On a Lighter Note . . . .

A person reading through my last few posts would probably be convinced that not only was I the most serious person in the world, but that I'd done nothing but sit around for a month forming strong opinions on nearly every topic. Neither is true. So in an attempt to pull my un-earned reputation out of the fire, here is a round up of the last half of the summer. As the kids and I have begun to focus on the start of school next week, it makes me realize just how much fun we've had the last few months, and how short those months always seem when you look back.

This first picture is of a delicious summer supper I cooked a couple of Sundays ago: grilled chops and sausages (Plantboy's contribution), ravioli in sweet cream sauce with fresh basil and toasted pine nuts, tomato-cucumber salad with sweet onions, and sauteed green beans with carrots and pine nuts. Isn't it pretty?


These next shots are of the "camping" we did at Silver Creek Falls. Camping is in quotation marks because my failure to reserve a camp spot actually made this a day trip which culminated with the tent being set up in the back yard and foil dinners on the grill. Of course, I didn't realize that this would be the outcome until we actually drove and hour and half to the park, and spent two hours packing the car that morning. Nice. Still, even as a day trip it was fantastic. There is a ten mile hiking loop around the park that takes you to ten different waterfalls. We saw two. Ah, well, maybe in a few years we'll do a little more . . .







I taught the boys to use the digital camera. My mom used to freak out when we wasted film. Thank goodness there is no charge for "bytes." In the course of one evening, the big boys took well over one hundred pictures. Their perspective was interesting, and at times very funny. Of course, Star Wars took the priority:





Talk about perspective! Don't tell Plantboy, the next picture would probably not be his first choice:


Are the potatoes really, really big, or are his hands really, really small? Hm . . . .


The only thing more photographed than Star Wars was the grill. Coming in a close third was a blow by blow of the mixed martial arts brother y brother death match that I'll spare you. I guess there is no doubt that their little Y chromosomes are firing on all cylinders.







Jedi Knight finally got upgraded to his own bedroom. He is proudly modeling the result. To make this happen, we rearranged furniture all over the house and bumped the baby from the crib into the bunk beds. He has simultaneously stopped napping. Talk about your unintended consequences.




At the end of July I posted about my family coming to visit. We had forgotten our camera, so my travel log was less than dynamic. I also mentioned that by the time my mother emailed me hers, approximately 11 years would have passed. And yet, here they are. Time warp? Mother figured out how to send pictures? Alas, no. My sister stole the memory chip out of my mother's camera and sent them to me. I say stole because it was all done in secret. I'm putting together a 40th wedding anniversary video for my parents, on the sly, of course, that has to be ready next week. Lest you think I've let the cat out of the bag: my mom doesn't actually read my blog, so we are safe. This first picture is of me with my brother's kids. We were so excited to find this first starfish, but when we came back the next morning at low tide we saw hundreds. Most of them were, however, very difficult to pick up.


Is it technically called "driftwood" if it is the same size as a redwood?


My oldest nephew was born the week I left on my mission. He turned 13 a few weeks ago and I mark that major turning point in my life by his growth. It is starting to seem like a long time ago.


At the time of this photo, this little sweetie was my only niece on my parents' side. Two weeks later, my younger brother became a proud (read: overwhelmed) father to a little girl. My sister also had a baby last week. My parents now have 9 grandsons and 2 granddaughters.




All the kids are chillin' with gramps at Haceta Head lighthouse. A few minutes later we saw some sea lions playing down below. Very cool.



If you ever get a chance to do this dune buggy thing, DO NOT SAY NO. It was so fun and reckless at the same time. Very therapeutic.



These three boys dug a pit at least five feet deep. It was like "Holes" without the poisonous lizards or sweet onions. The next morning, at low tide, we came back to discover that their hole was completely washed away. We did not find any buried treasure.


The low tiders group woke up at six-thirty in the morning to catch one of the lowest tides of the whole year. It did my little science teacher mommy heart good to see the enthusiasm my gene pool expressed over their hands-on marine biology lesson. All in all it was a very good Oregon summer, but I don't think I'm going to feel too much remorse when the big yellow school bus shows up next Tuesday to take my baby away. If you aren't sure why, just look at this next picture. Jedi Knight's emotions are very often too big for his body.


Each season has its own joys, both the seasons of the year and the seasons of our lives. This summer has been swimming lessons, Star Wars, days at the pool, sleeping in, Star Wars, too much television, otter pops, Star Wars, staycations and general laziness. The fall will be busy, but the crisp air winds me up even as the year winds down. I love "bouquets of newly sharpened pencils" and the smells and colors of autumn. Year after year will cycle and fade and one day I will, no doubt, look back and wonder what happened to the golden years when my kidlets were young. I guess the key is to learn to enjoy the moment so that all years are golden years.

