Good News Notes

1. Yesterday I looked out my window, and there on the ground, strewn haphazardly around the parking lot, lay many daffodils. I couldn't fathom why someone would break apart such a perky spring bouquet and abandon the pretty white and yellow flowers to be flattened and destroyed by cars. Indeed, several were already mangled by tire marks, their delicate plan flesh torn asunder. I didn't let the mystery stop me from action - within minutes Avram was outside, collecting the best of the remaining flowers and bringing them inside for a beautiful spring bouquet that now lights up my living room. Maybe they were from an unwanted beau?

2. I am now privy to knowledge of no less than five pregnancies, four of which are secret and as yet unannounced. All are due in October. Three of the four secret ones I found out about by accident (NOT weird prying on my part, thankyouverymuch). I think October birthdays are great - especially October fourth. Not that I'm biased, or anything. Although talking to morning sick women makes me sometimes step back and think, "Wait, I want to get pregnant sometime later this year? Am I crazy?"

3. Avram has been on spring break for the last week and a half. I went on spring break too, and read lots of books. Poor Avram. Poor house, that looks ten times worse then it did before my spring cleaning week (the cleaning never materialized. Neither did spring hardly - it was a pretty cold week). I'm excited for his new quarter, when he doesn't have to leave the house until 8:20 am, so we'll get to eat breakfast every morning as a family (as opposed to Winter Quarter, when he left every morning at 7:00 am. I never got up with him, let alone had a family breakfast.)

4.Elisheva said her first word. "Nana." meaning Banana, but also in a broader definition meaning any delicious food, usually fruit, that she desires greatly and you're not getting to her fast enough. She's also losing her delicious chubby cheeks, and is starting to look more and more like a toddler. Which makes sense, considering she's 11 months old now. On April 28th she'll be a whole year old.

5.Lydia weighs 28 pounds, and Elisheva weighs 20 pounds (the same weight she's had for about 5 months.)

6. A while ago when I wrote about how to better listen to people, etc. etc, soon afterwards I heard from several sources that they liked to talk to me, and felt like I listened/understood them just fine. After some deep thinking, I've decided that although this is something I've struggled with over the years, I actually am very happy about where I am right now. So it's all good.

You May Thank Me In the Comments

Because I love you all, I changed my blog to fully post on blog readers like Google reader. You may all thank me in the comments. I only changed it in the first place because I used to haunt Google Analytics to see how many people read my blog, and I worried if people could just read all my posts from their comfortable and distant readers that they would never visit my page, and Google Analytics would never know, and thus I would die from the perceived neglect of adoring fans and friends alike.

Now I have come to an internal Zen of blogging, and I go months in between checking Google Analytics, and I blog only to discover my inner Nirvana (and for funny stories. And for the comments. Remember the thankful and adoring comments you're leaving me after this post, even and especially if you don't know me personally). So I have decided to let go of my wordly attempts at popularity, and give you my posts as a personal present to your readers. You may thank me later. (Later being right now, after this sentence ends.)

To my subconscious I'm a Hussy with No Ring

I had a dream the other night that I was a mistress. Several dreams, in fact. One dream I was a dancer (a dancer! I know. Ballet, I think. Reminds me of slum-bucket's {Stiva's} mistress in Anna Karenina), and in another dream I was a gypsy, who lived in SCA style pavilion tents.

I think my subconscious self was sending me a message - that it wants a wedding ring again, so everyone will know that I'm married. It's not for lack of trying that I don't have a wedding ring. (Just a reminder in case anyone's confused here. A month ago Avram and I were robbed, and among the things stolen was my wedding ring). Last week Avram and I went and looked at wedding rings. It's an estate jeweslry store, which is a fancy way of saying, "Used Jewelry," but I mainly like old fashioned ring styles, so it was a great place to go to.

I even found a very pretty ring that is an oval green garnet, surrounded by small diamond clusters, on a slender gold band. Very pretty, with a very sparkly stone. (I should mention here that I do not like Diamonds as a main stone. I like stones with some color to them. Which works well for less expensive rings. My first ring, which was 14 carot white gold, with expansive filigree and 27 small diamond chips surrounding a large oval sapphire was only $267 [on an after Christmas sale on a military base exchange, where everything is cheaper anyway.]) So this ring costs something like $400, which isn't that much for a wedding ring. But it's a lot when your first ring was cheaper, and also because I'm already married.

