Go Ask Alice

I went and saw Alice last night with my aunt and sister last night, and I was glad I did. Besides the visuals being great, I particularly identified with the opening scene where everyone is expecting her to say yes to that daffy fellow. I didn't like that the movie poopooed marriage, but at least they poopooed bad marriages- arranged, unhappy ones and the cheating brother-in-law.

I identified with that opening scene for several reasons:

1) I had a blind date much like that- everyone in his family and extended family wanted to see us meet! What a circus. Perhaps I will tell that story one day.

2) The people there (including her family) expected her to say yes to this boy without even caring if she wanted to marry him or not. And they told her "she'd never do any better." She was expected to be married just to be married.

This scene was very interesting to me because of some very recent events. The day before I saw the movie, Sunday, I was chatting with my branch president and his counselor in the hallway, and the topic turned to the last YSA conference that I had attended. And naturally (D'oh!) they asked if I had met "anybody" there. Hint hint. They have done this on many an occasion, I put up with it. You'd think after the same answer time after time that they'd stop asking...and wouldn't they hear through the grapevine (it's a tiny branch!) if I did meet someone?

Well it escalated past their usual comments. They like to tell me to "put myself out there more" when in reality I am one of the most social creatures at these things! Trust me, I'm trying. They started telling me that I needed to take President Uchtdorf's example and wear someone down (During the YW broadcast the night before, President Uchtdorf talked about the lengths he went to to win his wife's heart). They told me that I needed to club someone over the head and drag them off.

Well that's the way to make someone feel attractive, no?

Apparently no one wants to be with me unless I club them.

I told my branch president (if you are going to dish it out then you had better be prepared to get it back!) that it was not in his best interest to get me married off- he would then have to find a new YW leader, a near impossible task in our tiny branch. After nearly 2 years in YW, I still don't have any counselors and the Primary just got reduced- one leader just moved.

It escalated from there. One of the women in the branch walked through when all this was going on and overheard and put in her two cents as she was walking out, she totally interrupted. It felt like machine gun fire spewing from her mouth. The backstory is that for quite awhile now she has been telling my mother that I need to date this guy in our branch. Sunday marked the first time she told me to my face instead of behind my back. She kept telling me that I needed to ask him out, go to a movie (why is this my job?). I don't know all of what she said, I started blocking it out. It was really loud and uncalled for, telling me what to do. Thank heavens this guy was gone that day and didn't overhear all that. Talk about mortifying.

Is this guy nice? Sure, but I don't find myself particularly attracted to him. And I don't think he's attracted to me. I've been in this branch for nearly 3 years, I think he'd do something by now if he was interested. He's my home teacher to boot, he has an "in" if he wanted one.

But here's the thing: I make my dating decisions based on other elements besides the fact that he's the only single man in the branch approximately my age (he's 35ish).

And to shout at me about this, like I'm some kind of idiot that never noticed a youngish single man in my branch of 20 people. How stupid does she think I am? And she was essentially 40 when she married, where does she get off pushing me onto someone? Shouldn't she be on my side?

Normally incidents in this nature don't fluster me (you should hear the things that people say to me), but Sunday really bothered me. I had three individuals bashing me at once.

It escalated from there.

Yesterday, Tuesday, a mere two days after this verbal assault (that's what it felt like), I get a message in my FB inbox from another woman in the stake. She meant well, but felt the need to tell me of a 37ish yr old single guy in her ward with three children. Hint hint, subtle. I politely (gritting my teeth) told her thank you for the information and left it at that. I looked at his profile, I do not feel the need to get to know this individual better.

Talk about an overload.

Am I a broken thing to fix? It's hard not to feel like a dog that people are throwing bones to.