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

I haven't done a book review for a long time. I've been reading; there is a list of this year's selections about halfway down my sidebar. This post will be partially a book review, but also some of my own opinions (shocker) on the proper care and feeding of husbands.

It is probably good to begin by disclosing my own bias against self-help books. When I do find them useful, it is only because the basic philosophy of the author is consistent with gospel teachings. (For a brief discussion of this, check out Elder Uchtdorf's talk from the last conference.) Laura Schlessigner's book, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands," is no exception to this--where her philosophy is consistent with gospel teachings I think she has a lot of helpful advice; but, to me, her basic theme in the book is completely incompatible with our understanding of the divine nature of man and woman. I'll complete this thought later.

The first thing that bothers me about the book is the shoddy scholarship. She explains that her ideas for the book come from her experience as a therapist, her radio show and her web site. As for the first, Dr. Laura (I use the term "doctor" very loosely here; this is Ms. Shlessigner's preferred title), currently holds no license from any state as a family therapist, and has not for many, many years. Her PhD is in physiology, not psychology. None of her educational background is in psychology. As for the radio show and the website, these can hardly be called unbiased sources as her often volatile program likely attracts a certain type of demographic. The addendum on her website says that any email or call becomes her sole property once it is made public. In other words, she has full discretion to abuse you soundly on the air and then use the interaction in a book, taking whichever excerpt proves her point and paints her in the light of having saved your marriage by way of a 20 second lecture.

There are no facts or statistics to back up the more specific claims she makes. There isn't a single footnote in the entire book. No expert, other than Dr. Laura herself, is quoted. Her evidence all seems to be anecdotal, though she has plenty of anecdotes.

As I read, I became curious about Dr. Laura's personal life and was quite shocked by what I learned. Her current incarnation/persona is of a highly conservative, God-fearing woman who is critical of anything that might break down the family. She thinks women should delay sex, if not until marriage, at least until relationships are serious. She is highly critical of feminism and thinks mothers should raise the children they have, and that those children should never be born out of wedlock. While this is generally positive, Dr. Laura, now in her 60's, only came by her current philosophy much later in life. It seems apparent that her first radio job was a result of sleeping with the boss, and the nude photos emerged 20 years later to prove it. She divorced her first husband after just a few years. She lived with her second husband for eight years before marrying him, and for the first of those years he was still married to another woman. She was pregnant their only son before they were married and had a very demanding career while he was a small child. Dr. Laura was a self-proclaimed feminist well into the 1980's. To defend herself against the many who have called her hypocrite she says, "A hypocrite says 'do as I say, not as I do.' I am saying, 'do as I say, not as I did.'"

None of the previous paragraph is, of course, in the book. I just wanted to know what I was dealing with. This makes it sound as though I don't think she could have anything worthwhile to say because of the life she has lived. In fact, just the reverse is true: I think her many negative experiences probably give her unique perspective on the mistakes that many women make. It does, however, make her holier-than-thou tone throughout the book a bit disgusting. It also makes me halfway think that her scathing critique of women is her own way of justifying her husband's prior infidelity--as though his first wife drove him to Dr. Laura's caring and feeding arms and she deserved it. (It seems, to the good doctor anyway, that most cheated on women DO deserve it.)

Anyway, I think her advice needs to be taken in context of who she is and where she is coming from, recognizing that her source material is certainly biased in favor of her own methods. Her motivation for writing the book is that women are undermining their marriages right and left by their own actions, and that most other "help" sources--books, talk shows, therapists and girl friends are contributing to the problem by validating and therefore reinforcing women's most negative behaviors to their husbands. In "researching" her topic, she set up a spot on her website where men could email comments to her about what should go into this book. She quotes from these extensively, but there is one such email that gets to the heart of her thesis very quickly.

"Men are simple. If I'm not horny then I probably want a sandwich."

This is funny. Maybe REALLY funny. And, as with many tacky jokes, it requires a broad generalization of men in order to work. Jumping from this platform, Dr. Laura's book deals in broad stereotypes, reiterating time and time again that MEN ARE SIMPLE. They want to be shown physical affection (reader Steve left this charming comment, "[Men] need more sex. Once a day is fine"), given praise, fed a good dinner and be shown "awe" by "their woman" for all they do for her. If a woman will perform these simple tricks then, voila! "Your man" will reciprocate by "slaying dragons" and "walking through fire for you."

