Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright

On to the happier part of this past week: the trip to Jamaica!

It was a really, really awesome trip. I'm still so thrilled that Penn won it. It was my first trip to the Caribbean. I've been to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and I've been to the Florida Keys (which I guess almost counts as the Caribbean) but I'd never been to one of the Caribbean islands, so it was a new experience.

As far as international travel goes, it was really easy. The entire travel time start to finish was only about five hours, so it felt bizarre to be bringing a passport for such a short flight. When we landed in Jamaica it was early Thursday afternoon. We had been warned by the internet that we'd probably get hustled, and we pretty much were immediately upon landing. We'd been told by the hotel that we could catch a shuttle for $45 to the hotel, but when we got to the Kingston airport we were told that there were no shuttles to Ocho Rios and that we would have to pay almost $300 round trip! It turns out that most tourists fly into Montego Bay, something we'd failed to research. I don't even remember why we flew to Kingston in the first place, actually. At any rate, Penn haggled with a driver (I HATE haggling) and got the price down to a more reasonable amount. It wasn't a big deal, really (mostly because the shuttle ride was the only thing we had to pay for out of pocket) and we had an enjoyable two-hour shuttle drive to Ocho Rios. In the end I was glad we flew into Kingston because we got to drive from the south coast of the island through the mountains all the way to the north coast. We saw a lot. The resort we stayed at was incredibly sanitized for tourists--there was pretty much no contact with the outside world--so had we not flown into Kingston we probably wouldn't have seen the real Jamaica. We saw some cool things: the Red Stripe beer factory, a beautiful tropical river in a canyon that we had to cross using a one-lane bridge with no guardrails (yes, it was scary), actual rain forests (we drove through a place called Fern Gully!), beautiful views of the countryside as we drove up Mount Rosser. We also saw some things that were more difficult to see: tons of homes made out of scraps of cardboard and tin, shacks on the side of the road that passed for makeshift bars, people pushing heavy carts up the same mountain that our van was struggling to climb, children panhandling in the street. I told Penn, "Don't you feel selfish for complaining to each other about how small a house we'll be able to afford in our city?" What right do we have to complain? It will be our own house, made of bricks with a real shingled roof. Spoiled Americans. There were also heartwarming things, though. I've never seen so many children outside playing. Everywhere I looked there were groups of kids playing soccer or cricket or swimming in canals (that can't be safe) or hanging from trees. I feel like that's something that just doesn't happen in the US anymore. Rarely do I see a group of kids out in the street playing. I see them in the park playing on organized rec league teams or riding bicycles, but either my neighborhood is completely devoid of children (unlikely) or American kids don't just hang out in their yards and play together. I realize that the Jamaican children are outside playing because they have few other options--the internet and the Xbox aren't readily available activities. Still, it made me happy to see so many kids having fun together. I was also really amused by the fact that livestock just wanders the streets. Goats and cows wander along the side of the road, seemingly at random. We even saw a huge boar at one point! Awesome! Fences are pricey, though, so I guess there is some other system for keeping track of the ownership of the animals. It was all really interesting.

We spent the bulk of our three days there at the resort. I'd never done an all-inclusive trip before, but I think I'm completely sold on the idea. I'd definitely do it again.* It was so nice not to have to carry cash around and to be able to eat and drink to my heart's content without worrying about whether or not the tab was going to be hundreds of dollars at the end of the night. I think even if we'd actually had to pay for our trip the all inclusive still would have been worth it. The hotel was nice. It was huge. It had an enormous open-air lobby and buffet area, two towers of rooms, three ala carte restaurants, a poolside grill, a nightclub, conference facilities, a gazebo where we saw three different couples get married during the course of our stay, five pools (one of them had a water slide!) and two private beaches. In other words, it was the perfect place to just pick a lounge chair and veg out for the weekend, although there were also tons of activities for people who wanted action. The first night we were there we explored the hotel and then went to dinner. Fortunately for us the dinner buffet was pirate-themed and being held right on the beach that night, so my first meal in Jamaica was jerk chicken and grilled fish eaten ten feet from the edge of the ocean. At sunset. I loved it, obviously. Penn and I befriended a mom and daughter traveling together from Britain and we hung out with them at the pirate-themed party that followed. Part of the entertainment was a man who put a snake in his mouth. It happened almost a week ago and I still can't get over how creepy that is. I mean, I like snakes just fine, but yuck. There was also music and reggae dance lessons and the whole time waitresses kept plying me with free fruity drinks. It was awesome!
Our room had a balcony that overlooked the ocean and the mountains. It was beautiful, and I could have stayed in bed all day just listening to the waves crash down below and looking at the view. Fortunately, I had the sense to talk myself into leaving the room during the daylight hours. Still, Penn and I mostly just lounged. We'd move from one pool to another and then to the ocean, taking time every once in a while to go down the water slide. We went snorkeling twice and saw all kinds of cool things: sea urchins, a weird sea cucumber thing, lots of beautiful colorful little fish, and, the weirdest thing ever, an entire school of inky black reef squid. Those mofos were frightening. They appeared to be staring at us! We definitely gave them a wide berth, even though I'm fairly certain they are actually harmless. One day a guy showed up in the afternoon with a donkey, two parrots, and two rabbits, so that was entertaining. It was an impromptu petting zoo! Only in Jamaica, I guess! We enjoyed the breakfast buffet every morning (fresh mango!) and ate lunch either at the grill or at the buffet. For dinner we ate at the restaurants. They had a Chinese one that was good, and a Jamaican one right off the beach that was awesome. I'm going to look up a recipe for jerk chicken for sure, although I bet it won't be the same.

Anyway, the whole weekend was nothing but fun and relaxation. I was bummed to have to come home, but I'm so glad we have such good memories of our "practice honeymoon." Speaking of which, the next time we travel internationally it will be to New Zealand for the real honeymoon! Less than eight months to wait!

*Penn and I both noted that the resort was full of families with small children, and they were definitely catered to very well. I've started a mental list of child-friendly vacations (since, money allowing I don't want to give up all travel when we become parents) and I think all-inclusive Caribbean resorts make the list.

