Twittering, er, Tweeting...whatever

I love to write - I really do. I love writing in my blog, but I have been horrible at it of late. I keep coming up with all these ideas of what I want to write about, but I don't write them when I'm thinking about them, so the ideas go away. Thus, I am going to post a jumble of little things I'm thinking about, each getting their own Twitter-length (or thereabouts) blog. Welp, here goes...

I have a friend or two who constantly engage in self-sabotage. They complain about the rough times they're going through, but continually go back and do the things that make them feel good at the time, but end up hurting them in the long run. They're unwilling or unable to stop the self-destructive behavior that causes their rough times. Even if they see the problems their behavior is causing, they can't seem to give it up.

I've recently developed a penchant for watching Gilmore Girls (go ahead and make fun of me - I deserve it - it's my wife's fault, though). For those of you who watch it, you know that it's a pretty dang funny show. But it's very angsty - lots of teen drama. Last night Kristen and I watched a particularly dramatic episode, and I am just so grateful that I am not involved in that anymore. I'm so happy I am married to my sweetheart, and that we don't have to deal with that highschool-ness anymore. My favorite quote from the show: "Oi with the poodles already."

Being a grownup is hard. Dealing with money, insurance, bills, thinking about buying a house, planning for the future, having to exercise if I want to keep my girlish figure, etc. I have been focused a lot lately on being self-reliant and about providing for my current and future family. We've had a lot of lessons in Church the last few weeks about food storage, fast offerings, being self sufficient, etc., and it's really brought those things to the forefront of my mind. Our last Family Home Evening was about goals we want to set in regard to that aspect, and we even made 72-hour kits. It's just weird, because I'm an adult now - a real live, married, working-out-in-the-world adult.

I want to go camping - I wish that I had more time off from work to do fun things. That's the difficulty of being salaried. You get a steady paycheck every month (twice a month, really), but then you have to work every day, and only get limited time off. More of that being an adult thing, I guess.

I was looking at past grades, for some reason (I mean, I've been out of school for more than a year and a half now). But that one grade still irks me. It was based off an evaluation by a fellow student in a student-run class. An evaluation that was based off of misinformation from someone who failed in their part of the job and blamed it on me. She gave me the second-lowest grade I received in any BYU course. Lower than the grades I received for Psych 111 , Econ 110, Media Management (a class with the worst professor I've ever had), Business Finance, Political Science 110 (with the other worst professor ever - they may be tied for last place), etc., etc. The one class with a worse grade was History of Jazz, first semester of freshman year (we all know how hard BYU music classes can be - especially when you're not ready for them). It upset me that she based her review off of someone else's lies about my performance, which were made to cover up that person's own deficiency. But as I learned in Sunday School this week, I need to forgive if I am to be forgiven, so I better repent and do that. Dang. I still wouldn't recommend either of those people for a job, though.

I've been going to a ton of weddings lately (or so it seems). My wife's best friend got married on the 18th, and one of my best friends (and until 3 months ago, my roommate) got married yesterday. It is so awesome to go sit in the sealing room and see your friends make sacred covenants. (I keep telling my wife that her contract is for eternity - there's no getting out of it.) I love being married - 3 months today. It's the best thing I've ever done.

Good friends can be hard to come by. Even in a ward where you have nice, friendly people, it can still be hard getting to know them. Not to mention that we tend to have few true friends - mostly just good acquaintances. But we had something fun happen this week. Our neighbors from two floors up came to visit. They were asking us about internet, and whether they could share our wireless connection. We said sure, talked with them for a bit, gave them the code, etc. Then they came down again the next day! Gave us the money for the first month of internet, chilled and talked some more. It was fun, because Whitney (she's about Kristen's age) mentioned that she was excited because she and Kristen were "going to be friends." That makes us both happy, that there's a nice, fun new couple in our ward that likes us and wants to be friends with us. We need to have them over for dinner soon.