Hm . . . . to some of this verbiage I want to say that we are fresh out of dragons and that in most normal circumstances, walking through fire would be rather useless. Yes, I get that this is figurative, but isn't it easy to say that you would do something very dramatic for the one you love, when all she might really want is for you NOT to regard the toilet as a general sort of a goal instead of a target?

If this seems like a gross simplification of a book that is nearly 200 pages, well, I'm not so sure. I think what I've said here really gets to the heart of what she is advocating. True, she treats topics such as respect, busy-ness, feelings, communication, nagging and sex in seperate chapters, but her conclusions are all the same.

I didn't hate this book, though I found her tone so supercilious at times that I wished for a dart board so that I could paste a picture of her face right on the bullseye. The book was actually recommended to me many years ago, and I've put off reading it as I had heard clips from Dr. Laura's radio show, and expected the tone to be very combative.

To say the least.

But in the interest of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I will tell you what I liked about it. I can hardly call these things "spoilers." I would actually think that for LDS women, these points shouldn't be anything we haven't already learned in Church or from our own mothers.

1--Dr. Laura goes on at some length about treating your spouse with kindness and love first without waiting for him to make the first move. She is basically saying that we should serve our families cheerfully, even when we aren't quite feeling it, because this basic service-attitude will make us feel much happier.

2--"Your feelings are not facts and should not be used as weapons." I quite like the way she worded this. It is true that some women use tears and verbal abuse to bend men to their will all the time. I'm grateful to have been raised by a mother who saw herself as a partner with my dad and she didn't resort to passive-aggressive methods in an attempt to make him into something else. My mother loved us all very much and never hesitated to express such in a hundred tiny ways, but she never turned on the waterworks or used the silent treatment to get her way with my dad.

3--The feminist movement tricked women: First into thinking they could have it all and do it well, and that if they DIDN'T then they were somehow less than a woman. The second fallacy is that women don't need men. And lastly is the popularized notion that women who find fulfillment in home and family are deluding themselves. I agree that these are all negative attitudes that were a result of that movement.

4--Love is more than just a feeling--it is both a choice and an action. Dr. Laura explains that she writes FOR women because so much ineffective advice, counsel and teaching is aimed at changing men. But it is women that want to change men. Since it really is only possible to change yourself, then it stands to reason that if your marriage is in trouble and worth saving, then you can really only influence your own behavior, and not your partner's. I like her proactive, practical approach to making your life better. We must choose every day to love our spouses, and then we must show that love by our actions.

5-Men and women ARE different. And that is okay, these differences can be a wonderful compliment to each other if we allow them to be.

As for what disturbed me about this book, it was partly her combative tone and Dr. Laura's advice doled out like she is spouting eternal truth in every consonant. She advocates control and manipulation just as powerfully as the feminists, but encourages women to do this in a uniquely feminine way. So here are a few of my gripes.
1--She seems to advocate serving in order to manipulate: love is practically an afterthought in the reasoning. By manipulate I mean that she encourages women to use all of their kindest "tricks" so that men will be putty in their hands and do whatever they want them to do. In other words, the purpose of serving "your man" is to get served in return. While I admit that such reciprocation of affection, help and love is often the result of properly caring and feeding your husband, I think the motivation here is everything. I remember once, some years ago, Dr. Phil had a woman on his show who was using sex as a way to get her husband to buy her expensive gifts. If this sounds like prostitution, well, you aren't alone in your thinking there. That, obviously, is an over-the-top example of a woman going to the extreme to get what she wants, but again, if our motivation is not pure love for our partner, giving without expectation of getting in return, then we haven't learned squat about charity.
2--She says that women ARE in control in their homes, but that men want to BELIEVE that they are. To this end, she instructs women on how to give men the illusion of wearing the pants. Yet, other times, she berates women soundly for emasculating their men by expecting them to be good listeners. There were whole passages in this book I found very contradictory to itself, besides being at odds with a patriarchal model of the family set forth by the Lord.

3--The feminist movement wasn't ALL bad. Heck, even "Dr. Laura" herself wouldn't exist without some kind of sexual revolution. Women have choices now that they never had 100 years ago. Absolutely, some of it has been taken too far (see #3 above), but it is pretty disingenuous to soundly criticize something you have been a huge beneficiary of.

4--Men's emotional needs are met, not just primarily, but pretty much entirely through sex: this is the gospel according to Dr. Laura. I won't say much more on this, some topics are better left between husband and wife, but I sincerely hope that if you are married (or become so one day) that it is to a man who has emotional needs beyond sex. Or at least if he views sex as the culmination of all emotional needs, he has made an honest effort to meet your emotional needs before he expects you to welcome his advances with open arms.

