Black eyes all around

This last week, we had a fight. That shouldn't be a surprise, since we're two independently-thinking, strong-willed people who live together and make decisions that affect the other. It happens for us, just like I'm sure it happens for you. I'm not going to go into the details of what the fight was about because that's less important than what we learned and what happened afterward. The only thing I'll say about it is that, like most fights people get into, we were both right and we were both wrong.

Here's what we learned (or relearned):

• Jacques Derrida is right about decisions being "always already" made. We know a few couples who are divorcing and we've decided we're not doing that. That decision is always already made, which means that the decisions that follow are a result of that one. This was an important decision to work out and honestly, it tries to poke its head back in on these whopper fights we have from time to time. By taking that option off the list, it forces you to do the difficult emotional work of finding a solution.
• That advice to never go to bed angry with each other is well-intentioned, but terrible advice. It assumes that there's a solution that takes less than a day to work through emotionally, which just isn't our reality. When someone hurts you (intentionally or not), that emotional assault takes time to work through. Myself, I have to feel the feeling for a little while to put a name to it and figure out why it hurts. Letting that emotion go without looking at how it got there only relieves the symptom rather than getting down to the cause. And the answer is never to just stop caring. Easily letting go implies that you were never really involved and that's a terrible way to go through life.
• It's easy to blame the other person, but remember that it's at least half your fault. Getting caught up in the emotion of being wronged makes it hard to see things from the other person's point of view. Take a step back and realize that you're the problem and try to find a way to fix what you did. I'm not gonna lie, Marge, but this one's tough because the other person may tell you that the ship has sailed on fixing it, which means you're relying on their mercy and hoping that the decision they've always already made to stay together sticks through this tough time too. That's not a fun place to be.
• Our friends Daniel and Jay rate how important something is on a scale of 1 to 10 and we've found it really handy. For example, let's say that Daniel wants to go to a party at a friend's house and Jay doesn't want to go. This disagreement could get huge fast, since Daniel knows it'll be the last time he'll get to see them in 6 months because they're taking a trip to Ecuador and Jay has been feeling ill for the last couple of days and doesn't want to get anyone else sick and wants to rest quietly. Daniel might say that it's a 9 for them to go and Jay might say it's a 6 to stay home. They both want good things, but they're opposed. By telling the other person how important that activity is, they can do what they collectively feel is most important and understand why the other person disagrees. They'll probably find a way to go to the party, but tone it down to make it more comfortable for Jay.
  
  We've used this a few times ourselves and it's been super helpful because the background information creates a discussion rather than a fight now that you understand the magnitude of the other person's desire to take an action. We resolved to use this more.
• You have to decide to let go. It's your emotional baggage, so you're the one who has to decide to leave it behind.

This last week was a hard one, but we came through it alright.

Procrastinating my accounting

I'm procrastinating doing my accounting homework and just wanted to share this video with you because it's unequivocally hilarious. You're welcome.

The unlikeliest call

I just got a phone call that was so ridiculously out of touch that I had no choice but to laugh.

This last week of school has been brutal. This capstone project can not finish quickly enough and I've got a tenuous grasp on being a contained, self-sufficient person.

I've decided that this is less of a class and more of an emotional endurance challenge, like Hell Week in Navy SEAL training. This is important context for the rest of the story.

I was decompressing after class today by blowing up some virtual stuff and this guy called, saying I'd responded to some online survey in which I had apparently indicated that I was interested in job prospects.

"Which survey?" I asked, because I really enjoy my job and the survey didn't ring a bell.

"Oh, it was a survey where the reward was a Walmart gift card, where you indicated that you're interested in finding a job." That really didn't sound like me. If you know me, you know that I wouldn't voluntarily do anything that would make me go into a Walmart store.

I said, "That doesn't sound like a survey I'd fill out, but it would depend on the job. What's the job?"

"I'm not selling anything, I just have some questions to find out about your eligibility for potential jobs."

