InkMom Continues to Spill It, Part Two

Here we are again! So, last night, I covered a bit of personal history. Let's do some more of those questions tonight.

From Kim:

4. "You're a fabulous writer, so I guess what I want to know is if you have any writing projects on the go apart from what you share with us here."

That compliment means a lot coming from a really fabulous writer like you. The short answer: No, but soon, I hope. The long answer:I have a lot of ideas, but I have not yet figured out how my writing style will translate into fiction, or if it even should. Essays that use a lot of big words? I'm good at that. Plot construction? I'm even okay with that. But I have some serious skill development to work on if I'm ever going to put something out there for serious consideration.

From Lara:

5. "What is your most embarrassing moment?"

Oh, the pain. I posted about this here about this time last year. Be forewarned -- this post involves nudity, and some of my husband's most embarrassing moments, too. His are way better than mine. Go, read, enjoy. 

From Eowyn:

6. "What was your favorite thing about optometry school?"

We've been outed! Now you know what my husband does for a living. (No sweat. I already feel pretty exposed because I have to use my real name at the CBC.) This is a good question, Eowyn. CPod attended school in Memphis, and I will forever associate our time in that city with our dear friends, Scott and Heather. Scott was the only other LDS guy in CPod's class, and when they began to study together, Heather and I became fast best friends. They were our family in Memphis, and we were theirs. Their kids were the first ones I ever loved, and I count my friendship with Heather as one of the greatest blessings of my life. Everyone should have a Heather, and the memories of the time we shared will always be inextricably tied to the city and the school.

I have other favorite parts about optometry school, too, but they only became my favorite in retrospect. Does that make sense? For example, we spent four years in Memphis really figuring out our relationship without the well-intended but meddling influence of loving family members. By the time we moved back to the Carolinas, where both sets of in-laws live, our habits and traditions were pretty firmly ingrained and our marriage was really, truly solid. I will always love Memphis for that.

I will also always love Memphis because that's where I learned to cultivate my solitude. CPod worked two (TWO!) jobs in addition to full-time school; I worked full-time, then came home to a 30-student piano studio. We were busy, and almost never in the same place at the same time. I spent a lot of time by myself, and I had to learn how to enjoy it. Now, solitude is something I crave -- no, NEED on occassion.

We worked so hard while CPod was in school. As a result of that hard work, we ended up with half the average in student loans. That early sacrifice paid off huge dividends when we finished paying CPod's student loans last year. This has been an important lesson for me -- I have seen firsthand how extreme sacrifice in the short-term can change our lives drastically for the better in the future. And that is probably WAAAAAAY more of an answer than you thought you would get, Eowyn!

So now, maybe you, like Andrea, are wondering this:

7. "Do you have any "free" time, and what do you do with it?"

Since I learned to cultivate my solitude in Memphis, obviously, I must fill that solitude with great and wonderful things, right?

I always say I don't have a lot of free time, but then I produce blog posts and comments on others' blogs. Which means I blog in my free time.

And then I recommend a book to someone. Lots of books. Which means I read in my free time. (Reading is actually like breathing for me: a necessary activity, absolutely essential for my mental stability and emotional well-being.) I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to learn new things, and when I am curious about a subject I devour everything I can find until the itch has been scratched, and then I move on to another topic. I read lots of fiction, but lots of other stuff, too. Constantly. While I'm drying my hair. While I'm nursing. While I'm waiting in the car pick up line at preschool. In the bathtub. On the toilet. Standing at the kitchen counter stirring a pot of soup. While eating breakfast. While watching my kids play outside.