5--But the last thing, and probably most disturbing thing, about this book is the oversimplification of who man is. Yes, to a large degree, a man's needs might be rather simple. However, he, himself is not. Men are sons of God. Men who are priesthood holders and have made covenants are gods in embryo. To use sex and food to trick them into behaving as we want is regarding them as trained monkeys.

We reiterate to our young women week in and week out this princess part of their nature. Each week they recognize "divine nature" as one of their values. We play on their sense of romance by encouraging them to find a prince who will take them to the palace/temple and commit to them forever. What could be more romantic than that? Yet, when we make analogies with our young men, we talk so much in terms of warriors and armies and battles. Men are so trained to slay the dragon that I wonder if they sometimes forget that they will be kings as surely as their wives will be queens. Dr. Laura encourages each woman to set her standards much lower and then "stand by your man, because, after all, he's just a man."

I once heard a general authority give a talk about Christlike attributes, and the teaching of such to our young men. He said that too often, the qualities of Christ are attributes men only assign to women--love, compassion, mercy, tenderness, etc.--but that in reality, these are attributes we all must strive to have. Dr. Laura berates women for trying in so many negative ways to change the nature of men, and she certainly has a point about all of the mean and ineffectual ways women attempt to do this; but what she doesn't understand is that part of the nature of the covenant marriage is that a man and a woman will work as a team to go beyond just accepting and loving each other as they are, and instead bring out the very best in each other's natures in order to progress together toward something greater.

One of my favorite scriptures from the new testament is, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it." The counsel could apply equally to women, and I don't think Paul was talking about dying for the Church here, though Christ certainly did that too. I think he is talking about living for the things we love and have covenanted to. We shouldn't love our spouses to get dinner or sex or help around the house or a night off from changing diapers . . . . we should love our spouses because it makes us more Christlike to do so. Deep, abiding and lasting love has the power to change our very nature.

Maybe my next post will be about why in the world, if most men (as per Dr. Laura) are really looking for wives who are sweet and acquiescing by nature, do they try so hard to date women who manipulate, control, tease and tempt? But that can wait; this post is already twice as long on paper as it was in my head. By all means, share your thoughts on taking care of "your man," or on the book if you have read it.

In the Interest of Furthering the Discussion

You really never know what you're going to get when you post, do you?

My thoughts on the previous post were running more along the lines of humor a la ward librarian, and instead this deeply introspective discussion has mostly revolved around the aside I almost didn't include. I was going to add the following remarks as comment #15 or whatever, but they became too lengthy and I felt like some clarification was in order before I mortally offend any reader who comes this way.

What I think is fascinating in this discussion is the overall theme that many different life paths still fall in the realm of "righteous" and that each is unique to the individual on that path. And yet, for all that we've come to many of the same conclusions, each of you here is so different! There are single women, married women with and without children in various numbers, returned missionaries, women who were married before age 20 . . . . heck, there might even be a ward librarian or two. Oh, and men. There are a few brave enough to wade into the middle of the sea of estrogen from time to time.

With my aside, I didn't mean to imply that women should wait until they are 21 to either get married OR go on a mission. I think what I was trying to share is that we sometimes unwittingly reinforce certain stereotypes among our young women. Even with my head rather firmly on my shoulders when I went away to college (I can say that--there are very few here who knew me then. Brooke, Mike and Rachel, you can all just stay quiet if you disagree.), I still was pretty anxious about the fact that I could count on one hand the number of dates I'd been on. As I saw the girls in my ward snatch up the "few really good guys," I was totally convinced that I would never get married. I WAS ONLY 19. For all my practicality and ambition and even some profound experience with personal revelation, I was nearly certain that I was going to be single always.

This fear of being alone prevented me from taking my guy-relationships for what they were worth--wonderful, life-long friendships. If there had been dating or attraction there, many of those relationships would be lost to me now. Another skewed idea that grew out of this fear was that I started to think that if ANY guy ever wanted to marry me, regardless of his religious situation, it would be better to be married than to be alone. (Again, no offense meant, righteous women marry non-members all the time; I'm just indicating that before I'd even had a chance to taste life I was selling myself short.) In addition, my fear caused me to spend a lot of time and energy on a man who ultimately cost me a lot of self-esteem.

