A wasted degree

I just got a call from a my alumni school. One of the questions they asked was whether or not I am employed. My answer was no. Technically, I own my own “business” and I have a unique product but haven’t pushed it in the recent year or two since I have other priorities. I contemplated calling back after I hung up to change my position on employment, because I am not a waste of my degree.

Recently there has been so much discussion about women, their rights and roles and their limitations in the workforce and even in my church. I feel it important as a mother and as a leader of the young women in my church to understand these varying viewpoints, whether or not I agree with them. When the call from the school where I received my Associate Degree came I was in the middle of reading a few articles and blog posts on the subject. 

There are many reasons I do this. One is to be understanding; another is to not teach in the old way with the old stigma and the old ideas. Is there something wrong with the old way? Well, I firmly believe God’s way is right. Right now our loving Heavenly Father has given us a “new” way to teach and I'm doing my best at it.  The “old” way certainly has its issues introduced by what I assume are well meaning individuals who can’t possibly foresee all the ways their good intentions will be misconstrued and torn apart or what the individual will internalize it as. My blog has gone relatively quiet lately because I see so many good blog posts, well written, well thought out get completely decimated my commentators who are cruel and often do not try to understand the author or their position at all. Bloggers simply share their world, their thoughts as they are. Generally speaking a Blog will never and can never cover all the angles and it shouldn’t try to. I am not great at putting my thoughts down and so I often keep them to myself, because I love a variety of people with a variety of views and ways of living and don’t want rifts, but I quietly try to understand them and know better how to approach them when those things we don’t see eye to eye on come up. I’m passionate about what I believe. Most people are.

So while I was trying to find a piece of information for the phone call I asked the questioner, “What is the purpose of keeping up with the Alumni?” “To see how Alumni are using their degrees.” So then I asked the pointed question, “Am I a waste of my degree?” Remember I just told her that I was unemployed. The young woman answered correctly in the negative. I let her know I do not feel that I have wasted my degree either, but that that view was certainly narrowing in the world around me. 

After my Associates degree from BYU-Idaho I went to BYU in Provo and received my Bachelor’s degree. I do freelance graphic design here and there, more frequently when my children were less and younger and took naps. Now we spend hours on homework and cuddling, reading and practicing letter forms, painting masterpieces and building with ceramic clay, we spend time playing in the tree house and making chalk masterpieces on the driveway, and dragging a red wagon laden with heavy little bodies up the slope to the road just because it’s the shortest route. I spend time folding laundry and telling the kids not to eat on the couch, dragging myself into the kitchen to attempt to create a meal that will please a vast audience, sweeping under the table and picking up random discarded clothing. I spend time reading the scriptures with my children and teaching them to brush their teeth, to organize the toys and fold laundry, I teach them to make choices and accept consequences, I teach them the way around a kitchen and recognize a need and be willing to serve, I teach them to pray, I teach them to change their attitude. I also sometimes yell, roll my eyes and melt to the floor like my toddler and then I get to teach by example to repent and forgive. I eat chocolate after they go to bed and whine about getting up in the morning to redo everything I did yesterday. I pray.

I’m a mother who is doing the best she can to raise a few children who will know how to handle life and work for themselves. Just like me, sometimes they will totally suck at it. It’s a fact, but they’ll get up and keep working at it, because that’s what their mom did and what their grandma’s did, and their great grandmas etc. etc. all the way back to Eve. She made a choice that bettered mankind and yes, womankind that includes you, the terms man and mankind is not exclusive. Eve isn’t to blame, but to thank. I’m thanking her by doing what I feel God has asked me to do; to live, to raise children, to nurture them and to be a supportive wife. Yes, I’m married. No, my husband wouldn’t stop me from working if that was my burning desire, or even a little desire. I don’t home school. I am happy to send my children who I have found thrive in the public school environment, where they can choose to live what we teach in our home and believe me, they have a choice. 

