Sunday, December 27, 2020

2020: A Marvelous Time Ruining Everything

Welp. That was something.

I love making these annual year-in-review posts. This is my tenth one! And this year was certainly the strangest year of my life, and probably the strangest year of everyone reading this. 

So, let's get started!

January. On January 1, I think everyone was looking forward optimistically to the new year and new decade. I had an interview for a job that I would have really liked (except that it was only part time), but they didn't hire me because I was planning on grad school. My job wrapped up at the Sundance Film Festival, and I got to attend multiple films. I even attended an underwater VR experience, but my headset didn't work.

The director and subjects of Us Kids, a documentary about the Parkland survivors.

February. February 1 was the last day I attended films at the Festival; one of the shorts was literally nothing but grainy drone footage. The next week, I ran the Sweethearts 5k and got second place in my age division, so I won a teddy bear. 
On February 13, I learned that I had been accepted to the University of Utah's graduate history program, and I also began attending twice-weekly job trainings at This Is the Place Heritage Park, including a Leap Day training to drive the park's train. On Valentine's Day, my family went to the Pompeii exhibit at the Leonardo Museum.

March. After watching the Democratic debates in February, I was most impressed with candidate Amy Klobuchar, so on March 2, I went to a rally for her, right after submitting my ballot for her. Then a few hours later, she dropped out of the race. 
Then things started to go downhill, as things shut down. Schools closed, and almost all of us seasonal employees were let go from This Is the Place. Since I have money saved and I was planning on school, I didn't try to get another job. I had to spend St. Patrick's Day wearing green at home but not in public. Then the next day, I was awakened at 7:08 by an earthquake, the first one I have ever experienced. We dealt with aftershocks for weeks afterwards. But not everything was bad. My brother brought his family from California to Utah for an extended stay, since we have a more spacious house and California's lockdowns were more restrictive.

April. We went all out for Easter, since my nephews didn't remember ever celebrating it, and they loved it, second only to Christmas at our house. My dad constructed a garden wall, almost entirely by himself, since his work didn't want him to come in for a while (even though they still paid him). This garden brought us many months of agricultural joy: zucchini for soup, pancakes, sweet bread, and crisp (see October); tomatoes for savory cobbler, savory pie, and pasta sauce; and pumpkins for jack-o'-lanterns. 

May. As the snow melted, trail running became more and more viable. North Canyon is my favorite, and I ran there almost every day through October; on one May run, my glasses broke (good thing it was an old pair!). My brother returned to California, but my nephews and sister-in-law remained in Utah a little longer. My dad and I hiked Mount Olympus, though we only went to the saddle and not the summit. It was pretty, but I didn't think it was a fun hike. It was hard.
I would often do my own run in the morning and then take my nephews hiking in the evening, especially Nathaniel (10).

June. I hit some new physical milestones. I ran up North Canyon, then down to Elephant Rock, then back down North Canyon, which was 12.8 miles round trip. The next day, I did the usual seven-mile run, then took two of my nephews up to Rudy's Flat, so I hit 35,000 steps that day.
Me with Nathaniel and Preston at Rudy's Flat.
I also would go running and find myself surrounded by swarms of butterflies.

July. We had a low-key Third and Fourth of July, since firework shows were cancelled. On July 5, we drove my nephews into Nevada, then their mom finished the drive into California, thus ending a three-and-a-half-month visit with them. It was a sad day. My parents bought a new trailer, and we had one final camping trip in the old one at Moosehorn Lake. Even though it was hot, I continued running up North Canyon most days. Unfortunately, I had several encounters with rattlesnakes, including some where I didn't see them until I was only two or three feet away. And I even saw one get run over by a Jeep, then slither off onto the side of the road.
This rattlesnake shortly got run over.
On Pioneer Day, I helped my dad work in my sister's basement, and in the evening we watched Bountiful fireworks from her driveway. My sister and niece took me on a spontaneous trip to Bear Lake the next week, but we didn't really get in the water. 