In my post-mission, post-first-fiance months, I had a very difficult time just dating for fun. I was just a few months from graduation, and terrified of leaving college as a single. At that time, my grad school ambition was not immediate and the prospect of high school teaching didn't seem all that conducive to finding someone to marry. Most of my friends from my pre-mi days had moved on to lives and marriages of their own. Again, I was convinced that I'd NEVER be married. I was only 23. But again, for all the wonderful lessons I had learned in the alone part of my journey, I was still prey to my upbringing and the stereotypes read in novels and heard in so many young women's lessons.

Now, here is the personal revelation part, voiced so importantly by many of you. Chrisw was teaching school in another city. There was an opening at her jr. high for a science teacher. She told her principal about me and he, trusting Chrisw's judgment implicitly (how could you not?) said that he'd be willing to offer me a teacher internship position. What this meant is that I would bail on my fall student teaching, not have to find a mid-year contract full time job, and instead teach for partial salary the entire year at Chrisw's school. Not a bad proposition. Chrisw and I talked about becoming roommates (which, okay, would have been completely awesome), and she was saving her yen to backpack through China the next year (which, okay, would have been completely awesome).

I prayed and told the Lord this was my intention. I felt like hanging around USU another semester was the equivalence of waiting for the axe to fall on my marriage dream and that by moving in with Chrisw at least I'd be throwing myself whole-heartedly in to my life as a single. (Remember: only 23.) The next morning, I completely forgot everything I had to do in order to make the internship happen. And I kept forgetting. Also, things I remembered to do weren't smooth sailing, and bailing on my renter's contract was going to be expensive. I'd only had such stupor of thought once before--when I was 18 and chose to reject my acceptance to nursing school in spite of no clear alternative. So the next day I prayed again and told the Lord I'd decided to stay.

The peace was palpable.

I met Plantboy the next week at a job I would have left by that point if I had taken the internship.

But I think the Lord knew I might screw it up. By a strange "coincidence" he was also assigned to be my sister's home teacher at his apartment complex several wards away from where I lived. We might have met anyway.

So yes, absolutely, young people, men and women, need to be taught about receiving personal revelation. But maybe we also need to back off the primary use of examples that reinforce stereotypes that, albeit inadvertently, encourage early steady dating and poor choices of companions. I'm sure you all had a friend or roommate for whom getting married was so much more essential than marrying the right person that the result was disastrous. (I think this is what Mike's paraphrasing of the 70 was essentially about.)

If my previous post made anyone feel like I was critical of your life choices either concerning number of children, or marriage, or your spouse of the color of your kitchen, please understand that was not my intention at all. My intention was to encourage us all to create a place where our young people feel comfortable exploring a variety of choices and ambitions, and to remind them that their worth comes from them being children of God and not from their marital or dating status.

When my boys go out into the world to find their wives, I hope they find women who will be true partners to them in every sense of the word--women who have prepared themselves to stand equally yoked as partners in the gospel and truly understand that happily ever after means enduring joyfully long after the novelty of their first romance wears off. The age and life-experience of my daughters-in-law to be matters a whole lot less to me than their commitment to their covenants and to finding the Lord's will in their lives.

And I hope these remarkable young women find the same in my sons.

Unsolicited Advice: My Favorite!

I have enormous respect for anyone who embarks on this parenting thing, particularly if those someones seem to be churning out well-adjusted and happy little persons. My respect increases exponentially depending on how many children they have, or on the difficulties presented with said children. My own lot is probably pretty average, mother-hood wise. "Just" three, fairly well-behaved and moldable kidlets. A lifestyle that, while frugal, is certainly not bare bones. The parts of mothering that seem harder to me is the sheer physicality of my little men, the feelings of loneliness at being the only woman in my house, while simultaneously never getting to just be ALONE. My friends are mostly virtual instead of literal, an apparent inability to decisively put my career life behind me, living far away from my mother and space. Always space. (Insert your own prayer of gratitude here if you have a laundry room.)

Do these not seem like trials to you? That's okay. They are my things to deal with. And as none of them are really things that I can change (except maybe making time to be a little bit friendlier), I guess what I am learning now is patience and cheerful endurance. Scratch that--what I'm supposed to be learning is patience and cheerful endurance.

After getting rid of a lot of my baby clothes a few weeks ago, we rearranged parts of our house and decided that a yard sale was in order. Once I started getting rid of stuff, I just couldn't quit. Out went the crib, mattress changing table and bedding. The double jogging stroller? Gone. The garage sale didn't yield all the desired results so the Goodwill got approximately 57 pounds of boy shoes and clothing size 18 months and smaller. Once I dig out the breast pump it will go on Craig's List too.

