we're not in the same boat

Saturday's evening rainbow

Last week I wrote this really long stupid post complaining about people who complain about things that I don't complain about, left it up for a few hours, thought better of it and deleted it. If you read blogs via an RSS feed then you'll be able to see it but if not, tough luck!

My Instagram friend Rebecca shared this graphic a few weeks ago that I should be thinking about more often:

I read another post today that really resonated with me—the poster said something to the effect of, we are all weathering the same storm right now but we're not in the same boat. I feel extremely blessed that I don't feel insecure in a lot of areas right now. I feel a sort of panicked claustrophobia grab me every now and then, but I don't know what it's like to live with persistent anxiety or depression, or to have a job that you can't do remotely, or to live in a country where the president seems proud of the fact that he has no idea what he's doing. One thing that I'm having a hard time coming to terms with right now is that I cannot control how others react in a crisis. It's so bad and it's a long-time problem that was around long before the pandemic was. So, I'm going to spend my energy for the next while working on my attitude and how I can be kind and serve people who are being affected differently than I am right now. (Even if they are complaining about lockdown and have an enormous house and/or backyard. ;) I am trying to spend more time writing about my feelings than stewing about other people's feelings so this is totally self-serving, but it helps me work through my emotions and I find the writing process really helpful in giving me some perspective. 

Today I had such a fun day with my kids. I expended a little too much of my fun mom energy and snapped like a rubber band at bath time (also when I walked in the living room and saw Ralph had colored all over the wall and couch) but my kids were still smiling when I tucked them in so I'm calling it a win. I used to have a really bad yelling problem and lockdown has been a good chance for me to work on that, which is surprising. I think it helps to be around my kids all day and know exactly what it is that is making them feel off, which helps me be more compassionate when they're losing it. I wish that I had that luxury with everyone! So I'm going to try and think about things from that perspective while I try to be more empathetic with people who are not my kids.

I don't really have anywhere that I'm going with this post but I'll leave you with everyone's favorite Rilke quote that has helped me so much over the last few years and is back helping me now: "Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." When I've relied on that quote it has been under entirely different circumstances, but it's true—those old feelings are gone and have been replaced by new ones. I've just got to keep going to find out what other feelings, good and bad, are waiting in my future.

tell me something good

I spent a lot of time writing a post about Black History Month and my goals after thinking about this month, but in the end I just deleted all of it. Really the gist of what I want to say is that I can't be a good advocate for or ally to the black community if I'm not informed or listening. So I've spent the bulk of February informing myself and listening, and it's been transformative. I'm still getting back into the idea of my blog as a platform to talk about WHATEVER I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT and I have so many thoughts about the state of race and racism in America and it really is on my mind all day. But I don't know how to talk about it coherently yet, so we'll start here.

I have never purposefully excluded black authors or stories about black people in my reading but I've never actively sought it out, so my goal for 2019 was to read one book per month by an author of color. February's not even over yet, I've read five books already (I think I read five books in all of 2018, yikes), and I'm excited to keep the momentum going.

I wanted to share some of what I've been reading/listening to/consuming—maybe you'll find something in here that will help change your perspective too.

READ (ed. note: these are the books I've read so far this year so it's not at all an exhaustive list; for more POC titles I've read/want to read you can see my Goodreads list here):

• Becoming by Michelle Obama (I didn't think this one would be as impactful for me as it was but it really set a good tone for my goal)
• The Origins of Others by Toni Morrison
• Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton (this is a folktale illustrated for kids but oh man I cried when I was reading it to Rhoda)

LISTEN:

• these episodes from The Nod: The Fugitive; Nobody Looks Like Me; Kunta Thinks You're Funny (LaVar Burton!!!); The Hairstons; and for fun, because this episode made me laugh out loud multiple times, YouTube Conspiracy Theories (Mom, you probably won't think it's funny :)
• these episodes from On Being: Let's Talk About Whiteness with Eula Biss; Civic Spiritual Evolution with Cory Booker; The Spirituals with Joe Carter (this one was... So Good)
• this episode from TED Radio Hour: Comfort Zone (especially the segments with Luvvie Ajayi and Ann Morgan, the latter is what inspired me to set an actual goal to read books by non-white authors)

FOLLOW:

• Black Coffee with White Friends on Instagram for well-curated tidbits, musings and insights about black culture. Can't recommend this one enough—if you don't read/listen to anything else on this list at least follow this account!

Tell me what you're reading/listening to/consuming, and let's talk about it.

are you there, blog? it's me, hannah

At some point in 2018 I realized that I really missed blogging. I love Instagram, but it's become a 100% blog substitute and I've been missing spilling my guts on my blog. I also miss being FUNNY, which I had forgotten that I was (I WAS) and Instagram just isn't that funny most of the time. I also miss reading long form blog posts from my real life friends and not just the ones from my pretend friend. At some point in college/grad school I remember feeling a little bit sad and vulnerable once my original blog readership began to extend well beyond Eliza (my sister), Kate (my childhood friend), and Nicole Winkleman (RU STILL OUT THERE NICOLE??) but I think that it's safe to say that my readership has dwindled back to early 2000s levels after a healthy dose of neglect. Thank you to Eliza and Kate who are still reading (AND POSTING!) after all these years, and who have both stuck with the original URLs that were inspired by their high school nicknames.

