Gotta move in to move out

Monday night, after the new carpet installation, Tyler and Caiden and I worked hurriedly to put together our new bed frame. It felt as if we were moving in rather than getting ready to move out. Most of our furniture was still stuffed in the dining area due to the carpet installation. The night before we'd watched the Oscars from our couch which was tightly placed into the hallway, sitting probably just 3 feet from the bigscreen of our TV, shoved in last, facing out. The week before we'd put together our new dressers. So with everything feeling so new, it was odd to think most of these new things we'd invested in and picked out would be left behind.

Tyler and I have been making preparations to move out for as long as I've been living in the house. For the most part, I have hated every minute of these preparations, while at the same time quite anxiously awaiting the time when we can move out. It's not that the preparations don't make it nicer, it's just hard not having ever been a home-owner before to see all the money being poured into something I"m going to leave behind. I don't understand it. But I've never felt like I belonged in the house at all. He bought it with his first wife and they lived there together. Then the house was his alone for several years before I moved in. Despite invitations to decorate as I please, I've felt inhibited because decorations already existed and it's one thing to hang a picture on a bare wall, and another to take down what's already there of someone else's to express your own tastes instead. And of course the psychological impact of living in the same home as he did with his first wife was much more difficult than I had anticipated. Those unexpected discoveries of cards and love notes when looking for construction paper are all too unsettling. Not to mention her comments on the changes/improvements she notices. Then there are the stories I hear here and there, and of course my vivid imagination of all the memories they shared and all the "firsts" they were able to have together.

But as we discuss moving now I feel selfish, terrified that Caiden will resent that it was me who initiated discussions of moving when he has no desire to. Terrified that Tyler would truly rather stay there if it were possible to make more room for our growing family. A bit worried that our new home won't have as nice of a back yard as the current one. And, above all, scared that our new home will need a considerable amount of work to make it fit our needs and tastes. It'd be ideal to build it just the way we want it, but never having had any period of non-improvement in my home, I'm hoping to be spared the ordeal for a couple of years. I remember just 4 days after we were married I went to my class for the evening and came home to new paint going on the walls in the living room. A week later, coming home to a ceiling fan resting on the bed as Tyler worked to install it. So I will warmly welcome a respite from home repair if I'm granted it.

Here's a list of the changes that have been made in the (nearly) last 3 years. I know Tyler had already made tons of updates prior to those I was present for, but I'll just recount the ones that I've witnessed.

Kitchen
flooring--laid tile
cabinets
countertops
dishwasher
lighting
paint
Bedrooms & office area
carpet
paint
light fixtures
Yard
deck
firepit
playhouse complete with sandbox and slide
Bathroom
flooring--laid tile
paint
General
roof
swamp cooler
venting
hot water heater
Living & dining room
built a wall
knocked out a "window"
laid wood flooring
paint
light fixtures
carpet
Laundry
new washer/dryer
flooring--laid tile

Green River Bible Church

Several years ago I was having a series of apocalyptic dreams. Each of them featured the world ending in different ways, or just the knowledge of being on the brink of the end of the world. One such dream featured an old, dilapidated, wooden church in the middle of an open field. Already having a penchant for ruined and abandoned buildings, I've added wooden churches to my picture-must-be-taken-of repertoire. So, far from the highlight of my weekend trip, but an interesting addition to the experience was our one-night stay in Green River, Utah. And in town, the Green River Bible Church stood there, a little ghostly.

Check out the HB's coverage of our Horseshoe canyon adventure on his blog here. Usually we're camping in the San Rafael Swell area, but late-February seemed a little too chilly and we booked a hotel in town instead. I've stopped at the edge of town plenty of times for gas, but never actually visited or driven through (just about 2 minutes to get down Main Street from end to end). I honestly hope it stays as hopeless as it is, because I don't want it to be touristy, but it did make me just a little sad that the town felt so empty.

As far as the canyon goes, it was incredible, and I will re-iterate Tyler--it was a perfect day, I can't imagine a better one. My previous trip to Horseshoe Canyon was with my archaeology field school group in Escalante. We went there to hike the canyon on a Saturday sometime in June and it was hot as hell. I loved it then too, but until I went on this weekend, I didn't even know that water ran through there, I'm sure it's all dried up by then. It really was just perfect.

Jiplip

Jiplip is our family Rock Band. Caiden named the band, and we never asked where the name came from or what it meant, maybe because lately he laughs at his own jokes about boobies. But we went for it and then each designed our own rockers, hairstyles, tattoos, etc. Caiden plays the guitar mostly and Tyler the drums, and I sing, though sometimes when I lucky they let me play an instrument. I'm not a good singer, but I did survive enjoy months of regular karaoke in Japan. As we play different gigs we can unlock more songs, gain fans, win tour buses, band managers, and roadies. We've now maxed out on the number of fans we can gain playing on "easy" mode. Check us out.

My Treasonous Act

"...He explained why an honest buildling, like an honest man, had to be of one piece and one faith; what constituted the life source, the idea in any existing thing of creature, and why--if one smallest part committed treason to that idea--the thing of the creature was dead: and why the good, the high and the noble on earth was only that which kept its integrity."--from Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'

I quote the above because I believe I have committed treason to my philosophy on life and hope that I haven't killed myself by doing so. It's funny I wouldn't consider myself a selfish person, but my ideal is that people go after the things that they want in life. I don't like all of the hypocrisy that exists among people that say they want to do things, but never make them happen. I moved on from all of my past relationships for that very reason.