Despite my subconscious worries to the otherwise, I know that I'm married. And the thought of spending four hundred dollars for a sparkly stone on my finger is a little ridiculous, when detached from the whole, "symbol of love, etc, etc." When you're engaged, showing a symbol of love via a ring is very important. When you have two kids, lots of student debt to pay off, and eternal covenants and bonds tying our marriage together (from our temple sealing ceremony), Avram and I have very tangible, daily reminders of our love, mostly in two little girls that incessently wake up before I want to, plus we have more pressing financial duties, so buying a ring just to remind myself and others that I'm married seems somewhat....frivolous. Superflous.

But the green stone was sparkly.....And I do like having a wedding ring. Except not so much as to buy a fake ring from Walmart, just to have one. Not even enough to buy a plain gold band. No, if I'm going to have a superflous symbol, it better be green and sparkly (or some other color and sparkly. It's just that I've been having a love affair with green lately, and love all manifestations of the color. And I don't like the emerald cut, which basically cuts out most emerald stones.)

Avram's Mom's side of the family has sent us money to help us replace our stolen possessions. Since we're not replacing most of the movies, and my brother gave us a computer, mainly we just need to replace the wedding ring. So I do have some guilt free money to shop with (as opposed to thinking, '$400? That almost enough for a month's worth of rent! Who needs a ring, let's put it on debt. Or our rent. Or anything else that isn't just a ring.' That's what I say in the store. But then I get home, and dream about being a mistress. And I keep on seeing the ring in my mind's eye, plus other fanciful rings I haven't even seen in person yet.) And Avram's parents are keeping their eyes out at the exchange for any rings I might like.

Soon my subconscious will be be able to dream about me in a happily married state, instead of on the fringes of society. And until then I'll just look at my girls as a reminder that I'm married, even sans a sparkly ring.

This is Thora Shannon on All Music Considered

I'm turning into my Mother.

I remember being a little kid and my Mom would always have BYU Classical Radio on, and I hated it. (To clarify, I did like classical music - I just didn't like driving to it). As the soporific strains poured out of the dashboard, I invariably fell into a light, unrestful sleep. During the winter my coat would still be on, and as the windows magnified the weak Winter Sun I was always too hot, lying their in a Music induced coma, hating sleeping, but unable to muster enough force to stay awake through an entire concerto. Or in the Summer, lulled to sleep by the engines and the music, and then finally at any time of year, waking up at our destination, bleary eyed and bleary brained, with niggling tendrils of unwanted sleep still curling about me.

Or NPR would be on, and as the banner head rift trumpeted out "Bam, bam, bam, bam..." (Hey, you try writing out music, sometime) to All Things Considered I always thought to myself how boring the voices were, and how boring the topics were. Not that I listened closely enough to catch the topic, for the most part.

As an adult while driving in the car I have mostly listened to Country for its revving, car-driving excitement. I also like oldies for the same reason. Plus the decades I grew up listening to as a child - the eighties and nineties. I even went through this stage of trying out an AM station, which without fail played "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" every day around 10:30 am as I drove to work while pregnant with Lydia. And every day without fail, being pregnant, I choked up as the Edmund Fitzgerald, the big ship that was bigger than most, sank with all 29 crew members aboard - after all, this had really happened.

The longer I've been an adult, though, the more these other stations have been passed by, for (you guessed it) OSU's classical radio station with NPR. I love how the songs aren't jangly and short, with changes all the time that just remind me how slowly traffic is moving. I love that the only commercials are delivered in one liners saying who's sponsoring the station. I love the feeling being the songs. And I've never once been tempted to fall into the music induced naps of my youth (thankfully for my fellow Columbus drivers who share my road).

I love it when I have to drive somewhere at four pm - when NPR starts. They have even jazzed up the musical rifts since my childhood (although the head banner rift remains the same.) Marketplace gets me feeling all self righteous and on my soapbox of money consciousness, where I learn about toxic assets and credit card follies. And through NPR I commemorated Buddy Holly's death, various ethnic music trends, and other pop culture moments.

