Let me read you a story.

One night this idea came to me and I thought I'd write a book for Sarah's birthday. So I did.  And then my cousin illustrated it for me (isn't she's amazing?). And now, thanks to Blurb.com it has a hard cover and pages and everything. 

Click here to read the whole thing!

It's a gift that I think can only get better and better over time,  and I can check off that "write a book before I die" box on my list.  If you're in the mood for a story about Sarah Grace with a smile on her face and her head all covered in curls, go ahead, sit back and read it! If not--well, I guess you'll have to miss out on the adventure for now!  

It feels good to do something you love.

When I was in elementary school, there was a computer game I loved..I think it was called The Daily Scoop. It took the player through all the steps of making their own newspaper. I wrote stories, I laid out the newspaper, I checked the weather for the weather section, and the computer game had "events" I could watch like crimes and baseball games that I wrote about. Then I'd print it all out on legal size paper, and roll it up in a tube, just like the real deal.

When I was in middle school, I started carrying around a tape recorder. For the most part I just thought it was fun to be sneaky and record people without them knowing...but when I realized I actually had some valuable and quite funny information recorded, I stuck with the hidden recorder and I think this practice continued into my sophomore or junior year of high school.

When I started high school, I went through this survey phase--I'd go around during lunch asking students of East High if they preferred jelly or jam, crunchy or smooth peanut butter, red or blue, and many other "or" questions. I kept a running tally...for who knows why. I guess I just loved knowing...and I loved asking (except I did get cursed at a few times). You can learn so much about a person just knowing they like jelly, smooth peanut butter and like blue more than red...don't you think??

When I was in college, I somehow forgot about my love for asking questions and evaluating answers, my love for descretely pushing the record button, and my love for reporting on animated crimes and baseball games. But when I was let go from my job last year (it's been exactly one year to the day!) and started working at Utah Business magazine, I was reminded.

This week, I asked hundreds of questions, researched and gathered funny and valuable information, I pushed the record button oh, 10 times, attended a really cool event and wrote an article about it.

Dear Candace of Yesteryear, how did you ever let me forget to do what I love?

Call me Lois

I started an internship at Utah Business Magazine and I really like it so far.

I always pictured journalists as people with extreme ideas or a lot of nerdy habits—two personality traits young Candace never wanted to deal with. On the other hand, I pictured them as adventurists, you know, solving crimes, interviewing important people, maybe even falling in love with a super hero. Such a romanticized view is probably what kept my head up when declaring my journalism major at USU (go Aggies) however many years ago.

But guess what—everything just mentioned applies to me. Extreme ideas (oh no, I'm not opinionated at all) nerdy habits (if you haven't noticed any--great), solving crimes (like who wrote my name down on the “expecting list” in church), interviewing important people (aren’t we all important? Everyone changes the world and it doesn’t matter how many other people know about it), and of course, falling in love with the super hero is pretty self explanatory.

I also realize, now, that being a journalist (because I’m totally experienced after two weeks on the job) just means you write stuff--and research a lot. So, here is to more google-searching, more thumbing through the AP Stylebook, and more midnight flights around Metropolis.