On becoming acquainted with funemployment

For those who don't know, no one at our house has a job at this particular time. We're borrowing a term from the lovely Becca (not me, I really do have a friend named Becca) and calling it funemployment.

Since funemployment began three weeks ago, we've been to Disneyland five times (we bought passes the week before the lay-off went down), saw a wonderful exhibit of Spanish art, visited the graves of Mel Blanc, Estelle Getty, Cecil B. DeMille, Alfalfa, and two of the Ramones, and hosted friends and family. We've had lots of time to spend with our crawling, babbling, adorable Bonnie. Two of the three of us squeezed in doctor visits and procedures before our healthcare coverage ends. We're both spiffing up our resumes and looking for jobs.

And, very importantly, we've been wandering through entire series on Netflix. First, there was Storage Wars. We think this character, Darrel Sheets, looks like my brother plus 10 years and 50 pounds,

which provided endless entertainment. (Okay, not really endless, just a few episodes worth.) It's not just the looks either, every once in a while he'll say or do something that reminds us of Ben and we burst into giggles. 

Next has been Breaking Bad. Several friends have raved about this show. We heard that the first three episodes were grizzly but worth getting through because the series is so good. I have mixed feelings about this one. The show is incredibly well written and acted. The characters are compelling and the story draws you in. However, it is way too violent for my taste. 

Then, I started watching Sister Wives this week. The family in the show isn't a wear-homemade-dresses or marry-teenage-girls kind of family. They come across as a pretty typical Mormon family, except for the polygamy thing. I gotta say, they are very likable and make some pretty convincing arguments. One of the moms stays at home and cares for all of the kids. Another of the moms works full-time, because, they say, you need more than one bread winner with a family their size. She loves her job and doesn't like the housekeeping kind of tasks. It's an awesome life for her. Her children are cared for by family (a mom) and she gets to be happy in her career. One of the other moms feels like this mom is a better mother to her children because she's working. She comes home happy and can spend time with the kids because there's someone else in the home taking care of the day-to-day tasks. I'm not suggesting Blake and I start looking for a sister wife or anything, I'm just saying these people make some good points. I like them.

Wowsers! I did not intend to go on a TV tangent there. Sorry. 

As a result of our funemployment, we have become acquainted with many social programs available to low-income individuals and families. We don't qualify for Medicaid--no big surprise there. We don't qualify for food stamps by $30 per month. That's right, the money we make from unemployment insurance is too much for us to qualify for food stamps. They have a deduction for people who are working. So, if we were making that same amount of money at a job, we would qualify, but because we are making it through unemployment, we don't. We're still waiting to hear about WIC; we have an appointment in about a week. I have to say, in all this I have been very impressed at how quickly representatives from these different agencies have contacted us. Everyone has been so helpful.

We have no idea how long funemployment will last, so we're enjoying what we can while we can and being frugal where we can. It's amazing how quickly we were able to reign in our food spending habits! Today's grocery trip is what I really wanted to blog about. We went to Costco and spent less than $20. Have you ever been to Costco and spent that little? We discovered that going in the late afternoon on a Friday is ideal Costo-ing time. The after work crowd has not yet arrived but the employees to handle the crowd have. That meant plentiful samples and very short lines. The sample people were telling us "take as many as you want" and "go ahead, try one of each." We ate dinner there. And then, we walked right up to a checkstand. No kidding!

Then we did our serious shopping at WinCo. We usually only buy cereal that's on sale, but now we're looking for the absolute cheapest. That means the bagged stuff. I knew about Malt-O-Meal before and have been known to enjoy some Mini Spooners and Marshmallow Mateys in my day. WinCo carries an even cheaper brand called Hospitality. It's like the generic version of Malt-O-Meal. We bought a cereal called Happy Shapes. The names on the generics kill me. Anyone remember me telling them about Panburger Partner? That still makes me laugh.

We bought some ice cream (even the funemployed need treats). Although I was severely tempted by Ben and Jerry's Stephen Colbert Americone Sundae, we went for cheap. I have a serious crush on The Colbert. Anyway, we were deciding between Deluxe brand, which was on sale for $2.28, and Festival brand at it's regular price of $2.18. Blake says, "I don't know. That Deluxe seems like a brand I recognize." Somehow, it doesn't sound that funny right now, but when he said it we both burst into laughter. We were holding on to each other in the aisle we were laughing so hard.