SPEAKING OF ALL THESE YEARS: my very first blog post was published almost exactly 17 years ago on January 16th, 2002. It is the longest I've ever held onto a habit! Please excuse me for the 18 month hiatus I took after Ralph was born. Those were dark days! Robbie started traveling Monday through Thursday when Ralph was still an infant, and that plus having an extra kid around just changed a lot of my habits, perspective, desires... everything really. I don't mind the travel like I used to—I have some coping mechanisms, which I'll likely delve into in future posts—but being alone most nights has made it very easy for me to get stuck in bed scrolling my phone rather than being a contributor. I've become a lurker! The very thing I used to scorn!

Most importantly, I would like to retain the moral superiority of someone who joined Blogger pre-Google acquisition and used to have to manually embed comment windows in my blog HTML, so I guess I need to continue to maintain my presence here rather than reminisce about the good old days of blogging in my parents' family room.

Anyway, while I think about what I'm going to write about I'll just leave you with a 5:40 minute summary of 2018, which has been conveniently captured by the 1 Second Everyday app. Which, incidentally, was first introduced to me by Kate and Eliza. Moral of the story: STICK WITH KATE AND ELIZA.

new year, new me

(this is what you get when you question my blogging habits, ROBBIE)

Robbie has mentioned several times over the past few months that I have given in and let Instagram take the place of my blog. I guess that is kind of true, as my blog had started turning into a travelogue and Rhoda updates, which is not what it started out as fourteen (!!!) years ago. Yes, my bloggerversary came and went again this month without any fanfare. And yet the world keeps turning.

I've been thinking a lot about why I've let this happen. Honestly I've been confused about the purpose of my blog for quite some time now, probably since Rhoda was born. The weird thing about my generation of bloggers is that most of my peers that I have met or kept in touch with through blogging have gone on to bigger and better things, like Instagram or owning a crazy successful small business (and then posting about it exclusively on Instagram). For someone my age, blogs were not the gathering place for young mothers—it was a place to post stuff that you would now post on Twitter or Facebook. And new/young moms my age do things like regular monthly updates about their kids with cute "1 Month!" onesies or stickers and I can't go for that—not for lack of trying, but it's just not my style I guess since I only did that for two random months of Rhoda's life. (But looking at that post makes me wish I had kept up with it because LOOK AT BABY RHODA.) So now that my people are gathering on Instagram, that's where I am most of the time, I guess. Though Instagram is the new place where, if you're not careful, you can quickly spiral into a wormhole of creeping on other people's lives and maybe being jealous of them or wondering what happened to that random acquaintance's marriage or getting super depressed because you keep seeing crazy stories about poor young moms whose kids died in a horrific accident or were born with some life-threatening condition. I know that stuff was all out there before but I just wasn't aware of it because I wasn't as anxious as I am now and I just didn't care about people's kids that much. And now you can really get away with that creeping behavior because it's not like you can look at the IP addresses of people who are creeping on your Instagram page. So now I just don't look at the "explore" tab anymore and I feel a lot more peace in my life. 2016 has been a great fresh start without all that emotional baggage to be lugged around.

Enough about Instagram—LET'S TALK ABOUT ME. But in jumpy, disconnected paragraphs, because I've got a lot of catching up to do.

2016 has been AWESOME so far. I'll be honest—2015 was rough, in hindsight. I was ready to put that year behind me. Socially it wasn't super great for me in many ways, and physically it was also tough. Why is it that the second I turned 30 I started falling apart? My most recent thing is that I have a prescription for physical therapy to help alleviate pain from a herniated disc in my neck, which is also causing arm numbness and chest pain. I think that parenting is trying to kill me.

Now let me tell you about how awesome I'm feeling. The Philly winter has been nothing short of perfect. Sure, we had a couple of severe cold snaps there—but it was also 75 degrees on Christmas Eve and it's supposed to hit 60 today, and the weather between then has just been hovering in the comfortable 40s and 50s. Not mad about that, since the past two winters have introduced the term "polar vortex" into my vocabulary. And we got our token snowstorm and snow day, and now the snow is melted and it's just a happy memory. It's sad that weather plays such a huge role in happiness but you do what you can.

Speaking of weather, this is our last East Coast winter for the time being because Robbie accepted a job offer in Palo Alto after graduation. Whaaaat. So, seeya winter. Come visit me in California and manifest yourself as breezy and 60 degrees.

A goal I've continued for myself in 2016 is to read a book a week (I met my goal last year, boo yah), and so far I'm on track. In 2014 I averaged a book a month, and having more things to talk about with people is just really great. Though I have approximately two friends here who read books on the reg, so that's kind of a bummer. I miss my DC book group. My other goal is to try one new recipe a week, which has been fun so far. Meal planning is probably my least favorite thing about being a homemaker so this has been a stretch experience. There were many nights in 2015 that we had quesadillas for dinner and I'm not proud of that, but I'm not apologizing for it either. I'm just trying to repent. If you want to know what I've been making you can see that on my "I Made This" board on Pinterest. Also, if you want to get out of a recipe rut you should follow Smitten Kitchen on Instagram, because I've yet to make a recipe of hers that I didn't like and most of them aren't that complicated. She posts several seasonally-appropriate recipes from her archives every day and it's pretty much the main place I get ideas for this week's new recipe. Other solid cookbook suggestions: Dinner: A Love Story, The Joy of Cooking, and America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated are favorite in our household rotation. Just in case you are interested in that kind of thing.

