Books of June 2026

I had these three books checked out from the library. The Giver of Stars was for my book club, and I liked it a lot.

Sam is good at solving mysteries, so I got him a more challenging one to read. Agatha Christie is one of my favorite authors, and And Then There Were None is one of her trickiest mysteries.

I saw this at the library and snapped a pic. Good for this guy for writing this!

This was a good book I came across in the Children's room for my display about America's 250th. 

I want to get this cookbook. Trader Joe's is a personal favorite of mine.

Ambitions, ambitions! I can say now as I'm writing in September that I only ended up reading three of the books on this list I made at the beginning of summer. The rest will just have to carry over to next summer's list!

As an editor, I should read this, so I snapped a pic to remind myself. (I'm procrastinating reading it. 😆)

I was in charge of the big book display in front of the director's office for July, which I put together at the end of June. As I mentioned, the theme I chose was America's 250th, so it was books about America's founding or the Revolutionary War period. I got non-fiction, novels, YA books, children's books, and a few DVDs for it. These displays are fun to put together! It's one of my favorite things about working in the library.

I've learned how to use Canva because of the displays, too!

I also put together my endcap display for July, which was "Book Your Summer With Books Set in Summer." Clever, I know. 😄

My summer was indeed booked! Even if I only read three of the books on my list. 😆 But I did read over ten books this summer, so I did pretty well overall. 😚📚

Around the Apartment in June (2026)

I was loving the pretty scenes on YouTube!

An English cottage in the countryside? Yes please!

Cheerful, happy sunflowers make me feel...cheerful and happy. 😄

I decorated for the Fourth of July and summer. Here are some of them:

I burned this special commemorative Yankee Candle all summer long. The scent was "Liberty Bloom," a nice, light, rosy scent.

Sam in June 2026 (and John, too)

 In addition to Florida and Cape trips, here's what else Sam was up to in June.

But first, a mission pic from John. One of the last!

This was a fun memory from ten years ago that popped up.

Sam conked out before a special stake conference with Elder Bednar got started. He apparently hadn't slept the night before. 🙄💤😴

He got his first job! 👏

I was proud of him. He's a good worker.

Last day of 10th grade. Sophomore year is my favorite year of high school, and I'm a little sad that it's over for him now.

Here he is at an outdoor ropes course with his good friend Colton from church. This was the first day of Youth Conference. He only went to this activity because we went straight from there to the airport to go to Florida for the Ye concert.

Needless to say, it was a good month for Sam!

Sam, Tampa, and Kanye

 Sam is a lucky boy. He convinced me to take him to Tampa at the end of June for a Kanye West ("Ye") concert he really wanted to go to. I said no at first, but I eventually caved. Like I said, he's a lucky boy. Lucky that I like him so much! It turned out to be a nice quick trip together, and I'm glad we did it.

Boarding the plane in Boston

Lesson learned: Don't wait for your seat to be assigned at the gate in order to save money, or you might end up in the very last row like us!

Sam's Instagram story

I like Holiday Inn Express, so we stayed at one that was about a half-mile or so down the street from the stadium where the concert was. 

We walked to the stadium in the morning so that Sam would know how to get there and back, and so that we could check out the venue a bit. It was an easy walk, but it was very hot and humid, even in the morning. There's a reason I haven't ever gone to Florida in the summer before, and that's it.

The concert was at Raymond James Stadium, where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play.

Sam had ordered a custom Ye concert tee from Etsy.

"West Tampa" on the water tower seemed fitting, like it was welcoming Kanye West. 😄

When we got back to the hotel, we cooled off in the pool for a while, and it felt good!

He got something to eat at a Chick-fil-a that was between our hotel and the stadium before going to the concert. 

Sam went to the concert in the late afternoon, even though it didn't start until around 8 p.m. He met up with some people from a group on Instagram that he was in (I think...as you can tell, I don't really understand how these things work), including some pretty popular social media people. He did fine and was safe, and he had a great time. He said it was the best concert by far he's ever been to, and that seeing Ye perform in person was amazing.

This is the big moon globe Kanye Ye performs on.

When I first saw this, it took me a minute to figure out that "oat" means "of all time." 😆

While Sam was at the concert for hours, I sat in bed and read books and took selfies. I'll spare you and only post one. 😁

I had gotten lunch from a Chipotle next door that filled me up, so for dinner I treated myself to a Snickers ice cream bar from the hotel's little store. I ate it as I read out by the pool.

There were some moody clouds, but luckily for the concertgoers, it didn't rain.

Sam got back late that night. We left in the morning. It really was a quick trip, basically two nights and one day.

Here we are at the Tampa airport before boarding our flight to Boston. Direct flights are the best!

Photobombed!

I have to say that I've come around to Kanye Ye a lot more than I thought I would. He has a notorious reputation, but I don't think he's that bad. A lot of the offensive and controversial things he did in the past were partly from mental illness, which he has under better control now. He's also funny and talented as heck. From a musical standpoint, Sam has played many of his songs for me in the car—the edited versions—and I really do like some of them. I love the beautiful piano music in Runaway, which I want to learn to play once I have my piano again. He also has some beautiful Christian songs that I've added to my playlist. I've been pleasantly surprised. He really is very talented. Now he just needs to clean up the language!