So what do I do with my degree? Sometimes I use it to make money, remember, I do freelance. Sometimes I do it to help out a friend, sometimes I use my degree to make something as a gift, or something I learned in my college classes to serve someone else or to add beauty to their world. Sometimes I advise people in things concerning my degree. Sometimes, I use my degree to simply teach my daughter that she can draw a neck between a head and its arms because it is there. Sometimes I use it to help my child with a homework assignment or project or to research something that interests us simply because we love to learn. Sometimes I even use it to help my daughter do a project on a "feminist." GASP! Sometimes I use it to make things for my husband that helps him in his job, and sometimes I use it to document our marriage or show him I love him. I use it to express myself.

Does it really matter if I use it? USE it in the way the general public thinks I should use it? No. It doesn’t. Because once you learn something it is stored away in that magical space in your spirit. It’s a place that sometimes my brain can’t quite access so I can’t remember how to do long division in a pinch to help my daughter, instead I get to learn it again with her, which gives me patience. But my spirit has it, it’s locked down solid and when I die, all those things will be opened to me again perfectly and I’ll use them. I’ll use them and build on them and be better for having the pittance of a foundation my 16ish years of schooling brought me. 

I am not a waste of my degree. I am exactly what I planned to be. A mother, a wife, a woman with experience, a woman with knowledge, a woman with talents, a woman with testimony, a woman with a plan.

I am a woman with divine destiny. 

An olive branch

I titled this post carefully and hopefully it makes sense. I'm going to talk about something personal and very close to my heart and hope those who read it will appreciate it for what it is and see why it is important to me to share these thoughts. I could share a lot of thoughts, but I am trying to keep this succinct.

Thanks to Wikipedia I have this definition to help me show you the connection I am trying to make.

An Olive Branch: is usually a symbol of peace or victory and was historically worn by brides.

 

This thought comes from an experience I had while attending college. I was at BYU in a class called Clothing the Family. It sounded like a useful class that would cover budgeting and smart practices and skills to, well, clothe the family.

The class was an utter disappointment.

One day the class had gone to complete poo when a married girl in the class commented on how her husband just wasn't living up to his potential and the "professor" carried on with it. I am not for man bashing. I don't mind joking around about the differences in the genders but serious bashing is right out for me, (I'm gonna get mean here) especially coming from a dim witted, wobbly stiletto heeled, died platinum blonde girl and a justifying debited, needy, older woman who really should know better.

Listening to my tuition money coin in and tinkle around in these empty headed women I couldn't take it any more, and as I sorted through what they were whining about I wondered what was different? Why didn't I have disappointments in my husband that I was just bursting to share with this group of tawdry women? Was it because I was still a newlywed and still had my blinders on? That couldn't be it, some of these girls were more freshly married than I was.

So what was it?

I think sometimes, we women get some pretty big ideas about what marriage and men are like and what our role will be like with them. I know there was plenty I had wrong. But ultimately I think a big problem is we tend to think of our future spouse in a checklist form for so long that when we are married we still think of marriage and our spouse in this checklist form instead of human form, you know, like WE are.

But I had one thing right, the man I married and the fact that I married my man for who he was: imperfect, anal, sometimes irreverent...

I bet most women had that same thing right when they married their spouse. Somewhere we loose perspective though. We've got flaws, sins, weaknesses addictions: I'm talking chocolate, exercise and lack there of, self demeaning practices, weak self worth, sense of entitlement, feminist ideas, laziness, unrealistic expectations... whatever, anything that is out of moderation, anything that hinders our ability to love others, anything that puts us above others, that supersedes our ability to love and forgive:

To get over ourselves.

To marry him for who he IS, every day.

Somewhere, I think we forget why we married them. Even just for a moment, and if we let that moment grow, we have a problem. It's our problem. My heart started beating really fast and my thoughts clarified.

"If you marry someone

for their POTENTIAL

you will be consistently disappointed.

If you marry them for who they ARE

you will be pleasantly surprised."

Class was over for me that day.

But I've come back to this thought often in my life. I am certainly not a perfect woman or wife. I struggle, have setbacks and disappointments, I let my husband down, I waste time, forget stuff and just avoid things that need doing because they are unpleasant, I have different forms of addictions. We all do. Think about it, you've got some "bad habits" just like me. I could go on, but think about it, I'm not perfect. So why should my husband be?

