Moving

Travis and I may be moving to a new house soon (like a house with more than one bedroom) but I guess I'm also moving now.
Even though I promised myself I wouldn't.

Please hop on over to my new blog, it has taken a place in my heart that cannot be removed and I assure you that it will not be all baby -things all the time.
But I can't help myself now. It's all I think about.
So babymakingbybecky.blogspot.com

Come follow me.

(that last sentence was not meant to sound sacrilegious)

Baby making

I had to make a "themed" blog for one of my classes and update it every day.
I had a very perfect theme in front of me.

Check out my baby blog: babymakingbybecky.blogspot.com

Distracted

I have not been writing on my blog very much lately.
This is why, I have been much distracted:

Listen from Becky Pitcher on Vimeo.

I am 12 weeks along. Which is the designated time for me to be allowed to tell people the nicest secret ever. Which is a hard secret to keep.

Merry Christmas, you filthy animal!

I have a hard time deciding whether Home Alone 1 or 2 is my favorite.
Especially during Christmas season.

Which I think it is. Even though everyone else disagrees.

As I watched Home Alone 2 yesterday and pondered what an amazing Christmas/kid classic it is I wondered if my children will even understand it.
Will they watch it and think "Why doesn't Kevin just call his mom's cell phone?"
Or "why can't they just call him on Skype and spend Christmas together even though they're apart?"
Will they wonder how it is possible to get on the wrong flight at such high security airports?
Will they wonder why the people at the hotel let Kevin use a credit card without providing I.D. or at least contacting his father?

Will they even recognize pay phones?
I hardly do.

Will we have heated sidewalks that make them question the slippery ice that so often is the downfall of the bad guys?

Oh. My poor future children.
And thank goodness they made these wonderful movies when they did.
They could never work nowadays.
Kids would never buy it.
(Since it was so believable in the 90s)

But I hope that they understand that part at the end of both movies when all Kevin wants is to see his mom.
Because moms are the best.

And so shall I be the best.

Pancakes in the morning

I love home movies.

Like this one.

Becky Breakfast In The Morning. from travispitcher on Vimeo.

My Saturdays have been stolen

Saturdays are a special day.

They're the only day of the week when I get to sleep in.

Eat a luxurious breakfast.

Wander around the farmer's market hand in hand with my husband while bantering happily with the vendors who are now our friends, and accepting the free apple here or jalapenos there.

They are a nice day when we can come home and relax and I can bake a tasty treat with the fruit we just scored and clean up the living room, and finish a project here or a project there that I've been working on. (Like all the hats I've been knitting.)

Travis and I might sit on the couch, eating peaches and milk and watching a movie with the door open so a breeze comes in.

BUT NOW.

I work every Saturday morning.

I come home in the afternoons stressed and tired and collapse into our untidied living room.

Travis says things like "I got these apples today," and hands me a bag of mushy-ish apples. (Can't he even choose apples without me?) and says "And they were out of eggs so we have to go get the tasteless salmonella eggs from the store."

And I don't want to bake or clean because NOW I want to relax.

So we sit on the couch with the door open, so it airs out the weird stink of our house and watch a movie while eating something neither delicious nor romantic, like potato chips until we feel sick because of all the sitting and the stinking and the chips.

And I blame my job.

Because clearly I am happier at home than elsewhere.

Unless elsewhere is the farmer's market.

Non-linear

After a recent literary conversation, followed by a similar religious conversation I have been thinking a lot about linear lives.

Because we don't really live linearly.
Chronologically, yes.
But the only time our lives are linear is the present. When we look at the past (or the future) we pick out moments.
The time I fell rollerblading down the big hill behind my house.
Sitting in hot tub on our honeymoon, watching Home Alone 2, because it is especially romantic.
Finding out my mom was pregnant with Kathryn-to-be.
Wrestling a pillow away from Travis in the middle of the night.
Playing crack the whip on the pond behind our house.

