marriage is a papa murphy's pizza

In the 3 weeks that our blog sat dormant, we've had plenty to write about—most importantly, our anniversary. We've been married for 730+ days, which simultaneously seems like no time at all and our whole lives.

Time does weird stuff. I've tried to reflect on the previous year, to bring images and moments together into some sort of conclusive statement about what the 2nd year of marriage is like. But I can only think of rather current moments. Most of them involve food. I don't know if I should go with food as a 2nd-year-of-marriage metaphor or not.

Here are a few happy, recent, marriage-defining moments that stand out in my mind (which should not stand in for a mushier and more endearing post, but will anyway):

• My husband has boosted Papa Murphy's profits this quarter because he buys me their gourmet chicken garlic pizza nearly once a week. He hopes not to maintain this habit. But for now, he values the pizza for its unique property of remaining in my queasy tummy after eating.

• He told me to buy the maternity dress of my dreams, even though it was full price (which I am opposed to) and I haven't started sporting a poochy tummy yet.
  

• When our car was in the shop, he walked to the grocery store to buy milk, which I just HAD to have. And when I insisted on going with him, he stopped to hug me for ages when I cried on the side of the road, because I imagined that our children might like him more and think I was the boring, ugly parent of the pair. What a trip to the store THAT was.
  

Another anniversary from now, some of our most important moments these days (preparing for our last semester of school, hearing our baby's heartbeat at the midwife's office, picking out names, looking for real-person jobs) won't be quite so present, and we'll be on to different projects and seasons of life.

Something tells me that, while the scenery might change and some additional children will pop in for a visit, we'll still do what we always do: read lots of books, work on projects, spend time together. He'll consistently take out the garbage and water the plants. I'll be as erratic as ever with laundry and vacuuming (though I'll continue to claim that keeping up dependably on both are important to me).

And we'll eat. Maybe I'll cook up something better for us than Papa Murphy's.

God smote me today

Last night our car broke down on the Provo exit. We called our amazing neighbor who came and towed our car home with his truck.

When we got home our neighbor found out that I had to get to work by 8 am. He helped me fix my bike so that I could ride it in the next day. He fixed the brakes, the tires, and the handlebars, then he greased the chain and wiped it down. I kept on expecting him to say "That will be $29.99," but he apparently works for saint points.

The next morning I woke up an hour and a half late because my alarm didn't go off (or didn't wake me). I dressed and hopped on the bike, and tucked my pant leg into my sock so it wouldn't get stuck in the bike chain.

it didn't take me quite an hour and a half to get here

I got to work and didn't notice, until I had walked down two hallways, that my pant leg was still tucked into my sock and my fly was down.

So it's been an amazing day.

On the bright side, we found out that our neighbors are still awesome. And I got to ride my bike to work - which I've planned on doing for a while - to get into shape, save on gas, help the environment, and prevent foreign wars.

two thoughts on billions of people

1. HOW does the world contain SO MANY people? The number of people driving around my little city or walking around in the grocery store blows me away. How many women had to throw up for months at a time just to make enough people to populate this single town? And how many of those women volunteered for this process multiple times? That's a lot of barf, people.

2. Why on EARTH does war even exist? If all those women had to barf up their guts and then go through labor and spend years and years putting care and love into little people until those people got big enough to defend themselves, doesn't it seem an immense waste to blow said people up?

If women ruled the world (and in order to become president or queen of any country, a woman was required to bear at least one child), I'm pretty sure we'd get rid of war altogether. The women in charge would know what sort of energy (and endless nausea) their population required to create and bear. And if anyone so much as whispered war from the other side of an ocean, the rest of the presidents would say, "No way, sister. We know what your women went through to make those people. We've been there. We're not about to blow anybody up."

More ta da

This is Christopher, I'd like to add something to Kathy's last post.

The night we found out, Kathy came out of the bathroom and said "I know why I've been acting crazy."

We laughed and celebrated and looked up names in the Oxford English Dictionary, which shows what kind of nerds we are. We've had over a year to think of names, because we've been trying for a while. If we have a girl, we'll name her Ermenie, and if a boy, Truman.

Ermenie is my grandmother's name and etymologically related (in my mind, at least) to Hermes, the god of writing. We'd call her Emmie.

