Functionality

Since my transition from full-time student to full-time stay-at-home almost-mom, I've become obsessed with creating functionality in my home. My previous roommates will think I was already like this, but they don't know the extent things have gotten to at this point. A few of my functional innovations (which you may want to try for yourself):

• Physical "In," "Pending," and "Out" boxes - One thing that used to drive me crazy at home was the piles of paper sitting around in various places. Now whenever I check the mail, receive coupons, receipts, invitations, or find a cool article to read later, I make sure it isn't urgent and then stick it in the inbox. Anything I need to file or mail goes in the outbox. Pending is for projects I'm not doing right now or things I have to wait for a response on. On Mondays, I go through and deal with everything in all three at once, as well as updating our financial information on Quicken. This may sound like the most basic organizing technique, but do you actually have one?
• Date idea folder - Speaking of the outbox, it also contains the date idea folder where I stash any fliers about local events.
  
• Pantry checklist - I've created a list of all the food and non-food items we need to buy on a regular basis organized by area, stuck it in a sheet protector, and placed a dry erase marker next to it. It's like the old "pad on the fridge" shopping list approach, except that when I go to make my list, I can quickly go over the list to make sure I'm not missing anything that's just about to run out. Plus I like having a list of all the stuff we need to live.
• Cord organization - The plague of modern technology is a little thing called cords. Every device you have comes with a whole plethora of cables, most of which you won't use frequently but which you have to keep somewhere just in case you ever want to plug your digital camera into the TV. Solution: wrap cords with elastic to prevent tangling, then sort according to what they input into. I have three boxes: power cords, USB cords, and A/V cords. The A/V cords are by the TV, where we might actually remember to use them.

And that's just the more creative stuff. I don't know how a household would really survive without a dedicated homemaker. The more I stay at home, the more necessary I think it is to do so. Sure, I kept on my feet pretty well as a student, but there was always a little chaos in the areas of keeping myself running. With one person per household dedicated to do these tasks full-time, the rest of your life becomes completely free. Anyway, I like it, even if I don't particularly like housework.

And no, I haven't had the baby yet.

A Heresy against Feminism

Why do I find myself unable to write about marriage?

I think this is the thing that killed my blog posting this semester. Although this semester was insane, it was no more insane than the others during which I did find time to blog. But something about being married has killed my ability to write candidly about my thoughts.

Sometimes I think it’s because I’m scared of bursting the bubble I’m in. Marriage has made me so insanely happy that it feels unreal. What if by analyzing it I burst that bubble and make things harder for myself? But that’s not really true—I’m not in some idealistic phase where I think my husband has no faults. He’s great and cute, but he has traits that drive me crazy. And yet they don’t drive me crazy. When I look from an objective perspective, they should bug the crap out of me, yet when I see them in him, they don’t seem as important. In fact, nothing seems as important as he does.

Another thought I’ve had is that it’s simply so new to me that I’d rather experience it than write about it. There are some experiences you just can’t write about when you're still close to them, no matter how amazing the insights you’ve gained through them. And that's okay. Because they’re so intensely personal, they are not meant to be shared. This was a huge temptation for me at the beginning of our marriage. At each discussion and resolution, I would think in my head, "This has emotional power! This would make an awesome essay!" (Seriously, this is how my life has always worked: I live in order to write about it.) I didn’t write about it though, not just because the experiences would be difficult to convey but because every time I tried to write them, or even think about writing them, I felt like I was betraying my husband, selling out my marriage for worldly gain, though nothing would have come of it. Perhaps there is no way to share these experiences vicariously. Perhaps they are like our most sacred communions with God, something that increases the understanding between us but that will be spoiled by the retelling of it.

