Another mom asked me out for coffee and I felt scandalized.\
This has been a rough week for us and I irrationally want Kevin to be here, suffering too. And/or I want some sort of reward. I am shallow that way.\
Brian has toy show-and-tell at school on Fridays. Today he chose to take an empty tape roll.\
Max is working on two big school projects and I am irked at how much oversight I have to do. When he becomes a big, fat, fucking success, I am going to lap up any praise people choose to bestow on me. (Before I always claimed it wasn’t me who made Max so great, but no more of that!)
Author: jclawver
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Friday Five
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Kids!
Max’s school requires a uniform, but every couple of months they allow the kids to dress in t-shirts if they bring \$1 for a local charity. I think this is a neat idea and so far the school has raised \$1400, but Max has never been able to participate. These casual days have themes and we’ve never had the right shirt. Once the theme was “favorite vacation shirt.” Since the grandparents have stopped going on vacation, we don’t have any for Max. (Brian has Max’s old ones, so he is ready!) Another theme was “favorite sweatshirt.” Which, no. We don’t do sweatshirts. I feel lame that my kid can’t participate in these casual days.\
Brian has had pizza six times this week. Oops.\
Max received his ITBS scores this week. This is a standardized test that compares students to other students of the same grade (nationally, I think). Max got the highest possible score.\
I have been trying to teach Brian to read, which isn’t going well. I am not trying to push him, nor am I worried, and his teachers say he is at least where he should be, but I don’t want to assume he isn’t ready and just ignore the reading. (Wow, that sentence.)\
Max’s school’s website vexes me. I can never find the info I need. Today he has a half-day, woe, but the site doesn’t say what time school gets out. What’s up with that?\
Don’t tell the kids that there is snow in Virginia. They’d be heartbroken that they are missing it.\
Max is on his third backpack of the year. The school requires see-through backpacks, which are either plastic or mesh and they don’t hold up as well. Boo.\
Once a week, Brian has pizza at school for \$2. Sometimes coming up with \$2 in cash is really difficult. Does that make me sound poor? All of the woe!economy media coverage is starting to seep in my brain. Last week I bought mini brie to fancy-up my lunch salads and I was all, “Brie! We can’t afford no stinking brie! Woe.” I bought it anyway. Heh. -
Musings
- A Hershey kiss tastes so much better than a mini Hershey bar.
- Kevin works too much. How do I know? I have been the one to haul the garbage cans to the curb and back.
- Tomorrow is my 11th wedding anniversary!
- I still can’t believe that 1) Arizona made it to the conference championship and 2) that they won. WOW.
- I have been reading way too many trashy historical romance books lately. Better than not reading at all, I guess.
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Going to raspberry the world
Months ago, Kevin and I decided to stop attending the LDS Church over their support of anti-gay rights legislation. This probably doesn’t come as a shock to most of you, but it actually is a really big deal.\
We talked to the kids about this and they understand as best as they can. We are planning to continue to pray when we want, draw inspiration from the Scriptures, abstain from alcohol, disavow divorce, avoid sleeping with hookers, refrain from becoming crack addicts, and basically try to be good people. We told our families and the news was probably met with much disappointment. (My parents aren’t members of the Church but I know they are saddened to hear about our struggles.)\
We have been struggling with this particular issue for years. The Church isn’t going to change its mind regardless of what we think. While the Church has seen numerous changes in the past, its handling of this issue seems different.\
I joined the Church over 15 years ago and expected it to be a lifelong commitment. There have been times when it has been rough and times when it has been great. It is difficult to do everything the Church asks, but it felt like a worthy struggle. Kind of like marriage. Or, the typical idea of marriage where there are fights and happiness and bad times and good times and all that. (Kevin and I aren’t like that though, and marriage has been much better than I ever anticipated, but that is a post for another day). Since my commitment to the Church was supposed to be lifelong… I sort of feel like I am getting divorced. As much as I decry divorce in most cases, there do exist times when it is acceptable and even prudent.\
So, blah.\
I hate the idea of being ex-Mormon. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But, I can’t stand the thought of continuing to attend and support the LDS Church.\
