Clerkship

I am particular about language. People say I'm a bit of a grammar nazi, but I think it's more than that. Or just different. I don't so much care how many commas there are in a sentence, but I do get obsessive about words people use. Like when people say I in place of me.

Last week, Becky came to visit the girls and me. 
Yes, it's me - not I. Becky did not come to visit I. Okay, sorry! Back to the point.

During law school, Austin did a few externships. That means he got school credit for legal work he did at various places including a courthouse and a public interest law firm. You're thinking that is called an internship. Yes, but because it was legal in nature and for law school credit it is called an externship. That's the term for it.

Now that he is graduated, he is doing a clerkship. No, this is not a clerical position. He is doing legal research and work for the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. He has important responsibilities that are the same as a lawyer would have. It is meant to give experience, much like an externship, only instead of getting school credit, he gets paid.

Our plan for after law school was to not move to Arizona. Basically anywhere else was an option, but having grown up in the heat of Arizona, it was just not an appealing option. We thought a lot about Washington, D.C. and Utah. I started getting a feeling that he should look at jobs in Arizona somewhere around the time of his graduation. I didn't know why, but I kept telling him to check there. Then when this clerkship came up it just felt right. Our next feat was to find housing. Miraculously, our sister-in-law posted an apartment listing on Facebook the week we had to finish our decision making. It all just came together.

The sad part about leaving Utah was leaving my job teaching art. I got a very similar job in Gilbert that I am really excited about. And, of course, I also have the freelance projects that come up frequently. I am glad to have a place to be creative and share my talents with others. Notice I said creative and not crafty. I am an artist with a degree. I am creative. I do not have magical powers, green skin, or a cauldron. I also don't scrapbook. I am not crafty.

Friends

I had a poem on my wall throughout high school that I still remember. I think it's nice, and a good reminder.

I went out to find a friend,

but friends could not be found.

I went out to be a friend,

and friends were all around.

I needed a friend this week to help me in a desperate moment. I "went out" in search of one and came up with very little. My best friend, my husband, came to my rescue. It really irritated me that no one else I asked was there for me. Later this week I learned I could have been there for them, because they probably needed  me just as much as I needed them. The poem, helps me remember not to be selfish, and I think that makes the best kind of friends.

I recently told my husband that I have a crush on someone. 

I feel the way I used to feel when I was in a singles ward and I liked a guy. A little nervous to approach them. Excited when they talked to me. Not to mention how happy it made me when they liked me back. Well, I don't like anyone other than my husband. And this "crush" is not a romantic one.

Since I got married my life has changed a lot. First off, I live with a boy. I have to try to do my own fashion check before I leave the house, which is becoming more and more difficult with my expanding belly. He tells me I'm beautiful when I ask how I look, but really, I want to know if my shirt isn't long enough with the pants I am wearing making the bottom half of my belly exposed (I had no idea until I saw my reflection in the door to the pediatrician's office).

He's wonderful. So amazing, patient, and thoughtful. I am truly not complaining! I just miss having friends who are girls. Relief Society has become more meaningful to me, or maybe we just have a really good RS in the ward I'm in. I look forward to going to it, not just to be uplifted and talk about the gospel, but to make friends and meet people.

So when my friend came up to me the other week and gave me a hug it made my day. She crossed the room and made her way to me. That was it, the moment I knew. We are actual friends. Not just friends because we have the same mutual friend, but real friends.

I feel more like me when I have friends and game nights, and do more than just work and work some more. I also get to spend lots of cherished time with my family.

Here's something I worked on last month. I think I will go back in and at least add some music or sound effects.

The Evil in the World

There is so much evil in the world these days. Everywhere around us. No matter where we look we can find it. Spending the weekend in Las Vegas was fun and great, but it was also so filthy there. We walked down the strip with so many people smoking and drinking. You look around at the lights and can't avoid seeing uncensored billboards, so then you look down at the ground and see porn cards advertising strippers or prostitutes. Gross.

But an even bigger concern I have about the evil in the world is not what we have to walk through sometimes, but it is the evil in our hearts. The way we think about people. The way we think about the world. And perhaps we generalize evil to everyone and everything. There is also a lot of good in the world. And that is what we should strive to be surrounding ourselves with. Not just on the outside but in our hearts, too.

There was a lot of good that I saw this weekend - in Las Vegas. Most people were kind. Most people were modest. It may have help that we were at the ALA conference, but still. We saw a lot of people who were honestly trying to make the world a better place. We watched a fountain show that brought me chills. There was even a romantic proposal caught on camera!

I came home and checked my email to find something rather disturbing. A threat had been made to my place of work. It made me worry the rest of the night, thinking of what I would do if someone really came to attack us there. Now I at least have a plan, and a pretty good one. A few weeks ago, my sister had to go to a meeting about the same type of thing. Since there have been rather a lot of school shootings lately, she had to learn what she should do if one were to happen at BYU. That was really scary for me. I tend to want to protect my family from harm. I've always protected her. But this one is out of my control.

I think that we can all make the world a little better if we choose to see the good in people. Look for it. Hope for it. Believe it is there. Because if we give up on the people around us, we become more cynical. If we doubt the good in the world, there is nothing to keep us happy. We need that in our hearts. We need that in the world. 

I love this video that so beautifully urges us to believe the best in each other and doubt the bad.

I ask myself, and invite you to do the same: Is there evil in my heart? I am trying to think better of people. If someone irritates me, I try to look at them until I feel some love for them. Everyone has at least a little bit of good in them. I want to find it. I think I will be happier. 

