The Fruits of my Labors

Here's another video that we produced in ARCLITE my last semester at BYU. The editing was FINALLY finished this month!  For this piece, I did all the interviewing and wrote the script (cuts and sequences). Looks good, eh?

The Age-Old Pregnant v. Fat Dilemma

TWICE in the past week, whilst riding the DC Metro, contentedly sitting in one of the few and highly-coveted seats, a woman of questionable circumstances has saddled up right next to me, crammed against a dozen people and gripping the microbe-infested pole to keep from being flung across the train as the psycho driver slams on the brakes at least 5 times before pulling into the station.

Longest run-on sentence ever. My 9th grade English teacher would be ashamed.

Anyway, so there I am. Reading my book. I look up to see a huge belly staring me in the face. My first instinct is to get out of my prime seat and offer it to the belly's owner. She is clearly pregnant. Like, about to pop. Mid-way out of my seat, it hits me: Is that a pregnant belly or just a super fat one? Suddenly I find myself in a terrible bind. The kind of bind that Odysseus faced when he was caught between the 6-headed sea monster and the whirlpool death trap. Yes, people, we're talking a bind of Homeric proportions.

WHAT DO I DO? Risk looking like a complete tool for not giving up my seat for a pregnant woman, or risk looking like a tool for assuming an obese woman is pregnant? It's a lose-lose. Major tool-age either way you look at it.

So I did what any short, blond, educated, God-fearing girl would do and kept my prime seat and continued to read my book. And avoided eye contact at all costs. Both times.

Happy Sunday: The Will of God

God's plan for each of us is far greater than the plans we make for ourselves.

Happy Sunday,
Sarah

Happy Monday: The Worth of a Latter-day Saint Woman

Happy Monday, faithful readers (uh...Mom)! I'm pretty sure I missed about a month's worth of Happy Sundays so here's a Happy Monday to shake things up for you traditionalists.

I had the fabulous opportunity last night of going to hear Joanna Brooks (author of "The Book of Mormon Girl" and renowned blogger) speak at a casual forum held at some rich dude's house--nay, castle--in Potomac.  Background: Joanna Brooks is a liberal feminist Mormon who responds to questions about the LDS faith and Mormon culture with unorthodox, real answers, and sheds light on the obscurities of our religion (and the unique culture that accompanies it) in a way that is responsive to the most average of people. It is not doctrine. In no way does she collaborate with officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She merely offers insight through an unconventional perspective.

She read from her book for a bit and then opened it up to Q&A. I braced myself for extremism, which most definitely happened. Starting with, "If you had the chance to sit down and talk to the First Presidency, would you ask them for the Priesthood?" Yeah, I won't even bother giving that question any more attention.

Most of the discussion was very insightful. People of all ages rang in with their varying views of gender roles in the Church and Ms. Brooks addressed them with poise and honesty.

But then she posed a questions specifically for the young women of the Church. She was curious to know their perspectives of gender roles and how they view their womanhood based on what they're taught in church. Cue: blood boiling.

The first girl--probably 13 years old--responded with a melodramatic, "It feels like we're not important! It feels like we don't matter!" Blah blah blah.

A 20-something traced her feminism back to EFY (church summer camp) when her counselor had the gall (sarcasm font) to tell her that one day she will make a wonderful mother. A wonderful mother?!?! The nerve! How DARE he!

This girl twisted one of the most lovely compliments into a threat to her womanhood and has been embittered ever since.

Since when did motherhood become a degrading gender role? It's not like her counselor told her that one day she'll make a fantastic house cleaner. You have a divine endowment to raise and nurture God's own children.  THE HORROR!

This comment and others were filled with self-induced disastisfaction. It's a matter of perception. If you preceive that you are being wronged, cheated, or limited, then that is truth for you. As our own free agents, we have the liberty to choose how we want to perceive things. Perceptions and reactions are a CHOICE. That said, don't go whining about the Church doctrine and curriculum when the true power of change is in your own mind.

Let's face it, the Young Men (12-18 year-old boys) get to do awesome activities like intense mountain climbing and camping out in the wild. Activities for Young Women are super lame in comparison. But never once did that cause me to feel inferior to men, or that my potential as a woman was somehow limited. Or to question the verity of the LDS Church. OR TO DOUBT GOD'S LOVE FOR ME. And this perspective isn't coming from someone who grew up in the traditional Mormon home where perhaps one would be conditioned to act in submission to all Church customs. I can trace my pioneer ancestry all the way back to my mother. My father is not Mormon, nor is anyone outside of my immediate family. I had a more liberal upbringing in the Church. I was taught to figure things out for myself and develop a personal conversion on my own.

