Moving

Hello friends!

For a number of reasons I have finally decided to switch to WordPress. I’m still in the process of transferring, so please forgive me if there are a few glitches along the way. The good news is, my blog is public again! With WordPress I can make only specific posts private, so ask me for the password if you run across one (the password will always be Lydia -- easy!). There are just certain things that probably shouldn't be shared with the whole world for now.

So if you're following me, please make sure to change your reader to the new blog:

http://cartwheelingdowntheaisle.wordpress.com/

Welcome, and thanks for reading!

Adjusting

I'm really glad I'm still working as a contractor for my former employer (translating), because otherwise I would definitely go crazy. It's hard to have a sense of purpose while waiting around for a job to open up. Good news is the station just posted an opening today, so hopefully things will speed up now. To be totally honest, I'm still a little bummed about not making the final in the Hearst competition. I'm just feeling it more tonight. Thank goodness for the county library! I officially have a card and have been reading a lot. Although I'm going to have to cut back on the dramatic books because I had awful nightmares the other day...

I bought a good windbreaker/rain jacket today, because I'll definitely be needing it here. The wind is crazy!

It's kind of ominous-sounding at times, honestly. This place is just so wild. Yes, there's a 55,000-people city, but it feels like nature is bent on pushing back just as hard as it can. At least we don't get tornadoes! Although given our proximity to Yellowstone we'd probably be the first wiped off the map in a catastrophic event. Do I sound grim enough for you? :) (sorry, we watched 2012 last night)

We're starting to make friends, slowly but surely. I'm hoping I'll be able to volunteer at the YW camp because that sounds like fun. Ah, and I'll be flying to Las Vegas for my little sister's high school graduation! I'm excited for her: she's singing the national anthem (which is kind of funny considering I'm pretty sure she'll have to learn the words... Growing up in a foreign country will do that!) But I'm sure she'll be fantastic.

Andrew is playing basketball with people from our stake right now, I'm glad he's making friends :) speaking of friends, it never gets old seeing cottontail rabbits in our yard. A big fat turkey even waddled through the other day! Pretty crazy.

And that's about it. Unfortunately I don't have anything very exciting to post about. Maybe I'll put up pictures of our temporary cozy country home :) We visited a SWEET apartment the other day. You guys, it has a fireplace! It was dreamy. And pricey. But man, I dream of cuddling up by the fire on those cold Casper winter days...

The trek West -- or North-East, rather. It certainly feels more Western though.

We are alive and well in Casper, Wyoming. It's still a little odd to think that this will be our home for the next three plus years... the city has 55 000 people, but it's the only real city for hundreds of miles around, so every once in a while if you look up you realize how easily nature could just press in a little more and snuff out any trace of civilization. No, I'm not being dramatic...

But let's start from the beginning. We were sad to leave Provo :(

The drive itself went quite well, other than the fact that the moving van Andrew drove couldn't go over 50 mph -- we were kind of slowing down traffic. Oh well. Communicating via walkie-talkie was fun though :) And I'll add that it was quite necessary because we didn't have any reception for a large part of the trip!

This is what the last third of our trek looked like:

We started to worry we were moving to a complete desert, but then we finally rounded a few bends (they call them mountains but they're more like hills) and arrived in Casper. It's not bad at all, quite green especially on the mountain, and it's almost always sunny. The North Platter River runs throughout the city and there's a path for several miles so we're itching to get some bikes now.

All sorts of critters live in our backyard: squirrels, rabbits, geese... it's a bit dusty, but the river makes up for it. We're excited to go rafting and also explore Casper Mountain. The city's not huge, for sure, and the lone mall is a bit... well, dead. But there are worse things. Hey, at least we have a Target!

look who came to visit!

Right now we're living in a house that belongs to the city - they rent out rooms to interns and incoming employees. So far we only have two roommates (another couple) and they're very nice. It's a bit on the edge of town but it's only a five minute drive anyway, and we're kind of liking living in the wild - it's very peaceful. As soon as Andrew signs a full-time contract though we'll get into an apartment (or potentially rent a house, but I hear that's near impossible to find around here). We have one place in mind that we really like, but for now we need to wait and see.  

Andrew started his internship on Monday and things are going well so far. He gets along just fine with the people in his office and he also found out there are more full-time positions opening up soon, so his chances of getting a full-time position just got better -- and he could have more options.

We went to city council meeting last night and boy was that fun!

It was the first hearing for a proposed smoking ban (an extension of a current public smoking ban) and some interesting characters came crawling out of the woodwork. Hitler and God were both brought into the discussion, and one lady accused the city council of using the same methods as Nazi Germany... there were reasonable people there too though, and honestly it was kind of fun to get a glimpse at the heart of Casper.

