I am an "and"

It's official. My husband and I are one. This is a big step. Bigger than the temple sealing. We have a joint blog.

No worries. We will never get a joint facebook account.

I may still post on my blog, but refer to this one from now on. Tim's pretty funny too, so be prepared to hear from him as well for a good laugh. He can also be serious though. We're great collaborators. It should be fun.

An honor code thought

Under "Live a Chaste and Virtuous Life"
a. Repeated stereotypical gender-based remarks

If this were enforced like facial hair, half of the student body would be ousted tomorrow.

Another letter....

Dear Baby Simon,

Please stay in your mom's uterus for nine more weeks, ok? You can't possibly be ready to come out after only 27 weeks. I'm sure it's real nice in there! I know you are eager to meet your cool siblings and parents, but you have eternity to be with them and by the time you're a teenager... well. You get my point. Please. Just a few more months. You need to get a little cuter.

Love,
Your favorite aunt Cay-Cay

Letters by Caitlin

Letters by Caitlin. (brought to you by Kayla and Thelma)


Dear 2.61% of Utah voters,

Why, oh why, did you vote for SUPERDELL for Governor of Utah? Besides the plethora of criminal charges that include paragliding over I-15 in rush hour traffic, he is also a ridiculously racist bigot. He called homosexuals faggots, once said a fictitious Native American tribe died out because they were not intellectual enough (and then "Schanze refused [to apologize] in an email sent to the entire company further disparaging Native Americans and stating that all Native Americans are adulterers due to the naming of the Bureau of Indian "Affairs"), and proclaimed the only reason his critics were still alive was by the grace of God and SUPERDELL. He was also banned from editing on Wikipedia (according to Wikipedia). Did you know ANYTHING before you went into that voting booth? ANYTHING?

Sincerely,
A very concerned citizen



Dear University towing company,

How come you towed my car Friday night during my hot date to the international cinema? Do you think your one little sign up in the corner on the side of the building is really adequate to let people know they cannot park in your large, usually empty, and practically deserted parking lot after the hour of 8 pm? You are jerks.

Sincerely,
Why is it always me?



Dear Prop 8 protestors,

I'm with you. But please do not call my prophet names. I respect your right to protest, and I agree with you on many accords, but that is just not right in my book.

Sincerely,
A faithful saint against Prop 8



Dear husband,

Why are you so dang hot? I like when you break the honor code. Facial hair looks great on you.

Sincerely,
Your adoring wife

My thoughts on this Friday:

1. I love that the Wilk now has plastics recycling.
2. I'm still kind of dumbfounded by the fact that I am married and can walk around naked in my apartment in front of a boy.
3. I love Michelle Obama. She is intelligent, beautiful, independent, supportive of her husband, and seems like a really great mother. And I liked her dress.


3.5. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States. That. is. awesome. I have so much faith in him to fix our screwed-up country.



4. In half an hour, I get to go to an exclusive "department review" luncheon for 20 poli sci students. Free food.
5. The Pennyroyal Cafe opens tonight! Feeding real food to desperate vegetarians and vegans since 2008.
6. And this, from Charla: "but you found each other! huzzah for byu. bringing libs, dems, and independents together from necessity since its inception"

Prop 8 yet again

"Before it accepted the invitation to join broad-based coalitions for the amendments, the Church knew that some of its members would choose not to support its position. Voting choices by Latter-day Saints, like all other people, are influenced by their own unique experiences and circumstances. As we move forward from the election, Church members need to be understanding and accepting of each other and work together for a better society" (lds.org source).


Don't judge.

My lovely friend Weston says they are still talking about me in his religion class. I'm infamous!

Google Analytics rocks

The number four search engine keyword that goes to my blog is "yemeni girls naked".

I think the perverts will be sorely disappointed.

I can't sleep I'm so annoyed

While grateful that the American public had sense enough to vote the best man into the most important office, my happiness at an Obama presidency is overshadowed by my extreme annoyance at the narrow-minded voters of Utah County.

That's right. They elected this idiot over Claralyn. Please just read their bios on their respective websites. Then you will understand where I am coming from. However, Claralyn did get 42% of the votes in a very, VERY RED district so that's awesome. But. Chris Herrod, the skeezy, unethical, cheating loser is once again the representative for 62. There will be no happy concession speech here (by the way... Senator McCain's made me cry).

Oh, and it's seems like Prop 8 is going to pass? I have mixed feelings.
Prop 4 failed though. Phew. I can still have faith in California.

Famous voters

I witnessed Donny Osmond voting today. It was AWESOME. My mom would have died.

He walked in and there was just something about him that I couldn't put my finger on. The poll worker asked his name, and said Osmond (ohhhh) is the last name, and the poll worker asked him his first name and he said Donald (ahhhh). He struck up a conversation with me. He asked me if Nader was still on the ballot. I told him yes. He said good, I'm voting for Nader. So you have it folks.

