tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46796313425175862832024-02-20T01:58:01.547-05:00Thora FlorenceA member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wife to a professor, and a mama of sevenThorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.comBlogger445125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-52802846651284980522021-05-01T05:41:00.002-04:002021-05-01T05:41:19.435-04:00The Son I Carry in my Heart<p> I have been reading <a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2008/08/confessions.html">old blog posts</a>, s<a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2008/05/whenever-im-pregnant-i-suffer-from.html">pecifically one about morbid thoughts I have had during pregnancy. </a>At the time I only had Elisheva and Lydia, but I had worried with both of them about what if they died? Or I died? And then it did happen. I had a son die. I was so young back then. I was 25 years old, and so hopeful for the future. I wanted a big family. I wanted Avram to get a Ph.d. I wanted Avram to get a job as a professor, and even favored BYU for him to work at. I wanted to live within walking distance to BYU. Check, check, check, check, check. I got everything I wanted. Except Torvald. I did not get my son. I will never have my son in this life. </p><p>And reading my old thoughts, it is strange that now this is my reality. I wanted a standing up headstone then. I still want one now. We buried Torvald in the Provo Cemetery in the older pioneer part, where he will have a fully upright tombstone. This was something that was very important to me. Important enough that I felt like the first tombstone we ordered, which was the same one as the flat ones but would just be wedged upright, was not the actual stone I wanted. We went back and paid three times the price for a fully upright one, and I have less than zero regrets. A tombstone, it turns out, is basically the most permanent purchase one can buy, so it is best to go for what one really wants for it. </p><p>I remember crying at IZ singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow." I still love that song, and I cannot listen to it now - it is too painful. I cry at just the thought of it. I cry at a lot of things now. Today I opened up my file of downloads on my computer, and there were the 3d images of Torvald just a day before he died, and I cried - gut wrenching sobs that are a whole new, unpleasant way of crying I have discovered in the last couple of months. I had no idea when that ultrasound was taken. I was so hopeful, so grateful for him. I thought I might have gestational diabetes, or that he might need a surgery after birth, but that everything would work out fine, with fine here meaning exactly the way I wanted it to. Everything did not work out fine, it did not work out the way I wanted it to. I didn't have any premonitions, after all these years and pregnancies of thinking that I or my baby might not make it. And this time I was a 100% sure he would make it. But he didn't. Torvald was never going to make it. We don't know exactly what (perhaps we will in the future), but he had some kind of genetic difficulties. He never could have lived long, even had he managed to be born alive. My baby was always slated for death. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEcla9V0XRZEZ30UmwDkrnoHKKFew1At4i3o_YLVja9lIZk8sjMaHjomKhB3kjJxmDsxIitINUA1C6dNKY4F7wUtAeNb6PeydvzopKWKHY9_QuAy-Q5yK0Y4ohjVeKLHMiw_itzNhrA5w/s1136/download+5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="1136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEcla9V0XRZEZ30UmwDkrnoHKKFew1At4i3o_YLVja9lIZk8sjMaHjomKhB3kjJxmDsxIitINUA1C6dNKY4F7wUtAeNb6PeydvzopKWKHY9_QuAy-Q5yK0Y4ohjVeKLHMiw_itzNhrA5w/s320/download+5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Sometimes I want to rage against God. It is so unfair. We love our children. We want our children. This pregnancy had been so hard, so very hard. I had promised God years ago I would have the children he wanted me to have. That has been wonderful and life-giving, but it has also been hard, the hardest thing I had ever done (and that was before Torvald died). Now, it feels like I have been betrayed, that God took my willingness further than I thought I could go. And yet I cannot rage against God. In a blessing after Torvald was stillborn, I was told that God sent us Torvald because he knew that we would love him. And we do love him. And I know deep down inside, in a place that I cannot deny, that he is a blessing to us, and not a curse or a sign that God does not favor us, but rather that we are favored by God. I know this. But it still hurts. It hurts to see others with their living babies. It hurts to see babies that also have genetic struggles, and wish my child was living like theirs is. <p></p><p>My arms feel so empty. I go about my days, and I am doing pretty well. We have our seven living children to love and to feed, clothe and parent every day. I am excited about our house projects coming up this summer (gardening and landscaping and painting). I love traveling with my family to see nature, and have already lined up our two next vacations. But underneath it all I carry Torvald in my heart. With a living child they grow away from you from the moment they are born. As Dave Barry put it, they are like a comet streaking past, and you are just a small part of that. But for a stillborn baby, he was physically born, but he has never left me at the same time. For seven months I carried Torvald under my heart, and now for the rest of my life I will carry him within my heart. My other children will move away and continue their own existence without me. And I know that Torvald's spirit is in heaven. But I am the monument to his life. The only life he had on this earth was within my own body, within my own soul. </p><p>This is the burden and the blessing of being a mother of a stillborn child. I am the only one who ever held him, who ever substantially felt him move. That is my blessing, and my curse. No one else knew him while he was alive. Very few even saw his little, broken body. To almost all others he is an abstract. But to me he was real, a real person. A person who moved and whom I loved, and still love. And I miss him so much. I miss my baby. I miss the smell of a newborn, and their sleepy milk drunk breath and heavy weight. I feel cheated to have gone through such a hard pregnancy, and such a hard post delivery (I lost a third of my blood. I would have died without modern medicine), and not to have gotten a baby out of it. Not to have gotten Torvald. </p><p>Sometimes I will be doing something mundane and the image of his cold cheek next to mine as I held him will come to me, like an overlay over my life. I hope you never have to hold your dead child in your arms. It is almost unbearably poignant. Exquisitely painful. Because at the same time that I was mourning him, I was also trying to soak up being in his physical presence, because I knew that that day, February 11 was all I would ever have in this life with his body, and it was also the closest to his soul that I could be as well. This was all compounded by the fact that because of my blood loss and continued loss that day that I spent most of the day unable to sit up and unable to hold Torvald at all. I could not even get a whole day with him. I could have kept him over night with me - the hospital was very understanding and helpful. But they had put Torvald in a hospital bassinet that kept him cool, and by the evening when I could finally sit up and hold him again, for the first time since that morning, it was not the same. I could feel that his soul had separated from his body in a way it had not since early that morning when I had birthed him. I need to say goodbye to his body, but it was only his body left to say goodbye to. He was so very cold. </p><p>And so I said my goodbyes. I had Avram leave the room, so I could be alone with my son. Since the morning I knew what I had to do to say goodbye. And so I sang to Torvald while holding him. I sang the lullabies I had sung to all of my children throughout their babyhoods. I sang Baby Beluga, and an Irish Lullaby, and others I cannot even remember now. I cried and I sang, because I knew that this was the only opportunity I would ever be able to do so. Like I needed to store up all my mothering and deliver it at once to him in the form of song. Avram came back and I told him what I was doing, and together we sang Hush Little Baby to him, which is a song Avram has always sung to our children. A week later I remembered a song I had often sung to my children that I had forgotten to sing to him - Mother I Love You, but with the lyrics altered to that child. So I found a moment to be alone in my bedroom and cradled to me the afghan my mother had crocheted for Torvald, and that I knew he would be wrapped in for burial and sang to him, through my tears, "Torvald I love you. Torvald I do. Father in Heaven has sent me to you. When I am near you, I love to hear you, singing so softly that you love me to. Torvald, I love you, I love you, I do." Except I will never get to in this life hear him singing that he loves me. Now I cannot sing to my children anymore. I break down in tears every time I try to sing a lullaby, like they all belong to Torvald now. Thankfully Avram can still sing to our kids.</p><p>I also, when I was alone with Torvald, carefully kissed his little feet, his hands, his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth. He was so cold, and so still. But I loved him still. I both treasured my last moments with him, and dreaded them. It was perhaps the second most painful moment of my life to have the nurses take him away (the first being when the Doctor told me they could not find his heartbeat, and showed me on the ultrasound monitor where it should be. Torvald's little body just lay there inside of me, like was was asleep, but with black stillness where his heart should have been moving.) </p><p>Two and a half months later I feel like I spent the time I needed to with Torvald's body. But I am still bitter I was out of capacity for most of the day, that I could not spend more time with him earlier, when perhaps his spirit was more broadly present. Instead I was surrounded by medical professionals working on me. It is sobering to realize a century earlier that not only Torvald would have been dead, but that I would have died also.</p><p>But I am not dead. I am very much alive. I love this life. I love my other children, oh so much. I love Avram. I love springtime and blossoms and the feel of the sun on my face. I love breezes and flowers and pretty art and painted rooms. I love nature and beautiful old buildings and my friends and family. But underneath it all, I also love one who is not here. I have never dreaded death, but now I look forward to the day when I am reunited with my son again. Until then it has been a great comfort to me that Heavenly Mother is in heaven, and can be the mother to him that I cannot be. I am grateful we know that there is the divine feminine, and not just the divine masculine. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUreHUK4q1aGw2DWonKIYKLKTBpn5FrOzzBNbWXBaidWP0p8OTA_YvqkvEzW52K62CicKmb2YM8plygWitOhhAX2Jp2QYrsnuvFJZ8fp_sHQ76kjFW_1lA_E1tqDNJYhBeOs6IYHPU_EY/s2048/A255A041-FC6C-419A-A95F-9A4F0D558EF9.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUreHUK4q1aGw2DWonKIYKLKTBpn5FrOzzBNbWXBaidWP0p8OTA_YvqkvEzW52K62CicKmb2YM8plygWitOhhAX2Jp2QYrsnuvFJZ8fp_sHQ76kjFW_1lA_E1tqDNJYhBeOs6IYHPU_EY/w435-h326/A255A041-FC6C-419A-A95F-9A4F0D558EF9.heic" width="435" /></a></div>There is a picture over our mantel by Brian Kershisnik titled, "Jesus and the Angry Babies." Avram and I picked it out for our anniversary last year because it always made us laugh a little, to see Jesus with a lap full of angry babies. It just feels appropriate to Jesus, somehow. One of the babies is hidden behind the others, with his head just poking out and his eyes showing over another baby's arm. Now I think of that as Torvald, that like that baby he is with Jesus, and although we cannot contact him, that Jesus is in contact with him, is taking care of him. On Torvald's twenty week scan he hid his face from us the entire time. Eve joked that he was saying, "Go away!" to us. After he died of all of our kids Eve, only four, has been the most willing to talk about Torvald, and the most openly sad he is gone. She said within a few days of him dying that now Torvald was telling us that he was going away, to be with Jesus. That is what I think of every time I see this print - Torvald has gone away to be with Jesus. I know this. I am grateful for a Savior and for the plan of salvation. But I am also still so very sad. I did not want him to go away. I wish I could have had even one moment of holding Torvald when he was still alive. I cannot wait until the day when I can hug his resurrected body. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qctQMT0O36I/YI0hJfFZChI/AAAAAAAAC1A/HonDYiXQSvwmk52Tz7ZU_TAiySilsdFWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1136/download+2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="770" data-original-width="1136" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qctQMT0O36I/YI0hJfFZChI/AAAAAAAAC1A/HonDYiXQSvwmk52Tz7ZU_TAiySilsdFWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/download+2.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br /></div><p></p>Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-24881847825294926802021-03-30T11:42:00.001-04:002021-03-30T11:42:24.854-04:00Avram's remarks at Torvald's Funeral <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JyOAWzMYJAjmqWWG4GOFlGnZ6WSclM783pbgpbLUlEFO6BX0apjI63JOSjglK6d_u1Tz0JAArvDKobRzpist__NyBwQrMcr4L6W73RYWN6R3RTWxvfrwmbmFr6k56R91QuN10kvGvFc/s6000/8B11F65A-2AB2-42C5-8ABB-94B85EBECAFC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JyOAWzMYJAjmqWWG4GOFlGnZ6WSclM783pbgpbLUlEFO6BX0apjI63JOSjglK6d_u1Tz0JAArvDKobRzpist__NyBwQrMcr4L6W73RYWN6R3RTWxvfrwmbmFr6k56R91QuN10kvGvFc/s320/8B11F65A-2AB2-42C5-8ABB-94B85EBECAFC.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my job, I do a lot of speaking, and even a lot of speaking and teaching about gospel principles, but this is not a message I would have chosen for myself, not necessarily in topic, and definitely not in circumstance. I don’t really have the words to say what I feel, and I feel keenly the inadequacy of my language to fit the circumstance. </span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-49cf9595-7fff-3abc-3cdb-9f2c8155c72e"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me begin this with a story. When we first discovered we were pregnant, Thora and I were very excited about the possibilities, about welcoming a new individual to our family. When we announced it to the kids, I had a conversation with Enoch, our eight year old son, who asked me, “Dad are we lucky to be having another baby?” I said yes, we were very lucky, and the thing is, even with all of this, I still feel lucky. The past months have been a privilege, and I appreciate Enoch for articulating so well what I have been feeling.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There a lot of teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ that help me and aid me in my life, but right now, I am most grateful for the hope that I have in a glorious resurrection. The Prophet Joseph Smith reminds us, “The fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, “that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended up into heaven”; and all other things, are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the subsequent doctrine of our own resurrection has been the bedrock to my faith over the past few weeks. I always believed, and hoped in the Resurrection (Easter is one of my favorite times of the year), but I never </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">needed </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the Resurrection like I do now. I have been reminded of Paul’s statement to the Corinthians that “if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19). I have felt, in some of the hard moments since we discovered Torvald’s death, something of that misery that Paul alludes to. Facing Torvald’s death has felt like looking straight in the face Jacob’s awful monster, death and hell. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I have also felt the fierce joy of the Resurrection. We are not unavoidably lost. I could not countenance a world where I had no hope in seeing Torvald again, but that is not the world in which I live. I live in a world, where, through Jesus Christ, we live again after we die, and we will dwell in eternal glory. I love the observation of Neal A. Maxwell, “Christ’s victory over death ended the human predicament.” Having felt all too strongly the “human predicament”, I take great comfort and solace in Christ’s victory. We are not left alone. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elder Maxwell goes on to say, “Our “brightness of hope,” therefore, means that at funerals our tears are genuine, but not because of termination—rather because of interruption. Though just as wet, our tears are not of despair but are of appreciation and anticipation. Yes, for disciples, the closing of a grave is but the closing of a door which later will be flung open with rejoicing.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We say, humbly but firmly that it is the garden tomb—not life—that is empty.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is still a whole in my heart that aches for little Torvald, but I know that I do not need to look in this life for things to fill that hole, because Torvald is not gone forever. Like each and every one of us, Torvald is an eternal being—he existed before this earth, and he exists now, and he will still exist long after this earth is a cosmic memory. Although he died before I could get to know him as well as I liked, I look forward to the day when I will be able to know him better. I look forward to our personal return to Zion, where we can fall upon his neck, and he can fall upon ours, and we will kiss each other. (See Moses 7:63). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, I am grateful that my son has found the heavenly city that we are looking for. Although I am still a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth, still desiring the heavenly country that Jesus has prepared for us, I anxiously await the day when “God will dwell with [us…and shall] wipe away all tears from [our] eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even so, Lord, come quickly! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. </span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-74123834460853794012021-03-23T11:46:00.006-04:002021-03-23T12:16:55.993-04:00My Remarks at Torvald's Funeral<p><span style="font-family: times;"><i>On February 11, 2021 I gave birth to our still born son, Torvald Alistair. He has some genetic difficulties that caused him to pass away. These are my remarks at his funeral on February 26th. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9GGzhWYGlI4/YFoOs7yUlFI/AAAAAAAACzk/wJ1xyw77KAQe5ZTIVOvzTR-GIcViX01KACLcBGAsYHQ/s6000/8FF1F362-BA79-4ECE-B084-BC21FB68C061.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6000" data-original-width="4000" height="377" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9GGzhWYGlI4/YFoOs7yUlFI/AAAAAAAACzk/wJ1xyw77KAQe5ZTIVOvzTR-GIcViX01KACLcBGAsYHQ/w251-h377/8FF1F362-BA79-4ECE-B084-BC21FB68C061.jpeg" width="251" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><br />This pregnancy was hard (which turned out to be because of severe polyhydramnios, caused by Torvald's genetic difficulties), and yet every day I had a mantra I often repeated to myself as I fell asleep and as I woke up: I love this baby, I want this baby. I love you. I want you. And I did. I do. Three years ago when announcing Gareth's birth on social media I commented that we were just grateful that he was born healthy. Avram and I early on in our childbearing realized that we did not really care whether we had boys or girls, which is good as, in a phrase I always tell my children, “you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.” We would just say, like many other parents, “We just want our child to be healthy.” </span><p></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">In early February I went to the hospital for early labor, and became aware that Torvald might have genetic problems, but they did not seem incompatible with life. And we thought, we don't need a healthy child, we just want a living child. And then, only three days after coming home from the hospital we went back again, this time in more aggressive early labor, to learn that Torvald had already passed, and that the smaller genetic difficulties were in fact insurmountable, and even had he lasted to be born alive would have died shortly anyway. And beyond our immediate grief, grief that lasted as Torvald was born, as he was laid on me and I held my son and wept, I knew, that ultimately God does not promise us boys or girls, he does not promise us healthy children, and he does not even promise us living children. </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">What we are promised is what Jesus was given in Gethsemane; a mortal experience that will test us and try us beyond what we think we can bear, but we will not be left alone, we will not be left comfortless. Christ asked “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Heavenly Father sent an angel to comfort Jesus, but notably did not remove the requirement for Christ to complete his heavenly commission to atone for all of His children. </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">God did not give Torvald life, but we also have comfort. When Christ came to raise Lazarus from the dead Mary met him, and told him that if he had been there her brother would not have died. In her sorrow and grief Jesus met her, and in the shortest verse in scripture, but still full of meaning, “Jesus wept.” He wept with her even knowing that he would shortly raise her brother from the dead, and that she would be with him again. He did not mansplain this all to Mary, he did not tell her there was no need to cry because shortly she would see her brother alive. He just wept with her in her sorrow.</span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">And I have felt the same about Torvald dying. I have felt the comfort of God comforting us, of all of your prayers carrying us in our grief, even while we know that we will be united as a family again after death, but that has not stopped us from crying and grieving that we are separate now.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhgQFa0GwU0NlVIFV4qa3Pysvni-cKpsnXm0Uy-38RBlx8tf0htXs2FnDbjDMJV8wGF1cBIORY2J2_MlNKctOfAnB1Tbwacyyqk5fmrxQ6E80qkCMUljusOcafqUd6bGLO4U7HZxTq5I/s6000/E670245F-9DBC-4712-8B5E-28AF5AC2F188.