But I think the most true reason is not that I hold myself back from talking about my life, but that there’s no one out there to hear it. Ironically enough, marriage appears to be a taboo topic in Utah County, otherwise known as the marriage capital of Mormondom. I can’t talk about my marriage experiences with my single friends, no matter how cordially they ask me “How’s married life?” Anything I say would sound either like bragging (that I’m married and they aren’t) or harassment that they should get married (look at how great it is!). Even if I could by some magic coincidence of tone and mutual understanding get past both of these barriers, what could we really talk about? They obviously have no experience with marriage, which is barely less than the one esoteric experience I have. It would be like two librarians discussing what it’s like to fly to the moon: profitless speculations and wild leaps of logic. And for what purpose would we talk about marriage? To establish what (in general) it is like and examine its purposes, characteristics, and flaws? A discussion too dispassionate and impersonal to be worth either of our times. To talk about the specific ins and outs of my own marriage? Of what usefulness could that be to them?

Perhaps I’m being too overdramatic. I suppose that discussion could be useful, for although marriage is the most intense relationship of my life, it is nonetheless a relationship, which means that no one is without some analog to relate to what is being discussed.

Maybe it’s not marriage as a subject but the attitudes of people at BYU about it that make it such a taboo topic. Perhaps the fact that it is so important to us causes heightened emotions and fear to discuss it. During my single years at BYU, I was desperate to get married. It’s extremely hard to admit, but I thought enough about it during those years to certainly qualify as obsessed. I knew it was important and much harder to do once you left college. I was absolutely frustrated by the fact that it was so unpredictable. You couldn’t tell if you were doing “well” on the road to marriage until you were actually married because before then, who knew what could happen?

But of course, there was no way I could admit to or discuss any of this. For one, there nothing less attractive in the world than a girl desperate to have someone, anyone, so she knows she is not a failure. So actually pursuing marriage was out of the question, because if you looked like you were looking for it, then it was certain that you would never get it. Secondly, I could not discuss the importance of marriage in my circle of friends. I was part of the intellectual crowd at BYU. We were supposed to be women who didn’t depend on men for fulfillment; getting married before graduating would be a sign of weakness to our liberated, feministic ideals.

Which I find an extremely interesting paradox: we learn and firmly believe at church that the way to happiness is not to follow worldly ideals of success, because in the end such things are illusory. But then what is the path of happiness? As soon as someone mentions family, you’re sure to have several liberated women in the room defy (at least inside their own minds, if not vocally) anyone who would “lock them up” in a house and forbid them to pursue self-fulfillment through a career.

I recently read a post on the bloggernacle responding to Sister Beck’s talk saying that they object to anyone who says that a woman’s fulfillment should come wholly or even primarily through raising children. Here’s a news flash for you: the Church doesn’t say that about women. It says that about everyone! Does the Church say that men should get a career for self-fulfillment? No, a career is clearly shown as necessary for the support of a family. Our leaders time and time again point out that men who focus on their career at the expense of their family will come out empty-handed. Why do women feel satisfied in saying they are an exception to this rule? Don't we want to be treated equally?

I guess this gets me right down to the reason I am afraid to write about marriage: I believe in it. Every last traditional gender role, anti-feminist part of it. I have come to receive a witness that the pattern of a father working and a mother running a household is not only a social necessity, but a divinely inspired pattern. This heretical thought came to me for the first time as I began going to the temple. I had read vague hints that many feminist women were less than satisfied with the temple, and when I arrived there myself, I could see why. My first time through the endowment, I noticed the gender differences with curiosity and wonder. In subsequent times, I could not keep myself so neutral: I felt a rise of resentment and questioning rise in me at those times during the ceremony. It poisoned my mind so I could not think of anything else through the whole two hours: why in such a progressive world did our church have to be so backward? Why couldn’t it just concede to the truths that were so obvious?