And you're probably wondering how my interview went. I think it went well. I could have maybe said more or something, but I believe I got my point across and he seemed impressed by my resume. I said one thing that may have come across awkwardly but otherwise it wasn't bad. He was very friendly at least. I left him my material and told him I was ready and just waiting to get to work... he seemed to like the fact that Andrew and I will likely be here more than just two years, too. There aren't any openings until July though, so now I just sort of have to wait... forced vacation I guess! And here I was all ready to get going. In the meantime I'll keep translating from home, and then call back as soon as they officially post the opening.

So overall, not a bad start. We're settling in nicely, and we really enjoyed church on Sunday - the people were very nice and welcoming, and it's just awesome to be in a family ward, finally. Well, I will add that we giggled when one lady quoted Mitt Romney in her talk...

So bottom line is things are not bad at all here. It still feels kind of small-town ish, which is a bit scary to me, but things couldn't be going much better for the both of us at this point, so it's all good. And we're going to have so much fun this summer rafting, hiking, biking and generally experiencing the great outdoors! (Let's not talk about winter yet, ok?)

Life as of late

I'm just loving it these days. Things haven't exactly turned out the way we expected but it's good. It's great even. Not being in school the last week has been awesome. We're just enjoying having very few responsibilities for the last time in a long time. Graduation was just as exciting as I had hoped it would be, and then the fun was extended for another week with Andrew's parents staying in Utah. My mother-in-law and I went to women's conference at BYU and it was just fantastic. I had always wanted to go -- all those ladies storming campus with their cute raincoats, holding little notebooks and travelling in groups of two or three looked like they were having the time of their life. Now having done it myself, I can say it was definitely a blast. I'd make this a yearly tradition if I could. Maybe someday.

We attended classes on "avoiding the entitlement trap", virtue and chastity for adults (we actually kind of fell asleep in that one... ahem), true beauty, bridging differences in marriage... this one was one of my favorite: it was`taught by a marriage therapist from Utah and her husband, a pioneer in the Church in Ghana. They certainly came across a lot of challenges together, and they had some great stories and advice. My favorite part in that session was the wife's answer she received to the question of whether or not they should marry: "if the Gospel of Christ is your culture, your marriage will thrive."

We also attended one session called "You can either laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache" - it was plenty of fun. It was essentially about meeting life's challenges with humor, having a positive attitude about things. Of course, we laughed a lot. We also attended a service night, where I tied my very first fleece blanket.

And some poor kid is going to have a messed-up blanket...

Whoops... I guess it's the thought that counts? Then there was a concert on Thursday night, and that was tons of fun. One thing is for sure: Mormon women love Alex Boyé!

It was hilarious, the crowds went wild! And we also got a surprise visit from Eliza R Snow herself :)

I think my absolute favorite talk though was one that Lisa & Matthew Richardson gave (Br. Richardson was just called as a counselor to the general Sunday School Presidency). They spoke together as a team (with those little mics that attach to your ear) and the way they played off of each other was hilarious. They were so much fun! And their enthusiasm was contagious. They spoke about being "armed with principles that never change." They also talked a lot about how work is actually a good in and of itself, not just something we do to get out of the way. That was kind of a theme I got from the whole conference in fact, that work is a blessing not just a duty. They used the example of Adam and Eve's marriage and life throughout the talk and Sister Richardson said something that really struck me: they were talking about how Satan told Adam and Eve to hide themselves when they had eaten the fruit, because they were naked. God comes and asks "who told thee thou art naked?" They didn't even know they were supposed to be ashamed, really, until someone pointed it out - and she paralleled that with today, when we are ashamed of our choices or feel inadequate because of what we think others expect us to do or be. Similarly, she asked the following question: "Who told thee thou art inadequate? Who told thee thou art not enough of that or too much of this?" We shouldn't be looking for the World's approval, we should be thinking about what God cares we do. I suppose I knew that, but putting it in those terms really hit home for me.

Who told thee thou art inadequate?


What an incredible reminder of who we should really strive to please, where we should set our sights. I'm posting my notes from the conference here, if you're interested -- they're kind of all over the place but there are some good bits :) This conference was a wonderful experience; the talks were inspiring and reinvigorating, and the company was absolutely delightful!

In other news, if you're still reading: I'm getting some dental work as well as getting all four of my wisdom teeth taken out Thursday. Wish me luck. The dentist promised happy gas, so at least the operation itself won't be too bad; it's the aftermath I'm really scared about. Voilà!

Here we go

Well, here we are: commencement day. Tomorrow, we get our degrees and then it's off to...

That's right: Casper, Wyoming!

Andrew accepted an internship with the city's budget office that they very strongly suggested will turn into a job offer at the end of the summer. And I'm going to haul myself on over to their TV station and demand a job.