August. This is always a fun month, even during a pandemic. After a great ordeal, I got a new phone, since my old Motorola was literally falling apart. My family went to Moosehorn Lake again, this time with our new trailer. We also went to Bear Lake, this time better prepared to get in the water.
I began attending school via Zoom. I did lots of baking and cooking with plums and tomatoes. On the last day of the month, I ran to the top (well, almost) of the mountain above North Canyon, my first time doing so.

September. The month was off to a very hazy start, as smoke from California wildfires invaded the state. It was probably the smokiest I have ever seen, so I can't imagine what California was like. The smoke blew out when we had an insanely windy Tuesday, September 8. It knocked out our power for twelve hours, and we were one of the lucky ones. My grandparents in Centerville were without power for days, and some went even longer. Homework was hard at home that day, since data on my phone was very spotty. We had a couple of small scrub oak trees break, but our neighborhood had many massive trees fall over. I went up North Canyon the next day, and I couldn't even go all the way because I was sick of going past all the trees.
I had virtual class on my birthday, which was also the day of the first presidential debate, but I couldn't watch it because I had homework.

October. I had a dream that I made pineapple zucchini crisp, so then I made it in real life.
My family took our trailer to Wasatch Mountain State Park, which was beautiful. I was happy to wear my Biden/Harris t-shirt and submit my ballot. Of course, I consumed lots of pumpkin treats. On Halloween, we just set up a table by the sidewalk for trick-or-treaters, making for a very sad Halloween.

November. I was thrilled with the outcome of the presidential election! Trail running was hit or miss, but I was able to see this arch off the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.
For Thanksgiving, we just had my sister and niece over for a quiet holiday. I kept working feverishly on homework and final assignments.

December. I was relieved when I submitted my final papers. I made it through my first semester of grad school! I tried to enjoy the Christmas season by decorating, watching Christmas shows, and buying a few gifts—but my spending was sparse, since I haven't worked since March. The universe gave us the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn.
So bright that even a phone camera can capture it glowing above the garage.

Christmas Day was small with my niece and sister, as well as a short, masked, socially distant visit to my grandparents. I got an inflatable paddleboard, which I can't use for six months; Easter dishes, which I can't use for three months; and folklore vinyl, which I can use now.

Wow, this post somehow took longer than I expected to write.

For 2021, I'm looking forward to a vaccine. I hope I can get one; I have several severe medical allergies, but I've never had problems with shots. 

I have also set a new goal to run on every street in North Salt Lake, and I hope to have it finished by the end of 2021. 

Here's to hoping for a happier 2021. It would be pretty hard to be any worse than 2020.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Frigid free time

 Wow, I have had so much free time! 

I have a few requirements for myself every day. I must do cardio, strength training, some kind of chore, and some reading for spring semester. Otherwise, I get to do all sorts of festive Christmas activities.

Cardio is harder to be motivated to do in the winter. Indoor cardio is boring, but ice, smog, and darkness make it harder to do outside. It drives me totally crazy that people don't clear their sidewalks. It is literally the law! One day, I decided to be nice and shovel lots of neighbors' sidewalks. At one of the houses, their driveway was clear, but not the sidewalks, and I heard of an incident where the man of the house publicly shamed someone in elders quorum for not keeping his storm drain clean—but he can't be bothered to clear the sidewalk? That's way worse!

I ran to the Bountiful Temple from my house, which is my default long run for winter and early spring. It's 10.8 miles round trip, and it takes about the same amount of time and steps as the 7-mile North Canyon run, but I feel more sore when I'm done. Around the temple, the houses have put up signs that tell the Christmas story, so that's always fun to see (and I can't help but proofread it; they spelled it "fourth" instead of "forth"!). Another house made a "Candy Cane Corner" with free candy canes! So of course I took one, because it seemed nice and Christmassy. Then I thought, "What if I ate it while I ran?" It didn't take my brain long to shoot down the idea of running with a sharp item in my mouth. 😬


Then the next day, with a fresh blanket of snow (that I know people wouldn't shovel), I decided to go sledding for my cardio, since I had to keep walking up the hill once I got to the bottom. It was fun, but it's not as fun as going with my nephews. Stupid Covid!