The Greek Hermes is the Egyptian Thoth

Truman was a U.S. president, but we won't name our baby after him because he was a war criminal. Truman has the simple meaning of "true man" but is also next to "trumeau" in the dictionary. Trumeau is "a pillar supporting the middle of the tympanum of a church doorway." This brings to mind the pillars Boaz and Jachin that adorned Solomon's temple.

So it's like naming your kid "The Rock" in nerd-tongue.

If you steal our names, I'll curse you (with cuss words, not voodoo).

I still can't believe it's true, but Kathy throws up a lot to prove it to me.

ta da!

Told you I'd let you know.

From my sis

Yes it's a bit last minute, but I was wondering if any of you would like to write something for my blog for tomorrow. If you don't know, I'm doing the blogathon (http://www.blogathon.org) for RAINN (www.rainn.org) tomorrow. Starting at 6am, I'm updating every 30 minutes for 24 hours. It's to support RAINN and get word out too. See, general society doesn't talk too much about rape and abuse, so men and women who've been raped or abused have trouble talking about it, even reporting it. I'm writing my blog for that reason; to be a voice out there.

If you want, write a little bit about me; how you found out about the rape, how it affected you, etc etc. Or you can write about who I am to you today, or...well, whatever pleases you (look at my blog for examples)! And I do my best to not put any names out except mine for protection and whatnot. If you want names in it, change the names, and the names can be simple (Bob) to outrageous (The Black Lagoon Monster or Whatserface).

It isn't necessary, of course. I'm just asking that if you'd like and have free time tomorrow, write some things and send it to me via this email.

If you don't want to, than I ask that you donate (http://www.blogathon.org/pledge.php?blogid=178 [you have to sign up,but it's quick and worth it!], promote my blog on facebook or through email (http://aixela-twentynothing.blogspot.com/), or donate directly to RAINN through their website.

Thank you thank you and thank you a thousand times over.
--
Thank you,
Alexia Stout

My Sister's Blog

My sister started a blog where she deals with the issues and thoughts she has from her experience of being raped as a child.

Check it out.

Anyone who knows someone who has been abused should recommend them to this blog.

My sister is there to help and comfort other victims, as well as to give an inside perspective to those who have friends or family members dealing with these same issues.

She welcomes feedback.

such endless determination has got to be a superpower

Remember that one time when I waited too long to buy the rug I liked that would match my house? When it went out of stock, I searched online and spent ages on the phone with a pleasant but thoroughly unhelpful young man. Well, I sent my complaint off into the internet and someone decided to do something about it:











Meet my super cousin, who does not give up in the face of discouragement, or even downright rejection—and who whipped out some pretty superhuman perseverance to send me a rug.

She had no idea her power would be so thoroughly tested. The rug was lost twice in transit and reshipped three times. Every time it was, she had to find the same rug in a different store, which led her to call both coasts and everywhere in between. She probably should have told me to forget it—that's what I got for delayed rug-buying. But she didn't. And yesterday, the rug arrived.

Thanks, Laur. Our apartment looks super.

some iPod

My sister is staying with us this week and she's learning how to get used to her brother-in-law's constant teasing. Most of the time, she picks up on the tone in his voice and says, "You're silly!" But sometimes, she doesn't have enough context to know quite how to react.

Like this afternoon. We saw someone carrying a tape player like this:



















Christopher said, "Wow. Look at that guy's iPod." My sister stared without cracking a smile. She'd never seen an iPod quite like that before.

teaching our kids to watch out

While buying pretty board books and egg-cup pin cushions and other local goodies today, a good friend and I talked about how all families are crazy in their own ways, and that we should just try the best we can to pass on what we know without inflicting too much psychological damage on our children. She sent me here for a bloggy example of a mother trying to pass on important advice to her daughter.

I don't have a daughter yet (and, no, internet—this is not an announcement that I will anytime soon), but I can imagine the stress involved in showing your kids how to watch out for things/people/places that will hurt them. Which is part of the reason I like the board book we found:













Seahorses, fish, shells, and boats: all standard characters in an ocean. But urchins are often overlooked—even though they're ubiquitous in the part of the ocean that a baby might become acquainted with.

This page reminds me of the time my husband and I went swimming in a little ocean cove, without realizing that the tide was going out of shallow water. So many urchins had set up camp in that cove that we couldn't just stand up and walk out of the water without cutting up our feet. So we had to make little swimmy breaks for shore when a wave came in. We were so very, dangerously close to those urchins.

When I DO have kids, I want them to know about urchins from the time they chew on their books. You know, so they can watch out.