Art Show

It has been awhile! I just wanted to throw this out there to anyone who may have missed the announcement on Facebook. If you happen to be in Utah anytime during April, head over to the Woodbury Museum on the second floor of the University Mall in Orem. The entrance is on the east end of the mall by Nordstrom's. There you can see my piece entitled, "Robby". We will see on Monday if I'll be able to say "award winning" piece, or not. Either way I am in the UVU Student Art Show! I submitted the piece more for a grade in one of my classes than in hopes that it would actually be selected. I figured others who put their heart and soul into their artwork would be selected before me. I submitted the only thing that qualified and it was a piece I did for a class that I was taking just for fun. My teacher figured presentation had a lot to do with my being selected. I spent a lot of money on framing it, a lot of money I was not so sure I should have spent. But it has paid off. Especially if I win a cash prize!

On a completely separate note, Am and I have been together over a year now. Saturday the 20th marked one year from our first date. I can hardly believe how much my life has changed for the better since then. Thanks for saying yes, Am! I Love you!

Another 48 Hours

OK, less than that even. Am went through the Temple for the first time last night. There are so many teeny little things to do, but everything is still coming together. I'm glad we changed our minds to go down to Cedar City. We both need the rest, and driving out to, and then up the Oregon Coast and back would have been so draining. It's funny though, when people at school ask where we are going and I say Cedar City, they initially give me a funny look. Like, why we would we go there of all places? But when I explain it to them, they realize it's not a bad idea at all. And better than most people do. At least we'll be sane when we get back. However, I'll have a stack of work to catch up when we get back. At least Am has another week off from teaching.

Less Than Five Days

I don't know how much it has set in yet that my world is completely changing in less than five days. I started trickling my things over to Am's condo a few days ago. Hopefully it won't take too long before it feels like OUR place. It'll be SO nice to cut the small commute out of our schedules. And to settle into a married schedule. While dating and including the engagement we've tried to spend as much time together as we could, and our sleep habits have gotten wonky. It'll be nice to be together AND get a good night's rest. But there are so many other adjustments to be made and discussions to have. But I am ready to get into it. I don't think I'll miss being single too much.

School is going well. My classes are fun and challenging, and are definitely learning experiences. I am seeing that my time at S-H was good preparation for UVU, but I still have a lot to learn.

We've decided to go down to Cedar City instead of the Oregon Coast. Less driving, more resting, less cold, more warmth. Oregon will come at some point for us, I still think it will be fun, but we don't need to have a second vacation to recuperate from the first.

12 Days

Am and I have just attended our last 3 hour block at the singles ward. There are a lot of good memories there. I have had the privilege of being in one great singles ward after another for the last 8 years, but the last 3 that I spent more than 3 months in have really stood out. Bishops Petersen, Davis, and Roberts have been phenomenal! They set the tone for their wards, but there have been so many friendly and faithful people in those wards that were just as responsible for the atmosphere at church. I'll miss them all.

But now I am (finally) moving into the next phase of life. If it is possible to be both ready and woefully unprepared at the same time, then I think that describes me well. But I know that I have found a "one", and I'm making her my "only". I've never been happier. And yet, I see greater happiness still to come. It seems like I am seeing the world with new eyes. The possibilities are endless.

And then there is this endurance thing we have to go through. The next 12 days will be an endurance test for sure. I can hardly believe that I am getting married, and that I have found someone so amazing to share the rest of my life with. At times I feel like I don't deserve the blessings I've been given, but I'll never turn them away.

Countdown to M-Day

There are less than 15 days to go! Picking up the marriage license and going in to pick out a tuxedo. Then we are going out to eat tonight on one of our last dates as singles.

I've been trying to track down someone to talk to about having our ring ceremony on the church grounds across the street from the temple. I can't look up leadership numbers on the Church website since I'm not a member of the ward or stake in Daybreak. Hopefully I'll hear from someone by Sunday.

It's funny, a year ago I didn't even know Am existed, and now I can't think about life without her. I hate to see her sad, but especially when I have had some part in it. Thankfully, she forgives me, and thankfully she is happy the majority of the time.

I can hardly stand the wait!

Choices

Hello intrepid readers! So it's been awhile since last I posted. I've been hard at work getting ready for a wedding that is about 6 weeks off still. In the same time I've enrolled at UVU and done some job interviews. My first feeling has been that if I got a job offer before the last day to drop classes, I would accept the offer. But I've talked to the director of the Graphic Design program at UVU and he has reviewed my portfolio. He saw some interesting things but felt I still needed a lot of work. This was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. I worked hard at Stevens-Henager, and did really well there. But I realized that while I learned a lot at S-H, what I didn't get was in-person hands-on advice and critique of my work. I learned quick turn-around times and short deadlines, and the use of the computer programs to do the work. What I didn't get was the time to hone my craft as a designer. I'm still waiting to hear back on an exciting job I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago, but I'm also excited about the classes I'm in this semester. So I may have a bit of a choice on my hands. If they do offer the job, do I take it, or do I stay in school?