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhgQFa0GwU0NlVIFV4qa3Pysvni-cKpsnXm0Uy-38RBlx8tf0htXs2FnDbjDMJV8wGF1cBIORY2J2_MlNKctOfAnB1Tbwacyyqk5fmrxQ6E80qkCMUljusOcafqUd6bGLO4U7HZxTq5I/w382-h254/E670245F-9DBC-4712-8B5E-28AF5AC2F188.jpeg" width="382" /></a></div><p></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">Avram and I have long talked about how much we love the Church of Jesus Christ's doctrine of the plan of salvation, and not just the warm fuzzy parts, but even the hard parts that we have referred to as being a “cold comfort.” One such cold comfort is that we could not have had a true earthly, mortal experience without having a world where genetics do not always work, where we have mortal bodies that are subject to pain, disease, and death. Even through the almost overwhelming wave of pain on learning that our son had died because of these very fallen and mortal limitations, we felt the truth that this is a part of our mortal experience, and that God had not abandoned us but that he cared deeply, that we have a God who weeps with us, even while knowing that our mortal sojourn on earth is not long for any of us, even octogenarians, compared with our immortal existence. And it has been a comfort. </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">Like Avram, I too have felt this great privilege of having Torvald in our lives, however briefly. But knowing that he is not in our family briefly, but forever, has been what has sustained us. Perhaps all we could offer him in the end was a flawed mortal body, but I have learned such a reverence for what an important part of our eternal progression having a mortal body is. Holding Torvald in my arms, seeing the tell-tall signs of genetics that didn't work on his face and body, I still felt at the same time such a reverence that he had a body at all. That even broken it was beautiful. We felt his spirit, and the Holy Spirit strongly in the birthing that was also his death. It is a comfort to know that our deepest sorrows and difficulties are not outside of the Spirit's reach. </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">One third of the Heavenly Father's children rejected having physical bodies, rejected going through sorrow exactly like this. I cannot completely blame them – like Christ in Gethsemane I too want to retreat, want to call enough on this pain and suffering. But also like Christ, in my own much lesser way, I want to tell God, “Thy will be done.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">I do not regret getting pregnant with Torvald, even knowing the tragedy we feel now, I know that God's will was done in sending us a son that was neither healthy nor could live. His becoming part of our family, including his death, is privilege and blessing I feel grateful and blessed to be called to bear. As a mother when I have carried my children I have seen myself as their protector, ushering them to their earthly existence in the only way possible for them to gain a physical body, for them to progress eternally from spirits to living mortals and eventually to eternal glory. But ultimately it is the Lord's position beyond mine to protect and usher our spirits, and I must rely on Him when what seems like the most fundamental of mothering actions does not have the outcome I have worked so hard for. Even though God's will takes us through our own Gethsemanes, Christ has redeemed all for us, and turned our sorrows to sweetness, our ashes to beauty. </span></p><p style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times;">I miss Torvald, even having known him so little compared to the length of my life. I look forward to reuniting with him, and to the resurrection when we will all be made whole again, and when he can have a physical body that will fully function for his spirit. Until then, I am grateful for a loving godhead and a Heavenly Mother that can be with him, and love him in person in ways that I cannot. I am grateful for the Plan of Salvation that teaches me why hard things happen to us, that gives me comfort, even hard comfort, and helps me know that we can be together forever and that our earthly life is short, but our heavenly home is eternal.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZgBkmVn_ho/YFoO8JknnaI/AAAAAAAACzo/aKRZO7AkEZIFkpwXJLHWah93SBjIZUw9wCLcBGAsYHQ/s6000/29D83B18-B9FE-4643-AC01-AE712F39B639.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6000" data-original-width="4000" height="475" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZgBkmVn_ho/YFoO8JknnaI/AAAAAAAACzo/aKRZO7AkEZIFkpwXJLHWah93SBjIZUw9wCLcBGAsYHQ/w316-h475/29D83B18-B9FE-4643-AC01-AE712F39B639.jpeg" width="316" /></a></div><p></p>Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-90235010684162778782015-09-14T01:14:00.000-04:002015-09-14T01:14:42.721-04:00<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm_YZddSqI/AAAAAAAAA2E/p7QC8BHRyog/s1600-h/FHE4.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335005659469269666" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm_YZddSqI/AAAAAAAAA2E/p7QC8BHRyog/s400/FHE4.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 267px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-yXWO8kU09yxcOibNOOPP60bcqQyCM8mwdMsdH_OVd_NM3SosWC-QzRaWOpduN01edrHZHQ4I8omSpiFoMg1VQj33H_CBDNRfuGjlq3wY5IcPty0MxcrygRCF3-j9ncg6C-cEa8YSf9w/s1600-h/Card1.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335005448718742338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-yXWO8kU09yxcOibNOOPP60bcqQyCM8mwdMsdH_OVd_NM3SosWC-QzRaWOpduN01edrHZHQ4I8omSpiFoMg1VQj33H_CBDNRfuGjlq3wY5IcPty0MxcrygRCF3-j9ncg6C-cEa8YSf9w/s400/Card1.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm_FkaIeAI/AAAAAAAAA10/3FPC-Lgl5Ys/s1600-h/Food+Elisheva.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335005335990597634" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm_FkaIeAI/AAAAAAAAA10/3FPC-Lgl5Ys/s400/Food+Elisheva.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm9fsmfxiI/AAAAAAAAA1s/z9rL-n92doU/s1600-h/November+2008+029.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335003585843283490" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm9fsmfxiI/AAAAAAAAA1s/z9rL-n92doU/s400/November+2008+029.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvm3vUZ_U3BvXSdbZ3WB6qG13Yxmt76ACQarJ1DoLatjll93zoV9WIDa-Jm6QAADUa8Xtd1iWlHU8tcLa0LWOHGA21wNKhOo2Poai-5r73xI5sTBEPjJ91z5LiTa8ecyegiO-RFUJUHxU/s1600-h/Grandpa+and+Elisheva.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335003124099934242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvm3vUZ_U3BvXSdbZ3WB6qG13Yxmt76ACQarJ1DoLatjll93zoV9WIDa-Jm6QAADUa8Xtd1iWlHU8tcLa0LWOHGA21wNKhOo2Poai-5r73xI5sTBEPjJ91z5LiTa8ecyegiO-RFUJUHxU/s400/Grandpa+and+Elisheva.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHhFTRIvKtUo-9guKkMrRNZAY_hbqaVdwipHE5x2fIBMK8WG2XNACDFGWTnG4dlB4qWuw4Pi2d4ihlNffjmzWZdoeIuPY_TzkPA7ysqv8MbHAIyTX4aR8UPD43b9yT3QJ4RWyg5GGFk6s/s1600-h/Sitting.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335002220637938530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHhFTRIvKtUo-9guKkMrRNZAY_hbqaVdwipHE5x2fIBMK8WG2XNACDFGWTnG4dlB4qWuw4Pi2d4ihlNffjmzWZdoeIuPY_TzkPA7ysqv8MbHAIyTX4aR8UPD43b9yT3QJ4RWyg5GGFk6s/s400/Sitting.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm76z113kI/AAAAAAAAA1U/qTophDen4HM/s1600-h/smiling.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335001852619906626" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm76z113kI/AAAAAAAAA1U/qTophDen4HM/s400/smiling.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAD2kSNEifLL-5gn3dIjTeCC_NxtPy9At_jfHah-4gSFdHilXLdessP0Busb3c5XsZomNKHkMvQKW3-cMUYFQTw16Ks8Shyphenhyphenb66eLnIheycp3I5cV_tqi2I2SYWLacZO2VPZk3T4OuGSXo/s1600-h/Elisheva+b.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335001560181286722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAD2kSNEifLL-5gn3dIjTeCC_NxtPy9At_jfHah-4gSFdHilXLdessP0Busb3c5XsZomNKHkMvQKW3-cMUYFQTw16Ks8Shyphenhyphenb66eLnIheycp3I5cV_tqi2I2SYWLacZO2VPZk3T4OuGSXo/s400/Elisheva+b.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm7Wo3ZTRI/AAAAAAAAA1E/M2kBo7hIN6o/s1600-h/Family+Pic.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335001231198342418" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm7Wo3ZTRI/AAAAAAAAA1E/M2kBo7hIN6o/s400/Family+Pic.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm7ChF5MzI/AAAAAAAAA08/4uRtFepCni8/s1600-h/Elisheva.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335000885514285874" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm7ChF5MzI/AAAAAAAAA08/4uRtFepCni8/s400/Elisheva.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 267px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SgiAu-v1N3I/AAAAAAAAA0U/i5qyU8IOzmw/s1600-h/May+2009+083.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334655303226308466" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SgiAu-v1N3I/AAAAAAAAA0U/i5qyU8IOzmw/s400/May+2009+083.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXZdHOux_cTIBr4DjENyvMHRqnyxJ7CBzo2G4u5_gXdZZC6ATcc-dz2sjKax9gNJdLYMDyqKsloB8YUAVcXXoN3UjVy0cliqnekpnN0nTn_ZcPnb5O6pfQgB3Y-SWc1N0DoeCrDrTG0_I/s1600-h/May+2009+129.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334653892658007650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXZdHOux_cTIBr4DjENyvMHRqnyxJ7CBzo2G4u5_gXdZZC6ATcc-dz2sjKax9gNJdLYMDyqKsloB8YUAVcXXoN3UjVy0cliqnekpnN0nTn_ZcPnb5O6pfQgB3Y-SWc1N0DoeCrDrTG0_I/s400/May+2009+129.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU7HsZs9uVy8RGF03W-PliEn72WAaZ7bt5Z5QIAQXu6R-PqwBBhakL5YBVyLfcbDvLjDCPxOXLVZKf7r9fpqJpU2LWR112bKfHTnihrLp6iSw5g505UuoldyuixHntQ71mB2x069-AYU/s1600-h/May+2009+064.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334649726268823378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU7HsZs9uVy8RGF03W-PliEn72WAaZ7bt5Z5QIAQXu6R-PqwBBhakL5YBVyLfcbDvLjDCPxOXLVZKf7r9fpqJpU2LWR112bKfHTnihrLp6iSw5g505UuoldyuixHntQ71mB2x069-AYU/s400/May+2009+064.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgh6vk7KCdI/AAAAAAAAAz0/0WgAOcDGbdY/s1600-h/May+2009+060.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334648716404591058" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgh6vk7KCdI/AAAAAAAAAz0/0WgAOcDGbdY/s400/May+2009+060.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>Two weeks ago (so I'm a little slow) Elisheva Anne turned one year old. I know every mother says this, but I can hardly believe it's been a whole year since she joined our family. In her short life Elisheva has lived in a foreign country, England, and in Virginia and Ohio. How many month old babies do you know that have a passport? Not that she'll be using it ever again, probably.<br />
<br />
Elisheva had a <a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-soapbox-and-my-story.html">quick and easy (for her) entry</a> into the world on<a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2008/04/as-promised.html"> April 28</a>, eleven days early. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiNSI3C7EaDhqr23UK-D6n8zJlqKeF79kat23y_IVRRGnRQM_8NYrUtN6OP-J2mnRYIrLfwgQOmK0c4IYydon1A_liGKMJuYO7_bpA2qIQ66BiOuWdeLUlz86klMq31FGrAhLsQF-VXhU/s1600-h/Elisheva+newborn.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334997147952794642" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiNSI3C7EaDhqr23UK-D6n8zJlqKeF79kat23y_IVRRGnRQM_8NYrUtN6OP-J2mnRYIrLfwgQOmK0c4IYydon1A_liGKMJuYO7_bpA2qIQ66BiOuWdeLUlz86klMq31FGrAhLsQF-VXhU/s400/Elisheva+newborn.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a>Elisheva has been a mother's dream as a baby. She sleeps well, and started sleeping completely through the night at 7 1/2 months. She also takes naps, and actually lets you just put her in her crib when she's tired (although sometimes she'll fuss if she thinks she should be able to stay up and play).<br />
<br />
For the first few months of her life Elisheva was a lump of a baby, <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm4fv5F31I/AAAAAAAAA0k/WlrgTX2y768/s1600-h/More+Elisheva+003.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334998089168445266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm4fv5F31I/AAAAAAAAA0k/WlrgTX2y768/s400/More+Elisheva+003.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>which was her affectionate nickname. She wasn't very interactive, and was content to sit and to eat. Eating has always been Elisheva's number one hobby.<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm5KVSbJAI/AAAAAAAAA0s/CBcDPnwTLWY/s1600-h/Elishevaone.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334998820761314306" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/Sgm5KVSbJAI/AAAAAAAAA0s/CBcDPnwTLWY/s400/Elishevaone.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a> I appreciated that she was a low-need baby, as we moved from England to Virginia when she was six weeks old, and then when she was four months old we moved from Virginia to Ohio.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwQdUJu1jLXKizWoeGKwM7CTpGVxpbrZiJcFfm2k6XG19pq7e_XovOz-FSEUX0RHAvh9W7qX4rRXRD6J6eYVh7v1iBMGve9RitEEK-_MOyJFkkdpom4YpnqZ-gG309_MzF-ey7TgtzLTg/s1600-h/BlessingTwo.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335000276247093986" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwQdUJu1jLXKizWoeGKwM7CTpGVxpbrZiJcFfm2k6XG19pq7e_XovOz-FSEUX0RHAvh9W7qX4rRXRD6J6eYVh7v1iBMGve9RitEEK-_MOyJFkkdpom4YpnqZ-gG309_MzF-ey7TgtzLTg/s400/BlessingTwo.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
The day we moved to Ohio Elisheva must have realized that we were settling down and she could progress past the lumpy stage, because she rolled over that very day. Unlike her sister Lydia, who learned to roll at four months and spent the next several months rolling all over the whole house, Elisheva could never quite figure out how to completely roll over, so she remained immoble.<br />
<br />
This, along with her love of milk, led her to grow to 20 pounds by six months. Six months later, she still hovers around 20 pounds, and is losing her copious baby fat. For a while, though, Elisheva was quite the chunkers. Which led to her next nickname - Chunker Monkers (based on Chunky Monkey). We also called her Chubbery Bubbery (from Chubby Baby). Good thing Elisheva was not sensitive about her weight!<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-47310258868071884322015-09-14T01:12:00.000-04:002015-09-14T01:12:39.310-04:00AutumnI love Autumn. I love how the air smells, and how the leaves are already starting to turn. I love that my brain, after being sluggish for the summer months, comes alive again. Last night Avram and I re-arranged our living room, because I got inspired on a whim, or as Avram likes to say, I had a bee in my bonnet. I also made up a list of every dinner we've eaten this last year, and organized it by category, so now I have a master list of menus to refer to when I don't know what to plan for menus that week (which happens every week).<br />
<br />
Perhaps because my birthday is in October, perhaps because I love school, and school was always the harbinger of the coming season, but Autumn has always been my favorite time of year.<br />
Meanwhile, Elisheva continues to become my most favorite toddler. The things she loves most in the world: food, shoes, and going places. Elisheva loves grated cheese,<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWt7TfreL_-H_OGbpW4UKQ2HW6U16a5N05HenWBCKHllC4QRdP634gXzp0WECi3BjVCmnyQEUpAAWMIGNKX3uMwvYjFv7sMOsBIA7t7wwa1UA9A0afVTQ27wRh1L5im80QWByaZ5_h6c/s1600-h/August+2009+123.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379281768299373730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWt7TfreL_-H_OGbpW4UKQ2HW6U16a5N05HenWBCKHllC4QRdP634gXzp0WECi3BjVCmnyQEUpAAWMIGNKX3uMwvYjFv7sMOsBIA7t7wwa1UA9A0afVTQ27wRh1L5im80QWByaZ5_h6c/s400/August+2009+123.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a> and has learned that if others at the table have a bowl, or spoon or whatnot, she needs one too.<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SqcL-6DjIhI/AAAAAAAABdY/GXrRQXeLpQ0/s1600-h/August+2009+117.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379281455281283602" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SqcL-6DjIhI/AAAAAAAABdY/GXrRQXeLpQ0/s400/August+2009+117.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a> She now feeds herself, and delights in it. Elisheva has developed an attachment to shoes, and specifically to once she has shoes one, going outside, and going places. She loves to play in the dirt of my tiny herb garden.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SqcLSx1vz9I/AAAAAAAABdQ/fucQyCUd1RI/s1600-h/August+2009+051.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379280697161666514" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SqcLSx1vz9I/AAAAAAAABdQ/fucQyCUd1RI/s400/August+2009+051.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>When you take her shoes off at night, she usually cries. Also, once she has her shoes on for the day, and thinks we need to go somewhere as a family, but aren't leaving fast enough, she'll deliberately unsnap her jelly sandals, and then come to you for re-snapping, thus reminding you that we need to hurry up and go, already!<br />
<br />
Elisheva has a few words, although she is a slow talker. She'll regularly say, "Mama," "Nana" (banana), "Shoes" (her favorite word, to no-one's surprise), "More Milk!" always said as a command, and occasionally she'll pop out with book, or water, or Lydia, or even Daddy. Today she said cheese. Mostly she uses expressive grunts to navigate herself through the world, which do work quite effectively.<br />
<br />
We're visiting family in Tennessee in the next week, and then after we return school starts for Avram. Meanwhile, I plan to pull out knitting again, which I always put on hiatus through the Summer months.<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-9089724804727560502015-09-14T01:11:00.000-04:002015-09-14T01:11:50.505-04:00<div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SzmHOzJZvJI/AAAAAAAABjg/4CSB_nukGBI/s1600-h/P1010009.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420512314834664594" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/SzmHOzJZvJI/AAAAAAAABjg/4CSB_nukGBI/s400/P1010009.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<div>
</div>
</div>
Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-46375737607396665282015-09-14T01:09:00.002-04:002015-09-14T01:09:35.992-04:00Sledding<br />
While the rest of Western America enters Spring, we here in the Eastern part of the country continue to participate in activities like sledding.<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/S38GYXQzV0I/AAAAAAAABqE/qceBkomU7LU/s1600-h/February+2010+081.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440073890517964610" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/S38GYXQzV0I/AAAAAAAABqE/qceBkomU7LU/s400/February+2010+081.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl4CboaOPmDIsl4F94Hu06F0VYEJm9XziZE94vzHKclXrpgKdsnUym420MeN5xM__JQN5IAEmDevPcrbgxkolMny8iJAQgkWiMjufwZILC0mNduCRj-IyE4LSgjC9HSYi-wAdeYlyAKwQ/s1600-h/February+2010+077.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440074250342385426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl4CboaOPmDIsl4F94Hu06F0VYEJm9XziZE94vzHKclXrpgKdsnUym420MeN5xM__JQN5IAEmDevPcrbgxkolMny8iJAQgkWiMjufwZILC0mNduCRj-IyE4LSgjC9HSYi-wAdeYlyAKwQ/s400/February+2010+077.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a>A friend of ours in the ward invited us to her house, where her husband built a snow hill in their backyard perfect for children and innertubes.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the Russian Roulette that continues to be Avram's funding always provides us a source of excitement in our lives. The class Avram is slated to teach for Spring Quarter has 20 people in it - a good thing. Especially since the department needs to find ways to save some money, and has talked specifically about getting rid of his class. For the last couple of weeks we've checked the class almost daily, praying for the numbers to increase past the point of no cancellation (whatever magic number that maybe). <br />
<br />
Life isn't all gloom and doom. For one thing, the sun is out today, and I have fond hopes that Spring may yet come, despite the six weeks of Winter we're definitely getting thanks to Punxatawny Phil.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-69432424822570894632015-09-14T01:08:00.000-04:002015-09-14T01:08:19.373-04:00The Hunger Games - my Quibbles, with a Plethora of SpoilersSPOILERS - DO NOT READ IF AVERSE TO SPOILERS<br />
<br />
I read the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins last night. I would give it a four, if I gave it a star rating, which I don't do to books anymore (hence my abandonment of Goodreads - I enjoyed it as a site, but I realized that I cannot effectively rate most books - it doesn't do justice to either my feelings about either the quality (or lack thereof) of a novel, nor can I neatly sum up into a point system how, whether I liked the book or not, the merits of a particular novel.)Why am I writing this post, then? To gush about it? No, not really.<br />
<br />
I don't know if you've picked this up by now (dripping heavy sarcasm), but I am a reader. I also am not a specific genre reader. I read Young Adult fiction, fantasy, some Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, modern novels, classics of every age from Homer to Maya Angelou. I've read dystopias ranging from The Giver (who hasn't read this?) to 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World to a random fantasy one that involves people living in trees in another world, that I can never remember the name of. Why am I telling you all this? To gain in ethos, of course.<br />
<br />
Just ask Avram - ethos is my new favorite word. As I read reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads, too often the reviewer would ruin their ethos with me in their first paragraph. So I'm trying to show you that this isn't the first book I've picked up in years, and that I have given much thought to dystopic societies. There, now that you're suitably impressed with my ability to discuss dystopias, let us continue.<br />
<br />
I enjoyed (can I really use this word about a novel that spends its time exploring Teenage Gladiatorial Reality TV in a dystopia?) the Hunger Games. I'm not going to give a synopsis, because you can find one anywhere. But in all of the reviews online, I have yet to see a review explore the difficulties I am having with the novel.<br />
<br />
We're told that Katniss lives in a society controlled by the Capitol, with twelve districts, remaining from the original thirteen after a rebellion 74 years ago. We don't know too much about the other districts, but this is some pertinent information I gathered from her district:<br />
<br />
