As the autumn equinox is today, I want to squeeze in some summer details before I forget. . It was a strange summer…I was busy recuperating from whooping cough, so I didn’t feel awesome, but I still took several trips, did a bunch of running, went hiking almost every Sunday morning with Kendell, tried and failed to plan a trip to California with my boys. Ate a lot of watermelon, grilled quite a few burgers, totally ignored my yard. So here is my list of my 14 favorite action and adventure (ish) experiences this summer:

1. My first trip to Colorado.
   

   One of the fun things about the retreat was being surrounded by other women who also get my Skirt Sports obsession. I wore this purple tank and the Sidewinder skirt because it is one of my favorite combos and because I knew I'd feel a bit intimidated and the purple would help me cope. (Silly but true!)
   It’s crazy that I only live one state to the west but have never been to Colorado. I fell in love a little bit, especially with Boulder. This trip was for the Skirt Sports ambassador retreat. I met and traveled with a new friend, had some pretty cool experiences on the retreat day, hiked in the Flatirons, and ran a half marathon. (My very, very slowest half I’ve ever done, because I was still really just recuperating from that damn whooping cough!)
2. Marathon training. When my doctor told me I had whooping cough and would be sick for at least three months, I said “but I’m training for a marathon” and he said, very gently, “I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to run a marathon.” But, you know how runners are, yes? Tell us we can’t do it and we’ll do it just to prove you wrong. My training was absolutely nowhere near enough miles; I didn’t do many of the mid-distance runs, and several of my long runs ended in me feeling awful, and my longest run was 18 miles, not 20. But that 18 miler? It was my favorite long run. I did it in a 1/3+2/3 division; I parked my car and ran 6 miles, stopped at the car for water, and then ran 12 more miles. The last miles were slower than the first ones, but I never felt awful. In fact, I felt that happy running feeling for all 18 miles. That one positive training run helped me conquer my marathon jitters; every time I started feeling a bit anxious during the race, I’d think about it and know I’d be OK.
   

   I realized as I put this blog post together that I wore my Holiday print Lotta Breeze skirt a LOTTA times this summer. I love it because it doesn't move at all. And pockets!
3. Chacos. On Memorial Day I stopped by a sale at one of our local sporting goods stores (Al’s), and they had both Chacos and Keen sandals on sale. I’d been looking for a summer shoe that would be supportive for my toe issues. I really, really wanted the Keen sandals, but they just didn’t work with my bunions. So I reluctantly bought the Chacos. I didn’t think I’d love them or wear them very often. Boy was I wrong! I have worn them literally ALL SUMMER. Which means I’ve only worn my inserts for running and hiking, and my toes have been OK. I have a beautiful Chaco tan line on my feet now. I love them!
4. Girls’ weekend in southern Utah. My friend Jamie’s parents have a cabin in southern Utah, and she proposed that she and I and our friend Wendy have a weekend away. It ended up not being as long as I wanted (life makes everything complicated, doesn’t it?), but it was so lovely. The cabin is tucked into the woods, and the first night we got there it rained, so I fell asleep with the loft window open, listening to rain on a tin roof. We hiked in Bryce Canyon, on my favorite trail (the Fairyland Loop) and then…the next day we went to some rock shops! I fell in love with rock shops when I was in seventh grade and I got to be in an advanced geology class. We took tons of field trips, and we’d almost always stop at a rock shop on the way home. Our teacher would teach us some more random rock stuff and then we’d just look for awhile. But, alas, my husband is not so enamored of rock shops, so it’s been years since I’ve stopped at one. So I was delighted to discover that my friends also love rock shops. It was blissful! (I might’ve bought some stone jewelry…)
   

   Purple tank again! This is the Free Me tank and I wear it almost every time I hike, because it's a tank top but the back is covered so my pack can't chafe. The stranger who took this photo for us talked to us for about 15 minutes about his adventures around the world and how much he loves Bryce despite seeing so many other cool places. My thoughts exactly!
5. The drive to San Francisco. The drive home from San Fran was a nightmare about which I do not like to speak. But the drive there was so much fun. Even though it took most of a day, it didn’t ever feel long, and the desert was greener than I expected, and we stopped at several interesting rest stops and scenic views along the way. We laughed and talked and listened to music. It was just…a perfect road-trip kind of day.
   

