Amelioration

The theme of my summer has been 'self-improvement', or at least I will say that for blogging purposes.

First, piano. My mom is an accomplished musician and has taught piano lessons for as long as I can remember. I never took advantage of her skills (something to do with not handling criticism well and being easily frustrated) so I taught myself instead, which is not recommended. I ended up like one of those kids who never quite learned how to read in elementary school. The ones who slipped through the cracks by fooling everyone into thinking they knew how. While I was playing upper-intermediate music, I had no idea what I was doing. My finger placement was all wrong, because I never paid any attention to where my fingers were actually supposed to go in order to play more efficiently. And I am a great memorizer and player-by-ear. These things combined were my downfall, because I couldn't play a piece unless I'd heard it before (sight reading was nearly out of the question), and once I'd played a piece a couple of times, I knew it by memory and therefore never became as familiar with the actual notes on the scale like I should have. I hit a wall. I couldn't advance. So in addition to scanning our family's archives, re-learning how to play the piano is my priority this summer. This time, my mom is teaching me.

Crafting. Okay, not really, that was misleading. But I AM doing A craft. I can't show you until it's all finished, but just know that I am very excited about it. When I bought my materials at Joann's fabric, the cashier girl asked me if I wanted to set up a rewards account. I told her that this is the only craft I'll ever do in my life. I am just not that sort of person. Pictures soon.

My skin. I am a mutant. I never had acne until a couple of years ago. Something finally had to be done. When I went in for my eye thing, I asked the PA to please, for the love of all that is good and holy, help me. He gave me a prescription-sized sample of some acne thing, incorrect verbal instructions for use, and sent me on my way. After three weeks with absolutely no results, I poked around online and realized his mistake. I then created a skin-care plan in my iPhone (lots of water, lots of moisturizer, etc etc). Now, a couple of weeks later, I'd love to say my skin is beautiful, but it's not. It didn't help that Jon made me discontinue use of my prescription when he saw the chemical burns it had caused around my jawline. Wtf, Epiduo. Wtf.

Driving. I hate driving, and I never drive by myself, but I wanted to spend a few days at Annie's before flying to Tucson out of Salt Lake so I decided it would build character to do the 5-hour drive (versus riding the shuttle). That was only the second time in my entire life I've ever driven that far on my own. It was not fun.

Hair. I never do ANYTHING with my hair other than wear it down and straightened. I've wanted to recreate this hairstyle and this hairstyle ever since I first laid eyes on them, but I am not talented enough to do it on my own hair (do not let that second one fool you. It is NOT a five minute hairstyle you can easily do to yourself). So I experimented on Annie, of course.

They turned out great (well, the one more than the other), but it only made me sad that I can't wear my own hair like that. At least not until I buy that hair slave I've been saving up for.

Riding a mountain bike. It was my first time, and so much fun despite my resulting poor aching bum. My brother-in-law Steve even lent me his own personal padded bike panties, and still. Pain. But it was a beautiful ride through the Provo canyon and I loved almost every second of it.

Bridal Veil Falls (is there a waterfall in North America NOT called Bridal Veil Falls?)




As you can see from the pictures, I've also lately been improving upon my time ever spent wearing neon. Which is to say, I've never previously worn neon, and now apparently I do. I bought that shirt off the clearance rack at Old Navy specifically with this bike ride in mind, but I have to fight the urge to wear it daily.

Taking photos in the auto mode of my point and shoot camera. What a skill! Annie and Steve wanted a few pictures on campus in honor of his BYU graduation, and I happily obliged.

We specifically chose this BYU sign because the slogan at the bottom, "Enter to learn, go forth to serve" was much better than the slogan on the OTHER sign, "The world is our campus". ("More like 'The campus is our world'" --Annie.)


My best friend Christa was there, too, which of course resulted in Annie and Steve being able to improve upon THEIR photo-taking-with-a-point-and-shoot-camera skills.

kthxbai