i went home nearly speechless

I cry when I read the news—and not just when I'm pregnant.

I read stories of horrible things people do to one another and I grieve and worry for them. Sometimes, I even let myself get a little pessimistic. I think: the world has always been this way and will continue to be this way until we blow each other up.

But.

Then the people around me snap me out of it and give me a weekend like last Saturday. People like good friends who made a long drive to see me. People like my in-laws' extended family, several of whom I've done a horrible job of staying in touch with. People like the loveliest women in a ward I moved out of two months ago.

They came together to celebrate a baby girl they've never met, to help me prepare for the arrival of a complete stranger—a little person who didn't even exist on this earth until 8 months ago. They brought her truly generous gifts and wished me well in a way that made me think I might actually be able to do this whole motherhood gig.

This world is filled with good and thoughtful people. Welcoming a baby into this crazy world feels hopeful because of the ones I know.

Greener grass

I no longer have a job that allows me to blog. I've missed you guys.

But graduation has its perks. I'm glad I went to BYU, and I miss everyone that I met there, but I'm so happy with our new situation.

I learned my name in Arabic today. It's گرستوفر (Christopher) وييست (West). Is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen? It looks a lot like my actual signature (next time someone makes fun of your sloppy handwriting, tell them it's Arabic).

An Iraqi refugee named Refat is teaching me Arabic. Anyone is invited to come. We meet on Saturdays at 10am. I pay him a little for his time, because he has a wife and daughter to take care of, and because he's a refugee from freaking Iraq. Give me a call if you're interested.

I've also helped an organic farmer start his seeds this week, and I'll be helping brother Rasmussen with his corn crop when the weather gets a little warmer. So I'm on my way to becoming a farmer.

Dirt brownies
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Along those lines, my landlord and neighbor Gregg says I'm a real cowboy now. I had just finished filing my taxes (arrgh) when I looked out the window and saw a cow in the neighbor's yard. This is not very unusual in Draper. Our other neighbor has horses. But this neighbor owns dogs, not cows. I recognized the cow as that of my landlord, and I ran outside and called my landlord up on the phone.

"It looks like the grass is greener on the otherside," I said to his voicemail, "because your cow has escaped."

The fugitives
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Gregg had not answered, so I was on my own. I chased the cow around for a while, and opened up the gate to steer him inside. But after I opened the gate, the other cow also escaped.

I chased them around our yard for about ten minutes. They did not want to go back to their already-chewed and trampled grass, they wanted the fresh green mouthfuls our yard had to offer.

They ran away from me like naughty little kids. They really are full of personality. I finally shooed them inside, and that's how I became a real cowboy.

We still have no idea how the first one got out.

If you're not sure what you're going to do when you graduate, or with your life in general, I welcome you to Draper, where you can chase cows, learn Arabic, and play in the dirt.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Up until now, I feel like we've been pretending a little bit. We went to school and had our not-quite-real jobs. We sent in our pretend tax returns (pretend because we filled them out but were too poor for the government to charge us much). We played house very nicely in a little basement that we filled with too many toys—books, in our case.

But I feel like we're almost grown-ups now: we pay for our own internet (not sure why this seems like a serious step toward adulthood for me), my pregnant tummy's big enough that parenthood feels like a reality, and my husband has a real-live job. Legally, we've been adults for quite some time now; I just took my time adjusting to the change.

And the real-live job? C. now works at a fancy medical lab where he tests medical devices for cytotoxicity and biocompatibility. You'll have to ask him to explain what that means. It's very grown-up of him.

i'm glad my dreams don't often come true

The night before we flew to Texas for my brother's wedding, I had a dream that I went into labor on the plane. We circled above the Houston airport, but the pilot refused to land because my brother had decided to change venues to hold the wedding on the airport runway. We couldn't land the plane because we would interrupt.

Fortunately, my dream and the reality of the trip didn't match up. I think my brain was just trying to make sense of the way our family is changing. I now have a beautiful sister-in-law who's fabulous for my brother. And in 6 weeks or so, we'll meet a beautiful baby girl who will be fabulous for us. Nothing's better than getting new family members you adore—even better if they don't join your family on an airport runway.

the perils of moving: in three parts

One.

Even though our laptops picked up wireless internet in our new place, we shouldn't have used it—not even to tide us over until our bonafide, paid-in-full internet got set up.* We just might have been stealing it from our next-door neighbor, who is also our landlord. And the bandwidth we used for hulu just might have kicked him off the internet on his work computer. Oops.


Two.

You always lose something when you move, right? Since we expertly packed up our undie/sock drawers in a large, black, plastic garbage bag, we wondered for a week or so if the something-we-lost was our underwear, taken out with the trash.