One thing that drives me absolutely crazy in Mormon culture is the attitude that people have that you have to get married just to be married, or that it doesn't matter who you marry so long as you are married. Let me make myself clear that I am not attacking the church or its doctrine on marriage- I believe in marriage. I love the teachings from our prophet and apostles. And they warn that who you choose to marry is one of the most important decisions that you will make in this life. This decision is not something that I take lightly. Most of the people who marry just to be married are now divorced. Or are miserable. Or both.

If I wanted to only be married, I could be married several times over by this point. I know how to play my cards. And I'd be miserable, for I didn't love any of them. What kind of life is that?

Yet time and time again people make suggestions to me that are contrary to what the brethren teach, they say to the effect of "Just Get Married." Like the aforementioned "Just find someone and crack them over the head and drag them off". Like when this same branch president wanted me to date his nonmember hick friend who was "quiet". Thank heavens he forgot to follow through with that. And this woman yelling at me in the hall to date/marry this guy without caring what I think. The list goes on and on.

I think that some marrieds need a manual about how to deal with us singles. I have some great married friends...and then there are the people you want to beat with clubs. They said what? There really are times when I'm like "How are these words actually coming out of your mouth??"

And where do these people get off thinking that they know what's better for me than myself? That they know what's best for me better than my family does? That they know better than Heavenly Father what's best for me? They don't understand that I am on my own timeline- and that I am happy with that. I'm in a good place now. I have faith that things will happen when they are supposed to happen. I go by the Holy Ghost when making decisions. I am continually preparing myself for that time. But it is not this very second. And really, I haven't waited this long just to settle. Ha. I'd rather be a cat lady and have fun!

My friend Jenni recently made the point that you cannot have two "half" people to make a marriage- it requires two "whole" people. And I am working on making myself that much more "whole" so that I can bring something to a marriage. I think that I deserve someone who is doing the same.

At the very least I need a shirt with a witty comeback on it, then I can just point to my shirt when I'm being verbally assaulted.

Stand Up

So I wrote this whole script (and brought a blazer!) to do stand up at the talent show last weekend, and it didn't work out. Oh well. At least I wrote the script! It's all from my life, seriously! Here you go:

Good evening all

If my high school self could see me now, she’d roll over in her grave! I never used to talk.

I’m wearing my blazer, I think it’s the law that you have to wear a blazer if you do stand up.

If you guys don’t laugh at my jokes, then I’ll have to start dancing and you don’t want to see that.

So you might be asking, Liz, why are you here?

I’m here to land me a man, of course. I gotta shut up the old ladies back home. You know, the ones that like to come up to you and ask if you’ve found Mr. Right…and they’re serious.
I’ll preface this story by telling you that once upon a time I was 23 and I had only been home from my mission for a month and a half. And I got asked that point blank- “Have you found Mr. Right?” And I started to laugh and then I realized: She was serious. And I had to be honest and tell her no- I’d only been home for a month and a half…I was still in Sister Missionary Mode where boys are icky!

And then she looked at me and just sighed in disappointment. And then she started to babble on and say that that was ok, I didn’t have to marry and that I could be like Shari Dew. Now, don’t get me wrong because Shari Dew is an amazing woman and I should hope to be half the woman that she is, but this is not exactly what you want to hear when you are 23.

Soooo….I’m getting to that age:
The age where the kids you babysat are now getting married.
The age where the kids that I visited in the hospital when they were born are now getting married.
The age where you have to start buying your own wedding presents- cause sometimes you need a blender and no one has bought ya one. I’m thinking I should start a trend of showers for single gals
And in all reality I’m not that old…I fully meet the requirements to be at a YSA event. For a good while longer, too. But all these whippersnappers getting married sure makes me feel old. It doesn’t help that I go to college with kids ten years younger than I am…because in my tech class my teacher will ask things like “What is your first memory of a computer?” and the other kids in class remember things like Windows 97.Meanwhile, I remember DOS! And floppy disks! You had to type stuff in when you started up your computer and everything.