There are around 8,000 people in District 12 (this could alternately be the amount in Katniss's town, and there could be other towns, but based on the fact that every 12-18 year old must be entered in the lottery for tribute, and all the available people are gathered in one single town from the whole district, with no mention of traveling at all, gives the very strong impression that this is the sum total of district 12. Not to mention the fence that Katniss often mentions that surrounds District 12 (ie, she repeatedly references her town as district 12 itself). Or other factors.)<br />
<br />
District 12 is the smallest/weakest of the districts, so other districts could have more towns, and probably more people.<br />
<br />
District 12 is somewhere in the Appalachians.<br />
<br />
Other pertinent Dystopic information:<br />
<br />
The Capitol is somewhere in the Rockies, somewhere surrounded by mountains that can only be reached via tunnels. During the rebellion people tried scaling the Mountains, to attack it, the implication being that there are no passes to go through, either for rebellious people or trains. This would, in my opinion, probably base the Capitol somewhere in Western Colorado. The Wasatch Rockies have far too many passes, although I don't know much about the Grand Tetons or the Sierras. Regardless, the Capital is near the other end of contiguous USA (as we know it).<br />
<br />
Each district contributes a vital need/want to the Capitol: Coal, Food, Luxury Goods, Electronics. This far in the future, District 12 does coal. Except they must be mining very far underground at this point in the Appalachians to gather coal any more. Plus couldn't such a futuristic society find some other form of power? They can restore hearing, do a body polish, create Muttations (and I'm not even going to go there with the implications of these things), not to mention ubiquitous invisible cameras spread every few feet throughout a terrain larger than a two day walk, but they depend on rickety District 12 for coal to power their dastardly nation? I'm sure a nation like this would have no problems with any of the risks of nuclear power, nor with dumping the nuclear waste anywhere.<br />
<br />
Thus we come to my problems - I find it difficult to believe in this Dystopia. They are hugely spread out, and while they use fear to keep the populous in line through the Hunger Games (more on the questionability of this tactic later), how can they effectively control that large of an area with such a small populations? Sure they have their Peacekeepers and use cruel and totalitarian methods, but this cannot be enough. I suppose we must fall back on the methods used ultimately by every dystopian society - super de duper futuristic technology to prevent any rebellion. It's the ultimate deus ex machina for every Dystopia, because it never enters the plot - you are just supposed to assume that they have had zero rebellions for the last 74 years despite the fact that every dictatorship with too harsh of methods eventually fell on its own, or with outside help. And that most do not last outside of one or two persuasive leaders. Sure, there could be some vast underground rebellion, or even small pocket ones that Katniss does not know of/hear rumors of.<br />
<br />
This nation seems to live in a vacuum - no other nations are mentioned, conceived of, known of. Including the probable free nation of District 13, that the couple from the capitol were fleeing to. I don't know how a nation with as few people and settled land as the Capitol has can keep control of its immense borders, either. Under every previous dictatorship, under even the worst national conditions, people know of other countries. Maybe they can't contact them, can't flee to them, but the knowledge is there. Only in dystopias do nations live in a seeming vacuum, with zero known world politics. Which just goes to show that my difficulties with this dystopia are not unique - I think basically every dystopia suffers from forcing a totalitarian government on the reader that I find ultimately unsustainable and unbelievable, which is maintained through the super-de-duper futuristic methods that conveniently never come into the story or plotline of any of these novels.<br />
<br />
At least in 1984 and A Brave New World, the people are dulled into apathy for rebellion by the "Bread and Circuses" approach to dictatorship with excessive fulfillment of wants in <i>A Brave New World</i> and the endless Pop Culture Producing machines in 1984. Here there is, at least in the districts, no real motivation <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> to rebel. Sure, they can punish you - but they already are. Sure, the games exist to remind and humilate anew every year the districts, to tell you that your rebellion failed, and could never succeed again. To show how at the mercy each district is to the Capitol, how any of your youth could one day be snatched away to fight to the death merely because the Capitol wills it. But then what have you got to lose by fighting back?<br />
<br />
Other dictatorships throughout history have been far worse. The Assyrians would uproot entire nations of people and replace them throughout their empire, making people's attempts at rebellion fail since they knew nothing about where they were (plus there was Genderacide - the complete killing of men of a group). Genocide is common throughout history, from the Israelites in the Bible destroying the Amalakites to the Man, Woman and Child to Genghis Khan, Destroying of Carthage in the Punic Wars to the ever infamous Hitler and Stalin. Genocide still happens around us today - Bosnia. Rwanda. From a Slave perspective, early America certainly was the ultimate in dystopias. I'm not even including in this the general destructions of wars, man caused famines and diseases, etc. Personal and group cruelty has only been too common.<br />
<br />
So, forgive me if this sounds too callous and cruel, but taking 24 of the youth of their nation and making them fight to the death with just one left standing sounded a little puerile for the Horror of a Dystopia that we are lead the Capitol to be. Sure, there are other casual cruelties - the preventable starvations. Also, with Katniss's interactions with Rue it becomes clear that other Districts have more direct cruelties and killings. Even so, despite the lack of freedoms and the prevalent hunger, I just couldn't dredge up much actual human horror at the setting of the book. People live in worse conditions in our world today, under crueler dictators.<br />
<br />
The book is supposed to bring to mind Rome, with its Gladitorial aspects of the Hunger Games, the Roman names scattered throughout the book (I do wonder, how is it that a nation built directly on the ruins of the US cannot manage to retain any names from our cultural heritage, but can dredge up names like Flavius, Cato, and Cinna? (Small rant. One reviewer mocked Cato's name, saying it sounded wussy. Same thing with Cinna. Clearly people need to review their Roman heritage.)) And yet....Rome was a much more effective dictatorship. This nation is parasitic off of its Districts, with an economic system I cannot see actually working for any length of time. Rome had its cruelties, as all nations have, particular ancient ones, and these cruelties were an accepted part of ruling back then. But it was effective, and it gave its people a lot more freedoms then they have in this world- and this is what kept them a world power for so long. Depriving your people of EVERYTHING only decides your demise as a dictatorship sooner.<br />
<br />
Yet, in order for the book to matter to us as readers, we have to embrace Katniss's inexplicable inalienable feelings of a 21st century American, who expects food and warmth and working electricity at all hours, and most of all, a lack of senseless brutality and killing. Throughout the entire novel she complains about these very matters. Despite the fact that they are supposed to be her life, sometimes I feel that she has been magically implanted with a modern American's sense of what is just and ethical in this world. Don't get me wrong - although in the large sense the Games did not move me, in the specifics it did. I cried. I sat horrified. I realized I would last .03 seconds in the games. Teenagers killing each other I do not mean to imply under any circumstances are not horrendous.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to my second difficulty, beyond the Dystopia in general. The Games themselves. They are Gladitorial in nature, with the twist of being Reality TV to the death. On the one hand they are a punishment to the various districts for their rebellion. On the other hand, these very districts along with the Capitol sit glued to their TV sets for live coverage of carnage and destruction, and enjoy it? Continue watching it? I suppose we can buy the Capitol in enjoying it, but I don't see why everyone in the other districts watches these Games. We know that there is one final segment that is required viewing for all, and from this we can deduce that the rest isn't required. Therefore, why do the people watch it? I could see if your own child was in them, or whatnot, but what purpose can it serve one to watch senseless brutality, which is suppose to remind you to never rebel again? I would think a quiet rebellion would be to turn the TV set off. Which never seems to occur to Katniss's world view. She merely accepts TV. I find this to be very indicative of her 21st American attitude - we accept TV, even when we don't like it, even when we find it uncomfortable, and even when we're pitting people against each other in ultimately meaningless contests, from Survivor to the Bachelorette. And millions of people spend time cheering on those they like, and snarking along with the commentaries (do they have commentaries?) against those they don't - just as these Games are set up, with the "favorites" of the Gamekeepers and viewers alike. Half the things Kat does during the games are for her "ratings" with sponsors. Perhaps Suzanne Collins is trying to call our attention to follies of Reality TV.<br />
<br />
But what I got from it was, turn the stupid sets off. Get rid of your TV. Watch the required bits from the town's square, but that's it. Except for a few episodes of MTV's the Real World in my misspent teenage years, I have never seen a reality TV show. Not one. (that I can think of. Of course in saying this, someone will remind me of another I've seen). It's that simple - a small form of rebellion for the Districts, but one open to them. Yet instead they seem to approach it like the Gladiatorial games, as a form of bread and circuses, yet one they actually despise. I found this widescale attitude a little hard to swallow as realistic.<br />
<br />
Yet, the Gladiatorial games were not a form of punishment to their spectators (and how can the Hunger Games co-exist both as a commentary on Reality TV, and our spectator attitudes, along with still managing to use them as a cruel punishment for the Districts?) Also, in the Gladiatorial games, the fighters were highly trained. These....aren't. Which would make for some pretty boring fights to the death, I would think. Also, Katniss only knows about the wild from her illegal leavings of District 12 and hunting. How does everyone else survive so well? (Well being a figurative manner of speaking here). Most people would probably disperse, only to die of dehydration, since none of them were allowed out into the wilds. There isn't exactly a working Boy Scout program here, let alone childhood lessons of Karate or self defense or weapons trainings to help the kids in their fights. Sure, they live in a tougher world than we do. Sure, some of the districts secretly train their youth. But mostly I think there would be a lot of hemming and hawing on the part of random teenagers when thrown in to fight to the death, not to mention a lot of random dying from lack of knowledge about the wilderness and survival skills. People want to live, and they know that this is the only way they have to live - by killing others. Do you think that knowing this logically would being able to transfer into being a successful killing machine? Even an unsuccessful killing machine? I'm surprised they don't at least have passive tributes, who stand in their spot and let others kill them as a form of silent protest against the games - since if the games are boring, then the Gamekeepers and by extension the Capitol and the entire system loses face.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-61672218804021419242015-09-14T01:00:00.000-04:002015-09-14T01:00:51.605-04:00The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad MorningIt's just been one of those days. Lydia woke up at six am hungry, and I went and slapped a loaf of bread on the kitchen table, told her to eat it, and went to bed. But then she woke up Elisheva, and finally (thankfully) Avram got up with the girls and let me sleep. He leaves for school at 7:30, and I kept sleeping for another hour and a half. When I got up, there were a pair of kitchen shears on the toilet. I asked Lydia what they were doing there, and she proudly showed me the kool-aid she'd made herself (using a kool-aid single from Avram's scout camping trip the week before, plus about 1/6 of the water - from the bathroom sink - she's supposed to use).<br />
<br />
Also, Avram got a scholarship for next year from the Melton Center, a Jewish center at OSU. They are having an award program and dinner tonight, and our babysitter called up today and said that her kids are sick, so could she come over here and babysit, while leaving her kids at home. That's no problem at all, except now I need to clean our house - not because she would care, but because I care. And the bathroom looks like a nuclear fall-out occurred there, and I don't clean bathrooms (yes, I'm lame), and Avram won't be home at all - I'm meeting him on campus.<br />
<br />
And then I went to take Lydia to playschool, and our car had been broken into. Except there was no sign of forced entry, so maybe we left a door unlocked. I always lock the car, but with being eight months pregnant with two kids, I cannot honestly say I even remember always what I am doing. Anyway, there was absolutely nothing in our car to steal, unless you like scratched up CDs without any cases of the Muppet Show and the Messiah, plus two car seats for a four year old and a two year old. The thief didn't want any of this, but he (I'm assuming it was a he - I guess I'm just a misandrist), but he did take a little car kit my mom made me, with things like a pen and sticky notes and a little mending kit and band-aids. Guess he didn't even want that, since about five minutes later I found it laying in the parking lot by my car. So sum total - I was robbed, but not really, because I had nothing to steal. I still feel violated though. And angry.<br />
<br />
I know I should forgive, and everything, and I definitely plan to - in a couple of hours, maybe. Right now I just want to be frustrated, and angry, and lay in a supply of bb pellets (plus gun), so I can hit all the people of the world who steal things.<br />
<br />
Ok, so I feel a little better having ranted a bit. And I'm sure things will get better. Or at least a little cleaner (excepting the bathroom). And I don't have to make dinner tonight, and get to go out with Avram, and it's all free, so that has to count for something, right?Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-92138168620026946002015-09-14T00:57:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:57:32.330-04:00<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/TFSUuCb4wzI/AAAAAAAAB0o/-5tz0ONZTIA/s1600/P1030506.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eMts7ZmOPD8/TFSUuCb4wzI/AAAAAAAAB0o/-5tz0ONZTIA/s320/P1030506.JPG" style="clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div style="clear: both; text-align: LEFT;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-9335737630433146742015-09-14T00:53:00.001-04:002015-09-14T00:53:16.928-04:00I saw on a blog a recording of the whole summer. I like that, as sometimes life can seem to slip away, and you mean to sum it all up at some point, but by the time you get around to remembering all that comes to mind is, "We had fun...I think...and there was lots of...stuff...yeah, stuff!" I suppose this is one of the whole points of blogging, so that things are remembered in the moment.<br />
<br />
So this Summer was a big one for our family - it was the last summer at home with Elisheva before she starts Kindergarten. We moved the last couple of weeks of school, into a new little white cottage, with almost the same (but much better in its tweaks) layout as our old home. It is also across the street from Avram's brother Samuel and Aleatha, so that has been fun to be so close to family. Avram attended Origins, a convention for games and roleplaying, in June, and our friends Matt and Sarah came into town to visit for the week. Matt and Avram and Samuel attended Origins, and we had lots of late nights talking. Guinevere discovered her alter ego, a little two year old girl named Gwen (Sarah's niece). Guinevere proceeded to talk about Gwen the rest of the summer. Guinevere turned three, and we had cupcakes for her.<br />
<br />
Avram attended Scout camp, and I single parented for the second week this year (the first being when he attended Wood Badge in May). Then we drove off to Virginia for a week, to celebrate the wedding of a childhood friend of Avram's from his home ward. We also got lots of Mum and Papa and Uncle Luke and Aunt Sariah time. Guinevere and Luke are soulmates and Elisheva follows Sariah around, begging for makeup and fashion things constantly. Home again, home again, jiggity, jig, for a whole two and a half weeks. We did the normal summer things - park days and library days, lounging and reading, playdates and movies (more than normal at least - usually around two a week.) <br />
<br />
Then, thanks to the generosity of Avram's older brother Joshua, and his wife Missy, and Avram's parents, we went off to Maine for a week. We visited the ocean, and the outside of lighthouses, we walked out on a rock walkway in harbor, and camped for a whole week - one of my life time goals. Josh and Missy blessed their baby Ariana, and the whole Shannon family got together for family pictures (I don't have them yet). When I was a kid I always wanted to live in Maine, and walk the rocky coastline, while gazing romantically out to sea. Being that I had four kids with me, I never quite got to live out the dream, but I did get to sit and watch the ocean for a long time and that was pretty great. We ate soft shelled lobsters boiled over a campfire, and we pulled over and bought wild blueberries from Maine, from a car on the side of the road. A great week, in all. <br />
<br />
A mere half week after we got back, we went up to Lake Erie, and camped with a bunch of people from our ward for a couple of days. The girls enjoyed playing on the rocks and pretending to swim in the shallow waters of East Lake Harbor. I love camping, and didn't even mind the two camping trips stacked on each other, although it is nice to have creature comforts as well. <br />
<br />
Matt came and visited again, and now we're to school starting - whew! It was tiring. Lydia started school today, but because of how they do Kindergarten orientation, Elisheva won't start school until Friday. Lydia is in second grade, and I'm excited for this year.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-16995073913917542342015-09-14T00:51:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:51:02.290-04:002013<br />
January - Avram's proposal was officially accepted, and he officially began writing his dissertation (although he'd been working on it unofficially for two months).<br />
May Avram went to Woodbadge. Moved to our current house, across the street from Samuel and Aleatha. Spent a week painting and prepping the new house for the move with the help of Avram's parents and siblings. <br />
Lydia finished first grade, and Elisheva finished playschool, the once a week mom's preschool.<br />
June - went to Virginia with Samuel and Aleatha to visit Avram's family. Visited Fredericksburg. Avram went to scout camp.<br />
August - went to Maine for Ariana's baby blessing. Visited the Atlantic coast & camped for a week.<br />
Lydia and Elisheva started school, Lydia in second grade, and Elisheva in Kindergarted, both at the French Immersion school. <br />
September - Nana Fallick came to visit & we realized I was pregnant (surprise!!!!)<br />
October - Grandma Stoutner came to visit. <br />
November - Went to Virginia where the Shannon grandparents watched all four kids, and Avram and I went to SBL in Maryland. I decided to do Archaeology in Grad school. We celebrate Thanksgiving there.<br />
December - Went to Tennessee for Christmas to visit Avram's grandparents & family. Enoch took his first steps (but is still working on walking).<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-27702889303994578962015-09-14T00:50:00.003-04:002015-09-14T00:50:44.564-04:00Our Intentional FamilyWhile living in England in early 2008, I came across a blog doing a financial series highlighting Dave Ramsey's system. I resonated with so much that the author said - it was the first time I had formally heard other people saying what I already believed about money and "good" (meaning bad) debt. You may have heard of this blog - Simplemom, which now has become <a href="http://theartofsimple.net/" target="_blank">The Art of Simple</a>. The author back then, who is still one of the contributing writers, is Tsh Oxenreider, and she has also written a book called <i>Notes from a Blue Bike</i>. (Unfortunately for you, I'm not an Amazon affiliate, so because they don't pay me money, you'll have to go through all the hard work of searching for it on Amazon yourself, or even worse, looking it up at your local library and leaving <br />