Well, that's it for my ramblings for now. Tune in next time for more of the same...or something different. I don't know yet.

Planned Parenthood

*DISCLAIMER: This entry may contain content not suitable for unmarried people...hehe :) But seriously, as alluded to in the title, sex and birth control are discussed, so if you're more comfortable not reading this, I understand.

I recently read two different, but related articles, and they got me thinking. One was an article from MSNBC titled "Happily ever after? Not really, many wives say." The other was a blurb about the Duggar family (a couple who subscribe to the Evangelical Christian Quiverfull Movement and who have a reality show on TLC called "18 Kids and Counting").

Let me first address the Duggar family and the Quiverfull Movement. I didn't know anything about the movement, so I looked it up on Wikipedia (which, as we all know, is the ultimate source of knowledge on the web). Adherants to this movement believe in abstaining from all forms of birth control, including natural family planning (only having sex during times of lowest fertility: i.e. during breastfeeding, after menopause, and during periods of the menstruation cycle) and sterilization. They believe all children are a gift from God, and only God has the right to decide when and to whom a baby should come. They do not believe in child spacing. As a result, the Duggars have had 18 children over the course of 20 years, and (as the show's title suggests) will likely have more.

Now, I believe that birth control is a very private matter. And as long as this family is happy and are able to support themselves and their children financially, I say right on to them. But I disagree with the tenants of their faith. Mary Pride (who some say started the Quiverfull Movement) argued, "God commanded that sex be at least potentially fruitful (that is, not deliberately unfruitful).... All forms of sex that shy away from maritial fruitfulness are perverted."

Seriously?? What if a couple wants to have sex after menopause? Is that shying away from marital fruitfulness? What if a couple is sterile and can't have children? Should they cease to have sex once they know they can't have children? After all, their sexual relations are not potentially fruitful anymore.

There are all kinds of problems with this line of thinking. Yes, children are blessings from God, and should be received with gratitude. But sex is a wonderful part of marriage that was not created just to "make babies." Sex is an expression of love between husband and wife - it unites husband and wife and makes them one. And someone should not feel worried that they can't express their love to their spouse until they are financially able to support a child.

Baptist preacher John Piper said it well:
"Just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it. It is wrong to reason that since A is good and a gift from the Lord, then we must pursue as much of A as possible. God has made this a world in which tradeoffs have to be made and we cannot do everything to the fullest extent... As Wayne Grudem has said, 'it is okay to place less emphasis on some good activities in order to focus on other good activities.'"

Now on to the other article. Women's Day and AOL Living did a poll of 35,000 women to find out how they feel about their marriages. The result? Many women aren't that happy. It seems that once they got married, their relationships went downhill. In fact, 72% of the women polled said they have considered leaving their husband at some point, and 57% sometimes regret marrying him!

I bet I can give a guess as to why - more than 60% said they rarely or never have a date night with their husband, and more than half replied that their sex life is "dull," or that they can't remember the last time they were intimate with their husband. A whopping 79% of the women polled say they want to have sex more often.

And would you have guessed it? The number one most important thing women wish their husband would do? Spend time with them. Close behind was "do housework."

I took a class in college about marriage and family relationships, and our professor said something that I have remembered well: intimacy is directly related to the rest of your relationship. You don't have sex to build a good relationship. You have sex because you already have a good relationship. Do you think your wife is going to want to be intimate with you when ignore her? When you don't take her out on dates and spend time together, just the two of you? When you don't help out around the house and expect her to do everything? On a related note, do you also expect your wife to look good for you when you've let yourself go? 12% of women said the most important thing they want their husband to do is hit the gym.

For those of you who don't see the connection between these two articles (which may be most of you), I want to reiterate the purpose of sexual intimacy. Is it to help create children who will come into and bless our lives? Yes. But it is also to strengthen the bonds of love within marriage. It is to express what cannot be expressed any other way. People sometimes ask why in the LDS church we teach our members to wait until marriage to be intimate. Why? Because sex is bad? No! It's not that it's bad, but because it is so good that we need to wait to experience it with our spouse. It's only within marriage that we can share absolutely everything with someone, and only there is it proper to show that highest expression of love.