I don't think I ever mentioned on my blog that I started sewing in earnest about a year ago. I took a class on sewing with knits and acquired a serger and now I'm the Sergin' General (I love that joke). I am finishing up a class tonight on men's trousers and now Robbie has a new pair of corduroy pants. I'm not sharing this to brag, but to say that I'm happy that I've found a hobby that allows me to make new clothes for myself and Rhoda, and also allows me to binge watch TV shows at the same time.

Enough about me—I'm hungry and I need a nap. Probably really the two real reasons I don't blog anymore, since that's all I really want to do in my spare time anyway.

welcome to toddler town

I read a lot of essays and books about parenting because I like to hear others' perspectives on parenting. Here's a funny (and short) one I read today—"Nineteen Months: My Kid Has All The Feelings." I could regurgitate everything that the author wrote but just picture it happening to me and my kid instead. I loved that it wasn't negative like most of the parenting essays I read on the internet, which I don't think is fair to children or helpful in improving the overall image of parenting—and we wonder why people aren't interested in having kids (I'm looking at you, Scary Mommy)...

Anyway, ever since watching General Conference this past weekend I've been mulling over my thoughts about my family and The Family (anyone else who watched conference notice that subtle theme?) and trying to figure out what I'm doing right and what I need to improve on. The aforementioned essay did help because it helped me laugh at myself a little bit—I think I'm at the point now where I realize that Rhoda is mostly irrational and that I need to figure out how to relinquish control and be okay with that.

But how do I balance what I want/need with what Rhoda wants/needs? How do I become more selfless? I am serious. I am learning that it does NOT come naturally for me to be selfless with Rhoda. Maybe on a very large scale? Like how I grew her WITH MY OWN BODY for nine months and then I fed her WITH MY OWN BODY for another year after that. But I have to be really deliberate in all of my decision-making in order to make sure I'm not slighting either of our needs. (And Robbie's too on top of that, sheesh!) Some days it's easy for me and other days it's just really hard. Like the day I put her in her crib for "quiet time" while I napped for an hour because I didn't get any sleep the night before. You just do what you gotta do. She is so sweet (99% of the time) that I feel bad when I get frustrated with her because I want her to do something that she doesn't want to do. That's the worst—getting mad at a tiny person who does not deserve your (often irrational) anger.

And what does she really need? A thought I read in another essay this week was that parenting is a balance of giving your kid what they want/need without coddling them and I constantly question that in my day-to-day decision making. I think the solution probably is to not overthink it but then what fun is that?

Rhoda is a super good kid though, despite the little blips in consistency we get from time to time. Her tantrums are few and far between (but very passionate when they do happen) and she's got the funniest sense of humor. The picture I posted is from a couple of weeks ago when I was going through a bunch of Rhoda's old clothes and getting them ready to put in storage, and Rhoda was interested in wearing most of them. So she walked around for an hour or so with her Halloween cape and Chinese shoes on and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Toddlers—the funniest and also weirdest things ever.

feelings

This weekend was weird. For much of the weekend I was feeling about as deflated as my back tire in this picture. And yes, this is our car. After someone smashed into it. And didn't leave a note. I know! It's so annoying. Parking on the street is annoying. It has never been this bad in five years of street parking, but I guess my number had to come up some time. I was really mad about it on Sunday. We parked the car on Friday night and then happened to walk by it on a Sunday morning walk. In true ghetto city car fashion our car has been missing a hub cap for the past ten months so we didn't think much of it at first and then we were like wait, the missing hub cap is on the other side... and that's a big dent in the side... and the tire is deflated. Stupid. But, you know, it's cool. I knew I would be upset about it until we got some answers from our insurance company and got it towed, and then I would just be annoyed after that. I'm grateful that we weren't IN the car when the accident happened, so that's a bonus. Also, anyone who barrels into someone else's car and doesn't leave a note but does leave a huge chunk of their car under yours probably has worse problems than I do, so I can't be mad. Well, I can be. But I'm not anymore.

I don't know how to explain my feelings from the rest of the weekend though. But I might have pinpointed it on Sunday evening when we were having some post-conference breakfast for dinner at a friend's house and suddenly Rhoda signed "more" when she actually wanted more! A shock to both Robbie and me, since I am very consistent at being inconsistent when it comes to signing with Rhoda. And suddenly she seemed really old to me and I started tearing up and my friend noticed and gave me a big hug. Thinking about your baby turning one is something that no one really warns you about. The internet hides behind a facade of fancy first birthday parties and smash cakes but no one tells you that you might start crying spontaneously when your first born learns to clap (also happened on Sunday) or when you picture her with her two front teeth (they're peeking out!). She's getting older and more awesome every day and that's just the way it's supposed to be, but I already miss my baby and hope she wants to be best friends with me FOREVER. Except for in the middle of the night. I'm not interested in being anyone's best friend at 1:30 in the morning—you hear that, teething Rhoda??

