Announcement / Story #3: Stepping Away

Last Announcement / Story in my series.

Announcement:  I'm stepping away from the Mormon church.  Let's call it "taking a break."

Story:  This one is way too complicated for a full story.  I don't even have a definitive start time or a single plot line.  So I'll skip to just recently.

I have found it difficult lately to reconcile my conscience with the church that I love.  Having struggled with this for a very long time, and feeling like my spirituality was hitting rock bottom on a regular basis because of it, I decided that what I needed was some distance.  So I gave myself permission to do just that.

It is amazing how freeing this has been.  I'm really happy about it and excited to see where this journey will take me.  I, myself, am not sure where it ends, I just know I'm happy to be where I'm at.  For now, that's enough.

This, I realize, is alarming to some people.  I can understand that.  This path is new for me and a little scary.  It's full of disappointing people that I love and potentially losing friends that I cherish.  It's full of what if's and don't know's.  But the place where I'm at right now is not a place of loss or fear.  It's a place of peace and calm.  It's a safe place without conflict.  And having found this place for the first time in a long time, I intend to keep it.

I haven't abandoned everything about the Mormon church.  It's still there.  I'm not certain what I will do with it all.  My intention is to go through it all, piece by piece, and decide what to do with it.  It won't be a fast process, but I'm hoping that by the end, I'll have figured some new things out about myself and about my Heavenly Father.

Wish me luck!

(Feel free to ask me any questions that you'd like.  If it's a personal question, e-mail me or call or come by for a visit.  Don't worry that you'll offend.  I'm not like that.)

California Trip and what now?

This summer has been one of the best of my life.  For serious, I have loved it.  I worked a little, but mostly didn't.  This meant I just hung out with my boys a lot.  We took short trips to loved ones' places and enjoyed the heck out of that.  We all did Cub Camp.  We took the kids back to the museum and the zoo, and went to COSI in Columbus, too.  We've just had fun.

Here are some pictures from the Fort Wayne festival thingy that we went to:

Rob and Dustin in the hamster balls.  It was HILARIOUS to watch.

Checking out the steel drums after the band was done playing.  Elijah now wants a set.

I went to California for the first time in years.  It's always nice to go see family, and this time I got to love on my sister, Lori's new baby.  LOVED IT.  We did a bunch of stuff, too, which was fun.  We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is amazing.  They now have an octopus exhibit which was breath-taking.  For real.  I would go to an aquarium that ONLY showed octopuses.  Beautiful creatures.

The tattoo I plan on getting.

Jellies!!!

Miciah and Dea laying on the ground watching the sardines swim in a big circle.

 

I got to see, and have long talks with, almost all of my siblings.  Collin, my bestie, and his wife, were there while I was.  That was amazing.  I got to go jean shopping with Lori (she showed me where to buy more expensive, better quality jeans).  We went on walks.  We took turns holding the baby.  We put together a puzzle.  It was blissful.  We're all adults now and much nicer to hang around than we were as teenagers and young, stupid 20-somethings.

New jeans, post hemming.  I'm short.

The puzzle.  Fun, right?  It's my family, 2009.

My favorite place we went to is now a Must See every time we head out to CA:  Point Lobos State Reserve.  So, so pretty.

This is Miciah saying, "NO!"  She didn't want me to take her picture.

The other thing that was going on while I was in CA was less than nice.  Before I left, Tank came down with some sickness.  He was sick for a few days, seemed to be recovering for a few days right when I left for CA, and then was even sicker for another few days.  Rob took him in to the doctor and got him an antibiotic.  He still recovered slowly, in terms of getting his energy back.

Then I got a call from Rob saying that he was coming down with something.  The next day he called and said he was feeling lousy.  The next day he texted and said he had bronchitis.  Then he texted a few hours later and said he also had pneumonia in one lung.  Ugh!  He was on two antibiotics, codine cough syrup, and was rotating Tylenol and Ibuprofin every few hours.  Intense.