I’m getting to the age where being the Crazy Cat Lady is starting to look good. My friend and I have decided on an arrangement that we’ll still care about getting married for a certain allotment of time. We’ll be sociable. We’ll wear makeup and pantyhose and heels. And we’ll worry about having cute clothes. But once that period of time is over, we’ll move in together and we’ll get a whole bunch of cats.

It must be so much fun to be the crazy cat lady because you don’t have to care what society thinks anymore. You don’t have to brush your hair. You don’t have to diet. Your uniform is sweats and crocs and a shirt that says something like “No outfit is complete without a little cat hair.”

Watch, it’ll be after I let loose and become Crazy Cat Lady that I’ll find my very own Crazy Cat Guy and settle down. You see those crazy couples at Wal-Mart, truly there is someone for everyone.

So, I was in Young Women’s when I was a younger, and then I graduated from high school and went on to other things. I served in Primary, I served a mission, I served some more in Primary, and I served in Relief Society. Basically, everywhere except Young Women’s. And then, exactly ten years later, I got put back in Young Women’s as a leader. And I figured out why:

I flunked Young Women’s.

I was out of Young Women’s for ten whole years and I didn’t get married and have children. I flunked. So they put me back in. And I love it. I have more in common with the girls than the Relief Society sisters anyhow.

A while ago I was cleaning and I found The List. And all you girls out there know what I’m talking about. When you have the marriage lesson in YW, they make you write a list of all the qualities that you want in a spouse. And I am proud to say that I had a very good list, nothing too silly there. But I wound up tossing it because I think I know better now what I’m looking for than my 14 year old self. It’s pretty funny now being the one to teach the marriage lesson, but I didn’t make them write a list.

I spend a lot of my time at youth activities, and at the last youth conference that I chaperoned, one of the girls that I brought met this boy that she really liked. And here’s the kicker: he liked her back just as much. And this was only a couple of hours into the conference. I was like “How does that happen? Can I take notes?” I think they’re teaching me more than I’m teaching them.

So, I used to work at Bed Bath & Beyond back in the day. I used to be the person that set up registries for engaged couples. That’s me, always the registrar, never the bride. I met all kinds of couples, some were very nice. And then there were the ones where you were like “Really?”
When you saw some of the last names that these girls would be getting, you knew it had to be true love cause there’s no other way that that was going to happen. My other friend and I have an agreement that if either of us gets a new stupid last name, that the other one can laugh at it and we won’t care. You can laugh at my stupid new last name, I won’t even care.

So I have some tips for the guys out there. Kind of a Public Service Announcement. Am I picking on the guys? Maybe a bit, but I’m trying to help. I know a lot of really nice guys out there and I want them to be happy and find a nice girl and settle down. Likewise, I’m hoping that if I help the guys out, then I’ll also be helping the girls out cause there’s a lot of nice girls that I know that want them to settle down and be happy too. And there’s a bit of a selfish reason for wanting to help the guys out cause then that will help me out. So ladies, it’s once for you and twice for me. Now, is anyone perfect? No, we all make dumb mistakes. One of the last conversations I had with a guy wound up being about how I needed to go use the little girl’s room. Cause that’s hot, right?

So I won’t call these rules, because guys, you just might find a girl that isn’t taken aback by these things, but odds are these suggestions will help you with the ladies. So we’ll call them “guidelines” like on Pirates. And I kid you not that the things that I talk about are true. They really happened.

• 
  Guideline Number One: Guys, when you’re asking me out, you don’t have to mention that your suit really really needs dry-cleaning. I don’t need to know that. When you show up on my doorstep in your clean, freshly pressed suit, I will pretend that it has always been like that and has never ever been in a smelly heap in the back of your closet.
• 
  Guys, when you ask us to hang out at your place after church, you should be able to tell us how to get there. You just came from there.

• Don’t ask us out to make sure that you really like your steady girl. We don’t like that.

• Don’t ask us out in front of everyone when Sunday School is getting out. Find someplace more appropriate.