Me working full-time in a graphic design job has a lot of benefits. Bringing in money and possibly benefits will take a lot of financial pressure of us as Am and I get married. It will also be good to have real-world experience to add to my resume. Being in school means that I'll only be able to work part-time. And I'll still be super busy with only very little money coming in, for three years, but it'll seriously benefit my craft as a designer. Choices, choices...

Things I Missed

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. So to commemorate the event, Am's family got together to recount their memories of that time, as well as other memories of the space program. This is significant because Am's grandfather is Don Lind, the first LDS astronaut. Here is an article from the Salt Lake Tribune about him. He has many amazing stories and experiences about his time in NASA. He was scheduled to go to the moon on one of the later Apollo missions that got cancelled, but later flew on the space shuttle Challenger on it's second to last mission.

While listening to his stories, and the rest of the family's, I realized what I had missed for the first time. My paternal grandfather died when my dad was ten, and my maternal grandfather died months after I was born. I never knew them. And I never fully appreciated not having them around either. The wealth of experience, insight, and love is incalculable for the younger generation.

We will be greatly blessed to have Grandpa Lind perform our sealing in October. I am looking forward to getting a grandfather for awhile, and hopefully a long while. But I wish I could have known my own grandfathers, the men who helped shape my parents. I never knew them, but I love them and miss them anyway.

I'm Ashamed of Myself

I want to apologize to all of my married friends that read this blog and those that don't as well. I didn't take attending your weddings and receptions very seriously. I went to many of them, but I missed a lot, too. I always disliked attending wedding receptions. I would think, "Why should I go to a party where I only know a few, or less, of the people, and only get to spend a minute with them? What could my brief appearance mean to them with so many others around?" I never thought that it could mean very much. I was wrong, dead wrong.

Our date is set for October 10th, a day that works with our respective schedules, but comes at an awkward time for people that don't live close by. Most of Am's family lives nearby, as do her friends. But mine are spread out, from sea to shining sea. Who can come mid-semester, or who can get off work for a few days, and afford the trip? I can totally understand if you can't come. But some of you will be coming and that means the world to me. More than I thought it would mean. And for those who can't come, Am and I will want to see you if and when you come into town for holidays or other events. I go on and on about my friends, but she needs faces to go with names. So please let us know when you'll be in town!

A Little Announcement...

I am now engaged to be married to one Amber Kuhn of Houston, Texas.

Mistakes

My mother is getting divorced again. And that makes me sad. Not because I like her husband, but because I dislike him. It's sad that this man duped my mother. She's a sucker for a sales pitch, and I hope that if she ever gets married again, that I can spend some serious time around him before the wedding day. I met her present husband on the way to the courthouse. I didn't know what to think, except I could see that my mother was happy, so I was happy for her. But there have been things, red flags that have come up over the last 4 years. He was a weird guy. Not that my family isn't weird in our own way, but his sense of humor was on the opposite wavelength. When we would be silly, he was serious, and vice versa. Then there were the money scams. You know: "Hello, I am in need to move money to America, and am need to use agent for bank purposes." The first time I heard that he was working with someone overseas to move money into the country, I knew it was a scam. But, he was over 50, and I was still in college, so I merely asked if it was legit, and he said that he had checked it out. A short time later MY bank account had to be closed because of fraud related to HIS account. See, my mother had her name on one of his accounts, as well as on mine, so it daisy chained down to my account. Luckily, I only had $5 to my name at the time. Funny thing is, that was neither the first time nor the last time he had gotten involved in such a thing. Then there was the string of 4 or 5 jobs he went through in a year. When I went to Denver two summers ago, I needed a place to put my things. Well, mostly my furniture, which I had only been borrowing from my mother. WHen she mentioned to him that I was bringing it back up to the house, he threw a fit. When I had to work on my car this summer, I was worried about how much it was going to cost to have it repaired. He made some comment about putting the car into a trust. A trust in MY name, but under HIS control. The car would essentially be his, and I could borrow it, but he would, over time, pay for the repairs. He's maxed out a couple of credit cards, and has hardly helped financially with the house. All of this, and my mother finally decided to start the ball rolling on getting divorced.

Even with all of these things, I never felt it was my place to be say anything negative about him to my mother. It was her marriage, if she wanted to make it work, I wouldn't stop her.

Now that she is planning on seeing a lawyer, some new information has come to the surface. She found correspondence between him and several "clients". It seems that these clients are young women that are not too different in age than me, maybe a little older. And no mention is made of my mother being his wife. And how each is the only one that he thinks about. In fact, there is a woman coming from the Ukraine that he wants someone in the ward to host while she looks for a job. She is not LDS, but he entertains thoughts of converting her. He asked a lady in their ward if she would take her up to Temple Square, but not mention any of his marital problems to this foreigner.

