Writing spurt

Personal essay on step mothering, done. Paper on gender and the Restoration for next month's JWHA conference, pending. With the few creative juices I have left, I'm blogging.

Mike and I have been teaching Sunday School in our Ogden ward since January. Mostly, it's been a fun gig. We trade off teaching every other week and have been out of town for some of the more loaded lesson topics.

Neither of us wants to tackle this week's lesson: "Sealed...for time and all eternity."

It's a touchy subject for a couple of reasons. WE aren't sealed. We opted to get married in a beautiful civil ceremony conducted by a dear friend rather than get sealed/married in a Mormon temple. We could have gone the temple route if we'd wanted to, but we felt strongly about having all our loved ones present as we united our lives.

Since then, we've looked into getting sealed and have run into a couple of snags.

One, Mike is still sealed to his ex-wife. It's possible to cancel that sealing and petition for Mike and I to be sealed, but that means Mike's kids would be unsealed from their mother and only remain sealed to their dad.

None of the kids are active in the church anymore and we're not sure if the ex is, either. It's unclear to me why their interests are the focus--seemingly more than my interests as Mike's current wife. Nevertheless, Mike is unwilling to spiritually untether his kids from their mother.

Two, I am unwilling to be sealed to Mike while he's still sealed to his ex. That's a little too close to polygamy for my taste. I had thought the plan was to cancel Mike's previous sealing and petition for clearance for us to be sealed to each other.

Three, it's a total double standard. Men can be sealed to more than one woman, but women who want to remarry in the temple have to get any previous sealing canceled before the new sealing is allowed to proceed.

The result: an impasse where getting sealed is concerned. And I'm pretty pissed off about policies that have forced us between this particular rock and hard place. Being forced to choose which family stays sealed or gets unsealed doesn't feel very family-friendly to me.

I taught Sunday School last, so technically it's Mike's turn. Then again, he taught several weeks in a row when I was swamped by Sunstone symposium prep. He's asked, "Do I really have to teach tomorrow?" a couple of times today.

To which I replied that I thought the person who's less angry about the subject of sealing ought to be the one to teach it.

Memory Lane

Late last night, I finished writing an essay for an anthology on motherhood--in my case, stepmotherhood. The acquaintance who is putting together the anthology didn't have any stepmothers representing in her first volume of mothering essays and was glad to include my voice in volume two.

Whilst writing said essay, I did a lot of archival research--looking at blog posts and emails about my travails and triumphs as a stepmom. The triumphs are still vastly outnumbered by the travails, but looking back at how things were when I first met Mike's kids and the speed bumps during their initial visits made me realize how far we've come.

Brad and Jessica hug me hello and goodbye voluntarily and seem interested in interacting with me--even when Mike isn't around. Nicole is a bit warmer these days. Jackie remains the persistent outlier and sometimes seems deliberate in trying to avoid interacting with me. Too bad; since she changed her major to English, we could have a lot to talk about.

There are still annoyances--like Nicole taking our IKEA catalog and borrowing shampoo that she didn't give back. (The latter sounds really petty I'm sure, but I was actually more annoyed that she hadn't asked for toiletries at our house where I could have readily, easily, and happily supplied her needs).

We still overbuy junk food, eat out more often, and spend way more money than planned when the kids are visiting. However, I've lowered my insane June Cleaver-like pre-visit cleaning standards; I've now relaxed to the point that my only mandatory task is making sure the beds all have clean sheets.

Jackie and Jessica visited right before the Salt Lake Symposium, so I didn't have it in me to stress about their visit. I barely saw them at all that week. Brad and Nicole accompanied us to Yellowstone and drove back to Missouri in the minivan so Jessica could use it as her high school car.

While we still don't have the warm, close relationships I first envisioned for our blended family, things have gotten better over the past three years.

Oh, and I used to write some really funny shit on this blog. Why did I ever stop?

How to piss me off, part deux

1. Though the preliminary program has been available for a month and has been updated online, wait until TODAY to say two of your panelists' names have been left off.

2. Ask me if I ever received their bios. (No, in fact this is the first I've ever heard that these two were supposed to be part of your session).

3. Expect me to make a change in the final program without providing any of the needed information.