   I bought these capris at the Ambassador retreat. I'd admired them for awhile but wasn't sure if they would work with my thighs. But they do, and I love them, and I wore them ALL SUMMER. (Kendell, on the other hand, thinks they're obnoxious.) Purple+aqua is my current obsession so I couldn't love these any more than I do.
6. Pine Hollow Overlook hike. This was one of our Sunday morning hikes. Kendell and I hiked a ton this summer (to make up for last summer, when he was still recovering from heart surgery and was starting to have some pretty intense knee pain and so we didn’t hike much), but this one was my favorite. (I already wrote about it here.) When I am stressed I find myself thinking about that hike, the wild beauty of the meadows overlooking the craggy mountains, the wildflowers, the hawk that circled high overhead when we were at the peak. Last week, Kendell and Nathan went to hike it, and I literally cried when they left, because I want to see it in its autumn colors, too. And isn’t it crazy that I’ve lived here my whole life and there are still so many trails I haven’t hiked?
   

   Holiday Lotta Breeze again! Becky pointed out that I post a lot of pics like this one in Instagram...me from the back, looking at a mountain. Perhaps it is my signature style?
7. Buffalo Peak Hike with Nathan. Nathan decided he wanted to join Kendell and me, so one August Sunday morning, we hiked Buffalo Peak together. Kendell and I had hiked this trail earlier in the summer, when the wildflowers were perfect. This time with Nathan, the flowers were mostly gone, but it was so much fun to hike with him. I decided his trail name is definitely Legolas, because those long legs make him move so quickly and gracefully! This gave us a chance to talk together about some of his recent experiences. And to laugh. And to admire the mountains. It was a beautiful experience, one I am even more grateful to have now, since I’m injured and can’t hike at all.
   

   And...Holiday AGAIN! Plus a different color of Free Flow tank. The mountains behind us are clearly showing how hazy and smoky the air has been here all summer.
8. The San Francisco Marathon. Despite my doctor’s dire warning, I did run the marathon. I even accomplished the two goals I set for myself: finish, and finish before the sweep trucks. (I finished in 5 hours 47 minutes, which is 13 minutes in front of the sweeps!) I learned so much about myself from this race, both during the training and the race itself. I think one thing that will stick with me is how doing difficult things helps prepare you for other difficult things. And how being patient and kind with your body when it is experiencing weakness requires a sort of strength of character I need to continue to develop. Also how delicious a Frappuccino can taste after 26.2 miles!
   

   I wore my FAVORITE new skirt for my race, the Jaguar skirt (which is a little bit longer and has ruffles on the side and perfectly compressive shorties) in the Temper Tantrum print. But, alas, I have NO GOOD RACE PHOTOS. If there's not a photo of it, did I really wear it? (Well...yes. I didn't run naked.)
9. A second trip to Colorado. Isn’t that strange…I haven’t been to Colorado ever in my life, and then I went twice in a summer? The second trip was because Kendell had to go to some work training, so I decided to come out at the end of the week. I brought Kaleb with me, and he stayed with Haley. Which means I got to see Haley! We visited her at her work and when I saw her in a hospital setting, in her scrubs and her booties, I totally lost it. Like, ugly cry when I hugged her, because really…she’s grown up. Anyway. Another trip to Colorado meant another chance to run in Colorado! It was a little bit smoky, but not bad enough to stop me. This run confirmed what I had sort-of guessed during my first trip: Colorado seems designed to make it easy to be a runner. There are paved paths and flower-lined sidewalks everywhere!
10. A weekend in Rocky Mountain National Park. During our weekend in Colorado, Kendell and I drove to the top of Mount Evans and hiked to the St. Mary glacier.
    

    This is a spot on the Mount Evans highway. There's a lake behind us and one in front of us, too. And a trail! I soooo wanted to go on the trail, but we only came prepared for a drive. This was my first experience of being above the treeline. I was glad I had my Wonder Wool jacket because it was chilly up there!
    
    But we spent most of the time in Rocky Mountain National Park. This was our first time there and we loved it. We drove the entire length (and back) of Trail Ridge Road, stopping here and there for short hikes along the way. The next day, we hiked to Sky Pond and Miller Pond. This is the day my knee injury happened, but I feel like it was worth it. The mountains are both similar and entirely different to my little bit of the Rockies (the Wasatch front is the most western edge of the Rockies). I haven’t ever been to that high of elevation nor really understood how striking the alpine tundra is. I am still having dreams about these mountains and I want to go back.
    