Hm, well, that story kind of tanked, which is really too bad. It's the reason I started this post in the first place. Oh, well, funemployment is calling! Anyone want to come for a visit? Now would be a great time! We have lots of free time, Disney passes, a guest suite complete with air mattress, and a cute, cute baby.

On becoming a mother

I hear (or read) other mothers talk about how becoming a mother changed them profoundly. I hear things like, "my first child came into my world and tore my heart right open" or "I never knew I could love someone as much as I love my child; I didn't know it was possible" or "I thought I knew what love was, and then I became a mother." This has not been my experience.

Let me be clear, I do not doubt the sincerity of those words or question the validity of those experiences. I just don't relate. Sometimes when I read or hear something like this, I pause and wonder what's wrong with me. Am I some cold, uncaring person? Am I harming my child? Do I even love her? Then, the logical part of me comes in and says, no, no, and yes, of course.

I wonder, maybe it's different if you weren't planning on having a child and it surprises you how much you love your child. I think, I have a great mom, my grandma was also wonderful, I have good examples of mothering in my aunts, so maybe becoming a mother just wasn't surprising to me. My clinical brain kicks in, and I think, it's healthy that you've maintained your own identity and not lost yourself in your child. These are thought that roll around my brain.

A conversation I had with a mission companion comes to mind. We were talking about how being a missionary changes some people profoundly, they come home a completely different person than they were when they left, but that this isn't the case with every missionary. I remember Mariah saying that maybe for some of us the changes brought about by missionary service aren't so dramatic because we already had the qualities a mission develops in a person. So, instead of the mission completely changing us, developing totally new qualities, it just expands and deepens what was already there resulting in a less noticeable outward change. I liked that thought. I still like it.

Maybe becoming a mother hasn't been such a dramatic change for me because so much of what it takes to be a mother was already a part of me. Yeah, I'm going to go with that one.

A rare link

I don't often link to other things just because, but this one is worth the read. A little devotional thought for your morning:
http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/09/29/i-pray-you-bear-my-joy-awhile/

On Ragnar

I thought about beefing this post up with pics, but they're all on facebook. So, if you want to see pictures of our Ragnar adventure, you can check them out there.

Now then, the experience was wonderful. Training can be boring, tedious, and challenging. If you're beginners like us, an exciting thing happens partway through training: you hit a personal best every single week. The training schedules are set up to help you gradually increase your distance and time while giving your body adequate time to recover. So you have a long run once per week, usually on Saturday, and some shorter runs during the week for recovery and building up to the next long run. After a certain point in our training, every single week was a new personal best. It was incredibly rewarding and motivating.

A great side benefit to all this training is that I feel great. I'm losing weight (12 pounds since pre-pregnancy weight) and my clothes fit great. Some of my pants are even baggy!

Blake and I both performed better than we expected on race day. I was having some knee and hip pain during my last leg and ended up walking the majority of it. Even then, I pushed myself into a fast walk--not a mere mosey--and finished with a very respectable time. I was so pleased with myself.

Even though we were running a race, it wasn't a super competitive, feel bad if you lose kind of race. The other runners were all so supportive. When I was walking for so long, many many people who passed me said supportive and encouraging things. I think they know that if someone is walking for so long, they've got to be struggling, and offer support. It really was so encouraging to have people rooting and cheering for me. Everyone else is also pushing to accomplish something, to reach a new personal best, and this creates a fun and supportive environment. Who wouldn't want to spend a couple days basking in that positivity? I was the slowest runner on our team but that didn't matter because my performance was my best yet. (My first leg was a personal best in both distance and pace. It was so fulfilling.)

There was another runner on our team, Emily, who is my new idol. She's funny and beautiful and intelligent and so fit. I have a serious school-girl crush on her. Anyway, she's run several Ragnar races before and trains in a CrossFit gym and has incredible stories to tell about all her adventures. I watched her run in awe. She was so fast and is one of those people that makes running look good. After finishing her last leg, she commented that this was a personal best for her: the first Ragnar she'd completed without taking any walk breaks. How cool is that? We're all pushing and achieving new things, even awesome Emily. (I also have school-girl crushes on Lauren and Natalie, but I think I've gushed on and on about Ragnar enough for one day.)

All in all, this was a fabulous experience. I will definitely do another of these races. And, completing this race gave me the extra boost of confidence I needed to sign up for my next challenge. I'm now officially registered to run the TinkerBell Half Marathon in January. I'll be running with team Special Olympics Southern California. I've got a fundraising page if anyone wants to sponsor me and donate to Special Olympics. I haven't personalized it yet, so I'll include a link to that later.