Then I came to wonder: why am I judging sacred things by the secular instead of the other way around? Why is the thought of the scholars of the world my standard for judging the gospel? If I really believe in God, shouldn’t I be able to trust His standards? I began to wonder if feminism—in the sense that women (and people in general) needed to seek fulfillment outside of the home and family—was merely one of the philosophies of men, one that I had been indoctrinated with since childhood, one guised under the mask of equality, but in reality having little to do with it. To me, it seemed that this movement was not so much about equity as it was about finding happiness. Women had forgotten how to find happiness. We saw the men in successful careers and said, “That is why we are not happy, because they don't let us have what they have.” Little did they realize that the men weren’t happy either. No one was happy because they weren’t looking in the places to find happiness.

And so I find myself at peace with the temple, but at odds with the world. How could I possibly justify or defend this position? It was so simple. I must be missing something critical if there were so many intelligent people who disagreed with me.

But maybe again that’s caring too much about what the world says. I for one agreed with the substance of Sister Beck’s talk, yet the only thing I could think during the whole thing was “Oh man, the girls over at Feminist Mormon Housewives are going to be livid about this.” And I felt guilty for agreeing with her. Guilty.

Back from Hiatus

So, eh, it's been a long time. If my artistic expression weren't above it, I would now insert one of those anime-looking smilie faces with a nervous sweat drop coming off its face. Anyway, I apologize for being gone so long. I've been undergoing a whole bunch of life-altering changes. The ironic part about life-altering changes is that they make great material to write about, but when you are actually going through them, it's very difficult to do so. A synopsis of what has happened since I last blogged (August 1):


The Wedding
I got married. I suppose this is obvious, but I thought I'd include a few obligatory wedding pictures, all courtesy of Marisa's facebook since I don't have the candids from my parents with me and the photographer ones are all watermarked. George and I coming out of the temple. I love my dress (from Bridal Image, my aunt and grandma's bridal store in Bountiful).

My baby brother Josh (8) carrying my veil--the veil's my mom's.

Obligatory reflecting pool pictures. Note the awesome gloves and George's brown tux.

Me smearing George's face with some frosting after my cousin Barb specifically told us not to. :D This is at the reception in our backyard.

And yes, married life is great. But I see no point in writing about it since the single people will just be annoyed and hopefully the married ones already know.

And now I know I definitely disagree with Ben.


No More Double Major
I come back from my honeymoon one week late to the new fall semester at BYU and discover that physical chemistry is not really a chemistry class--it's a physics class in disguise! I passed the math class on which it is based with a C+ last fall. I hate physics with a passion because it's one of the few subjects that I have to work at. I proceed to stress out and have various mental breakdowns about my adequacy. George holds up admirably. I decide to quit the chemistry major and declare a minor instead. I am now trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my identity. Don't worry, I'll get over being a normal single-major-with-minor person like the rest of you. It'll just take time.


BYUAML Presidency
I'm now the president of the student chapter of the Association for Mormon Letters. I've started a BYUAML blog (of course) and a Google calendar to keep track of activities. I really enjoyed my first AML board meeting, and I'm flippin' excited about the Writing Conference on November 10th. Yay! I'm really interested in all the activities we've got going on, so I think it's going to be fun.


Miscellaneous Other

• Working on my Honors thesis project, a collection of 4-5 personal essays on various aspects of being a Mormon woman.
• Taking the LDS lit class and trying to narrow down the subject for my research paper. I'd like to write all twenty of them, but I think one will have to suffice.
  
• Trying to find time to work on more Hugh Nibley stuff. I've been on a hiatus from working for Jack Welch and he probably wonders where I am.
• Learning not to agree to do every project that comes along just because it would be so much fun. I have to have time to see my husband too.

So, I really will try to blog something real tomorrow, and it has to do with either 1 Cor 14 or D&C 93. Or maybe I'll actually post on Blogger of Jared, since I've been a guest blogger since April and written exactly nothing.

Knowing the Bridegroom

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. (Matt 25:10-12)

So it's been awhile since I've written a more serious entry, for reasons which should be obvious. But since my mind insists on formatting every thought I have into a blog entry, I guess I better recommit myself to the blogosphere.