I'm also still figuring out being at home all the time. Weird! I thought I'd have it figured out by now. I've been at it for quite some time now. I know a lot of very seasoned moms who struggle with this too. Now that Rhoda's getting more interactive and mobile it's getting a bit easier since we can go on outings that she will actually enjoy. But there's still something missing. One thing gnawing at me is that I have been particularly inwardly focused for a very long time. I think it's good to take care of yourself and your family but I am sensing the emptiness that comes when you aren't helping other people. Obviously I am helping a tiny person quite a bit every day but during my downtime I think a lot about myself and what I want in life and it gets quite boring to do that for the bulk of the day. I have this print in our entryway that says "Have I cheered up the sad?" and it sort of acts as our family motto but I think I need to think bigger in terms of that motto's application. I guess I didn't think about this a lot in DC because we had been in our ward for so long that people knew they could call on us for help with specific needs. Now we aren't as familiar with our branch since we're still relatively new and I've been kind of lazy about getting to know people and do my calling with more enthusiasm and I feel bad about it. There is this quote from a talk by Jean A. Stevens that has stuck with me ever since I read it a few months ago: "The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a checklist of things to do; rather, it lives in our hearts. The gospel 'is not weight; it is wings.' It carries us." What a nice image. You'd think that after almost thirty years on this earth and many of those years spent in church service that I would stop with the checklist mentality already—waiting for the relief of a completed (sometimes dreaded) task rather than seeing it as an uplifting experience. I think I've also spent a lot of time lately reading and talking about doctrine and the gospel (on the internet, mostly, in addition to the source, but mostly on the internet because isn't controversial commentary so much more riveting??) rather than the action part of it, and the latter is really just a lot more satisfying. I was really impressed with the admonition from Neill F. Marriott in the General Women's Meeting last week to learn doctrine, and I want to be better at that part too, but I think that action and knowledge need to be in balance in order to reap the most benefits—right? I have struggled with that balance for much of my life too, I think.

The final thing is that I haven't washed my hair in days—I can't even remember the last time I shampooed my hair and it's kind of liberating. I'm toying with going shampoo free but I just can't commit because it seems too complicated to be as simple as the internet claims. Also, I can't get behind the name of the method and refuse to retype it here. Thoughts like this are the reason I need to get out more.

odds and ends

Sorry for being gone so long. I'll make it up to you by posting an incredibly flattering picture of the three of us in our matching pajamas on Christmas morning:

It was worth the wait, wasn't it??

I want to be a better recorder in 2014. I used to be a great journal writer but that stopped around the time I got married and also when blogging got big. And now Instagram has killed my blog. So I'm hoping to make more time to be here this year. I like to read old posts and see how much I've changed and grown over the years and I feel like the last year has just been a travelogue with no snippets of my real life. And this week marks twelve (!!) years of this blog's existence. Can you believe it? So many changes have happened and are going to continue to happen over the next while so I need to write it while I remember it. So, here we go.

The three of us just spent a glorious three weeks visiting family and friends in Arizona and California. Robbie reminded me that three weeks is like 30% of Rhoda's life so far. Unfortunately she won't remember how wonderful the west is in December and January. We completely avoided the polar vortex and DC's first snow (I'm actually a little sad about that one) and we came home yesterday to temps in the 50s. Climate change? What climate change?

So, now Rhoda is 11 weeks old. Since we've been gone, Rhoda has become way more responsive than she was when we left. She smiles back at people and coos and does really cute baby things. She also drools like crazy now, which concerns me because my mom said "well, maybe she's teething already." TOO SOON, RHODA. Our flights out west and back were really great, which was nice because I was anxious about flying with a baby. On our first flight, we got upgraded to first class, thanks to Robbie's really generous sister Keena, and she either slept or was cute the whole time. On the way back home we missed our flight but got put on a direct flight just an hour later, and Rhoda even got her own seat and got to sleep in her carseat for much of it. That was pretty great too. 

Another thing I was concerned about was the three hour time change, but that seems to be going okay too. Last night was a little rough because she was waking up for her regular nap time until 11 pm (because she had adjusted to the time change by the time we left California), but then she woke up at 7:30 as usual. Unfortunately, I haven't adjusted yet so I was pretty tired, but then we both took a 3 hour nap this morning and I think that we're both feeling pretty great right now.

As for me, I was feeling a little bit down before we left and now I've come back feeling like I can do life as a mom, and I'm ready to figure out this life stage and new identity of mine. It helps that we just spent three weeks with family that was happy to hang out and play with a new baby whenever I felt like I needed a little bit of a break, and it also helps that Rhoda is more fun to be around. I do miss newborn Rhoda and how small and cuddly she was, but everyone's been right so far—each stage of a baby's life continues to be fun as they grow. I sometimes feel like I'm talking to myself when I'm around her but at least she turns her head toward me when she hears my voice and she responds in her baby voice so I don't feel so alone at home most of the day. Rhoda's also a good sport about going out so I really don't feel as cooped up as I thought I might, though the weather hasn't been super great since she was born and we sometimes end up being at home all day.

