November 26th

Today I'm thankful for overcoming a personal pet peeve.

So, in Mormondom, there's this cultural thing where women are set up as "moral beacons" who are naturally, by virtue of their ovaries, filled with an innate goodness. Meanwhile men, by virtue of their Y chromosome, are inherently base.

This cultural thing has existed since the foundation of the church, when it was not just a Mormon idea, but a world-wide trend.

Even today, in secular society, we see traces of it. If a woman sleeps with 10 men in a single month, she is a ho. If a man sleeps with 10 women in a single month, he is a playa.

Now, personally, I don't subscribe to this theory that your inherent goodness is based on your chromosomes. Consequently, it has always bothered me when we have "you women are so special - it is your divine duty to be a moral beacon to the world because you are so inherently good because you're women, and men will never understand what it's like to be this good, and you were born closer to the Celestial Kingdom than men"  lessons in church.

I've even heard some special cupcakes go so far as to say that that is why more boys die as babies than girls - because babies who die go straight to heaven, so in order to have an even gender count in heaven, they need more men to die when they're still babies.

**facepalm**

Yeah... the attitude is a problem.

So, we'll have these lessons, where we're told it's our sacred duty to be moral beacons to the world, because we are women. This concept has always bothered me. Why is it our duty? Why don't the men have that same duty? We're not inherently better than them, no matter what the insecure teacher is saying, so why do they keep teaching that we're held to such a higher standard?

Today, while flipping through conference talks to prep for a visiting teaching message, I had an epiphany.

Alright, so yes. Men have the same duty - it's just taught a little differently to them. It's not "you have this duty because you are male," it's "you have this duty because you are a disciple of Christ." Encouraging and standing up for morality has and always will be a fundamental principle of Christianity.

But the thing is... as women... because of this totally unfair double standard, we have an extra tool. No matter how women got there - be it innate qualities or socially engineered inequality - the simple fact of the matter is that women have a stronger voice for morality. We need to use it, simply because it's there, and it's available for our use.

It's not about whose job it is, and it's not an excuse for men to be less than women, or a promise that women will always be held to a higher standard than men. It's a tool to be used in a very good cause. So, [to me:] stop complaining about the double standard and do the job using the tools you have. It's everybody's job, and you don't get points for worrying about the fairness of it all and who has to do more of what. You get points for how well you get the job done.


So, today I'm thankful for that epiphany. And, as an overarching theme, I'm thankful for epiphanies in general, and the ability to be instructed and learn things about life and truth.

PS: Oh, and as a side note, I've recently realized worrying about gender equality is petty. Very petty. If I need an injustice to worry about, I can focus on child abuse or human trafficking.

November 25th

Today I'm thankful that it's Carl's last day of classes before the holiday. He needs the break, and I'm more than excited for him to have the break.

Also, he'll be home more, and I can see him more.

And that is awesome. :)

November 24th

Today I'm thankful I teach the 4 year olds at church.

I know I complain about the lessons a lot - and I haven't found much about trying to grill a boring lesson into 4 year old minds to be thankful for, but I really love working with those kids.

Today was super chill. We talked about Thanksgiving and I drew on the chalkboard, and then we made "Thankful" books. After that we played with toys and stapled paper in random places just for the fun of it. This is the kind of day I love, where we're just playing and enjoying it. The kids are adorable, and are always begging, "Can we go to class now???" It makes me feel like a success, even if they don't retain squat of the lessons. We're having fun, and enjoying church. If I can make the kids excited to come to church, then I feel like I've done the job I'm supposed to do.

November 23rd

Today I am very thankful that there is a 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and that the episode commemorating it involves David Tennant.

I haven't seen it yet.

But I'm grateful that my future involves this fact.

November 22nd

Today I'm thankful that at work we occasionally have "Farmer's Markets."

No, we're not actually selling anything. It's a cooking competition.

Which means, all I have to do is show up, and I get samples of 25 attempts to sign the Skillet of Glory, and have it sit on the winner's desk until the next event. Basically, their competition is my breakfast.

And yes, I also get a chance to show off my Strawberry-Citrus Potion of Jubilation.

November 21st

I am thankful for fire.

I am also thankful for wood stoves that contain the smoke from said fire. Now, that said, open fire places are quite nice, look beautiful, and create a nice ambiance when one is dipping strawberries in chocolate fondu. However, when the fire is first being lit, an open fireplace is apparently incapable of containing all of the smoke it first puts off.

