

DIY: Men’s to Women’s Shirt

I went shopping today, and all the styles and colors and patterns that I was looking for kept showing up in the men’s section of stores. So I went for it and bought a men’s shirt. This project was great motivation to get me excited about sewing again. After shortening the hem, taking in the back with some darts, and tacking down rolled up sleeves, I turned this baggy men’s shirt into a nice, fitted women’s shirt.