When it Rains, It Pours

Penn and I are having one of those weeks during which everything breaks all at once. Surely this happens to everyone, right? One minute everything is functioning just fine, then all of a sudden half of the things in the house break almost simultaneously. And generally this happens when you are already low on money to begin with, although luckily for us that wasn't the case this time around. Still, it's so obnoxious.
It all started with my Blackberry. The tracker ball wasn't working very well--I could no longer scroll to the right, which pretty much makes the phone useless for anything other than making and receiving phone calls, and if that's the case why have a Blackberry?--so I tried to clean it with alcohol wipes and that worked for about a day. Then I decided to be hardcore and take the tracker ball apart to clean it more thoroughly. It should have worked. Every YouTube video I found with the instruction process promised it would be easy. Well, "easy" doesn't apply to me, I guess, because I accidentally bent a metal fitting out of place and couldn't get the darn thing to clip back together, so now my phone has no roller ball. I ordered a new part off of the internet and I thought it would get here today (the phone has been broken since Tuesday) but it turns out that the website automatically paired an old billing address with my current debit card number, which means my purchase got denied. I was expecting the part today, but now with the website debacle it probably won't be here until Monday or Tuesday. So, uh, don't text me. It's useless until then.
THEN, the same night my phone broke, Penn was helping me attempt to clean my filthy, filthy laptop keyboard. This is going to gross out the non-pet people among you, but it was so full of cat hair that some of the keys weren't striking properly anymore. I KNOW. GROSS. Even I thought it was disgusting. Anyway, long story short, in the process of removing the keyboard Penn accidentally removed a piece that shouldn't have been removed, and of course it wasn't as easy as just sliding it back into place. Oh, nooooo, heaven forbid anything with technology be simple. He apologized profusely for breaking the computer when he was just trying to help and I accepted the apology and all was well and he was going to take my computer to the repair store the next day.
And then he went to the computer repair store yesterday on what was supposed to be his work-at-home day. Note that I said "What was supposed to be" rather than "was." See, he tried to log onto his work network from the work laptop and the darn thing wouldn't connect. So instead of having a work-at-home day his plan was to just call into work for an 11 AM meeting but otherwise take a day of leave. It sucks that he had to take leave time, but he can make it up with overtime and get those hours back. Anyway, remember that 11 AM phone meeting I mentioned? Yeah. He was going to drive to the computer repair shop at 10:00, ask someone to look at the computer, and hopefully get home in time for his meeting. Well, that didn't happen, either. Instead, he waited in line for forty minutes, never got to talk to anyone, got frustrated, got in the truck to rush home to his meeting, and then less than a block from our house got into a freakin' CAR WRECK when he ran into a car making a left turn across three lanes of traffic. The truck was all messed up. The bumper was pretty much broken off entirely, the hood was crunched just enough so that it wouldn't open, and one of the headlights was shattered.
Seriously, the whole thing was just unbelievable. I couldn't believe how one thing after another after another kept breaking. By the time Penn called me to say, "I was in an accident," all I could do was laugh. Well, okay, I didn't laugh until I found out that he was okay. Then all I could do was laugh, because it was just so absurd.

Fortunately, things ended up improving yesterday. First, the insurance companies decided that the other driver was 100% at fault in the accident which means our truck is getting repaired for free. I was worried about how we were going to get around for the next week or so since we only have the one vehicle to share (we can get 90% of where we need to go on the bus or subway, but for some of my tutoring jobs and my baby-sitting job public transportation isn't an option). We were also stressing because we're supposed to help a friend move this weekend and we would have felt awful having to call her to say, "Surprise! You get to rent a U-Haul after all!" Luckily, we get a free rental car while ours is being repaired and they were even able to give us a GIGANTIC truck, which means we can help with the move this weekend after all. Seriously, the truck is huge. It's a four-door thing that is practically twice the size of Penn's current truck. It's definitely not meant for driving around the city, so that will be an adventure. Still, we have a truck. Plans aren't ruined.
Also, after we finally got the car stuff sorted out Penn took my laptop to be repaired, and although I can't have it back until next week it is going to get fixed, so I'm happy. I'm also happy that I had the foresight to add all of my dissertation files to a dropbox account so I can work on Penn's computer until mine is back from the shop.

So, yeah. This has been one of those weeks that makes me wished I lived off the grid on a tiny farm somewhere where trucks and computers and phones don't matter and I'm not handicapped by the loss of them. But it's all going to be okay.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

First of all, things are better with Penn's relative. Or maybe "better" isn't exactly the way to put it, but the situation is at least stable, and hopefully will have some sort of definite resolution early next week. In the meantime, there doesn't seem to be much cause for us to stress out on our end (primarily because there's not much he can do to help, other than what he has already done) so life is basically back to normal.

We spent the weekend with Penn's mom for Mother's Day, and we went out to lunch with her and Penn's brother and sister-in-law and their kids on Sunday. As we were driving home on Sunday we ended up on a conversation topic we tend to examine pretty often, I guess because we both find it interesting: What Made Your Upbringing Different Than Mine?
There are myriad differences between our families and the way in which we were raised. Given, there are a ton of similarities, too. We were raised in the same country, we're the same race, the same class, basically the same religion, we have the same number of siblings, we both went to public schools, we both had part-time jobs in high school, we both moved away for college...we had a lot of the same basic life experiences. It's amazing, actually, all the subtle differences that emerge from the same basic picture. And, admittedly, there are also the not-so-subtle differences. Penn's parents are divorced, for instance, and mine aren't, which has had some profound effects. But it's not the big differences that interest me. It's the little things.
There was this really funny moment a couple of weeks ago that, for me, illustrated one of the fundamental differences between our parents. When my parents were visiting in April they met Penn's mom for the first time. I think we were all a little bit nervous about that, but it went great. My mom and Penn's mom seemed to hit it off (as I predicted and hoped they would) and everyone seems happy to be merging our families. Anyway, as we were driving our parents to see our church we drove over a bridge, and my mother exclaimed, "Oh, a river!" and Penn's mom said, "All I see is mud!" And I almost burst out laughing, because it was just so typical of both of them. In actuality it was neither a river nor a mud puddle, it was a creek. But Penn's mom took the glass-half-empty view, while my mom got all excited, probably more excited than most people would get. In all honesty, they likely had the reactions they did because my mom is from the desert (so any water is exciting) and Penn's mom sees a mile-wide river on a daily basis (so a creek is nothing). Still, it illustrates one of the differences between our families, and thus one of the major ways in which Penn and I balance each other out.
See, Penn thinks of himself as having been raised to be a glass-half-empty kind of guy. He has told me before that he makes a conscious effort not to convey all of his negative thoughts to me. He likes the fact that I'm a positive person, and he doesn't want to stifle that. I personally don't view Penn as a negative person. I also don't really think of myself as the relentlessly positive person he sees in me. My theory is that we're both equally positive and equally negative, it just manifests itself in completely opposite ways (as is the case with many of our personality traits; it's part of the reason I have faith in us being a good match).

