Nesting From Necessity

When the doctor said "37 weeks" at my Wednesday appointment, I kind of panicked. So today I am nesting. And not really because I feel that big energy rush that sometimes hits during this time of pregnancy, more because I don't have a choice. In the book "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" the Herdmans are trying to understand why Mary and Joseph had to put Jesus in an old feedbox. Then, the oldest sister remembers they had to put the youngest sister, Gladys, in a drawer when she was born. My space-efficient apartment is cluttered enough right now to not even allow room in a drawer.

I'm so grateful that kids don't care, however. Mancub said the other day, "Maybe [the Poopy Pirate] and I will have to start sharing a dresser so there is room for the baby's clothes." I just hugged him and gave him a kiss. His clothes are already jammed into a two-drawer end table from my master bedroom set. In five years he has never had a proper dresser. Does he care? Of course not; he just wants to share so that we can make room for the baby brother he is already so excited to have that he laughs and wiggles every time he touches my tummy.

Back to my rearranging . . . .

When You've Only Got 100 Years to Live . . .

I saw a great movie last night called "Stranger than Fiction." I think Emma Thompson is always fabulous and Will Farrell is great in this. I'm sure you all saw the previews--Harold (played by Will) begins hearing a voice (Emma Thompson) like an omniscient narrator in his life. He doesn't think he is going crazy, and the voice is just a major annoyance until it says, "Little did he know that his death was imminent," or something to that effect. Because the voice has been right about other things, he thinks the voice will be right about this too.

Unable to locate the author, he instead finds a literature professor (the excellent Dustin Hoffman) to help him figure out what to do. The professor helps him to see that what he really needs to do is make the most of his tragedy--in other words, to live the life he always wanted to live but never did. And then, when he has become the person he wanted to be, to embrace the death that is awaiting him--a poetic and meaningful death.

So the question I will send out into the void today is, "What would you do if you learned you just had three weeks to live?"

Personally, I'm torn. Would I strip the life savings to go to New Zealand? Would I stop putting off that sky diving trip? Would I go to the temple every day? Would I call every old friend just to see how they are doing? Would I take the train to Machu Pichu to see the city at the top of the world? Would I climb the steps of a monastary in Tibet, to learn what the universe wanted to tell me? Would I take treats to all my neighbors and finally learn the names of every one of them? Would I go to a Broadway play? Would I do my visiting teaching? Would I finally climb that fourteener I never got to the top of this summer? Would I go to Tahiti and take a surfing lesson? If it was winter would I snowski one last time with wild abandon down the steepest slopes I dared? If it was summer would I spend a day waterskiing until my legs turned to Jell-o?

OR . . . .

Would I just pull my little family close and love them and love them until they could hardly stand it? Would I cook their favorite meals every night and read stories all day if they wanted it? Would I take them on nature walks and try to give my children one last glimpse into my personality? Would I sing my favorite hymn over and over until they had it committed to memory? Would I be more patient? More charitable? More Christlike?

I hope that I don't die in the next three weeks. I can see I have much to do and much to become.

Whats the Deal With That?

This is a big line in Seinfeld standup from the mid-nineties. I think I've found an appropriate usage.

I cannot remember if the news in Houston was like this, (although as an aside, what is the deal with Marvin Zindler?) but there is a really interesting thing they love to do on the Utah news. This thing is called "on location."

My understanding of "on location" is that you send the news reporter out into the world to cover a story. Somehow, being on location should give better insight into what is going on with a particular newsbite. Utah stations, however, seem to think that any time they go "live" to a story it is improved, even if the story is airing six to 24 hours later.

I first noticed this interesting phenomenon a few weeks ago when they had a woman reporting from the scene of the accident. The only interview in the story is one that was taped several hours earlier and the only shots, other than her talking, were of things that happened earlier in the day. She did pause to point meaningfully to some glass shards you could barely see in the dark. Plantboy and I laughed about how silly it was for her to go out to this rough neighborhood in the middle of the night to do a story that could easily have been recorded at lunch time.