Oh, one more thing, to top off all the wonderfulness of our Ragnar experience, we hear that our little baby-kins was a very good girl with her grandparent babysitters. She seemed to be having a wonderful time with them. We're so glad they came to watch her for us. Knowing she was safe and well cared for allowed us to relax and have a great time.

On being 25

My sister-in-law posted on her blog recently about where she is in life right now. She was talking about how she still feels so young and wants to do fun and exciting things. Her post got me thinking about where I was at 25. (I just reread her post and realized she's 26, but for some reason the age 25 stuck in my head while I was thinking about this. So, I'm going with 25.) It's been a fun little retrospective; thanks for the indirect inspiration, Shelley!

At 25, I was starting my last semester at BYU. I had just barely decided I wanted to go to graduate school and squeezed a prerequisite psych course into my schedule. It was an eye-opening and inspiring class; I still think about it. I was Relief Society president in a student ward and was the oldest woman in the ward by 3 or 4 years. I was teaching beginning Spanish at the MTC.

Dating was fun, which was a revelation to me. Prior to this time I had approached dating with a whole lot of anxiety. I needed the men I dated to love me and breakups were crushing to my self-image. I had a hard time with the ambiguity and uncertainty of dating. Is this relationship going anywhere? Am I good enough? Am I crazy? What if he doesn't love me? What if he rejects me? Approaching relationships with this kind of anxiety leads to exactly that: rejection. Much as I tried to hide it, I'm sure I came across as needy and just a little crazy.

I remember having a sort of revelation in therapy. (Oh, that therapy! I can't speak highly enough about that experience and will be forever grateful to BYU that it was all free.) I had been talking about a man who was pursuing me quite intensely. I was trying to talk myself into liking him. My therapist pointed this out and then asked me if I wanted to date him. The answer was no. Whether this was something I wanted or not had never occurred to me. I could see good things in this man and see how being with me could really help him (I know that sounds terrible conceited, but that's a topic for another day.), but I had never considered whether he was good for me. I realized that the fact that I could find good things in him meant nothing about our [potential] relationship. That's a reflection of me; it's part of who I am. I see good things in everyone. So, if this wasn't about whether I'm good enough, the question became whether he's good for me, whether he's what I want.

This was earth-shattering. It was like I could feel my paradigm shift. Dating now had nothing to do with my worth and was not a reflection of my value. Going on a date (or just getting to know someone, for that matter) wasn't such a big deal anymore. I didn't have to know whether I would marry this person or seriously date this person. It wasn't an interview or try-out or see-if-Becca's-good-enough-session; it was just a date. Dating was fun! I had fun! I could relax and be myself. I was confident and happy and friendly without anxiety and without pressure. Not coincidentally, I dated a lot.

I think I really grew up at 25. I knew and liked myself. I felt satisfied with the person I had become and with all the hard work that had gone into discovering that. I stepped confidently into adulthood. Twenty-five was a good year.

On doing that mom thing

We have a home movie in which my cousin Scott is very small, playing with a toy snake, and singing little songs. Aunt Christine is in the background, silently singing the songs along with Scott. That's the mom thing I'm talking about. I've seen other moms do the same thing.

Bonnie's eating solids now. When we first started on solids she tried to hold the spoon all the time. She and I are finding a good rhythm now where I get the food in her mouth and she doesn't grab the spoon. It's better for everyone. However, I notice myself doing the mom thing. When she leans forward for a bite and opens her little mouth, I open my mouth too. She's not even looking at me, it's not that I'm doing it to try to show her that it's time to open up. I just open my mouth. I can't help it.

Update on Sugar

The no-sugar pre-race experiment was a success. I didn't notice a dramatic difference in how I felt, but cutting sugar out of my diet did make room for me to eat healthier overall. That felt good. It's been a week since the ban ended. I'm still doing well on a low-sugar diet. The experiment did what I wanted it to: shock me out of constant sugar cravings and binges. I'm feeling good.

It also opened my eyes to all the foods that have sugar added to them. Ketchup has a fair amount of sugar. And peanut butter. I bought a small jar to take with us on the race. I had some on a banana today, thought it tasted unusually sweet, and checked the label. Sugar was the second and third ingredient. I expected to find some but second AND third? Wowsers. Checked the label on the organic peanut butter I normally buy. It only has two ingredients: peanuts and salt.

So, I'm reading labels, making better choices, and taking control and responsibility for what I eat. All good.