Looking to avoid divorce? Five things to keep in mind...

Every Sunday, my friend Chelsea makes a sheet of announcements for the Relief Society (the women's organization) at church. The back of the paper often features recipes, or life stories about certain women in our group, but today's was called "The top five ways to avoid meeting with me in my office". It was written by a sister in our Relief Society group who is a divorce attorney, and I thought that it was interesting enough that I asked her permission to share it with you here.


This is written as advice from one woman with years and years of experience as an attorney to other women, but if you are a man, I have confidence that you can make the adjustments in the semantics to make it work for you. Without further ado, here are her Top Five ways to avoid meeting with a divorce lawyer.

1. Do not spend more than you earn. Remember, all that stuff you charge will be valued at yard sale value when you divorce, nobody will want it, and you will wonder why it was so important to have it rather than a happier life and marriage.
2. Do not join a woman's group, book club, life coach team, or exercise group with people who are looking to "find themselves" when to find themselves means to put down or blame others (namely, their husbands).
3. Do not develop a closer friendship with anyone else than you have with your spouse, and do not spend time alone with anyone of the opposite sex.
4. Do not continually choose what you perceive to be your children's needs over your spouse, because if you do, you may lose your spouse. Parenting is done together... when done separately, it is usually done in separate households.
5. Do not lie to your spouse... even in jest, and even sarcastically. Don't put your spouse down in a joking manner... believe me, jokes are the basis of many legal claims for separation and divorce. We call them "indignities which make the life of one spouse intolerable and their life unbearable".
   

Her ideas gave me some things to think about, and I hope it was meaningful for you too. Thanks Leigh Ann!

Hoorah to New York City

Every year for the past three years, our Saturday after Thanksgiving has been reserved for New York City. Being in The City is one of the highlights of our trip up to New Jersey for the Thanksgiving holiday.


Our first stop after getting off at Penn Station was Yoshinoya near Time's Square where we bought beef bowls for lunch. That pickled red ginger took me right back to Tokyo... yum! Before uploading these photos I actually went back and looked at last year's NYC post, because we ate here last year, and I was almost sure that we had the exact same clothes on too.

Let's just say that people from Hawaii and Brazil don't spend their time amassing extensive winter wardrobes...


Time's Square. The bright sun warmed up everything, and there seemed to be more pedestrian zones around the square than in the past. But what a zoo! Looking at the city through my future-mother eyes, I have a whole new respect for people who live in this city with young families!


This year we wanted to see some things that we hadn't seen in previous years, and so we headed straight up 8th from Penn Station and found the LDS Manhattan, New York Temple. We didn't do much more than take pictures in the lobby and outside the building, but how exciting to have a Temple in such a great location!


Our other new exploration of the day was the American Museum of Natural History, which was also on the West side of Central Park, just a jog up from the Temple. Amazing, amazing, wish you were there, but honestly, this is where the day started to turn foul. My body decided to act like a pregnant body all of a sudden, and my usual short museum-attention-span was greatly reduced by pain and aching in every. single. joint. The displays were great, and hooray for skilled taxidermy, but we were both under the impression from Night At The Museum that the museum would be more hands-on. There was a lot of walking and standing and reading involved, and my body started to hurt really, really badly.


Is it lame that my absolutely favorite part of the museum was the Christmas tree? The tree was packed with huge, colorful origami animals, and they were so, so, so beautiful! I also loved some of the displays, such as the one below.


Three people who looked exactly like I felt. They probably had jet lag as an excuse, but they weren't the only ones we saw sleeping in the museum. It is simply exhausting to stand and read for hours on end without much to do with your hands and mind.

Marcos' favorite part of the museum were the dinosaurs and the Hall of Biodiversity. We were also fascinated by the elephant seals, and their mind-blowing underwater talents. Maybe it's just on the mind lately, but learning about the gestation period for various animals as well as the fat content of animal mother's milk was really interesting. For example, did you know that seal mother's milk is 50% fat so that the babies will survive the cold and chunk up really quickly?

And you thought 2% was thick...