Oh, that's a good sign. Then he went on, "Can I ask you a few questions?"

Here were the questions:

• Do you have a high school diploma or GED from an institution in the US?
• What's the highest level of education you have earned?
• In what year did you receive your diploma or GED?
• If you could keep working and receive financial aid for it, would you return to school in a few months? (That one made me laugh.)

Based on my answers, I wasn't eligible for the program, but... the phone disconnected right then and I wasn't sad about it. I didn't hang up on the guy, it honestly got disconnected. I didn't hear anything in there about a job, which is just as well, because I'm almost certain they couldn't afford me. And with that, I'm going to work on my presentation. It's got to get done tonight. And according to my professor, maybe we'll get an internship out of it.

Tax season!

Guess who does the taxes in our family: the guy with the MBA or the ballerina?

(Hint: it's the smarter person.)

Meanest parents ever

I've been thinking about a town with two kids named John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. If you're like me, your initial thought about it is "what a funny name."

From there, my mind took a number of jumps that you probably didn't have when you were singing the song. Follow along the winding, wonderful trip through my thought process.

What are the odds of not one, but two kids in the same town named John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt?

Oddly, probably better than the odds of one kid with that name.

The parents of the first John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt were just plain mean and had to have been highly creative to come up with that unlikely name in the first place.

The second kid has to have an even sadder childhood because he will always know that his parents heard the first guy's name and thought "that's an awesome name."

Not only were they not as creative as the first kid's parents, but they inflicted the same unlikely, obnoxious name on their kid.

How bad is that second kid going to feel, knowing that he would have to go through his life always in the shadow of the first John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt?

What if they aren't friends? Then they wouldn't want to be associated with each other. Like it or not, their destinies are now linked.


See? These are the kinds of things I think about. Aren't you glad you don't have to live with this rolling around in your head?

Holi

(author's note: I needed to get this written up and I'm certain Chelsea will want to add her own 2 cents, so she may add to or refute some of this.)

One of our favorite holidays every year is Holi, the Hindu festival that celebrates the coming of spring by throwing colors on each other. The reason we like it so much is that the celebration at the Krishna temple in Spanish Fork is the largest celebration in the Western hemisphere, so it's especially great. And since Chelsea says, "I love springtime. Springtime is my birthday," this celebration (in her mind) is a colorful, singing, dancing party to kick off the celebration of her birthday, which lasts an entire season.

This year was particularly great because we were planning to go anyway, but my company decided to make it one of the fun activities they had planned for the month. So not only did they pay for our admission, but they bought us a bunch of packages of color as well. Last time we went, I think we bought a package of 3 colors and felt lucky we used them all. This year, my company bought us 10 packages of color and we thought we'd definitely either come home with half of it or give it away.

Well, here's how we looked before we got in the car and drove to Spanish Fork.

See how clean?

We had a lovely, fairly uneventful drive to Spanish Fork (taking the long way around) and found cheap parking right across the street from the temple. Perfecto. And then we got in and joined the party, singing and dancing, recoloring complete strangers and milling around on the hill. Very soon, we looked like this:

You can't even tell that there used to be words on my shirt. And if you haven't been to the celebration, you also wouldn't believe how quickly this happens.

It's great fun. The live music was great, we got some food there and that was fantastic as well. And we used up all 10 bags of color. Because we try to be thoughtful and helpful, for every bag of color we opened, we picked up at least 2 empty extra bags that someone else had littered. So in addition to the fun of being at the huge party, we also felt good about helping the people throwing it. We want them to keep doing it.

So here are some more pictures of the fun.

For lunch, we had delicious samosas and vegetable fritters and the kids had strawberry lassis and the grown-ups had mango lassis. It was a fantastic day and we learned another tough lesson when we got home.

Bathe the kids first, grown-ups second, and then do laundry.

And remember how that shirt used to be white? That's how good a day we had.