Friday, February 8, 2013

Snowboarding is not for fat people


Yeah I said it. And I only say it because I know from experience. I took Diana and Katherine to Utah for the first week of the new year because Diana said I could go snowboarding. Apparently making decisions late at night is okay, as long as everyone benefits. For example, when Diana agreed that I could buy a gun because she was reminded about how much she enjoyed shooting one up at the Roses' cabin. Then when she was more awake she backtracked, almost got it past her though. I may just decide to hold her to her sleeply words. Also her sister came home from her mission to the Winter Quarter Trail Center, and we wanted to surprise her. Actually only about 6 people knew we were coming out, Diana's parents, our friends the Roses, Hursts and Wilsons. We knew we wouldn't have much time to see everyone, or transportation to get from place to place so we kept it pretty quiet. Diana's sister wasn't the only one who was surprised. Her two brothers didn't know we were coming, so when Katherine peeked her little head around the basement door to see what they were watching, we got an incredible reaction. They yelled and got so excited that they scared poor Katherine and she started to cry. Great first impression guys. She eventually got to know them better and had a blast with them when they babysat her.

So yeah, ever since Diana and I got married I've been steadily putting on weight. Breaking my foot in the summer of 2010, having surgery on that foot right that Thanksgiving, sitting at a computer typing papers for 6 hours a day, summer school, stress eating, applying for jobs, more eating, complications from foot surgery and sympathy weight from Diana's pregnancy=about 25 pounds. My work is having a Biggest Loser style competition over the next 10 weeks, so I'm going to join up and get a bit more serious about losing the weight and getting back in shape. It was spurned by the realization that my feet were getting harder to touch. I discovered this while snowboarding in Utah. I didn't have my own equipment with me, and the rentals I had meant that I needed to actually sit down and strap my boots in every time I got off a lift. I really think that putting my boots on was the most challenging and exhausting part of my day. I can't tell you how much I miss snowboarding. The freedom I feel as I'm rushing down the mountain, analyzing the turns, speed, other skiers/boarders. It gets to the point where I can take everything around me in, account for it, adjust to it, and not even think about it. At least I used to, when I would snowboard several times a winter. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm on the wrong side of 30 too. This last trip I was just a hot mess. I'm grateful to my friend, Greg Rogers for having the patience to go with me and let me follow him around the mountain.  
It was really depressing to leave this and head back down into the inversion. It was great to head back to Utah to see family and friends, even if we missed several of our closest friends, we thought about you. We will be back eventually and hopefully we'll see more people and spend more time.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Amy's give away

So, I have to share my friend Amy's blog on my blog so I have a shot at winning super awesome ear buds for Diana. She doesn't know I'm doing this, I'm supposed to be doing homework. So here's Amy's blog, but don't go there and enter in her contest because then you'll just shoot down my chances of winning.


 Amy's Blog!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Gonna be a daddy

So I don't know if you noticed, but I did, and I'm doing terrible at blogging. This does not surprise me. Diana and I have been keeping a secret from a great many of you (I suppose that means 2 out of the 3 readers I have). Yep, we are pregnant. I guess it's really just her, but I'm right there with her, rubbing her feet and dishing out sympathy for her constant nausea. I never quite realized what a parasite a kid would be even before they escape the womb. I'm not too great on keeping track of numbers and dates, but I imagine that she's around 13 weeks along. We get the ultrasound to find out what we're having sometime in November and the baby is due around April 7th. I'm holding out for the 16th so it'll be born on my half birthday, but Diana doesn't seem too keen on this idea. I want a son but I'm convinced it'll be a girl, and Diana is convinced it's a boy but wants a daughter. My reasoning for wanting a boy is that I think I can make more mistakes raising a boy and not mess them up emotionally than I could with a girl. Personally I'm terrified about girls. I can deal with a boy if he's like me, but I don't want to have to deal with a daughter and worry about boys like me!  So In hopes of having a boy, here's a great blog that I found that offers great advice, and rules to live by for any guy. I go through it occasionally and find things I should do or remember. 


We didn't tell anyone, minus family and some very close friends till recently. We've decided to start expanding the circle of people who know, prompted by  the fact that Diana's Relief Society President announced the pregnancies of everyone in the ward in their meeting on Sunday, so everyone in church now knows. I couldn't understand Diana's initial hesitation to announce it to the world, but as my good friend Amy said "I just hate hearing everyone's pregnancy horror stories when you tell someone you are pregnant. And then they want to feel your stomach as if pregnancy makes that okay." And sure enough, we didn't make it to sacrament meeting without having several people come up to us and tell us their pregnancy horror stories. We've avoided any stomach touching for now. 