At dusk we strolled through Central Park and ended the evening with hot cocoa at Rockefeller Center. New York City, thank you for your years of hospitality and kind treatment, romantic mood lighting and entertainment. We hope to see you next year, but if this time around was difficult for me, I'm not sure what having a 7-month old will do for us in a year from now. Let's just say we'll keep you posted...

Storytelling

In my entire 28 years of life, I had never heard as many miscarriage and stillbirth stories as I have heard within the past two months of my pregnancy.

At first I found it rather strange that suddenly, on top of the burden of my own first-time momma fears, I was destined to hear a conglomeration of stories about babies who didn't make it. But in the past two weeks I have been able to feel Giovanna's busy movements multiple times throughout the day, and my own fears have waned significantly. This has allowed me to view this sort of storytelling as a sacred exchange; a quiet recognition and celebration of a pregnancy that did not result in a child.

And it has reminded me how divinely powerful women are.

The Annual Greenhouse Tradition

In some ways, Marcos and I lead a rather inconsequential life.

Which is why it surprised me how many friends approached me before Thanksgiving to ask if we would be eating in the greenhouse again this year. I suppose this answers your questions...


Each year, Marcos and I drive up to New Jersey to celebrate Thanksgiving with my father, his girlfriend Emili, and Emili's family. Think mainly vegetarian food with a touch of gourmet, too many women in the kitchen, impossible jigsaw puzzles, people sleeping everywhere, decorating the greenhouse, tofurkey and the seitan that wouldn't rise, conversations about everything from neutering/spaying cats to mental illness, beautiful slideshows of summer trips to Greece, knitting, computer related spelunking in the basement, bagel runs, waiting for the bathroom, grazing on bowls of nips and trail mix, and of course, the grand evening of...


...our Thanksgiving feast in the greenhouse. Isn't it beautiful? This year was significantly warmer than previous years, and I love that we not only ate comfortably, but stuck around afterwards to have pies and games outside rather than racing inside after dinner like we did last year. Marcos taught us how to play scattergories Brazilian style (meaning that we didn't have the actual game with us, so we each pitched in a category and we all wrote them down, and then on the count of three we each held out a random number of fingers to count off and determine the letter). The food was great, the greenhouse was cozy, the company was wonderful, and the game was a perfect end to our Thanksgiving celebration. If it seems amazingly ideal, it might be because, well, it kind of was...


Emili's sister Erica was in town from Denver, and her mom and dad had driven in from Michigan. Below are my dad and Emili, who are always so gracious in giving up their private space, alone time and even their bed to accommodate our big group.


And last but not least, Emili's niece Emma's gorgeous apple pie! I suggested she add leaves around the edge of the pie with her extra dough, and she topped it off with an acorn. Why be only functional when you can be both pretty and functional?

If we had a garage, and if our garage had a band...

Last Friday night was a long awaited Girl's Night Out. Nicole and I joined a group of friends for a viewing of the new Twilight movie New Moon, and left Marcos and Nick behind with the twins. Remember them? This is only one, but they're identical, so if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. (Just kidding Brookston; You are unique in all the world, you are unique in all the world...).


It was 1:30am when we arrived back at Nicole's. After watching the movie, consuming amazing goodies at Rebecca's house and having quality, meaningful talk for hours into the night (this made up for the I.Q. points that I lost over the course of the movie), we came back to a quiet sleeping-baby house, and two satisfied men.

While we were away, Nick (who moonlights as a rockstar) and Marcos had spent hours recording their own version of a church children's song called "Baptism" (located at the end of the post). That's Marcos' voice singing the first verse as well as melody in the third, and Nick covering the instruments and percussion, the second verse and the harmonies. I love listening to them sing together.

I have already put out my hints that a great, cheap Christmas gift for me and Giovanna would be to have four or five of the church children's songs recorded by the Daddies, but we'll see how far my suggestion makes it...

When in Rome... Location #6

And back to the European adventure...