That conversion is based on the spiritual enlightenments that I have experienced over the course of several years, and how those enlightenments have built and strengthened a relationship between me and my Heavenly Father. Nothing else.

My friend Victor, as a fairly recent convert, posed the question to Ms. Brooks: "I didn't grow up with Church curriculum. I don't know Primary songs. I was never in Young Men. What is it that keeps you in the Mormon church? Because ultimately everyone needs a personal conversion, regardless of all the Mormon cultural quirks." (not verbatim)

We all ought to ask ourselves this same question every now and again.

I know that God has endowed me with a divine role to be a mother. I am honored by that. I don't feel constrained because of that. I don't feel like I'm damned to the walls of a cookie-cutter home, with a mop in one hand and a nursing baby in the other.

But I don't know. I guess that's just my perception.

I WILL NOT back down

and start speaking like East Coast people.

Starting with that word. People. PEOPLE.

Here, it is folks. 

"We have a briefing with the folks at corporate today."

"Over 60% of folks in the workforce leave their job because they feel under-appreciated."

I'm sorry, but I just can't take anyone seriously when they refer to people (especially at the professional level) as folks.

THIS is what I picture the hypothetical "people at corporate" to look like:

Also, I will not break down and buy a power suit. I hate/loathe/despise/shutter at the thought of wearing a suit. I miraculously went through a whole internship in the Senate without ever wearing one. When it came time to serve a mission, I didn't even acknowledge it on the list of required items to bring. Other women can look fab in them---Me? I feel my personality choke and die and the birds suddenly stop singing and my petite, girlish figure turn into a 58 year-old sagging congresswoman desperately running for re-election.

Welcome to D.C.

DIY Juice Detox

It's what everyone needs after a steady diet of pork, french fries, bread, and vegetable oil through a straw (not literally, but it may as well have been).  7 weeks of Romanian food is enough to make any young, healthy, robust human being feel like death warmed over, fried in pig fat, freeze-dried, reheated on High, sprinkled with lard and salt, and slathered over white bread.

I started planning a detox before I even left the country. My research led me to a juice cleanse.  Nothing sounded more appealing than fruits and veggies at the time. So as soon as I deplaned in California, I laid out my plan for a 5-day juice detox regime. My kitchen looked like it had been overrun with those ever-growing  devil vines from Jumanji that take over Kirsten Dunst's house.

My plan (based on professional juicing programs from Blue Print and Ritual Cleanse, for which I was not about to pay loads of money) was as follows: 6 juices a day (3 green drinks, 1 red-ish drink, 1 lemonade, and 1 cashew milk for protein). I borrowed my aunt's $200 juicer. Clearly it's a very high quality product, but why the hell a contraption for sucking juice out of seemingly juice-less things must cost that much is unfathomable. But the thing works like magic, that's for sure. I don't doubt that I could put in Ritz crackers and it would somehow give me cracker juice.

Here are the recipes, should you choose to not read-on and follow this exact cleanse. It's effective, I'm sure, or all those juice companies would be out of business. But do yourself a favor and read on past the recipes for a dose of non-sugar-coated reality.

Green Drink (each recipe makes one bottle, sometimes a little more)
Big handful of kale
Big handful of spinach
1 kiwi
2 Granny Smith apples, cored
1 banana

(Warning: Put all the ingredients through the juicer EXCEPT the banana. Puree the juice with the banana in a regular blender.)

 Red-ish Drinks (take your pick)
1 beet
1 large carrot
2 red apples (any type)
1 lemon

OR

1/3 of a large pineapple
2 red apples
1 cucumber

Spicy Lemonade
Juice from one lemon
1 tbsp. honey
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Filtered water

Put a little hot water in a bottle and use it to dissolve the honey. Then add the lemon juice and cayenne. Fill the remainder of the bottle with filtered water and shake it up. 

Cashew Milk
2 cups raw cashews, soaked for a few hours in water
1 cup water
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of cinnamon, cardamon, and nutmeg

Blend all ingredient in a blender. Don't use the juicer for this one. 