your house while fully clothed and at a decent hour to go pick it up and read it. I know, what is the world coming to?)<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I haven't followed her blog regularly for many years now, but recently started reading it again on occasion, and became interested in this book she has recently published. For a long time when I heard of a book that I wanted to mentally mark, and later read on the Internet I did...nothing. I would mentally make a note of it, and then five minutes later read some other blog post, or facebook status, or get up and talk to a kid/answer the phone/anything else, and completely forget about the book at all. Or worse, I would remember that there was some book...that I had read about at some point...somewhere on the Internet. Now I have discovered a system that has saved me (or added many reading hours on to my life - either one), being that the moment I read of an interesting book, I immediately<i> go and request it from my library</i>. Yep, I'm all about revolutionizing the Internet with my new fandangled approaches to life. So I did that with Notes, and thus it in due time arrived home in my house, where I actually read it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All of that work did not disappoint, and it turns out that Notes... is a book that has deeply impacted me, more even than I realized as I read it. As I read, I pulled out my physical Journal (yes, I got one this year - I really like being able to write something in a completely private place sometimes) and began making notes for my own life. The premise of the book is that when we live intentionally, then our lives are better, as outlined in five areas that being intentional made Oxenreider's family's life better. When I wrote in my journal about intentionality in my own family, the writing clarified for me that in the large areas of my life, I feel that we have been and are very intentional in our family. By intentional, I mean that I and Avram are choosing the way we live life, instead of having life just happen to us. We are deciding by intent to focus our limited time and resources as a family on certain core areas that in turn bless our family with greater freedom, unity, and joy in the time passing from days to years that makes up the fabric of our lives. In the small places I felt that we have a lot of areas to improve on - in our daily routines, attitudes, etc. However, in the large, framework of our life I realized that we always have focused our family on intentional living. As someone who has often imagined our family as more spiraling throughout life, slightly out of control and a little loud and crazy, it was very validating to realize that we do have a plan, we have always had a plan about our family, and that as we have followed it I have seen the positive ways our family culture and intentions have helped us be where we want to be as a family.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As a disclaimer, just as the areas that Oxenreider felt were important areas to stress intentionality with in her family were not the areas that stuck out to me about my own family, I would assume that any readers would have another set of categories, many overlapping, of intentional living for their own families. Here are the areas our family has focused on being intentional over.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One of our main family goals has been for the last nine years Avram achieving a Ph.d. Well, as of next May he will have accomplished that. The road to achieving a Ph.d. in this family has been one of necessity very intentional. Where we live, the choices we have made in free time, how we have developed our family culture - everything about our married life has led to this goal. Our financial status as a family is one measurable area of how we have focused our whole combined lives to this end. We have been intentional with living on our limited income, and in working, even while still being in school, with paying off student loans accrued from BYU, England, and even some debt from OSU obtained when funding hasn't been very good. We have been better at this than I ever thought we could be, back when I first<a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2009/02/stream-of-tuesdays-consciousness.html" target="_blank"> blogged about it</a> and again when I <a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2010/02/exchange-your-runcible-spoon-for.html" target="_blank">updated a year later</a>, and although we will graduate with some loans, it is so, so much less than it would have been otherwise.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another area we have been intentional is our family's spiritual life. We attend church for three hours every Sunday together, have family scripture study and prayer almost every night, and although our FHE's (family home evening, where every Monday night we have a spiritual/scriptural lesson, with a sometimes activity and treat, bookended by prayers and hymns) leave something to be desired in the planning department, we are still trying to have them, and even fifteen minutes formally teaching our children religious topics a week, above and beyond reading the scriptures has helped our children and our family in our religious knowledge and communal spiritual life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We have worked on being intentional with our free time, and have deliberately kept our family's life at a slower pace. Our only extra curricular activities have been piano lessons for Lydia once a week, and her Activity Day girls at church every other week. Avram works at the Temple twice a month and goes to Scouting Round Table once a month, and I attend Relief Society meetings once a month, plus the occasional girls night, but other wise we tend to plan activites and spend free times as a whole family (excepting date and couple temple nights on the months we can get them). We eat family dinner, clean as a family on Saturdays, and when it's relevant for six months of the year we go the Farmer's market together. We want our family time to be well spent - we don't have a TV set up for TV, just movies, and watch one movie a week as a family on Friday nights, plus the occasional TV show via Amazon prime for the girls, or movie Avram and I watch every month or so. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The size of our family, if not in the specific timing always, but in the general goal, is intentional. We believe that children are a joy and a privilege, that as a family unit, if we are able (and we are clearly able) to have children, it is our privilege and our duty to do so, and to raise these children while keeping in mind that these are God's children he has entrusted with us. We have a family culture focused on this - on the joy of people over things, focused on what we can do with our children, not what we could do if we did not have them or if we had less of them.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Living below our income to pay off debt has taught me this is possible at almost any income. I have also learned that what is a true marker of success or joy in our life has not been high amounts of money, but rather what we choose to do with what we have, and more importantly, what we focus on that has nothing to do with money at all. Revolving our family's life around our religion and around God has taught all of us guiding principles for life, has brought us together as a family, and even if there were no tangible benefits at all, being intentional toward God, through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I feel is the most lasting intent that all my other intentions lead toward.<br />
<br />
Even knowing that in the small specifics there is so much that I need to work on, that I need to lead our family towards as good goals, even knowing all this, it is still immeasurably comforting to know that in the large framework, in our goals and plans that lay the pattern out for our life that our family walks with intention.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-13861118653600174262015-09-14T00:39:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:39:15.202-04:00A ContenderI feel like my dreams have shattered on the ground.<br />
Like I have a hard time breathing - the air has grown thick<br />
I have grown thick<br />
Duty calls<br />
Always calling<br />
<br />
It's a week away from SBL. Still no invites (although, thanks to the wiki, I know that we have only lost one more job - our last real chance at a tenure track. But there is a lectureship that could still write in the next week.). I just, I feel like things could have gone better than this. No, that's not quite right - seeing what the market is truly like, I realize that they most likely will keep on getting worse than this. I just wanted things to go better than this. I wanted to buy a house. Getting the job at BYU was the best chance for that. Now, our best (best!) case scenario is to get a post doc, and barring that the one VAP that's open, or a three year lectureship. And that's it. There are six post docs total. (And two more TT, but I am not holding my breath). I feel like we have no future. I mean, in the long, long run if Avram gets a post doc, and then a TT I will feel good. Or even a post doc, VAP and then tenure track. I just am worried that either we will get nothing this year, and will have a still born career, that never even started before it was over. That Avram will feel like he could have been somebody, could have been a contender, but never got a chance to show anyone. Or even worse in some ways, that we will get a post doc, a VAP, something, maybe two somethings, and then never even find a TT after that. How old could we be then? I could be as old as 37, and with no future, no home, no security.<br />
<br />
I never wanted to be poor. I spent my whole childhood poor, and it was not to my liking (not that I think it is to anyone's). I just - I was smart. So smart. Everyone told me I was smart. And that I had so much potential. And I hitched my star to Avram, who was also so smart, had so much potential. And now I worry that it will all come crashing down - that maybe we aimed too high, and so instead of enjoying a comfortable middle, we will fall and fall and free fall into nothing. Not that I need public acclaim. Obviously I am in the wrong job if that were my aim. No, but it isn't bad, either. Much more than that, though, I fear having to scrimp and save throughout my children's lives. I fear never having enough, always living hand to mouth. I feel like being intelligent, living in some kind of meritocracy, should have spared me from this. And it's not going to.<br />
<br />
I just - I guess I thought that if we put enough sacrifice in, that we would get out a job. (Now, to be fair, I did know that we had to work for it, but I didn't know that jobs were so few on the ground.)<br />
<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-40047999185159444532015-09-14T00:36:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:36:35.560-04:00Explanation for my panicked pleas on Facebook (hint, it involves lots of Strep, Hospitalness and antibiotics).<br />
So (this is especially for those who were up in the middle of the night especially, and saw my desperate plea for online distraction, which I then deleted because I was sure that I was being overly dramatic....) Avram took me to the ER yesterday morning, and yup, I had strep. Plus Uvulitis (the dangly thingy in the back of your throat). And they gave me fluids, and steroids (which opened the back of my throat, and after a few hours let me actually swallow again, with the added bonus of not having to use a suction wand to constantly put out my saliva so I wouldn't drool), and two kinds of Antibiotics (one type for each infection), AND they bent over backwards to make it work well for me to have a nursing baby with me, and they kept me for 24 hours for watchings and stuff (and to check on my kidneys, which weren't doing so well, but now are improving). <br />
<br />
Maybe I wasn't being too dramatic after all. But for the love, people, if you are on the internet in the middle of the night because you can't swallow, and therefore can't sleep because you will start choking on your saliva, even while sitting up - please don't be stupid like me and think you should just wait and go to the doctor. Take this as a sign that you should go to ER, because your doctor can't help your throat open anyway. <br />
<br />
But now I am home, and feeling at least 50% better, and my kids are all farmed out to amazing people, and our relief society is bringing in meals for the next couple of days, which is great because Avram had to fly out to Israel yesterday for a conference, so I am flying solo (but not really, because I actually am receiving a ton of help.)<br />
<br />
I am so grateful right now. Grateful for antibiotics, and steriods. I officially rescind everything I have ever said about wanting to be a pioneer - sorry, Antibiotics triumph over all. Grateful for all the help that we have received.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-84077758877275601382015-09-14T00:35:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:35:00.536-04:00Christ in Christmas part 3 - How our Family Celebrates Christmastide<b>Once you have established Christ as the basis for your Christmas season, the next most important step is to limit your activities, traditions, decor, crafts and any other Christmas cheer - to leave time to just enjoy, to sit, to feel the spirit, to notice other's needs, to be.</b> Mary did not rush off from Bethlehem the next day after having Jesus, not wanting to miss a moment of his precious life and foretold existence. If we rush around, however well intentioned our activities and hearts may be, we through our busyness do not leave any room left over for the Spirit of Christmas - for the Holy Spirit we feel throughout Christmas and throughout all the year, to work within us.<br />
<br />
Celebrating Christmas should not feel either like a marathon of endurance, testing our limits to just keep going, going, going. Neither should it feel like sprinting with frantic activity, even Christ-focused activity, followed by slumping on the couch in fatigue or a sugar-induced stupor. Christmas season should, I think, feel like an enjoyable stroll. Sure, your kids will run off or around, someone will always complain about the cold, and as great as it is, you also really like getting back home. But it feels relaxed, natural, and full of the moment as well. <br />
<br />
For our Christmas season, we plan some large activities, like our ward Christmas Party, or our Annual family Christmas Party. Most of our Christmas celebrating is woven through the fabric of our days, brought in through small measures and in ways that do not feel like a lot of extra steps we need to accomplish, but rather just nestled in among our pre-existent routines, adding very little extra time or effort. <br />
<br />
After two entire posts devoted to discussing focusing on Christ during Christmas, you will find that not all of our traditions do so. I believe once we establish Christ as the center of our religious and familial focus, bringing in other cultural traditions works perfectly well. For some families this may mean Santa Claus, for our family this means always having a live Christmas tree, or making gingerbread cookies. Christmas time is also a celebration of light at the darkest part of the year, and as such there are a lot of traditions of light, warmth, and persevering over the darkness that I feel not only can be applied, if you so choose, to the light of Christ triumphing over the darkness, but also provide some much needed cheeryness to part of the coldest and darkest part of the year.<br />
<br />
I started planning this post at the beginning of my Christmas season - but I only finally started writing it on the last day of December, and publishing it around the middle of January. I am sure this is somehow a metaphor for my life. Because of the delay, this is not jus a hopeful list of traditions we have done for years, and new ones we are incorporating this year, to bring the spirit of Christmas in. Rather, it is a look back on what we did this year, with both some new traditions, our old standbyes, and things we hoped would become a tradition, but instead became a flop.<br />
<br />
Christmas Decorations:<br />
We don't go overboard both because packing and unpacking large amounts of items one month apart does not appeal to me or my family. But we always get a live tree because we love them. This year it took us a week to complete this tradition, from buying the tree, leaving the tree on the van for a day, bringing it inside and setting it up, and then a few days later finally starting to decorate it (meaning the kids went to the basement and found the Christmas ornaments themselves and tried to decorated themselves), and finishing it even days after that. I tell you all this not to brag in being the slowest decorators in the history of ever, but to let you know that it is alright if you love something to do it, even if it takes forever to get it done. And when the balance of completing a family tradition becomes a drag instead of a joy, it is also fine to just cut it out, if that helps your Christmas joy. For us a live tree is still a tremendous joy, and so even though this year it was a slow moving molasses joy, we did it anyway.<br />
<br />
We don't do a lot of other decorating, excepting a large collection of nutcrackers that Avram has collected from his childhood, but we do have a couple of nativity scenes. This year our kids, compliments of their grandparents, received a Little People Nativity set, which I wanted so that they would stop moving our nice olivewood one around the house, and yet still be able to play out the story of Christ's birth often throughout the season. As we didn't get most of our decorations away until January had already started, they got a good two weeks with that set, and had a lot of fun with it. Having religious Christmas decor is an easy way to remember Christ without adding anything to our "to do" list.<br />
<br />
Saint Nicholas:<br />
This year for the first time we celebrated St. Nicholas on December 6th. The night before we talked about the historical St. Nicholas, and about his gift giving to others, and really focused on his connection with Christ. Then they got a little candy in their shoes the next morning, along with a family Zoo membership (which was the experience part of our family gift giving). Then for Christmas proper we did some preparation for Santa, like leaving a little candy out, but really we do not focus on Santa, Santa doesn't leave any gifts at our house, and we enjoy the fun of pretending while not having to have the Santa versus Christ dilemma. I know plenty of people who do have Santa visit, and still focus on Christ, but for our family I like keeping it as simple as possible when it comes to gifts and their origins.<br />
<br />
Parties:<br />
We always go to our Ward Christmas Party, and we always, except once last year, when I was pregnant with Athena and too stressed to do so (which is okay! Being stressed is a great reason to simplify, even on set-in-stone family traditions) have a family Christmas party at our home. For the family party we invite friends over, have an array of foods, and just sit and chat while our kids play, hopefully in another room. This is not a Christ focused activity, and there is more munching than focusing on the manger. We have it every year though, and Avram loves the hospitality of Christmas, while I always love having people over at our house. Because we work on having a Christ centered home every day, I feel great having some activities around Christmas that are focused on friends or family as well. We always make Gingerbread men for this party, and usually we decorate them, but this year we simplified even more to just eating them plain. This party isn't fancy - our food table would never make Pinterest - it didn't even make the low standards of my blog (ok, really I'm just to lazy to go hunt the picture up, but just imagine a bunch of food plopped on a plain table...yup, that's how we roll).<br />
<br />
Weekly Traditions:<br />
We try and have Family Home Evening every week, and although we are not always successful at this, we have made a renewed focus in this area (fueled by Lydia's interest, to be honest). During December we had a couple of our lessons focus on Christ. Lydia, aged eight, really wanted to do a Christmas lesson, and so she planned one where we read the Christmas story in Luke 2, watched a Church video online of the same narrative, and talked about Christmas together. We usually spend a couple of weeks in December focusing on Christmas and Christ for our family home evenings. Our lessons only last fifteen minutes or so, and we never manage to plan activites, much to our children's sorrow, so this really doesn't take much time at all.<br />
<br />
The week of Christmas for Family Home Evening we went Caroling with some friends who usually go. This was the major request of Lydia, that we could carol this Christmas, so we asked if we could join in with them. <br />
<br />
Every Friday we usually watch a movie, and during December we watched Christmas ones, none of which were religious, from the Nutcracker to White Christmas, which our kids were so bored during that we turned off in the middle and switched to a colorized version of Miracle on 34th Street. The colorizing bothers Avram to no end, but it makes it palatable to our modern kids. I would like to find a good religious Christmas movie, but for now we don't have any. That's okay too - we don't have to start our marriage, or our kids' lives with awesome tradition already in place. They will grow organically throughout the years.<br />
<br />
Daily Traditions:<br />
Every night as a family we read scriptures, pray, and each child picks a song for us to sing to them before bed. Starting at the beginning of December, inspired by my nights spent singing Christmas songs with Dil, my professor, and his family in Jordan and Syria, our family switches over our nightly songs to Christmas songs, and Avram and I also pick out a song to sing as well. We can pick any song, religious or not, but most of them are usually religious, and then we sing one chosen verse from that song. Guinevere loved this tradition this year and turned off all the lights except for the ones on the Christmas tree, and then having us sing by that white and green dappled light alone. This right here is one of my favorite Christmas traditions that we do. It is so simple, easy, takes very little time, and yet every evening refocuses our family on Christ. Even when our kids are fighting over who gets what song (which has led to a firm rule that anyone can pick what song they want, even if there are repeats.), even when our days are hectic, this small ritual slows us down, makes us pause in the moment and simply sit, sing, and feel the spirit of Christmas.<br />
<br />
Around twelve days before Christmas we also switch over our family scripture study to prophecies about Christ's birth, and narratives of his birth. We used to stretch this out over the whole month of December, but as our kid's attention spans have increased and we read more verses a day there wasn't enough material to last that long. I wish I had some nice system set up, but usually year to year we play it by ear every night, talking about right in that moment what the next prophecy we will read. A couple of years I have made count down paper chains to Christmas, with scriptures written on each one, but that was a few kids ago by now....<br />
<br />
If you feel so inclined, these are the scriptures that we used this year:<br />
Numbers 24:17 (possibly the prophecy spoken of by the Magi)<br />