I got home Tuesday night and instantly was plunged into a very overwhelming state.  Rob was still really sick, so I had all the normal things to take care of post-trip, PLUS all the things that didn't get done while he was laid up.  It seemed like everywhere I turned someone needed something from me and only me.  "Have you done this yet?"  No.  Not yet.  Just repeat "not yet" for everything you're wanting to ask me.

On top of that, we were making preparations for going down to Mammoth Cave for two days as a family.  (And with my parents.  My parents are at my house right now.)  We canceled Rob's tickets.  My mom and I were starting to talk about food prep when it became obvious that Elijah was coming down with the same crap.  Of course.  SO, we scrapped the whole trip and ate the cost of the cabin plus the portion of the tour tickets that couldn't be refunded.  Which was fine.  I feel like I paid $130 for an extra two days to put my house back in order and take care of my sick boys.  Worth it.

But woah.  :)  It's been nuts.

Rob is now almost back to normal.  He's on a business trip in Michigan, and I'm with him.  He gets tired too early in the day and has a lingering cough, but that's about all that's left of his sickness.  Elijah isn't at 100% either, yet, but he's getting closer everyday.  (Seeing Elijah just sitting for hours was bizarre.  That kid normally has so much energy.  ...  The house was really quiet.)

Lake Michigan, where Lake Muskegon connects.

Michigan is beautiful.

Elijah has figured out Time Travel!

Rob and I went on a quick weekend road trip to Virginia to attend a funeral (my 3rd in 2 months.  What's up with that?).  We went with my uncle and his wife, as well as another aunt.  The funeral was nice and the road trip was awesome!  Why don't adults do more random road trips together?  It was delightful.

On the way, while making conversation, Rob told us about Elijah's idea for time travel.  Here's how it went:

Rob:  Elijah has figured out time travel.
Me:  Oh, yeah?!
Rob:  Yeah.  It involved capturing a white dwarf with a claw.

I was trying to figure out what mystical properties a dwarf would have, what his claw looked like, and why it couldn't be another race of dwarf.  And then, once Elijah had it captured, what would he do with him?  Shake him until he granted the wish of time travel?

The conversation went on.

Me:  How would that work?
Rob:  Well, you know that Cub Camp had a space theme.  So he was thinking about that and decided that if he captured a white dwarf...

I just started laughing.

Me:  Oh!  A white dwarf STAR!
Rob:  Yeah.  He would go out with a space ship and capture a white dwarf.
Me:  With a claw?

Again, I wasn't sure how this collapsing star would have a claw.

Rob:  Yeah, the space ship would have some mechanical arm that would grab the white dwarf.
Me:  Oh!  (still laughing)  He would capture a white dwarf STAR by USING a claw.

By the end, Rob and I were laughing so hard that we were crying.  It's been a fun phrase:  "A white dwarf with a claw."  Too funny.

Though, I have to hand it to Elijah.  His idea sounds pretty awesome.  He would capture not only one, but TWO white dwarf stars and bring them close to each other.  There, in the middle, where space and time are bent, is where the time travel would be possible.

Of course.

Announcement / Story #2 - Why I Don't Write

Really, my Announcement/Story #2 and #3 are related concepts, but I thought it would be useful (to myself) to separate them cleanly into two ideas.  Maybe it'll fail, but as something of a free write exercise, I think it could be fun.

I've figured out yet another piece in the puzzle of why I don't write on my blog sometimes.  I've explored some of these before: my kids are older, I have more outlets now, I have a job that requires me to be quiet and being quiet can be lovely and freeing, I just don't care enough, etc.  But here's my new discovery/self-admission:

Announcement:  I don't write on my blog when I feel conflicted.

For instance, I'll want to write up something fun that my kids did, but when I sit down to write it out, I'll feel overwhelmed with the desire to write about this internal conflict that is eating me up.  I've even written about that in the past (now that I've written that out, I now realize I've said it before).

#1:  We spent years working hard to get out of debt and then, because life is life, went back into debt.  This was fairly guilt-inducing for me.  Know what I don't deal well with?  Guilt.  It's a nasty thing that I don't touch, so I don't know what to do with it when it shows up.  Avoid!  Avoid!