There you have it. Now go off and buy all the ingredients and make all the above drinks and SUFFER. OR, read on.

Day 1: I woke up, SO excited to try all my juice concoctions (I made enough for one day. Don't make them too far in advance, as they're not very tasty after a couple days). I had a Green for breakfast.  DELICIOUS!  Doesn't taste like garden weeds, I promise. I then dashed off to the temple. About half-way through any temple sesh, I usually get ravenously hungry and my stomach starts making the sounds of a pig who hasn't been slopped in months. Surprisingly, however, the Green held me over for at least 4 hours. When I exited the temple, it was grotesquely hot. I was stoked to throw back a refreshing lemonade, which I packed with me in a little cooler. A nearly choked and died and then died again. A similar reaction to Glozell's when she did the cinnamon challenge. I used to think nothing was more disappointing than hot water from a bottle left in the sun after a run. I was wrong. It is burning spicy "lemonade" in 110-degree weather after a temple sesh. MISERY. I think it was my own fault, though, as my "pinch" of cayenne pepper was 1/4 tsp. Bad mistake.

And then there was the beet juice. Not bad, but not good either. It tasted like cold borsch and I love borsch, but I wasn't prepared for that, mentally. It'd probably be great if you eat it from a bowl, with a spoon, instead of drinking it from a bottle.

I admit I was most excited for the cashew milk. It looked so creamy and pleasant and smelled so cinnamonny and delicious. WRONG. This was harder to get down than the lemonade!  It tasted like my dog had been chewing on pieces of a cardboard box, then spit them into a blender and added water. I kid you not. Another disappointment.

Day 2:  I was nevertheless determined to stick to a juice cleanse, but needless to say, I altered the recipes or made up completely new ones. I knew what vegetables and spices are key for detox, so I still stuck with those. I did chuck out the cashew milk recipe, however. So for a few days I wasn't getting any protein which probably isn't great, but I'm still alive.

I kept the Green drink, as it is delectable. I replaced the lemonade with THIS:

Sarah's Lemonade
2 lemons (just pop out the seeds so they don't ruin the juicer, but keep the peel and everything)
2-3 red apples
2 large carrots
Pinch of cayenne

It's sweet and tangy and tastes how lemonade should taste. I fell in love with this stuff. And just a pinch of cayenne gives it the tiniest zing. 

I replaced the beet juice with this:

Sarah's Pineapple-Strawberry Delight
1/3-1/2 of a pineapple
Large handful of strawberries
1 large cucumber
A pinch or two of ginger

This drink is frothy and heavenly and refreshing. 

Day 3: I quickly discovered on Day 1 that 6 drinks is kind of overdoing it, as they really are quite filling. By Day 3 I was down to 4 drinks a day--2 Greens, 1 Red-ish, and 1 Lemonade. I never felt hungry and I'm no pansy eater. I didn't feel all that more energized, like a lot of juice-fasters say. The whites of my eyes weren't whiter, my thoughts weren't more profound, etc. My skin did look healthier and glow-ier, but I can't decide if that's because of the juice, the lighting in my house, or the microderm treatments I had just had. Maybe all three.

Day 4: I watched 2 full episodes of Bizarre Foods of America because I am a sick masochist. One may not think that watching some dude chow down on sheep brains and chicken hearts is torture by any means, but when your only craving is something "chewable", anything looks good. I ain't no quitter, but I was ready to toss in the proverbial juice towel and call it success.  I wasn't doing this cleanse to lose weight. I was doing it to detox, and I'm pretty sure that 4 days of a pure liquid diet rid me of all Romanian nastiness in my system.  I frickin peed every hour. I'm pretty sure that there alone worked wonders.

Day 5: Cereal! Chicken! Pasta! Ironically, I was craving juice...

Cheers!

Social Media Slave

In a feeble effort to simplify my life, I recently initiated a FBoo friend purge. Just a way to eliminate anyone who I have no history with, haven't spoken to in ages, don't plan to ever speak to, etc. No need for the entire world to know every detail of my life. I even contemplated deleting my account.  But that would hardly make me anonymous in the social media world, considering you can find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Blo....Crap. There's no hope for me. I am a slave to the interwebs.

The Social Media Monster, asking me his favorite invasive questions. 

And for your viewing pleasure, this:

And this (since you all know food-tography is something I love to hate):