Psalm 2:7-12<br />
Isaiah 7:14<br />
Isaiah 9:6-7<br />
Micah 5:2<br />
1 Nephi 11:13-18<br />
Mosiah 3:4-8<br />
Helaman 14:1-8<br />
3 Nephi 1:8-17<br />
Luke 2 (this gets repeated a couple of times)<br />
Matthew 2<br />
<br />
I had read about families doing variations on reading a Christmas book every night in December, and wanted to try that out this year. Some wrap up them up, and then unwrap one a night. I like to keep things simple, and did not want to spend that much time and paper wrapping up non gifts, but also I wanted our kids to have access to all the books all season long. So I had Lydia collect all of the Christmas books we already owned, and then put them in a basket in our living room. Then I requested a bunch of Christmas books from the library and every week changed up a bunch of the books. I kept a balance of religious and just general Christmassy themed books, like The Grinch who Stole Christmas, and a bunch from Jan Brett, whom we love. Thus far it went really well, and our kids loved looking at all of the different books. However....we did not in any way manage to read one a day as a family. I would say we read about three books a week, and I decided that for our family this felt like a great amount. I think the key to trying new traditions is being open to them changing to fit your family.<br />
<br />
Throuhout December we just focused on these things. It looks like a lot written up, but because so much of what we do to observe Christmas is worked through our regular day, taking up no more time than the routines we already are following, we manage to do all this while still actually remembering the calm and peace of our Savior's coming. The one area that I would really like to improve on for next year was that I didn't finish all my Christmas shopping as early as I would have liked, and so accrued unnecessary stress trying to finish it all up in time throughout December.<br />
<br />
Excepting spending far too long reading reviews on Amazon for last minute purchases, I felt like this season we did a very intentional focus and lead up to the celebration of Christ's birth. This worked to our good, as Christmas Eve I woke up with an extreme sore throat and a fever and chills and body aches. Our careful plans of a special Christmas Dinner by candlelight came to naught, and I spent the entire day in bed. However, Avram still had dinner by candlelight with the kids - they just had totino's pizza rolls and root beer instead. After dinner Elisheva very seriously put her hand on Avram and told him, "Thanks so much for having such a magical Christmas dinner," which just goes to show that kids don't need all the trappings to enjoy Christmas that we think need to be there (uhh, but we are definitely going to have a fancier dinner next year). We didn't do our nativity play, and the night ended with Avram doing bedtime by himself, and then wrapping up that last of the presents himself as well while I tried not to die (it felt like to me at least...maybe I might be exaggerating a little.)<br />
<br />
Then Christmas Morning I felt even worse, and excepting for coming out of my room and watching our kids open presents I again spent the day in bed, sometimes even imagining who might come and greet me from the other side if I happened to you know, focus so much on Christ that maybe he would put me out of my misery. (Don't worry - I went to the ER the next morning and over the next couple of weeks was given four different courses of antibiotics, and eventually I felt better. No death occured). We didn't get to our special giving that I wanted to do as a family on Christmas morning, inspired by <a href="http://www.flowerpatchfarmgirl.com/2014/12/how-we-christmas.html" target="_blank">this family</a> and how they celebrate Christmas (read this post! It's great). This goes to show even awesome, well meant plans do not always come to fruition, but thankfully there is another Christmas a year from now when we will have the opportunity to give as well.<br />
<br />
This year in the spirit of simplifying Christmas to focus on Christ, as well as thinking about trying to accrue less stuff but more meaning in our lives, Avram and I focused our gift giving down to four areas. We decided for our family that each child will get<br />
<br />
Something to wear or read<br />
Something they want<br />
An Experience gift<br />
And money that we will guide in giving to others.<br />
<br />
Keeping it simple kept Christmas morning simple (which I appreciated greatly this year). Ideally when I am not trying to expire we want to then after we open our presents do our family gift giving. This year we meant to give as a family, but then instead I lay in bed in agony while Avram soldiered on alone, so it never happened. But it is something we plan on incorporating in future Christmases.<br />
<br />
So that is how our family works on focusing on Christ in Christmas while also having a low-key, merry Christmastime. Every family has a balance that works for them, and this is the way that we have found that helps us remember Christ. Of course every family's write up of Christmas would look unique to their situation, preferences and abilities, which I love. I love that we can all do so much good, and it will all be different, even if founded on the same essential rock.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-33485985950559761282015-09-14T00:14:00.001-04:002015-09-14T00:14:08.936-04:00When Avram and I first got married, I said that after our children were in school I would go back to school and get a master's or doctorate degree. For a few years I didn't give much thought to this, except to give it lip service while mostly concentrating on raising my two young daughters. When I was pregnant with Guinevere I went to an academic conference with Avram, and my laten love for academics reawoken. I anew planned, not in just the general someday, but in a specific future to attend school. Dependent on all of my future career plans, though, was Avram first getting a tenure track job. A TT job would mean I got free tuition for school, so that returning wouldn't be a financial burden on the family.<br />
<br />
And now, even as I suffer the disillusionment of learning that the chances of Avram getting a permanent Academic Job are low, I feel like my future is crumbling as well. I feel like I will be in this little, dirty house with too many kids and not enough money, food, organization or mental peace for the rest of my life. I feel alone, and tired and hungry, and I just want out. I want something better than this, something different than this. My mom has told me, "When I was young I dreampt of living on the west side, in a small house with too many kids, and not enough money" when I talked about having dreams that didn't work out - to show that of course we do not always end up where we dream. And now I am starting to feel that - so many kids, not enough mental and physical energy to raise them, no money, no food. Thankfully I do have a wonderful marriage and husband, who is also a wonderful father. But, I am thirty two, Avram is thirty three. And what do we have? We have five children whom we love, yes. But in the way of wordly goods, we have a 13 year old van, we are renting a house that I am content with in size (I do not mind its smallness), but that is in a neighborhood that I would not chose to live in if I didn't have to. I know that this sounds entitled, but I what I mean to say is that I feel like we had enough intellect, training, and life opportunities to not end up in our thirties with five kids, in poverty (to the point that I have been waiting to buy winter gear until the half-off day at the thrift store. Enoch currently sports a girls coat - but it doesn't matter, because he refuses to wear it anyway. We don't have enough food - sure we have enough beans, frozen pork and wheat berries to last awhile - but most everything else is gone. And the biggest, best thing I have to look forward to in a while, and have had to look forward to for a while, has been getting Food Stamps again, after being off of them for a couple years.). I feel like we could have used our energy and time somewhere else, in a different field. Nobody DESERVES any certain kind of life, but in the twenty first century in America, two people who got scholarships in college should have been able to work out something better than this.<br />
<br />
And yet, we have felt that we ARE working on something better than this - we have sacrificed for a reason. Well, what if that reason was always delusional, what does that mean? Where does that leave us? Still poor. The idea of poverty has always haunted me - I grew up poor, and I knew that I did not want to be poor as an adult. I felt like I had a good way out - I was smart, motivated. Avram grew up middle class - he had never known poverty, so it doesn't haunt him the way it does me. And although we have had some hard financial times, our thrift, where we live, and just enough funding means we have scraped by most of the time. But we still have $25000 of debt - that is not nothing - and that is after paying off $15000 of grad debt already (plus another $10000 from my undergraduate, or more accurately, from my study abroad, and $5000 or so from Avram's undergraduate). So, we have been poor, we have gone into debt, we have done a lot, just so Avram could get this Phd. Yes, we are aware that those are lost earning years, and that our retirement will suffer, etc, but we don't care about money. Well, obviously given the last paragraph we DO care about money, but we don't care about making a lot of money. We don't need to be rich, to have a fancy house, to take vacations. But, it turns out that not caring about money isn't the same thing as money not caring about you. We still have to deal with it. We are trying to live, and to be as independent as possible, and I tell you, I just don't know.<br />
<br />
Underneath all of this is that fact that through a few religious experiences (patriarchal blessings, blessings, promptings) that Avram has had, that he has felt that God wants him to be in this field, he wants Avram to go to grad school, he wants Avram to do what he is doing. Which makes me feel like God wants me to be poor. He wants me to struggle, to feel defeated. I know that just because he gives me trials that he doesn't want me to be defeated, but it feels like it. It is hard to have the proper perspective when you are down in the trenches. I know that this life is a time of trial. That it was not meant to be easy. I know that we are not promised a certain (prosperous) outcome when we follow God. But - I guess it is hard to see why God would want us here. I know that in a few months, a year, I will read back on this, and perhaps at that point be able to see - maybe it will take longer, but within five years or so I fully expect that our lives will be worked out as far as dealing with careers goes. We will not be poor forever. We will not be in flux forever. But it is hard to keep the faith now, especially when keeping the faith means acknowledging that a "successful" turnout for God may mean Avram never finding an academic job, and us struggling to make any ends meet for years to come. <br />
<br />
And then apart from this, I am angry. Angry that we are in a field that does not actually tell you what the job prospects are. Sure, everyone says they are "bad," but they also say that the good will get jobs. Angry that it took me looking things up independently to really learn about this. Yes, it is available online - but I didn't even know and think to look. And every grad student is being groomed, being told that they are are the best - they are the "good" that gets the jobs - so even if they hear that prospects are bleak, they do not put themselves in the majority that won't get jobs in the field.<br />
<br />
What frustrates me is that I feel like we have been led to a dead end. that there are not enough jobs, and we have been scraping by, living in poverty, all for an imaginary dream. And now what? While Avram attends SBL (thankfully with funding, since he is giving a paper) and has not a single conference interview scheduled, I am home with my kids, making beans yet again for dinner, and desperately waiting for our food stamps card to show up. What kind of life is that? I feel like we could have been making a livable wage, learned valuable skills, and have actually DONE something in this life. Instead of getting to this point with no apparent future. That's not completely accurate - there are still post-docs (six) that we are somewhere in the process of applying to/waiting to hear from, plus one VAP and one renewable lecturship. But that's it - and there are many more jobs that we were never shortlisted for. And I am trying hard to view having a post doc as a chance of having a livable wage while we pay off all our debt, and prepare for a better life in the future. But...that's not exactly what things are looking like now.<br />
<br />
Partly it is hard because I have to be strong for Avram's sake - he does still need to apply for most of the Post docs and the VAP, and if he has given up all hope, it will come across in his letters. And although an academic future is not the brightest or most likely one, it is also still a possibility, so we shouldn't reject it outright. And getting a job outside of academia will be difficult enough that we shouldn't turn there until we have at least exhausted the possibilities within it. Now, we have agreed that there will be no adjuncting. No part time work. If he doesn't have a full time academic job lined up to start in Fall of 2015 by the time he graduates (or maybe even a couple of months before, so march), then we will go full time into looking for a non-academic job. Even thinking about it feels like the death of a dream. He loves to teach - and how can he find a teaching job outside of academics?<br />
<br />
And yet I have to keep soldiering on. I can't publish this post, or any of my others, because I am too scared that somehow this will lesson a job opportunity, thanks to the magic of googling. <br />
<br />
I'm not doing a very good job soldiering on right now. I feel at the end of my rope. And yet I have five kids. The beans are cooking now, and then I need to make some kind of cornbread - using up the last of our cornmeal, milk, and all but one egg. I have spend $151 on food in the last four, going on five weeks. For last thursday (a week and two days ago) I bought only $26 of food - and we are still lasting on it. We are at the end, and I can't buy any food because Avram is currently at the conference, and so I don't know how much money he will be spending every day. I don't want to end up with his card rejected, so we wait. I don't even know how we are going to do it, to keep going. I feel like I am at the end of everything, on a cliff. I know that this is overly dramatic, but that's how I feel. I feel like we bet everything - our youth, financial security, my career plans, on Avram getting a tenure track job. And now we have had exactly one nibble from the tenure tracks (which was BYU, and went nowhere), and zero bites otherwise. Like I said, there are deadlines that have not passed yet - but still. It's hard that that the very best thing we could get right now is a post doc. <br />
<br />
Careers, Jobs, these are not everything. I know that. But it is hard to have a stable life for what is truly important (family) when these things are in a state of constant flux and uncertainty. Avram met with his professor, who told him that the good always get jobs (a common thing academics say). That is so inaccurate that it is laughable, if it didn't also make me want to go into a corner and cry. Avram worked on enlightening him, but at the end of the day, if he doesn't get a job in academics, his department will probably think that "academics isn't for everyone" and that he wasn't one of the good that gets jobs.<br />
<br />
At this very moment Avram is finishing his presentation he is giving at SBL this year. He is at this very second fielding questions about his topic, his research. It feels like he is trying so hard, we are trying so hard, and for what? So that in three weeks he can spend hundreds of dollars and go to another conference in Baltimore, solely (SOLELY, and unfunded at that) because his advisor will introduce him to people there. Yay? And then two weeks after that he is going to Israel for a conference, which blessedly is fully funded, even down to the food, (yay for rich Jewish Doners), and yet raises the very real question of what is a Mormon doing in Jewish Studies? Do we really want him conferencing during December of every year?<br />
<br />
P.S. (added the next day) - Last night the EBT card came. As I opened it, and looked at it, I began to cry. I had waited so long for it, and it finally came. I cried because we could finally buy food. We could have milk and dairy and butter and fruit again. I cried out of relief. But as I sat on the sofa and sobbed (I am pretty sure my kids were all thoroughly confused by this), I realized I was also crying because I had come to a point where I was honestly that grateful for Food Stamps - I was that relieved becing able to buy food for me and my children. And that was a very humbling feeling indeed. <br />
<br />
Also, I talked to Avram last night - his paper went well, and the person over BYU studies came up afterwards, and told him that we would like to publish it in BYU studies. So as far as reception goes, that's about as good as it gets. Of course, we would all like to dream that someone from the search committee was there, and was so impressed by him that he moves up to number three (and hence, first alternate if the first two visits don't work out) on their list, but who knows about that.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-60594665105501082882015-09-14T00:13:00.000-04:002015-09-14T00:13:21.157-04:00So...there are blogging topics, and then there are blogging topics. This post could be called Let's talk about - academic disenchantment, but I can't actually publish it, so I can't call it anything. For one thing, I am terrified that although I am careful never to mention my full name, or especially Avram's full name on here, that somehow an academic search committee will find this blog (it's not too hard to find - it comes up on the second page if you google Avram), and then stumble upon this post, and then decide that with this kind of negative wife they don't want to hire Avram at all, and then my fears about Avram never finding a job will be self fulfilling, and I just don't think I can handle it.<br />
<br />
Rewind ten years. I met Avram. He, even then, knew he absolutely wanted to get a Ph.d. and become a professor. He has always known this, ever since he first found out what a Ph.d. was - he knew that he had to get one. So, then I fell in love with him...blah blah blah....lots of drama...blah blah long story short - we got married, and became a student family. I had graduated, but Avram still had two years of his undergraduate left. So we scrimped and saved and got by with a little help from our student loans, and then his senior year needed no loans at all because I got a 35 hour a week job being a nanny for a family. Sacrifices, yes, especially since I really just wanted to stay home with my new baby Lydia, but I wanted to not have debt much, much more. And it was all worth it - getting a Ph.d. was worth it. As Avram neared graduation, and applied to schools, there was no plan B. There was no even plan A. Grad school was the only plan, the entirety of our plans. I was fully, 100% behind Avram pursuing this career field. It wasn't hard - through him I got to vicariously live my own dropped career plans.<br />
<br />
Maybe I need to rewind even farther - to 2001, when I entered BYU with the firm intent to graduate in Near Eastern Studies (I had picked my major two years prior - actually, maybe four years prior? I was very focused on what I wanted to do). As I told a friend right before I started school, my plan was to go to BYU, go to grad school, get a Ph.d. by the time I was 26 (ahh, the young ignorance of youth, thinking I could get a ph.d. in four years in the humanities), get married at that point, and raise lots of fat babies while being a tenure track, then tenured professor. So, what I actually did was graduate in Near Eastern Studies, but that's about the only thing that went according to plan. (Even that plan wasn't very great because they got rid of my major only one year in, and so I ended up grabbing other classes from the new Middle Eastern Studies major - hence the Arabic, Egypt study abroad, and general disorganization of my undergraduate career. They made the major I had<i> actually </i>wanted the year after I graduated - Ancient Near Eastern Studies, which was the one Avram graduated in.) <br />
<br />
By my sophomore year, I was really struggling with the realization that my intended academic path meant studying lots of dead languages (I like living languages, I like to talk to people - but I hate living topics because they are so political, controversial - I mean, do YOU want to work with the modern middle east? I didn't think so), and that although much of why I cared about the ancient near east was because of my religion, getting a Ph.d. is a secular thing, which meant that I had to learn to do research on secular biblical topics. Plus....there was this small thing called boys, which meant I dated a freshman whom I wanted to marry my first year, then while he went on his mission I briefly dated his brother (I have no comment on this), then later my sophomore year I got engaged to yet a third boy. Then I broke it off four and a half weeks before the wedding, because I had known for most of our relationship that I didn't want to marry him at all, yet still planned a wedding (no comment on this, either), and then swore off dating for a while, but unfortunately for me then, but very fortunately for me now, met Avram six months later, started dating him four months after that (yes, four months before the first freshman boyfriend got home from his mission), and married Avram after lots of waffling, a big break up, and tears galore right around the time I finished college. So, to recap, I basically abandoned my complicated academic plans because I fell in love. A lot. And thus I didn't want to wait until I was 26 and had completed a Ph.d. (that I wasn't sure about any more) to get married - I wanted to follow option B, which despite all the drama, still seemed like a more favorable option. <br />
<br />