You are not perfect. So why should your husband be?

He shouldn't.

I am gonna go out a limb here and vocalize some thoughts I keep having. This idea applies to many aspects of marriage but I am going to touch on just one now.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we expect our men to be seriously moral.

This is awesome.

I think it is right.

However, we also live in a world where this is extremely uncommon. Many women in marriages just accept that their husband does things (strip joint, web sites etc) that in the LDS church we seriously frown upon. We don't accept it. However, as a local church leader shared in a Young Women's lesson, the temptations are always there, people are always cajoling our men to take a peek, it's not so bad, it's still funny, it pops up uninvited, etc.

Any woman or man who thinks that pornography isn't a problem in their home to some extent is just plain fooling themselves. I don't care how great you all are. I'm not saying that everyone needs counseling or anything like that, I am just saying it is a temptation, like any other temptation, it's real and it's something that you can't just ignore and hope it isn't a problem or won't be a problem. You'll face it somewhere, your husband, brother, friends, son etc. It's something you have to actively fight against. If you don't, it's sure to rear it's ugly head. I see it all around me, and have for years in various forms and casualties.

It's downright crappy. But it's truth and the flesh is weak... It's that temporal body we are so blessed to have and so blessed to try to learn to over come.

So what to do?

Support our men in their struggles. I don't mean pat them on the back and say, "That's cool, I don't mind, it doesn't hurt me." That would be a lie. That's one of those big ones, you know, the Ten Commandments. So don't lie.

If you are a woman, it hurts. No matter what level it exists in. But we have to help them, it's the whole "for better or for worse" thing that we commit to do when we married them. It's their sin, but we can't let it become ours, (it becomes our sin when we let it tear our marriage, family and relationships apart, when we ignore Christ's atonement and it's role in our healing, forgiveness and their recovery) we have to help them daily fight it. It's not the man's fight alone. There have been lots of awesome talks about fighting it in General Conference. Here's a search. They often talk to the men about it, but it's real for women too. So I'm saying my two bits about it to women. Because we have a role in helping our men fight it.

I have been blessed in my marriage because I have a husband who is serious about fighting the temptation. We have found a system of checks that works for us. I don't babysit his browser or anything like that it was a plan he came up with and it works. It's active. It's always active.

In the words of a very wise woman who knows, and whom I love dearly: If he's there, in the marriage and he wants to work on it, you've got something to work with. That's so much better than not having a marriage at all.

I mean be willing to forgive, be active in their recovery, be active in their success. Always be active in your fight against the Destroyer.

Remember you married a person, not a check list, not a perfect ideal.

Extend an Olive Branch: Strive for Peace, Strive for Victory in your marriage.

It's hard, but nothing is as hard as walking in this world alone.

p.s  pictures are completely my own (except the olive branch which was found through Google and I can't find the origin). If you would like to share please do so by linking back.

Secret loves

I recently commented on Facebook that

I secretly really like the postal system.

Now that the secret is out I'd like to elaborate.

Back in the days of my childhood I patronized our local library quite often.

I was one of those lucky kids who had a library card. Who participated in Summer Reading Programs and even took some of the kids I baby sat to the Library.

I also really love public libraries.

Summers were spent with a sunny walk to the library for some new literature and a nearby convenience store called Island Market for candy. I'd take the loot home and put out the picnic blanket on the lawn, or climb up in the apple tree and read and snack away... ya, I know we're not supposed to eat and read.... Ladies, you are also not supposed to take books in the bubble bath, but I know you do. ;)

One book I remember was about mail. (You are welcome to send me a copy of this book.) called the Jolly Postman. This book incorporates famous fairy tales as well in a humorous way. But it wasn't your regular old book. No, it was awesome! It was like you were a nosy (and criminal) postman who read all the mail. As I remember it there were envelopes of all types on the pages and letters that were folded up tucked inside. Postcards too. The book had all sorts of cool die cutting.