In other news, we need a new smoke detector.

November 20th

Today I am incredibly thankful that I have another apocalypse to look forward to!!!

I just found out that apparently Heimdall blew his trumpet, signifying 100 days until the Ragnarok!

Okay, having survived the December 2012 Mayan apocalypse, the May 2011 rapture, and the Y2K incident of 2000, I am pretty dang excited to see what this next apocalypse brings.

And I shall celebrate by acting out the Ragnarok with Norse action figures and a camera. You'd better believe I will.

Oh... and another thing for which I am thankful, when I asked my husband if we could throw a Ragnarok party, this was his response:

Heimdall finally blew the Gjallarhorn?!? Sweet! I was getting tired of waiting for that. I guess that means that Loki must have murdered Balder and rallied the frost giants already. The Valkarie must be arming their gathered warriors. Nidhog is almost done chewing through the roots of the world tree Yggdrasil. Fenrir is about to burst free of his chains. Jormungandr is going to rise from the sea. The universe is going to be utterly destroyed!!!

Then we're going to have a new world built by the two remaining Norse gods.

You bet we're going to have a party!

November 19th

Today I'm thankful that Wal-Mart, famous for their quality-as-low-as-their-price business approach, managed to produce a single item that is higher quality than I have ever found anywhere else.

And what is this item?

Fruit Smiles!!!

Seriously... I love Fruit Smiles. Of all the fruit snacks I have ever encountered, these are my absolute favorites.

Novmeber 18th

Today I'm thankful for leftover Italian Breaded Chicken, and mashed potatoes. Leftovers are the best. All that deliciousness, no effort!

November 17th

Today I'm thankful for dates.

Since meeting Carl, I have gone on more dates than in my entire college career. We don't date as much as married people as we did as courting and engaged people, but we still go out fairly often.

And you know what? It's really nice. We have fun. We talk and goof off. We do cool stuff.

You know that whole love languages thing? Quality time is at the absolute top of my ways of expressing and receiving love. It's pretty high up on Carl's too, so we're lucky to have that in common. I'm thankful for that too.

November 16th

Today I'm immensely thankful that the second Thor movie was not half as stuffy as the first one.

Seriously.

So, last night Carl and I watched Thor in preparation for seeing the sequel today. I didn't remember it being so... clenched-butt-cheeks. I remembered thinking Thor's character was hysterical, but when I watched the movie, he was just... taking himself way too seriously.

That said, I did get a solid laugh over the fact that Thor and Odin's most effective way of communication was to roar at each other.

Still, I wondered why I had liked Thor (the character) so much. And then I realized it was The Avengers. Seeing Thor contrasted with Tony Stark, who doesn't take anything seriously, and having his over-stuffy character used to add humor to the movie, made him awesome.

And I think the script writers figured that out for Thor II.

First of all, they kept the contrast between the stuffy Asgardian culture and the informal American culture, and used it to their own advantage.

Second, the movie didn't take itself too seriously. The fact that I spent the epic fight at the end laughing my head off is proof of that.

So, yes. This movie was leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. I thoroughly enjoyed it. :)

November 15th

I know it seems cliché to say this on a Friday, but I really am grateful for the concept of a weekend, and having 2 days to recoup from the week.

I'm not even that busy of a person, but somehow I manage to fall behind in chores and life, and I really just need a day I can devote to fixing that.

Sometimes, that day is devoted to hanging out and having fun, but this time, it's catching up from being sick for 3 weeks, and not accomplishing anything during that time. So, yes. Today I am very grateful for the impending weekend.

November 14th

Today I am grateful for ailments that can be cured with chocolate.

Every now and then, I will be hit with an overwhelming surge of grumpiness. If left untreated, this grumpiness will develop into irrational and slightly homicidal anger, where my happiest fantasy is all about slamming on my breaks in front of the jerk that's tailgating me for my heinous offense of actually going the speed limit, and making his insurance pay me lots of money. Oh, and I can insist I have whiplash and sue him too.

Fortunately, it rarely gets that far.

Why?

Chocolate!

And very, very rarely I will have a case of inexplicable, aching sadness for no reason. I can only count two times this has happened in my life (one of which happened to be... well... recently), but both times the cure was... you guessed it!

