Ten on Tuesday

1- I'm going back to work at the library! The newly rebuilt East Millcreek Library, to be exact. I've enjoyed being able to only work on a very part-time basis the last two years, but I need insurance. I am excited to help put a library together and get it open. Also, this is the library I grew up going to, so it's sort of special to me in that really cheesy way. I just hope my joints comply with the physical labor aspect of the job.

2- On a related note, I started Weight Watchers online two days after I found out about the job. I gained back all I lost after having Brayden and currently weigh more than when I had him. I should have started after that flare-up last summer, but at least I'm starting now.

3- I just got some Raspberry Hugs from the Valentine's candy section. So good! I know this doesn't fit with starting Weight Watchers, but I promise I am eating them within my points.

4- I chose The Fellowship of the Ring for my book club choice this month. I've always felt like the only English Lit major/graduate that has never read LOTR. I am enjoying it, but I'm glad I saw the movies first. I don't know that I'll get around to reading the next two, though.

5- Brayden and I painted this canvas for my Dad's birthday this week. I got the idea from Pinterest of course. Here's the original tutorial. I'm definitely repeating this project. I love the quote she did, and the idea she had to do it with the alphabet.

6- My boy is dealing with some growing pains. He's been waking up at night crying that his legs hurt. Poor little guy! Adam thought it was that he kept getting "charlie horses," but I'm pretty sure it's growing pains.

7- Brayden is catching balls now, at least 30% of the time. The other night, he put a bucket upside down on the ground and stood on top of it. Then he threw a football back and forth with my Dad. At Gymboree last week, he walked across a balance beam without our help. That kid has better balance than I do! I'd probably fail one of those walking sobriety tests.

8- He may be advanced in gross motor skills, but his fine motor skills are lagging behind. He can't peel stickers off the page yet without me getting it started for him. It's so interesting how kids develop and how they often fall behind in one skill set when they're advanced in another.

9- We had tile put down in our bathroom a week or so ago, and it looks great. The toilet, on the other hand, has been a pain in the butt (ignore the silly pun) ever since. I don't know what Adam did wrong, but the current problem (there has been a few) is that he can't get a certain screw out that has corroded, even after buying stronger drill bits at Home Depot. I don't think Adam and I could ever buy a "fixer-upper." We're just too clueless about home repairs.

10- Advice needed: We've got a long-distance company billing us $5 a month through CenturyLink. It started about 6 months ago, when Qwest switched to CenturyLink. This company called us asking us if we wanted long distance. Adam, knowing about the company being bought out, though it was the new company. The first month, we called to cancel. We have had to call every month since! The customer service agents are always good about issuing us the refund, but then the charge shows up the next month. CenturyLink has told us they can't do anything, which I think is screwed up since this other company is billing us through CenturyLink. They promised us when we called last week that it wouldn't be on next month's bill, but they've told us that every month. What else can we do to get this to go away once and for all???



Faith and politics, continued

I love public radio. I often hop in the car just in time to hear at least part of a really interesting program. Just over a week ago, we had to run to Home Depot (we've unfortunately had to go there 5+ times over the last few weeks). RadioWest was on broadcasting a panel on politics and religion in Utah.

Being the mom of an active toddler, it took me until yesterday to listen to the whole hour. They discussed exactly what I speculated about back in November. I was right in that Church members used to vary more in their political beliefs before the era of Roe v. Wade.

All four panelists are LDS- two Democrats and two Republicans. I definitely recommend listening to it, but here a a few tidbits that I just can't resist discussing further. Most of these are just paraphrases of what they said.

Neither is perfect. Maybe the answer is that LDS people aught to be fierce moderates.
-Quinn Monson

While I'm pretty sure I lean firmly to the left, I honestly think that a church of mostly moderates would be a very good thing. I definitely do not like the favor the tea party seems to be receiving here.

I'm so grateful for good Democrats in the church. I think the church's missionary effort is enhanced by the church being perceived as a big tent, which it is. I'm glad that my Democrat colleagues didn't get the memo on agency (chuckling), that they didn't read the scripture about the idea that we are to act and not be acted upon. In their bleeding heart liberalism, they want to take care of people rather than enabling people to suffer the consequences of their actions.
-Howard Stephenson

Seriously? He's happy there are LDS Democrats only because it's good for the missionary effort? And then he follows that with a back-handed insult?

You can't read the BoM without getting pounded about the equality of everything. The book is unambiguous about our responsibility to the poor.
- BYU business school faculty member Kim Smith

If this was really said by a BYU faculty member, I love it! Someone quoted him/her, though, so I can't be 100% sure of its truthfulness.

It is a myth that we get to sit on our rear ends for 30 years at the end of our life. God intended us to work by the sweat of our brows til the end of our days. We are not entitled to let someone else's work help us.
-Holly Richardson

I just can't believe she said this. "Working" by going on a couples mission or two doesn't equate to working until the day you die in order to survive. And seriously, she thinks no one else's work has helped her? She's a former lawmaker who is now a political blogger and a campaign manager, so she owes major gratitude to the women before her that helped make her dreams to be involved in politics possible.

We are the church of Jesus Christ. We minister to all people. That's a profound statement to me.
-Carol Spackman Moss on the church's reaction to the immigration raid in Logan

Yes!

It doesn't have to be socialism or no government.
-Ben McAdams

Yes!

I'd have real struggles with someone being worthy and believing in choice.
-Holly Richardson

After this, someone brought up the idea of being against something personally but not against it by policy. I wish she could understand that.