They're not all events. They're just memories.
And with some effort I could probably put them into chronological order.
But not linear order.
They're like beads on a thread. A moment. A moment. A moment.
But they're not just a thread alone.

Yesterday morning I woke up, and Travis had his arm thrown over my waist and was sharing my pillow and I thought of a moment when I was in high school.
I wasn't depressed in high school, I was usually pretty happy. But I remember being about 15 and lying in my bed, sobbing myself to sleep.
I just kept wishing and praying that my life would pass quickly and I would wake up one morning and be
exactly where I am now.

And that did not happen.

I had to live life at the normal speed for the last 7 years.
And when I look back it's not a blur. Even now, it doesn't seem to me that it "sped by," although I am amazed at how quickly time flies.
I am, of course, grateful that I had all of the experiences I did, and that they didn't happen especially quick.
But at the same time... my 15 year old self knew what was up.
Because I have never been so happy as I am now.

Mormons believe that being married is ordained of God. We're supposed to be married.
And I,
I was made to be married.

It's everything I ever hoped it would be.
It's better.

And nearly every day I slide another little bead, a moment, a happiness on to my thread.
And think, "I will remember this forever."
(even if I won't)

And my chronological, but non-linear life is perfectly perfect and ideally ideal.

Candy Corn

All of my favorite candies are seasonal.
I wait impatiently all year for candy canes (and peppermints are not the same), and those caramel-filled Cadbury eggs, and -of course- Candy Corn.
Candy corn is the number 1.
I have eaten an entire bag of Autumn Mix Candy Corn this week. I eat them in order.
A regular, a chocolate, a regular, a chocolate, a pumpkin (green top first), then I repeat.

Sometimes in February or August I get the craving for Candy Corn and buy the cheap-o generic yellow corn-only Candy Corn in the candy isle of gas stations.
I think "If I can't have real candy corn, this will have to do."
But it doesn't do.
It makes matters worse.

Because that candy corn is so filled with corn syrup that it hurts my teeth.
But the equally unhealthy Brachs Candy Corn is made with real honey, and something about that real honey balances out the sugar and corn-syrup and I eat it until I throw up and then I think
"I need another bag, since that last bag was wasted."

I never feel remorse for eating it.
Although my current bag is nearly empty and I will not eat any more after it is.

For at least a few days...

The tip-top tier

I was just looking at some wedding pictures and I love how teeny-tiny our cake looks!
Especially since I've been watching Cake Boss and these people have jumbonormous cakes, and ours is just like the tiny tip-top of a cake.
But I love it.
And there was just enough to cut and eat and it was delicious.

And also, I think my dad had a piece... but no one else did.

Aaand I think my cousin Nichole took this picture.

It was on my facebook...

p.s. Look how long my hair is!

Aaand what a big dork I am in that sweater. In my defense, I was freezing.

In defense of Mormons (myself included)

I am not brainwashed. I am capable of forming my own opinions.

And when my opinions align with the opinions of my church I don’t appreciate people telling me that I am “blindly following whatever you're told to do” as I was recently accused of doing.

I was also informed that I do not follow any of Jesus Christ’s teachings and that my personal goal is to take away the rights of blacks and gays.

Thank you for informing me of my personality and goals.

This is not okay.

And what I’m looking for in this post isn’t a bunch of comments saying things like “Oh Becky, you totally follow Christ. You’re a good person.”

I am looking to clear the air.

We’ll begin with me apparently trying to take away the rights of others. I suppose that means that I am at fault for Prop 8 being voted through twice.

Fine. Even though I didn’t vote, donate money or spend time in call centers trying to convince others over the phone… I will take responsibility for that. I am not bothered by this.

Less than 13% of the Californian population is Mormon. That means that if every Mormon voted for Prop 8 and every non-Mormon voted against it, Prop 8 would have failed by 87%.

But it didn’t.

