it's called jetlag

whitney tagged me 'cause i "need stuff to blog about"... which is true. so thanks whit. so the idea here is that you pick the 4th picture, in the 4th folder of your photo library. and this is it. nothing embarrasing or scandalous. but this does have a bit of an unexciting story to go along with it. and since i have nothing else to blog about, you get to read it.

but first, i have to make a comment. do you ever wonder whose pictures you end up in? i mean, take this guy talking on his cell phone. i'm sure he's looking at himself in the glass while he talks ('cause you know that's what you'd be doing...) and he's so wrapped up in his phone call and his reflection that he's not paying attention to what's going on on the other side of the glass. or is he? ...is he looking at me? is he thinking mid-sentence "why is this silly american (he would assume i'm american... but little does he know...) taking a picture of me? great! now i'm going to end up on some silly mormon girls blog a year and a half from now, and there's nothing i can do about it." ('cause of course he'd know i'm mormon...)

anyway... so this picture is taken from inside the eurostar travel information area which is inside london's waterloo station. burton and i had just arrived in london, and were hung-over with jetlag. holy cow, that first couple hours sucked. i was in a daze and even though we were in england, where people speak english... i couldn't understand anyone. partly because i was drunk on jetlag and partly because they talk a thousand miles a minute and say words like ... hmm ... i don't know, words i didn't understand. anyway, after an hour or so of trying to feel normal, eating lunch at a pub, surrounded by cigarette smoking brits (they must have seen those commercials in the 1950s... and never got the memo that smoking will kill you), and listening to burton ramble on about the book he was reading to try and keep me from falling off my chair, we decided to go somewhere a little less stressful. and so we found this visitors area. the area wasn't intended for people to fall over and die, but that's what we did. well, burton did. i slipped in and out, because i was too paranoid to die and miss the train.

anyway... that's the story. see, i told you it wasn't exciting.

oh ya, now i have to tag people. i hate this part. hmm... i'm going to cheat. if you read this, TAG! you're it.

pass me a cigarette, this fresh air is killing me

while looking for vintage voiceover samples for a project i'm working on, we came across these wonderful examples of fine and honest 1950s advertising.





silly surgeon general... don't you know that cigarettes are as cool and as a clean as a breath of fresh air?... i mean, who needs real fresh air, when the finest leaf tobacco makes your mouth feel clean and your throat feel so refreshed? what more could a young girl swinging happily from a tree ask for?

who doesn't love a good fairytale on IM?

TWO posts in one day?! well... how could i possibly resist posting this IM conversation i just had with my sociopathically (yes, i made that up) hilarious husband...

burton: i just had a mormon in my office

janaya: really?

burton: yes

janaya: who?

burton: he actually works on our GIS team, but he works in the SLC office. he is just out here for some meetings.

janaya: they have a SLC office?

burton: yes

janaya: did you know that already?

burton: yes

janaya: how come you're not working there? :)

burton: there are only like 15 employees

janaya: oh. gotcha. so did he already know you were LDS?

burton: no

janaya: you're not a very good story teller :)

*** and i should have seen this coming ***

burton: once upon a time, there was a lovely young mormon boy from logan, utah. as a boy in his mid twenties, he attended a university in the top of some mystic mountains. the university was called utah state. it is the home of the blue aggies, a rare and magical breed of cow. after graduating from utah state, he got on a magic carpet and came to washington dc to work. while there, he lived in a land filled with milk and honey. it was called alexandria. he worked at [insert the company burton works for... my blog isn't the place for burton's resume] for three and a half years before deciding that he and his wife missed their loving family back in utah. from that time forth, this lovely young mormon boy named eric worked in the SLC office of [insert the company burton works for] doing projects for the evil bureau of land management. one day, he had to meet a fair damsel in virginia and so he flew out to the headquarters of [insert the company burton works for]. there he needed a desk to sit at and so went searching through the enchanted forest of offices and found one empty desk next to a handsome prince named burton. the prince and the lovely young mormon boy began talking. once eric divulged that he worked in the mystical mountainland of SLC, the prince's ears perked up because he was from that magical land. the two talked as if they were good friends from times past. they also determined that they were both mormons, which are kind of like hobbits, but they are rumored to have horns. the two eventually said "good day" and eric left to go rescue the fair maiden. they both lived happily ever after. the end.

infertility bites

it's a delicate balance between divulging too much and explaining too little. in my personal interactions, i tend to fall hard on the side of divulging too much. i'm an open book, as they say. i generally lack what some might call a "filter". but when it comes to my blog, i tend to keep things pretty private. sure, i'll tell you all about my escapades back in the day... kissing a boy(s), cheating on a test(s), stealing a fruit roll-up (that only happened once). but it's pretty rare that i share a really solid insight into what's going on with me. mostly because i don't know who is currently reading or may some day read my blog and despite my general lack of filtering, i like to control who i open the flood gates with. ANYway... screw it. here's what's up...

so, we've been trying to get pregnant. for a little over three years now. for most of those three years, we've taken people's advice about just letting things happen. but after three years of things not happening, no matter how much "letting" we did, we started seeking answers. i'm not going to go into the specifics of those answers (hey! look at me filtering! i'm so proud of myself), but i will tell you that after way too many way too invasive tests on both of us, we know the problem. and it's not that we're too stressed. it's not that i'm not ovulating. and no amount of elevating my hips is going to resolve it. (oh... there i go not filtering again...)

as it stands, there's still a chance (not a great chance... but a chance) that with some medical intervention the issue could be fixed. but that will take more time. and more waiting to know if it worked. possibly another year. and while some might say "just adopt"... we're not there yet. so don't say it.

and so this is where all the reasons i haven't been blogging come. mostly, i really just don't know what to say. i have so many moments where i feel so sorry for myself and it's hard and all i want to do is cry or curl up on the couch with a good movie and a hot chocolate and think about something else. but then i have moments where my faith is strengthened, and i know it will all be ok. that it's all happening for a reason... i truly believe that. that there are things i'm learning right this very second that i wouldn't learn any other way. and years from now, when i have screaming children and diapers to change and neverending laundry to do... i'll look back to this time in my life, and i hope that i won't feel like i wasted it waiting for the future to come. i wish i could say that i'm not doing that right now. but it's a battle. really. a battle between doubt and faith. discouragement and motivation. tears and smiles.

so, that's that. we wait. we try to make our life fulfilling while we anticipate what we hope will come. however it comes. whenever it comes. and we pray. as i know you are. and we love you for it. thanks.

i should have been a bear

do you ever have times in your life when you just want to crawl in a hole and hibernate for awhile until things work out the way you want them to? i do. and it's not just cause i love sleeping. though... i do love sleeping.