    Literally two seconds after Kendell took this photo, the sky was BLACK and it was hailing. I couldn't believe how fast the weather changed. The last photo of me before I messed up my knee! And yeah, I DID wear my purple tank again. I told you...it makes me happy!
11. My favorite run this summer: down South Fork canyon. This spring I joined the local chapter of Moms Run This Town on Facebook. I was hoping to perhaps find a few running buddies, but I immediately felt like I didn’t really fit in. Most of them are from the Lehi/Highland/Cedar Hills/Alpine areas, so they seem both younger than me and wealthier. (This triggers my insecurities, deeply.) Plus, all the runs they scheduled were on the north side of the valley. So I hadn’t really tried running with them, until someone posted about wanting to run down South Fork canyon and then to the bottom of Provo Canyon. I didn’t need that many miles that day, and I needed to work on both uphill and downhill, so I went knowing I would just run down South Fork with them, and then turn around. But I was excited to at least try to make some new running friends.

It didn’t really work out that way. At the start of the run, I stood still for a bit to start my watch and my Strava app, and when I looked up from this I realized they’d already started running. They were faster than me (whooping cough makes you so slow) so I never caught up. This really bugged me, as on the group messages they are ALWAYS writing about how Provo Canyon seems like a scary place to run and they would never run there alone…but they left me to run alone without a second backward glance.

Which is a weird way to start writing about my favorite run. But the point is that the group got me out and running early in the morning, in a spot I haven’t run in for awhile. In fact, as I was running down the canyon I remembered that my very first long race started in this canyon, a ten-mile run in 2003, and I think that’s the last time I’ve run there. It was so beautiful that morning! Right in the middle of July but the elevation was high enough that it was literally chilly when I started—goosebump-raising chilliness. The flowers were blooming and the light was perfect. I loved the downhill and I loved the uphill as well, and I finished with just enough energy left to push myself at the end. Starting the way I did reminded me that I will likely always be a solitary runner, because really: I was so happy that morning on my own in the canyon.

I took a whole series of photos this summer like this...half moon yoga pose. I think I will put them all on a scrapbook layout. I'm still sad I forgot to do one in RMNP!

12. Hike to Bells Canyon waterfall with my friend Lucy. Lucy and I became friends because of blogging, but she was also Becky’s friend through other people. So maybe I would’ve been friends with her even without blogging. She and I have very different opinions about the church and our life philosophies, but we get along so well and have the best discussions. When she was visiting this June, we went on a hike together and it was fantastic. I had never hiked to this waterfall, and I was still pretty iffy with my lungs; it was a steep hike, and while I didn’t tell her this, I struggled to hike the steepness and to talk at the same time. But we made it to the fall and back again, talking the whole time. We stopped in a meadow on the way down for a selfie and disturbed a rattlesnake; it rattled its rattle at us and we jumped up on a rock to get away from it! Unlike running, hiking is something I usually do with someone else, and it was great to be with an old friend on a beautiful trail. (She thought I was insane to be excited about the rattlesnake, but as it’s supposed to be there, I was, yes, really excited to see a rattlesnake.)
13. Hiking in Big Basin State Park. I had so many people tell me that when we were in San Francisco we should go to Muir Woods. But every time I read about it, I just didn’t want to. A “nature” experience with that many people just isn’t my thing. (I’m sure if I could have Muir Woods mostly to myself I’d love it.) But you can’t go to northern California without seeing redwoods, right? So instead we hiked the Berry Falls loop in Big Basin. The drive there was beautiful. The hike was beautiful. The parking lot was beautiful! I loved it, Kendell loved it, and while yes, we’d still like to see Muir Woods one day…this hike was perfect for us. I think we saw about 10 other people on the trail (and it was a 10+ mile loop, including me taking a wrong turn), so the solitude and the trees and the running water? Amazing.
    

    Kind of blurry...but the blur makes me smile because it reminds me we were moving! Pink Jaguar skirt and one of my first hikes with my new Camelback
14. Miscellaneous summer 2018 memories: Running with Becky on the Jordan River trail before we took the boys to the trampoline park. Those wildfires everywhere and how unbearably smoky it was, and how sad it made me to see our mountains burning. A family party in July that almost everyone came to, even the family that lives in Texas now. Jake moved back home. Haley moved to Fort Collins. Nathan got back together with his girlfriend and then they broke up again (while we were in San Francisco). Kaleb fell in love with fish (fish as pets, not food) over the summer. A totally unremarkable 4^th of July (like, really, I don’t even know what we did) that made me realize I need to actively create some new traditions for our family. Several Saturdays spent looking at different model homes before we decided that nowhere right now is the right place for us to move. Suzette got to meet Elliott and I got to have breakfast with him while he was visiting Utah.

I confess: I've been feeling pretty sorry for myself with my current injury. I want to be OUT THERE experiencing the world! But writing this blog post helped me to remember that I did a lot of cool stuff this summer, and one day I'll be out there again. In cute clothes!

