I really enjoy going to conferences, for a lot of reasons. This weekend I attended the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities conference. This year they held it at Utah Valley University (which when I was out there was still UVSC). It was a great conference, I really enjoyed the keynote speaker. My favorite part had to be the music we heard...Marvin and Sam Payne I think were their names. Excellent stuff. A close second would have to have been Todd Mack's paper - he talked about things that I worry about, how students don't engage with literature anymore and how that's dangerous, and what we can do about it.
Conferences also always get me riled up over one thing or another....this time it was this guy who was DETERMINED that our reason for being here was to "uncover" aspects of ourselves that we already had in the premortal life. Yeah, because that's not essentialist or deterministic at ALL. I was frustrated enough to ask a question in the Q&A session, wondering if we already had these characteristics what the POINT of this life was, and why God would put us through it, but he answered the question he wanted to hear, not the question I asked.
My favorite thing, though, was that I got to see friends...Dale and Valerie let me stay with them. This morning before I left Joseph informed me that I was an honorary family member. I don't think he knows how much that means to me....I love their family. And it was the first time since we graduated that Todd, Jared, AL, Steve, Vanessa and I all saw each other, at the same time, in the same place. SO MUCH FUN! And I dropped by the BYU Bookstore to try to track down my old boss, and ended up getting to chat with him for a while.
We also ate excellent food....Tucano's, which I miss a WHOLE LOT, a Mexican place in Orem that I don't remember the name of, In-n-Out, and Malawi's pizza (Dale's idea, totally AWESOME). Yummy, lovely, and I didn't have to cook it, clean it, or wrangle kids during it.
Which brings me to the point of the post - going to a conference always makes me realize how much I love my kids. I have fun, enjoy good food and company, learn a lot, rest and become a more stable human being again....and then I go home. I love my kids so much, and I miss Ben like crazy when I'm away. It's nice, helps me remember where the really valuable things in my life are.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
50K?
And I'm not talking dollars.
I'm seriously considering doing a 50K at the end of April. I'm intimidated by a couple of things, though.
1) The longest I've run since December is 8 miles.
2) The most miles I've logged in a week since December is 20.
3) Only about 30 people run in this race. Which means that it will be noticeable if I don't finish.
Add to these things that I should probably be writing my dissertation and will go to a conference before the race, and I really shouldn't.
But I WANT to! And to prove it I ran five miles in under 45 minutes today. WAHOO!
I guess we'll see.
I'm seriously considering doing a 50K at the end of April. I'm intimidated by a couple of things, though.
1) The longest I've run since December is 8 miles.
2) The most miles I've logged in a week since December is 20.
3) Only about 30 people run in this race. Which means that it will be noticeable if I don't finish.
Add to these things that I should probably be writing my dissertation and will go to a conference before the race, and I really shouldn't.
But I WANT to! And to prove it I ran five miles in under 45 minutes today. WAHOO!
I guess we'll see.
Friday, March 11, 2011
NEW HOUSE!
Finally. After all the bank-induced drama (they put the house on the market before they had a clear title, so we had to wait, and had no idea how long it would take), we're IN.
We've had a lot of fun settling things, though I have to say that moving the kitchen stuff around fifty times gets annoying....I just want it to be exactly the way that feels right! Which takes some tweaking. The kids are still getting used to having their own rooms. Mollie is doing GREAT about staying in "her" part of the house. We can even take the gate down for a few minutes. And I love, love, LOVE having a bathroom to ourselves (if you have ever lived with children, you understand this). And my kitchen, where I could get lost. And my upstairs laundry room....no more carrying laundry up and down the stairs (because, of course, I don't have anything better to do).
I feel a little bit guilty because of my American-ness...this house is really much bigger than we need to be satisfied...I always pictured a smaller house on more land, and here we are in a biggish house on a subdivision (here read: TINY) lot. Oh well. We're happy, and it's good.
So, here's the good stuff.
J's room, he's still getting used to sleeping alone, though he's doing GREAT. And yes, that is a piece of PVC pipe on his blankie. Other kids use a teddy bear, mine uses PVC pipe. Oh well.