Not that I then became opposed to me having a career - but I had no salable skills (remember Near Eastern Studies major), no firm career goals (I had considered becoming a librarian in my field, but that required getting a master's of library science, which seemed all techy and not booky), and so I went to the raising lots of fat babies part, and decided to put all my career aspirations on Avram. This....was probably not the best thing, but I don't know what I could have done differently, with what I knew then, what my options were then. I mean, this whole rant is actually related to how academics isn't actually a career path, more like a becoming highly qualified so you can have the opportunity to try out for a very competitive slot, like trying out for Broadway, so...it's not like I exactly wish I had followed my original career plan at all.... And yes, I have struggled with being a stay at home mom. And I am an extrovert, so it's not really like I want to get a job while being at home - I don't want to make money. I want to be fulfilled. But this isn't about me, exactly, except as to how I am too enmeshed with Avram, and with his career plans, which is to say, very enmeshed.<br />
<br />
Phew, good thing I am not publishing this - this is all very complicated, and full of unnecessary back story, which is to say, exactly how I like to write. <br />
<br />
Anyway, so when Avram wanted to get a Ph.d., and he even wanted to get it in the field I had planned on, and unlike me he was very certain about what he wanted, I was all in. It was like fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine, which just as much sacrifice, but also with a whole lot less paper writing, scholarship planning (but also a lot less job satisfaction....). <br />
<br />
However, that was just the tip of the iceburg for sacrifices. We went to England, to Oxford for a master's. I didn't want to go - he got into a fully funded (but inadaquate for the city) Master's and Ph.d. at Fordham in New York City in medieval Jewish history. But, going to Oxford had also been a life long dream of Avram's, and had also been my lifelong dream in my previous academic planning self, and so I finally acquiesed, and we went, although we only had a half scholarship, and not a full one. (And we didn't even really look into the Master's at Michigan because they didn't even talk about funding or not. I wish we had, because they are a good school). So, we were very poor, acquired a lot of debt, and were cold for nine months in England while Avram spent a lot of time feeling like a stupid Yankee monkey while he completed a one year master's at the same time as trying to learn how to navigate a foreign country, foreign academic system, and I meanwhile had our second child.<br />
<br />
Then, on to the next stage - he got into two schools, one of which with a good funding package (that wasn't so good in subsequent years, although it was supposed to be....). So we came to Ohio State. Even though it was a new program, which meant no job placement history. And no clout in the field. And so, six years later, here we are, with Avram in his final year, and now applying to jobs.<br />
<br />
And here, thirteen years after I began my academic journey and planned to get a Ph.d., and Nine years after I married Avram, who is actually getting the Ph.d., I am finally learning what I wished I had known then about the Academic Field in the Humanities in America. In summation - it sucks. It is vastly oversupplied, and getting worse all the time, because tenure lines are going away, not expanding, while schools are still expanding and adding new graduate programs. If this was a treatise on prospects for job fields, the Academic Tenure Track Humanities section would have a skull and crossbones, with a sign, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." We would even get the reference, since we're in the humanities, and all.<br />
<br />
Let me explain. No, let me sum up. The American academic system has as its faculty three levels of career - Assistant Professor (Tenure Track), Associate Professor, and Full Professor, both of which are tenured. The other options are long term lectures, which some universities have, Visiting Assistant Professors (knows as VAP), and then other things like Post Docs, fellowships, and finally at the far, far bottom is adjuncting, wherein you get paid to teach each individual class as a contract worker, without full time work, health benefits, and self respect.<br />
<br />
Each department has tenured professors, and when one professor retires, for several decades instead of then filling the spot again, Universities have not always extend the tenure lines, and fill in the gap with more VAP spots or adjuncting. This is a lot cheaper for them, and because the market is so large, there is basically an unlimited supply of eager people with Ph.d.s willing and happy to be a VAP (hey, maybe next year on the job market they will get that Tenure Track job!), and often unhappily, but still willing to adjunct (hey, maybe next year on the job market they will get any sort of better job!)<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the number of college graduates has only grown, and hence the number of people excited to go to graduate school and pursue being a professor has grown as well. There are all the traditional older Ph.d. programs, plus new ones starting up all the time. Some programs will only let those in that they can fully fund, but other will only partly fund, or hardly fund at all their graduate students. This means that graduate students can take on thousands, even over a hundred thousand dollars of debt - all for a future promise of a job that at least in Avram's field looks to pay within ten thousand dollars of $50,000. And, that is if you can get the job at all.<br />
<br />
There are aspects that are not hidden - it is generally understood that if you really want to be a professor, that you must be willing to move almost anywhere in the US. That you will never get rich, or even upper middle class. That the job is very flexible in some ways (you set your own hours, you have a great deal of freedom in what you research, in what you teach), but that you also will be bringing work on vacations, holidays, nights, weekends - at least sometimes, if not for those who struggle with firm life balance, all of the time. But you are trading this off for something that you really, really love. Maybe it's the research, maybe it's the teaching. Maybe it's the thinking, and the life of the mind, but whatever (pure, good - as apposed to the occasional reason of prestige or public pride) reason you have, you are doing it for the love, not the money. For those who crave this job, who spend a decade working towards it, they have weighed the payoffs, lived in poverty for years, and this is worth it. They have become a band of brothers (and sisters) who are the few, the happy few that have shed their blood (sweat and tears) with each other through grad school to pay the price.<br />
<br />
I have often heard jokes about majoring in poverty, or about the horrible job prospects. These almost become a badge of honor among the band, an aspect of their comaradarie as they joke about becoming plumbers, or flipping burgers with their Ph.d. And yet they are in training for a job, and although of course every humanities ph.d. should not be guaranteed a job, at the same time in such a closed field as academics, where universities control both the supply (how many students they let into grad school) and demand (how many tenure lines they support), there is a lot that could be done that is not. On both side money speaks - grad students provide a cheap source of labor for teaching. So do adjuncts and VAPs. It's not just this recession - this has been ongoing for decades (even while the tuition has been outpacing inflation, while more people than ever are going to college, and where administration in colleges and universities continues to grow and their incomes are growing as well. Administrators are paid better than faculty).<br />
<br />
While I too dislike money, and have no problems with people seeking a demanding job for comparatively little pay, but for the love. What I do not like, nay what makes my blood boil, my overly wrought prose purple, what makes my metaphors and similes grow like dank mushrooms in must is that many more ph.d.'s are being admitted, trained and graduated than can ever possibly hope to find a Tenure Track job. Because of this, Universities have become more and more picky in what they are looking for in candidates. When you have a hundred applicants (not unusual) for one position, and at least fifty are completely qualified, twenty five are very qualified, and ten are basically rockstars of the academic world - those top ten will all get Tenure Track jobs, and many of the rest will limp along to another year, working on their CVs, trying to get another publication, pitch a book to a publisher, something to move their career along. Universities did not used to expect candidates to have a publication upon applying - now it is becoming more and more standard to see this, and to even expect this - it is called the pre professionalization of the job. <br />
<br />
So there are less jobs, more candidates, and therefore you must be better than your predecessors to get a job at all, and even being good, very good, does not guarantee you a job.<br />
<br />
This is what I wish I had known, thirteen years ago, ten years ago, six years ago. It is hard to see a dream die, and yet the idea of an attainable dream of being a professor in the humanities is increasingly a dream that despite ones best personal efforts and work is unattainable except through luck. Of course, there will always be jobs - not all universities are cutting their tenure lines, and even among those that are, there will always be some tenured professors in each department. Just the attainability of these positions has decreased, and will continue to do so.<br />
<br />
If Avram doesn't get a job, then this will all just sound like grumpy sour grapes. But I promise you it is not. Even if he does get a job, then I will still feel the same way (and also, I will feel very lucky, because we will be, and very grateful that he gets to work at what he loves to do in what is a shrinking, changing field). <br />
<br />
Here are some articles that lay some of this out. If you are thinking of graduate school, please read them. If you are getting a master's please read them before continuing on to get a doctorate. I know this is all gloom and doom, and you did not go into academics in the humanities to think about depressing job markets, economic short term policies driving universities and their tenure lines, about making money. But the academic job market - and by extension, academics, is not an ivory tower. It is more like a lake of boiling blood in the inferno, where you can only get out of it by ascending to living island of flesh that you get to stand on and keep down just so you can keep out of the blood yourself.<br />
<br />
These are by Thomas H. Benton, a pen name for William Pannapacker, who is a professor in English<br />
<br />
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/So-You-Want-to-Go-to-Grad/45239" target="_blank">So You Want to go to Grad School?</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846" target="_blank">Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go</a> (this is particularly hard, because Avram actually did go for all the right reasons - he knew a lot about what being a professor was like, he loves to teach, he gets above average student ratings, and yet....all that doesn't make the market any better).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/" target="_blank">Just Don't Go part 2</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/" target="_blank">The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind.'</a><br />
<br />
<br />
If you are determined to go, first think about what are the right and wrong reasons for going. Often professors will tell students to only go if they cannot imagine doing anything else. The precise difficulty with this advice is most of the student they are advising have never done anything but school in their entire memory, and so struggle to imagine themselves doing anything but more school, which they are very good at (or would not likely be having this conversation in the first place).<br />
<br />
Wrong Reasons:<br />
<br />
1.You are good at school, everyone has always told you how smart you are (and you are!), and so it just makes sense. You like learning, you like to read. <br />
Answer - you can learn on your own your whole life. Lot's of smart people do not actually enjoy doing academics as a career. Just because you <i>can</i> do something, does not mean that you <i>should</i> do something.<br />
2.It is a bad job market out there, or the variations - the real world seems scary<br />
Answer - Do you know what's scary? The academic job market. Do you know what's a bad job market? The academic job market.<br />
3.You like the idea of being like your professors that you see, who get to do things like think deeply while getting paid for it. Variations - you think that you get summer's off, that being a tenured professor is the best part time job you'll ever have.<br />
Answer - Being a professor is a lot more than just teaching classes and reading a lot. Professors have a three part job - teaching, research, and service. Do you actually know what professors do behind the scenes? <br />
<br />
And if you are truly going for the right reasons (you know what professors actually do, you like to do these things, you like conferences, writing papers, presenting, teaching, grading, serving on committees) here are some criteria I would recommend:<br />
<br />
Only go to a school that has a proven track record. <br />
<br />
Only go to a school if you have promised, written full funding for a set number of years (at least five or six). Even with full funding it can be easy to 'need' student loans. Maybe you will get married. Maybe you will have children. Just remember, at the end you will be paying back any loans, regardless whether you have job or not.<br />
<br />
Have a plan B - another career you can explore outside of academe using skills from the field you are going into. Beyond Academe is a website that can help with this, among others. Don't just give this a cursory look - put some time and effort into looking beyond just and academic career for your field.<br />
<br />
Realize that it isn't just enough to be good at school in academics any more. Don't listen to your professors who say that presenting and publishing can come later, after you get a job. Now days, if you cannot be better than the best, you may not have a chance. Plan on not just fulfilling the requirements of grad school, but also actively at the same time pursuing a research agenda, including presenting at the major conference for your field. Two years before graduation, polish up your best presentation, paper, or chapter of your dissertation, and send it out for publication. Consider doing this twice, to maximize your chances of being published. This way by one year later you will have at least one publication in time for application season in the fall. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-23845767911177545302015-09-14T00:12:00.002-04:002015-09-14T00:12:26.845-04:00I have felt a lot of hope and peace about going to Provo, although nothing has been settled yet. In my impatience to know more, to figure out when we will finally hear from our alma mater, and hopefully at that point be able to set in motion some of the key aspects of this move, I checked the last email Avram got from them. And...I had never actually read it right. Oh, well for my reading comprehension abilities. I thought it had read more strongly than it does. Sure, it does say that he is exactly the kind of adjunct that they like to have. But it also says that they currently have three other people like him, on the market, adjuncting for them (I'm not completely blind - I had read that before.) What I didn't realize is that essentially it was saying that first those three will get any classes, and then if there are any left over Avram will get them. And the whole reason I was checking for was depressing too (to find out how long ago they wrote, and when we might hear from them again) - it also said after they ascertain their needs for the fall classes they would let Avram know. But what if they don't do that until this Summer? We have to be out of our house by the end of May (by our own doing - our original contract went until the end of July). <br />
<br />
Spring is here - as is the first spring snowfall. In some ways, though, I am grateful that it has remained cold, since there was nothing for this snowfall to kill - there are no blossoms yet, no flowers, no greenery (except the stems poking up out of the ground - there is hope yet!)<br />
<br />
We are in sight of the end of this crazy editing marathon. Saturday is the final day we will be doing this round of edits, and then Monday morning Avram will be turning in a hard copy on campus. From that point there will still be more edits he will do in the next three weeks, but they will not be as extensive as these ones. We have already arranged to go out to lunch on Monday, and then I have the rest of the week planned for us, with cleaning our poor, neglected house, spending time with our poor, neglected children, and purging for our move. Our move that we still have no details over! I have felt, and continue to feel, a lot of peace over our future, despite the fact that we currently have no actual information on any future. But...lately I have been telling God in my prayers that while I do feel peace, and I know that we don't need to know things about the future, that I do need to do things like reserve a moving truck, and find somewhere to live, and these things are hard to do when I do not know anything?!!!Yeah, I kind of sound like a little kid complaining to her parent, but hey, this metaphor is not actually a metaphor, it is just true.<br />
<br />
We haven't made a major move, including the moving of all our belongins, in the last eight years, since we left Provo the first time. And now, looking to go back again, I am dumbfounded at how much we actually own. Of course, we have had four children since then, which means five times the amount of clothes and toys. And we have collected an impossibly large amount of books in that time, which I suppose we can't <i>actually </i>blame on our poor children, but I may give a small side eye to my husband at least. Not to mention my collection of home decor and beloved furniture.<br />
<br />
I am not a minimalist - I am not even a kind of pretend one. To be honest, I am not sure that I can even support a movement that praises, even implicitly, the absence of belongings over the abundance of people. However, I do want more simplicity in life, in our belongings. The more people that join our family, which I do not want to be minimal over, as I theologically believe that God has given us an imperative to bring children into this world, the more that to maintain a balance of sanity and time I find myself craving less belongings and posession to clutter up our days and life with. <br />
<br />
As anyone who would enter our house currently could tell you, five kids with very busy parents equals a house that looks like a home that was probably professionally ransacked for a movie starring the lost arkenstone, or maybe the hope diamond. Now, between living in England, with only our belongings that would fit in three peoples' suitcases with us, and spending two summers in Utah, with just one van full of stuff, I have learned that you can live with almost nothing and still manage to have messes, disorganization, and clutter. But the grand key here is that those messes are always a lot fast and easier to clean up. In Provo in the two bedroom basement home we lived in we could on a Saturday clean the whole place from top to bottom in two hours maximum, and be ready to go and have fun as a family the rest of the day.<br />
<br />
Now, I am not ready to discard all our belongings except those that fit into our van. I like having things like furniture or saving clothes between ages for kids, or even keeping a few sentimental papers and pictures from life. But, I do want to get to a place where I feel like our physical belongings aid us in living the life that we want to have, not impede us. I want to own things to help in my living an abundant life, not live a life that consists of me taking care of my abundant things.<br />
<br />
I read the organizatin book currently burning throught the Internet (and library reservation lists), Marie Kondo's<i> The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up</i>. There were things I really liked about it, and some that I didn't (like, only keeping things that bring you joy work if you perhaps are single, living in an apartment. But with five kids, I cannot get rid of every practical thing I own, like my old glasses that are mismatches, even if I do not feel joy in them - they are still serving our family. I like better William Morris's, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.") Her ideas have helped with letting go of items, though, and recognizing that if my personal belongings do not spark joy in me, that I don't need to save them just because they may be useful someday, or because of guilt or whatnot. <br />
<br />
Another thing that has helped is the blog, <a href="http://assortmentblog.com/" target="_blank">Assortmentblog</a>. This family lives in a 665 square foot cabin, and I love the aesthetic of the home, and the fact that although even my modest, by current American standards, home of 1100 square feet is almost twice its size, hers feels larger when I look at the pictures, precisely because every belonging has its place, and there are no extraneous belongings creating havoc. Although, I think even more key is something that the author, Carmella, said in a recent interview that she linked on her blog, which was that her cardinal rule is that they always put whatever they have out away before moving on to the next thing, no matter what. <br />
<br />
Perhaps that's what I need to focus on the most - much more than the precise number of items we own, is focusing on keeping those items all in their places.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-8116532696594093942015-09-13T23:51:00.001-04:002015-09-13T23:51:59.399-04:00Mountain Walk in Honor of CamillaCamilla, I took this walk with my family in honor of you and the mountains. Especially because I can see the autumn colors marching down the mountainside, day by day, and I felt that I have been missing the harbinger of the season otherwise.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioeBIAAeOcmknBTmV1koKhkIRaCwByGqkpY6KG-jfO9yo_XHsMos_hUhECAPLh5S7swPnHM96FCLBpSr-bjp8nH_PXa2nCilRyc0_X2UF91WsATfDaGK07weicVUwa9Ow8rcx_NWl0Yl0/s1600/DSC_0122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioeBIAAeOcmknBTmV1koKhkIRaCwByGqkpY6KG-jfO9yo_XHsMos_hUhECAPLh5S7swPnHM96FCLBpSr-bjp8nH_PXa2nCilRyc0_X2UF91WsATfDaGK07weicVUwa9Ow8rcx_NWl0Yl0/s320/DSC_0122.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
