It’s a fire season of a different kind here in northern Arizona.
Instead of lighting up with amber flames, the sides of the San Francisco peaks are blazing gold with the colors of autumn aspen leaves.
It’s truly gorgeous.
I’m pretty sure the end of September/ start of October is the longest straight period I’ve ever worked, but I got to undertake a really cool work assignment on the weekends which made it totally worth it!
I was fortunate enough to spend the last weekend in September and first weekend in October working out on the neighboring Apache-Sigtreaves National Forests (A-S) to help with the annual A-S Women in Wildfire boot camp.
(You can read the stories I wrote here and here.)
It was SO fun.
Well. September was… a LOT of books.
I cranked through three books alone while I was out in Albuquerque for my work conference. I couldn’t really do a whole lot since I drove an agency vehicle out there, so while a lot of my cohort got to brewery hop every night, I spent most nights reading in my hotel room.
My goal for the month was five books, which I easily reached two weeks into the month… which is great, because I’ve been SO busy with a work assignment this and last weekend that I haven’t touched a book in a few weeks now.
However, I did end up reading six books in September: mostly a combination of historical fiction, thrillers and modern romance novels.
This month was a lot of 4/5 star books, which seems to be my default. If you have any suggestions for 5/5 star books, I’ll gladly take em at this point!
I can’t believe summer is already over!
Summers have always gone by way too fast… but now that I’ve got fire seasons eating up a huge chuck of the warm weather months, they manage to go by even faster.
Regardless, here’s a little recap of everything I’ve been up to lately.
Well. This summer was the summer of paddle boarding was the summer of swimsuits.
I live in Arizona. There’s no water here. Swimsuits are an anomaly.
Does it take anyone else, like, three-to-five business days to unpack from a trip?
I FINALLY finished unpacking from last week’s work conference, five days after getting back. In my defense: Last Sunday, I basically went straight from my camping trip at the Grand Canyon to Albuquerque (I paused to switch from my Jeep to an agency vehicle), so I was unpacking two cars from both a camping trip AND a business trip.
(And I get to re-pack everything in two more days for another work trip this weekend. Why even bother unpacking!)
But, it was totally worth it. My conference in Albuquerque was really intense, but also really interesting.
Camping at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is an annual thing now, and I love it!
Last year, I went on the first of (hopefully) many camping trips along the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. I’ve written a little bit about this before, but the northern Arizona Returned Peace Corps Volunteers adopted a section of the Grand Canyon Highway, which leads to the North Rim, and are now obligated to perform trash pick-ups along a two-mile stretch twice a year.
Which means, the northern Arizona Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are also obligated to go camping up on the North Rim twice a year as well. Those are the rules.
My reading habits are… a little unpredictable.
I’ve always loved reading, but the older I get, the more and more my Kindle has to fight for my attention. Between wildfires at my day job, preparing yoga playlists and sequences for my night job, taking care of Yukon, gardening, knitting, recreating outdoors (camping? Great for reading! Paddle boarding? Not so much!), etc…
…reading always just seems to land at the bottom of my priority list.
However, I knew I wanted to prioritize reading just a little more this year. I started 2022 living alone in a remote Sierra Nevada cabin for a long-term work assignment, and given my seclusion, I had a LOT more time to dedicate to reading.
I naturally took a break once I got back to Flagstaff and work picked up during wildfire season, but once August started and monsoons became more frequent, I was back to draining my Kindle’s battery as fast as possible.
It’s only August, and I’ve already reached my reading goal for the year — thanks in part to the five books I devoured this month.
My style and tastes have definitely changed over the years (for better or worse, that remains to be seen), but my obsession for coffee mugs remains.
(After clicking that link, I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s changed for the better.)
I’m buying fewer and fewer ceramic mugs these days though because, well…
…I have more of a need for enamel coffee mugs.
I had a pretty FUN-gi weekend here in northern Arizona.
Hehehe… puns.
My friend Megan, who recently joined the Arizona Mushroom Society, asked if I wanted to be her plus-one to a Sunday morning mushroom foray in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness here on the Coconino.
Why the heck not?