T minus 10 hours

I am legit nervous about the election tomorrow. I have invested so much time, thought, and effort into Claralyn's campaign (though it doesn't touch the effort she put in...) and I can't believe it all is coming to an end. What will I do in the evenings when I don't have doors to knock or volunteers to call? I will probably catch back up on my school work and actually see my husband.

I will be sorely disappointed if the uninformed Utah Countyians elect Chris Herrod. Claralyn is clearly the better candidate, more informed, more intelligent, and WAY WAY more ethical. From the disappearing signs to the spies among us, Herrod's campaign has continually tried to sabotage Claralyn's, and I do not think that his constituents even realize who they are putting into office if they elect him simply because he's the Republican candidate. And I know Claralyn doesn't want power or prestige but is simply doing this to serve her community and listen to her constituents. She has dedicated her life to bettering the lives of those around her, and with this campaign she saw a need and chose to do something about it. And she is just really cool.

Polls open in 10 hours in Utah. Wish us luck!

Obama-Biden '08-- YEAHHHHH

On Saturday morning, we left for Grand Junction, Colorado with the BYU Democrats to campaign for Senator Obama. After a four hour drive and a little detour (Grand Junction is the most confusing city ever to navigate), we arrived at the Obama headquarters at 844 Grand Avenue. When we arrived, they were in the middle of a cook-out, so we got veggie burgers, potato salad, and as much dessert as we could hold. They then sent us to the canvassing location, where we got our assignments, and knocked doors for fours hours. Most everyone was pretty friendly; this area of Colorado is fairly conservative but there is a strong Obama base as well. I met two little boys, probably nine years old, who had quite the opinion about the candidates. The one was undecided over who to vote for because in his words, “Obama doesn't salute the flag.... but McCain wants to ban abortion and then if a little girl got raped, she would die.... so I just don't know”. Lucky for him, he does not have to decide like the rest of us. I also met an older lady, slightly cooky, who declared that I need to change my vote (good thing I voted early for Obama!) because he is an ISLAM. He's not a Christian. He doesn't believe in God (hmm... well, it's obvious he's Christian, and anyways, Muslims do believe in God? No?) I thanked her politely for her opinion and moved on.

After canvassing and dinner (they fed us so well!), we went back to find a home to sleep in for the night. When we walked to the back of main headquarters, we found everyone huddled around the phone because Senator Obama was getting ready to be on the line for a conference call!! We got to be there when he came on the line (for like 2 minutes), and it was SO NEAT. It was cool to hear him talk to us (and I use us very loosely), it was very inspirational. He told us not to be complacent even though we are ahead, and to keep working hard, not sleeping until after the election. I felt as if I were a part of history in that room, looking around at all of the volunteers who worked so hard to get this wonderful man elected. I love Barack Obama. I love Colorado.

We got our house assignment and spent the night on a futon, woke up early, headed to Church, and then canvassed more. After canvassing, we headed home so that we could make it in time for the fireside. It was a great weekend. And it was all paid for! Thanks Senator Obama (and everyone that donated to you... come to think of it, I guess the money that Tim donated to the campaign kind of evened out this weekend for us).

Colorado

We're going to Colorado this weekend to campaign for Obama!

The Women of Genesis series

I never thought I would fall in love with Orson Scott Card's writing. I always knew of books like Ender's Game, but never took the time to read them mostly because they just seemed like superficial Mormon literature at first glance. However, recently I have read all three of the Women of Genesis series (on Tim's recommendation and I love them! His writing style is captivating, they are very well-researched, and it's the Bible from the women's perspective.... what more could you need? I am highly impressed with his ability to get inside of these women's minds while knowing so little about their life stories except the basics in the Old Testament. Moreover, it's really humanized these faithful and brave women for me, especially as I go back and reread the passages in Genesis that talk about them. Sometimes, I get angry at the lack of representation of women in leadership positions within the Church, past and present. But then I think about those select women who have status, somewhat, and I delight in their accomplishments. I think our vision is skewed by the world. Women have been made invisible for so long, even by righteous peoples. I think Card did us all a favor by bringing their stories to life and making them visible, though it is only works of fiction. It's a start, and it gives me hope that somewhere there are lost manuscripts of women's experiences with divinity. The book of Sariah. Of Rachel. Of Vashti. Of the daughters of Zelophehad. Of Mary. There are so many righteous and brave feminist women in the Bible. I just wish we knew more about them.

And I hope Orson Scott Card and his family got the wedding invitation we sent them :)

WomanStats blog!

WomanStats has a blog! Hooray!

BYUSSR

BYU is brainwashing its students, once again. The campus devotional today was a subversive tool to support its position on Proposition 8. Not only was the speaker an ultra-conservative philosopher, he managed to slip the word "proposition" more times than normal.