One thing about having a baby at home is that it is a constant reminder that each day is a new beginning. A few weeks ago Rhoda got a round of vaccines that she didn't really respond well to—she woke up from her afternoon nap screaming so hard that her body was shaking, and it continued without stopping for an hour. I remember thinking, "What happened to my sweet baby that never cries? Is this going to be my life from now on? Did I just break her?" Another time right after Robbie went back to work, we had an off day cooped up indoors and by the end of the day Rhoda and I were tired of each other and I just handed her to Robbie when he got home and I told him I was going out by myself and I went and got a milkshake. A little irrational, I know, but when you have a bad day with a baby that changes so much from day to day, you kind of wonder if this is them turning a corner and changing their otherwise sweet habits. But then in the morning after everyone's fed and rested, Rhoda is usually all smiles and I kind of forget how horrible the day was before. She is more forgiving of me than I am to myself and everyone needs someone like that in their life—it doesn't matter that my someone can't talk back yet, right?

So, those are the haps. Hopefully the haps will get more interesting than that, but there you have it. Here's to a year of better blogging!

it's a little bit funny, this feeling inside

Li'l Ham two weeks ago at 37 weeks

This is such a weird time in my life. So weird, and so awesome! People have been asking me if I'm "ready" for the baby to come. I interpret this to mean one of two things—there is the practical "ready," like is my hospital bag packed (yes), is the crib set up (yes), did I hire a cleaning lady to come and deep clean my apartment so I wouldn't have to stare at a dirty floor during labor (yes). But really, even though I've checked off many of those practical boxes, you're never really "ready," are you?

Then after the practical "ready" is the physical "ready." "I'm sure you are just READY for this baby to get out already!" "Aren't you exhausted?" "Are you just... done?" Well, yes and no. I told my midwife today that I actually really like being pregnant! I'm okay waiting till the baby's ready to come. The baby hasn't given me much trouble and I'd be totally ungrateful if I complained about being pregnant. I'm tired of having to pee all the time and not getting a good night's sleep, but if that's the worst that's going to happen during pregnancy—I'll take it.

It's really such an amazing thing and—trite as it sounds—I realize that this is the last time I'll ever be in this season. I mean, I hope that we have more children, but this is the last time it'll just be me and the baby inside. There will be more distractions, I might be in a more fragile physical state next time, I just don't know. So I'm trying to enjoy it.

The other thing that's been weird about this season of life is the change I've undergone that hasn't been physical. Not the "I'm going to be a mom!" change but the "I'm not really a mom yet, what am I?" change. Lots of people probably know that I left my old job back in March, which wasa decision I made in the fall, and it just so happened that I found out I was pregnant that week too. Which was great! That's what I wanted and hoped for. But it shifted my focus from "what job am I going to look for now?" to "what can I do to get ready for life with a baby?" I had grand plans to find a different job when I was planning all this out and I just threw it all aside, other than some freelance projects I have worked on over the past few months. I feel like living in DC has made me feel like I have to explain myself all the time when it comes to work because that's how most people define themselves. You can basically predict how any conversation with a new acquaintance in DC will go—it inevitably starts with "so, what do you do for work?"(followed by "so, where are you from? No, not where do you live, like where are you FROM, originally?") and I don't have a good answer! The good answer, I realize, is "I'm growing a baby—that's a lot of work" but for whatever reason I haven't been able to muster up the courage to tell people what I do all day. I take care of my house, I make stuff, I visit people? I don't know. It sounds dumb. That's probably why I couch my answer in some sort of vague answer like "oh, I work from home," which is technically true. 

What further complicates all of that is that I was never really happy with the type of work that I was doing before I got pregnant and I spent many tearful nights trying to figure out what I wanted to DO with my life and I never got a good feeling about any of it. I mean, I guess it's not that complicated after all—what I want to do is raise kids and be a good mom and contribute to society in some way, and maybe "some way" is by raising good kids and not by spending my evenings and weekends doing work I was only mildly enthusiastic about at times. 

I have a feeling that once the baby does come and I have a little bit more purpose than merely being a vessel of sorts then some of this anxiety might be alleviated. I realized the other day at brunch with some friends how boring my conversations have become these past few months as I blabbed on about red raspberry leaf tea and doulas and birth stories and prenatal yoga and other things completely uninteresting to people who don't care about pregnancy or babies. I have always found these things totally fascinating but if I didn't have Robbie there to turn and find someone else to talk to I probably would be ignorant of the fact that some people just don't care. (Only slightly kidding—though this is how I feel any time the conversation turns to airline points too so it's only fair that he and I treat these conversations similarly.) But I really don't have anything else to talk about right now except for how I just finished five seasons of Doctor Who in a matter of weeks and some people find Doctor Who more boring and foreign than pregnancy so I'm just kind of stuck. 