I never turn the radio on at home, but while in the car (when Avram isn't with me - for some reason I feel self conscious listen to the radio with another adult in the car) my station is always on, and is always turned to Classical Radio.

Clearly I am on the high road to being my Mother. Next I'll start saying "Garbage" with a drawn out accent, and phrases like, "Gag me with a spoon." Oh, wait, I already do.

The Great Depression 1.5

Avram's Grandma Mim is famous in the family circle. She grew up during the Great Depression, and it's in her very bones to not waste anything. This is why every time we visit she'll pull out a bag of clothing that she got from her Methodist church's thrift store that she thought we could maybe use. Once Avram got a shirt for his 26th birthday, with a little old grandma lady on the front, with her arms raised to the sky, and a quip that said something to the effect of, "As long you keep your arms in the sky your chest won't sag," (to which she had attached a note saying, in all seriousness, that Avram could wear this shirt now that he was getting older to keep him young feeling.) Mim also gave his Mom a few visits ago a part of a quilt top - that had been pieced together using peach and black floral strethy polyester fabric; another thrift store special (from another survivor of the Great Depression, no doubt). (Although to be fair she has also found great maternity clothes for me through this - it can't always just be pure entertainment).

Besides not being able to let go of any potentially useful clothing, Mim also can't stand to see food go to waste. Thus she has been known to crumble up stale butterscotch brownies into a bottle of flat orange soda and drink this.

Most meals spent at Mim's house, she dines on various and sundry leftovers from old meals, often providing disparate flavor matches, although none have ever topped the orange soda incident.

Avram and I have talked about what kind of atmosphere could give rise to such compulsive thrifty behavior, and what sort of time growing up in the Great Depression would have been.

I know that we are nowhere near a "great" depression, and also that even if all the same events replicated themselves, we still wouldn't go back to wearing gunnysack dresses. After all, my flour comes in paper bags, and I don't think any amount of ingenuity could make a paper sack dress that I would wear in public. Still, I am starting to get a feel for the continuous low level anxiety that could shape long term behaviors.

Avram's department voted to, because of the economic times, not open any new teaching positions for next year. Which means that we went from having funding for next year 100% to not being exactly sure whether we will or not. Avram's applied for another fellowship, which we haven't heard back from yet, and there are two teaching positions currently open - for a pool of four people, all of whom Avram is close with, so he's competing against his friends. Thus a staple of our daily prayers is asking for funding to work out next year.

Plus then this week surprisingly my Student loans went into repayment, and so now we're paying off my trip to Egypt (which I haven't taken yet in my Saga story.) (Although I should point out here we actually had room in our budget yet, so we're still doing fine financially - I just dislike financial surprises, unless they involve a check for me).

Then Avram's brother is waiting to hear back from graduate schools. So we've been praying for him. After all, we're worried that as schools have less funding, they'll let less people in.

Then Avram's dad was laid off from his job this week. So now we pray for them as well.

And my Mom needs a summer job. It's a good thing there is no limit to people who need help that we can pray for - becuase I'm starting to feel pretty needy.

Not that there aren't still good possibilities for all of our family and ourselves. Just that now the clouds on the horizen always seem to be dark and ominous. And I hate foreboding futures. Avram has a saying, "It's called a recession until you lose your job. Then it becomes a depression." The more people we know looking for work/out of a job/in unstable financial work situations, the more I feel that we're in a depression, and not just a recession.

As far as repaying my student loans now, I was thinking about how I wish I could have that money to buy things now, but then I reminded myself that that's the lame part of paying of debt - you already consumed (or have, at least) whatever it is you're paying for. So I've decided that I just need to pull out my Egypt memorabilia, and look at all the pictures and tell myself how much fun I'm having, or was having four and a half years ago, at least. Although I am glad I went to Egypt - as we'll see soon it plays an important role in how I married Avram. I just wish I hadn't bought so many clothes while I was there.

I am not so stressed about finances that I've been driven to wear any free clothing that comes our way, nor have I begun combining random leftovers for a taste treat sensation, but I think a few more years of always wondering/worrying/praying over our own financial future as well as for those around us could induce some odd lifelong habits in myself as well.