Unfortunately, whenever I am active in my boots, they rub my heels raw. So I didn't feel like running on Saturday, and instead I biked about sixteen miles. Since I went on the flat Legacy Parkway Trail, it didn't even feel much like exercise. One of many reasons I prefer running to biking. When I'm biking back to my car, it feels like it just takes sooo long! Before I went biking, I went to a new NSL park, since I'm trying to go to all of them. 


It recently occurred to me that it isn't good to buy liquid soap because of the plastic bottles it comes in. I wondered if I could make liquid soap from bars of soap. Most of the recipes sounded complicated, but one sounded easy. I'm providing the link so you know not to use it. I followed the recipe, which involved grating a bar of soap in my food processor, boiling water, and putting the soap in the water. It was weird using soap with food items. 



I looked away for a second, and it bubbled over!


The soap was supposed to congeal, but it remained very liquidy. So I added a whole 'nother bar to the mixture, and it still was runny. I decided to keep the watery mixture. I haven't really used it yet, so I'll have to see how it works as runny soap.

I have enjoyed watching cooking championships where the contestants have to create a dessert using a particular ingredient, which makes me want to get creative. We have lots and lots of frozen cherries in our freezer from my sister's tree, so I wondered how I could make cherries into a Christmas dessert. One of my standbys is a classic crisp. It's easy, tasty, versatile, and forgiving. So I decided to make cherry crisp with a gingerbread topping. I swapped out a third of the brown sugar for molasses and added ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, along with the cinnamon that's already in the recipe. And it turned out nice and gingerbread-y! If I were a professional chef, I would probably tinker with it more, but it was still enjoyable.



The uncooked batter is the last picture here, since Blogger still can't get the pictures in the right order 🙄
Speaking of gingerbread, I got desserts from Utah Taste Off again, this time ginger desserts. Brownies! Brownies! Brownies! was my favorite, but RubySnap (bottom right) won. Parsons' Bakery had an entry (bottom left), but it wasn't very gingerbread-y. They're local, but they're really a mediocre bakery.

On Wednesday, I rescued two yellow sac spiders. One was in the bathtub, and spiders often have a hard time climbing out. It was kind of shriveled up, like it was going to die soon, so I draped some toilet paper over the edge, thinking that would be easier for it to climb. Then I used another piece of toilet paper to coax it, but instead it just dangled from that toilet paper, so I lifted it out.

Then, after my long run, I was sitting in the hot tub when I heard something fall. It was a yellow sac spider that had fallen onto the edge of the tub. It crawled around, but then fell in the water. It was sitting on the surface of the water, so I tried to blow it to the edge so it could climb out—but that just made it sink. Then it resurfaced, and I took a cup to rescue it. Sometimes I kill spiders, but then I feel guilty. Yellow sac spiders are less harmful than others.

In my free time, I've been watching holiday movies and episodes, most of them ones I haven't seen before. 

I'm looking forward to finishing my Christmas preparations so I can have an enjoyable holiday! Well, as enjoyable as it can be during a pandemic.

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Five weeks of freedom

This is a picture from an unremarkable run, but I'm putting it here so it's the preview image on Facebook, instead of a cat that doesn't belong to me.


Over the last few months, I've been watching some of Food Network's seasonal cooking shows: Halloween Wars, Halloween Baking Championship, Holiday Wars, and Holiday Baking Championship. On these shows, the contestants have a designated time to complete their projects, and when the time is up, the host says, "Hands off your display!" and they all clap. No matter how well they think they did, they clap because they made it through and it's over.

That's how I'm feeling. I made it through my first semester of grad school! I finished up my last projects on Friday, a day before the final deadline. I have five weeks of freedom before spring semester, though I probably will get started on some of my readings ahead of time. I got a list of books I can choose from for my Utah History class, and one of them is The Annals of the Southern Mission, which is what I spent the summer of 2014 working on. 