#2:  I'll want to talk about some issue that's complicated or controversial, but then I'm not sure what to do about it all.  Should I write about it or not?  What would I say?  Would my blog friends be offended?  Do I care about that?  What do I even feel about it, deep down?  Can I define it for myself?  ...  Ah, to hell with it.  I won't write anything at all.

#3:  I'll have announced some decision on here and then feel like I still can't decide on that issue that I declared loudly that I had figured out!  Then I'll want to write about it again but I think it'll make me sound crazy.  Am I crazy?  Am I unstable?  Maybe I'm just fun and cool.  Maybe everyone else is too boring.  Maybe ...  Maybe I'll just write nothing.

Etc.  

Lately I've been battling #2.  But that is a story for the next installment.

Butterfly Show @ Khron's

This year Rob and I went to the Butterfly Show twice.  The first time it was just us with my brother and his girlfriend, and I have to say that the Butterfly Show is probably three times more enjoyable with kids.  There's something about watching them experience it that is magical.

If you're my Facebook friend, you've seen a bunch of these pictures before, but just recently I thought to myself, why don't I log these on my blog any more?  So here they are:

Yes, this is about as much as Elijah smiles for pictures.  :)  The kids loved having the butterflies land on them, and of course, the adults did, too.  I had two land on my back, I was told, and one land on my arm.  The boys kept coming to try to steal them off of me, but I fought to keep them!

The boys fought us hard about going to the Butterfly Show in the first place.  They're too old.  They've seen it before.  Blah, blah, blah.  But we're mean parents and we forced them to go anyway.  And wouldn't you know it, they loved it.  They even stopped by the kids' craft room to make finger butterflies.  The rest of the day, Elijah flew that finger butterfly all over, flapping the paper wings as he went.  Too old.  Ha!

This is my goofy brother, petting a butterfly.  Really, the butterfly is dead, but I thought it'd still make a good picture cause, you know, you can't tell if it's dead or not in a photo.  So he's petting it.  Because that's funny.  We were all giggling about it.

One of the funnest parts of the whole thing was buying a caterpillar at the end.  It comes home in a plastic cup filled with food.  After about a week or so, it forms into a chrysalis, and then after about two weeks more, it hatches into a butterfly!  It was really fun to watch.

That's after a few days' growth.  It had roughly doubled in size already.

And this is after one of the butterflies was already out.  In the center you can see the empty chrysalis, to the left the butterfly, and to the right the second chrysalis, a few hours away from opening up.

A fun thing about chrysalises, apart from everything, because chrysalises are FREAKING AWESOME:  Right before the butterfly emerges, it turns this dark, almost black color.  We thought that maybe it had died and was rotting.  And you can see the butterfly inside, right at the very end of the process.

Also, I listened to a Radiolab podcast called Black Box, and they talked about chrysalises.  It kinda blew my mind and I don't want to spoil it for you if you don't already know what happens inside a chrysalis.  Here's a link to the 16 minute story so you don't have to listen to the entire hour program if you don't want.  (Though I totally suggest everyone listen to every single Radiolab.  Because they're all pretty dang fascinating.  I love that show.)

So, yeah, I recommend that at least once, everyone buy a caterpillar and watch the process.  It's beautiful and mysterious and captivating.  Also, once the butterflies hatched, we got to watch them sun their wings in the morning sun.  It was just beautiful.

Announcement / Stories #1: Rob's New Job

Well, it's been a while.  I'll discuss why in a later Announcement/Story.  But this one today is all about Rob's new job.

Announcement:  Rob got a new job!

It's for the same company, so not much changes.  He still works from home.  He still travels.  We're not moving.

There are a few perks.  It comes with a sizable raise in base salary and opportunities to get quite a bit more in commission.  On top of that, they offered him a company car, a Toyota RAV4, which he accepted.  So we will in short order be selling our 2011 Chevy Cruze.  We are excited about all of these things.