Is it out in the middle of nowhere? Yup.
Is it somewhat... savage country? Yup.
And don't start me on the fact that Casper, Wyoming is ranked at the very bottomy-bottom of the reporting food chain.

BUT considering the fact we wanted to go somewhere we both have job opportunities, it's actually not a bad deal. In fact, it's not a bad deal at all: we'll have jobs in the same city (which is AWESOME considering what we were starting to look at) and it might be kind of fun to live it up with the cowboys for a while. You gotta start somewhere! We also just found out what Andrew's starting salary would be, and we're both feeling really good about that... :)

Off we go to the Wild Wild West!

Hey look, we're grads:

Bleh

I don't want to not get the internship I want. It will make me very mad. And discouraged.

Wow

It's been a while eh?

I've even started writing two or three posts in the past week, until I realized I had little to say. I'm kind of tired of school these days... and working on longer projects is tiring, so I've got no writing left in me. This weekend was great though. I am so grateful to be able to enter a grocery store and fill up a cart with food. All I have to do is grab it off the shelves and swipe a piece of plastic. Sometimes we don't realize how blessed we are. A girl in one of my classes made some comment about how she's a starving student and I was kind of annoyed. I mean yeah, she's probably not rolling in gold--neither am I--but she has nice clothes, a place to live, food to eat, a good EDUCATION, a brand new haircut... I hardly think we get to complain.

Sometimes I want to, but deep down I know how good I have it. My life is incredible. As stressful as it is to be in school and have a demanding schedule, as scary as it is to be making life-changing decisions for the future... what a wonderful life it is that I even get to make these choices. I have the awful dilemma of getting to chose between a career and having children. Or doing both.

In fact, we're living like kings right now. It really couldn't get much better. (Well, KSL could just decide to hire me straight out of school, that would be pretty awesome. Also, my dad could come for Christmas, that would be cool too. But hey, you can't have everything you dream of.)

Sigh.

But we did have a last hurrah barbecue last week:

aw, ketchup makes him happy

I have to take pictures of myself otherwise it's like I was never there

Look! A sunset!

Or I could make my husband take my picture.
And actually, this "pose" was totally accidental, believe it or not.
It must be my inner repressed fashion blogger.

On a completely unrelated note, I just watched a really good movie. Exam. The British accents probably don't hurt either... But in all seriousness, it's awesome. Go watch it.

Oh also, I learned in stake conference today that I was born to be a homemaker. Awesome. The worst part is that this came from a girl: all the members of the stake presidency gave spiritual, doctrinal talks, but this one girl went on and on about cleaning and decorating. Ugh.

And tomorrow I'm giving a mini presentation on euphemism and hyperbole. Because I NEVER use hyperbole inappropriately. Ever. Ha.

And for a last bit of Sunday night humor:

Matters of scale

Random fact set I stumbled upon recently. This is kind of old (1999) but I doubt the proportions have gotten much better... the comparisons are powerful:

Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide reproductive health care for all women in developing countries $12 billion
Amount of money spent annually on perfumes in Europe and the United States $12 billion 

Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide water and sanitation for all people in developing nations $9 billion
Amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States $8 billion 

Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide basic health and nutrition needs universally in the developing world $13 billion 
Amount of money spent each year on pet food in Europe and the United States $17 billion 

Source

These numbers kind of remind me of an article I came across today about mental illness in the US, and one thing that really stuck out to me was that depression was a "luxury" illness. Our women have problems like anorexia, cutting and self-loathing because of images projected by our culture so we buy cosmetics and perfume by the boat-load... but the money we spend on the beauty industry could solve, well, world hunger, basically. (I do not in any way wish to minimize the seriousness of these psychological issues.)

So this might be silly but...

I'm pretty excited about my birthday this year. It's going to be awesome. Good friends, good food, my husband, General Conference, secret presents hiding in the back of the truck, fall weather, last year of school... and feeling calm about the future, for some strange reason.

Life is good.

Yay, an interview

It's up: my first interview for the Mormon Women Project.

Featuring my own aunts of course, where else to start? :) I really like how it turned out, and you can read the original version in French too. I have several more interviews in the works and I'm so glad to be participating. I love the website and you will too, I'm sure of it. It's so inspiring to read about the lives of such incredible women of the Church. I was listening to a podcast that included the founder, Neylan McBaine, and they pointed out that the MWP doesn't "prescribe" Mormon women, it "describes" them--rather than talking about the ideal woman or what a Mormon woman should be, it simply presents a multitude of examples and says: "this is what Mormon women are. Here is how we have lived our faith." I love that. (That's also what I love about the new "I'm a Mormon" media campaign.)

Hey, you can participate too! You can donate, grab a badge for your blog or become a fan on Facebook. You can also nominate someone or just contact me if you know someone who should be featured. The possibilities are endless :)