I also really like stuffing envelopes.

One summer I had a job working with my sister at Embroidery.com and they needed someone to send out coupon mailers to the customers. It was the dreaded job that no one seemed to want to do, so when I was presented with the job, I was T-H-R-L-L-E-D. Stickers, folding, hand addressing, stuffing envelopes, seriously, what isn't fun about that?

The very idea of mail is magical, you put a piece of paper in an envelope.

Add a special sticker

and a little bit of spit

and a wave of the magic red flag off it goes

and can make it to wherever you addressed it faster

than you could get there on your own.

Those envelopes hold cards, love, gifts, sentiments, gum, dollar bills, stickers, drawings, pictures, pretty things and all manner of written word. When you find something addressed to you in that box you feel all sorts of special. Hey, add parcel post and the excitement is quadrupled!

So why do I love the postal system? Because it is magical.

Validation

Warning: this post contains no pictures. Get over it. It has some links to pictures though. :)

There are lots of things we do in life. Some of them, or most of them go unnoticed and lots of those unnoticed things are the things that keep life running. That's okay.

There are also lots of loosing battles we choose to fight... or at least play at. I'm sure you can think of plenty of them in your own life in hobbies, parenting, life, etc.

My Tatties, is probably one of those, I likely will never make enough money to have a viable business out of it. That's okay. I do it because I think it is a good idea, because I like to do it and because I believe in the quality and value of what I do. The other day my Dad had somethings to say about the business end of it, how it was probably a loosing battle, because of the time and love I invest in it. While monetarily that may be true, it isn't true for the validation and the joy I get out of doing it. Sometimes, someone really gets it and loves them at least half as much as I do, and for that it is worth it. Also being able to do something and create something is a thrill, that I think we all need to experience that on whatever level of creativity we entertain. I love to be able to teach people to tat. Or to share with them the things that I am able to create. I sell them because I do have to recoup some cost and because lots of people have encouraged me to do so. I love the challenge of creating a new pattern and now have quite a few that I can call my own.

At different stages of my life different avenues of creativity, or the ability to use my skills have presented themselves and I have enjoyed the opportunities. Aside from tatting I love to edit photos, design, create wedding announcements, sew, draw, paint, knit, crochet, ceramics, re-purpose/ renew and learn more about all these options and have the opportunities to share my skills or exercise them.

We all do something that internally brings us joy. But it doesn't hurt to have outside validation. I never took on a job that implemented my Bachelor's Degree in the formal sense. So when I get an opportunity to do a graphic design job, it is a thrill for me. It is a form of validation that most people get when they are hired to do a job in their field.

I chose to be a mom first and so my validation in this way comes in small doses. A freelance job here, a Tattie sale there, a well received gift... That's fine. I enjoy what I chose.

In case you were wondering:

There is a God.

Alice in Spaced out land

So I watched Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp that came out a few months back.

I confess I love Tim Burton stuff. Loved it. I realized I had never read the book by Lewis Carroll. I consider myself to be a fairy tale fan and figured I owed it to myself to read the book. I went to my blessed library and reserved a copy. I think I have now renewed it at least 4 times. Yup, I've had it at least 9 weeks and probably 12 by now. Lucky me, the copy I got also had Through the Looking Glass. For those wondering, it's not long. The type is rather small in the copy that I have but there are only 253 pages. It's just that every time I sit down to read I feel like I am on drugs... not that I know what that feels like other than the stuff I've gotten in the hospital.

Anyway, point is:
It's a hard read, in that I get so confused every time I pick it up and try and read. And yet it is strangely enjoyable. And I do feel the need to finish it. Though I am sure the resolution of Through the Looking Glass will be as weird/ flat as the Alice in Wonderland. For something to ramble on and confuse me it's got to be going disjointed places because those who know me know I have a hard enough time keeping others on my train of thought and probably often confuse others.... oh dear I sound like the book.

In any case it's great if you need to get to sleep and can't, read some of the book, it'll tire your brain right out and you'll be able to take a nap no problem. You might even get to Wonderland yourself. Good luck with that.