Chocolate!!!

So, for a huge variety of emotional ills, all one must do is consume an unhealthy amount of dopamine-inducing, sugar-packed chocolate. Really. It works.

November 13th

Today I am grateful for the little "set date and time" feature on my blog.

Seriously.

It's the biggest cheat this blog has.

Really... I've been keeping a daily tally of what I want to blog about, and then just never getting around to blogging it. So, even though it's currently the 18th, I can post this, set it to last Wednesday, and nobody will know!

Well... okay... except for anybody who... you know... reads what I'm posting about. :)

That said, I'm also grateful for banana cream pie flavored Blizzards from Dairy Queen, because they are happiness in a cup.

November 12th

Today, today... I forgot what I'm thankful for.

No, seriously. I had something really specific, and I totally can't remember it.

I mean, I'm thankful for lots of stuff and all... but dangit! There was this one thing...

Okay, well for now, we'll just say potatoes. I am INCREDIBLY thankful for tubers, in all their forms (except yams... yams are nasty), and if I remember what I thought of for today, I'll edit the post and have a thing #2.

November 11th

Today I'm grateful for this little app that lets me put together my family tree.

And yes, I have spent WAAAAAAY too much time on it (time that probably should have been spent sleeping).

November 10th

Today I'm grateful for empty books. I'm also grateful for lots of stuff to put in empty books, and that I have several volumes of journals chronicling my life. :)

November 9th

Today I'm grateful for the proportion of good things to bad things in my life.

So, once upon a time, when I was 16, it occurred to me that I'd never lost anyone. Other people around me had lost parents or siblings or grandparents they adored, and since I was old enough to really understand it, the only person I'd lost was my unborn little sister. Now, granted, that one hurt intensely, but 8 years later, I could remember how hard I cried, but not how the pain had felt. I had never been beaten, never been seriously betrayed, never really, really hurt. Oh, sure, I'd had bad days and disappointments and embarrassments and even a couple miserable, grumpy years while I tried to process becoming a teen, but no real tragedy.

At the time, being the melodramatic, story-driven teenager I was, I felt a little ripped off in the life-experiences department. I mean, how could I ever empathize properly with people who had experienced tragedy? And... well... I firmly believed that deep and awful pain was an essential part of everyone's life, so if I hadn't had it as a kid, how crappy was my adult life shaping up to be?

Shortly after that, Callia died. Callia was the horse we had had since I was... six, I believe. She was an integral part of my childhood, and my very best friend in the animal kingdom. I learned to ride on her, and when I was 15 and 16 was when I was riding her the absolute most, since I'd finally realized I was old enough to ride without supervision. Getting her to move was frustrating as all get out, but once I'd gotten her going, we would run at full speed through the whole of the farm - mostly in the yard and north pasture, but sometimes we'd go up and down the road, around to the back, out to the lake, around the corn field - I rode her wherever I could, and as often as I could convince my brother or dad to tighten the saddle for me (I might have been old enough to ride, but I wasn't strong enough to get the saddle safely attached to her girth).

When she was only about 18 years old, she got West Nile. Not a pretty way to die. It took her about a day, and I stayed with her for most of that time, my heart absolutely aching inside of me as she lost the ability to stand up, and began thrashing feverishly all over the barn floor. Earlier in the day I'd had hope that she'd recover, but about the point she thrashed and cracked her skull against the cement foundation of the barn, I knew she was dying and I had to say goodbye.

It was an interesting experience for me, and ultimately, I was grateful for it. I had to go through the process of grief that follows an intense loss, and I learned a lot about pain and healing.

Since then there have been other losses, disappointments, long periods of loneliness, mistakes, injustice, and all kinds of negative experiences.

But the good life of my childhood, ultimately, has stayed with me. I've had bad things happen, but a lot of good things have happened too. And when all is said and done, my life has been more good things than bad things. I have more happy days than sad days, and the good things are so much better than the bad ones are bad.

So that's what I'm grateful for today - a life that is more good than bad.

November 8th

Today I am grateful for the little restaurant known as Cafe Rio. I don't even like Mexican food, and I love this place.

November 7th

Today I'm thankful for all my favorite TV shows. Not really the movies, because unless they are Lord of the Rings extended edition, there's just not enough movie there to binge on. But TV shows... yes! Hours and hours of story. It's like a book you can watch!