I don't have my own Twitter account, but sometimes I look at a few others' Twitter feeds, including that of Mormon history blogger Ardis Parshall of Keepapitchinin. She likes posting pictures of linens and cats, but I was surprised to see my book A Historian in Zion on her stack in this one:

Aren't cats the best things in the world?

But I don't want you to confuse her cat for mine. Here's Jimmy sitting on the bathroom scale.

I've been wanting now to go to the rest of North Salt Lake's parks, so this week I ran down to the Eaglewood Village Fishing Pond, right by the Eaglewood Lofts apartments. Just a random pond I didn't know was there! It wasn't special. There's a ramp that goes down to the pond, but it was closed (semi-permanently, it looked like).


In the next five weeks, I'll have plenty of time for running, baking, decorating, undecorating, shopping, and celebrating. Just like it was this summer. I'm looking forward to it.

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Finals Week

When I was at BYU, I always liked finals week. Sure, I had exams to study for and projects to complete, but I also didn't have to attend class, which gave me more time.

I'm in finals week now, but it doesn't really feel special. It just feels like every other week.

For my proseminar in US History 1600–1877, I have to write a 12–15-page historiographical essay using three books. I opted to write about the mythology of the First Thanksgiving, since I'm passionate about the topic and I had already read two books about it. I'm almost done with the essay. When I quote a quote within a quote, it makes for some impressive punctuation.


For my borderlands class, we also have to write a 12–15-page historiographical essay, but we have to use several of the books and articles we read in class, as well as a few others. I was really worried about this one, because I'm not as immersed in the subject, and I didn't get a good grade on my first reading response for this class. But this week the professor told us that she will grade our writing so we know how to improve, but she will give us an A as long as we do it. Phew! What a relief! Now I'm just worried that I won't try hard on it, or that I will not take it seriously when I still very much have to take it seriously.

For my US West class, I had to write a research paper a few weeks ago, but I just have to revise it for the final project. It should be relatively simple.

The snow that we got on Thanksgiving is melting at a glacial pace (get it?), so I have been staying off the trails, which does not motivate me to do much running (well, that, and the temperature, and homework). It has been on my bucket list to go to all of North Salt Lake's official parks, and I hit them all a few years ago, but I just found an updated map. I was happy to see that it listed two paved trails that I have never been on, so I decided to go run on them.

On Thursday, I went on the Parkway Trail along Highway 89, which I had seen but never gone on. It was a fine trail with a DUP marker on it, but it seemed a little pointless. There was a sidewalk right next to it, and it's not fun running by a busy highway. End to end, it's less than a mile.


The next day, I went to the Redwood Road "Trail," which was even more pointless. It kept starting and stopping, too much for it to be useful as any kind of a trail. Some of the dead ends were at weed-filled vacant lots, where I presume they might develop the land at some point, but other dead ends were at landscaped lawns, so I don't know what the plan is there. Maybe in five years it will be complete? I don't know why they even bothered putting it on the map.

But I'm eager to get to all the new parks I know about now.

Today I had my first class teaching the youth Sunday School. But numerous weird happenings meant that the class was delayed by half an hour, so I only had two youths, and the other teacher couldn't make it. None of it was my fault, but I still bad about the situation. Oh well.

Once I'm done with my final projects this week, I am looking forward to lots of free time and Christmas festivities! I don't go back to school until January 19. I hate January. I don't know whether it's good to have that much time off then, because I'm not adding stressful school to an already bad month, or whether it's bad, because I won't have anything to distract me from the January terribleness.

I keep thinking, should I try to spend more time enjoying Christmastime right now in the moment, while school is still happening? I did enjoy Christmas when I was in college, though I only attended during two Christmas seasons. But the things I enjoyed then are no longer applicable, thanks both to COVID and my current life situation: seeing lights on campus, watching Christmas shows with roommates, attending YSA Christmas parties, buying eggnog from vending machines. Oh well. Santa's bringing us a vaccine, and next year can be merrier.