The loveliness of life

Where is my husband? I do not know. Dinner is getting cold...

While I'm waiting for my love to get home from campus, I think I will blog. I am losing inspiration lately. There is not much going on besides school, work, work, work, campaign, campaign, campaign, and Parity, Parity, Parity with the occasional social outing. We are living the married life, and living it good. Tim is realizing what a terrible, but ambitious, chef I am. I am realizing that Tim is a lot cleaner than I thought he'd be. We are both realizing living together and being married is not as hard as everyone made it out to be. Disagreements are few and far between. Not to say it's blissful all the time, but comfortable and calm at the least. I really like it.

This past Saturday, we were lazy. LAZY. We laid out our hippie, South American style blanket that we got at Goodwill on James Island in SC, and made a picnic lunch (carried by Katy's beautiful basket.)




It was wonderful. The sun was shining, the shade was perfect, and the company was divine.



We laid out for hours reading and napping, finally ending the afternoon with a trip to the temple for proxy sealings (because getting married again is so cool!) After the temple we went to Emily and CB's reception, then over to Carl and Gloria's house for political discussions. It was a wonderful Saturday.

Pick your Spot

I took this quiz that told me the top 24 places I should live based on lifestyle and preference. My results included a lot of cities in Oregon (which is one state I've never been too) and a few other random ones.

1. Portland, OR
2. Eugene, OR
3. Little Rock, AR
4. New Haven, CT
5. Providence, RI
6. Honolulu, HI
7. Corvallis, OR
8. Salem, OR
9. Shreveport-Bossier City, LA
10. Hartford, CT
11. Santa Cruz, CA
12. Alexandria, LA
13. Medford, OR
14. Baton Rouge, LA
15. Valencia, CA
16. Baltimore, MD
17. Santa Barbara, CA
18. Danbury, CT
19. Ventura, CA
20. San Bernardino, CA
21. Fayetteville, AK
22. Boston, MA
23. Monroe, LA
24. Worcester, MA

Louisiana? I thought that was a little random. And rich-y places like Santa Barbara? Hmm... average house price is a million something. No thanks.

Mine's pretty similar to Austin's. This bodes well since our families will eventually live together one day.

So over the wedding posts...

So it's been a month. A month! I've been married a month. I can't get over how foreign that concept is to me. When I look back and think that just about four months ago I barely knew Tim it just blows my mind how everything has fallen into place so wonderfully. He is my best friend! He is so easy to talk to and we have so much fun together. He's hilarious. I love our pillow talk at night before we collapse into each other's arms exhausted. He makes me smile on a regular basis. I am happy.

But, the wedding is over. It was wonderful. I will no longer post about it :)

I also really want to make my blog cool. I don't know how. Will someone teach me? Are there websites with templates? Please assist my uncreative soul.

Speaking of uncreative, I hate referring to myself as that. I am not artistically gifted in most ways. But I am a creator. I went through a program last year called "The Artist's Way" with some friends of mine. Although I did not follow it as faithfully as I could have, it opened up my eyes to many areas of my life that are long neglected. While I do not have the capacity or the patience to create works of art on a canvas, I write. I love to write. I write amazing 15-page political science research papers. Maybe that does not seem like art to most, but at the end, when I read that finished product, I know I have accomplished something worthwhile. It is discouraging to have talents that are not quite as visible as "L"'s paintings or Ash Mae's creativity or John's violin-playing because they are oft forgotten by even myself, but I know that my creative talents are manifest in different ways. For example, I have an amazing photographic memory. I can remember phone numbers after dialing them once. I remember birthdays of long-lost friends. I read something once and it sticks with me forever. It is a very neat talent of mine. I like myself. I am creative. I just do not know how to make a cute blog.

The swanky reception

Pictures from our swanky reception at the Officers' Club on Fort Jackson in South Carolina. For more pictures, click here.

A few of my favorites (um, LOVE the one with Tim dancing with my cousin's little girl. And Tim and Ethan hugging. Love, love, love.)

Enough of all this serious talk.... our honeymoon!

We had a great honeymoon (minus the third-degree sunburn and tropical storm) in Charleston, SC. The first day of our honeymoon was actually spent at my parent's house, since they were all still in Utah and didn't check in to the hotel until 3 pm. We slept in their bed, woke up late, and lazily made our way to Charleston. Our hotel was part of this timeshare deal, and we were the only people there not in the AARP and Medicare. Nonetheless, our room was super nice (with a fireplace and all) and we had a good time walking around the city.




We went to the Aquarium... I was like a little kid playing in the touch exhibit, and Tim really liked this metal frog.



... we found random old houses to explore.




And we went to the beach before the tropical storm actually hit (it was so windy and cold though... tainting Tim's first experience with Carolina beaches).