I’m leaving in minutes to spend the rest of the week in Utah for this conference I keep talking about, but I’m most excited for it because I get to catch up with some of my most favorite people from around the internet.

The women of Feminist Mormon Housewives being charming and ridiculous and charmingly ridiculous.

The dearest Janet transfixing a cranky Atticus with the power of her mind.

Possibly the best picture ever. Trying to get a picture together while her Atticus and my Atticus kept trying to grab each others faces off.

As if the internet hasn’t brought me enough bounty in this life, it’s brought me just the greatest people to be my friends.

The teenagers I teach at church came over last week to hold a little cooking class. I work with the 16 and 17 year olds, and we’re always trying to think of something to do that will prepare them for life on their own while still being interesting for them now. When we started talking about doing a cooking unit, they were totally on board. (I love that my hand is blurred in this picture. If you’ve ever held a conversation with me, you know that my hand flailing to word count ratio is about even.)

We made a little rice pilaf and we went over knife skills and a mirepoix. It was just so darn much fun to see their enthusiasm. When I showed them how to microwave a lemon to get the most juice out, and then squeezed it onto the rice, I got a wave of literal oohs and aahs. I just adore this group of girls, they have it so together, so much talent and maturity. It’s like they’re all just waiting, with watches checked and toes tapping, until they’re old enough to strike out on their own and get on with what they’re capable of already.

Earlier this summer I was tooling around a beach town with Karen, my cousin/favorite shopping buddy. We were walking past this shop that was obviously serving a clientele that did not include me. Lots of things you’d see at your grandma’s house, doilies draped without irony or juxtaposition, tapestries, framed shadowboxes of nautical knots, images of cats rendered in every color and medium, and there in the back on the clearance table was this little bird family.

I snapped them up for $1 for the little ones and $2 for the mom and dad bird.

Karen, a beacon of fashion and style, gasped at my luck and pointed out that these birds would fit in perfectly at Anthropolgie or Urban Outfitters, just at 10 times the price.

Lesson learned. Do not turn up your nose at the grandma stores.

It has been SO. Darn. Hot. here over the last couple of weeks. Too hot to cook, too hot to wear clothes you’d be seen in public in, too hot to touch another human.

There are only so many nights that you can scrounge around to make a dinner out of cold cereal and crackers, so we had to do something creative.

We bought a fondue pot a few weeks ago and this seemed like the perfect time to bust it out. I just love fondue. Nibbles of cheese and carbs is like heaven on a platter to me. When we were first married Bear would throw me a carpet picnic on special occasions. We’d lay on our bellies on the living room rug and stuff our faces with grapes and fancy crackers and little bits of cheese and deli meat. This fondue party made me so nostalgic, and made me promise myself I’d bring back the carpet picnic tradition.

But this eating a solid pound of cheese was pretty great in its own right.