If you want something cute to wear on your fall and winter adventures, the new lines are starting to come out at skirtsports.com. Use my discount code, 842Sore, for 15% off! 

I’m not sure I can write about this book without giving any spoilers. I mean, I could say this: The Power is a science fiction novel in which, because of unknown side effects of a chemical used during WWII, women develop a new organ in their bodies, a skein under their collarbone that gives them the power of electricity. The novel explores, through the stories of several women and one man, the way this power helps women be physically equal to men in strength, and thus irrevocably alters the power structures of the world. It forced me to look at my own relationships with men, most closely with my husband, in a new light, as well as to wonder how I would be as a person, both within society and within my relationships, were I equally as powerful as men.

Or I could say: this novel is batshit crazy and I loved every second of it.

Or: I listened to half of it on audio, and read the second half because my Overdrive checkout expired before I could finish. I really liked the reader for the audio edition. She did a great job at changing her voice to represent each of the different characters, and her pacing was perfect. But I also think that listening to the audio without also looking at the book lessens the story, because it is interspersed with images representing art from the time of the story, and seeing those pieces adds to the overall experience. I’m actually really glad I “read” it both ways.

Or I could also say: The Cosmopolitan review that says the novel is “The Hunger Games crossed with The Handmaid’s Tale” makes me doubt that the reviewer has read any of these books. Yes, I know The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale are books/movies/TV shows that people recognize right now. They’re cool. But The Power is not a blend of those two stories. Aside from the fact that they are all three about women, and science fiction, and I guess there is a scene in The Power that is similar to a scene in The Handmaid’s Tale wherein women wreak havoc upon men…but, no. Reviewers who compare the reviewed book to what is popular without actually making any connection make me absolutely annoyed. (I almost wrote “infuriated” instead of “annoyed” but, come on. It’s a book review. There are many other things to spend my infuriation upon.)

But what I really want to write about is how the book influenced me, and to do that I have to write about many of the plot points, which would ruin the novel for you. So! If you haven’t read The Power by Naomi Alderman, but you want to, then stop reading right now. Well, stop reading my blog (momentarily), go get a copy of the book, and start reading it!

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OK! I’m writing now with the assumption that you have read the novel, so I can just refer to plot points and characters instead of describing them.

I have always, at my heart’s core, been a feminist. I have been interested in women’s stories for as long as I can remember loving stories; I have found the patriarchal structure of my religion inhibiting since I could just begin to see and understand it. Luckily, my mother also has a feminist streak, and she taught me (and my three other sisters) that our woman-ness should never stop us from doing something, even if society made it harder.

But I married a white Mormon boy who grew up in Idaho, with very conservative parents. With—and I think this is the key, honestly—a mother who was kind and loving and intelligent, but who never stood up against her husband. I remember her telling me once that she had always wanted a down comforter for her bed, but she had never had one because her husband didn’t like them. And that seemed to me one of the saddest things about her life, that her opinions and desires were always second, because that’s the natural order of things, right? The man has the power and the choice the woman has is to accept the way he uses his power or to push back. And where is pushing back going to get you? Divorced.

(That seems critical of my in-laws, and I suppose it is, in a sense. But I also acknowledge that we are all products of our environment, to some extent. So my father-in-law, who was a good man, would likely never realize “huh, I could treat my wife differently” unless someone told him that. And his wife, who was kind and also good, would never tell him because maybe she couldn’t even see it herself.)

It has taken me a long time. Lots of talking, discussing, arguing, yelling, epithets, slammed doors and long, furious, solitary drives just to get the hell away. It has been work. But I think I can say that my husband is a feminist. Of a sort, of course. He understands women’s issues, the way that we are treated as less-than in society, the discrimination, the threat of violence. He can speak the language. But, like Offred realizes in The Handmaid’s Tale, even the good men are easily corrupted. Take away the pressure I am always putting on him and maybe he’d be happy to slide into his father’s role and keep me in his mother’s. In fact, it comes up over and over and over again, still, in the way he talks and thinks. It is ingrained: men have more power in relationships. They often make more money, for example. Their aging bodies are not considered as repulsive and shameful as women’s are, so if there is a divorce, men know they can always find someone else to love them, probably even someone younger and prettier and definitely with bigger, firmer boobs, fewer wrinkles, no elephant skin on their knees. “Women’s work” still is a trope in our society, and even though my husband is actually really good at helping with cleaning the house, I always feel like I should have to thank him for it. (And not in a friendly, thanks-for-helping-me way, but in that uncomfortable-gratitude sort of way, like him vacuuming or unloading the dishwasher is a gift he has deigned to give me, the person who really should be doing it because, you know: woman.)