Let's just all pray that Oklahoma doesn't blow away in dust storms (especially since my sister Camilla is driving there to live for the next three months as I write), and that all of the horrible events, specifically financial uncertainties, preceeding the Second Coming will be pushed forward 80-90 years to when I'll be dead, and then I'll be very appreciative. Thank you. Oh, and if any of you find any more grandma shirts - you can throw them away on my behalf. As long as we can do this, we'll know that we haven't truly fallen prey to the Second Great Depression.

Saga of Sentimentality, Part VI Avram and Thora Have a lot of Awkward Moments

Due to popular demand (Thanks Lisa! I love feeling wanted. Bloggily, that is), here is the next installment of my Saga. For those with short term memories only, and for my sister Camilla who hasn't read any of the entries yet, and so I may have to terminate our sisterhood, here's a link to the last installment: Saga Part V, Thora Has Issues


As we walked down Aspen Avenue in the Tree Streets, facing Kiwanis Park under the yellow streetlights, there could have been a soundtrack with a suspenseful silence just at that moment, for I knew that my silently pleaded prayers had been answered; I had an opening into the very conversation I had wanted to have for the past two hours. Before the moment could be lost forever, I swallowed my fear, my natural shyness and reservation, and blurted out, hoping that it could either be taken in a capital letters, romantic way or alternately in a platonic, friendship way, "I like you."

A long, awkward silence followed. Eternally later, after a few steps of walking, Avram replied back, "I like you, too."

An even longer, more awkward silence ensued. We kept walking across the street, and finally as we reached the curb Avram and I looked at each other, and laughed. I even said something profound, along the lines of, "Well, this is awkward." I truly had not expected that answer, and I didn't know where to go from there. I had expected Avram to just be understanding and friendly, and now I had taken the first step down a path I hadn't known existed a moment before.

Now that I stood in that first step, staring down the path of yet another relationship while I still had a missionary, I suddenly wasn't sure what I had been thinking, forcing a DTR (define the relationship) conversation.

For that is what we had. Avram and I decided that we should talk about these interesting new developments, despite it being two in the morning, so we went and sat in the playground of Kiwanis park, facing the swings while sitting on a park bench, under the ubiquitous yellow lights that characterized our late night talks of this time period.

Avram observed that this all seemed like a Jane Austen novel; He was purportedly pursuing another girl, whom he was not that interested in anymore, I had was "engaged" elsewhere, and we both discovered we liked each other. Neither of us knew quite where to go from this moment. We discussed the possibility of dating, but Avram felt he needed to extricate himself from the other situation first. Not that he and Mina were together at all, but he had formally declared his intentions to pursue her, and Avram follows the kind of honorable rules that went out of fashion centuries ago, so he had to now formally end his pursuit.

I, meanwhile, had a missionary coming home in four months, and was also leaving on a study abroad in the same four months. I had dated twice while Dennis had been gone, and both times I had resolved at the end to not date again (I have very weak resolves when it comes to dating, it seems). When Dennis had left I had not set out to "wait," especially not on a shelf, just marking time until he came home. I did not want to marry him just because he was the first person I had fallen in love with. But I also did not want to rush headlong into another "doomed" relationship. Avram was not quite sure he wanted to rush into a doomed relationship with me either.

Contrariwise, now that we were being so open and honest, we weren't sure how we could just ignore all our open and declared feelings. Our conversation kept on derailing from our set topic of the DTR, and we sidetracked into all sorts of topics, the one I remember best being Hugh Nibley's portrayal of Egyptian religion. I think that ten minute detour did more for me wanting to date Avram then the rest of the two hour conversation combined, because it reminded me of why I liked him in the first place: when we spoke I felt mentally and intellectually alive. I still wasn't sure I was completely attracted to him. He had black hair, and a strange affinity to paisley ties (and had just that morning worn an East German communist hat down Ninth East). I still wasn't sure I wanted a relationship with him. Avram had never had a girlfriend. He had never kissed, never held a girl's hand. I wasn't sure that I wanted to be his first kiss, his first girlfriend, when I already knew that I would break up with him at the end of the Summer - for I could not, and would not Dear John Dennis again. Before I had thought that if I even liked another that I had to pick between the two, and had landed myself in a very quick engagement by following that line of logic. I would not make the same mistake again, and so told Avram at the outset that if we dated, we would also break up at the end of the Summer, and then when I saw Dennis after Egypt, then I would decide between the two, if Avram and I were still interested in each other.