Addiction

A few years ago I had a problem. I was addicted to Spider Solitaire. That may seem like a really weird thing to be addicted to, but it was really bad. I played it too much. I got to the point where I would think about it all the time. When I closed my eyes - even for a prayer - the cards would appear. I would have dreams about the cards taking on humanistic roles, representing real people. They took up my time, moved into my mind, and wreaked havoc in reality. I decided enough was enough. I stopped cold turkey. Yes - it was hard. I went through withdrawals. I even missed it for a little while. But then, slowly, I got better. People turned back into people. I was no longer distracted during prayers, and I was able to focus on Christ. I became me again.

At church this past Sunday we talked about the danger of pornography, and how to protect your family from the destruction that comes from it. There were lots of comments and suggestions. I think that of course teaching your children and cultivating an atmosphere where you can feel comfortable talking about anything is important. People mentioned that pornography can come in different forms. Images we see. Movies we watch, and words we read. Pornography can be a real and serious addiction. Just as real as drugs, alcohol, and gambling. 

What an addiction does is change your brain. The very way you think. It's always on your mind. You want more of it. It takes over your life. It distracts you from what is really important: Being productive. Moving forward. Serving others. Coming closer to Christ. In fact, it does the opposite. It is almost as if it becomes the thing you worship.

I think that a lot of people don't associate smaller things with it. Simple things. Seemingly innocent things. Music with a good beat, but awful lyrics ("I don't listen to the words anyway..." is not an excuse) and the jokes we tell ("That's what she said" and adding "in bed" to the end of things). These jokes change the way we think. They take something innocent and make it "dirty". They take something incredibly sacred and private and turn it into something common and crude.

Fortune Cookie: You will have much success in the near future

The good thing is that we can change. We can stop cold turkey and become ourselves again. We can fill our time with worthwhile things that make us better people and bring us closer to Christ and being Christ-like. And eventually jokes can turn back into jokes, not dirty jokes.

Sweet Dreams and Nightmares

Being married is such a better way to live! I love it! All the time. But especially at night.

I have struggled with insomnia for most of my life. When I was a child I thought it was normal to have to lay in bed for a long time before drifting off to sleep.

Insomnia has caused me to think about sleep differently. What is this strange place we call sleep, anyway? How do you go there or drift there or fall there? It's like a room with no doors or windows. It's a room that is not a room. It's a place that is not a place. It can be anywhere and nowhere. It can defy laws of nature and physics. It can make things clearer and it can be impossible to describe in reality.

As a youth I tried lots of things to help me go to sleep, from crazy to common. Things like: Smelling onions. Concentrating on my breathing. Counting sheep --whatever that  means. Counting down from 100... and then back up. And so many more. Some things may have helped, other things not so much. Nevertheless, nothing stuck.

At one point I thought maybe I was afraid to fall asleep. Just the idea of it is a little frightening. How far is the drop and will it hurt when I get there? I sometimes had really scary nightmares that I woke up from either crying or screaming. But I also had some really cool and beautiful dreams that I didn't want to wake up from.

Once I became an art major I embraced my insomnia. I stayed up all night making art. I slept when I was completely worn out, and had a little time for it --no matter what time it was.

Now that I'm married and pregnant, I don't have the luxury of living that way (thankfully). But it's easier to have a more regular routine. I go to bed at night with my husband. And even if it takes me a lot longer to surrender to sleep, I love laying in bed beside him. Feeling his heart beat into my back as the baby kicks in my belly. Listening to him breath. And feeling his strong, protective arms around me keeping me safe.

Now I don't have to fear my nightmares, which have been awful during this pregnancy, because I know he's right there. Warm and loving. Now I don't have to go to sleep to dream sweet dreams, because my dream come true is right next to me.

My Opinion on Skinny Jeans...

My opinion on skinny jeans?

I like them. I think they are great. I think they are practical. They are the perfect pant for boots. There is nothing offensive about them. The tops look just like any other pair of jeans (considering I'm not talking about mom jeans -- high waisted 80 style), they just taper after the knee. There are some that are a lot tighter than others, and I don't think those are necessary, or that they would be very comfortable.

cute

When I say skinny jeans, this is all I mean by it. If you hear skinny jeans and think something else you may be thinking of jeggings: ridiculously tight, pocketless, zipper-less stretchy jeans. I don't like these. Although, I did accidentally own a pair, but only because I needed something for my pregnancy. I didn't realize what they were until a couple weeks after I got them. Like the aforementioned skinny jeans, there are more extreme varieties of these as well. I do not have those ones.

gross. you look fat. these are not what i have.

The worst and most disgusting variety that people mistake for skinny jeans are the undergarment called leggings. These are NOT pants. These do not make skirts modest. These do not look good.

disgusting. go put some clothes on.

So, you want my opinion on skinny jeans? oh, you don't... well I'm giving it to you anyway. If you want to wear pants with boots and not get your pants wet or salt soaked or just want to show off your super cute boots, wear skinny jeans! If you need to be warmer on a Sunday, and you're already wearing a modest to-your-knee skirt wear leggings. I'm still not sure where jeggings fit in to this. I think they're just a fad that will fade.

A little BIG news

For some reason, that I cannot fathom, I have had this episode of Full House on my mind a lot lately...

We had another appointment today. It was really amazing! We got to hear our babys heartbeat for the first time. I can not express to you how incredible this was. To hear my own heartbeat and then a tiny one right next to it. In MY body. I realized the miracle that is occurring within me and I was entirely overwhelmed. Austin said he could see how it affected me on my face, and I admit that I teared up a little.

That silly little fetus started dancing around--moving out of the scope of the monitor, making my midwife have to chase it around my belly. Already, at 15 weeks, my baby has a cute little personality (that may or may not reflect the jokesters that are its parents).

I'm so excited to meet this little angel in a just a few months!