I continue with this work. I won’t ever not be who I am, a woman who believes I should be treated equally and who will continue pushing her husband to see that. Also, and this is important, trying to teach my sons to see and understand this, too.

But what if, like the women in the novel, I didn’t have to? What if there were equal power, as in the story?

Because the women in this society have a power that makes them physically equal with men (and perhaps even stronger in some ways), they are able to fight back against all of the ways women have been lesser than men. My favorite scene in the book is after Margot has had the test to see if she has the power or not, and she successfully beats the test. In a conference room with the governor and another men, discussing how they will move forward, she realizes she could kill them both.

“That is the profound truth of it…Nothing that either of these men says is really of any great significance, because she could kill them in three moves before they stirred in their comfortably padded chairs…It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”

The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.

And that really is the crux of it, isn’t it? The crux of the power imbalance, whether we’re thinking of physical strength, the threat of divorce, the pay gap. Every women’s issue I can think of comes back to that: the power to hurt is a kind of wealth.

I have been both energized and infuriated while reading this book. (There. That’s the proper place for fury.) Energized because it has made me think: what would happen if we could just, somehow, have equality? But infuriated because the story made me see on deeper levels the way women are still impoverished. And the way that quite often, women themselves enable the poverty. That pat on the head from someone more powerful is a strong source of internal validation, isn’t it? And how, perhaps Naomi Alderman is exactly right: the only way we will ever have equality is if we are first as physically strong as men.

Except, women having power doesn’t lead, in the novel, to equality. It leads to further violence. Violence of a particular feminine sort, violence based on all of the millennia we have endured under men’s power. I want the women in the novel to use their power for good, but I don’t think they do. Maybe Roxy, but only because she loses it. (Roxy losing her skein: I wept at that part. Sorrow and fury.) Don’t we get to learn something from the many years of victimhood? Does society only work if one side is in charge and the other side held under? Are there only patterns that the side in power repeats, no matter who is actually in charge? And aren’t women entitled, a bit, to some revenge?

What really would happen if women ran the world?

Of course, this is not really what feminism is about. Feminism is about equality, not dominance. “Women in charge of the world” is the fear of conservative hearts everywhere, so I really hope many of our elected officials never read this novel or they’d be terrified, their worst fears confirmed. But it is also my worst fear: that if we never can achieve equality, if one side always must have the power, and if power always corrupts, then my faith in women being (I confess) more apt to do good in the world is faulty. And Alderman tells me exactly that, that it is, by the framing structure of the story.

Besides. I don’t have physical power to equal men’s. I don’t know how to change the whole world, like Eve/Allie does.

What I have is what I have to come back to: my relationships with men. Especially my relationship with my husband. And likely he’s baffled by my recent fury, by my proclivity to spark against the smallest provocation. Because deep down, I know that while he listens to me, he tries to understand, he even points out the male/female balance problems he sees in the world, while he is a good man, he still has more power than I do. Than I will ever have. Because he could beat me if he wanted to. (He doesn’t want to, or, he never would choose to, but still. Like Margot knows, he could, and that makes the difference.) Because he makes far more money than I do. Because the thought of divorce is painful for me of course because of the splitting of two lives…but also, if I am honest, because I would crumble away in the reality of whatever woman he chose after me, who would be the opposite of me in all the best ways. Because while I am not afraid of solitude and have grown used to loneliness, the thought of facing a world in which I am alone because I am a used-up, wrinkled, grey-haired woman who of course no one else would want to be with, is utterly terrifying. Is worse than the understanding of my powerlessness.

And because those thoughts are so shameful to me because they illustrate my weaknesses.

But mostly because he does, like all other men, have a wealth. A huge store of ways to inflict pain.

So this novel? This novel made me angry. At my husband, at my sons, at the way the world is. At myself. It made me want, so badly, some kind of power that I don’t have. Something that could level off the possibility for inflicting pain. Or even something that would give me an edge. Just a small one. What would that feel like? To know I could inflict some pain, too, and so to be distanced from the threat of my own pain?

It made me angry. It didn’t give me any answers, but I don’t think it tried to. It just said: what if women controlled the world? Would it be different? Would women still be good? Or is it also true that “goodness” (whatever that really is) can only be found, really, in the side with less power? And what does that say about goodness itself?