Above all else, I knew two things. First, that I wanted to continue talking to Avram, I looked forward to our night time walks, and I highly valued all he said to me. I was attracted to him, even if he wasn't my traditional idea of physical type, and when I knew I would see him, I always got excited and looked forward to his presence, which when realized never disappointed. If this meant dating him, then I wanted that. I did like him, and now that I knew he liked me, this seemed the natural next step to our interactions. Second, I knew that I still completely desired to marry Dennis.

These two mutually exclusionary truths ruled my mind that night, and continued to do so for many months hence (although I get ahead of myself).

Avram and I can turn any simple states, such as mutual declarations of romantic feelings, into long two hour discussions, and so we did that night (now early morning). While talking on our park bench, we maintained the same spheres we always had. We neither sat closer together, nor showed any physical demonstrations of our long discussed affection. After, all, we were not sure of any future course at this time. Finally at four am, when all the awkwardness, the angles and the possible courses of actions had been talked out, and were replaced by ever deadening and cold extremities and minds, Avram walked me home.

At my door, after mentioning something about our changed relationship and future potential, I hugged him - the first physical contact we had ever shared. In the four months that I had known Avram, he had made it amply clear he was not a physical person. He never hugged people, sat very close to them, or shared physical contact. Well, this hug was not a promising beginning. It was by far the stiffest, most wooden hug I ever recall sharing. We kind of laughed after wards at our failed attempts of intimacy, and then I went inside.

*******

The next day I called Travis, and sounded off to him my previous night. His reaction was the same the soon I heard echoed from well-meaning friends around me; "You did what?" all said in tones of dismay. After my very, very ugly breakup with Gui, I convinced myself and all my surrounding friends that I was better off not dating at all. With both Peter (the first boyfriend) and Gui I could not commit, and that was the death knell of the relationship (well, and the fact that Peter and Dennis shared a last name, because they were brothers, but that's another awkward story for another time). Among my friends I had gained a reputation as a man-eater, and I supported this epithet fully. At the same time, I spent so much time and effort singing the praises of Dennis the missionary, that those who had not even met him were already veritably impressed by the Venerable Dennis. (Who really was quite a good guy.) After having spent years priming all around me to Love Dennis, and be convinced that the only one for me was him, I reaped my harvest when all my friends (except one, RoseE) were not quite sure what to make of mine and Avram's DTR.

That day was the Medieval Club's Spring Festival, and at the duly appointed time I made my way up to Provo Canyon along with Avram and friends. As we drove through the canyon, I lay my head on his shoulder, and this slight physical contact was quite comfortable, which made me feel better about our failed hug of the previous day. Although Avram and I had reached no conclusions as to our future course, our interactions that day were quite relaxed. Most people around us knew about our conversation. We knew about it. But in the group altogether it was not mentioned, and so emminently ignorable. Michele took this first picture ever of Avram and me. I was helping him wash his hands off in the Provo River, after dredging chicken in flour.

Avram and I went on a walk up Nunn's Park during all the festivities of our end of the year club party. Avram kept on singing the song, "Did you ever have to make up your mind?" by the Loving Spoonful. He was not sure he was ready to decide to date me. I was not sure about dating him either. We were a very indecisive pair.

Throughout finals week we walked this balance line. A few days later, on Sunday, Avram called me and said that he wanted to come over and talk, since he had gone on a ramble, and had not been able to figure things out on his own. He walked the long haul between our homes, and we sat down and enjoyed rehashing again all the possible moves we could make from the point we now inhabitated.

Avram mentioned that he had seen one of our mutual friends from club, but she had been about a half block away on his walk over. Shortly after Avram's arrival, Travis called to see how I was doing, and 'casually' asked if anyone was over with me. I told him Avram was, and after we had exchanged a few more pleasantries we got off the phone. Then not too long afterwards another friend Emily showed up at my house, something I don't think she had ever done before, and invited Avram and I to dinner at her house. We said sure, and she took us to her apartment, where everyone else had already eaten, including her (Travis and some others were over there as well). So she sat with us in the kitchen, and watched us while we ate vegetable soup, and we all pretended this was casual and normal, although really both Avram and I were thinking that our friends were crazy and we were being babysat or something, so that we couldn't be alone where we could do something stupid like hold hands. Finally after a while of awkward socializing over cold soup, Avram and I began to make motions to go home. Emily once again offered to drive us home (read: drop us off separately, so we wouldn't have any alone time). Avram firmly said he thought we could walk ourselves home, and we beat it out of there as fast as we could.