Between childcare, housekeeping, bookkeeping, and spousal relationship maintenance, there is not a lot of time for anything else. But here's what I do when I can, in no particular order:

• Quilting -- the combination of lovely fabrics with a creative medium that requires you to use math on a regular basis is a sublime marriage of the most active parts of my brain. I adore beautiful things. I love a good puzzle. A good quilt is both.
• Driving around to look at property -- this is something my husband and I have always done together, since we were dating. Strange, I know. We take pictures of houses we love. We walk around on vacant land, scoping out hypothetical site prep requirements and where we would put a house if the land belonged to us. Now, our kids go with us, and while they hate it, they're strapped into the car seats and we have a captive audience.
• Outside stuff -- hiking, camping, boating. This doesn't happen as much as it used to. Read about a great backpacking trip here. We live in paradise. Seriously. When the weather is warm, we spend every spare moment in the national forest nearby, playing in the water, hiking, picnicking, just breathing the clean air and reveling in our mountain home. At least one of my children turns into a different kid when we go up in the forest. In a totally good way.
• Traveling -- another one that doesn't happen the way it used to. One of the good things that came out of seven years of infertility is a well-used passport. Eventually, our kids will be partakers of that adventurous spirit that I was so glad to recognize in my husband when we met, and I itch to just grab them and go -- to fabulous, eye-opening, lovely and different locations all over the world. One day!
• Household stuff -- cooking and growing. Oh, how I love food! (You can read more about my foodiness here, and a little bit more here.) And I love to get my hands down in the dirt, too. I'm hoping my kids will catch on to that one this summer. We'll see.
• Shopping -- I love a good deal, don't get me wrong, but a good fit? I've been known to spend too much. And I am not ashamed. 
• Just hanging out -- I love good conversation wherever I can get it: playing games with friends and family, chatting into the wee hours of the morning with my fabulous girlfriends (love you all!), or just every day with my husband. Hanging out with CPod is, in fact my most favorite one of all. I love to be with people I love, people who stimulate my mind, people who help me to see things from a different perspective, people who make me laugh, and CPod does all of those things for me. And, my friends, all of that is waiting for me as soon as I unplug myself from the computer.

 More questions to be answered -- same time tomorrow night!

InkMom Spills Everything, Part One

My dear readers -- thank you for fueling my ego by asking genuine questions about my life. I've since questioned the wisdom of being so blatantly narcissistic . . . but why fight against my true nature? We have already established that I was first in line when they handed out self-esteem (and then I went to the back of the line for a second helping) and this little jaunt into my brain will not disappoint, I promise. Let's dive right in, shall we?

I'll begin at the beginning, with Kristina P.'s question:

1. "What did you want to be when you grew up?"

Good one, KP. I was pretty sure I remembered what I wanted to be when I was little, but I dug out my old journal for corroboration. Can we just say that the only constant through the years with me has been melodrama? Seriously. Direct quote: "I dream of one day becoming a concert pianist, but I doubt it will come true. I am afraid that by the time I am old enough to become any type of concert musician, the world will be too far gone in wars and all that, that people won't appreciate music and art and beautiful things like I do anymore."

It's true. I had no friends.

But for real. I wanted to be a concert pianist. Until, oh, about eighth grade when I played in a REALLY BIG and important competition. I was a wreck for weeks before -- trouble eating, no sleeping. I read the DH Lawrence story, "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and felt just like that kid -- absolutely desperate to get the right answers. I still have nightmares about that day in the little room at Wake Forest University -- me, the judges, and about 40 other spectators. In my nightmare, I crumble slowly, forgetting music that was so ingrained in me that to this very day, 20 years later, I can still play those three pieces. I stood up from the piano, nearly in tears, and knew with absolute certainty that I would never, ever, ever be able to do that again. (For you piano aficionados: Mozart, Sonata in a, K. 310: Allegro maestoso; Schubert, Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 90; Debussy, Jardins sous la pluie from Estampes.)

I came home from the competition and half-heartedly continued my piano lessons while throwing myself into the study of my secondary instrument: viola. And I never looked back.

There were brief times during my education when I entertained the possibility of doing something non-musical with my life. I seriously considered going to medical school to become a forensic pathologist -- this was before CSI (no lie here: I wanted to be a doctor without having to deal with any living people) -- and even went so far as to shadow a few pathologists in high school and take all the science prerequisites. I also thought about joining the family business and going to pharmacy school, and spent about 15 minutes thinking about law school and politics, but my heart was never in any of it. I just wanted to play. Lucky for me, it's what I still get to do.

