May!

I love Sunday evenings with the family in the summer. My parents built a swing set in their backyard and it's a big hit with the kids. I tried swinging on the swings, and the whole set shook enough that I won't try it again :P

The G-Unit cheers PJ taking his first t-ball swings

My mom said to my brothers and me, "I'm going to bring all my picture books upstairs and let you choose the ones you want." I shouted, "No!" abandoned the gravy I was in charge of, and ran downstairs to plunder the collection. They are banged up and worn and wonderful and I'm thrilled they're mine. My brothers were good-natured about it. My mom approved of my choices.

May 4 is known as Star Wars Day, or "May the Fourth Be With You." 

My workplace had a trivia game. I answered one of the questions correctly, and also got the bonus (finding the code word in the "fine print.")

The prizes were out of this world!

The office also treated everyone to a matinee of Captain America: Civil War during work hours. Good movie. It was a nice way to celebrate four weeks at the new job!

While waiting two hours for a date to meet me, I discovered that Sports Authority was going out of business. So, I went inside and bought some weights and a t-shirt for a great price. I've been wanting them for a while!

I go out to lunch with co-workers fairly often. One day, we went to Tsunami, and since I don't like seafood I got teriyaki beef. I also discovered that "veggie rolls" at a sushi place are not the same thing as egg rolls.

Still don't know who this person is. Just another reason I loathe group texts.

May 24 is National Tiara Day, so I posted this gem from 2013.

It's been a long time since the six of us have been together

I moved to another desk on another floor. It's a nice space, but I miss the window!

My hands are pretty small, but my tiny nephew puts me to shame! My hand covers his forearm, and his barely covers my thumb. And all is right with the world!

Took a walk down memory lane and saw The Utah Childrens' 'Theater's Tom Sawyer. Becky Thatcher was my very first lead with this theater 20 years ago. The play was as charming and funny as I remembered, and the corn cake in the Soda Shop was delicious! I talked with the actress who played Becky; she was a total sweetheart and a much better actress than I was back then.

This little boy found out he's going to get a little brother. Eee!

Our gift to Mom for Mother's Day was tickets to a Salt Lake Bees game. The Bees lost, but I had a great time with the original seven. My family is truly fantastic. I'm glad we did this.

I broke my baby toe, so that's going to be healing for the rest of the summer. Whoops!

On Memorial Day, I visited my grandpa's grave. A lot of his family is buried in that plot. I liked looking at all the names and dates and wondering who all those relatives were when they were alive.

This terrific lady married her perfect match. It was great to celebrate her happiness, and hilarious how many of her female relatives tried to set me up with men in their family!

Theresa made this cake. It was perfect.

Took some time to rearrange and add a few more photos to my Wall of Smiles. I put the rest in a photo album. I have some fantastic memories!

Unpacked my summer clothes and packed up my winter clothes. Summer is here!

Felt pretty, so I took a photo

Can't resist these things. This one is pretty accurate, except my body feels much older than 19 -- haha!

And a shot of my handsome older nephew playing flag football.

He looks so grown-up all of a sudden!

Dicey December

I'll be honest, December was rough. There were definite highlights, like Christmas, and parties, and movies, and friend time. And yet it was all clouded over by the whole "you're alone AGAIN for the holidays this year" reality. I had a couple pity parties. There were a few times I wanted to clobber some clueless lovey-dovey folks in my circle. And some of the Facebook posts with the happy families forced me into a short FB break.

On the bright side, I'm about 15 pounds lighter than I was last year. That's nice. I can handle channeling my sometime loneliness through aggressive exercise (relaxing yoga is good, too). It's all about balance.

Anyhoo, here are some December highlights!

I made some major progress in two of my long-term projects at work. Then I took 12 days off for the holidays. What can I say? I hoard vacation time.

Just thinking about my Is He Dead? friends. "I've never seen such a long dog. That dog's not right!"

I hadn't seen any snow at the beginning of the month, but the rain and cold gave me hope!

I made my peanut butter cups for a Relief Society party and a Star Wars viewing. They are my faaaavorite!!

The Relief Society party included a cookie-baking demonstration, and some tips on how to make my cookies look extra impressive (especially when I'm in a hurry). There was also a raffle for prizes. Through a mix-up, my name was entered twice and I won twice. Mortified, I only accepted the first. Lemon cookies. They were AMAZING!

December 14: The first snow day of Winter 2015. We have had a TON of snow so far. Such a nice change from the previous two years!

I love receiving Christmas cards. I love seeing my friends' families' smiling faces and receiving something in the mail other than bills :)

I  saw Jason and several of my other friends in Babes in Toyland at CenterPoint. Rumor has it the theater won't be doing it again, so I'm glad I can say I saw it. Lots of great moments and comedic timing. The sixties scenes and music were a little odd, tho.

My ward had a goal for a sister in each Relief Society and an elder in each Elders Quorum to pick a night in a 30 day period to attend the temple so that someone was there for all of the 30 days. I picked the 16th and did initiators at the Salt Lake Temple. Afterwards, I walked around the grounds to look at the lights, but I was concerned about poking someone with the umbrella I'd brought with to shield me from the snow so I didn't stay very long. The lights never disappoint, and neither does time in the House of the Lord!

Liz's birthday party is always a highlight! I pieced together a cute cocktail-type outfit, at a bunch of chocolate strawberries, and talked about Star Wars and Christmas with a lot of terrific people. Already looking forward to next year!

With the birthday girl

Chantryce and me

One of my days off work, I spent a day at the movies and saw Spectre, The Peanuts Movie, The Good Dinosaur, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (for the third time). I managed to get my 10,000 steps in anyway by walking around The Gateway between showings.

The picture cut out during The Good Dinosaur and we spent 10 minutes hearing the movie without seeing anything. Fortunately, management rewound the film so we wouldn't miss anything. Afterwards they gave us movie passes as an apology. Oddly, the night before the sound cut out during a big-screen viewing of the Doctor Who Christmas Special "The Husbands of River Song." They also rewound the movie, thank goodness. After that, I'm a little worried something else might go wrong in the near future. Doesn't bad news come in threes?

My mom makes fantastic sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. I couldn't get enough of the gingerbread this year. They're cute AND tasty!

Couldn't resist a few "End of the Year" apps. Here are what the internet deemed my most significant photos from the year:

Three years ago, I went to Disneyland for New Year's Eve. Two years ago, I attended a dance and an after party. Last year I played games with my best friend and her family.

This year, I had a quiet night at home in my pajamas, watching Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and eating popcorn and chocolate cake, and reading The BFG and Imzadi. I needed some "me" time. It was great. (I did have to ask my downstairs neighbors to turn down their music around 2 am so I could go to bed. They were very nice about it.)

Calm before the storm, maybe? Who knows. But I'm looking forward to the new year!