Yesterday when it was time to get J up and ready for the day I went in to his room to get him up. He had stripped down to just a diaper and was snuggled into a blanket nest that he built in the tent under his bed.
He groggily looked up at me, said "Mine wants be naytid boy. Mine wants fweep," and pulled the covers up over his head.
I blame the fact that when he gets out of the bath I usually say "Hey, naked boy, come over here!" and his tendency to stay awake after he's been settled in bed.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Why I shouldn't read so much
I'm thinking about reading biographies of prominent LDS women....sort of like my "summer of medieval queens," but with Mormon pioneer women.
These women were, for lack of a more academic word, COOL. They did activist things, they wrote, they studied at universities in the East, they were midwives, they anointed and blessed other women (before such a practice became blasphemous and confined to the temple...WHY?! did we move away from that). I mean, seriously. They were cool.
I was looking for a good biography of Zina Huntington. (Well, her full name was Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young....do those last two names tell you something of how her life ran?) I came across her story when I worked in Special Collections at the BYU library....I organized and indexed her brother Oliver's papers, wherein he continually raved about her exceptional healing abilities and her status as the widow of one prophet and wife of another. Anyway. Joseph Smith asked her to become one of his plural wives. She said no and married Henry Jacobs, who had been courting her. Later, Joseph Smith told her he'd seen a vision of a destroying angel, and that polygamy was a divine principle, etc. She was sealed to him. After he died, she was sealed to Brigham Young (still married to Henry, by the way). Eventually Brigham Young told Henry that he needed to leave Zina alone and go get himself a new wife, that she was sealed to Joseph and, because he's Joseph's proxy, Zina and her children were his (Brigham's...even though they were biologically Henry's). Apparently polyandry didn't fly....just polygyny.
ANYWAY. Was investigating for a biography, stumbled on this quote:
“a successful polygamous wife must regard her husband with indifference, and with no other feeling than that of reverence, for love we regard as a false sentiment; a feeling which should have no existence in polygamy.”
This is coming from a woman who said she had a personal testimony of polygamy as an inspired principle. She actively chose her life. She believed it was right. And for all intents and purposes she seemed to thrive in it - did some really amazingly great leadership things. I guess it worked for her. But how SAD is that quote? It breaks my heart....to some extent for her, but really just for the idea.
This idea is why I'm not okay with polygamy. Is it really not okay to want to love and be loved??
These women were, for lack of a more academic word, COOL. They did activist things, they wrote, they studied at universities in the East, they were midwives, they anointed and blessed other women (before such a practice became blasphemous and confined to the temple...WHY?! did we move away from that). I mean, seriously. They were cool.
I was looking for a good biography of Zina Huntington. (Well, her full name was Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young....do those last two names tell you something of how her life ran?) I came across her story when I worked in Special Collections at the BYU library....I organized and indexed her brother Oliver's papers, wherein he continually raved about her exceptional healing abilities and her status as the widow of one prophet and wife of another. Anyway. Joseph Smith asked her to become one of his plural wives. She said no and married Henry Jacobs, who had been courting her. Later, Joseph Smith told her he'd seen a vision of a destroying angel, and that polygamy was a divine principle, etc. She was sealed to him. After he died, she was sealed to Brigham Young (still married to Henry, by the way). Eventually Brigham Young told Henry that he needed to leave Zina alone and go get himself a new wife, that she was sealed to Joseph and, because he's Joseph's proxy, Zina and her children were his (Brigham's...even though they were biologically Henry's). Apparently polyandry didn't fly....just polygyny.
ANYWAY. Was investigating for a biography, stumbled on this quote:
“a successful polygamous wife must regard her husband with indifference, and with no other feeling than that of reverence, for love we regard as a false sentiment; a feeling which should have no existence in polygamy.”
This is coming from a woman who said she had a personal testimony of polygamy as an inspired principle. She actively chose her life. She believed it was right. And for all intents and purposes she seemed to thrive in it - did some really amazingly great leadership things. I guess it worked for her. But how SAD is that quote? It breaks my heart....to some extent for her, but really just for the idea.
This idea is why I'm not okay with polygamy. Is it really not okay to want to love and be loved??
Friday, February 3, 2012
Hills, hills, and some more hills
I ran over to The Hill (tm) today. If I run from my house to the top and back again, it's 3 miles. The hill itself is 1/4 mile of that (well, 1/2 a mile to go down too...anyway, you get the idea, it's a freaking big hill, and steep too).
I started intending to run it 3 times, making an even 4 miles. I ended up running it 7 times.
So I ran 6 miles today in just under an hour. But 3 miles of that was hills.
When I get overwhelmed by various demons that haunt me (usually guilt over the fact that if I'm writing enough I'm not planning/teaching/grading enough, or the other way around, but occasionally just general feelings of depression), the best thing I can possibly do is to run on a hill.
My family (on Dad's side) tends strongly toward bipolar disorder, and there's some history of other mental illness (of course, I blame that on the fact that the woman in question had 5 pregnancies in 6 years, but that's another issue). I've managed to keep my own depression under control with diet and exercise. I'm really grateful that that's been the case.
I can always tell when I'm eating wrong or not running enough, because the demons come back.
For today, they've been banished far, far away.
I started intending to run it 3 times, making an even 4 miles. I ended up running it 7 times.
So I ran 6 miles today in just under an hour. But 3 miles of that was hills.
When I get overwhelmed by various demons that haunt me (usually guilt over the fact that if I'm writing enough I'm not planning/teaching/grading enough, or the other way around, but occasionally just general feelings of depression), the best thing I can possibly do is to run on a hill.
My family (on Dad's side) tends strongly toward bipolar disorder, and there's some history of other mental illness (of course, I blame that on the fact that the woman in question had 5 pregnancies in 6 years, but that's another issue). I've managed to keep my own depression under control with diet and exercise. I'm really grateful that that's been the case.
I can always tell when I'm eating wrong or not running enough, because the demons come back.
For today, they've been banished far, far away.
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