Two nights ago took the cake, though. The newscaster says, "Lets go live to Thingy (or whatever her name is) for her story on domestic abuse (or whatever it was)." The camera flashes to Thingy who is live, on what looks like the patio of the Triad Center, freezing her butt off in a heavy parka with the wind whipping the hair about her face. She then proceeds to give a very profound report about domestic violence from the patio--no interviews, no footage of her having been anywhere else, and the downtown panoramic in the background had nothing to do with her story.

????????????????

What is the deal with that?

You Can't Have It All

A couple of years ago I read a quote by a feminist writer who said that for all of the positive things that came out of the feminist movement (and there are some things ladies--even the most conservative among us would not want to go back to the 1950's), the biggest disservice was that it perpetuated this idea that it was possible to have it all. Many feminists overlooked marriage and children and are now in their 40's and 50's wondering why they are alone. OR, they attempted to have it all and now have these really dysfunctional kids who never had real parenting or daughters with the attitude that they don't want to produce grandchildren. You've got these really smart "progressive" women contributing fewer and fewer great attributes (and the genes to match them) to each successive generation.

Anyway, I've had some you-can't-have-it-all-moments lately. My boss thinly veils how over the moon happy he is that Plantboy has not found a job yet and may end up doing something part time for bubkus here in the Land of the Frozen Chosen. He is happy because this means I will be staying. He says every day how much they don't want to lose me. Yesterday, he offered me a study skills class I have been wanting to teach ever since I got on campus. They are completely changing the format of how they are offering it (to fit my "unique" set of qualifications) and want me to do all of the curriculum planning and have given me a budget for textbooks and disposables--my choice. To me, it is really a promotion. It means extra money, but it also means extra work. It was a real pat on the back for me professionally to get this chance.

BUT . . .

If I was the man of the house this would be an awesome opportunity. Instead, my heart is torn. The job I have here is the job I was supposed to get 10 years from now when my kids were all in school and I could stay there forever. I don't even think I'd feel so shaken up if I wasn't going to have a 3 month old baby next fall when school starts. I want to be home taking Man Cub to kindergarten; I want to be home reading to and playing games with Poopy Pirate; I want to be the one BabyPete takes his first steps to.

And I won't be if I have to work full time. Part time would be a great trade off, but that would mean Plantboy has to find something very close and very soon with adequate pay.

Don't get me wrong; I am so grateful for my job skills and my work ethic. My wonderful parents saw to it that I did not enter the "real" world unprepared. I'm grateful that if my hubby's full time employment has to be put off a few more months then we are not entirely destitute. I'm grateful for a job with such regular hours and copious amounts of time off. I'm grateful to really enjoy what I do since I have to spend so much time at school each day.

Sometimes, though, the things we SHOULD be grateful for, don't always match up with what we WANT. I know that my desires are righteous, but I also know that we live in a natural world and there are consequences for everything. No matter how great we felt about it, going back to school was a risk. No matter how ideal a job in the Denver area would have been for us, Plantboy was not the only one who applied and the world is competitive. No matter how much I want to have it all--, lots of time with my family, active in the church, service to my neighbors, and, yes, the successful career . . . (you all know the list), I can't have it all. NOBODY can.

Just Like Santa Claus

The idea for this blog actually comes from a very lengthy conversation my husband and I had on Saturday night. We've had some setbacks on the job hunt this week. Oh, and we have to be out of our apartment by June 1st. Oh, and the baby is coming on the 26th. None of this was ever going to be a problem because Plantboy would have a job, but now it is anybody's guess where we will be even a month from now.

That isn't really the point of this blog--that is just the background.

I have been thinking a lot about prayer and scripture study lately. Especially scripture study. Or rather, my lack thereof and the reasons for this. It didn't always use to be as hard to motivate myself as it has been lately. And, while obviously, I just need to get get more personal discipline and righteousness, I've lately started to realize something.

Keeping the commandments in order to get blessings is not the right motivation.

