10 Things I Love About My Summer Home

In August, Alex and I are moving into a cute little house, just south of BYU campus. We can't wait. In the meantime, I moved into a townhouse in a complex called Chatsworth with my friend Elizabeth. This little setup has turned out to be the perfect summer apartment.

Here are some reasons why:

1) It's constantly filled with people that I like: Elizabeth, Lauren, Alex, and Nathan... among others.

2) Our TV (which is on a swivel board so it can be viewed from any area on the main floor) is perpetually on and its usually showing The Food Network or TLC. Our favorite shows are Chopped, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, and Sweet Genius.

3) I feel like there's always food in our apartment. Whether Elizabeth is making crepes or we've all just come back from Sonic for their daily deal (pronounced "dill"), there are always snacks to be had.

4) Probably because of our obsession with Chopped, we use pretentious words like "whimsical", "layered", and "multi-dimensional" to describe the food we eat.

5) If swear words are said, no one freaks out.

6) It's super close to campus. I literally only takes me 10 minutes to walk to work. This is a great improvement from my Fall and Winter home where it took me 25 minutes.

7) Ninety percent of the time, everyone is laughing.

8) My room is in the basement and its about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the apartment. We call it the Robin's Nest and its perfect for relaxing in the summer.

9) Our fridge is full of Dr. Pepper and Cherry Coke. (I realize that this is 3rd one about food, but food is an important part of summer.)

10) Its right across the street from the Elms apartment complex, where several of my friends from last summer live. This is extremely important because they allow me access to the Elms pool. This completely takes away the shame of using a pool I'm not paying for.

All You Need Is Food (Food Is All You Need)

Burgers Supreme, J-Dawgs, and Costa Vida.

These are among my favorite haunts in Provo. Seriously, I may have to start wearing a fake mustache when I go; The servers are starting to recognize me.

But the food! Oh, the food! It's sooooooo good.

But it needs to stop. We're hitting the high 80's here in Provo. Swimsuit season is among us, and I need to stop eating junk.

Alex and I decided that we're not going to eat out anymore... except for on the weekends... and weekends start on Friday.

Oh, yeah. We're cracking down hard.

I have one or two good healthy summer recipes. Any recommendations?

A Real Adult Person (Who REALLY Sucks at Swimming)

Look what I got in the mail this weekend!

It's side-ways and everything! And thus I am officially an adult person, able to do things like drink, rent a car (sometimes), and drink.

Except, I go to BYU... so really just rent a car (sometimes).

Silly as it may seem, getting my license in the mail really did make me think about how much I've changed since high school.

For one thing, I have wheels now. A few months ago, my uncle helped me find a car. I bought a 2000 Hyundai Elantra - my very first car. (I don't count the Ford Focus mom and dad bought Paul and I, since Paul totaled it before I ever drove it.)

But its not really the stuff I own that's changed me. I can really say that I don't feel like a teenager anymore. College doesn't change that. During my freshman year I still felt like a middle-schooler: out of place and surrounded by people I was sure were older and wiser than myself.

This change made itself manifest last Friday when I decided to try something new and swim laps at the gym for a good cross-training workout.

When I set out to do this I didn't feel like I was going out on a limb. Since high school, my family has gone on quite a few surfing trips. While I hadn't ever swam for sport before, I felt like my surfing experience would make me a decent swimmer. Plus mom had me take lessons when I was kid. I remember the techniques:

No problem.

The pool at the gym only has three lanes, so I was worried they might all be taken by the time I got there; I didn't really want to share a lane with a stranger. When I got there, the pool was empty except for three Asian girls standing in one lane of the pool, talking to each other in another language.

"Sweet!" I thought, "I've basically got the whole thing to myself." I started my first lap.

Did you know that swimming isn't quite like paddling on a board? I think this was made clear since I'm pretty sure the only thing I was doing right was my arm movements.

No matter how straight I tried to make my legs, they kept going back to doing this dorky bicycle-kick movement.

I know that I'm supposed to put my face in the water and then turn my head out of the water to breathe. Instead, I kept spluttering and gasping. Eventually I decided it would be less embarrassing to just keep my head up. This, of course, began to make my back and neck ache because I was arching so bad.

By the time I finished my first lap, the girls at the end of the pool were cracking-up and since they weren't speaking English it felt like they were laughing at me, which is probably the case. I'm sure I looked like a class-A moron.

High school me would have gotten out of the pool right then and there. She would have waited in the locker room for 30 minutes so that the people at the front desk didn't notice that my time in the pool amounted to about 3 minutes. Then I would have left, never returned, and never spoken of it again.

But grown up me chose to believe that the girls were laughing at a really funny non-swimming-related joke, kept "swimming" until my 20-minute workout was finished, and decided to go again this week.

Though, maybe I'll go at 3 in the morning until I look less stupid. My new found maturity only goes so far.