• When you’re in a romantic situation out on a balcony overlooking the Puget Sound and it’s all beautiful with the bridges and the ferry boats all lit up, now is not the time to ask me if I had weird bugs on my mission. And by the way, I served in Connecticut, so no terribly weird bugs.
• I’m a firm believer that whoever asks for the date should pay for it. If you ask me to a semiformal dance and we’re out at a nice place beforehand, after dinner is not the time to ask me if I want you to pay for my meal. Especially not when we’re doubling with another couple where there’s no question that that guy’s paying for his date.

• Us girls don’t want to go on dates that are more appropriate for youth. One guy was all flirty with me and I’m thinking “I might get some free dinner out of this”. Well instead of being asked out, I got handed a business card. This guy and his best friend had this dating “business” where I was supposed to invite a galpal over and provide some food and they’d cook and clean and entertain. On the card was their contact info and a photo of them in white shirts and ties and aprons holding cooking utensils. It was the funniest card ever, and I was so sad that I lost it. This whole scenario was never going to happen since I lived in a tiny place with my family and had no privacy, not to mention that I didn’t have a galpal that I would subject that to. It also made me the “guy” having to set it all up. I guess these guys were scared of rejection so this was easier, but the irony is that if this guy had just said “Liz, would you like to go have dinner with me?” then the answer probably would have been yes. And who knows- maybe things would have worked out and I wouldn’t be here tonight and I’d have a stupid new last name.

• Please don't call my house at 8am...on a Saturday! I wasn't home anyhow, I was a working girl.

• Please don't "borrow" someone's child from daycare to show me that you're good with kids...I don't want you to go to prison!

So guys, it doesn’t have to be that hard. All you have to do is find a nice girl that you would like to know better and find out her name. And here’s the hard part: You have to remember her name. And so you say “(fill in the blank), would you like to go to dinner with me?” And she’ll either say yes or no and you go on from there.

Sometimes it happens where the night that you suggest does not work with our schedule- sometimes we have to go to wedding receptions for the kids we babysat. But we’ll make it clear that we want to reschedule.

Meanwhile, it’s usually pretty obvious when a girl isn’t interested, we generally don’t talk in code although we do have our secret signal for when we have to go to the bathroom in groups.
So we’ll either say No or something like “I have to wash my hair” or “I have to organize the files on my computer” or “I have to feed my cats.” If we say things like that, then you should just move on.

Boys, I hope that was helpful. If you have any suggestions for us girls, then I’ll be around all weekend. I need all the help I can get.

Thank you everyone! Good night!

Mask 101

Like I said, I just couldn't bear to have a crappy mask last weekend. I thought I'd show how my mask was constructed. Between working at Craft Outlet and taking sculpture class, I feel like I can construct anything! I bought the white plastic mask base at Michaels, I picked the one with the larger eyeholes (so I could, ya know, see!). But it wasn't very wide (and having a wider mask would make my fat chin smaller) so I decided to enlarge the mask. Not to mention I wanted a butterfly theme and I thought it would be cool to shape the top of the mask. I came up with a template, fiddling with it to make sure it looked good. I cut the shapes out of thin cardboard and hot glued it to the inside and reinforced it with duct tape.



I had a remnant of fake satin (love scouring the remnants at Joann's!) and covered the inside of the mask with it. Using hot glue was bumpy, so I bought some spray adhesive and coated the front of the mask with that. I worked another piece of the satin over it, trying not to have too many bumps- it's hard working a flat item over a curved piece, but I did pretty good. I hotglued the edges of the satin over to the backside for a nice finish.


As you can see, the tape lines show through the satin, thankfully I had some black lace left over from Halloween past, which masked it (ha!) pretty well. I glued the edges of that to the backside as well. I ran black masking tape over where I had glued the edges so it wasn't too bumpy on my face.