This brings me to Lara's question:

2. "Why did you choose the viola?"

Another good one! And it comes with a lengthy explanation. The orchestra world is full of jokes about one instrument or another, but none are more maligned than the viola. (How do you tell when a violist is playing out of tune? The bow is moving.)(Just for you, Lara: Why was the soprano standing in the rain? Because she couldn't find the key and didn't know when to come in.) Apparently, violinists who can't hack it switch instruments and suddenly their superior violin training makes them the top of the heap in the viola section.

In my experience I have not found this to be true. In fact, in both of my current orchestras, the viola sections are the strongest of the strings but that's beside the point. I was NEVER a violinist. I wear this badge with great pride. I am a viola purist, and a rarity in my field.

I chose the instrument for one reason, and one reason only: at the strings meeting in fourth grade where we signed up to start in the fall, the piece the teacher played to demonstrate the viola was the theme to Star Wars. I went to the meeting sure I was going to play the cello. I actually signed up for the cello, rented the instrument and everything. But I could not get that Star Wars theme out of my head, and finally, a few days before school started, I called the teacher and switched over.

I LOVED it. From the very first day. And, especially based on my ill-fated experience at the piano competition, it was a fantastic musical choice for me, because there have been a grand total of, like, six concerti ever composed for the viola. And I'm really just fine with that because what I love more than anything else is the orchestral ensemble experience. So that's what I do. And when I don't have little kids running around any more, I'll probably go back to teaching violin and viola lessons (the technique is truly just about the same, so I can play a violin if, I don't know, held at gunpoint).

I've about reached my word limit for the night, but I'll end with DeNae's thought-provoking question:

3. "If you weren't a violist, what would you do with all the anchovies? Please answer in complete sentences, and include at least one reference to Hairspray."

Well, DeNae, I had a hard time deciding if you were referring to the anchovy arthroplasty procedures I will undoubtedly need on my thumbs after years and years of viola playing, or the viola part of Daniel Catan's opera, Salsipuedes, A Tale of Love, War and Anchovies. But because I know you, like good old Edna Turnblad for her beloved Tracy, only have my best interests at heart, I am absolutely certain that you are concerned about my joints. And you're probably right. If I weren't a violist, I wouldn't actually need any anchovies. But aren't we glad such technically advanced procedures are available, and that I will be able to preserve the opposability of my thumbs after all? (HA!)

More questions answered tomorrow . . . I promise I'll get more than three done!

The Terror of Chipman Hall, or Why My Husband Makes Me Fear Our Children

Disclaimer: I'm sure that somewhere out there in the gigantic blogosphere, someone is married to, or knows, or is, one of the BYU freshmen that my husband tortured so mercilessly his first year at that august university. To you, I sincerely apologize. Please don't hate me because I married him. I can assure you that he eventually matured into quite a civilized adult who has been threatened with his life if he shares any of the stories of his wayward youth with our children. Hopefully, this will ensure that the cycle will not continue should our kids all end up at some university together in the future. And I only share this stuff now because I figure the statute of limitations has long run out.

Do you remember the kids in your freshman ward at BYU who were always up to something? They were fun to be around, but you were never sure you wanted to stay too long because someone was bound to come up with a "great idea" that led to yet another encounter with Officer Wayne of Campus Police. Before the internet, what else would a group of rambunctious non-drinking or drug using college freshmen do with their time?

My husband knew Officer Wayne so well that if it looked like Campus Police was going to show up, he and his buddies would hightail it away from the scene of the crime faster than you could say, "One day they'll all be RMs."

It all started with his dorm assignment. See, CPod is a smart guy, but the whole honors thing? Not really his . . . milieu. Somehow, though, he was assigned to Chipman Hall, first floor: the honors dorm. Luckily (unluckily?), he found a few other guys who shared his love of a good time as well as his healthy disrespect for all things Dungeons & Dragons and/or a capella singing related. CPod, Dale, Nathan and Matt made it their mission to make their mark on the honors dorm by alienating as many groups of people as possible. RAs were not off limits; girls were, but only because these boys admired them so much. But the biggest pranks were reserved for the guys across the hall: The Freaksters. The disrespect was mutual, and pranks were volleyed in both directions. CPod claims they differed philosophically on a fundamental level -- they were destined to never see eye to eye, and I fear that if we still lived across the street, the pranks would still be ongoing.