I think we have to be really careful about this. I'm going to make a list and you check them off if you have heard of them before, "Reading scriptures in the morning makes your whole day go better." "Praying and fasting about important decisions always means you will make the right ones." "If you pay your tithing, things just seem to work out for you financially." "If you do your visiting teaching early in the month, you'll have plenty of time left over for everything else." "The more obedient you are on your mission, the more baptisms you'll have." "The more you tract in the rain, the better looking your husband will be." (My personal fave.) "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." Okay, I could go on (and on) but I will stop, you get the picture.

Now before you freak out and call me the worst kind of blasphemer, just think through this with me for a minute. Maybe your day goes better just because your attitude is improved--maybe the events are exactly the same ones that would have occured anyway. Maybe you'll sometimes make the wrong decisions, but you can still have confidence knowing you did everything you could to make the right ones. I can testify without a doubt, that things don't always work out financially when you pay your tithing, even if you do EVERYTHING else right; maybe your lesson is that you learn to eat beans and rice and it gives you empathy for others. Doing your VT early perhaps just helps you put into perspective what actually matters and you find time to do everything because you have taken some things off the list. Maybe, on a mission, obedience is its own reward, the one you can actually take with you to hang your life on, and a lot of baptisms sometimes has a lot to do with the charm and charisma of the missionary. Sometimes the window doesn't open. Sometimes you have to take a sledgehammer to the wall to get out of a difficult situation. It sure makes you tougher, but it would have been a heck of a lot easier to have a nice window to climb out of.

I'm not sure about the tracting in the rain one . . . my husband is incredibly handsome and I door knocked A LOT in the rain.

Okay, what I think I am trying to say is that if we are doing things to get the blessings, then we have really missed the point. I once had a friend who was an atheist. He said that the only truly good person was the athiest who did good deeds. Why? Because he had absolutely no thought of reward. He isn't waiting for a benevolent God to reward or punish him, nor does he have any expectation of Heaven. Interesting idea. It was nearly 15 years ago I had that particular conversation with that particular friend and I still remember the pause it gave me even though I was very young.

Elder Eyring once gave a talk on faith called, "But if not . . ." The point was that our faith often moves us to action, but if things don't work out like we expect then we cannot lose faith. I have done this recently. I think my loss of faith stems from thinking, "Wait a minute! Wasn't I promised?"

I think the resounding answer from the Heavens has to be "NO!" We weren't promised. We weren't promised deliverance from the calamaties that come with a mortal life. We weren't promised that we wouldn't be witness to and even victims of terrible tragedy and difficulty. We weren't promised that we would be able to overcome EVERY personal defect in this life alone. We weren't promised a big stocking full of presents if we were nice.

So what were we promised? Eternal life. That is the real promise. The Lord says that to get there we have to come to him with a broken heart and contrite spirit. That means humble, submissive, meek, patient, charitable, penitent, willing to put God's will first and everything that comes with it.

Am I using this blog as justification for my slack habits? NO. I think I have finally found out what my motiviation needs to be though. Reading scriptures, praying, doing good doesn't change God's attitude toward me (he loves me ultimately--no change is needed there!) nor does it convince him to hurl blessings out of the sky. My life is what it is: a combination of choices and circumstances that make me who I am and create my daily reality. What God will change is my heart.

I cannot read the scriptures and pray and attend church and the temple because I am hoping that Father in Heaven will send Plantboy a job and me a big fat house. I need to do all these things so that I have the courage to get out of bed one more day and go to work, even though it is not ideal. I need to do these things so that if there is inspiration to come I will be in the right place to recieve it. I need to do these things so that I'm strong enough to raise three boys to be missionaries, and to give them a smile and a cuddle every time they need it. I need to do these things so that whether I live in a trailer park or a mansion I can have a smile on my face and dignity in my heart knowing who I really am. I need to do these things so that I feel purpose and joy in my life, even when it is really not the life I thought to one day have.

Sorry about the two long blogs in a row; like Nem, my readership is going to go WAY down before it ever had a chance to go up. Anyway, if you plow your way through the above, make sure you let me know your thoughts on faith. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.