Unless, of course, you want to talk about Twin Peaks—I'm totally your girl. Team Coop all the way.

two thoughts

I'm 100% over the news from this past week. I'm sure everyone is, especially my friends here in DC that haven't been able to go to work in over a week. I've been trying to avoid Facebook because I have read some ignorant and hurtful statements about the shutdown but I find myself going back again and again to comment or shake my head in disbelief. It's like watching a car wreck. It's ridiculous and pointless so I'm trying not to do that anymore because that's not how I roll. But I still think it's important to articulate these thoughts when I am trying to work through them, so here I am. Blog readers are much more forgiving than Facebook friends. (And I can delete your comments here if I don't like them but not on Facebook [jk (or am I?)].)

The other thing that I've been a little bummed out by is the reaction to a very inspiring General Conference this past weekend—thanks, social media! As usual, some talks spoke much more to me than others (some, among others, include Elder Soares' talk on meekness, Elder Dube's talk about the value of looking ahead, the crowd favorite on inclusion by President Uchtdorf, and Elder Holland's talk on mental illness), but much of the reaction that I read about conference a few days later was something along the lines of "I couldn't believe what I heard in Elder/Sister So-and-So's talk just after hearing that other one that I liked much better." While I feel like these kinds of statements are a bit contradictory to the sentiments expressed by President Uchtdorf—that there's room for all of us at the table—I do think it's perfectly fine and normal to have those reactions, but posting them in a public forum and opening it up to an argument seems counterproductive and self-serving. (*Guiltily raises hand after taking the bait and leaving a comment*) 

Maybe writing a blog post about it after I've shared that opinion is hypocritical and maybe I'll decide to delete it later, but my goal here is not to single out anyone or a specific point of view—I'm just trying to work through my thoughts. Even when I do agree with a certain point of view posted online, sometimes it makes me feel bad that the sentiment is phrased in such a way that it might make anyone who disagrees feel stupid. You know? Though as my mom would probably say, "No one's aiming to please here. More, really, to edify, to instruct."

Anyway, I read two quotes recently that I really liked that dovetailed nicely with these two topics so I thought I'd share them with you.

From Hugh Nibley:

"Nothing is easier than to identify one's own favorite political, economic, historical, and moral convictions with the gospel. That gives one a neat, convenient, but altogether too easy advantage over one’s fellows. If my ideas are the true ones—and I certainly will not entertain them if I suspect for a moment that they are false!—then, all truth being one, they are also the gospel, and to oppose them is to play the role of Satan. This is simply insisting that our way is God's way, and therefore the only way. It is the height of impertinence."

From C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, talking about what a society run by Christ might be like:

"If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, 'advanced,' but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old-fashioned—perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing. That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total plan for the human machine. We have all departed from that total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself. You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity."

Now back to our scheduled blog programming.

whoop! there it is

Welcome, third trimester!

Thus far my pregnancy has been uneventful (except for the time at thirteen weeks I threw up in the gutter of a Big Lots parking lot in the ghetto), for which I am extremely grateful and fortunate. But today my body seemed to say "okay, it's officially your third trimester, so you better get used to being uncomfortable." While we were waiting for our friends' baby's baptism to begin this afternoon I suddenly started feeling dizzy and the room started spinning so I spent most of the ceremony in the dark basement of the church chugging a ton of water to combat what was probably dehydration, and then a couple minutes after Robbie took these pictures I went inside and pulled off my bra because my ribcage has expanded too much for me to comfortably fit in it anymore. So, you know. Minor inconveniences. But it would be nice to be able to wear a bra again.

I really do feel good though. I started really showing a couple of weeks ago so now I've gotten a couple of random stranger compliments, and the baby moves around like crazy. I love and crave fish (used to hate it) and really spicy food. When I eat dessert/processed sugar (which I'm not supposed to be doing thanks to our midwife practice's strict nutrition guidelines) I get severe headaches, so I guess that's probably a good thing since I'm not supposed to be doing it. It is hard to sit and watch people eat my favorite treats in front of me so I hope my perseverance pays off in the end.

I'm still biking around town, and I'm wondering when I'm going to start losing my balance and can't do it anymore. A really nice (and fit) woman was riding behind me up the Hill the other day as I was huffing and puffing my way up and she said "You know, I had my first baby 6 months ago and I was riding almost until my due date and I think it really helped me bounce back afterward, so keep up the good work!" It was really encouraging and it makes me happy that I haven't gotten lots of unsolicited advice or rude comments from strangers. People really are nice. Except for like 90% of Metro riders who never offer me their seat on crowded trains.

Speaking of Metro, please bless that I won't have my baby on the Metro platform.

We don't know the sex of the baby, but Robbie thinks it's a boy. I kind of do too because I've had lots of dreams about it being a boy (even before I was pregnant), but then I had two girl dreams recently and I just don't know what to believe anymore. People sometimes ask me if I want one over the other, but really—I'm just happy to be here, folks.

I am nesting up a storm and I've made hats, blankets, and burp cloths galore. We're also spending lots of time rearranging and buying new furniture (mostly just stuff with drawers) and our house looks like a construction zone.

Thanks to magic grease-zapping hormones, I only have to wash my hair every week and a half. What?? Can this last forever, please? That kind of makes up for the sugar-induced migraines.

Robbie is done traveling for work. HALLELUJAH.

I can't believe we're just twelve weeks away from D-Day because that seems really close and also really far away.