After that, I hotglued the feather butterfly at an angle on the front. Gotta love hotglue! There are black rhinestones at the outer corners of my eyes, some of those were self adhesive and some I attached with glue dots.

Attaching the feathers was trickier. The ends come glued to a piece of heavy ribbon, which I could cut as desired (also purchased at Michaels). If I glued them to the backside of the mask, though, the angle was wrong and they would just lay flat against my head. You couldn't see them at all. I played around with them, attaching them with painter's tape till I got the right angle. I wound up having to cut up a cheapo foam craft paintbrush and glue the foam under the wings and attach the feathers on top of that to get the correct height/angle. I was pretty pleased at my ingenuity- the black foam didn't show at all.

I really liked how the feathers turned out, they had movement and that was fun. A while ago I had bought some small ruffled black elastic, not knowing what to use it for. It turned out to be perfect for holding my mask to my face! Serendipity, my friends. Sometimes it pays to hoard. lol

Like I said, I also glued pinbacks to the other butterflies for use on my outfit.

And voila! A classier mask.

WV: WILD and Wonderful*

Yep, it's that time again...off to yet another conference! Last weekend I drove down to Morgantown, WV for their YSA conference. It was a pretty good weekend, I'm still so tired!

Friday afternoon I picked up Kaitlyn, she also goes to Edinboro. She's a youngin' (18!) but a very nice girl. I have to laugh because in just a few years I went from being the young one in the singles ward (making everyone else feel old) to being the old one! How did that happen? I don't know.

Our drive was supposed to be 3 hrs 20 min but took longer- I made a "scenic tour" whoops, then we got stuck in a traffic jam due to an an accident. But we got there ok. I got there too late to sign up for the talent show and I wasn't in the best mood to do a stand up routine anyhow. I did write a script, I think I'll post that later. The talent show was fun- there were good acts and some pretty awful ones!

These guys were funny, they put Oreos on their foreheads and tried to get them in their mouths without using their hands. They made the funniest faces! The girl did it, girls love chocolate!

This girl could write her name very legibly (and in cursive!) with each foot and with each hand:



On Saturday we started off the day with a lecture from a man who has done a lot of Book of Mormon/archaeological research and he thinks it all took place in North America. He had a lot of really interesting info and images and I have to say it made more sense then other presentations that I've seen. The church has no official standpoint and I was pleased that the guy fully admitted that it was all a best guess. I don't like it when people think they know more than the prophet.


From there we had classes, the titles on the sign up sheets were pretty cryptic. "Please Don't Eat the Flowers" turned out to be a class about etiquette. We did role plays of what to do as well as what not to do and they were pretty funny. "Skiing With the Seventy" turned out to be a class with Elder Lansing of the Seventy and his wife. They talked about how they met while skiing and that it's something that they like to do together and with their family. They talked about how you should have common interests with your spouse. He also related skiing to life (It's difficult but worth it). It was a good class, they're nice people. "The Electric Fence" turned out to be a team-building exercise, and if you know me, I hate team-building exercises! Do they ever really work? No, they just make you hate life. So I skipped out of that one as soon as I found out what we had to do:





Mormon Mosh Pit? No, you had the group inside the roped off area (the rope came up to my shoulder and I'm not short) and you had to get them over without touching the "electric fence". Lame, no? Well I really didn't want to climb all over people and I really didn't want them touching me, so I skipped away. Not to mention I was like the biggest person there and I don't bend too well these days, it would've been embarrassing.




"My" group was the only one to get their last person out...they rearranged themselves so that it was a tiny girl in there as the last one and guys were able to sit on other guy's shoulders to be tall enough to grab her out. Erin, the last girl in, is a dancer...they grabbed her hands and she was able to kick her feet up enough that other people caught them and they got her over. Way to go Erin!


I can just picture it now: "Hey, how did you meet your wife?"




"Well, I grabbed her butt as part of a team building exercise, then I said hi to her." Groan.