The Freaksters were a group of like-minded individuals who spent most of their free time playing Dungeons & Dragons and singing together in the shower. (I so wish I was kidding.) During Thursday night visiting hours, they would host a big Dungeon-fest in their room; people would crawl out of their respective caves, decked out head-to-toe in dragon-master, elf and wizard regalia, and congregate in the room across the hall from CPod's. They sat three-deep on the skinny beds and rolled their million-sided dice as they obsessed about their cards and hit points and whatnot.

One night, early in fall semester, CPod and his buddies knocked on the Freaksters' door armed with an industrial carpet dryer. As the door opened, they turned on the dryer and watched the players scramble in their cumbersome costumes as all of their important papers, cards, and dice were plastered to the window by the impressive wind tunnel generated by a commercial-grade fan.

This was only topped by the time they filled a huge trash can with water, propped it against the Freaksters' door, and knocked again. This time when the door opened, an enormous wall of water flowed through the room and back again, soaking Freakster costumes and gamepieces aplenty. Those industrial carpet dryers came in pretty handy then.

Not exactly an auspicious beginning.

The Freaksters, though, were by no means innocent. They reciprocated swiftly as the prank war escalated: a giant snowball was left to melt in CPod's bed. CPod's room was ransacked, drawers dumped, closet emptied, bed overturned, and pictures torn off of walls. They tried to outsmart the non-honors occupants of the honors dorm by leaving threatening notes quoting Star Trek, or written in Old English quatrains.

But CPod and his boys would not be put down.

One night, one of the Freaksters left his door open as he visited another dorm mate down the hall. CPod and his homies snuck in and stole all his underwear. I could stop there, right? But no, it gets worse. They scrounged together enough change to completely buy out one of the refrigerated vending machines: put in your money, open the little door, and enjoy your yogurt, or egg salad sandwich, or whatever. But behind each door, they replaced the yogurt or sandwich with one pair of underwear. Every time the kid needed a clean pair of underoos, he had to find $1.25 to buy it out of the machine. It took about two days for that vending machine to be removed from their hall for good.

CPod is a South Carolina boy. What does that have to do with anything? I'll tell you: it's the state of legal fireworks. And in the pre-September 11 libertine era of air travel, he could not resist the temptation to smuggle some contraband from the motherland when he came back after Christmas break.

The Freaksters had a strange bathing ritual that took place several evenings a week: four of them gathered in the communal shower and sang harmoniously together as they simultaneously took care of their personal hygeine. Let me be clear: they met on purpose so they could sing together, naked, in the shower. CPod and his friends thought this was a little beyond strange. And since the war was ongoing, they came up with an ingenius use for CPod's M-80s. They put the fireworks on a board (to protect the tile, of course -- they weren't about destroying property, just egos and self-respect), lit the carefully-timed fuses (to give them more time for escape, lest they should look guilty), and slid the wooden block underneath the bench where people could sit to wait their turn for the shower. The four singing Freaksters harmonized away, until the fireworks exploded and, in their panic and self-preserving, adrenaline-induced haste, all rushed for the same exit from the shower, resulting in the unmistakable smack of naked people crashing haphazardly into each other.

This one was investigated as a bombing. CPod and the gang escaped to his sister's off-campus apartment and stayed there overnight until things died down back on campus.

There are more of these stories. If I had had my wits about me, I would have made CPod sign a prenuptial agreement regarding the possibilities of future mis-education of our children. He claims he has since seen the error of his ways, but I've heard him eagerly tell these stories too many times to believe that one. The truth is, I'm a little worried it's in the genes, and our kids won't need to hear the stories to repeat history. Let's hope you don't have a reason to know my boys too well should they go to BYU in about 14 years.

Here's how it really happened . . .