When we're looking toward the future, I have a tendency to be a major worrywart. You all know this about me by now, of course. When any sort of major event or life change is coming up, I have to play the, "What if?" card from every possible angle. Like thinking about having a baby sometime in the next few years already has me in full-blown preparation-through-worrying mode. What if we can't afford to get a bigger place and the baby has to sleep in the dining room? What if the baby has colic and screams for the first three months? What if he doesn't sleep through the night until he's 3? What if I have to go on bedrest? What if I'm never able to find a job again after taking maternity leave? What if I get post partum depression? What if there is a birth defect? What if I'm one of those people who is permanently paralyzed by the epidural? What if two dozen other much more awful, too-dreadful-to-mention things happen? My mind can come up with hundreds of negative things ranging from minor annoyances to the worst-case scenario. And it's not like I have an anxiety disorder; I can push these things out of my mind quite easily. But when I have too much downtime to think about the future I tend to focus on the negative possibilities.
Penn, on the other hand, is much more relaxed about our future. While he expresses the occasional worry, for the most part when I start fretting he says, "No worries, mate. We'll be fine." And I know he is probably right, but, although I admire it in him, it's hard for me to have the same sort of "It will all be okay" attitude about the future that he espouses most of the time.
When we're in the moment, however, it is almost the exact opposite. Take going to an obligatory event, for example. Once the plan has been made and we're committed to going, I tend to go into the event assuming it's going to be enjoyable, or at least not terrible. Sure, we might get lost or the subway might be running obnoxiously slow because of construction or that other couple might get in an awkward fight again, or we might spend more money than we should probably be spending, but I don't really worry about it. Once I'm in the moment I am determined to find a silver lining at any cost. [Case in point: I went through a bout of food poisoning last night. At least, I assume it was food poisoning. I was awake and in the bathroom last night for more time than I was in bed sleeping. I felt pretty awful. But as I was lying in bed at dawn this morning trying to get my stomach to temporarily stop churning enough so I could fall back to sleep, I thought "Hey, I bet I lost some weight!" I stepped on the scale before getting dressed for the day and it turns out I'm down 2.5 pounds from when I weighed myself last week. Just in time for our trip to Jamaica! See, even food poisoning can have a silver lining!]
Penn, on the other hand, is more likely to focus on the negative points in the moment. He's focused on the rain, I'm focused on the fact that at least we won't get sunburned. He's furious about the traffic jam, I'm happy to have extra time to chat. He hates the guy blabbing on his cell phone behind us, I'm writing the conversation down because it might be a funny story to tell later.
We're not 100% true to these types, of course. There have been times when I have been the one crying because in the moment I DO NOT want to be bumped from the airplane flight. There have been times when I've optimistically assured Penn that we have a bright future when he is worrying about the big picture. But it's nice, I think, that we have the ability to be positive in any situation if we're both always willing to listen to and believe the person saying, "It's all okay" either about the future or in the moment.

Incidentally, yes, we're going to Jamaica on Thursday. Penn won a free trip for us at a travel expo! I always think those things are scams, but this raffle was actually legitimate. We get a 3 night/4 day stay at an all-inclusive resort. So the room is free, as is all the food and alcohol we can consume, as is the entertainment, as are all the non-motorized water sports. All we had to do was buy our plane tickets, which were reasonably priced. Basically, we're going to Jamaica for less money than we would spend going to a local beach for a long weekend. I've never been anywhere in the Caribbean before, so this will be a new adventure. Here's hoping it goes well!

Trying

It's 2 AM and I'm still awake. That was once more or less the norm, but it's really unusual for me these days. Originally I was awake because I was finishing up a school project, but that has been completed for about an hour now and I still don't feel like I can sleep. Penn got some bad news tonight concerning a relative, and since it's about his family and since it doesn't really involve me at all rather than very tangentially I'm not going to write about it in detail here, but it's keeping me up because it's a sucky situation on many levels and I can't seem to stop my brain from running through all the potential outcomes. I'm hopeful that this is a sucky situation that will ultimately parlay itself into a vastly better situation for the person involved, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a sucky situation at the moment. Sorry for the vagueness. It's weird, this feeling of growing into someone else's family. Because it's still so easy to think of my in-laws-to-be as "his" family. I even said "his family" a few sentences ago. But then certain things happen once in a while that make me realize it's actually going to be "our" family soon and I have to embrace the good parts of that as well as the parts that are hard. Tonight definitely counts as a hard part, and I'm sure it won't be the last time one of his family members has a problem we choose to help deal with, and there's no doubt in my mind my family will throw some drama our way, too, one of these days. Families are good at that sort of thing.

It's a fine balancing act, doing what Penn and I are doing: creating a new family. I like to think of Penn and myself as pretty insular. That's not to say that I want either of us to be cut off from the families that raised us, because that's certainly not the case. There are enormous emotional benefits to having the supportive extended families we both have, and I'd never want to lose those. But I also like the idea that he and I are a unit and everyone else is related to us, but just that--related. Not exactly central to how he and I function. We are the unit, we might eventually (hopefully) make children to temporarily add to that unit until they are grown and head off to make their own units, but everyone else isn't integral to my relationship with Penn. At the same time, though, we have to figure out how to create our new family without harming or rejecting the way things were in the past. Sometimes it's as simple as deciding what family traditions we'll carry on. Other times it's more complicated, like deciding what help we are willing to accept (or offer) or how to delicately handle particular events so that they do not end up blowing up in our faces years down the line.
This is just another thing my mind has played with as I've been preparing to get married. Getting married--vowing to privilege your spouse over all other connections--does ultimately change those prior connections to family members, whether they were good or bad or somewhere in between. And some of the changes are great and some of them are difficult. I think people in general maybe aren't mindful enough of how a marriage changes things not just for the couple, but for the entire family. I'm trying to remember that, as I go along.
I have faith that Penn and I will create a wonderful new family when we tie the knot in January. Today (well, yesterday, technically) marks the two year anniversary of the day that he formally asked me to be his girlfriend. As with all things time-related, it simultaneously feels like two whole years can't possibly have gone by already and like Penn has been my partner for my entire life, or at least far longer than two years. Nights like tonight, when things are worrisome, just remind me how lucky I am to have someone who listens to me, who comforts me, who values my thoughts even when he adamantly disagrees, who trusts me enough to let me offer opinions about people he has known far, far longer than I have, and who trusts me enough to let me into his mind. We have a true partnership, and sometimes it's so incredibly easy to really see that and be grateful.