We all walked up Provo Canyon trail, and you can see there are already signs of the season.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMIAlDRIH7I/VfY9rIFidRI/AAAAAAAACd0/DELs0An5ucc/s1600/DSC_0127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMIAlDRIH7I/VfY9rIFidRI/AAAAAAAACd0/DELs0An5ucc/s400/DSC_0127.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Roiny8P2VQ/VfY9phHaqqI/AAAAAAAACdk/2j-krv3ykVs/s1600/DSC_0136.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Roiny8P2VQ/VfY9phHaqqI/AAAAAAAACdk/2j-krv3ykVs/s320/DSC_0136.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
There were two paths, and we chose the path that turned out to disappear into a wash....poor Avram pushing the stroller. But eventually we cut across the wash and came back to the real trail.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CRVh5PMGdr8/VfY-bA6MHEI/AAAAAAAACeM/egIQW7UNzS0/s1600/DSC_0137.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CRVh5PMGdr8/VfY-bA6MHEI/AAAAAAAACeM/egIQW7UNzS0/s320/DSC_0137.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
This picture (and other pictures of autumnal leaves) are just for you, Camilla. And just think, you didn't have to upset your allergies to get them, either.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ZUkbDOPXxl_wMg7wKiHueS_i7V5G5ZcZSW2neJ4NE0_eFTeRd4mZ9p7p-JQ2bFyQPpx2zvGiVdgCNNc2hAImn8O8Cofr8HFAfy9BGzQZaJ2uqafW28RE3RKtqRMkzo_XMspKFnaqjxs/s1600/DSC_0140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ZUkbDOPXxl_wMg7wKiHueS_i7V5G5ZcZSW2neJ4NE0_eFTeRd4mZ9p7p-JQ2bFyQPpx2zvGiVdgCNNc2hAImn8O8Cofr8HFAfy9BGzQZaJ2uqafW28RE3RKtqRMkzo_XMspKFnaqjxs/s320/DSC_0140.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Since it's been forever since I've taken pictures of individuals in our family, I tried to get a shot of each person. This is Avram's "I'm a thinking scholar" pose (actually he didn't even know I was taking a picture here....)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMKSp4s3BE_G6Gi7B1FMjEfXMDUkYm3MoR5L1iWs34rmNnKsePbwI2snLR1hsOLKoFHZ-HAq9Q98UyWqT8XG_iBjS7RQi5TSxD4mdOkhA5iE4H7dBzl8iN4YQmCB9iySr73_dY2EwtOI/s1600/DSC_0152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMKSp4s3BE_G6Gi7B1FMjEfXMDUkYm3MoR5L1iWs34rmNnKsePbwI2snLR1hsOLKoFHZ-HAq9Q98UyWqT8XG_iBjS7RQi5TSxD4mdOkhA5iE4H7dBzl8iN4YQmCB9iySr73_dY2EwtOI/s320/DSC_0152.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Look, I came on this trip too!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U3yrPAUU5Nc/VfY-8cx_eyI/AAAAAAAACeU/tJc2olzftIw/s1600/DSC_0160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U3yrPAUU5Nc/VfY-8cx_eyI/AAAAAAAACeU/tJc2olzftIw/s320/DSC_0160.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
Athena is very mischevious - this is her plotting smile.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QKgrWMvtgV8/VfY--_ebTAI/AAAAAAAACec/B45zvFbKar8/s1600/DSC_0163.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QKgrWMvtgV8/VfY--_ebTAI/AAAAAAAACec/B45zvFbKar8/s320/DSC_0163.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0B3L7AiudpU/VfY_GowgeaI/AAAAAAAACek/CGg5Ar0EL4k/s1600/DSC_0173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0B3L7AiudpU/VfY_GowgeaI/AAAAAAAACek/CGg5Ar0EL4k/s320/DSC_0173.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
Guinevere has a lot of personality. We were pretty sure all the other hikers knew we were there - our kids kept checking the echo out.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5vTf8c-rKEQ/VfY_oh2M-gI/AAAAAAAACes/jEjax0Z5iwU/s1600/DSC_0188.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5vTf8c-rKEQ/VfY_oh2M-gI/AAAAAAAACes/jEjax0Z5iwU/s320/DSC_0188.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QB7b_INVbTA/VfY_u7jk0XI/AAAAAAAACe0/oeeDgdf11Dc/s1600/DSC_0201.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QB7b_INVbTA/VfY_u7jk0XI/AAAAAAAACe0/oeeDgdf11Dc/s320/DSC_0201.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
Lydia came as an adventurer. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bsd71YTQVE8/VfY_0IgvRbI/AAAAAAAACe8/rfS8qqU_kc0/s1600/DSC_0207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bsd71YTQVE8/VfY_0IgvRbI/AAAAAAAACe8/rfS8qqU_kc0/s320/DSC_0207.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w231xEUCjS8/VfZAUEsUVpI/AAAAAAAACfE/yGfvrdqjE60/s1600/DSC_0209.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w231xEUCjS8/VfZAUEsUVpI/AAAAAAAACfE/yGfvrdqjE60/s320/DSC_0209.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Elisheva and Enoch both went for the handsome pictures, instead of the crazy ones.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b_pQHyyvExc/VfZAYNnVUCI/AAAAAAAACfM/W-aTu_rebIM/s1600/DSC_0226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b_pQHyyvExc/VfZAYNnVUCI/AAAAAAAACfM/W-aTu_rebIM/s320/DSC_0226.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRJQ55QCVIdwhxmVNz_rznGwkbSq_5w_UekvNl-kcyHdhZZgUjH7MwlmzGDBnzs5bD4lHq8Y461t3uaS9LTGw7DjQxwnB7pICernPzsEiQ9FbVyqus7M9qMVTKaXJLG5wmZ54qyXQTGw/s1600/DSC_0227.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRJQ55QCVIdwhxmVNz_rznGwkbSq_5w_UekvNl-kcyHdhZZgUjH7MwlmzGDBnzs5bD4lHq8Y461t3uaS9LTGw7DjQxwnB7pICernPzsEiQ9FbVyqus7M9qMVTKaXJLG5wmZ54qyXQTGw/s320/DSC_0227.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
More September pictures. I love those first leaves that turn.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmEUyqotevKFYoMnmtvFN1IvBSZIQwDBmVBGQbOcLJ4HTFfwuPCMbKppfYIlpIdrzowB2bji4xcZaMndIqwV6oZjAOyaxnxmJlih8JWYPnUo-i3QdbzEWCiIm4-z__RlIlgTaArWBL3GI/s1600/DSC_0228.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmEUyqotevKFYoMnmtvFN1IvBSZIQwDBmVBGQbOcLJ4HTFfwuPCMbKppfYIlpIdrzowB2bji4xcZaMndIqwV6oZjAOyaxnxmJlih8JWYPnUo-i3QdbzEWCiIm4-z__RlIlgTaArWBL3GI/s320/DSC_0228.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
And now we could go home, having seen Autumn itself. It was nice to get out together as a family and walk in nature. I love that the mountains are so close here, but I am also embarrassed how little we make our way to them, all things considered. Thinking of Camilla (my sister) telling people to go and visit the mountains because she can't inspired me to get us out of the house and actually make our way there. Thanks Camilla!</div>
Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-91134307529956800802015-08-14T12:27:00.000-04:002015-08-14T12:27:30.409-04:00The Lion HouseWe got the house we wanted. Yes, on Avram's birthday (yesterday) we found out we got the house, and then our day became a flurry of deposits and contracts, keys and paperwork. But we have it now, which is super exciting to me. Now we can finally move, and unpack, and settle down. All except one small detail - Avram got sick yesterday, and now is lying in bed. So....no moving today. Compared to not having a home to move into at all, a state of life we were in two days ago, I really don't mind this small hiccup. We are planning now to move tomorrow, and in the grand scheme of things one day's difference is not important. <br />
<br />
Why are we moving so fast, you might be wondering? Well, impatience on my part plays some role. Now that we have keys to our new home how could I not want to move as soon as possible? Plus, with rooms as exciting as our dining room, which also doubles as a storage room and, most exciting of all, Athena's bedroom, we are more than ready to stretch out a little. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-053yJ2mMYEg/Vc4IF3INKtI/AAAAAAAACaI/B2lWSqZaj6E/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-053yJ2mMYEg/Vc4IF3INKtI/AAAAAAAACaI/B2lWSqZaj6E/s400/Old+and+New+Apartment+009.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Would you believe that our family actually eats meals in here? Yeah, I don't quite believe it either. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bEIN8fMzjOs/Vc4IrjSRe3I/AAAAAAAACaY/w5f_j7doFwg/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bEIN8fMzjOs/Vc4IrjSRe3I/AAAAAAAACaY/w5f_j7doFwg/s400/Old+and+New+Apartment+013.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What a pretty nursery - I should pin it to Pinterest. (Yes, this is the other half of the room that we eat in).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvrZGF4EpdRWOtx7t9h_BzqeIUl9xKs_mIWFSTyUlNdd8soF_PQZCAdJMLv9oqFRtypro67wyWd0_9hlJo3ye3YiUUBWNT3oDJwjQU5l9JXFB0RQ_vSJdNJK99xljt7-VTWSAhuvhlpE/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvrZGF4EpdRWOtx7t9h_BzqeIUl9xKs_mIWFSTyUlNdd8soF_PQZCAdJMLv9oqFRtypro67wyWd0_9hlJo3ye3YiUUBWNT3oDJwjQU5l9JXFB0RQ_vSJdNJK99xljt7-VTWSAhuvhlpE/s400/Old+and+New+Apartment+018.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Living room of our cave basement home. I want to be clear thought, that as much as I am looking forward to windows, that I am grateful we have been able to stay here while looking for a long term home.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here are some pictures of the house we will be moving to. This isn't a complete tour - apparently I forgot to take pictures of two of the three bedrooms (and I went in for the sole purpose of taking pictures of the house.....)<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTKDrshBtgQZAbUOCmCRL4Pjoi2Iz8qXuoxcwN2lLuffrhrRCdoIdpdqzWtz-OJA-M_1wIEJ6v_lCJxs6OjfhMMoimyrs-dfmsqWaItNtd1zF5yCQqQSkxuEL-LhZGmY4LMip5GB2_PNc/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTKDrshBtgQZAbUOCmCRL4Pjoi2Iz8qXuoxcwN2lLuffrhrRCdoIdpdqzWtz-OJA-M_1wIEJ6v_lCJxs6OjfhMMoimyrs-dfmsqWaItNtd1zF5yCQqQSkxuEL-LhZGmY4LMip5GB2_PNc/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+035.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a home very close to BYU campus, and so there are many students living around here (it is surrounded by apartment buildings). As with many old, large houses in Provo, it has been divided into apartments. The main floor is our apartment, so it just feels like a one story house.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3eizFb1EfOw/Vc4I_9h3B3I/AAAAAAAACaw/guRCinNRntg/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3eizFb1EfOw/Vc4I_9h3B3I/AAAAAAAACaw/guRCinNRntg/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+037.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is half of our front porch. Our house is called the Lion House, from the Lion statue. I love big front porches!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXEnH71FrOA/Vc4JGHCeYzI/AAAAAAAACa4/9zmtSt3BBKs/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+040.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXEnH71FrOA/Vc4JGHCeYzI/AAAAAAAACa4/9zmtSt3BBKs/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+040.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is half of the living room, and a glimpse into the entryway. Note the moldings, and built in bookshelves and window frames.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fgk0CePLHzs/Vc4JhXs51II/AAAAAAAACbY/GkbUkman_ig/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+049.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love the large south facing windows.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><img height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OehthytqHVQ/Vc4N5Vwd1KI/AAAAAAAACbk/iYzRTqh4a6k/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+042.JPG" width="640" /><br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Lbr-J8qdyQ/Vc4JJ68pJsI/AAAAAAAACbA/TzGzM1wW0vE/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Lbr-J8qdyQ/Vc4JJ68pJsI/AAAAAAAACbA/TzGzM1wW0vE/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+043.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the one bedroom I captured - this will be Elisheva, Guinever and Enoch's room. Elisheva is ecstatic about the built in vanity and dresser.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMpvE0MJxsZbG5XfBOVJ6P1_p9YK6-q_Vd25o5jRmMfhAICwonXa8V9zD6rBpRAQcuPijmxfccarcbAQ9Vwg2b_UFvqnkcG3qpkdm80sD_oA1KbZE_FJV2BPrGSJHTMlTB1n2fyPzZHw/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMpvE0MJxsZbG5XfBOVJ6P1_p9YK6-q_Vd25o5jRmMfhAICwonXa8V9zD6rBpRAQcuPijmxfccarcbAQ9Vwg2b_UFvqnkcG3qpkdm80sD_oA1KbZE_FJV2BPrGSJHTMlTB1n2fyPzZHw/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+045.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are thinking of either eating in the kitchen (moving this table out and ours in, of course), or putting the table in the living room, since it is large enough to handle that.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xdr9y_fIvtY/Vc4Jf9P-HqI/AAAAAAAACbQ/wyEMvvaSzjo/s1600/Old+and+New+Apartment+047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xdr9y_fIvtY/Vc4Jf9P-HqI/AAAAAAAACbQ/wyEMvvaSzjo/s640/Old+and+New+Apartment+047.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the old butler's pantry, which will probably become Homeschool storage on the bottom and bookshelves on top.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
There is also a backyard, which helps increase the sanity just a bit for the whole family. I think this our new Lion House will be just the place for our family to settle down for a while, and stretch out our wings while we prepare for the next stage of our lives. I know that when I am surrounded by natural light and beauty that I feel better about my home, my life, and I have more energy and interest in making a life I love. I used to feel almost bad that I was so affected by my physical environment, but I have realized that as a stay at home mom I spend almost all of my life in my home. And while I don't think everyone cares, for me being in a dark home or one without any personality makes me feel dull as a person. I have a hard time being motivated to clean it (because a clean, dark and soulless home is still depressing), I have no excitement to do house projects, and I feel disconnected from nature, which in turn makes me feel disconnected with life. Having a home that I love makes it easier to do the things I need to do as a mother and homemaker, and facilitates a happier home for everyone. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
When we started looking for long term housing in Provo, we soon realized that we could not get everything on our list (close to campus, light-filled, personality/architectural details, backyard, three bedrooms, cheap). For a while I entertained ideas like trying to make it work in a basement apartment, or just being okay with an apartment. Plenty of people over the whole world have to just make it work in whatever housing they can have. I know it is even a measure of the first world life I have that I can even have these kinds of criteria. If all we could have afforded was a small basement apartment, then I would have learned to be grateful that we could even have a house at all. What became difficult to me was that we actually could afford a nicer home, but it was a choice that we had to make in balancing our priorities. We have been grad students for so long that I have been used to just doing the bare minimum, because that was our only option. Now we could have chosen to continue that (and there is nothing wrong with living in a small, basement apartment, if that's what you don't mind doing), or we could choose to prioritize natural light and location and architectural details that make my heart sing. I am always talking about how experiences are more important than things, but it has taken (and will continue to be a work in progress, I am sure) me a long time to actually enact this philosophy. It is easy to think of experiences as being exciting vacations, or concerts, or some other red letter occasion. As a stay at home mom, my house comprises the majority of my daily "experience," although it is is experience made up of small moments, like pearls along a string, each moment gathering together to create an overall effect like a majestic pearl necklace.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
So much of how we see our life is self created, self imagined from the events or facts that individually make up our life. I could often take one sample day, and depending on how it was described either have it sound like my creative kids spent the day with screen free imaginative free range play (which they often do), or I could say that my kids made a huge mess all over the house (which they often, at the same time, usually do). It is all how we see it, and having a home I love helps me see the former and not the latter. Experience matters, and I am finally coming to peace with the fact that this makes it okay that I want to feel that I am surrounded by beauty.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I am grateful that we were able to find an old house with character, natural light and that is so close to campus, the library and a park. And although we finally decided in this case that we cared more about location and light than staying in a lower budget, we actually found this house right in range with what we were hoping to pay. Avram's top want was that it was within walking distance to campus. He remarked that this will be the closest that he has ever lived to campus, including when he was an undergraduate here. I spent a lot of time despairing that we would ever find a home that covered the major items of importance to us, but not giving in to just signing a contract with the easiest to find apartments out there has truly paid off. Now I just need to remember this for when we go house hunting in a year or two, and the the despair/hope roller coaster starts again, only with much larger stakes. I know Avram is already dreading living with me then, but hey, if being picky about buying a house pays off with the kind of home that being picky about renting a home did (which took a lot longer because we weren't willing to pursue just anything), then I will not mind at all the extra hours of anguish.</div>
Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-36735822548120520192015-08-12T19:42:00.002-04:002015-08-12T19:43:13.658-04:00In the MiddleEverything is in the middle right now. We have an application in on an apartment (actually, the main floor of a house that has been divided into apartments), Avram just sent off his first set of applications of the academic season, and the first one happened to be for our most coveted positions at BYU. We are living in a two bedroom basement apartment right now, with our boxes piled up high around us. We have never really unpacked, because we have always known that we were going to be immediately looking for somewhere else to live. I'm trying to be patient. I know that this stage too will end. If we do get this house then we are planning on moving in just two days (since it will be available tomorrow), and since there really isn't a whole lot to pack up. It could be so soon where we would be out of this purgatory, and although not permanently settled for the rest of our life, at least settled for this year. Or....it could be a lot longer, just depending on what houses are available. I am not good at patience and waiting. I think God knows this, and is trying to help me be more patient. I am not sure I appreciate His efforts, but maybe I will once I can look back and remember that nice, short time when we didn't know anything about anything that was happening in our life.<br />
<br />
For now I just feel like every day is another one being dragged over the heaping coals of impermanence.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-51895813304926390782015-03-25T10:01:00.002-04:002015-03-25T13:40:25.768-04:00Let's talk about hard things - foodstamps and the 'life of the mind.'I'm trying to have faith, but I think the hardest part is what if God's plan for us is to be really, really poor and uncertain this next year?<br />
<br />
It makes me nervous to move all of our belongings, which would not be cheap, across the country when we don't have any specifics. And what if it doesn't work out - what do we do then? We need to have some kind of job. And if Avram wasn't adjuncting, or almost worse if he only got one class, I would rather that he found some kind of full time position, even if the pay were not great, than trying to cobble together a couple of part time positions. At least then we might get some kind of benefits, and if nothing else he would be working more than 29 1/2 hours a week - the top cap, because heaven forbid if any university went over that amount and - gasp - actually had to pay benefits like health insurance for their adjuncting employees<br />
<br />
There's no guarantee that even feeling peace about our future means that we will have enough to live on, or even that Avram will get three classes to adjunct for. And it's not like even if he does adjunct we will be making much. I think America does not realize that one of the prizes of the modern, intellectual age - our University system - is built upon the backs of people who are teaching class by class, and getting paid only around $25000 for an entire year of teaching - and that is if they are able to get three classes throughout the entire year. We know someone (who is in business, and is quite comfortable) who recently asked if adjuncting paid what, around $80,000? That's way more than even many professors make (in the humanities). I'm sorry to be crass and bring money into it, but I think all too often America and academia hide their poor practices and marginalizing of workers by making talking about money taboo, and by emphasizing lies like it's a "life of the mind."<br />
<br />
Do you want to know what the "life of the mind" is like? It's trying to keep your wife and five children clothed, fed, and sheltered while bringing home 1565 a month - and that is the most (the amount before taxes, at least - this is the after tax amount) that you have ever made before! It is qualifying for - and using - medicaid and foodstamps because you honestly cannot make the ends meet, and because you are trying to finish your dissertation it does not make sense to pick up another job, since that would just make everything take even longer, and you would be a student for longer.<br />
<br />
A boy at our church when questioned about evil said that people who use foodstamps are evil. Well, now you know. I am evil. My family is evil. (Don't worry, I do not actually believe that). What kills me is that this boy is the son of our very good friends - who knew that we have had foodstamps. So what does that say - are they telling him we are evil? I know kids have their own agency, and are not just puppets of their parents, but I'm pretty sure that idea didn't pop into his head <i>sui generis</i>.<br />
<br />