MommyJ and I are posting our own versions of this story concurrently. If you haven't already read her side, click here. And since this is about our childhood, MommyJ will henceforth be referred to as ChickyJ, and myself as InkChick.

When I was in the eleventh grade and ChickyJ in seventh, we got our first home computer that had a color screen and a non-dot matrix printer. It was great . . . way better than the green-on-black dinosaur we were used to using at home. I remember being so thrilled with myself because I used the computer to type up Advanced Biology assignments in various fonts. (Don't say it . . . I know what you're thinking. Did this girl actually have any friends?!? Yes, and some of them were even boys.)

We didn't have any fancy games, but we still managed to become obsessed with beating each other's high scores on the ones that came with the computer: Pinball, Solitaire, Minesweeper, and, best of all, Pyramid.

Do you know the game I'm talking about? All the cards are laid out in a pyramid shape, and you have to match up pairs that add up to thirteen until you clear the board. Not all of these games are solvable, but ChickyJ and I played it enough that we began to learn which ones were the easiest to complete and then race against each other's best times.

We would spend HOURS doing this -- hours of, I would argue, quality time because up to this point, ChickyJ and I had not exactly gotten along very well. I guess Mom didn't limit our play because at least we were doing something together, which was uncommon.

We whittled our times down second by second, one besting the other until, finally, I achieved what I believed to be the fastest time possible: 9 seconds. I was looking forward to serious bragging rights because, of course, you could record your name in the high scores, indelibly stored (not really . . . you could reset them) on the hard drive for all posterity to see. But rather than simply inputting my name, I decided instead to humiliate my sister, and I typed, "I love you, ChickyJ!" Or at least, I though that's what I keyed. What I actually typed was, "I loce you, ChickyJ!" I didn't notice the typo before ChickyJ who, quick as ever, hit "Enter", indelibly storing evidence of my imperfection instead of a record of my superiority.

Now that I remember all this, I wonder why I've kept saying "I loce you" all these years. It wasn't exactly my best moment, but it just sort of stuck.

That year of computer novelty appreciation was the beginning of the turning point in the relationship between InkChick and ChickyJ. She moved into my room, and we started having conversations that didn't start with, "I didn't say you could borrow that!" We began the VERY long journey of sisterly appreciation -- one that didn't fully come to fruition until years later when ChickyJ got married and we began to have something besides genetics in common.

That year, we started other strange traditions, like every time I would come home from a date or a rehearsal (oh, yes, the rehearsals) or whatever, I would lurk at the door to our room and, breathing through my teeth in my deepest James Earl Jones-esque voice, say, "Luuuuke . . . I am yohr fah-thuh"; and dramatic scripture reading that would have entertained all of you, I guarantee. We were only an orchestra short of a full on oratorio.

Now, ChickyJ is MommyJ and she is my very best friend. (Don't read this, CPod. Or InkySnark, who is our mother. No offense intended, but nothing beats a sister!) I cannot imagine my life without her friendship. On vacation last week, I didn't even talk to her once and I thought I might go through withdrawal.

So, here's to MommyJ, who I will, forever and ever, LOCE!

The True Story of CPod and InkMom

Long post alert. I cannot tell this story with less words.

Okay, I've been tagged. And this one is about stuff that's fun to remember, so here goes.

1. Where did you and your spouse meet?

CPod and I met in our BYU singles ward. I know, boring. But here's the real story. First, some background. CPod's sister (we'll call her JPod) was my EFY counselor when I was 14 and she was 19. Secretly, I think she doesn't really remember that I was one of her girls, because if she remembered what a smart-mouth know-it-all I was (was? am.) she would certainly not have given her blessing. CPod claims that he has never in his life driven faster (how fast? 119 mph. I know.) than he did when he drove, in all his 17 year-old invincibility, to that very conference to pick up his sister. Did we meet then? Nope.

Also, CPod and I grew up only about an hour apart (far, far away from Utah and BYU and the small, strange microcosm that is Happy Valley). At one point, his dad visited our ward regularly and my mom remembers this hellian red-headed kid running through the pews during sacrament meeting.

And CPod took my from-childhood-all-the-way-to-now friend's cousin to the prom. I know, it was meant to be.