But I'm super excited.

and the rain rain rain came down down down

Hello June. Rainy, hurricaney, sticky June. Every year I'm caught a little off guard by this month, because I forget how miserable June can be. Last night I walked to the metro after dinner with a friend and the skies just opened up and poured buckets of hot, sticky rain for about ten minutes, and all I could do was laugh while getting drenched with nasty DC street water because this is just what it's like around here and I need to get used to it. But June is wonderful too, because June is when the public pools open for weekday use in DC.

This has been a really weird few weeks over at the homestead. Robbie was traveling overseas for about three weeks, and the day after he came back, I left for a trip to Minnesota with my mom and sisters (more on that later). Then he left and came back the day after I did, and then two days later we went to Chicago for the weekend (more on that later too). 

And all during that while, I've suddenly started feeling and looking very pregnant. I'm 20 weeks along now so I guess it's about time that started happening. I had to finally break down and buy a pair of maternity jeans (revelation! they are awesome), and the baby has started moving like a crazy person too. Which is really cool, but it is also a little disconcerting because it feels like something is knocking on my belly and trying to get out? Also I'm regretting telling people I've been feeling pretty good so far because suddenly I'm just not feeling super great, mostly because I have developed a cold after all that traveling and sharing airplane air with strangers, so I hope that goes away soon.

But all complaints aside, things are pretty good. Robbie is back for the time being and the weird things that usually happen while he's gone have waited to appear till he is here to deal with them. We came home on Sunday night to a legion of dead termites in our hallway that seem to have appeared out of nowhere (they weren't there when we left for my sister's house that afternoon), and then half of our bedroom flooded last night during a bout of torrential rain. Our house is just kind of a mess and smells like wet rugs and I have no groceries, but at least it's still standing and a tornado didn't hit it? (Though it kind of looks like it on the inside?) Just looking on the bright side here, people. 

the second great commandment

Last week was BYU's graduation (which I was reminded of thanks to the flood of "school's out!"-type posts on Facebook) and I noticed that a friend of mine posted the College of Fine Arts and Communications convocation address given by Dean Duncan, one of my very favorite professors at BYU (and who apparently now has a very active internet presence??). If you aren't familiar with his often circumlocutious lecture style, then maybe this speech won't be your favorite, but I miss the guy and his media clips and his always relevant tangents and I wanted to share the speech with you. But if you hold a liberal arts degree, or you like consuming media (so, all of you?) I think you'll enjoy it. Imagine a (younger, and Canadian) Gene Wilder sort of look-alike with a quiet smirk on his face and an abiding love for rock music while you're reading it and then you're set.

"Our lives will be preserved and our souls will be saved if we live and obey the First Great Commandment [love the Lord thy God with all thy heart], and the Second that is like unto it [love thy neighbor as thyself]. Our lives will be preserved and our souls will be saved if we keep current the two emblems of these respective commitments, our temple recommends and our library cards."

Here's the speech in full: A Liberal Arts Degree and the Second Great Commandment

this is my life

I feel bad because I don't blog very much anymore. To be fair, I don't really have much to say these days, and the things I do have to say I mostly post on Instagram or Twitter. I don't even have any recent pictures to illustrate the haps except for this grainy photo of a bunch of elephants parading around DC a couple of weeks ago. 

So, micro-blogging is to blame, as well as the fact that my life is kind of boring, and that it's still too cold to get out and do stuff. There was a hint of spring this morning so I went out for a run and enjoyed the sunshine, but I just now looked outside and saw raindrops on the window and debris flying by from the wind that just suddenly appeared. Come on, spring!

I also have a new job that mostly consists of me spending time on the internet and writing posts on another blog, so I don't really have a desire to blog in my spare time too. I have been making a habit of listing potential post topics in my head that I can turn into a post later on this blog but then I usually think better of it.

So, now you know. Boooo-ring. 

eternal truths

The best cookies, in my opinion, are the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from Joy of Cooking (omit cinnamon and nutmeg; substitute chocolate chips for raisins)—they are delicious for dessert or for breakfast. Substituting margarine for butter in a pinch does not a good cookie make. And forget about sneaking whole wheat flour into your flour mixture, unless you want to eat hockey pucks the next day.

This PSA brought to you by the sad-looking bag of yesterday's cookies on my table that tasted really good in the first twenty minutes out of the oven.

the whole heavens shall weep over them

This was part of a scripture that my friend Rachel shared in a blog post today—it touched me so I thought I'd share:

"And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?… How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? … and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever; And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?  

The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these they brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood…the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?  

…And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook…And as Enoch saw this, he had bitterness of soul, and wept over his brethren, and said unto the heavens: I will refuse to be comforted; but the Lord said unto Enoch: Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look… and behold, Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man, even in the flesh; and his soul rejoiced."

I don't really know what else to add to that. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and citizens of Newtown, Connecticut. I believe in the power of the Atonement and I hope that those families hurting so badly will be healed, and that the rest of us can find peace and hope in this crazy world.

back in the saddle again

That blogging break was unintentional. I'm sorry. I didn't know it at the time but I was busy prioritizing things that I thought were important, and I think they still are/were important but I let a lot of other things slide through the cracks. The lack of blogging and general lack of desire to come up with anything was just kind of a manifestation of all of those things. But I think I'm ready for my comeback. Do you forgive me?