After exploring Florence, we took a day trip to Rome to meet up with Amanda, who is like a sister to me, and who is currently serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (our church). Each week she has a day to prepare for life as a missionary, which usually includes grocery shopping, laundry, emails and the like. Marcos and I planned our trip to Rome for Amanda's preparation day so that we could take her and her companion out to lunch, visit a few famous places, and generally enjoy each other's company. It was incredible to see her in action, speaking Italian, and leading us deftly through a country that was recently foreign to her.


Our first stop was the Colosseum, which is a very impressive structure. We debated paying the loads of money and standing in the endless line that would allow us to see the inside, but Marcos tipped the scales with this comment: "Nah. I've already seen all of the movies that show the inside, so I can imagine it perfectly". (Can I opt out of child birth like that? You know, just skip through the painful part because I've already seen movies and I can imagine it pretty well?).


One of the things that we found rather inconvenient about Rome was it's lack of public transport. There were only three subway lines, and as you can imagine, three lines don't really do the job in a huge city. Supposedly the bus system was decent, but for tourists without a command of the language, buses are much less user friendly than a subway system with a good map.

I held a grudge against Rome for about half an hour until I noticed something peculiar as we made our way across town on foot: it was not unusual to see things like the scene below. And it got me thinking: How would I like to try and build a metro system through a city with three hundred layers of ancient ruins to plow through? No thanks.


When in Rome, eat pizza and pasta. With tuna on top. Apparently, it is all the rage to put tuna fish on everything.

Amanda asked a passerby for a restaurant recommendation, and we found ourselves at a place in a narrow street with amazing food. I feel famished all of a sudden, just looking at these photos again...


At Trevi Fountain, we threw coins in over our shoulders to assure that we would return again some day to Rome, and posed for a shot worthy to be hung on the MTC walls. Being with Amanda again after her nine or so months in Italy reminded me of the awesome things that happen to missionaries. Being constantly engaged in the Lord's work and thinking of people outside of myself and my own interests inspired a lot of change in me when I was in Tokyo as a missionary three years ago, and I could see the same miracles working in her. She has become ultra radiant, confident and capable through serving other people.


Not surprisingly, we also saw loads of nuns on the streets of Rome. I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of them, but I felt good about photographing the windows of the shops where these very fancy priest robes and accessories were being sold. We didn't make it to the Vatican City this trip (it was on one of the other two inconvenient subway lines and a bit too far away), but if that coin we threw in the Trevi Fountain works its magic and we are able to return to Rome someday, I will be very interested to see the center of the Roman Catholic church.


After laughing over a massive gelato and hugging and kissing Amanda and her companion good-bye, our last stop of the day was the Pantheon. Meaning "all Gods", we expected that it would feature the Gods of Roman mythology, but it doesn't anymore. The Catholic Church has long since taken over and made it - frankly - a rather uninteresting place to visit...


And that about wraps up the Italian leg of the journey. Stay tuned next time for Metta's Dream Fulfilled: Swiss Alps, a train, and a bag of chips...

Dearest Reader in Malaysia...

Greetings from North Carolina!

I am honored that you have read my blog 9 times. However, I do have a concern. You see, three of my friends have, within the last week, announced that they are making their blogs private. This means that I will have to be personally invited to see their blog, and that I will no longer receive any notification when they create new posts. Knowing how hard it is for me to stay current with private blogs, I am hoping not to be compelled to do the same.

So, if we are friends (or friends of friends), I welcome you. If we are not, please enjoy your beautiful country and depart from my internet world in peace.

Love, or possibly no love,

Metta

FAQs

Q: When is your baby due?
A: April 1st. At our ultrasound, she was measuring within a week of that original due date, so the doctor kept it at April 1st.

Q: Have you thought of any names yet?
A: Yes. Unless something drastic happens (she is born with male parts, for example) her name is Giovanna. We really wanted a name that works well in both America and Brazil, and lo and behold, Italian names seem to be a real winner for international usability. Plus, we think it's pretty...

Q: How are you feeling?
A: Quite well. I still have to eat every two or three hours, and sometimes I have heartburn if I wait too long between snacks, but otherwise I feel great.

Q: Are you showing yet?
A: Well, it's either Giovanna or the result of eating two complete Thanksgiving dinners this week... you tell me.