Sorry, This One is All Wedding

Whew. Lemme just sit here and catch my breath a minute.

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Hi. I just had a whirlwind of a week. My parents came to visit, so I gave myself permission to more-or-less take the week off from school and work. That's the great thing about the way I currently earn a living as a graduate student: ever since coursework ended, schoolwork is entirely optional (the dissertation has to get done eventually, but nobody is breathing down my neck about it...yet) and since all of my assistantship work is of the "as long as you get it done in a reasonable amount of time, you can do it whenever you feel like it" category I can make my own schedule every week. So last week I adjusted accordingly and crammed all of the absolutely necessary work tasks into Monday morning so that I could take the rest of the week off. I'll have to play catch up a little bit this week since I only did the bare minimum last week, but it's no big deal.

In a way last week was restful since I was doing nothing but fun-having (Penn always refers to "fun-having" for some reason), but we stayed really busy. Much of the running around was wedding-related. First of all, Kiki came down from New York and she and my mom and I went wedding dress shopping! That was so much fun. It didn't make me as emotional as I thought it might. It felt a little bit strange to put on that first white dress and reflect on the fact that, wow, I'm actually going to have the experience of having a big white wedding. For a while there a few years back I thought a wedding honestly wasn't in the cards for me, so it's always a tiny bit surprising when I remember that I'm the bride-to-be and I have an almost-husband. But for the most part this just seems like the next step in a very natural progression, so it doesn't feel strange to be trying on wedding dresses. It just feels like what I'm supposed to be doing right now.

It was so much fun to go through the racks and/or books of wedding dresses and say, "I want to try this one, and this one, and, oooh, bring me that one." If anything, I got emotional because I realized I'm only going to get to do this once (well, hopefully, God-willing, I'll only do this once!) and it was a bummer to realize that there are so many gorgeous dresses I'll never get to wear. I asked Penn if we could renew our vows in ten years so that I can pick out a second fancy white dress, and he just laughed at me, so I guess that's not going to happen.

Anyway, after two days of dress shopping at three different bridal salons and trying on about 30 dresses, I think I found the one for me. I ended up really surprising myself. All winter long while I looked at dresses online and in magazines, I thought two things: 1) I want the dress to have a lace overlay and 2) I absolutely, positively DO NOT want a strapless dress. Well, lo and behold, I tried on a bunch of dresses and the two I loved most don't have a speck of lace on them and they're both strapless! I tried on dresses with halter necks and cap sleeves and shoulder straps, but I just wasn't feeling any of them. It turns out strapless dresses look better on my body. Before trying on dresses I'd been afraid that a strapless dress would give me those weird teeny little rolls where the dress meets my chest (ladies, you know what I'm talking about, and unfortunately they happen no matter how skinny you are) or, worse, that I'd have to be hiking the dress up all night to keep it on. Well, it turns out I was wrong about both of those things. Wedding dresses with built-in corsets are ahhhhhhmaaazing. I'm relatively thin in the first place, but the first time a salesperson laced me into a corseted dress I was like, "Whoa, hello there, waist!! And boobs!? Where did you come from?!" I was suddenly super skinny and yet I simultaneously got curves in all the right places. I've never loved my body so much. Right now I'm seriously wondering why on earth corsets ever went out of fashion (Note: I may feel differently about this after being laced up for eight hours on the wedding day!). Also, it turns out that once you're laced into your dress it's absolutely not going anywhere. Even not custom-fitted for me yet, those dresses all fit like a second skin. And I can adjust it just perfectly so that I won't accidentally flash anyone but so that it won't make my skin pinch awkwardly where dress meets flesh. In short, I am a convert and will very likely be wearing a strapless wedding dress after all.

The life lesson in this, I guess, is try things even when you think they are not for you. You may be very pleasantly surprised!
I narrowed it down to two dresses, but I can't stop thinking about one of them, which I think means I need to go put it on again and see if it's The Dress. They're both beautiful and I'd be happy wearing either of them (I'd be happy wearing almost any of the dresses I tried on, actually) but one of them just seems more special. It has a bit more drama, and that suits me, as it turns out that the only thing I DIDN'T change my mind about when wedding dress shopping is that I want a dress that screams "Wedding!" and that is not something I would ever be able to wear again. Why not go all out on the one day in your life that you're encouraged to be the center of attention?

Well, I was going to tell you about other things that happened last week, but my almost-husband just went to bed and that seems like a wise idea so I'm going to join him. I'll try to be back soon with more stories. I have tales about trips in limousines and secret service agents and hockey playoffs and my own personal Meet the Fockers evening and dislocated knees (not mine or Penn's, thankfully). You'll wait with baited breath, I'm sure.

Best Wedding Ever

The other night my sister and I were texting cross-country while watching The Sound of Music on TV [Incidentally, I love text messaging. I talk to at least one of my family members pretty much every day via text message, and it's the main way we communicate. I'm the perfect combination of too lazy+too busy to pick up the phone to have a lengthy conversation, even with people I really love, so if it weren't for text messages I am pretty sure I'd only talk to my parents once every couple of weeks and my sister and brother maybe every few months.]

Anyway, as I was watching the second half of the movie I was suddenly inspired and had to text message my sister with my brilliant idea:
Me: I'm going to make Penn sing this song with me at the wedding!
My Sister: Which song? Climb Every Mountain?

Me: No, the one that the Captain and Maria sing together at the gazebo. "For here you are standing there loving me, whether or not you should..."That one.

My Sister: Oh, that one works!
Me: I'm also gonna wear a super-long tulle veil like Maria's.

My Sister: You'd better not! I'm going to sing "So long, farewell..." to everyone at the end of the reception.

Me: Yes!!
My Sister: The whole wedding party can do it! We'll be the birds and the boys will stand in front.

Me: And Penn's nieces and nephews can all wear matching uniforms and march around to a whistle!
My Sister: Perfect!

The whistle was totally Penn's suggestion, by the way. I told him that I wanted to change our wedding theme to "The Sound of Music" and he said "NO WAY" but then when I told him all of the ideas so far he said, "And I'll blow a whistle and the kids can march around." So, I'm pretty sure this means he secretly supports the plan. He just has to put up a manly front.
I'm fairly certain my sister-in-law-to-be will get on board with this plan, as Penn has assured me that she is a big fan of The Sound of Music (who ISN'T a big fan of The Sound of Music? It's amazing!). Plus it beats the other two plans my family members suggested so far, which were a) Jersey-style hair and bridesmaid dresses with revealing cutouts and b) my mother and her girlfriends wearing their old wedding dresses only "Madonna-ing them up."