Objectively, I am thankful that the Church got me through my college years. Maybe I just needed it then and “don’t” now. (Though I am not sure it is possible to not need a church, a community.) It helped me make decisions that kept me safe. It gave me many opportunities to grow and lead and learn and teach. It gave me friends who felt like family and family who felt like friends. It gave me purpose and direction in my life at a critical point between adolescence and adulthood. It led me to Kevin.\
I don’t know what this decision means for my future, my marriage, my kids’ futures, and I am honestly worried about it. I don’t know how to teach the kids to abstain from premarital sex and alcohol without the Church to back me up. It’s not that I think either of those two things are inherently EVIL! Just that… there is just so much unnecessary heartache attached to those two activities that I want to protect my kids from.\
So, yeah.\
I can’t imagine going through something like this without Kevin feeling the same way I do. I am not sure how that happened, but I am really grateful for it.\
ETA- Some people/media are choosing to bring up other issues with the Church, since it is a hot topic right now. I don’t like this and don’t want to hear [other] bad things about the Church. -
Ugh
My self-esteem is totally tied to how clean the house is. This relatively new phenomenon started only since I have actually had time to clean the house. But I am the only one who sees a clean house (for about five minutes from 12:40 to 12:45pm Tuesday through Friday). As soon as the kids come home, their shoes, coats, backpacks, lunch boxes, schoolwork, crafts, books, drawings, and toys end up all over the place in mere seconds. Boo. I should go back to having a messy house all of the time and have my self-esteem wrapped up in how my hair looks. Speaking of hair, I realized why big hair is so popular in the South. It’s due to the frizz. They figured since they can’t get the frizz to go away, they would just hide it under big hair!
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TIGF
Brian is lucky that Gypsies no longer come door-to-door looking for bratty children.
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Secret Fantasy Revealed!
Ever since Wil Wheaton (yes, that Wil Wheaton) blogged about being a fan of Ficlets, a site that Kevin helped create, I have been harboring a secret fantasy that someday Kevin and I would be at some geeky, computer conference-thingie and we’d run into Wil Wheaton, who would be all, “Kevin, my good man! Glad to finally meet you. Love Ficlets. We must do dinner tonight!” and then, I would GET TO HAVE DINNER WITH WIL WHEATON. How awesome would that be? []{.Batman! .sentence, .run-on .Holy}\
I met Wil Wheaton once. I was a teenager, living in Tucson. I bet you can guess how I met him. Yep, Star Trek Convention! My best friend, Elizabeth, talked me into going because there was nothing to do on a Saturday if the Wildcats weren’t playing basketball. We ran into a fellow classmate and OMG, how embarrassing was that? Wil talked for a bit and some fans gave him some Dr Pepper (I’ve always known we’d be great dinner companions!) and he told some funny stories. Then it was time for autographs and embarrassing things came out of my mouth. True story. I ended up with a signed, glossy 8×10 of The Next Generation cast though, so. After we each received our autographs (embarrassing things didn’t come out of Elizabeth’s mouth, damn it), we went left to some deserted area of the convention hall to kill time before her mom came to pick us up (that is how young we were!). A little while later, Wil ended up there so we got to chat some more. Thinking we’d wasted enough time in that section of the hall, Elizabeth and I wandered to the left and ended up seeing Wil again. As he went in to and then out of the men’s room. At this point, the conversation was a little awkward, heh. I swear we weren’t following him.\
So, yeah. That is my story. I went to one conference with Kevin, but Wil wasn’t there. I can’t say I was too bummed though BECAUSE I WAS TOO BUSY EXPLORING PARIS.\
Tell me your school-era famous crushes and/or secret fantasies, internet! -
This just in!
The house we are renting as a column in the front. A COLUMN! I think that is a sign that we should buy it. What do you think, Mom?
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Quirk # 82
After telling Kevin that I really enjoyed the first season of HBO’s True Blood but that I doubt I will watch it next season, he exclaimed, “You always do that! It’s like you have one-night stands with tv shows.” Ha! It’s totally true, I do. After the first seasons of Big Love, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, and Eureka, just to name a few, I said the same thing. They were all good, but I couldn’t imagine the show going anywhere interesting. (Most viewers agreed with me about Pushing Daisies, and it was canceled. Sorry, Kev!) After only watching the pilot of Breaking Bad, which made most critics’ Best Of List, I was satisfied enough with the character arc to not even bother with the rest of the season.\
In conclusion, watch HBO’s Generation Kill!\
And How I Met Your Mother\
That is all.