 On the other  hand, I've complied a  huge and surprising list of smells and sounds that will make Diana want to throw up! Her sudden revulsion to a myriad of food means that I get to buy lots of foods that I like that I normally wouldn't buy, like ALL the yogurt that I like but she doesn't. (My life is sad) It's quite liberating, as long as I keep her stocked up on cherry tomatoes and baby carrots. What this means for the future? IF everything works out the way I hope it does, I'll be getting a new full time job either in Utah or out, either one implies moving somewhere else, starting Grad school in January, dealing with a new born of some sort and a freshly un-pregnanted wife. Life is going to be busy. Good, but busy.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

My salsa woes

        I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to remember what types of salsa are hotter than others. I'm not talking about your fancy salsas that don't offer any suggestion about what their temperature is, I'm taking the ones with labels. I have "hot" down, that's the one I'd probably like but nobody else in the house will eat. My issues come from medium and mild. As I type this I realize that medium is the middle, but when I'm at a store, or in line ordering, that part of my brain is taking a walk. Luckily I'm mostly with Diana when I'm faced with those situations, so I just ask her which type I like. I'm sure in her head she's thinking she didn't sign up to marry a guy who would develop a memory disease this early in the game.
 
         I bring this up because today I was grocery shopping and I was craving some salsa. I decided to go for some local brand type stuff, Here's where I got confused: The hot salsa had red lettering and coloring, the mild had yellow and the medium had green. Wouldn't you be confused if you were going off of the description of the bottle? In the back of my head I was thinking I wanted medium, I even had it in my hand for a minute. But then logic took over, "they wouldn't put yellow labeling on the weak stuff and green labeling on the good stuff" I thought. Confident that I had finally gotten it right, I walked out of the store, purchases in hand.

            As I sit here writing this, eating the tamest salsa I've ever had (pretty sure I've had ketchup with  more kick) , I'm trying to burn this experience into my brain so that this will never happen again. But then, if I can't even remember something as simple as this, what else could I get away with forgetting?

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Announcement

Hey all, it's been forever since I've written, and I have all the usual excuses too! School and my brand new wife (well maybe not brand new, slightly used but in like new condition might be a more E-bay appropriate description) keep me busy enough. I'm going to summer school this summer, taking 8 credits of Spanish so I don't have to go to school next spring. We've been taking trips around Utah and enjoying the summer as much as we can. I'm going to try to do better about blogging more frequently, because you know, my life is so interesting! Hope all is well with you, I'll talk to you later. 

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Adding to the fire

Lately there’s been quite a bit of discussion regarding LGBT issues and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of the recent debate has revolved around President Boyd K. Packer’s talk titled “Cleansing the Inner Vessel” http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1298-23,00.html in the latest General Conference. This debate has included several of my best friends, two of which I respect very much, even if they are quite opinionated, which is partly why I love them so much. Their arguments and thoughts are carefully constructed, backed by research and vast stores of public thought and study. This blurb, this string of rough thoughts is not even close to being as well thought out or eloquent as my friends’ arguments, but since this topic has been weighing on my mind lately, I needed to get it out into the open. As I listened to President Packer’s talk, I thought to myself “this could be the beginning of our belief that there would be divisions in the church in the latter days”. I think to some extent this might be true.

Homosexuality is likely the great moral question of our generation. Do we have the attention spans to deal with it properly? We don’t have the Women’s Suffrage movement of the early 1900s, or the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s to deal with. Our dilemma isn’t one of visible gender or the color of one’s skin; it’s a much more internal, personal issue. And being such an intensely personal issue, I find it hard to reconcile or even state my feelings in any coherent way. I realize as I try to address some issues, I’ll gloss over or even completely miss other important topics, so forgive me. Ha! I just realized that I’m likely apologizing to nobody… At any rate, might as well dive in and see if I can’t get something of a decent rant out of this.

The issue of homosexuality has been well documented over thousands of years in humanity and lately it’s been somewhat fashionable to document it in nature. The choice/innate debate has been pretty well run through the mill, so it’s left to the individual to side with the staunch believers that it’s solely a choice (contrary to testimonies from the LGBT community), those who emphatically point to scientific evidence (let’s be honest, who can’t make statistics or “experiments” say what you want them to say) and that nature made them that way (then why don’t we see more human women eating their young?) or fall somewhere in the middle. Personally I believe that there are people who are born with tendencies that lean strongly towards homosexual behavior. These tendencies could be so strong as to easily lead people to believe they have no choice in the matter. The growing lack of personal accountability, the blurring of once clearly defined gender roles and the attitude that if you say something is bad or wrong then you’re a bigot, racist, or discriminatory all facilitates and enables society to accept previously taboo behaviors.