In all seriousness, the wedding doesn't really have a theme. So far it's just a hodgepodge of things we like that I'm trying to pull together into some sort of unifying concept. Right now the concept (which exists only in my head at this point) involves mostly books and trees and candles and winter. Books and trees are vaguely related, I suppose. Add candles to the mix and it gets sort of, um, dangerous, what with all that paper and wood around, but I'm sure there's a way to do it. And "winter" is mostly just apparent in my color choices and the fact that I want to have a hot chocolate bar and it isn't actually a "theme" per se. I mean, I don't think there are going to be glitter snowflakes all over the place. I have no idea how (or if) it will all come together.

But now that I'm considering throwing all my ideas out in favor of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical-themed wedding, it may be a moot point.

Easter

Easter is here! It's a beautiful day here today. The temperature is in the 70s and it's gloriously sunny and the daffodils and tulips are blooming in everyone's yards and along the highway. It's exactly how Easter should be.
It was Penn's birthday yesterday and I surprised him with tickets to a concert at a local jazz club. There are some well-known jazz venues here that have been around since the 1920s, and Penn has been wanting to check one out for a long time but we'd just never gotten around to doing it. When he challenged me to pick something fun to do for his birthday, I decided that it was time to finally check out the jazz scene. I used to think that I didn't like jazz music much, but through Penn's instruction (documentaries from Netflix; samples from various musicians when we're driving in the car) I'm definitely starting to appreciate it and even enjoy it. Last night's show featured a jazz bassist who played with everyone: Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, a bunch of other well-known people. He's more than 70 now and still going strong. He played the bass in a really classy suit, accompanied by a pianist and a guitar player. The club is in a dark, candlelit basement. It was very small and intimate. I really liked the atmosphere of the whole thing, and I'd definitely do it again.
Anyway, I was worried that since we'd gone out last night we'd be too tired to want to go to church this morning, but we were up at 9:00 and got to church by 10:00 in time to claim our usual pew before the place totally filled up. Church was PACKED. The church we've been going to (the church where we're going to get married in January) has a decent-sized congregation anyway. I'd say about 200-250 people attend every week. It's big enough that it feels like a bustling, active place, but not so huge that nobody knows each other. The pastor knows everyone's names and details about their lives. At least, that's how it is normally. Today there were at least 500 people there, maybe more. It was a nice service. There was an entire brass instrument quartet and a big kettledrum to fill out the music, there were Easter lilies everywhere, and it was fun seeing all the kids in their Easter outfits. Easter really isn't much of a holiday unless you go to a church service, so I'm glad we made it this morning. On the drive home Penn and I were talking about how much we like the church we've been going to. We've been going regularly since January, and I realize that's only three months so far, but in the past ten years this is by far the most consistent I've been about going to church. My whole childhood church felt kind of like a drag, like something I had to do because my parents were forcing me to get up on Sunday mornings. Then for the past ten years church was something I still thought about fairly often but I just couldn't figure out how to justify my intellectual, logical life with any sort of faith, and I was very turned off by all the right-wing Christian mumbo jumbo which seems to have been growing more and more prevalent over the past decade. I had no desire to associate myself with any of that. I realized something, though. If all of the reasonable, sane people leave the Christian church, then church becomes nothing but everything I hate about it now: a bunch of zealots pushing their views on everyone else and trying to muddle in government and law where they do not belong at all whatsoever (or, at worst, becoming psychotic extremists who believe it's okay to kill for their faith, as we saw with that news story of the religious militia in Michigan earlier this week). I listened to a radio program the other day about women's roles in various faith communities. One of the panelists was an Orthodox Jewish woman who is pushing from within her church to allow women to have more parity with men. The host asked, "Why not just stop living the Orthodox lifestyle and become part of a more liberal Jewish group that allows women more equality?" and the woman basically said (and I'm paraphrasing big time), "Because I fundamentally like the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, there are just a few man-made elements of it that I disagree with. And the only way to create true change is from within, so if I leave then the situation will never change. If I stay, I may be frustrated, but hopefully in the long run I can make a difference." That made a lot of sense to me. I need to keep going to church, if only to prove that all Christians don't have to interpret the Bible literally and believe that homosexuality is wrong and that the Earth was created in seven days (oh, wait, six days. The seventh was for resting) and so on. I suppose when it comes right down to it I'm much more interested in the spirit of the law then the letter of the law, and the spirit of it all--loving each other, treating each other with respect, being generous, taking care of those who cannot help themselves, giving thanks for life's blessings, finding comfort in sorrow and strife--well, I definitely believe in all of that. So I'll keep going to church.

Now, I feel genuinely blessed to have found a church with a pastor that has a sense of humor and provides thought-provoking, entertaining sermons. In general, this church just seems reasonable and friendly, and I feel no guilt for being so skeptical and cynical. Instead I feel like the message for me at this point is "Of course you're skeptical. Most reasonable people are. But faith is not about reason, and you have your whole life to keep working to feel it." I've never before been excited about going to church, but now I actually look forward to Sunday mornings, and I'm bummed on weekends when we can't make it to church for some reason. I never thought I'd end up feeling like this. As Penn said this morning, "Every Sunday I'm just surprised that I don't hate having to get up to go to church." Exactly. For the first time it doesn't feel like an obligation, but instead something I honestly like doing. I just hope this pastor sticks around for a while!