After lunch, we got in groups and made cardboard cars for our "Drive-In" movie theatre. We did this a few years ago as a Primary activity, sit was kindof little kiddish but kinda fun. My group wound up slapping together a cattle truck with the guy in the cab part.

(Note the rattail on the left, I swear WV has weirder guys than anywhere else!)

What's inside our truck? Cute girls!

We watched the movie Up, love it. I couldn't help but cry. A LOT!


After dinner, we got ready for the Masquerade Ball!

Girls just wanna have fun (and dress up!):

Regan, Briana, me and Tracy

Erin, me, Kelley and Melissa

I didn't post any pics of the guys, but most of them dressed up, too. Some even had tuxes.

I made my mask (of course!):

I also hot-glued a pinback onto another butterfly for my shirt. I had another one that I wound up loaning to another girl who had forgotten her dress and mask. I wore a dressy T with a big black satin ballgown skirt that I have. Wore heels too. It was fun to be girly.

You could make a mask there, but I was afraid that they would have cheesy stuff- and I was pretty on the money with that. I'm an art student, for crying out loud, and I couldn't bear to have a substandard mask. I wanted to be unique. Yes, I have my vanities!

The dance was fun, I boogied all night. I need to do that all the time, it's great exercise!

We stayed with a nice family that had a creaky house. We got TOTALLY lost trying to find it, that's WV for ya. I slept in the basement, I swear everyone's basement is the same! Everyone's basement is crazy!

Creepy basement+plastic skull=silly pics

We couldn't resist.

I don't have any pics of Sunday- what do you take pics of, church? We had to find our way from the house to the institute building WVU, which wouldn't have been so bad except that our directions were WRONG. SO wrong! They took us close but not quite. And you couldn't see the building from where we were. They should have had a map for us. One of our (physically fit) guy friends flagged us down and RAN all over to show us the right way. He's totally my hero.

Elder and Sister Lansing spoke to us that morning, it was really good. She talked about not having excess baggage, he told us five things to do:

1) Know who you are as a child of God

2) Know what to pray for

3) Give service

4)Don't be discouraged

5)Have a proper perspective

He also said that it's more about what we become in our experiences than what we have. So true. After that was testimony meeting, which was nice. And funny at times. Like when the girl with the noisy beaded gypsy skirt got a loud phone call and ran out of the room jingling all over the place. Or the really loud/unconformist girl stating that she's putting in missionary papers. I think she'll be good but I was like "You realize there's some conformity here, right?"

Afterwards we packed lunches, said our goodbyes and headed for home. Kaitlyn went home in another car from our stake (so I didn't have to drive all the way up to Edinboro) which meant I had to navigate home by myself! It turned out to be a good thing that we had gotten lost Friday night trying to find our housing- I couldn't go back the way I came (dang one ways!) and found myself in the same area and was able to find the freeway from there. Heavenly Father knows what he's doing- we didn't know that we'd have to be at the college when we got lost there.

Once I got home I went to bed and slept and slept- I was quite sleep deprived. I didn't even get up for dinner! I didn't want to go anywhere today but I was a good girl and went to school.


*WV is certainly wild- try navigating it! You try finding a road that you can't see UNTIL you turn on it! Let's just say I found myself turning around a lot this weekend!

Ceramics

There's a reason why I've put off ceramics til now- it's not usually my cup of tea. I appreciate what other people do, and I've collected some pieces of pottery, but I don't enjoy doing it as much as other things. I think it's difficult to produce things that don't look like crap. Or like a grade school project. And even if you make something fabulous, it could blow up in the kiln- or get scarred from something else blowing up. There's a lot you can't control.

Anyhow, this is what we've been up to so far:

Out first project was hand-building rattles with holder of some sort. I made a hollow ladybug with leaf and a hollow ball with a shell-type holder. And they rattle too! I was happy that the clay balls didn't get stuck inside. You paint the red stuff on them, they're fired, and then they get pit fired, which is basically sticking them in a bonfire. This produces the black, smoky look. I may have mine pit-fired again, they're not that dark.