Well. I was at BYU summer term, as was CPod's roommate. We called him The Weasel. To his face. The Weasel mentioned that he had a roommate from my neck of the woods who would be back for fall semester. We figured out he was JPod's little brother and I didn't think about him again.

In September, The Weasel asked me out, and I went. He was one of those guys who kind of made the rounds in our ward -- I mean, right now I could rattle off at least 20 girls he took out, and I know he kissed a dozen of them. (NOT ME.) So, we ate dinner, and then he tried to take me on a night hike (I wasn't going for that) and instead we ended up back at his apartment to watch a movie on his big screen TV. (I'm serious. 68". CPod talked him into buying it because he told him it would get chicks. CPod is sitting here with me and he says I have to include that he was right, because The Weasel met his future wife at an Apartment 17 movie night in which he called random girls' apartments and invited them all over. Really, I'm not kidding. I couldn't make this stuff up. But I digress.)

This guy thought he was so smooth. He got pillows (!!!) and tried to put the moves on me and I just hugged the arm of the couch wondering how I could gracefully extract myself from a situation that was not dangerous, but definitely uncomfortable.

Enter CPod. He and another roommate had been at The Wilk at a dance, and struck out. I tried every way I could think of to persuade him to stay and watch with us so I wouldn't have to avoid my date, but he read The Weasel's signals instead of mine and left me in the living room. The rest of that date was unremarkable, but when I got home I wrote in my journal about CPod and how nice he had been. (Even thought he didn't rescue me.)

Sad, but true: CPod thought I was nice, too, but wouldn't ask me out for a while because he thought I was part of The Weasel Harem. I maintain that one date doth not a concubine make. At least, not at BYU. Usually.

2. What were the first words you said to each other?

I don't remember, and neither does CPod. Probably something like, "Hey, you're CPod from **? I know your sister, she was my EFY counselor." And his response was probably something like, "Oh, wow, I'll have to call her. She'll think that's pretty cool." Nothing, obviously, very memorable.

3. When was your first date?

As I said before, CPod thought I was nice, but didn't want to take out a Weasel girl. We had a ward FHE a few weeks after we met that was a sound scavenger hunt. (Could this story be any more BYU?) I thought he was makin' eyes at me through the whole thing, but wasn't completely convinced he was interested. But my roommates were -- they saw sparks.

CPod was still slow to act (oh, my, was he ever) until one of his mission companions saw me at church and staked a claim. CPod surprised himself by being a little annoyed at his buddy, and decided to make a move before Thorn did. So. He and some other guys got a bunch of tickets to a Grizzlies (hockey) game up in Salt Lake, and we had a great time. After the game, we all went to Sconecutter (the one and only time I ever went) and then went back to Theater 17 to watch Fletch. Which then turned into Fletch Lives. I didn't get home until 3AM (I know, I'm a rule-breaker . . . sue me) and I called my Mom (2 hour time difference . . . she was a seminary teacher and would have gotten up in 30 minutes anyway) to tell her I had finally gone out with a Nice Boy. The rest, as they say, is history.

We had a lot of fun dates. CPod played rugby for BYU and I went to his matches, until I understood why he had to tape down his ears and then I was content to just hear about it afterwards. He took me caving, and I took him to the opera. We went to see lots of plays and movies, and he (patiently) drove me to Salt Lake where I participated in an Early Music Ensemble performance of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion (all 4 hours!) at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Twice. (He should be sainted for that. I mean, at least I got college credit.) We got cheap plane tickets to LA once and went (not alone -- a bunch of us) to see JPod. We went to Park City, and Heber, and Burgers Supreme more times than I can count. He even drove me to Salt Lake when my viola need a new bridge and I had to visit Prier's. Tons of fun.

4. First kiss?

Yes, we had one. And it was spectacular. And on our, I think, 10th date. (I told you he moved slowly.) On a Thursday, in October, after he came to my Philharmonic concert (we played Elgar's Enigma Variations and he loved it -- score one for musical ability), at my front door when he walked me home. I melted.