While reading this, you must understand that our friends really weren't crazy. They just were looking out for what they perceived as our best interests at the time. Since joining club my freshman year, I had had the same group of growing friends, which meant that we had gone through a lot of my boy history together. They had seen me date Dennis, seen me fall head over heels in love, on cloud nine with the singing choirs. They had seen him leave on his mission, with me singing his praises, only to start dating his brother before he had actually gone into the MTC. As I write this, I'm laughing, because I'm aware how badly this sounds. My friends were aware as well. If I can rescue my reputation at all, I did break up with Peter (Dennis' older brother, and a brand new RM) the day after Dennis entered the MTC, because I realized that as much as I liked Peter, I had a longer history with his brother, and I would rather preserve that history that see where Peter and I could go (read that I would rather have Peter as a brother in law and know that we once had kissed than have Dennis, and know that I had entire journals devoted to how much I loved him. In fact, Dennis' response when Peter had told him we were thinking of dating was that he would have to burn his journals.)

These same long suffering friends had seen me, only months later, fall in love at first sight practically with an RM nicknamed Gui (pronounced Gee, and a nickname for William). They had watched as Gui and I had gotten engaged only a couple of months after meeting, and a week after officially dating. [I must take the time out to remind you that I was young and stupid. I may only be old and stupid now, but please still be my friend. And remember, you don't have to make any dating mistakes, because I already made them all for you.] Then it seemed liked I was happy to be marrying Gui, but in reality from the time I received my response from Dennis to my Dear John, I was in torment. I almost broke up with Gui on a weekly basis. (Long story, but in short it was not because of Dennis exactly that I broke off my engagement - it was because I did not like the problems that me still being attached to him brought out in our relationship.) From the outside it looked like we were honky-dory, but then four and a half weeks I abruptly broke off our engagement. And then we still dated for the next few weeks before it finally ended once and for all.

At that point I had sworn off boys and dating, and I'm sure all my friends collectively drew a sigh of relief. For the next seven months, until I met Avram, I spent a lot of time thinking about Dennis, and convincing myself that since I couldn't make it work with anyone besides him, that we were perfect together, and he was the only one for me, etc, etc. I had been so enthusiastic in singing his praises that I had converted all my friends right along with me. Dennis was the most well known absent person Club has ever had.

So, to bring us back to Avram and I, it is no wonder that our friends looked so suspiciously on our somewhat burgeoning romance. If I hadn't been feeling somewhat twitterpated (and rebellious, at least when our well-meaning friends tried to help) I would have been suspicious as well.

Avram and I made it home alone, with no more interference, though. We had yet to come to any conclusions.

A couple of days later, while Avram and I were walking around Botany Pond, he put his arm around me. This was our first attempt at any physical contact since the awkward hug (well, except when I had leaned my head on his shoulder a couple of times previously, which were quite nice, and not at all awkward. I think this shows something - the more we felt like we were supposed to do something together physical, the more awkward it was. When it arose naturally out of the situation, it wasn't awkward at all). It was very awkward for me. After that night, I decided that I didn't really want to date Avram after all, that I didn't think we could get beyond the awkwardness, and there was just too much extraneous situational aspects keeping me from feeling comfortable with a relationship at that point.

Avram and some other friends came over to my house to help me pack up the house (my house had never been thoroughly cleaned in between tenants, and our new landlord was making us do it, but my roommates all moved out before me, so the gargantuan task fell on myself - and my nice friends who came to help) after finals were all done, and I took the opportunity to quickly mention this to him. He said that was fine, and then also told me that he had extracted himself from Mina, and so at that point was free to start a relationship. Oh, well. Failed timing, I thought to myself, but I really really didn't want to rush into any more heartache - or awkward physical contact.

