So This One Time, When I Was Eight Months Pregnant, I Drove 11 Hours By Myself To Visit My Native People...

My baby sister and my foster brother both gradumacated the high school business. (Hence the long drive on my own.) I'm so proud of them, and can't wait to see what bigger and better things they go on to do! (They don't look excited but they really were. I promise.)

In order to be there to support them, I drove 11-ish hours across state lines to go home and visit my family. I'm kind of proud of myself for making the trip home by myself. (Or as "by myself" as it can be with Gummy Bear doing yoga in my ribs the whole trip.) I dealt with heavy rain, light rain, construction, stupid mistakes, construction, stupid drivers, and all the other fun things that come with traveling long distances in one day.

When you're driving such a long distance while largely pregnant, it's amazing how long you can go without using the bathroom. You know, since you're not moving around or anything. It's also amazing how embarrassing it is to get out of the car after you've mindlessly driven for 4 or 5 hours-- not only do you feel permanently mashed into a seated position, but you also have to walk waddle quickly to the nearest bathroom to avoid making the situation even more embarrassing.

I most certainly did NOT drive over 80 mph on the interstate. How dare you accuse me of such a thing! Blasphemous.

I'm grateful that I was able to visit my family for a week. Husband Man had a ton of tests on top of his normal homework, so we kissed each other goodbye and I went alone. It was nice to be able to spend all that time with my family-- I was able to help my amazing mom keep her sanity for a little longer, get caught up on what's happening to my siblings, go garage-sale-ing with Mama and my baby sister, go window shopping with my baby sister, boss around my brothers, and get my belly scritched by Mama and Daddy on multiple occasions.

Our wonderful Molly the Mormon Malibu can successfully hold 15 gallons of gas when she gets particularly hungry. I have decided that I never again want to see that much gas go in the tank at one time.
On a related note, I'm grateful for the guiding hand of the Lord who somehow got me forty-ish miles on one gallon of gas. Don't worry, I've learned my lesson. (PS- I'm a dunce.)

On the return trip, there was a lot of construction.
SD- 1 stretch.
WY- No less than 6 spots of construction on I-90. Half of them lasted for miles at a time.
MT- Montana really wanted to get on the construction boat, and so they put up signs in at least five different places saying there was road work when there really wasn't. In the sixth location they actually had torn up the road and were doing some blasting, but that was it.

I'm grateful for my parents, who are so willing to not only make sure Husband Man and I have the things we need, but also want to spoil us with things we want. Thank you, Mama, for the haircut. (I LOVE my haircut!!) Thank you, Mama (and my baby brother), who picked out an orchid for me to kill take care of. Thank you, Mama and Daddy, for purchasing tasty treats and spending time with me and listening to my stories and questions and for making me laugh. I miss you guys so much!

(And thank you, Husband Man, for being a bachelor for a week so I could be with them. I know you were lonely and slaved over homework the whole time, and I wish you could have had fun with us.)

Billboard wisdom:
"Wife Insurance - Marshall Jewelry"
"THE FLU - ruins date night."

I learned there's a huge golf course outside Rexy. Has that always been there...?

The last 30 miles of the trip are THE WORST. Especially when every guy within a five mile radius who also owns a trailer shows up to drive 15 mph under the speed limit.

The next time I see my native people, I'll have a baby in tow. (Like, for reals and not just this weird giant belly thing going on.)
THAT'S a weird thought.

The Piano Guys

So Husband Man, his sister and her husband, and I all got to go see the Piano Guys in concert last night. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to! These four guys get together and create these astounding musical arrangements with amazing videos to go with them. It really reaffirms my love of music, especially watching these men do what they love with joy and smiles and dancing.

When I was learning music in middle and high school, I was sort of a die-hard traditionalist when it came to music. By "traditionalist" I mean that I really didn't like the use of technology in music. I felt like it was cheating. Electronic instruments, whether keyboards or cellos, sounded fake to me. Using electronics to record you playing different parts of music and then looping them together was weird-- I felt that if you couldn't play it live by yourself then it was cheating. Even recording music was hard for me to digest sometimes-- I understand the value of it, by allowing more audiences to hear it and so on, but at the same time being able to record multiple performances and piecing together the good parts or whatever wasn't something I was sure I was fine with.