My mom also found some other disturbing and inappropriate materials while searching for bank and credit records.

I went out with my bishop the other night to see some people in the ward. He asked how my mom and her husband were doing, he would go to their ward if he weren't the singles ward bishop. I told him that things were bad, and that she was working on getting a divorce. He said that he always thought that they seemed fine at church and other activities. And I thought to myself, "SEEMED is the operative term here." He seems fine, he seems like he doesn't have financial, emotional, and marital problems. He seems like he has it all together, and that he is just going through a rough patch. But underneath it all, he's just been using my mother and her home. Maybe, he really has a problem, a mental problem that can explain his behavior. And if he does, then that will be taken into account in the next life. But here in this one, he needs to move on and move out.

Thinking about it, it was almost four years ago when my mom met him online. She'd been dating a lot of guys that whole year when He came along. He invited her out to visit him in Ohio. It was Christmas break, and she asked me if she should go. I told her to go. I felt that the worst thing that could happen was that she would go and it wouldn't work out. Ohio was where she grew up, she still knew people out there, and my cousin and his family lived nearby in Indiana. She could have all of these good times out there. I also thought she would drive me nuts talking about him if she stayed. I never thought that they would be married less than two months later, or that he would turn out to be as big a scum bag as he has. But I don't feel guilty for advising my mom to go out there, how were we to know how it would play out. It's just feels ironic, and a little bit sad.

The Man Who Knew Too Little

If you have never seen the Bill Murray classic The Man Who Knew Too Little, you are really missing out. I don't think people put it up there with Groundhog Day or What About Bob?, but it is hilarious. I watch it if I am having a bad day, and it always picks me up. Anyway, it's about this bumbling guy that thinks he's in some kind of audience participation theater, but he is really caught up in the conspiracy to restart the Cold War. He thinks it's all just an act, so he goes along with it.

The other night I had a dream like that. Except it was the other way around. It was like Candid Camera, or The Truman Show but it was an adventure story. I thought it was all real, only to find out at the end that it was all an act. The kicker was that there were people that I thought were dead, that weren't really dead. In the dream I had a girlfriend that I thought was now dead, but she walked into the debriefing room and I was floored. In the course of the adventure I'd fallen for another woman, but she had really fallen for me too, so I was confused as to what to think. I'd only moved on because I thought the first woman was dead, except she wasn't dead. But I was happy in the current relationship, how would I reconcile that?

I woke up from the dream and thought, "nice try." It doesn't make me feel much better about my current situation, but it does make me think. What is the human capacity for love? How many can be included? On the one hand I don't believe in there being a, "one and only." But on the other, I believe in monogamous relationships. I think of another film, Dan, in Real Life, with Steve Carrell. Is it a betrayal to remarry after the death of a spouse? I think I would have an extremely hard time in that situation.

There is a certain seeming randomness to attraction. There are certain things that I think I find attractive, but no two women I've been interested in over the years have looked anything alike. Tall and short, blonde, brunette, and auburn, petite and full figured, my interests have run the table. But love is different than mere attraction. It is a decision. It is an action. A stake president once said that there were probably many women he could have been happy with, but he chose to be happy with his wife. And he'd chosen that everyday since they were married.

Dating is so mercenary. When you are dating you are looking for what is best for you, which is completely opposite of what marriage is supposed to be. When you are married, you are no longer number one, you are 1-B, at least to yourself. That should be fine, as you ideally become 1-A for your spouse. (Correct me if I've got that wrong married people, I'm working on my observations as an outside party. I'm sure adding children changes things even more, but that is for another blog.) But when dating you are tasked with making the tricky switch from looking out for yourself to looking out for another, and you just hope they make their own switch at the same time. But if they turn around before making that switch...

As stated below, I've let go of an old girlfriend. Well, sort of. I'm letting her go without a fight, not that I have any say or power to keep her from going. But I'm half hoping she comes back on her own, and am loathe to even think of moving on. That's not really letting go then, is it?

Impressive

The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...
[cut to Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik]
The Impressive Clergyman: And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...
[cut to the trio again]
The Impressive Clergyman: So tweasure your wuv.
Prince Humperdinck: Skip to the end.
The Impressive Clergyman: Have you the wing?
[cut to the trio once more]
The Impressive Clergyman: ...and do you,Pwincess Buwwercup...
Prince Humperdinck: Man and wife. Say man and wife.
The Impressive Clergyman: Man an' wife.

It's funny, another friend just got married, and right around my birthday. That makes three now. It seems that of the original UP 11 boys, only the Mallard and I are left standing. The oldest and the youngest of the group. Mallard, I hope you like June weddings, cause that seems to be the trend. Ol' Hungry Eyes is the one outlier of the group getting married in September.

Another year has come and gone, c'est la vie.