In the past 3 years I've had to totally come to grips that I am now the hypocrite. That it's not possible to live your life the way you want to when you're married, which was a stunning realization given that I've defined myself by believing that people can do whatever they dream of doing and limitations are only in their mind. Of course I'd heard and knew somewhere that marriage was all about compromise, but had I really imagined its effect on me? Not only am I not fulfilling my dreams, I'm watching others do it, and still I have not been able to define myself in this new light. I fight it and fight it and fight it and fight that I love my husband so much. And in my head I'd be willing to give up my identity for one that is "ours" but it feels so much more like "his" that I'm not sure where I belong.

I express these things not to criticize marriage or my own, but as an honest question of how a person of integrity reconciles theirs in such a situation? And because I need to be honest with myself to fight against the lack of honest discussion.

I had a great teacher in the 5th grade who conducted Philosophy discussion once a month in the afternoon. I remember one discussion about what makes a person the person they are--does it matter how many times they've changed their name? their appearance? their religion? the distance from where they grew up? their association with or lack of association with the family they grew up with? their goals? their perspective on the purpose of life? etc.

Because I thought it was my way of life, of persistently going after the things I wanted, that made me me, but it is probably all of those things and surely I don't have to be dead now, even if I must commit treason to re-define myself. And as anxious as I am to be a mother, I must know where I stand in life aside from that.

The bedroom on 7th

When I first moved to Salt Lake City I rented a house with 3 girls on 700 East, just between Trolley Square and Liberty Park. I loved the house (despite the alley parking that took off my sideview mirrors more than once). I planted tomatoes in the backyard in the summer. I had great roommates. One year on the day after Christmas I got snowed in there by myself. We had a tiny balcony from the upstairs and nice deck in the back. We had a sectional couch in the living room that no one knew where it was from. The keystone piece was missing a leg and rocked if sat on. I desperately miss that house whenever I ride by it.

I first moved into the small room upstairs, but within a few months, had found my way to the larger room downstairs. It was the coolest bedroom ever, and I regret not making the most of it then, but I was also, a full time worker and student and in a mad dating frenzy most of the time I lived there. It was kind of a 2-room deal, with a larger room in front and a partial wall to where my bed was in the back and some built-in shelving for my clothes. There was just enough room for my single bed, a 7-foot one that my parents lent me that had been my brothers. I had the bed on a 6-foot frame, so if someone sat on the bottom foot of the bed, the mattress would rise up. When I had friends come to visit, they could sleep on the floor in the larger portion of the room. Next to my bookshelves and CD collection.

But the point is that someday I'm going to design my own bedroom. And I would love to have the bed be kind of isolated like mine was. But I think the room would have to be huge because I like empty space too. I posted a while ago about the monochromatic look of this bedroom that I love. Today I saw an idea for a faux cottage door at the end of the bed that I loved too. Trying to decide if that would go okay with the platform bed I want. But if it was kept simple, I think it'd be really cool.

mysterious persons

Strangers that you happen to see repeatedly.

Like at the 2007 Sundance film fest the HB and I waited in a line forever to get into a midnight movie at the Egyptian in Park City. And we chatted up the guy next to us in line and it turned out he had parked at Kimball Junction but the shuttle back didn't run at 2 a.m. so we offered him a ride when the movie was over. And then we saw him like a month of so later at a play at the U of U and then a few months later at the Modest Mouse concert at UVSC.

And like a lady who used to run the call center I worked at in Missoula. When I moved to Salt Lake City I recognized her in the psycho singles ward I went to a few times before switching to one of the U's Institute wards. But I see her randomly all the time around town. And just recently during Sundance she came to see a show at the Rose Wagner and then a couple days later the HB and I saw her and some friends at the theater to see "There Will Be Blood."

Then there are those people that you sort of know that you happen to run into. I used to always run into my roommates ex-boyfriend at concerts, BYU games, etc.

It's kind of weird how people can move in similar circles and yet never know each other. But it's fascinating too how much we can always keep learning about the people we are around all of the time. And sometimes I wonder why we don't try harder to know people better.

Just some thoughts.

Panguitch dream

Last night I had a happy dream. Which is actually really rare. It wasn't over the top bubbly or anything like that, just kind of something I was okay with. Not like the dreams I usually have where I wake up crying or upset and Tyler has to ask me if I'm okay and confirm that I had a bad dream. And not disturbing like the one from the other night where a tropical vacation had underlying tones of tragedy, because somehow I knew the river/pool we were in was going to get sucked into the ground.

This dream was about us living in Panguitch. I've never actually visited the city in Utah in the dream, but I can imagine how it originated.

Last night we were watching a show on the Discovery Channel called "Bone Recovery" only when Caiden first told us to come in and check it out (because we'd left the TV on), Tyler and I both thought he said "Boner Covering," which was pretty funny. Caiden seldomly shows any interest in TV so we went to watch some of it with him. Some archaeologists were conducting a dig and it showed one of them analyzing the bone remains to determine cause of death, and also, reasons for the atypical body arrangement in the tomb. Tyler was telling him how I had gone on a dig.

I did my dig in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. I have lots of stories about it, but the Panguitch tie-in is that my "crew" leader who worked for the Office of Public Archaeology had grown up in Panguitch, and it's not that far from Escalante. And he was really funny, would always get on the walkie-talkie and say things to the other "crew" leaders like--"Hey guys, I found a big-ash-stain right here. Looks like an ancient firepit," so he could take the opportunity to almost cuss.

So in the dream, we were living there and Tyler was coaching football at the high school there. And we seemed to like it. That's all there really was to it, just kind of a good feeling.