It's not that I wasn't exposed to electronics and music, either. I'd heard electronic string instruments played in person, but I still didn't like it compared to the real thing. I grew up playing on an electric keyboard when I was first taking piano lessons, because my family didn't have a real piano. I had a friend in high school who looped tracks together to create his own music. Even so, it just didn't seem right to me (or I refused to accept it, I'll honestly say I don't know which it was).

Little by little, however, over the course of my college career, I've really come to appreciate what electronics and media can do for audiences. I knew the value of it when it came to musicals, but that made sense at the time-- you are trying to tell a story, and you can create a better connection with your audience by incorporating music, staging, props, and lighting. But really, how is that any different with any type of music? You are still trying to connect with your audience, to get them to feel the things you created the music for.

I don't think I meant to be close-minded to the use of technology. I definitely think that there are some good things done with it, (and also some pretty weird things...). Take organs, for example-- because of electronics we have our easier-to-use modern organ, so you can have full pipe organs or organs with pipes and electronic "pipes", as well as smaller fully-electronic organs that can be stashed in a tiny practice room (or my future living room, just sayin'). In the Piano Guys concert, Steven Sharp Nelson used his looping electronic doo-dad (I don't remember what it was called, sorry) to create entire tracks on-stage in real time. To me that takes guts, (what if you mess up a layer of your track??) and to hear it done was incredible. I couldn't fathom that he could come up with all those intertwining layers of music and put the together in a way that made sense. Still not convinced? Remember the post I wrote about the experibass?

Even writing music is so much nicer with electronics. I bought the Finale program for my Scoring and Arranging class on campus, and I definitely have plans to put it to good use! Forget writing it out on physical staff paper and trying to play it on a piano and have it make sense-- now I can enter it in electronically, and even hear it played by "instruments" so I can get a better idea of how things will sound. (I'm not going to say the program is perfect, because I think the brass instrument sounds are horrible... but it's incredibly useful.) And when I'm done with it, I can print it off right in my own house, and there's a hard copy of the piece I just put together.

Now, I'm not going to say I'm completely sold on everything. I still think classic cello sounds way better than electronic, and a grand piano will always sound nicer than a keyboard. The point is that electronics can bless our lives in such a way that music can reach out farther and farther in the world, to more people than before. It allows people to take their talents and expand them beyond imagination. I used to think that Beethoven would have rolled over in his grave if he ever heard his music played by electronic instruments. Now I think he looks down from heaven and marvels at what we have, and probably wonders what he could have done if he was in our shoes.

I believe that you can take music and force your way into its secrets, and that there isn't just one way to go about doing that. Technology is one of those ways-- the Piano Guys proved that to me tonight. I'd been considering the use of technology in music over the last year or so, but to see it put into action, live, and how much these men enjoyed what they did and how far their influence reached-- that really solidified my thoughts. I'm so excited that I am involved in such a wonderful part of this world, so grateful that music exists and that I was able to study it in college. I'm going to keep expanding my musical talents in any way I want to. 

Challenge accepted, Piano Guys-- challenge accepted.

Pregnancy Post #3: Random Thoughts

While researching pregnancy exercises at the beginning of the second trimester, I came across a lot of articles that said that walking was a really great form of exercise for pregnant women. Ha! Walking? I walk to campus, around campus--I power walk, matching Husband Man's long giraffe-leg strides, and that doesn't feel like exercise. Psh. Pansies.
Then I started putting on baby weight, as Gummy Bear got bigger and all that, and walking suddenly became fantastic exercise. Touche, pregnancy, touche.

Conundrum: When you get pregnant, it will seem that many people feel obliged to hold doors for you, let you go first to microwave your food, or help you put up your plastic chair after masterclass is over. When you cross the street, however, drivers will still seem to have no qualms about running you over.