And yet, I don't exactly feel like I'm making an announcement. It felt good to clean house. I don't regret sending all of that stuff out into the world to help ease the passage for other little ones and their parents, but I don't necessarily think it means I'm done with children. Plantboy and finally had that really good talk that we have needed to have and just kept putting off. The jury is still out about more children, or at least some things we are keeping just between us, but let's just say we are in a good place right now. A very good place.

Which is why my experience yesterday is especially frustrating.

I walked into the library with Jedi Knight. He will be eight in just a couple of months and he is really starting to look like a big boy. And my youngest, just a babe in arms when we moved here is definitely into the little boy phase. A sister working in the library, whom I've tried with very little success to befriend the last couple of years said, "Your boys are getting so big!"

I smiled and rubbed JK's hair with more energy than I felt; it had been a very long morning. She then exclaimed, "Time to have another!"

I made some kind of strangled, non-committal sound through my clenched and smiling teeth, hoping that no other well-meaning soul standing around us would jump on her bandwagon. She pressed, "Now, none of that! It's just time to not think about whether or not it makes sense and jump in!"

More strangled gurgling, a quick grab of the scriptures I'd come to get, and I was out the door. Here it is, 24 hours later and I'm wondering what I should have said. Or at least what I wanted to say.

"Thank you! For two years I've had this on my mind, and THAT is my answer!!!"

"I must have missed in the last conference talk where the number of children you bear is between you, your spouse, the Lord, and the ward librarian!"

"You are exactly right: faith DOES mean that we are exempt from looking at anything logically."

"I'm already completely neurotic, I'm sure that throwing a baby into the mix will calm me right down."

"What a great idea! When the baby has to sleep in MY bed because there would be no where else for him and my husband divorces me over it, then I'll just come and move in with you. After all, your unmarried daughters and their children seem to really enjoy having you babysit for them five days a week."

Breathing. Just keep breathing.

Maybe this was on my mind when the young women in our ward had (another) lesson on dating this week. Our teacher, thankfully, found a great, recent talk on the subject and focused her remarks on becoming friends.* As I was the only leader in the room who was actually married in the temple or raised with LDS dating standards, the advisor asked me to make some remarks at the end. I told them that I thought it was sometimes confusing to be a young LDS woman. The historical and LDS novels the girls read and love mostly follow the same pattern--girls fall in love at 16 or 17 and are married by 18 or 19 and the book ends right there. Our young women get a romanticized vision of the future in which they meet their RM at BYU by Christmas of their freshman year; a May wedding is followed nine months later by the first in a string of perfect children. There is no thinking about what happens for the sixty or seventy years following the blessed event.

I told the girls that I thought it was so easy to get preoccupied by dating and finding "the one" that we forget to find ourselves. I told them that if they wanted a man who was unselfish, generous, kind and charitable, they would do nothing to prevent the young men they knew from going on missions. I told them that the ultimatum so many girls use on their boyfriends--I won't marry you unless you go on a mission thing--is completely ridiculous, because once they had let their relationship get to that point they were already far too inappropriately serious. I told them that learning to stand on their own was the key to any future happiness whether they were single or married. I told them that I hoped every one of them would someday know the joy of a temple marriage to a righteous companion, but that they needed to remember that their worth was not wrapped up in whether or not they were married, and certainly not dependent on their dating status.

Talk about your unsolicited advice. Please, add your own to the mix--either what YOU would have said to the sister, you know, in your head or what you want to say to my young women as they approach dating. Or not dating.

* I really enjoyed Sister Tanner's talk, but in sharing the experience about her daughter, she seemed to discourage mission and graduate school. While in young Miss Tanner's case, this was obviously the right choice, I get tired of a mission being painted in juxtaposition to marriage. I would love to hear one of these talks about a young woman who decided NOT to marry the guy and went on a mission instead, only to realize that he would have been a disastrous choice, and only her mission could have shown her that. (Do you remember that hokey scene in God's army where that sister is talking to the greenie elder on the beach? Besides the fact that they are breaking about 10 mission rules, that is my favorite scene in a very fine film. She tells him about how the guy "waiting for her" had gotten married a few months before, but that it was okay, because sacrificing him was worth it to know the truth of the Gospel the way he knew it. Exactly.) Marriage and mission are not mutually exclusive. And if a woman doesn't get married, then she will have mission (among other wonderful) experiences to help enrich her life. There is a sister in the RS general presidency right now who is a convert and an RM from South America. Her "atypical" life experience is such a valuable example for women of all ages.