Speaking of Easter and church, I promised to update you on my Lent project. I was going to try to be still and not do anything other than just sit and think for ten minutes every day. You guys, it was SO HARD. It was even more difficult than I thought it would be. I did really well for the first month, but the past couple of weeks I have to admit that I skipped my quiet time on more days than I did it. The problem is that there was always, ALWAYS something I could have been doing in those ten minutes. I needed to be straightening up the house, or walking across campus to get to the library, or reading something, or answering an e-mail. Trying to be still for even a short amount of time every day made it really hit home for me that I'm constantly doing something, that I quite literally never give myself a break. My life moves way too fast, to the point that I realized that even my leisure activities feel rushed because I have to squeeze them in before work demands my time again.
In the end, the best thing that happened for me in terms of my Lent resolution was that I ended up doing a lot of baby-sitting the past few weeks. My usual baby-sitting client has added some additional hours every week, and I spent last week taking care of my cousin. Being with those babies (the little guy I usually watch is 15 months old, my cousin is 9 months old) was exactly what I needed to do. Watching them play and observe the world, I realized that they're not constantly rushing from one thing to the next thinking about what else they need to do. I had my cousin at the park on Thursday and she spent five whole minutes sitting in one place and staring at a screw. Just a silver screw holding together two sides of the playscape. She had no desire to go anywhere else. That single screw had her full attention, and since I wasn't rushing her to get anywhere she was able to look at it until she finally felt like doing something else. I realize that eventually life with kids gets incredibly hectic, too, but life with a baby is actually extremely simple (or at least life with these two particular babies is incredibly simple!). With my cousin, for instance, she'd wake up in the morning, I'd feed her some baby cereal, we'd play with her toys in the living room for an hour or two ("playing" at this point mostly means picking up a variety of things and handing them to her or putting them somewhere so she can crawl to them and then examine them by pushing buttons or shaking them or whatever) and then she'd take a nap. While she napped I'd read or do a bit of school work. Then she'd be up and I'd feed her again, then we'd go on some sort of short outing to the park or the infant room at the science center or the local library. Then it was time for another nap, then more food, a little bit more crawling practice, then a bath, then bedtime. There is a routine and a cycle, but every part of it is something simple and her needs are so easy to meet and it should have been really boring but I found the whole routine really soothing, actually, and every day there was a sense of accomplishment because, hey, the baby was fine and healthy! Mission accomplished!
I'm sure it would eventually get dull and I'd miss the rush of the life I have now, and the work that I'm doing. But I have to admit that I enjoyed the simple time baby-sitting time a lot. That's a relief to me, knowing that perhaps I won't go completely mad when I'm home for a while taking care of a baby one of these days. It turns out that I might actually enjoy it more than I thought I would. If nothing else, it's going to force me to take life slower and to let go of a lot of the extras that fill it up right now. I think that will be good for me.

Anyway, Penn and I are going on a long bike ride and then I'm coming home to eat deviled eggs. Hope you're having a good weekend, whatever you're doing!

Spinning Wheel

I feel like since posting has been so sparse lately I should have a lot to say, but I don't, really. How about just a few bullet points to fill in the highlights?

[I have to interrupt myself to say that we're watching All the President's Men right now and looking at that newsroom full of papers and files is making me shudder! I'm so glad I live in the age of computers so I don't have to look at that sort of clutter all over my office mates' desks all the time. There's enough clutter in the 21st century as it is! Also, I can't imagine doing all of that research without the internet. Unbelievable that that was the US less than forty years ago.]

• My dissertation committee approved my prospectus! For those not familiar with PhD program jargon, the prospectus is basically the plan for the dissertation: what I'm planning to write about, my plan to do the research, and the approximate timeline for completion. The great thing is, that's the last hurdle I had to jump. Now the only thing that can stop me from completing the PhD is my endless ability to procrastinate. It's nice that the only major block I have to overcome now is myself. The hard part is actually forcing myself to work now that there are no deadlines at all whatsoever (other than really, really distant ones, like the fact that if I'm not finished in some absurd time frame like 5 years I'll have to re-create my committee and effectively start the approval process all over again). Some friends and I have created a writing group that meets every two weeks. The sole purpose of the group is to keep the four of us on track. I'd start feeling lame if every two weeks I showed up and was like, "Still no progress to report and nothing for you guys to read. Sorry guys!" I think (I hope) that will help. Other than that, I'm trying to figure out a good routine so that I can do a bit of dissertation work every weekday.
• I've really picked up the pace with my part-time jobs to try to bring in as much extra money as possible. With the wedding and honeymoon looming (just a little more than 9 months until my wedding day!) Penn and I agreed we need to be saving up as much money as possible right now. So in addition to my regular teaching assistantship I've been taking regular tutoring jobs (I'm going to be working 3-5 hours a week every week from now until early June) and I've been baby-sitting. I have a friend at school who has a one-year-old son. His wife works full-time "normal" hours (9-5) and he's like me: a researcher with a part-time, pretty flexible job, so he's doing the bulk of the daytime baby duty. He teaches Mondays, though, so I baby-sit on Monday afternoons while he's teaching. Apparently I've been so helpful that he and his wife now want me to come for a second block of time each week so that he can have some baby-free time to work on his own dissertation project. They pay me $20/hour (!!!) and I don't feel like I'm in a position to be turning down that kind of money for what is basically a fun and (mostly) easy job. Having said that, I'm not the one who had a baby while trying to dissertate, so I'm not going to compromise my own research agenda to watch his baby. Still, most weeks I have the time to help out and I'd like the extra cash so I'm baby-sitting as much as I reasonably can. I'm also going to be my cousin's full-time nanny this week while the regular nanny is off resting following a surgical procedure. So basically between my two baby-sitting charges I get to play mom all week this week. It's good practice, I guess!
• I bought some amazingly, fantastically awesome plane tickets this week. First of all, Penn and I purchased the tickets for our honeymoon! We're going to New Zealand!!! We've been talking about wanting to go there for a while, and long before we even got engaged we had decided that we wanted to go there for our honeymoon. Last week tickets happened to drop to an amazingly low price, so we bought them on the spot. It feels like a wild, crazy thing to buy a plane ticket to freakin' New Zealand. As I told Penn, "We're really committed to doing this now!" Penn still has a lot of planning to do (he's in charge of planning the honeymoon since I'm at the wheel with wedding planning) but it's so incredibly exciting to have our plane tickets and know that in January we'll be in New Zealand for three weeks (or New Zealand for part of that time with a side trip to a South Pacific island for part of that time; that's still TBD). This is one of my dream must-do-before-I-die trips, so I can't wait to go. What a cool way to start our married life!
  Today I also bought a plane ticket to Missoula, Montana. Jen (my friend from college) is getting married there in August. I've never been to Montana before, so I'm excited to cross another state off my list. Unfortunately Penn can't come to Montana with me (he can't take too much time off work this year since he did that long Europe trip with me in November and he'll need to take three weeks off in January) but I think it will be a fun solo trip.
• I biked sixteen miles yesterday! I had to stop at an Exxon around mile 9 to buy a granola bar because I was starving (note to self: prepare better next time!), and my time was pretty dismal--it took me just over two hours, not pushing myself at all--but when I finished I felt like I could have gone further. My goal is to do a 20 mile bike ride this season, and that definitely seems feasible.
• Last weekend I saw my first presidential motorcade! I didn't actually see the president (too much window tinting) but it was absolutely, 100% him and his entourage. Pretty cool.