Bee's room (you can't see the tulips that T brought for her dresser...they match the walls).
Laundry room....yes, it's sideways, but you get the idea and I'm too lazy to fix it right now. :-)
Our room. Ben picked the furniture, I like it a lot. It's not so blocky as to be totally masculine, but I don't think it's feminine at ALL. Good balance.
"Office." Right now it's just the 20+ boxes of books that need shelves. And I need a desk. But. We're buying things as we can afford them. Not before. It's hard to be patient, but sure makes life less of a crisis. :-)
Living room, as seen from the top of the stairs (yes, there is a vaulted ceiling. And yes, I'm afraid for J's life most of most days, since there's a half wall in the office that overlooks said vaulted space).
Dining room. And yes, my table (from Restoration Hardware, thanks for the tip AL!!) looks lonely with no chairs. Again, baby steps. We're going to look at some second-hand ones tonight (or maybe tomorrow).
KITCHEN! We bought the fridge of my dreams. Well, if you know me at all, you know that I don't dream about fridges or the like. But I do like it a whole lot. And J has two cabinets all to himself....he climbs into them and Bee shuts the door, which they both think is hilarious. And I didn't notice that Mollie was sitting there on the pillow until just now. She likes her spot.
Family room. Still pretty empty, but with the kids wanting to run around and Mollie chewing everything, it makes life easier. :-)
So, you can see we still need some things...curtains, touch up paint, chairs....but we're really happy here. I've never had nice things like this, and the living in poverty to save for this has been completely worth it. It's a huge blessing.
We've had a lot of fun settling things, though I have to say that moving the kitchen stuff around fifty times gets annoying....I just want it to be exactly the way that feels right! Which takes some tweaking. The kids are still getting used to having their own rooms. Mollie is doing GREAT about staying in "her" part of the house. We can even take the gate down for a few minutes. And I love, love, LOVE having a bathroom to ourselves (if you have ever lived with children, you understand this). And my kitchen, where I could get lost. And my upstairs laundry room....no more carrying laundry up and down the stairs (because, of course, I don't have anything better to do).
I feel a little bit guilty because of my American-ness...this house is really much bigger than we need to be satisfied...I always pictured a smaller house on more land, and here we are in a biggish house on a subdivision (here read: TINY) lot. Oh well. We're happy, and it's good.
So, here's the good stuff.
J's room, he's still getting used to sleeping alone, though he's doing GREAT. And yes, that is a piece of PVC pipe on his blankie. Other kids use a teddy bear, mine uses PVC pipe. Oh well.
Bee's room (you can't see the tulips that T brought for her dresser...they match the walls).
Laundry room....yes, it's sideways, but you get the idea and I'm too lazy to fix it right now. :-)
Our room. Ben picked the furniture, I like it a lot. It's not so blocky as to be totally masculine, but I don't think it's feminine at ALL. Good balance.
"Office." Right now it's just the 20+ boxes of books that need shelves. And I need a desk. But. We're buying things as we can afford them. Not before. It's hard to be patient, but sure makes life less of a crisis. :-)
Living room, as seen from the top of the stairs (yes, there is a vaulted ceiling. And yes, I'm afraid for J's life most of most days, since there's a half wall in the office that overlooks said vaulted space).
Dining room. And yes, my table (from Restoration Hardware, thanks for the tip AL!!) looks lonely with no chairs. Again, baby steps. We're going to look at some second-hand ones tonight (or maybe tomorrow).
KITCHEN! We bought the fridge of my dreams. Well, if you know me at all, you know that I don't dream about fridges or the like. But I do like it a whole lot. And J has two cabinets all to himself....he climbs into them and Bee shuts the door, which they both think is hilarious. And I didn't notice that Mollie was sitting there on the pillow until just now. She likes her spot.
Family room. Still pretty empty, but with the kids wanting to run around and Mollie chewing everything, it makes life easier. :-)
So, you can see we still need some things...curtains, touch up paint, chairs....but we're really happy here. I've never had nice things like this, and the living in poverty to save for this has been completely worth it. It's a huge blessing.
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