No, seriously. Other than more imaginative freedom, which goes without saying, what books really have that movies don't is time. You live in a story for hours, days, weeks... however long it takes you to get through the book. A movie is over in 90 minutes in most cases. And then... well... then the story is over. Sometimes there's a sequel, but by the 4th or 5th sequel (waiting a year or two between each segment), you're done. So done. Seriously, the story has run its course.

Now, with TV shows, especially ones that have been out for a few years and you just barely discovered the series on Netflix, this is a story you can live inside for hours... days... weeks... however long it takes you to consume the entire story. And... in the best cases... for the story to consume you too.

...

And, as a bonus, I'm grateful for the number 7. Why? Well... simply because it's fun to write, especially when you write it with a slight curve and that dash through the center.

November 6th

Today I am grateful for string instruments, and monks that chant.

Yep.

November 5th

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Some line about blood and fire and stuff
And then there's another line
And there's pretty much a whole poem that I can't remember.

It's true... we all remember the 5th of November. A few of us even remember why! (Because Hugo Weaving said so while wearing a creepy mask and playing opposite a hairless Natalie Portman, of course.)

But really... there are very few of us who actually remember the words of that poem. So, remember the 5th of November, remember there's a well-made movie about it that I will probably never see again, and remember the poem exists. But never remember the poem itself.

And, in other news, today I am grateful for photography. Because I'm not patient enough to learn how to paint.

November 4th

Today I am grateful for a global market, and the fact that fruit travels.

Were it not for this phenomenon, I would have to be Chinese to eat an orange. Or have visited China.

But, no. Citrus fruits are not only trucked from their original homeland, but they are now grown outside their original homeland! This has been the case for over a thousand years, but I am grateful for it nonetheless.

So, thank you people who shipped oranges out of China, and then planted them in other regions. Thank you so much.

November 3rd

Today I am grateful for deciduous trees.

Because it's not enough for the world to be a vibrant green all through Spring, and in some parts of the world, through Summer as well. Where I grew up, the whole world was a gorgeous emerald color from March through the first bit of October.

No, that's not enough.

In October, half the plants in the world light on fire, shooting oranges, yellows, and reds across the slowly dying forests. We're in for a long winter, and several months of browns and greys, but just as they're saying farewell, the trees go out in flames.

That's not enough either.

Those leaves hit the ground, making a carpet of pure fun. Raking, leaf piles, leaf zombie monster tag with whatever kids you can get in on the game. And after that, coming in half-frozen, curling up by the fire, and drinking hot chocolate loaded with marshmallows.

That's what I'm grateful for today.

November 2nd

Today, I am grateful for my thermostat. Particularly, I am grateful for control over the thermostat, and a husband who likes things as balmy as I do.

So, two weeks ago, I hopped on a plane and flew home to visit my mommy, and help her with her post-shattered-ankle surgery. Upon arrival, it became apparent to me that whoever had been negotiating with her for a house that was 71 degrees had lost. The thermostat was set to 67.

As the guest, I didn't really feel comfortable messing with the thermostat (although, I did bump it up to 69 one day), so mostly I just wore my jacket a lot.

By the time the trip was over, I was more than sad to leave my family, but thrilled at the prospect of a house that was 75 degrees.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am now baking comfortably in a 75 degree house... and my husband likes it!

[please picture me in a dark cloak, holding up a staff that shoots lightening, standing on top of a lamp post in your average suburban neighborhood.]

I AM MASTER OF THE THERMOSTAT! I RULE THE TEMPERATURE OF MY DOMAIN!!!

Thank you.

The Thanksgiving Season

I have two goals. Well... I actually have about 10 bazillion goals, but two that are applicable to this post.

1.) Put more content on this blog.

3.) Celebrate Thanksgiving.

So, I'm going to write about something I'm thankful for every single day of this month!

Today I am particularly thankful for modern medicine. Being that it's flu season, and I happen to be slowly drowning in mucus that doesn't want to be hacked from my lungs, it's nice to know that people no longer cure these things by drinking pepper corns boiled in water. No, I have a wonderful, green pill that I can just swallow, and it'll knock me out for 6 hours straight. No nasty taste, no 10-minute long relief. Just niiiiice, peaceful slumber.

Speaking of... I think I'll go take my green pill.

Why I Like Halloween

You just don't get this kind of excitement out of President's Day.