July Wrap-Up

Um...July is over? Hunh-wha? How on earth did last summer go so slowly, but this summer is speeding by? As of the time this blog post is going up, I'll only have two-and-a-half weeks before I go back to school! (And a packed two-and-a-half weeks they will be, I'm telling you.)

Some fun things happened in July, though...

-My family spent the week of the 4th of July in the mountains, and the neighbors there set off a spectacular (and very illegal) fireworks display. 

-I drove all the way back into the city from the mountains to get my parents a single pint of gelato for their anniversary, which is shortly after the 4th. If you'd tasted the gelato, you'd understand. 

-I got to meet the new novices for the Western Dominican province! They came to our parish on their Novice Tour, where they go around the province seeing all of the ministries. There are three this year, about to make First Professions in...September, I think? Maybe August? and they were all really fun to hang out with. My cousin Pippin and I also went to a young adults bonfire-social through our local Frassati group, which I'd never attended before. Or, more accurately, I dragged Pippin to said bonfire at his-mother-my-aunt's request. He did enjoy himself, though. Or so he says. 
While at said bonfire, I also taught a whole bunch of Washingtonians the Cotton-Eyed Joe. I'm turning into a Midwesterner. XD (Hopefully not, but y'know.) (Not that there's anything wrong with Midwesterners. I love them, but I don't want to be one.)

-I got to take the hour-long ferry across the Puget Sound to visit a friend who moved to the Kitsap Peninsula (traitor). The ferry ride was gorgeous, and I got a lot of writing done. Oh, and saw a seal! 

-My family went to a Shakespeare in the Park production of The Tempest that had a sea shanty theme. It was GORGEOUSLY done, super well-cast, and almost made me cry at the end. (That's the fault of The Wednesday Wars, though.) 

-Pippin and I took our annual urban hike through the city, hitting several parks, the bookstore, our local burger chain, and many other attractions of our fair city (including the same gelato place where I obtained gelato for my parents' anniversary). I always love catching up with him one-on-one as we walk--it's great that my younger siblings are also friends with him, but it means they tend to hog him sometimes. 

-My family (minus Legolas, who had a summer program) went to Long Island for several days for a family reunion--it was my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary! We had a great time spending time with family, catching fireflies (my first time doing that, and my siblings' first time seeing fireflies!), and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean (my first time doing that, too, and it was EPIC).  

-Towards the end of the month, I finished the first draft of Project Monday! I've been working on it since NaNo 2021, so I am hyped! I had a great time working on it during Christine Smith's Summer FicFrenzy, with many old and new writerly friends. :)

Quotes

(I was thinking about this and decided that I should probably recap for any new readers...Eomer, Legolas, Galadriel, and Gandalf are what I call my siblings on my blog, and Gimli and Pippin are our cousins. :D)

Eomer: "Sure, let me go lie down in a pond with my pants on!"

Pippin: "These are the jorts of a killer, Bella."

Stranger at an ice cream store: "Adults are just children paralyzed by choice, but tall."

Eomer: "Hey, don't pop my hump!"

Legolas: "But then I'd have to mate with bees and lay their eggs all the time."

Gimli: "I'm going to find Mr. Darcy. Probably not at community college."

Gandalf: "They fell in love. Kathunk."

Eomer: "You've got Benjamins out the wazoo!"
Gimli: "You should probably put them somewhere else."

Gandalf (speaking about New York): "It's better than Texas, but still bad."

Eomer: "That's some man-catching hair, righ there."