So in other words, I think the Quiverfull Movement is definitely missing something.

David Letterman Under Fire

I'm not sure how many of you saw or heard David Letterman making crude jokes about Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughter (Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old unwed mother). I didn't, but they've been all over the news lately. Letterman made three inappropriate jokes about the Palins:

• Letterman commented that Gov. Palin had a "slutty flight attendant" look.
• He said Palin had a hard time keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.
• He also joked Palin's daughter was "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez.

Now suddenly, Palin-supporters are up in arms that he would make such shameful jokes. And people are calling for him to be fired. Have these people never watched his show? He makes inappropriate jokes about everyone. As he himself said in response to the criticism, yes, the jokes were in poor taste, and he regrets making them (he then adds that he's regretted telling thousands of jokes on his show).

Unfortunately for Letterman, Palin wasn't traveling with Bristol, but with Willow, Palin's 14-year-old daughter. So even though the jokes were obviously made in reference to Bristol, who, as Letterman said, "was knocked up," and whose...ahem, morals...could be called into question, these people are determined to prove that he meant to promote statutory rape.

Puh-leeze! Are you serious?!

Now, did I think these jokes were funny? No. Were they inappropriate? Yes. Do I think people should support him and his program when he continues to tell these types of jokes? No. But do you honestly believe that he was sending the message that it's okay to rape someone? Or that sex with a minor is okay? Give me a break. These are just people trying to gain a little extra spotlight. And I include the Palins in that group. She's just early campaigning for 2012 (I won't be voting for her, that's for sure).

Oh, and I'm willing to bet that many of those people who are signing that online petition are the same ones who laughed at all the equally inappropriate jokes made at the expense of dozens of other public figures. Let's not be hypocrtical, shall we?

Facebook Friends

Let me preface this post by saying it's going to sound harsh. Although, those of you who read this probably already know that. My friend Sarah once responded to one of my posts this way: "I think you are one opinionated boy!! You always know where you stand and exactly how you feel about things." Well, that's partially true. I am very opinionated, and I tend to voice those opinions a lot. Whether wrong or right, I feel how I feel. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to look at things from another viewpoint and possibly change my mind.

Today I did some housecleaning on my Facebook list. I had about 450 "Facebook friends," of which I'm sure less than 20% I talk to, look at their profiles, or follow anything going on in their lives on a regular basis. I'm even willing to bet the number is lower than that.

Does that genuinely come as a surprise to anyone reading this? How many of your Facebook or MySpace friends do you stalk (I use that term loosely - don't ever stalk people - it's creepy and could get you a restraining order)? How many of your "friends" do you talk to? How many of their profiles do you even look at once a month?

With the advent of social networking, it seems like the cool thing to do is to "get back in contact" with as many of your former friends as possible. The thing is, people don't tend to do too much to stay in touch (let's face it, it's hard to keep up with the goings on of hundreds of people). For someone like me who moved around a ton, getting back in contact means that dozens of people I hardly remember add me as their friend, maybe look at my pictures once and make a comment ("Oh cute!"), then are never heard from again.

Or sometimes I get a person who knows someone I know, or who has seen me in a play, who wants to "be my friend" (I put this in quotes, because all they usually want is to add me to their Facebook friends list - they don't typically care about meeting me/getting to know me in person).

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to get to know me, to talk to me, to be my friend. Those are all wonderful things. But let's face it - the majority of people with whom I interact on Facebook (either talking with them, looking at their profiles, checking out their pictures, even chatting with them) are people I interact with outside of Facebook. I talk with them on the phone, chat online, see them from time to time... In other words, I make some effort to be a real friend - not just their "Facebook friend."