5. First "I-love-you"s?

Hmmm . . . I know when I thought it, for sure. I took a swimming class at BYU on Mondays and Wednesdays, and after I got home, I was always pretty hammered, so I would put on PJs, towel dry my damp hair, study a little bit and then go to bed. One Monday, CPod called me, hungry after Rugby practice, and asked if I wanted to go to Burgers Supreme. "No, I can't, I'm already in my pajamas," I said, trying so hard not to sound desperately regretful and willing to get dressed again.His answer hooked me for good. He said, "Do you want me to put mine on, too?"

Seriously, I wanted to scream, "I LOVE YOU!!!!!" at the top of my lungs. This was definitely the man for me.

But when did we first say it? (I'm consulting CPod right now . . . he told me to consult my journal.) I think it was the day after finals, but the day before he took me to the airport to fly home for Christmas. We spent a really fun day Christmas browsing (no money) in Salt Lake and ended with really serious words.

That trip home, we met each other's families. Mine were completely aware that I was snowed, but his were not, and I was not an easy sell for Everyone's Favorite Child/Brother/Cousin/Best Friend/Seminary Student. Good times.

6. Long or short engagement?

By who's definition? I mean, it was longer than MommyJ's, but shorter than many at almost 6 months. Almost 6 months of dating before engagement, too. I mean, when you're not . . . you know . . . any engagement longer than 15 minutes is (tough)(risky)(nearly impossible)(unwise) too long.

7. Where did you get engaged?

Thanksgiving Point (it had just opened . . . we were original then. Not so much now.) at the gazebo by the waterfall. It was the first day of spring. (Coincidence. CPod is totally honest in admitting that he didn't realize this at the time.) He proposed with an $8 K-Mart special green plastic-stoned ring. We had just browsed at the jeweler's the day before and I knew he couldn't possibly have a real ring for weeks, maybe even a month. So, he surprised me. Afterwards, we floated around Thanksgiving Point and saw all the animals (my mother thinks it's absolutely hilarious that after we got engaged we went to a petting zoo) and -- no lie here -- we witnessed the birth of a baby goat, and its subsequent struggle to be completely free of the amniotic sac. Beautiful. It was a wonderful symbol for me on that very magical day.

When I got back home to change clothes for our fancy dinner at Mulboons, there were roses in my room. CPod's roommate was in on the scheme (not The Weasel . . . the one from The Wilk dance) and had brought them over while were gone.

I later found out that he did the old-fashioned thing, and called my dad to ask permission. This is exactly how the conversation went, according to CPod:

CPod (Nervous, sweaty palms, totally terrified): I'd like to ask permission to marry your daughter. I pledge to be a husband worthy of someone as wonderful as InkMom (I guess then I was InkChick?).

My dad (Just picture Andy Griffith -- he's a dead ringer): I believe that'd be alright. How 'bout them 'Heels? (It was, after all, March, and he is nothing if not a UNC basketball fan.)

Yeah, my dad's a man of few words, but he gets it done.

8. Where were you married?

Washington, DC LDS temple, August 14, 1997

9. Where did you go on your honeymoon?

CPod's uncle's wife's parents (did you follow that?) own a cabin on Palisades Reservoir in Idaho, near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We stayed there for a week right before starting back to school at BYU, after driving across the country. It was seriously remote and really beautiful -- I mean, we saw moose. It had a TV, but the only video there was Yanni: Live at the Acropolis and no cable, so we watched Yanni a couple of times and then finally found a video rental place at The Dam Store in Alpine. Oh, it was so fun.

10. Where was your first home?

Even though we've lived all across this country in a lot of different places, we're still in it . . . it's wherever the other one is.

Sigh. I have to go hug my husband now.

PS See why I married him? If I'd known before he was actually a dad how incredibly he would do this job, I would have, I don't know, hit him on the head with a frying pan and dragged him to the altar before he had the chance to see my future mothering skills. Because they're a little mismatched.


Yes, reindeer antlers. We went to see Santa Claus at the mall this weekend and they wore the free antlers all day. I had to repair tears with tape about 47 times.