My Sister-in-law Aleatha

Today I will write about my sister in law, Aleatha, because so much has been happening that I've had a hard time narrowing down what I want to say, so she suggested in jest to write about her, and so I am. I'm a very compliant person, sometimes. Occasionally. Rarely. Really, if I were in a novel, I'd be red-haired, because I'm so stubborn and strong-headed, but this is real life, so I have brown hair. Enough about me.

Avram's brother Samuel, who's my age, and his wife Aleatha are visiting for about a week and a half. Avram and Samuel are best friends, and have been all their life, so who Samuel married was always a slightly important topic to me. I used to hope (and occasionally try) to set Samuel up with already close friends of mine. About four tries later (most of them never actually got to a date stage, let alone anything else; I just thought of someone I knew, and then wished that on his own Samuel and she would spontaneously like each other - that's as far as I go in matchmaking; I'm not a successful matchmaker, just a hopeful one) I gave up, and left the fate of the rest of his eternity to himself.

And then he met Aleatha.

Basically they had a fairytale romance, and last May they got married. Aleatha isn't an in-your-face person, so I never felt like I got to know her really well over the time that they dated and were engaged when Avram and I were still in Provo. It's been great then that she started a blog this past year, and through virtual readings, I got to know her better.

Sometimes I'm a little intimidated by her, because she's beautiful, and tall and skinny. Now, to be completely honest, I think I'm cute, but I'm not tall (at 5'3''), and I've always wanted a couple more inches. But I can't hold that against her, so I try not be jealous. Plus she can sew really well. Since they came on Friday, she's sown together fourteen quilt blocks for a quilt top that her grandma cut the pieces out for. To make all of you feel better, she did have these pieces for the last two years before doing anything with them; nobody's perfect.

Aleatha is sitting her in the room with me while I write this post; it's funny, because I would never just tell her that I wish I were taller, and stuff, but I can write it, knowing that she'll read it, but somehow it's easier/more natural to write out my inner thoughts than to talk about them out loud.

On that topic, it's hard sometimes, because Samuel and Aleatha are very demonstratively romantic. Avram and I aren't. And I tend to compare myself to every other couple, and because I'm harder on myself than anyone else, I always feel like Avram's and mine relationship comes up short to basically every young couple's out there. Sometimes between Lydia and Elisheva, I feel like Avram and I never have the time or ability to be gaggy, as we affectionately call kissing and sitting together and stuff. I wish we were, though. When Avram and I were first married, and we'd walk in from the car together, we'd always walk together. I'd see other couples walking in, where one was ten feet in front of the other, just coming in order of who had gotten out first, or whatnot. I swore to myself then that Avram and I wouldn't be like that; that we'd always walk in together, always care enough about each other to do that.

Well, two kids later, guess what? We go in order of whomever manages to pull the respective child out of her carseat first. And we basically never specially wait to walk in together from the car. I know that we still love each other, and that we have a good relationship. But sometimes I wish that having children (they don't have any yet), didn't mean that on the outside your marriage looks so prosaic. Heck, from the inside a lot of the time my marriage and life seems prosaic.

Err, so I'm talking about me again. I told you that I like to talk about myself. And don't think that I'm all depressed about my life and being a young mother - I'm really happy where I am, and who I'm with. I just like to kvetch sometimes.

Aleatha also shares a birthday with me - October Fourth, except for she's four years younger than me. We decided someday we'll go on a hot air balloon ride for our birthdays together, and leave our husbands at home, because they would hate the experience.

Yesterday we went to Washington D.C. together, just us four and Elisheva. We got a lot of Smithsonian sight seeing done, which I may or may not talk about later (most specifically modern art), and it was nice to feel all exotic and responsablity-less, not counting having Elisheva there, of course. Elisheva was a good sport; she only complained the last half hour of driving home.

So now I'm getting to know Aleatha better in person, and not just from blogs, as well as Samuel and Aleatha together as a married couple. I'm glad that Samuel married someone who's a kindred spirit, and not just a good person, but someone who I can't relate to. Now if only I can get better at listening and not talking all the time, and such I'll get to know her even better, which is exciting. Because I like having a good group/couple dynamic. And I like all of us together.Samuel and Aleatha together, with Elisheva.

She has a year left at BYU finishing her degree in Humanities, and then they'll be moving somewhere for Graduate School for Summer. I hope they move close to us (three hours away, which is the nearest school Samuel's applying to), because then we can get together on long weekends and be all familial like.

This ends my post on Aleatha, although it's really more about me getting to know Aleatha, and wishing that I had such mad sowing skills wherein I sewed clothes all the time and feeling insecure about my marriage. But they're kind of the same, right?