And I'm sure I'm just as guilty of this as most people. I've added people I barely knew simply because they were in a class or play with me, or who were good friends with ex-girlfriends. I've found people I knew in high school, but who were more acquaintances than friends, and added them to my list.

So we end up with huge lists of people we never talk to, never interact with, and the worst part of it is that when you go to remove any of these acquaintances from your list, you feel guilty. You worry they'll be hurt or offended that you removed them. Maybe they looked at your profile more often than you looked at theirs. Maybe they cared more than you did. That's always the concern, and I don't have a solution for it.

However, maybe we can eliminate the worry in regard to old high school/middle school/elementary school "friends." With your friend request, send a message: "Hey. I know we haven't talked in a dozen years and were never really that close to begin with, but I saw your name on someone else's profile, and wondered what you were up to. Can you add me so I can check out what's been going on, and then I'll remove you since I'm not incredibly interested in staying in touch - only getting in touch?"

Now there would be an honest message, and one I would be totally fine getting. Unfortunately, it will never happen.

Back to my housecleaning. I realize that there may be people who read my blog who I "un-added" from my Facebook friends list recently. If that's the case, you're probably one of those people I felt guilty about removing, because you care more about keeping up with me than I thought. I apologize if your feelings were hurt, but I don't apologize for un-adding anyone, because I haven't had any interaction with anyone I removed in months (at the least).

Moral of the story? Be real friends with people...then add them to your friends list.

Love & Marriage

Before my sister and future brother-in-law walked into the sealing room for their wedding, I looked around the room at all the people who had sullen and dismal expressions on their faces, and told them to lighten up: "This is a wedding! You're supposed to be happy! I think if I was ever a sealer, I wouldn't be able to resist, and at some point I'd say, 'Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today.' Which is why I'll probably never be a sealer."

I got a few chuckles and smiles, which is what I was going for. I just hated how sad and dismal everyone looked at such a happy time. And then, who cried the most when the wedding was over and he was hugging his little sister? Me, of course. Well, maybe it was a draw between the two of us.

At my wedding, I told her not to cry. :)

April 30, 2009 was the happiest day of my entire life. As I walked out of the temple with my sweetheart, holding her hand, everything was perfect. The weather, which we had worried about for weeks, cooperated and was gorgeous all day, allowing us to have our reception line outside, like Kristen had always wanted. She was beautiful. The reception center looked great. The music was fantastic. The dancing was fun. All in all, it was just a good, fun day. Even the confetti that was thrown in the car right before we left couldn't put a damper on things.

And in my many, many days of marriage (28 so far), it's been wonderful. :) I've learned, though, that marriage isn't easy. People always tell you that, but you don't truly understand. At least, not until you're actually married. All of a sudden, you have another person living with you. Someone with a different way of doing things, who was raised differently, who, essentially, comes from a different culture.

I mean, you do your best to talk about things before the wedding, to make the transition as smooth as possible, but there's no way you could think of everything. There are all kinds of things someone may do subconsciously that you're not used to.

But despite the bumps in the road we've experienced and I'm sure we'll continue to experience, we are happy, we're in love, and we're looking forward to spending an eternity together.

Blogging...

I like to read blogs. No, I take that back. I like to read interesting blogs. And I prefer reading the blogs of people I know, but have occasionally ventured onto blogs of people I don’t. While blog-surfing, I’ve noticed that it seems a lot of bloggers out there are stay-at-home moms, and their primary blogging topic is their kids.

Now, not to attack anyone in particular or hurt anyone’s feelings (I’m sure I’ll lose a few readers with this post), but those blogs are usually pretty boring. Even if you’re friends with the person, if you don’t have a vested interest in the children (i.e. their uncle or grandmother), you don’t really care that much. Unless it’s something really interesting (like my friend who recently adopted and wrote about her new son), I’ll usually only skim the entry.