In another review, Cory Doctorow says that The Power is “easy to read, hard to put down, difficult to forget.” I think for me, the last point is the truest. I don’t think I will forget this reading experience. I think I will be changed by it. It made me question:

am I good?

Am I controlling?

Do I have any power, and if not, how can I get some?

On Tuesdays I often stop at Zupas to grab a salad, which I eat while I work in the office (because not all of my time at the library is on a desk; when I have office time I get to work without being interrupted by questions). I actually don’t really love salads (I know, take away my girl card), but I like Zupas’ salads because they have tons of different stuff in them. (Stuff I didn't have to cook, chill, chop, and dice.)

I feel a bit virtuous getting a salad, because what I really want is a big bowl of (cream-based) soup. As soup has fewer veggies and more calories, I try not to get it very often. But a few weeks ago, the girl dishing up the soup gave me a sample of the Southwest Potato soup…and oh my. I couldn’t stop thinking about it! So, on another Tuesday, I gave in to my base, feral instincts and had a big bowl of soup, instead of the salad.

It was delicious, but needed a few tweaks, I thought. So yesterday, I tried to make my own. And since it turned out so good (despite my boys’ comments…they always complain when I make soup, and the “big boy” is the very worst) I thought I’d write down the recipe here so I can make it again.

Zupas Southwest Potato and Green Chili Soup copycat

5 pounds red potatoes
crushed garlic
scoop of chicken base
1 white onion
1 cube butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cans chicken broth
2 cups half & half
1/2 cup cream
4 cups milk
1 16-oz bag sweet corn kernels
1 can mild green chilies
1 can hot green chilies
cumin, white pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt to taste

Peel and dice the potatoes into bite-sized chunks (not tiny squares; you want the potatoes to be chunky but also not TOO big). Add the chicken base and garlic to a pan of water and cook the potatoes until just barely tender. Drain, but keep some of the potato-cooking water. Spread the potatoes on a big baking sheet so they don’t keep cooking. Meanwhile, in the pan you will finish the soup in, melt the butter. Dice the onion and let it simmer in the butter on low heat. (You don’t want the onions to caramelize but to be very soft.) Blend the onions and butter until smooth. Return to the pan. Whisk in the flour, then cook the roux until golden. Slowly add the chicken broth. Measure the milk into a glass measure (I am estimating on the cream/milk/half & half ratio, as it doesn’t really matter; more cream makes it creamier) and put it in the microwave for 3 or 4 minutes. (This is an essential step when making a cream-based soup. If you add cold milk to the hot roux, the soup will be grainy instead of creamy. It doesn’t have to be boiling, or even hot; just warm.)

Bring the roux and broth mixture to a boil. Meanwhile, cook the corn in the left over potato water. Slowly whisk the warmed milk into the chicken-broth base. Bring to a simmer (but be careful not to boil). Add the spices to your taste. Drain the corn, then add it to the soup along with the chilies. Adjust spices as necessary. Add potatoes and bring back to a simmer.

Serve with pepper jack cheese and guacamole. (Or, do it like Zupas, with bacon crumbles and tortilla strips on top.)

One note about this recipe: I make a different potato soup (still cream based, but with different flavors) and I’ve always made it with russet potatoes. I will NEVER make a potato soup with russets again! The red potatoes hold their shape so much better, so you feel like you get bites of potato, instead of mushy blobs. Delicious!

Also, you could substitute diced jalapeños for the chilies if you wanted more spice.

If you'd like to print this recipe, here's a PDF:  Download Zupas Southwest Potato and Green Chili Soup Copycat

​On my Instagram feed, I am participating in a project with Stacy Julian called 30 Days, 10 Years Later. This is a sort of a reboot of a class she taught back in 2008, which had photo, writing, and scrapbooking prompts for every day of September. I didn't do the original class (in 2008 I was also teaching scrapbooking classes, and taking the other instructors' classes felt wrong to me somehow; like their ideas might influence my ideas and it might start to seem like I was using their ideas instead of creating my own). You can see more about the project HERE  (and it's never too late to join in! I started on September 3!)

I'm playing along for several reasons. One is that I realized just how heavy my IG feed has become with running and hiking photos. You KNOW I love running and hiking...but they are not the only activities I love. I want my feed to be eclectic, like my life is eclectic. And, besides: with my knee injury, I can't run or hike, so I needed a way to feel motivated to photograph other things in my life.

Second, and more important than my Instagram feed: I LOVE autumn. It is my favorite season; I look forward to it as soon as it ends. But as my kids have gotten older, I find myself documenting fewer and fewer experiences. Actually doing fewer things. So mostly I committed to this project as a way to really immerse myself in fall this year. (Strangely enough, in the year I can neither hike nor run, which are my favorite fall activities.)

