August summary

It has been nearly a month since I blogged last.  Why?  I really don't know.  To catch you up, here is a nice neat bulleted summary of what I've been doing since I last signed in to this here blog:

• Attended a four hour stake YW meeting.  No, I am not exaggerating.  I wasn't sure how busy I would be in this new calling but guess what?  I'm busy in this new calling.
• Attended a few more camp meetings.  One of them was to discuss names of people who could replace me as assistant director next year.  That felt weird.
• Kim and I sang at a funeral of a six year old girl from my ward.  Katie had serious health challenges but her death was still very unexpected and shocking.  She was a darling girl with a beautiful smile and we all miss her sweet spirit in our ward. You can probably imagine how emotional this funeral was so I prayed hard that I would make it through our song without crying (we were asked to sing For Good from Wicked - yes, an encore after we sang it last February.)  Heavenly Father totally did me a solid and I made it through without breaking down.  I'm still not a singer but I think it went okay. Kim wrote a great report about it here.
• I took Amtrak to Vancouver, WA to visit my friend Patty and her family.  The train was easy, quiet, inexpensive and took the same amount of time as it would to drive.  Patty drove me back home so I only took it the one way but I'd totally do it again.
• I went to two different Coach outlet stores while visiting Patty and bought nothing.  Yes, you read that right. NOTHING.  I thought this deserved its own bullet because it really was that amazing an occurence.
• I'm watching but not totally obsessed with "Bachelor Pad."  Most of the time, I forget it's on until about half way through.
• I'm thinking seriously about giving up my home phone and just using my cell phone.  Should I?  The only people who call me on my home phone are my mom, Kim and solicitors.  Decisions, decisions.
• I started reading my first Sarah Dessen book, The Truth About Forever, based on Janssen's glowing recommendation and I am absolutely loving it.  It's a teenage girl book but totally engrossing and just super sweet and lovely.  There are about a dozen or so swear words (that warning was for a cute girl I know who reads my blog...)
• I baked two carrot cakes, made three pans of scotcheroos, tried out this fantastic tortellini salad (seriously, make that salad) and these red velvet cupcakes for various birthdays and events this month.  Okay, let's discuss the red velvet cupcakes for a moment.  Can I just say, I still can't believe I made something so pretty? They sure had a lot of frosting on them but they looked and tasted amazing. (If you want to make them using this recipe, it made about 28 cupcakes and if you frost them like mine, you will need an extra half batch of the frosting.)

And there you go...a link-filled tour of my August, so far.  Was it worth the nearly month long wait?