One thing that I realized on my study abroad trip was the metaphors in the scriptures are anything but accidental. For one of our devotionals in England, I wrote a talk on why the scriptures refer to Christ as the light of the world. The implications of that metaphor are astounding to me. (I plan on revising that talk over the next few days to post on Blogger of Jared. Keep an eye out for it.) But the metaphor that's been snagging my mind lately is Christ as the bridegroom and ourselves as the bride, again for obvious reasons.

The lesson in Relief Society this week was "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods before Me" from the Spencer W. Kimball manual. Our discussion veered off on the interesting tangent of how we can grow to love God more. As we listed all the typical answers, it struck me how apt it is to compare our relationship with Christ or God to a marriage. It seems from my limited experience that there are two ways we spend time with a spouse. The first is the process of life--buying groceries, looking over the weekly calendar, picking each other up from work, running errands, getting stuff done. The second is the specially set-aside time, time we make away from the work-a-day mill to spend with each other, the weekly dates the Church so frequently councils us toward. One isn't better than the other; both are necessary for a healthy relationship.

How well these two elements apply to our relationship with God! God is to be part of our everyday actions. We must be listening to spiritual promptings and doing the 'errands' of our spiritual lives--our scripture reading, our prayers--in His presence. Yet equally important is setting aside weekly time to meet with God, to commune together without an agenda of getting things done, just listening and talking and repairing our relationship.

How many of us can say we set aside time for a weekly 'date' with God, though? In my life at least, there's often much emphasis on relying on Him in my daily actions--the Spirit is my support through the day--and not enough of simply getting to know Him better. Much of my time with God seems about incidental convenience. Blogging time double-counts as pondering time. Writing in my journal is following the prophets as well as creating material for my honors thesis project. I can learn all sorts of spiritual things while also getting paid to work on the footnotes for the next volume of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley. (Now they pay me to be obsessed with him. Yay!)

I'm not saying such double-counting is bad. God's presence should permeate our lives like light. But it gets to be a problem when I have a hard time thinking of that last time I did something to commune with God without the ulterior motivation of being productive elsewhere. That kind of relationship is exhausting. When George and I went through a few days doing nothing but working and planning wedding stuff, my ability to give and feel love was severely impaired. Without downtime in any relationship, you simply forget why you are doing things. And lack of downtime in my relationship with God leads me to forget why I push through the 'errands' of spirituality.

Another question is this: what do you do with one-on-one time with God? Unfortunately, I can't take God down to the Malt Shoppe for two-for-one Mondays. For me, the answer to alone time with God is prayer. At FHE, we discussed Elder Scott's conference talk on prayer, and this phrase from the "How Should You Pray?" section stuck out to me:

Don’t worry about your clumsily expressed feelings. Just talk to your compassionate, understanding Father. You are His precious child whom He loves perfectly and wants to help. As you pray, recognize that Father in Heaven is near and He is listening.

That description of open communication, without worry about clumsy phrases or entertaining the listener, is exactly the type of communication that ought to exist between spouses. That willingness to say whatever comes to mind, to talk about anything, everything, nothing, is exactly the way I feel when I talk with George. Prayer ought to be the kind of talk that comes of lying in a hammock with someone you love, staring at sky through the tangled leaves, where all life suddenly comes open, and in that instant you can fix problems that have taken years to form, or doing anything really. It's so vast yet personal--overwhelming to me.

A Simple Solution

You are a soon-to-be-married geek couple at BYU who just decided to move your wedding from December 28 to August 30. In your high-speed search for married housing, you:

A) create a spreadsheet from BYU's inadequate family housing search, eliminate entries that are too expensive or too late, then proceed to rank other information such as distance from campus and furnishing, sorting the spreadsheet to your heart's content;
B) make a Google map of the locations of the housing you are considering and color the icons to show which are near and far from campus;
C) write a program to automatically generate emails to the owners on your spreadsheet, letting them know of your interest in the property;
D) all of the above and now you can't stop giggling about how much fun it was.