Story:

Back in March or so, Rob's sales partner for the US region he's over (it's called Central and includes the Midwest and parts of the South.  Think Nebraska to Florida, but not Texas) quit.  So just like that Rob was doing two jobs for the price of one.

At first the idea of sales kinda freaked him out.  Would he be good at it?  Did he even want to do it?  But during his little trial run, he found out he had a knack for it.  By the time the sales job officially came open, everyone assumed he would apply and that, if he did, he would get it.

But Rob didn't want to apply.  Or so he said.  He hemmed and hawed over it.  He would adamantly say no, he wouldn't apply, and then question it.  We had many talks about it, most of which went something like this:

Rob:  I'm not going to apply.
Me:  Okay.
Rob:  But maybe I will apply.
Me:  Okay.
Rob:  Well, what do you think I should do?
Me:  Rob, it doesn't really affect me in any way.  If you want to apply for it, great.  If not, great.
Rob:  Oh.  Well, I'm not going to apply.
Me:  Okay.
... and repeat

When the job was posted, and for two weeks after, Rob told everyone in the company that he was definitely not applying.  People were shocked, but understanding.

This brings us to a Saturday morning.  We were driving in the car to the temple and I thought it was the right time to confront Rob with the reality of what I was seeing:  He actually wanted to apply for the job.  We went through all of his objections:

This will ruin my family. ...  Nope.
I don't know if I'll like it or not.  ...  You've been doing it for months.  You have liked it so far.
Maybe I won't be good at it.  ...  -roll my eyes-
This will ruin my career.  ...  I doubt it.
Tamra, you wouldn't apply for it.  ...  It's not me who's applying.
We don't need the extra money.  ...  No, we don't.  You're right.
Tamra, make this decision for me. ...  Umm, no.

When it was distilled down to the very essence of his struggle, we realized, together, that Rob was fighting The Unknown.  Rob hates change.  He knows that he likes his current job, and he thinks he'll like the new job, but WHAT IF...  And those what if's eat him alive.

So, kudos to Rob, he defeated the What If monster and applied for the job.  Last week he was offered the job, and today is his official start date.

Also, kudos to me for being an awesome wife.  Seriously.  I rocked that one out.

Out of the Fog

So I'm finally out of a couple-month-long fog of depression.  I've been looking around my life and realizing what a beautiful one I have!  It's been great.

A few short notes on depression.

- I realized I was depressed as this was going on, and I didn't really care.  It is usually true that Fully Sane Tamra can realize that Depressed Tamra needs help, but Depressed Tamra doesn't care.

- At one point I called an old friend and talked about how, even though I'd been planning on making a trip to her house, it wasn't going to happen any time soon.  I told her how I didn't really want to go anywhere or do anything because I was just feeling so stressed about life.  She said something that caught my attention:  "And that's unusual for you, because you love to travel!"  ...  This is a hallmark of depression:  Loss of interest in things you normally like to do.  ...  Did this immediately snap me out of my depression?  No.  But I recognized it.

- While I was stressed and there were life circumstances that I could blame my depression on, I take full responsibility for how I felt.  Reacting poorly is one thing, but there was a choice I made along the way to check out.  It was a survival tactic, I think:  I can't handle this, so I'm just checking out emotionally.  But I made a choice to not care about anything I valued in my life.  This extended to EVERYTHING:  family, marriage, home, work, dreams, hobbies, religion, God, and myself.  It's almost like I was daring myself to see how close I could get to the edge without falling off the cliff.  My report:  That's a scary place to be.


Things have calmed down, the basement is done, things feel more stable, and it felt safe to come back.  I still didn't immediately move back to Sanity, though, because ...  because I didn't want to, I suppose.  What finally snapped me back to goodness was looking around and noticing all the decay.  It's like walking through a fixer-upper house and realizing that you either need to abandon it or start getting to work!  I decided that I should get back to work.  My life is great.  I don't want to abandon it.

So, Happy New World to me!  It's nice to be involved again.