Summer time and the living is easy

A normal blogger would say, "Look what I did to my nails this week" and then show you a picture. But I'm not a normal blogger because I can't even do that. I mean, if I just stuck some picture up without context, you might think I like doing my nails or something. So instead I have to tell you some long story before I even show you what I did with my nails.


When I was kid, pretty much all the way through middle school, if someone said, "Do you know Melanie?" then you'd hear not, "Yeah, that's the really skinny girl," or "Uh-huh, that really smart girl," or "Yes, the girl who never brushes her hair?" because those were all true things. No, if you said, "Do you know Melanie?" then you'd hear, "That girl with the really long fingernails?"

Because that was a very true thing, too. I had super long fingernails, a genetic "gift" from my  mom. I'm talking really long, like a minimum of a half inch and sometimes as long as an inch. I know: GROSS. I didn't paint them. Or file them. Or do anything interesting with them, for two reasons: 1. I was lazy and very casual in my grooming and I didn't have the interest in keep uping with the constant clipping, etc. and 2. It was one of the few things I was good at without even trying, this long fingernail thing, so I let them grow.


I don't do that now. I keep them short. I type a lot, you know. Like between forty and fifty thousand words a month. I used to get monthly manicures because I truly am not competent enough to cut my own fingernails. And I never even did anything fancy. Never got them painted or did nail art. Just told the lady, "Buff them." But honestly, I can rarely find the time to go do that any more unless it's for a special-ish occasion and even then it's this big ole production. So I figured out how to cut and file my own nails. They're not pretty but they're serviceable. 


And then I saw this lady's nails that made me laugh. Super cool design and it turned out it was just stickers. I thought I might have a chance of doing that so I found the Sally Hansen stuff at Target and did it. And this is seriously maybe the third time in five years (probably less) that I have tried to "do" my nails, and it didn't suck and it's lasted a week through the kitchen, the beach, and the pool. I picked the romance words one because it seemed apropos to my writing:

Ten bucks and two hours later, (although it probably only really takes half an hour if you concentrate, which I wasn't doing), ta-da. Kinda fun nails.


And actually, this post isn't even about nails. It's about stuff I'm doing this summer. Um, I was just barely called as second counselor in the Relief Society (our women's service organization at church). I've never done that before. I think it will be taking most of my free time, and that's okay. I kinda love Relief Society.


Also, since I'm obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance, the day after that one Bree Hafen girl's two-year-old got up and did her twirls on stage, I signed Eden up for dance because she loves it. And then I took her to her first class and now I love it. And this is a picture of her on her first day, standing at the barre.

She's the second one in. After watching this class twice now, I've decided that teaching dance to two-year-olds would be roughly equivalent to training goldfish, but man, she can't get enough. Even after she spent the whole first class thinking "tiptoes" means "walk on my heels." She still loves it, so I love it for her. And when she twirls, I'm pretty sure I'll give her anything she asks for because OH THE CUTENESS KILLS ME.


And then our ward invites everyone in the congregation to join a summer humanitarian mission. This year we're trying to raise money for LDS philanthropies to build clean water wells in six drought-stricken villages. I do the blog, where you can check out the concept here, and I put together the optional kick off FHE lesson about living waters, etc. For the activity, we had the kids run and get a drink of water from the bathroom to see how it easy it is, then we had them try balancing an empty bowl on their head and walking to the end of the driveway to see how hard it was. We explained that they'd have to walk as far away as our church building with a giant jug on their heads just to get a clean drink of water. And I had to snap this picture of Eden BECAUSE. Just look. I won't even have to explain myself.

And my 12-year-old had an end of the school year Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction Dads and Dudes party and they built stuff and shot it and it went well. But those pictures are too hard to pull off of my camera to put up so I think you'll just have to believe me.

And we are doing smoothie experiments and visiting farmer's markets and going swimming and to the fake beach and soon the real beach and watching cartoons in the mindless too-hot hours of the afternoon.


I like summer.