To go along with this project, I am resurrecting an old blog project, which I called "weeklies." I tried to post a favorite picture and a summary of each week, and I managed about...ten-ish entries. Which is pretty good for me, but still. (Oddly enough, the last time I worked on weeklies it was also fall!) So here it is, the blog post I know all three of you readers have been waiting for: my summary of the first eight days of September 2018. (All of the other weeks will be regular week-sized entries.)

Saturday, September 1: I slept in! My mom was back in the hospital (she was having some internal bleeding and they didn't know the source), so Kaleb and I stopped by to visit her for awhile. Then we went to buy a snail to keep his beta fish happy. We ended up also buying a better tank than the little goldfish bowl he was using (which Haley got, with a goldfish, as an invite to a dance during her senior year). We looked at the kittens while we were at the pet store and it made me fairly sad. I'm trying to be fair and to compromise, since Kendell hates cats but we had one for 15 years. This is the longest I've ever gone in my life without having a cat. I am a cat person. Not having one tugs at me and makes me feel lonely. But, he's not budging. If I'm honest this makes me pretty mad at him, but then...he was often mad when we had our cat Emily, so. Marriage is hard. Being a grown-up is hard. (Being married to a no-cats person is SO HARD.)

Kendell fixed the lawnmower while Kaleb and I were together, and then he and I went to run some errands. Costco and Target and gas in the car and other Saturday-ish stuff. We stopped by Al's, which is a sporting-goods store we have here. He got a couple of t-shirts and I got nothing because my knee is injured and I'll probably never run or hike again and why even bother living? (I was pretty fun to run errands with!)

Costa Vida for dinner. They never charge me for extra cheese but tonight they charged me for extra cheese. Which made me mad because if I wanted to be charged extra for stuff, I'd go to Cafe Rio. (Still grumpy. I would be so much happier if I had a cat.)

Sunday, September 2. Kendell and Nathan went hiking this morning.  Let's examine that sentence: Kendell and Nathan went hiking. WITHOUT ME. I am NOT HAPPY about not being able to hike. At all. But, I'm glad they went out into the woods together. They even sent me pictures!

I had to teach this Sunday. I am a gospel doctrine teacher, so every third Sunday I teach a lesson. This year we are studying the Old Testament. This calling has been complicated for me, probably because my relationship with the LDS church is complicated right now. So much frustrates me, and almost every time I teach a lesson I find myself even more frustrated. This week's lesson, though, was the story of Jonah and the whale. And this wasn't complicated. This was God speaking to me: love everyone. God loves everyone so to be like them I need to also try to love everyone. To let go of my frustrations and my annoyances and to remember God loves this person too. Jonah is just so...human. He gets afraid and annoyed and angry. He doesn't understand. He flees. He argues with God. Me too, Jonah. I needed the gentle reminder I found while preparing this lesson.

For dinner we had sweet pork burritos. One day I'll figure out how Cafe Rio gets their sweet pork so sweet. Mine is sweet-ish, but  only in the sauce. Still, this is a surprisingly easy meal, since once the pork is cooking in the crockpot, all you really have to do is make some cilantro-ranch dressing and some lime rice and voila: dinner's ready.

My mom was set to be discharged from the hospital, so I took her back home. (She is currently living in an assisted living place. I'm hoping she falls in love with it and stays there, where she is safe and has people to interact with.) We talked with the hospitalist before she left about her heart; we've been worried about it, as she has some A-fib, but it is strong. (I'm actually really glad she got to have this discussion at the hospital. I was planning on taking her to get her echo next week, and then to get the results later...at the same doctor that Kendell goes to. I was glad to talk "heart" in different circumstances.

Monday, September 3, 2018. Labor Day. Mostly we did nothing. Nathan and Jake had to work, Kaleb hung out with his friend. I did some laundry and pulled some weeds—but gardening is not in my wheelhouse right now: too much knee bending. Kendell mowed the lawn and I went inside, discouraged. I took a nap. Kendell and I decided to go to Costco but discovered it was closed (the Internets lied!). For dinner, Kendell, Jake, Nathan, and I went to Red Lobster, which is an autumn tradition. They all get the all-you-can-eat shrimp. I'm civilized so I get a steak. 