Husband Man and I have talked a lot about things we want to do with our kids, sort of like goals and talents that we want them to have. For example, my children will learn to play the piano, no arguments, and we also want to encourage them to do karate or play an instrument or take swim lessons, etc. You know, the standard. We've also talked about things like trying to make sure our kids stay on top of the learning curve, trying to keep them engaged in wholesome activities, and other things like that for when they're little toddlers and kids. We write these ideas down and commit that we will make our kids the amazing prodigies we know they can be. (Let it be known, however, that these are realistic ideas-- I'm not about to teach my baby to swim before they're a year old or anything crazy like that.)
Then I go and babysit someone's kid, and my entire mindset changes. Are they dead? Are they sick? Are they crying? No? Fantastic. It's a great day.

I love randomly finding pregnancy information online. One day, while on Pinterest, I ran across what was supposed to be the ultimate website that would answer your every question about being pregnant. I clicked on it, just for kicks and giggles, and the one question that I actually read was, "Should I eat Arby's while pregnant?"
I was flabberghasted. Woman, you are pregnant! If you want Arby's, you get in your car and drive down the street, and you get a giant roast beef sandwich and an apple turnover, and you enjoy that darned food like a caveman would enjoy a leg of mammoth!

 Conundrum: When you get pregnant, you will be bombarded with questions. How are you feeling? When are you due? How is the baby? Do you have a name picked out? How are you feeling? What gender is the baby? What do you mean you didn't find out the gender?? When are you due again? How are you feeling?
You will receive these questions so often that you might be tempted to think that people actually are interested in baby stuff. And then one day, when you're trying to show the carseat you picked out to your victim of choice, your husband will point out that they don't really seem interested. You will quickly learn that people really aren't interested in the baby's goofy kicks and mannerisms, and that they're even less interested in the choice of carseat or pack n play. (Unless they're pregnant too. Then they'll talk a little bit with you.)

Another thing I've quickly learned is that my brain, which mostly functioned before, does not function properly now. In fact, my entire being doesn't really function normally. Husband Man will hand me something, and it goes straight to the floor. I'll start a story or a thought, and midway through it my mind will turn into a void filled with the knowledge that something important used to inhabit that space but now it is lost to the four winds. If I'm lucky I'll get the thought back, but I don't know when it will return-- it could be in the next minute, the next hour, or the next day.

I've heard stories of women who turn into bloodhounds when they're pregnant-- you know, they can smell everything, and sometimes those smells can make them sick. I don't really have that-- in fact, when I was babysitting a friend's six-month-old, my friend got home and pointed out that the baby had a poopy diaper that I apparently couldn't smell. The only things that have really bothered me are vinegar, which is what I use to clean my shower, and nail polish. But not poopy diapers.

Conundrum: When you get pregnant, you will receive a bucketload of advice. You have to pick through it all, obviously, but there are some things that will baffle you. Your sister-in-law will mention that you will experience hair retention, but two, three, four, five months later you'll be standing in the shower pulling wads of hair off of your fingers and asking your husband if you're going bald. A lady in your ward will tell you to rest your laptop on your belly and watch your baby kick it, but no matter how many times you try it your baby will ignore the invading laptop and pummel your intestines instead. The same goes for drinking cold things and watching your belly turn into a popcorn popper-- you're still waiting on that one. Pregnancy websites will tell you what adorable developments are occurring with your adorable baby, and you'll read about adorable sleep patterns and adorable kicks and see images of pregnant women lounging in the Bahamas with green smoothies and unblemished faces... and then you'll look down at your yoga pants rolled halfway down your butt, and your husband's hoodie; you'll realise that your baby has forgone a sleep pattern in lieu of doing whatever the heck they like; and that your baby doesn't kick but rather makes their world a playground for flips and karate kicks and wiggles and dancing. All this reaffirms just one thing-- advice is still just advice.

That moment when you're laying in bed next to your husband, who is resting his hand on your belly and happens to feel the baby do a two-second jump-flip-rebound-kick that contorts your belly and smacks your left lung and right hip simultaneously, and the husband says with a surprised look "Wow! That was big!" and before you realise it you've given him the look and said "I KNOW..."
(I love my Husband Man! His reactions are priceless!)

When we go to the gym Husband Man is doing pullups and squats and situps and pushups, and there are guys around us doing their pullups and ring thingies and headstand jumps and running around, and I'm all "These wall pushups are killing me! Holy canole!"