This is not to say that there aren’t kid blogs out there I think are very interesting, or that it’s never okay to write about your kids. If the blog is primarily to keep your family up-to-date on your family over long distances, it makes sense to blog about your kids. Or if once and a while your child does something really spectacular or interesting, and you want to share it with everyone, go for it (i.e. posting a video of your child’s first steps).

And kid-blogging is not the only blogging sin. There are also those people who only blog when they want to post pictures of their most recent trip. One would think by looking at their blog that they are constantly on vacation. While these posts try to make up for a lack of interesting content by using pretty pictures, they really only amount to glorified slide shows. And I don’t mean the cool, movie-type slideshows. I mean the boring, sit-in-the-dark, use-a-clicker-attached-to-the-machine-to-advance-the-slides slideshow.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, with the advent of the web, everyone can publish their thoughts for the world to see. Many people think of blogs as online journals, and looking at it that way, it shows the difference in the way people see the world. Some write the events of the day, while others write their thoughts and feelings, and insights gained. I think a healthy blend of both is what makes a good blog (leaning more towards the thoughts, feelings, and insights side). I don’t claim to have the most interesting blog in the world, but I like to think that I post moderately interesting content a majority of the time. But hey, that’s me. What do you think?

Wedding Plans

With only 5 weeks left until my wedding, I thought that I would share some insights into wedding planning that I’ve learned (from the groom’s perspective).

First of all, for the groom, the engagement period is a time to prove that you really are in love with this girl, because you commitment is going to be tried. The bride is going to be constantly stressed out about making plans, making decisions, dealing with her mother (let’s be honest – even the best mother-daughter relationships get a little rocky during wedding planning), and it’s the groom’s job to be the calming influence. He has to learn to be incredibly patient, not be easily offended, and be willing to do anything the bride asks of him without feeling frustrated, annoyed, or neglected.

His job is also to remember that everyone (especially the bride and her mother) are in a different state of mind pre-wedding, but that everyone will go back to normal the moment the reception is over. I saw this with my sister’s wedding. My mom was a completely different person (I had never seen her that way) the whole weekend I was home for the wedding (let’s face it – she was freaking out). But the moment the decorations and food were taken down and carted back to the house, she was back to her normal self. It was a strange thing to witness.

As the groom, you need to remember that during the engagement, the girl you asked to marry you will become a different woman: one who can become a little bit crazy on occasion. You must remember this is not indicative of her mental state, or how she will act when you are married. It’s just the stress of planning a wedding. Also remember that you can influence this state, either for good or for ill.

My brother-in-law managed to avoid all the wedding craziness. He was working several hundred miles away from my sister during most of their engagement, and was only with her the last couple weeks, when most everything had already been planned. Did he do it the right way or no? Who knows?

Now, my advice to you future grooms for a happy engagement:

1. Never offer your opinion about anything, unless asked. If you are asked, give your opinion honestly, but let your bride know you’ll still like whatever she chooses.
2. Fight the constant desire we men have to be logical and solve problems that way. This is also important to remember in marriage, but especially important during the engagement. Wedding planning is never logical. Honestly, who would spend thousands of dollars on a one-day event, were they being logical? Let her do it how she wants.
3. Take a break from wedding stuff every day, and have some together time. If you don’t, you’ll both go crazy. It doesn’t matter whether you have a million things to do. Just take some time to relax: watch a movie, cook dinner together, whatever.
4. This one ties in to the last one, but keep going on dates. Don’t stop simply because you’re engaged. It’s possibly even more important to continue courting each other while you’re engaged than it was prior to the engagement.
5. Make sure your bride knows how much you love her – tell her often, and do little things for her to show her you still love her, even though she gets crazy sometimes. :)

And lastly…
6. Remember that your bride loves you very much, even when the stress of the wedding puts her in a less-than-positive mood.

If you follow this advice, I think you’ll find you have a good engagement, and will continue to be excited for the big day, and the many that will follow it.