Tuesday, September 4, 2018. I woke up upset all over again about something that had happened the day before. So after I helped Kaleb get off to school, I went back to bed, full of that I-have-failed-at-everything-and-my-life-is-worthless feeling. I texted with Becky for a bit. I went back to sleep until I had to get ready for work. (I'm realizing, while I write this, that maybe I am in a bit of a downward spiral right now.) I hobbled around the library; I can't go down stairs normally, so I have been taking the elevator, which is just about my least-favorite thing ever. Then I picked Kaleb up from soccer practice and went home.

When we pulled up to the house, we discovered that Kendell had procured our neighbor's saws-all and was pruning the dead limbs from the apple tree. So Kaleb and I helped. I picked up fallen apples in an awkward way (remember...I can't bend my knees much!) and Kaleb got to run the saw. I have a deep affection for my apple tree; it's the only remaining tree from the orchard that was here before all of the neighborhood houses were built. It was a gathering place and a place to play for neighborhood kids for a long time, but now that Kaleb is a teenager, no one climbs it very often. It's messy and requires weekly clean ups (we don't ever actually EAT the apples, because I don't like chemical sprays but there are so many worms, and besides, I like to leave them for the birds) but honestly: cleaning up the apple tree mess makes me happy. Maybe that was my first real happy moment all month so far.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018. I drove to Salt Lake by myself. Kendell kept insisting he would go, but he had work and really: I wanted to drive by myself. I never have any solitude lately and it's kind of driving me nuts. So, I drove by myself. There was traffic and I was almost late to my appointment, but I was listening to my audio book (The Power by Naomi Alderman) and I just listened and drove and it was lovely.

I went to Salt Lake for an MRI on my knee. I was really anxious about this experience, as I have claustrophobia. But the doctor I go to has a new machine that's not a tube, so basically I just had to hold still for an hour. (There might've been some napping involved.) After, I drove up the canyon. Listened to more of my audio book, until it expired, and then I just drove with my window rolled down, looking at the early-fall trees and hearing the wind. It was lovely and peaceful and just what I needed.

Thursday, September 6, 2018.​ I told Kendell this morning: I don't care. No guilt trips. No talking to me. The boys were going to work and Kaleb was at school and I just wanted to be left alone to scrapbook. He sort-of managed it but it's been so long since I scrapbooked that I hated what I made, and just the fact that anyone was still in the house just...gah. (I have a blog post written about the problem of having your spouse work from home when you are a solitude junky introvert but I can't decide if it's just too bitchy of me to publish.) I was in tears by the afternoon.

When Kaleb came home, he wanted to go to the store to get a cactus. So I abandoned my scrapbook space and went to Home Depot. He picked out two cacti, and I found a plant I loved, so I also bought a new plant pot. Then we came home and potted his cacti and my new plant. I also got all of the houseplants outside, added more soil, and sprayed the dust off their leaves. This was another happy, good moment for me.

Friday, September 7, 2018. I got the results of my MRI today. Mixed: I have damage to the cartilage at the end of my femur, but it's not new. I have some degeneration of the cartilage under my knee cap, but it shouldn't be causing my pain and stiffness. So, I'm going to try some PT for the next month, and I'm not supposed to go up or down stairs. (That's a problem because my laundry room is in the basement, and the boys would do the laundry if I told them to but I don't really WANT them to.) Also I am definitely not supposed to run. Or to hike. Or, you know, apparently have a will to live. But my meniscus isn't torn and if I am lucky the PT will strengthen everything so that I don't have to have surgery. 

Saturday, September 8, 2018. I woke up early and went to physical therapy at 6:30. I feel like I should get extra credit somewhere for that. Kaleb had a soccer game, which Jake, Kendell and I went to; their team lost 4-1 but Kaleb had two near-misses on scoring. PLUS! I was sitting on the sidelines when BAM! I got hit by a rogue soccer ball. It was kicked by a little kid, seven or eight, who apparently has a MONSTER kick because that hurt. I might've said the f word. After, we celebrated Saturday by doing errands and cleaning the bathrooms. Then we got super fancy and bought a new toilet seat for the hall bathroom. Woot! I also pruned the rosebushes and sprayed spider webs off the back of the house, and moped around wishing I could go for a run. Then we ate at Buffalo Wild Wings, which was just OK.

Other Stuff: The Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings; a bunch of trump stupidity; I decided to abandon the book I was actually reading, Three Things about Elsie, and check out the one I was listening to;  I had a deep conversation with Becky about the way the Easter Island statues are symbolic in my life right now (or maybe metaphoric); I got out some of my autumn decorations and I discovered the cute plates I'd bought last year on clearance at Target in December, which was a little happy bonus, like a gift to myself from last year; I made brownies. We had sweet pork burrito leftovers way too many times until I insisted on freezing what was left.