We also tried some cylinders on the wheel, I am pretty bad at them! These were made on only my second try on the wheel, I imagine I'll get better as I try more. I haven't done this since eighth grade, had to remember how! I have a harder time pulling up the clay so it's not such fat walls. The crumpled one on the right was a mistake, but I liked the crumples so I kept it. Basically, these were just practice so see what the glazes look like. We're doing bowls next, they're a bit easier.

We also did a coil building project- you had to sculpt some sort of human figure using coils of clay that were smoothed out. It's a pretty solid way to build, but it's time consuming. I had more time on the body, I was rushed with the head and would have liked it to be different. I liked how the colored slips/clear glaze turned out, I was aiming for a "drawn" or "sketched" look.

When you build this way, there's a high chance of air bubbles, so I was glad that it didn't blow up in the kiln like other people's!



That's what I've done so far this semester. Now we're working on boxes built from slabs of clay.

Generation Me

Recently I read two books by Jean Twenge, Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic, which deal with how younger generations (including mine) are more self centered- and more miserable- than ever.

I thought they were pretty good books, they hit the nail on the head. There's a lot of stuff that leads us to be self centered that didn't exist before (FB, anyone?)

Cover images from Amazon:


Consider:

• iPods
• Facebook, Twitter, My Space, etc
• Paris Hilton
• Reality TV
• Students expecting grades they didn't earn
• Parents that don't say No
• Bridezillas
• Lack of commitment (people move on to find someone that magically puts up with their crap)

And so on....

Kids have been told "You are Special" their whole lives...and now we're dealing with the aftermath. Is is wrong to like yourself? No, one should like themselves...but not put themselves selfishly first. Narcissists are those who are too confident in themselves (and believe they have no faults), we all know at least one. They can be great friends...until you don't want to do what they want. The myth is that narcissists don't really have self confidence, but that's usually not true. Most love themselves too much. Narcissists may be successful in the short term, but they usually aren't in the long term- cause you have to deal with people!

There's a lot more in the books, but I agreed with most of it and reccommend the books to others. After reading these books, I am ever more grateful to have grown up in the church, where service is emphasised. I'm also thankful for parents who said No. A lot. I know I'm better off than a lot of the college students I'm around every day. Right now I'm dealing with parents who have no rules for their children...what do you do when the DAD put a yw's lip ring in????

The moral of the story:

Thinking of others really is the way to happiness!

"So Liz...

...why are you still single?"

I think this speaks for me:

That is what was in my FB inbox today, apparently he's 50 and looking for a ladyfriend. Total stranger. Ummm...no! Flattered, but no thanks. If I had been drinking water, I'd have done a spit take!
He does get some creativity points for the hair and muttonchops.

Faith

Like I said, when I went to the Ithaca conference, I sat through a workshop taught by the president of the Palmyra temple. he taught about "One Eternal Round", how God wants us to have families and be blessed with everything that He has. Well, somewhere in that discussion about marriage, he shared how he had had the opportunity to meet the general YW president a long time ago when his girls were YW themselves. I estimate this was a good forty years ago.

He took the opportunity to ask her what she felt that his daughters, being young women, especially needed to know. I perked up and took note since I am YW leader, and not all that different from the YW myself.

Her answer was "To be successful singles."

And the answer floored him.

And when he shared that, I admit that my heart sank.

He went on and explained. There are less men on this earth. There are less men in the church than women. And when you crunch the numbers, there are far less worthy men than women to have temple marriages. The numbers haven't changed much for years. Hence, the need for women to learn to be happy and successful on their own.