I'm So Sick of the Health Care Debate that I Need to See My Doctor Before the Government Won't Allow Me To

I'm sick of it. You're sick of it. I have posted here before about it. I probably have little to say that is original, but after the latest round of Facebook postings (honestly, why did I think Facecrack was a good idea?) I just cannot stay quiet.

I appreciate that there are two sides to the public insurance debate. Which brings me to my first point. Trying to make this debate about socialism, or the intent of the founding fathers or Obama's secret plan for world dominion, or the government taking your doctor, or abortion, or anything other than public insurance is counter-productive when it comes to addressing a very real problem. Like it or not, nearly 50 million uninsured Americans is a problem. And not just your problem if you happen to be one of those unfortunate souls without insurance. People without access to quality, preventative medicine become a drain on society in almost every aspect--unplanned pregnancies, sick days at work, medical emergencies, lack of education about lifestyle choices . . . when we begin to talk COST, there are costs far beyond paying the doctor for an exam.

Which brings me to the second point. If public insurance is going to be offered, health care costs must be talked about. Here is a great example: most of the doctors in the practice I started with when we moved here have left. Various reasons. The clinic we go to only has one doctor, which we've never seen, two PA's and a bunch of nurses. I don't mind having not seen the doctor. All of our visits have been for shots and basic things like rashes, ear infections, etc. No specialist stuff. What I do mind, very much, is that there is no way for my clinic to bill my insurance at a lower rate, even if we don't see a doctor. My insurance company has NO CODE for it. They pay more, and that means I pay more because of my "patient responsibility" portion. It makes no sense whatsoever to have to pay to see a doctor, when I don't. What a simple way my insurance company can begin to control costs! For a detailed study of this debacle, check out this article. It generated a huge buzz in hospitals all over the country earlier this summer.

My third point is about insurance companies which are seriously concerned about going out of business. Government programs generally do have unintended consequences, but I just don't see this one happening. Nearly TEN percent of the American population is uninsured. This looks like a market share that is substantial enough to bear looking at (with a public option), but small enough not to harm the other companies, who have proven over the last several decades that they want nothing to do with that portion of the population anyway.

But when it comes right down to it, the debate must be about how this program will be paid for. I think this is, in large part, where the outcry at the town hall meetings has been about. Taxes. Unfortunately their legitimate argument which needs a lot of reasonable discussion, is being drowned in a sea of angry voices whose very assertion of free speech and constitutional rights is breaking down the democratic process and the right of others to peaceably assemble.

I understand the Obama administration's initial desire to push through this legislation from a political standpoint, but I also think that if these town hall meetings are allowed to progress, uninterrupted, with a reasonable flow of discussion from health care workers; experts from other countries using a public insurance option; public opinion from both side and the middle; economists; and policy makers then a compromise might emerge that will give any American who wants it access to health care.

Did the founding fathers envision a time when the government would hold a large stake in major corporations and banks? Probably not. And yes, in a lot of way, they would have wanted nothing to do with it. However, I don't think they envisioned a time either when huge corporations with enormous wealth would buy influence in congress to a degree that bills passed would make profits for a few the ultimate outcome of the American dream. Mostly, the founding fathers envisioned a government that would grow and change with the people. That was general enough it could apply to any reasonably educated people in any time period, but specific enough that the framework wouldn't collapse at the first test.

And my last point is also about money, though taking things in a direction that I haven't heard addressed very well anywhere else. The elephant in the room in this whole discussion of debt and taxes and government responsibility is The Iraq/Afghani War.

The appropriations since 2003 (just six years) given by Congress approach 1 trillion dollars. It is costing us nearly 2 billion a month to keep our troops in the Middle East. What do we have to show for this deployment? Thousands of dead Americans. Tens of thousands of dead in the Middle East. A tarnished American image throughout the entire world--both free and oppressed. A never-ending argument about whether or not we are actually "safer" because of said invasions. According to a congressional budget office report given two years ago, the costs of the long term finish up and pull out in the middle east (2017 projected) would top 2 1/2 trillion, though some experts set that number at 10 trillion. Another recent study posited another 300 billion to 700 billion in the long run in terms of health care costs for Iraqi war veterans, which doesn't include the more difficult to measure costs to families, sanity and productivity.

Will a public health insurance plan be costly? Yes, especially initially, with the long term benefits taking at least a generation to become realized. But I think a lot of those same people screaming at the top of their lungs in town hall meetings, are the same ones who led the charge into the Middle East in the name of . . . I don't know. Freedom? Revenge? Punishment? Defense of their Homeland? You have to ask yourself, if we are going to be a trillion in debt, what are we going to get for it? All of the above mentioned negatives of going blind into a war on the word of a few men, or a health care system that actually IS first rate? (A bipartisan congressional committee recently ranked the US 19th out of 19 studied developed nations for overall health care outcomes.)