Three.

Fortunately, our undiminished undie supply suggested that we did not throw them out after all; we might have just washed them, so they were super clean. What we DID lose was half our bed, since we failed to protect the box springs we put in storage from a cat who lived nearby and liked to mark his territory. **

We're not too worried, though. We've unpacked most of our boxes, arranged most of our books on shelves, put up some pictures, and we want you all to come visit us very soon.


* Folks, we're getting the internet shortly. Sorry if you've emailed or facebooked and your message has gone unanswered. How am I publishing this blog post, you ask? Um, it's a secret.

** If you know where to find queen-sized box springs for less than a hundred bucks, send info our way. It might sound fun to camp out on a mattress on the floor, but this third trimestered lady might disagree.

january's fault

I've had so much to blog about (graduating, moving, feeling the baby get hiccups for the first time), but so little to say.

I think it might be January's fault. Winter-after-Christmas is tough and ugly. Even this January, when I feel particularly pleased and optimistic about my life, I've noticed that so many people are going through rough times. I know people who are terribly lonely or sick or discouraged or heartbroken.

Knowing all those people, I feel silly saying Yay! Look! My new house is so pretty! And I got to spend the longest Christmas break with my perfect husband! And look what I've made to decorate the baby's nursery!

I get like this sometimes—feeling guilty for being happy amidst sorrow. I think it's counterproductive. Walking around with a mopey face doesn't make the sorrowful feel better. When I'm sad, the best thing my husband can do is hug me and crack a joke.

I wish I could hug the world. I wish I were funny.

Oh, my poor baby girl. If she's half as emotional as her mother, we might have to put her in time-out for melodrama.

A chance for Provoites to eat locally

Our farmers have expanded into the Provo area. They grow their crops in Draper and Sandy.

You can sign up by visiting the Bell Organics web site.

Here's Jill's announcement:

"Hello,
David and I were able to meet with the owner of Pizzeria Seven Twelve in Orem today for lunch and he has agreed to host a CSA pick up for the Utah County area.

We will be adding this location to our program on Wednesdays from 4-6 pm. Their address is 320 South State Street #185, Orem Utah.

If you are not familiar with this locally driven business you can visit their website at www.pizzeria712.com where their blog does a nice job of explaining their vision.
—Jill"

To join the CSA, you pay Jill and David up front, and then you get a new box of vegetables each week once the season begins — from June 14th to October 13th.

David in the garden

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You'll eat more vegetables than you ever have, making yourself and your community healthier.

You can also order local eggs, cheese, fruit, and beef through their website.

They have additional pick-up locations in Draper, Salt Lake, Millcreek, and Park City.

ready for a new list

I don't think I've ever been as excited to make my list of New Year's goals as I am this year. I think my excitement has much to do with the fact that I wrote last year's goals in the front of my planner and then referred back to them nearly once a week during 2009, if I got bored in church. So my goals actually meant something all year long AND kept me entertained in sacrament meeting.

The weekly review kept me on track: here I am at the end of the year with a completed master's thesis, a large number of lit journal rejection slips, and a stack of family history papers completely updated.

Weekly review also helped me revise some goals along the way: in July, after we found out I was pregnant, I had to cross out "lose 25 pounds" and replace it with "have a baby."

In some cases, weekly goal review didn't help me much: turns out, I'm still an inconsistent blogger and a crappy visiting teacher. If you've got any tips on how to get better at either of these, I'm open for suggestions.

Until then, I'm off to finish making my list for 2010. By this time next year, you'll be surprised by how many push-ups I can do.

it's this guy's birthday

I don't even know how to say how happy I am that he was born.

the 12 days of christmas, truncated and backwards (or, some christmas #'s that make us happy):

3. Our third Christmas as the Wests. (Also, our last Christmas before the Wests become a family of 3 and not 2.)

2. The second annual Christmas Eve family variety show.

Instead of drawing names to give presents to cousins, we put together a little talent show on Christmas Eve. I like this new tradition; instead of thinking about what everybody wants and what we have to buy, we get to appreciate who everybody is and what's been important to them in the last year.

This year, we listened to musical performances and written thoughts, saw artwork and fancy cupcakes, watched a yo-yo show, etc. I showed off some needle-felted crafts I made and C. showed off his muscles by doing push-ups.

1. One move, 35 miles up the road.

If you must move, I recommend doing so at Christmas time. We have boxes and boxes of books to open once we finally set up our bookshelves. We like the books we have, so opening them up later will feel like opening presents.

Also, if you must move at Christmas time, I recommend setting up decorations first—before unpacking anything else. Now, if I could only find some socks.