Yes, Mormons had something to do with that. Yes, members of the Mormon church donated their personal time and money to trying to pass a law they believe in.

But surely we can’t take all the credit.

And yet, of the 39% of the rest of the Pro-Prop 8ers, no one seems to be harassed to the same extent that we were and are.

If Mormons stand up and say, “We believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God” that is not secret code for “We hate Gays and so does God.”

We do not hate gays. Most of us don’t even dislike gays. Sure, when hordes of screaming homosexuals spray paint rude, profane and frankly bigoty things on our homes and churches we feel uncomfortable and maybe (quite understandably) afraid for our lives.

But I have yet to hear a Mormon say “Gays are evil. Gays are wrong. Gays do not deserve the same rights as us.”

We don’t preach or practice those doctrines.

Most Mormons, myself included, believe that being Gay isn’t something you can control. We don’t even see being Gay as being a sin, since God doesn’t punish you for things you can’t control.

In fact, nearly every Mormon I’ve spoken to about this has expressed grief for the hardships that homosexuals endure. Because, yes, we do believe Sodomy is a sin. And we understand that to be attracted to someone and never be able to act on it may be one of the hardest trials to live through on earth.

But we also believe that people are blessed for living the way that God wants them to.

I know that probably makes Gays angry (and yet I will try not to inform you of how you feel, since I know that I hate being told by others how I feel.). I have had several people yell at me, or to others near me or write nasty things on my blog.

So be it. As long as you’re angry because we pity you or we grieve with you or we wish we could help you understand where we are coming from.

And you’re not angry because, as you seem to believe, we hate you.

Especially me, apparently.

Guess what, Mormons are used to persecution. We know what it’s like for people to pass laws specifically to spite us. We were driven from the United States and were forced to form our own little community in Utah where people would stop burning down our houses and killing our children. We kept moving to places people didn’t want, like a swamp or a desert, hoping –just maybe—that people would leave us alone.

But still you won’t. Our churches are still being burned down.

People are accusing us of being unaccepting, unloving bigots.

Do you know what a bigot is? “A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs.”

A bigot is not someone who has different beliefs than you. A bigot is someone who is irrational, intolerant, and obstinately devoted to their own opinions.

I have yet to see those qualities exhibited by the Mormon church or individuals in the case of Gay rights.

And yet, when I go to Salt Lake people on the corner yell at me and hold up a sign that says “Go to Hell, Mormons.”

We are not the bigots in this situation.

And the part about me taking away the rights of blacks… I don’t even know what that could possibly mean. I have no refute because I have never even heard the rumor that Mormons think white people are a cut above the rest of the world or that we deserve more rights.

Which is good, since Travis and I went to several Mormon churches in Africa and there certainly weren’t any whites besides us there.

And one would assume that Africans would not follow the teachings of an anti-black, pro-white church unless they were being forced somehow.

And even then, I think they’d have some problems.

In case I have not made myself clear (although I’m pretty sure that I have), I try every single day to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Examples include, loving, accepting and trying to help those around me, understanding principles before “blindly” following them, and making an effort help others understand what I believe, but not forcing them to follow or agree with me.

The church recently released a statement concerning the Prop 8 ruling.

It is short, I encourage you all to read it and determine if it is in anyway hateful, rude, condescending or even negative at all. Especially if it follows the rules of bigotry, is it exhibiting or encouraging intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs?

If you are a reader who is angry with this post and want to leave me a mean comment, please do. However, I ask that you do not leave an unrelated, sarcastic comment like “How weird that people want rights” or “Bizarre how angry people get when you treat them unfairly.” I have gotten those comments before.

I am actually interested in a legitimate opinion concerning something I’ve written, not in an angry tirade that is mostly unrelated to what I’m talking about.

I hope you all have a very nice day, even (and maybe especially), if you are Gay.

(p.s. We don’t practice polygamy in the Mormon church. Stop accusing us of it.)