Hey, Ladies-- Stop Standing in the Snow!

I was chatting with my sister a month or so back, we started chatting about some interesting things...
(She's green, I'm white, btw.)

Do you hear what my sister is saying, people? (Or is it read what she's writing..? Whatever.)

Women are SO hard on themselves. We look in the mirror and have our moments of "Woe is me" and "I'm so ugly, how could anyone love me?" and then we get stuck in this mindset. We're not just stuck-- we're raised in this mindset. We grow up in a world where we are never good enough. We're standing in the snow, and our feet are freezing, and we think "Woe is me, my feet are frozen" and then we keep standing there and stuff our faces with chocolate. Why don't we move??

Think about it, ladies-- when your husband/boyfriend/significant other looks at you and says that you're pretty/gorgeous/beautiful/etc, what do you usually say? Do you stare at him like he's blind? Do you tell him "No, I'm not, I have zits raging across my face and my butt is huge and I'm not wearing makeup and I look like a camel!" (or something along those lines)?

What about when random strangers compliment you? I will never forget a situation back in high school, I was at some place for some orchestra concert, I was in all black and had long hair then, and a lady stopped me and complimented me on my appearance. Instead of saying "Thank you" I was a stupid teenager and pointed out some flaw that I had that I thought would somehow negate her compliment or prove her wrong or something. This woman got a little stiff and pretty much told me off, in a very polite way, telling me that I should accept compliments and not be rude. Then she walked off. That's when I realised that she was trying to be genuinely nice, and I had been genuinely a jerk.

I was rewatching an episode of Say Yes To The Dress, and this bride came in with her fiance to look for a wedding dress. She came out in the first dress and the first words out of the fiance's mouth were "Oh wow... You look gorgeous, babe!" And this woman stood up tall on that pedestal and said in a loud voice, "Thank you, dear!"
That blew me away. This was a woman who I'm sure looked in the mirror sometimes and thought she looked fat and ugly. And yet, when her future husband told her she looked beautiful, she knew that she was beautiful and told him so. At some point she decided she didn't like having cold feet, and decided to take her chips and go stand in the sunshine.

I tried this a couple of weeks ago. Usually when Husband Man tells me I'm beautiful I either tell him he's crazy, or I tell him a sort-of "thanks" and look really embarrassed. One evening, however, Husband Man looked at me and called me "gorgeous" and I looked at him and said "Thank you, Husband!"
Do you know what happened?
He was stunned.
And then he was really pleased.  And I'm pretty sure I saw him fall in love with me even more.
I got really embarrassed because he was so happy, but I could tell that he really liked that I acknowledged him as a person, and told him that his opinion mattered to me.
Words say more than what they literally say.

Now, in no way do I think that you should just blandly say "Thank you" to every compliment that is made to you. People are going to compliment you on those days that you feel like you've been simultaneously run over by a herd of buffalo and pooped on by a flock of migrating geese. But when you get a compliment, say "Thank you" and smile. Even if you don't believe it. And then think about why they could have said it. Let people serve you. If someone breaks out of their selfish-shell and acknowledges your presence, you should be flattered. Genuinely.

You can't change your thoughts overnight, but you can start. You can look at yourself in the mirror until you see past the raging wall of zits and imperfections and start seeing the beauty. Think about common compliments you get. Husband Man likes to scritch my nose and tell me it's so cute and little. So one time I stared in the mirror until I actually saw my nose, and I realised that he was kind of right-- my nose is little and cute, and it's covered in freckles (which are pretty cute too).

So move to the sunshine and thaw your toes! What does Elder Uchtdorf say? STOP IT! Think about it-- do you like looking in the mirror and seeing only imperfections? Try a little harder to be a little happier. I'm pregnant, and with pregnancy comes really horrible acne. I've never had acne this bad in my life-- not even close. I can use soap and treatments until my nose falls off and my chin splits in two, but there is more to me and my face than acne. If that's all people see when they look at me, then that's their problem for being a pessimist. I don't want to be a pessimist. I want to enjoy my life, enjoy being pregnant, not spend my days laying on the couch eating chips and bemoaning my "pregnancy glow". I want to stand in the sunshine and be free from frozen toes!