I got the feeling that what I hoped wasn't the case in that other post is the case, at least for the two Republicans they chose for the panel. Social welfare programs are a deciding factor in their Republican beliefs, the same as abortion and gay rights. Disappointing.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I went to an amazing church service yesterday honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The music, the sermon, everything. The choir and congregation sang a rousing rendition, complete with clapping and dancing, of the South African hymn "Siyahamba."

They ended the service with a duo singing a union song I'd never heard called "Which Side Are You On?" The lyrics can be found here. We also sang "This Land Is Your Land," which was suprisingly moving in this setting.

The reading in the sermon was an excerpt from the letter he wrote from the Birmingham Jail, which can be found here As I become more in tune with the idea of social justice, this letter becomes just as important as his "I have a dream" speech. Here's one of my favorite parts of the letter:

"You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to obey the1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong."

The minister's sermon expounded on this quote:

"I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country."

As I drove home, I was just so caught up. It was such a different experience to me. I've never heard Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned in a church setting. When I got home, I posted on Facebook and Twitter asking other people about their church experience and if he was mentioned. The closing prayer in a LDS service in Oakland gave thanks for the equality in our country and the people who made it possible, specifically citing the holiday. He was mentioned in someone's testimony in a ward that had their F&T meeting yesterday. He was mentioned multiple times in a meeting in Atlanta. A friend here in SL said he was mentioed during her Catholic mass, and someone attending a Protestant service said he was a big part of their service. A few people let me know that yesterday's Music and the Spoken Word was about him in large part. As soon as I could figure out how to watch it online, I did. It was wonderful. The choir sang some African American hymns. I especially enjoyed "Rock-a My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham."

The Music and the Spoken Word program can be watched here after you sign up for a free account. I urge you to watch it with your children. Brayden and I watched it last night. Today, we'll be watching videos of his sppeches on Youtube and I'll be reading Brayden some picture books we have about him.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

2011 book meme

I got this idea from Good Girl Gone Redneck.

Using only titles of books that you read this year (2011), complete the prompts below. Try not to repeat any book titles. Think creatively and have fun!

Describe yourself: This Girl Is Different by J.J. Johnson

How do you feel: Arms Wide Open by Patricia Harman

Describe where you currently live: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now by Claire LaZebnick

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker (not the dance, but the city)

Your favorite form of transportation: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (I wish!)

Your best friend is: The First Husband by Laura Dave

You and your friends are: A Family of Readers by Roger Sutton

What's the weather like: Something Blue by Emily Giffin (Very nice, blue sky; unseasonably warm for July)

What is life to you: Life From Scratch by Melissa Ford

Favorite time of day: The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma and
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (I had to chose two- one for the time I read with Brayden, and one for my personal reading time.)

Your fear: Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir by Sonya Huber

What is the best advice you have to give: What Mothers Do:Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen

Thought for the day: The Future of Us by Jay Asher (lots of decisions to make in my little family)

How I would like to die: Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon

My soul's present condition: The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

2.5

My little boy is two and a half today. It's hard to believe he's that old even though it feels like he's been in my life forever. I know that last statement in contradictory, but it's true.

Brayden brings me so much joy. I'm grateful EVERY single day that he is my child.

At two and a half, Brayden is fun and challenging at the same time. Example: His newest sentence is "Mama, I'm talking for you" whenever he wants to tell me something and he feels I'm not listening (often interrupting me when I'm talking to Adam or on the phone). His little grammatical mistake really makes me laugh.

Another new thing is that he wants us to have a family hug when Adam goes to work. We pick him up and hug, and he just smiles the whole time. I taught him his full name a few weeks ago, and the way he says it is so cute! He says Brayden with the correct pronounciation, since he's been saying that for a long time, but he says Michael Bishop like "Mikal Dishop." Or at least that's how it sounds to me. :)

We recently had his cousin Jack sleep over, who he loves and adores. Seriously- to the extent that he takes it worse when I discipline Jack than when I discipline him. I had Jack go into another room to cool down, and it just got Brayden so upset! They fight, like all kids do, but Jackson said over and over again "We're best friends, Brayden." I'm so glad he's got a cousin he's really close to.

He's really getting into Playdough now after getting a bunch of it for Christmas. He also got a marble run that he loves! Adam loves it too, and wants to get another set to make it even cooler. We're taking classes at Gymboree for the next month or so (at least) thanks to a gift from his great-grandparents, and he really loves that. He also loves coloring, painting, helping me stir when I'm baking, singing (especially now that we got some instruments for Christmas), counting, and reading.

2011 pop culture favorites

Books
When She Woke by Hilary Jordan
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Autobiography of an Execution by David R. Dow
Bossypants by Tina Fey
What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen

Movies
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Midnight in Paris
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Bridesmaids
Crazy, Stupid, Love

Musical performers
Mumford and Sons
Adele
Jack Johnson

Television
Modern Family
Portlandia
Parks & Rec
Community
Parenthood

December highlights

-Winning $30 in iTunes gift cards at a family Christmas party
-ZooLights

-Baby Emmaline was born earlier this month! Her parents are friends of mine that have waited for this day for a long time and I couldn't be happier for them.

-Indie Christmas station on Pandora

-Elf on the Shelf- I only did it for fun, not for the whole behavior thing, but I'm still not sure if I'll do it again next year. I forgot to move him around more than I remembered, but Brayden loved it anyways.

-This year was the first year Brayden "got" Christmas at all and I loved seeing his excitement.

-Lots of books as presents (which makes me a little worried about my goal to read all the books I own by the time I turn 30!)