That's all I have to report, really. Things are very good. This is a weird position to be in, to be working on several long-term projects (my summer project, our wedding, my dissertation) that won't give me any visible payoff until several months from now at the earliest. It makes it hard to stay focused and to keep powering on when sometimes at night I get in bed and just feel like I spun my wheels in place all day. But I know logically that I am, in fact, making forward progress toward all kinds of worthwhile things, and that's a good feeling.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today I baby-sat for my cousin's nine-month-old daughter. I'm helping her and her husband out for the next couple of weeks since their usual nanny had to have surgery and needs to rest before she can go back to carrying a baby up and down stairs. Anyway, today I took care of the baby for ten hours, from early in the morning until the evening. It was a really easy day, actually. The baby still naps in the morning and the afternoon so she slept for half of the hours I was baby-sitting. Of the time she was awake, she spent half of that time eating pureed vegetables and/or drinking her bottles, so there was really a grand total of only 2-3 hours that I actually had to entertain the baby (or, more accurately, watch her and provide cheerful running commentary to build her vocabulary as she amused herself by doing fascinating things like, say, intently examining the stitching on my jeans).
Anyway, I decided that since it was sunny and 70 degrees outside we'd go for a walk, so I strapped the baby into the stroller and packed up the diaper bag and off we went to the park to see if I could convincingly blend in with all the other moms and dads and nannies (wait, "caregivers"). Turns out I do blend in just fine. There are a few more things I want to do first, but I'm more and more positive all the time that I'm about as ready as I can be to handle this mom role. The thing that really struck me on our park adventure, though, was how much my cousin's neighborhood is pretty much exactly like Sesame Street. There are rows of brownstone houses with porches, so the neighborhood sort of looks like the set, first of all. More importantly, the "characters" are all there: old couples sitting together on park benches; young couples jogging and throwing balls for their dogs; Asian kids and black kids and white kids all playing together on the swing set; guys that look like wannabe rappers walking across the crosswalk with moms with blonde ponytails and designer diaper bags to pick up their kids from the same school; conversations in Spanish and English and Korean all drifting across the park. Seriously, the only thing missing was a puppet in the trash can on the corner. The United States is supposed to be this fabulous, diverse place, but rarely do I see real diversity like I see in that neighborhood. I'm sure it's not always ideal, but today it was city living at its finest. And while I suppose eventually I wouldn't mind living in a smaller town or Stepford Wife suburb where I can actually afford a single-family home, I love that my little cousin is growing up in a place where you run into people of all shapes and sizes and colors and ages on a seven-walk block to the park, and it makes me excited that (hopefully) for at least their early years my kids will be city kids, too, and will have the same experience. When I think about the things that are important to me when it comes to trying to mold decent people (and wow, what a daunting task), I'd much rather my kids recognize and feel comfortable with all types of human beings than have a big backyard or their own bedrooms. And I'm not saying you can't raise open-minded, worldly kids in white suburbia or rural Nebraska, but it takes much more effort on your part than just opening the front door and saying hello to the neighbors.

In other news, I'm trying not to make this the all-wedding-all-the-time blog, but I just wanted to note that my sister and Penn's sister both came to visit earlier this week and we went bridesmaid dress shopping! (My sister and Penn's sister are my bridal party; since he and I each have one sister and one brother we figured we'd save ourselves the hassle of having to pick our "favorite" friends and possibly hurt people's feelings and just make our siblings the wedding party). I realize that since the wedding is still more than nine months away it's a bit early to be shopping for bridemaid dresses, but it was the only time my sister-in-law-t0-be is planning to visit between now and the wedding so we had to strike while the iron was hot. The whole process was actually really easy. They both decided they looked best in the second dress they tried on, so we tried on a few others just for fun, but really the whole thing took a grand total of twenty minutes. Now we just have to hope the dresses that we ordered now can be adjusted to fit whatever figures they'll have in January!

I'm going shopping for my wedding dress in three weeks when my mom comes to visit. I can hardly wait!

Traveling Down the Slope

Penn and I have been doing a lot of skiing this season. We bought Night Club passes that we can use on three of the mountains within a short drive from here (yes, the "mountains" are small enough here that you can light them for night skiing) so we've gotten into a routine of skiing on Sunday evenings. I really love skiing. It has always been my favorite sport-y activity. I never did it on a regular basis until this year, though. When I was a kid growing up near the Rockies we'd generally take a family ski trip once a year or so and go for 4-5 days. I actually got pretty good during that time. The nice thing about skiing is that it's like riding a bike: you don't forget how to do it no matter how much time goes by. So when I met Penn I was able to comfortably ski the intermediate slopes and I could occasionally be talked into trying an expert one. Over the past two winters we have done a lot of skiing. We took that week-long trip to Maine last year and then skied locally a couple of times. And this year we've been skiing once a week all season. I'm proud to say that I have improved noticeably over the past two seasons. I can now ski any trail on the mountains we frequent, including the double black diamonds (the advanced expert trails). True, I don't think an east coast double black is equivalent to the double blacks I've seen out west. I still don't know that I'd be brave enough to try one of those. For one thing, the runs here are much, much shorter. But here I can do any run as long as I can take my time. I've also been practicing moguls although I'm awful at them and can only do about four widely-spaced ones properly before my legs start burning (I don't know how those Olympians do it. They must have thighs of steel). Penn has even talked me into going into the terrain park a few times, and while I'm still not ready to attempt to get any real air, I've at least been riding over the jumps.