This information doesn't come as much of a surprise, but it wasn't what I really wanted to hear. It's a comfort to know that God is merciful and His plan allows for marriage beyond the grave, but I tire of hearing that doctrine. Trust me, I'm well aware of this concept. I recall getting a "Mother's Day" gift in the singles ward years ago that was a church CD with a quote on it that referred to that concept and how not all of us will get married in this life. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Perhaps getting married really is like winning the lottery. Who knows. I worry about my girls, they don't have many examples of temple marriages in their lives. There are not many nice boys out here for them to date. There are hardly any young men in our branch for them to even associate with. I pray for them.

People tell me I should go to Utah, as if getting married is a numbers thing. Gotta increase your odds. Well, over the years I've met hundreds of nice young men and that doesn't mean anything. I haven't found the right one. After all, I'm looking for one, not hundreds, right? I've met several couples out here that have pretty miraculous "How They Met" stories, if God can do that for them, then he can do that for me. I have to have faith in the promises that have been made to me. Right now I feel like I am where I should be, doing what I should be doing. Marriage and babies will come when it should.

I'm reminded of an experience that I had while working at BB&B. I used to be the one who helped couples to register for wedding gifts (that's right, always the registrar, never the bride, lol) and one evening this nice young couple came in. I met a lot of trainwreck couples in that line of work, but they were different- eventually I figured it out that they were LDS.

I set them up and they started scanning items, later the bride had to step out and the groom was chatting with me. He told me about how they met. He was living in Utah at the time and felt this prompting that he should go home to WA. And he ignored it- why should he give up his comfortable lifestyle? Well, one by one, his lifestyle was taken away from him- he lost his apartment, job, etc. He was forced to go back and live with his parents.

The very night that he got to WA, a friend called him, said "Hey come to my party." The groom was tired and didn't want to go, but he wound up going somehow.

And that's where he met her. They were meant to be. God orchestrated it so that a family could begin.

I don't think it was any coincidence that I happened to be the one to help them that night. They could have come in at any other time. Heavenly Father wanted me to know that story. And I am thankful for that.

Kodak

More prints going on here in Liz land. Over the weekend I went to school (sigh!) and got a multi-color reduction print out of the way, it's a requirement to have one done by midterms...which are this week.

My Kodak camera makes its way into a lot of my artwork, I love it's vintagey goodness. Remember my wire version? And even before that it made it's way into still life photos many moons ago in community college. Well I decided to immortalize it in print, too.

After coming up with the design, I transferred it to my block...can you spot the fatal error?

The moral of the story is: Don't transfer your image at 2 am when you are not thinking...my Kodak logo is the "right" way on the block which means that it would print backwards!! Whoops! Doh!

And I even carved out that logo before realizing my mistake! Clearly, I need more sleep. So I had to scrape it all off and print just the camera.

How does a multi-color reduction block work? Well, I decided on three colors: silver, gray and black. You can do more colors, but each color = more labor and time. Even in Print, I'm a b&w photographer! You plan out where each color will be, hence the color-coded block above. It's challenging to plan out a block like this one, you have to think backwards and use the spatial part of your brain. I found it to be the good kind of challenging, it was fun.

I carved out the silhouette of the entire camera and printed it in silver. You always print going lightest to darkest. Next, I carved away those areas (in yellow) that I wanted to stay silver. Then I printed again, carefully lining up my paper/block, using the gray ink. Then I carved away the parts I wanted to stay gray (the green part of the block) and printed again, using black ink. I used the ram press each time. I made 8 overall, which was time consuming- I was rushed to get it all done in three hours.

It's a total pain in the butt to line stuff up, but I liked how it turned out:

There's some "noise" (carving marks) to the left of the camera, which I tried to avoid- but oh well. If I wanted, I could carve out the camera with an Exacto knife and glue it to unblemished paper, it's done all the time in the print world.

Anyhow, it's fun to do and gives you appreciation for multi-color printed things! Especially when they line up! Registration (aka lining your colors up) is a big problem in printmaking, no matter how fancy you get.