Maybe the answer is neither. Cut our losses in both the middle east and with health care and concentrate on job creation to turn around the economy. Of course, small business are the best way to create jobs; but it is hard to take the chance to start a small business when it means losing your health care, or paying a monthly premium nearly as high as your mortgage.

Until the health care mess is approached on some level, there will be no economic turn around.

Follow These Instructions and YOU TOO Can Be a Hit At Your Next Party

We broke down and bought the Jedi a bedroom set and the children played musical beds--Padawan to the top bunk and the Youngling out of the crib and into the bottom bunk. This movement, and the taking down of the crib, forced us to rearrange just about every room and drawer in the entire house. I almost feel like I've moved.

In the middle of all of last week's busy-ness, the Relief Society held its annual Garden Party. I was, mercifully, NOT in charge this time around. Still, feeling a compulsion to have my finger in some aspect of the process, I signed up to bring a pie for dessert. We have picked a lot of different kind of berries this summer and the blackberries are on right now, so I signed up to make a Razzleberry pie. I was a bit nervous, having never made this particular pie before, and being a bit disillusioned with nearly all of my past attempts at crust-making.

So I made two pies last week. A test pie and a company pie. Both results were blow-your-mind-fantastic. At Enrichment, I went to the pie table after about half the sisters had already been there, trying to choose from among the many offerings. It was a hot day, and several sisters, to avoid baking, had obviously bought pies: but not store-bought, chewy and jammy pies, there were at least six unique and yummy Marie Callendar's creations. And yet, among the 15 pies arranged lovingly on the table, my Razzleberry pie was the only one with just a single piece left. AND THE TWO WOMEN AT MY LEFT WERE TALKING ABOUT IT! One had just picked up a piece and the other said, "Oh, somebody told me to get in here for a piece of THIS before it was gone. She said it was amazing." I nearly dropped my chosen slice of buttery golden delicious apple pie right on the floor and kissed her on the mouth.

Nearly.

Instead, I just smiled to myself and am now passing the goodness on to you. The picture below is not my pie. The day I baked the pie I also took apart a computer desk, moved a filing cabinet, gutted and cleaned a bedroom, took the kids to the pool for three hours, hauled three big bags of garbage out, cleaned the rest of the house and picked up a mattress. Photography was very low on the priority list. But it is amazing what you can accomplish when you are "forced" off-line for a few days.

Pie Crust
(I love this crust because it uses butter AND shortening--it bakes up flaky and is relatively easy to work with like a shortening crust, but it tastes like a butter crust.)
3/4 cup (1 1/2) sticks cold butter cut into cubes, 1/2 cup shortening, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 2 1/2 cups flour.
Pulse in a food processor or use a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add 4-6 Tbsp (2 Tbsp) at a time to the f.p. or by hand just until dough holds together. Form into two balls (each ball will make a 9 inch + crust) and refrigerate from 30 minutes to 24 hours.
When you work with the pastry, allow it to sit for a few minutes to soften slightly. Roll out your dough between layers of floured wax or parchment paper for easier transfer to your pie plate, and to avoid contact your hands which can cause it to become tough.
Razzleberry Pie
Combine 4 cups fresh and/or frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and/or strawberries; I used all four and a mixture of fresh and frozen), 4 Tbsp flour and a half a cup of sugar.
Allow them to sit about fifteen minutes (cupboard) or up to three hours (refrigerated) and then pour berry mixture into the bottom of a 9" pie crust. Top with a generously vented crust (filling will likely leak; you may want to put a cookie sheet under your pie plate for the last 20 minutes of baking), make a very well-sealed edge. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes.
The natural pectin in berries helps the pie set up firmly, but it needs to cool, at least partially, before it works. In other words, if you cut this pie fresh from the oven, it will be a delicious, albeit, soupy mess. If you want your slices to hold up better, wait at least and hour before cutting, or even until the pie cools completely.
Serve with ice cream or drizzle generously with heavy cream. Duh.
And now that you've copied my recipe--you can help me out. How do we encourage girls to attend Young Women's when their moms and/or dads don't attend all three meetings, though they are still "active"? Is there any tactful way to approach these parents? Do any of you have trouble attending all of your meetings for whatever reason? Did any of you manage to attend your youth programs despite parents who didn't? What encouraged you to do so? Help!