So I'm getting better at this activity and I love the time Penn and I spent skiing together every week. Yet every week when we have finished skiing and are on our way home I feel a bit melancholy because in my mind skiing has come to represent everything that will change over time. Every week now I find myself reflecting on the finiteness of our current lifestyle. First of all, skiing is something that I will not be able to do for my entire life. Most of my hobbies aren't particularly strenuous: reading, watching lives shows or music, walking the dog, and so on. Assuming I am lucky enough to live to 90 years old in good health, I'll still be able to do most of the things I like to do now. Skiing, though, is something that I will have to give up one of these days. I'll either get injured or my body will just get too old and weak to handle the physical stress. I realize that the day I will have to give up skiing is hopefully far, far in the future. My dad is in his mid-fifties and still skiing, after all. Still, it makes me a bit sad to think that there is a possibility that my body will give out on me before my spirit feels ready to quit the sport. (I suppose that's a really common fear that can be generalized beyond skiing, actually: that if you live long enough you inevitably reach a point where the spirit is willing but the body just can't keep up anymore.)
In a more immediate way, though, skiing has come to represent everything we will have to give up as we start our family. As we've been preparing to get married (before we were even formally engaged, in fact) Penn and I have been talking about family planning and what our ideal plan would entail. Let me preface this by stating clearly that I know, I KNOW you never get to experience your ideal when it comes to having children. To a large extent things will be out of our control once we start trying to conceive. Actually, things aren't even entirely in our control right now. We've been lucky that birth control has worked well for us, but while most of the reason we haven't gotten pregnant is because I have been a responsible pill popper, probably a small part of the reason we haven't had a surprise pregnancy has just been sheer luck. I get that. I also understand that we can't just decide that we want to get pregnant in, say, April and actually get pregnant in April. And I understand that even once we get pregnant there is no guarantee that we'll get a living, healthy child out of the ordeal. I realize that all of it is a big "Who knows?"
Of course I find the whole thing very scary because I like the semblance of control I pretend I have over my life, and I like having a plan. So, Penn and I have made a tentative plan, knowing full well that life may not conform to it. We're trying to balance all sorts of elements, but the driving force behind all of my decisions in the process has been this thought: "We are in a very lucky position in which we can make having children a choice. So why not attempt to make the most responsible choices possible?" It wouldn't be the end of the world to get pregnant right now. In fact, I honestly do feel more-or-less ready to handle that if it happens. But as long as the birth control is working, why not hope that it keeps working and make plans assuming that we'll actually get to choose when we would like to be parents? And make that choice in a responsible way? So, for instance, we're thinking about my age. I'll be 28 when we get married, and even if we get pregnant on our honeymoon (which is highly unlikely) I'll be 29 by the time the baby is born. One of the things I love most about Penn is how eager he is to be a father. He told me the other day that if it wouldn't be so frowned-upon by our families (my family, actually) he'd like us to start trying even before the wedding so that we're not wasting any time. [Incidentally, I would veto that idea even if I thought my family wouldn't care about me being a pregnant bride. I would like to drink champagne during my own wedding toast, thank you very much!] We'd love to be able to have more than one biological child. Again, I know we can't control it, and although we know how many children we'd like to try for I think we mostly need to focus on number one first and see how that goes. The point is, though, if we want the option of having more than one biological child, the responsible choice is to start trying to conceive sooner rather than later so that we can hopefully have more than one child before I age into the high-risk category. Sure, I know that women are having babies well into their 40s now (many women don't meet their partner until later in life so they have no other choice), but overall it is still safer and easier to have children earlier in life so, again, because we kind of have a choice in the matter it makes sense to choose to try to have a baby early in our marriage rather than waiting too long. It also makes sense to consider other factors: our finances, our living space, our careers. I am opposed to living with a baby in our current condo for an extended period of time. We just don't have the space. Sure, you can put a little baby in a bassinet in your bedroom and if we got rid of our futon we could put a baby care station of sorts in our current office/guest room. But it would be cramped and messy and it's just not something I would like to do in the long term if we have a choice. And right now it sort of does feel like we have a choice. That's my point, I guess: sometimes people have babies accidentally and they don't have a choice. They have to raise their infants in much, much, MUCH more difficult circumstances than a lovely condo in a nice neighborhood. If it came down to it and we have to stay here long term for some reason, of course I wouldn't put off having a baby for years just so the baby could have its own bedroom. That's silly. But since we're trying to make a responsible choice, why not wait to try to get pregnant until we think we're close to being able to move into a bigger space? On that note, why not wait to have a baby until I've finished my degree and am at a good point in my career to change gears and take a maternity break? All of these things come into play.
So, with all of these things and more in mind, the basic plan now is for me to go off birth control shortly after our wedding. And this is where it comes back to skiing for me. Next year we'll be on our honeymoon for three weeks right in the middle of the ski season, so there won't be much skiing, if any, next winter. Ideally by the winter after that I will be pregnant. And then we'll have kids, and while I'm all about the idea of getting a baby-sitter sometimes so Penn and I can have grown-up dates, I think that skiing won't be one of those date activities because skiing is already a really expensive activity when you're not also paying $50-$100 for a baby-sitter on top of it. Eventually we'll be able to ski with our children, and that's something I love imagining, but that is something that is very, very far in the future (and also very, very expensive so not likely to happen as often as it does now). All of that to say, I'm trying to be in the moment and enjoy this winter's skiing because it is definitely something I am going to have to give up for a while.
It's scary to think of all of the things we will sacrifice to have a family. But I think maybe everyone has to work through this point before having children, this point where you think "Our life is so nice right now, what if a baby screws it up?" Logically I know that a baby will enhance our life, not ruin it. Everything I've ever read about it and everyone I've ever talked to and all of my gut instincts tell me that I'm going to like being a mother and that the rewards will outweigh the difficulties and the sacrifices. I suppose it all comes back to making responsible decisions. I wouldn't responsibly be deciding to have a child if I didn't first work through this point of saying, "I am making this choice knowing what I will have to give up (if only temporarily) to do this." I'm not going to lie, it feels like a lot to give up: my toned body, extensive one-on-one time with Penn, the ability to make impromptu plans and take impromptu trips, sleeping in (sleeping, period), seeing our friends whenever we feel like it, being completely in charge of how I want to spend my time, a ton of other little things that I do now that I will be able to do again someday but not with young children. It's mostly a lot of little things, honestly, but they add up into this lifestyle that I have put together that I love. I think I'll love life as a parent, too, but that is still a big, huge unknown. And it's hard to give up a lifestyle that you already know you love for one that will hopefully be better but might not be as good (at least not at first) and certainly not as easy.
I don't want this to come across wrong. Fundamentally I am 100% positive that I want children, for many reasons (Why I Want Children is yet another entry, though). I have in no way, shape, or form changed my mind about wanting to be a mother. In fact, I've gradually become more and more excited about starting a family since I met Penn and realized he is supposed to be the father of my children. It's just that as it becomes less of a fantasy and more of a looming reality, I have to mentally prepare myself. And it turns out part of that preparation is doing a bit of mourning for the parts of my life I'm going to have to give up.
I feel lucky that I have this time to prepare myself, though. I think if I just patiently let myself work through some of the worries, by the time we actually take the plunge and go off the pill I'll feel more than ready. I'll probably be ridiculously impatient by then!