I also recently found this meme that I made probably at the end of my freshman year, and thought I'd share it as part of the wrap-up, because I thought it was hilarious: 

Them: So, how has your college experience been?
Me: Well, I haven't fomented a rebellion with an undercover intelligencia group that meets in a local cafe and then stormed the streets of Paris.
Them: Wow, um...
Me: Or rented a house with two of my closest friends that comes with two ceramic dogs.
Them: Well, that sounds like something you could--
Me: Or taken my two closest friends to go find fragments of an evil wizard's soul.
Them: They technically weren't even--
Me: Or started flirting with a boy behind my boyfriend's back, causing him to break up with me, and then been so cut up about that that I fled to Europe right before the start of the Great War.
Them: Ah, okay, so...
Me: So, I've been a little disappointed so far.
Them: Well, I'm sorry, but--
Me: So, I'm going to go date a guy who seems handsome and dashing.
Them: Well, that sounds like a good--
Me: ...and then I'm going to lead him on for two years until he proposes, and then dump him when I realize I really want to marry the guy who smashed a slate on my head when we were kids.
Them: ...
Me: Byeeeeeeeeee

(Extra points if you can figure out what all of those are references to. :D)

Worth Reading...

...if you love classics and specifically Anne of Green Gables

(image not mine)

The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace
I have a confession to make.
Pretty much all I read all month was The Vorkosigan Saga (which I talked about last month, and read, um, so far eight of this month) and the Betsy-Tacy books. Sure, there were a few other things, but those were the big players.
And I regret nothing. Not. A. Thing.
As a kid, I had the first four Betsy-Tacy books, and read them over and over, but the fact that there were six more books was barely on my radar. I think I may have read the other books once as a young teen? But nothing about them rang a bell when reading them this time.
And while the first four books are really fun (and Lovelace clearly retained an understanding of how children's minds work well into her adulthood), the next six are truly fantastic.
The four books about Betsy's time in high school made me so happy...and reminded me a bit of my time in college, especially The Crowd. But there are so many other things to love...Sunday Night Lunch at her parents' house, the Zetamathian/Philomathian rivalry, Tony, Joe, (and Tony vs. Joe), the dances, Julia's adventures, everything. They're such a beautiful picture of high school life, of the small and big joys, the blossoming...GAH.
But then Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding are even MORE (if not even better...because they're all so good). I don't want to give anything away, but the ending of B and the GW is one of the SWEETEST resolutions to The One That Got Away I have ever seen (rivaling Persuasion, which, I KNOW! that's crazy). And THEN Betsy's Wedding is about so much more than Betsy's wedding. It's about the beginning of Betsy's married life, and the whole thing...it rings so true, even though I've never (yet) been a newlywed, that it makes total sense that it was based on Maud's own newlywed misadventures. It was weirdly moving, too--I nearly teared up a couple of times. Just for the beauty. I can't explain it, but there you are.
Betsy and her husband have such an "all-hands-on-deck" marriage, which I appreciate. Betsy isn't the only one who does housework...her husband isn't the only writer. They both do those things, because they're both needed to keep everything running smoothly. And all that is mirrored in other marriages in the book.
In Tib's romantic relationships, I think a young woman can find some of the best examples of things to steer clear of, right alongside Tib. There are days I wish I'd read it sooner...
Also, it makes me so happy that Tacy is right there with Betsy. <3 

...if modern middle-grade is more your speed

Alcatraz Vs. The Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
So, mood shift! My family is in a HUGE Sanderson phase, and my sister bought this one for my youngest brother for his birthday, and he and my other sister promptly insisted that I read it. 
And I really enjoyed it! For someone who writes 1000-page TOMES, Sanderson can write MG remarkably succinctly, while still telling a satisfying story. 
I loved the characters, especially Bastille, and the Smedry family talents are fascinating--they seem like they should be curses, but then, mysteriously...aren't. 
The fact that the bad guys are librarians is hilarious, especially since Sanderson probably owes a debt of gratitude to them? But maybe this is his way of trying to make sure more people buy this book, instead of borrowing it from the library...XD
I think my favorite thing about it, though, is that the magic system is based on glasses, proving once and for all that Sanderson really can make a magic system that's based on anything. XD

So! How was your July? What was your favorite quote? Did you get all the references in my meme? Have you read any of Brandon Sanderson's MG books?