Clearly there are scores of people in the LGBT community, ardent believers in Christ who are deeply affected by traditional church’s stance against LGBT behaviors. Lately I’ve come across myriad stories of LDS teens who are being told that their feelings and desires are matters of choice and an affront to God. These teens fall into despair over the internal conflicts, and some sadly commit suicide. Depression is a subject I’m well acquainted with, and it’s a disease as much as it’s a reaction to situations or circumstances. Prolonged stress, compounded events and other factors make it very easy to think that there isn’t a solution to a given situation. It’s easy to think that there’s only one way out. And it is very tragic that anyone comes to that conclusion, even more so when they act on that conclusion. That being said, I think it’s wrong to blame any religion for sticking with its “guns (probably the wrong term for what I’m about to get into)” and not budging on issues of morality. What’s the point of having a moral code if you’re going to change it every time a special interest group pops its head up and starts calling you old fashioned (no, I can’t account for the LDS church’s shift in policy for allowing blacks to receive the Priesthood other than calling it revelation)? There are appropriate ways to deal with depression as well as thoughts on suicide, and blaming an institution is not one of them. Friends and family left behind will surely feel the weight of responsibility and wondered what they could have done to prevent it, but the truth is, a determined suicidal person, though there are signs, is hard to foresee and even harder to prevent. It’s said that most suicidal people do not want to die; they lack sufficient coping skills to help them deal with their problems.

In hearing some factions claims that the LDS church is hate-mongering, which is a rather chic thing to do in the era of the 30 second sound bite, they might do well in actually reading President Packer’s talk, posted above, or they can read this comment from Elder Holland quoted in an Op-ed. “Elder Holland spoke about other church leaders: "I'm reminded of a comment President Boyd K. Packer made in speaking to those with same-gender attraction. 'We do not reject you,' he said. '… We cannot reject you, for you are the sons and daughters of God. We will not reject you, because we love you..’” http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700072199/A-call-for-civility-following-Mormon-Apostle-Boyd-K-Packers-address.html?pg=2

I’m reminded of the incident in the book of John Chapter 8 v 1-11. Heck, I’ll even post it here.

Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

I think the key verse here is the last, verse 11. Obviously this woman was caught doing something morally wrong, Christ knew it was wrong, the woman knew she was wrong, but He did not condemn her. He didn’t forgive her at that moment, but he told her to go, and sin no more. I think the right thing to do in this life is the oft repeated “hate the sin but not the sinner” mantra. True it’s hard to separate the two sometimes, heaven knows I’ve had my issues doing that, but it takes work, effort and time. That’s pretty much the LDS church’s official position. Individual members may struggle to adhere to that in one way or another, but if all members of every group adhered to that group’s official positions, the world would be a bit less complex.

Who decides what is morally right or wrong in society by the way? The majority does, they have say over the norms, values and mores that dictate the way we perceive things. Who am I to judge someone or a particular issue? I’ve wrestled with that question quite a bit, but I’ve come to the decision that I HAVE to make a judgment on issues if I agree or disagree with them. Thankfully we live in America everyone is lucky enough to not get beheaded or have relatives disappear for having a dissident opinion; we get to have different views. I’m not offended when people campaign for access to privileges that I have, but I hope people have enough respect for me to not be offended when I campaign against them if I disagree with them.

After Christ fed the five thousand, He taught some doctrine which was hard for some of his followers to accept. John:6:60, Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? What President Packer said was very unpopular in many circles, and it certainly was against the beliefs of many in the LGTB community. If someone told you that a trait you had was innate and unchangeable, that you were beautiful and wonderful because of it, while the rest of the world looked down on that trait and said that it was something which, though the road would be long, hard and painful could be changed, which do you think you’d choose?

I believe that homosexuality is immoral. I believe it is wrong. I stand with the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think that the term “family” pertains to a man and a woman. I believe the saying “Rome was not conquered by an outside foe—it fell from within”, speaking to Rome’s embracing of homosexuality, pedophilias and other vices will hold true to our society. I think the more we stray from traditional values, the less guidance and direction we as a country will have. I’m not saying guidance and direction as in divine aid, I’m saying from a moral standpoint. I do want to make clear that I feel deeply for the loss of anyone affected by suicide, regardless of the cause. I know that there are many issues implicit in my thoughts which I have barely brushed or haven’t even addressed at all. There are still issues out there which I’m still sorting through my thoughts and emotions such as “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military. I think the biggest conflict in all this for me is that my absolute best friend in the world is gay, and I know that some of what I’ve written here goes against what he believes. I’m conflicted in wanting him to be happy and in standing up for what I believe in. I love and respect him.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Planning for the future...

I've decided that I'm going to be a hypocrite when I have kids. I'm going to tell them they can't quit something just because they're not good at it or they don't like it, even though I'm planning on doing just that with my Math class. As soon as I finish up this Math class and pass the following one, I'm going to do my best to forget any and all Math that I've learned in the past year. My kids however, will be subject to completing all their classes and anything else I deem "character building".
Also, last night D and I had a discussion about our future and what we wanted most. I said I wanted an inside dog and D talked about if we'd have a boy or a girl first... We went to bed last night and I had a dream about a fluffy little puppy, and D dreamed about a blond haired, brown eyed girl... I think we'll get a dog, and something tells me that D will get her little girl, just not now.