Regardless of your politics - maybe you think foodstamps are evil too - just remember that at your university that you attended has lots and lots of adjuncts, and even if they personally are not on foodstamps (and I can guarantee more than a few are), they all qualify for them if they have dependents. So if you do not believe in foodstamps, it's not as simple as just condemning them - it involves making system that pays people enough to live on. Most of the people who are on them are not educated - they are not the "elite" who both use government money to eat and who have almost four college degrees between one couple. Maybe they should have not had children when they couldn't support them (I would like you to meet Enoch - who was conceived through an IUD. Maybe I should have had an abortion - would that have made the right wing feel better about their lives?) Maybe they should havbe reconsidered spending eight years of their lives in upper education, living far below the poverty line and qualifying for lots more government aid that they never took, including not using foodstamps for over half that time because they are trying to be independent, and are trying to be self - relient, but it gets really hard when you are not paid a living wage.<br />
<br />
Most people on foodstamps do fit some of the stereos attached to them - after all, I have spent hours and hours waiting in the official government offices, and I admit, it is not all roses and sunshine for those on government help. But I almost feel a responsibility to speak up for them, for many do not have the education and knowledge on how to speak up for themselves. And they are working, like we are, too. But when you don't make enough to live on, it's not that easy, no matter how hard you work. <br />
<br />
For me, I guess I have been able to justify being on foodstamps because we are students, and things are going to get better. But now, I don't know if they are going to get better. I am definitely not planning on having them after we graduate - without a dissertation to write we can and will fill in our time with side jobs that will pay for our food. But we will still have medicaid, because even those adjuncts who don't have so many dependents, or who have enough side jobs to actually pay for living still do not have access to any kind of medical insurance. <br />
<br />
This is the life of the mind. Sure, we have great conversations about the ancient world, and about religious constructs, boundaries, conceptions of ritual and appropriate religious observances. Sure, we have a personal library that rivals some medieval royal libraries. Sure, we spend our evenings not watching TV but reading and thinking - well, except when we don't (Avram and I do our fair share of zoning out too). But we also have no job security, no benefits, do not make enough to live on, and the field is so lopsided that we will almost certainly never get a tenure track job. That is our ivory tower that is so out of touch with reality. That is the rarefied air of academics. If there is an ivory tower it is built on the worn out backs of many who will never be able to ascend its hallowed stairs to a better (full-time) position. <br />
<br />
I normally would not publish this. My draft folder is full of posts like this, that are a little bitter, lack some perspective, and perhaps would make me feel awkward if I knew other people had read them. But I am going to publish this one, because I want people to know a few things - one, what a broken Academic system means, what adjuncting, and having more and more adjuncts, and less and less professors actually means. I want people to have another perspective on those 'evil' people who use foodstamps, and to realize that one of the most highly respected positions in Amercia, that of professor, goes hand in hand with adjuncting and with poverty, and hence with foodstamps. I want people to know the truth of what this 'life of the mind' entails, and it's not just great mind expanding conversations and late night epiphanies over the human condition, it's also spending a month living on your food storage of beans and wheat (with some fresh produce and dairy) while waiting for foodstamps to come in, because that is how little you have. It is gettng foodstamps again, because although we were off of them for two years, I really, really wanted to buy our own food, and we took on extra debt to do so, we got them again this last fall because they started deducting for our retirement, and there went our food budget), and being as excited about that as about getting a job interview. This is the dark underbelly of our shining ivory towers, and I think America would do better to acknowledge it than to hide it behind a smoke screen of how embarrassing and tacky it is to talk about crass and plebian topics like money, benefits and foodstamps.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-26645293672436635582015-03-19T14:05:00.001-04:002015-09-14T00:12:51.377-04:00Peace about Provo and Packing up our StuffThis is not going to be the large essays I have been previously prone to (and will be prone to again, I am sure). Rather, in the absence of facebook, I wanted to pop in with a few thoughts and updates.<br />
<br />
First, regarding <a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2015/03/nothing-makes-you-blog-like-shutting.html" target="_blank">facebook</a>, things have been going actually really well without it. I feel like I have been more productive with my internet time, and feel like I do not spend as much time on the internet as well. But when I went to a baby shower for a woman from church I kept being reminded of all the things that I am actually missing from my current, in real life, social (and religious) group. So...I don't know. The jury is still out on whether I will resume facebook or not. Plus I miss being able to share pictures with family that does not live close by, without having to take the effort to individually email them all out. Of course, one could say that I could blog and post pictures of my family, but....that would require blogging, <i>and </i>uploading pictures. So maybe what I am really saying is that I do not miss actually uploading pictures for family to see, but rather I miss the <i>idea </i>that I was always about to upload them, but actually only rarely carrying through on that intent. <br />
<br />
Second, it's a really good thing I gave up facebook, because I have been spending the last week and a half, and still have a week and a day left, helping Avram edit his dissertation. He has edited it before, as has his advisor, but this is the editing of pulling it all together into one large, cohesive piece, with adding sections that support his introductiona and conclusions (and hence, the main points he makes). Plus it is a good, thorough copy edit, because his advisor does not do any copy editing. So I am reading through each of the thirteen chapters twice as we do edits back and forth (with the intro and conclusion getting three edits, since they are the most important parts). All of this means I basically have an unpaid part time job, with me spending two to six hours a day on editing and reading and editing. Just the kind of mentally tasking work that before would have made just checking facebook a teeny, tiny bit really tempting, but ultimately meaning that I would end up checking it, and then avoiding the heavy-duty hard work through the easy "catching up with the really, really, obviously essentially important work of reading about friends' and family's lives."<br />
<br />
Doing this has also helped me appreciate all the work Avram has been doing these last two and a half years. I have helped him do extensive edits on papers before, but not on something that is approaching four hundred pages, and the immensity of such a task has given me much appreciation for what Avram has been working on all this time. All that said, I will be very grateful when it is handed in, and we can all relax a bit (until it is time for his defense, at least, which comes at the ides of April).<br />
<br />
Lydia also turned nine this month, and I took lots of pictures, and had lots of thoughts on how old she is, and how she really is becoming (or rather, has always been) her own, unique person that Avram and I have the responsibility to shephard through he first fourth part of her earthly journey, but who has always been, and will always be, her own person with her individual strengths and weakness. Our responsibility as parents, therefore, becomes helping her explore her strengths and resolve her weaknesses, but not to mold her into some generic "good" or "responsible" person with all of the strengths, and none of the quirks that real people share. Plus I went to a play she was in yesterday (yes, I took pictures there too, and yes, they are still all on my camera, and no, I will not upload them to this post). <br />
<br />
What became driven home into my mind from the experience (besides that Lydia has a lot of stage presence, which another mother even complimented me on Lydia's behalf for, and which I also know was generally felt because the audience audibly reacted to her delivering her lines - and that maybe I should consider getting her into some kind of theatre for kids, but that would take knowledge, time, and money, so....) was, seeing all of the kids that are not as short as mine, the reminder of how old nine really is. And how old that ten and eleven will be even moreso (driven home by seeing the 4/5 grade class performing their play after Lydia's third grade class did their's). Oh, my, and then she will all too soon be grown up, and so old (even if she never gets big), and then she'll go out into the world and be a grown up. It brought home to me how much motherhood (and fatherhood) is doing all you can to bring a prescious soul into the world, holding them, loving them - but only to ultimately let them go. <a href="http://www.davebarry.com/" target="_blank">Dave Barry said this better than I ca</a>n, which is why he got a pulitzer prize for that piece, and I got to self publish on blogger. Also, I am sorry that this link doesn't go directly to the actually column - see above, I am busy right now. So busy I ought to be eating lunch right now....<br />
<br />
And how with all of my kids, not just Lydia, will grow up, and become beautiful, smart big people who drive and date and go to college, and I am sure that I will be very proud and happy for them, and even moreso, I do not actually want them to remain little forever, but still, why does it hurt so much to do that which is so right and good? Why is it poignant, why does my heart and throat feels such a small, stabbing sadness to see them getting older and bigger (a little) and smarter? Because then, I am not their all encompassing, all wise mother. Of course, I will be their mother forever - but Athena needs me, loves me, and it is very validating, even if it also includes what Avram and I lovingly refer to as her constant need and desire to go for the jugular and ripe out our throats with her little (loving) claw hands.<br />
<br />
But the best mother love of all is the one that lets go, that is all encompassing, but only because it is also all releasing. That I cannot fully be a proper, true, archetypically meant all-mother unless I can let go. I realized that sometimes when I treat my kids like not fully-thinking independent people (when I expect them to automatically follow what I say, without their own thoughts, when I as a knee jerk reaction say no to a request of theirs, without first actually thinking about what they are asking, and giving it the same kind of weight that I would give anyone else that were not my child or another small kid) it is really sometimes not just lame (but it can be that too), but also a backwards way of trying to deny this fundamental truth - that I am not their overlord, they are not my faithful child army I have (slowly, laboriously, even) conjured up to be mini-mes that reflect me exactly, but that they are eternal beings, souls that, as Dave Barry puts it, are like comets in their trajectory. And although sometimes I am just being selfish when I am not remembering or acting as if my children are independent beings, but sometimes I do think that it is a sort of love that becomes twisted in its expression, so that in a way I am saying "My refusal to see you as a real, separate person is my refusal to let you move up and with that comes an implied move away from me." Yet, taken too far and I would become like the mother in the Great Divorce, who cannot accept her son as a real, adult person (and that God is more important than her son). My job is not as a mother to smother my children with love (or, because I am kind of a lazy, laid back temperment, to just not see them as separate beings, but this could manifest in others as a martyr complex for our children, like the mother in the Great Divorce). My job is to help them shoot through space, not try and hold them close to me forever.<br />
<br />
This also gave rise to all sorts of thoughts about Heavenly Father's love, and why he gives mankind the freedom he does, even when we tend to use it so poorly. Anyway, these are all deep thoughts, and I didn't mean to hijack my own post into musings on the big picture questions of life. But, all these things do make me appreciate more that I can simply hold and nurse Athena without having to incorporate eternal parenting principles of agency and respect - even if I do end up with a few scratches.<br />
<br />
And now, back to editing.<br />
<br />Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4679631342517586283.post-16261501303986450702015-03-03T11:57:00.000-05:002015-03-03T11:57:14.482-05:00Parasailing into the DarkLast year I wrote about<a href="http://thoraflorence.blogspot.com/2014/07/for-years-i-have-cherished-hope-of.html" target="_blank"> free falling</a>. Well, if that was free falling, now we are parasailing off a cliff into the darkness. Yet, I feel calm about it. This last week we went from planning on leaving Columbus around the end of July. Today we are now leaving by the first of June. Only a difference of two months - not much time, even in the space of a year. But these were our last two months here, where we have spent six and a half years. Avram and I will celebrate our tenth anniversary this April, and all but three years and five months of those years have been here. We have lived three different places here, in a townhouse, one little white house, and then another little white house with a bright red door. We have had three children here. We have sent two children to school. We have been in the same ward the whole time, which means we have grown in the same religious and social community most of our marriage. We live across the street from Avram's brother, and Samuel and Aleatha and their three children are an integral part of how we plan our social days and weeks (not to mention the untold times Avram and I have borrowed an egg, sugar, rice, baking soda, and every other food item because apparently we can't remember anything when we shop). <br />
<br />
We have always known that our time in Columbus, Ohio was a sojourn. A stopping point, that although not brief, has always been temporary. Yet, somehow I thought that we would be able to say goodbye sufficiently, that somehow five months to mentally wean ourselves from our friends, our beloved little home and our life here would be enough. Now we are down to three months. Yesterday I listed out every weekend that we have left, and then filled them in with the trips we want to accomplish while left here, places like Kirtland, or the Amish Country. I added a monthly trip to the zoo, to make sure we get our full value out of our Christmas experience gift. After a few other necessities, like Graduation weekend, our weeks were all filled up. I believe there is one day free from here until we move. So quickly do the days turn into weeks into months into us driving away from Ohio into....where?<br />
<br />
For we do not yet have firm plans for after we leave. Although, it looks as though Avram will be adjuncting some classes at our alma mater this coming year. And there is even a possibility of a Summer seminar he will take part in as well (which is why we wanted to move up our moving out, even with having to say goodbye faster) . But nothing is settled yet, there are no promises. Still, I feel a great measure of peace, and I am calm in our moving forward, even through this dark passage - I just sometimes wish I had a little more light.<br />
<br />
I used to hope that he would get a tenure track job straight out of Graduate school. Then, as Avram applied to Jobs last fall, I educated myself on the truths of the job market. I even wrote a lot of half finished blog posts about this topic, which I may edit and actually publish, but basically just say that in the humanities there is a much greater supply than there is a demand. And the demand (the number of tenure track jobs, or any full time job for that matter) continues to lower while the supply (the number of people with Ph.d.s) continues to rise. Just statistically speaking, Avram's chances of getting any full time job, let alone a tenure track job, will never be very likely - something like twenty percent for a tenure track. Probably less.<br />
<br />
I spent the month of last November in a daily emotional roller coaster, realizing how broken the humanities market was. I had thought that we were always walking a long, difficult road, but there would be a good job at the end of it. And here we are, at the end of that road, and we can see no further. I didn't know that the academic humanities was like trying to be a professional musician, or trying out for movies or Broadway. You must have talent and ability to even make it very far, and connections (like a fancy school) do help. But at the end, only a few will make it, and it seems more dependent on luck than skill. By the end of November, when Avram was gone at a conference where we had hoped he would have interviews, and he had none; when we were already a couple of weeks past being rejected from the one phone interview he has ended up getting (and that we felt went so well!), when our bright prospects, promising future, and carefully nurtured greenhouse flower hopes hit the icy chill of what the academic job market is truly like; I felt at the bottom, emotionally, spiritually. I couldn't understand why God would lead us here, and then seemingly abandon us. Avram has had many promptings, blessings, spiritual experiences, even a line in his patriarchal blessing that have all guided him to be where his is today.<br />
<br />
The day Avram presented his paper I blogged (this is unpublished) my heart out while sitting on the couch, with my children watching a movie around me. I cried as I typed my fears and concerns out, and as I did so, I realized that God did love us. That he had not abandoned us - that not getting a job does not mean that we have failed, or fallen of the ideal spiritual and temporal path in life. Of course, if I were asked in a vacuum if following commandments and promptings means that you are assured a certain job or temporal path, I would vehemently disagree that this is how God works. Yet, when it was our own life it has all been a lot murkier, especially because Avram studies religion, and we have received a lot of specific religious encouragement to pursue this professional path.<br />
<br />
I have come to realize that telling the Lord that we will go where he wants us to go does not in fact mean, "I will go where you want me to go, and since you directed us to go to grad school and Avram felt specifically inspired to move to Rabbinics and for him to study in Israel that this means that where you want us to go is to BYU, or another university, with a tenure track job and everything will work out perfectly with financial security, public acclaim and vocational satisfaction."<br />
<br />
Originally we decided that we would give Academics one application season, and then if nothing turned up that was full time (so a TT, VAP or Post-Doc) we would find another field for Avram to apply to - something like teaching at a secondary level, or becoming a civil servant or chaplain. Now we are in the dregs of this season, and nothing full time has worked out. Given a variety of factors, however, we have decided to give it one more year before moving on from Academics. One factor in this has been that the BYU religion department, where Avram has adjuncted before in the summers a couple of times, and where we principally saw ourselves if we did go back to BYU, did not have any job openings this year. We did not want to have a still born career, where we never even had a chance at applying to the Tenure Track job we were most likely to get (since the LDS pool of candidates is much smaller than the general pool), and so giving it one more year makes sense. Plus there is a strong possibility he will be able to teach a few classes there this coming year, and that combined with an online side job means that we will be able to survive through this next year financially, making it possible to "stay in the field" one more year. And if Avram were to get a tenure track at BYU next year, this would, in fact, be the straightest route to Provo and BYU - which means as hard as it has been, this could be the 'easiest' road (not that I think this is the way it has to be, mind you).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Most convincing for us, although least convincing when logic is added up, is that we feel peaceful about this direction. We have talked about how we both still feel that academics will work out as a career future, despite the complete lack of proof otherwise. And even if academics is not in our future, I still feel really good about going forward with this direction, with moving to Provo and spending another year making ends meet while pursuing Academics as a profession. Yet because of time lines for moving, this means that we have set our moving date (June 1st we leave Ohio), and we are already mentally planning for Utah, like where we will pursue living, or what companies to look at for moving trucks. Yet we don't have a contract yet for next year, and I don't even know when we can begin to hope to get one. Currently we are hoping to get a few more specifics (like, a contract for next year) before making concrete moving plans, but because moving is only three months away, we shall see how things unfold. We may truly be driving off into the wild blue yonder sunset with no landing place for our Honda Odyssey full of seven people and our most precious (and grubby) personal belongings.<br />
<br />
Yet, more than ever in our lives I know that God is at the wheel. This does not mean that we don't need to move forward, or that we will automatically get a career in academics, or even any kind of job at all. Rather, this means that when we depend on him fully, that he can turn any circumstance our our lives to the building up of his kingdom, to the strengthening of our family, and to greater testimony in our own lives.Thorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564924243186464304noreply@blogger.com1