As we cleaned out the deep freezer, I found a chunk of some beef roast, and tossed it in the oven. Then we all adjurned to my living room, and in a time honoured tradition all my sisters would understand, since we spent every Sacrament Meeting growing up doing the exact same thing, I sat next to Avram, put my head in his lap, and commanded him to play with my hair. Avram was somewhat surprised (not having grown up with six sisters, who all had a dire need of hair playing for long hours at a time), but he complied, and began running his fingers through my hair. One by one our other friends left for some reason or another, and soon it was just Avram and I and the waning light of the sun shining warmth into my living room. Hours passed, darkness came inside and out (since neither of us moved to turn on any light), and the mysterious piece of beef continued to cook anattended while Avram continued playing with my hair.

Not a very auspicious moment, with great retelling value, but it was a pivotal moment. I had begun the day sure that I was not ready to date Avram, but as the hours passed, and we talked softly together, while he kept running his hands through my hair, I came to realize that we could be physically close and not be awkward. At some point he stopped playing with my hair, and we were just sitting together on the couch, Avram sitting, and me curled up on the couch, lying in his arms (ok, so this sounds more shocking than it was. No honor code was violated this night, nor any other night. So stop looking at me like that.)

Sometime about then, we verbally commented that our actions were not exactly the plans of people who were not planning on dating, and I suppose that night marked the beginning of our relationship. We finally decided we were starving, and went and retrieved the dry roast from the long forgotten oven. I must say it was the best hunk of beef I've ever eaten. Avram and I just sat at the table together, and ate only beef for dinner, enjoying each other's company, and laughing at anything and everything.

We hadn't held hands, we hadn't ever gone on a date, but Avram and I were definitely more than just friends.

The next stage of the Saga - part VII

Why I Love My Husband

Avram sent me an email two weeks ago, although he knew I wouldn't get it for a long time, which said, " I wanted to write you and tell you how ardently I love and admire you."

For those who don't regularly read and watch Pride & Prejudice, this is reminiscent to what Mr. Darcy says when he proposes to Elizabeth. Ahh, swoon.

(For one thing, Avram has read Pride & Prejudice more than once. And even enjoys watching the movie with me.)

I'm Baaack!

I'm sitting here, typing on my new (to me) schnazzy desktop computer, with exciting options like a full sized keyboard, and a flat & skinny monitor. But if you're our friendly neighborhood robber reading this, it's still not worth stealing, because my brother, who gave it to us, said that the monitor is on its way out, and could die at any time. So we have Avram's back up old and ugly monitor, which weighs more than Elisheva and Lydia together, and is roughly the size of a small farmhouse for just in case.

I've just returned yesterday from my trip to Utah for my brother's wedding, which was a wonderful trip. I didn't realize how much I missed the mountains until I flew over them. As we went over Utah Valley, I choked up as Squaw Peak and Mt. Timpanogus came into view, and I softly told Elisheva that although she had never been to Utah before, she was coming home for the first time in her life. Oh, how I love Utah! And more specifically, I love Provo. My family is all in Salt Lake Valley (where I grew up as well), and it was wonderful to see them, but ultimately I never went home until I went to Utah Valley.

My wonderful family all chipped in for my plane ticket, since we had some tax sadnesses (did you know that a fellowship does not count as earned income credit? Now you know), (plus then the burglary). I'm so grateful to them. And I got to see my college friends for a night (a late night; we hung out from six pm to one am...it was like I was crazy and single again), which was also wonderful. Me and seventeen people, plus five kids, crammed into an apartment all together. Just like the old days (well, except for the kids). I love my college friends. Now I'm just getting sentimental. But hey, a whirlwind five day trip to your home & college stomping grounds for a wedding will do that to you. (Also, it was fun to be with Elisheva alone. We had some good bonding times.)

I haven't really done anything on the computer for three weeks, so it'll take me some time to catch up with all the readings I need to do. I missed blogging. I wrote lots of imaginary blog posts in my head, but I'll be surprised if any of them make it to the actual, virtual world. Also, our camera had been lost, and they took our memory card, but I got a hand me down camera in Utah from my Mom, so I can take pictures (and back them up, from now on) as well. Can life get any better than this? Yes, yes it can. After tomorrow Avram has a week and a half spring break, and we're going to do some local sightseeing around Columbus, like to Hawkins Hills or the Serpent Mound.