I have more things to say but I'll just leave you with these three things to think about:

• the Erasure Pandora station is the bomb
• I CANNOT WAIT for the Olympics to start tonight. I've been thinking about it all day.
• this is my mother in-law examining some, er, festive fabric that we found at Joann's on Monday night:

Discuss.

vulnerability

Here's some food for thought:

This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee... to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."

This is from a TED talk I watched yesterday. I had to mull that one over in my head for a while and fight my instincts, but I get it now. Today, I am grateful for feeling alive.

(You can watch/read the talk here.)

i have confidence in me

(This isn't the first time I've tried to find a clip from The Sound of Music on YouTube and failed—but this one is pretty funny.)

I have had a couple of things on my mind the past couple of days that have really been weighing on me and just wanted to write down. I promise these things are related to each other, sort of.

Item the first. As you probably know, I finally finished grad school. Officially, I graduated a couple of weeks ago. I have spent so many years in school and trying to stay afloat and also get ahead that I've had a hard time adjusting to the competitive post-graduate world. Wait, let me complicate things by adding a recession to the mix. I consider myself a pretty confident person, but deep down inside, I am full of doubts about myself. I mean, I spent two years and way too much money to get a degree that says "I'm qualified!" yet I still feel like I'm not good enough to try for things that might just be a little out of my reach, or things that are a little ambitious. Tell me, friends—what kind of pep talk do you give yourself during these moments? As for me and my house, I rely on my rapier wit and green-eyed charm. Just kidding.

Item the second. The internet is an interesting and inspiring place, but also hateful and sad at times. I just found a website yesterday dedicated to hating on other people's blogs. Like, personal (and frequent) attacks on people they don't know. Really? That really got me down and I couldn't stop dwelling on it last night and kept saying "This person really must not have many friends" and Robbie finally said "Take your own advice and close the browser already!" (He didn't say exactly that but I am sure that's what he was thinking.) Personally, I already have problems comparing myself to other people I meet in person, but then you add the blogging boom of the 2000s and you've got whoa! potentially lots more of those problems. I've had to change my attitude about my opinions on what other people find interesting and inspiring and I feel pretty satisfied with the end result, which is a lot fewer blogs in my RSS feed—although I will admit, I still have a folder of blogs called "people I don't know in person" that I read and enjoy and comment on and then pretend like we are friends in real life. I only speak the truth.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about. Does anyone else have the desire to watch The Sound of Music now? Just me? Okay then.

rest your head close to my heart

Today at work I read an article titled "The Saddest Movie in the World," which claims that the 1979 movie The Champ has the saddest scene in it (I watched it—it's pretty sad), and psychologists have been using it for years in labs to make people sad for different studies about emotion. It's really an interesting article—you should read it.

Anyway, the article got me and my coworker talking about the saddest scenes in movies, and it led to a really depressing YouTube search of sad movie clips. We were both so sad by the end of the afternoon that it was kind of funny. Apparently I can't control my tears while I'm at work, so I'd better be careful about that in the future. Here's my favorite sad scene:

You can't watch that clip and not feel sad. I dare you. One time I watched Dumbo with my sister in-law and there we sat, two grown women, crying like little children. Poor Jumbo. She was just misunderstood.

If you have any suggestions for sad movie clips for me to watch, I would really like to hear them. This is what I do at night when Robbie has to work late (seriously).

But now what?

I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm not coming home at night to a pile of reading and homework. Well, actually, what used to be the case was that I'd come home and avoid the piles while doing all kinds of internetty things. Now I'm doing all the internetty things but I'm not putting anything off any more, so I need to write a to-do list of all the things that I have been planning on doing "when I have more time," because now is definitely the time for having lots of time. (Erm.)

Anyway, I've been pinning a lot of stuff, which is the best hobby I never thought I needed, but now I need to actually make the stuff I pin (mine kakie is already doing a good job of that), and heck, I'VE GOT TIME to do that now! Other things include mending the hole in my pants that I am currently wearing. They've been holey for five months now and yet I keep wearing them. Another thing we've been doing lately is talking about rescuing a greyhound and a cat, but perhaps not in that order and definitely not in this apartment. I just really want this to happen, even though it won't be any time soon. We're just talking about it.

Also, I'm still watching British dramas. But now it's all about the new Upstairs Downstairs. If you are a Downton Abbey fan and like all the weird twists that happened in that show, just try to beat all the weird twists in this one (I would like to talk about some of them but I don't want to ruin it for you). Anyway, I started watching it the other night while I was ironing, and I realized that I am turning into my mother. Not that that's a bad thing but the combination of those two activities sounds like something my mom would do. You too can turn into your mother if you want, because the first three episodes are still on the PBS website. The show isn't as sexy as the trailer makes it out to be, but there is indeed a monkey. AND it stars the crazy mom from Cold Comfort Farm, but this time she's not crazy and is actually kind of awesome because SHE HAS A PET MONKEY.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions of what I should do in my newly found spare time just let me know. Or if you want to hang out, because I want to do that too.