Marriage is (kind of) an Adjustment: Relationship Advice from an Expert

My friend Alice Cannon took all our pictures for
our wedding. She is incredible!

As my friends have gotten married throughout the years, I’ve noticed that once people get married, they start spouting off all their wisdom. We all know that couple that met on Tinder that will practically force you to download the app, the couple who met on a blind date who insists on setting you up, and the couple who simultaneously bursts into the “You don’t have to be lonely, at Farmer’sOnly.com” jingle. (Actually, I don’t know that last kind of couple, but if you do, I have a few questions. For starters, why is there a talking cow in the commercial? Does the cow come up later in the website? For example, if a guy messages a wedding proposal to a girl he just met, does an animated cow come across the computer screen saying, “You’re MOOOOving too fast?” Just curious.)   Since I’ve been married, lots of people have been begging me to share my incredibly insightful relationship advice. (Okay, actually no one has done this. However, my grandpa did email me and ask me if I was ever going to blog again. So, yeah, the public needs me.) It's been said that if you spend 10,000 hours working on something, you're an expert in that certain field. I have been in a relationship with my husband for over 10,000 hours, so now I'm an expert, right? Luckily I have ignored everyone saying no and compiled a list of advice anyway. 

 Don’t be yourself: When I was young, my mom was always good at reminding me to be myself. “Your hair looks great just the way it is,” she would say. “Don’t do what all your friends are doing if you don’t want to do it.” Apparently that phrase doesn’t really cut it when you’re in a Young Single Adults ward. If I were to “be myself”, instead of attending millions of those “mingling” activities, I would be creating a personal igloo from my pillows and blankets and rewatching a season of Parks and Rec. Regardless, at the beginning of a new semester my roommate, Emmie, and I would usually go to at least one or two ward activities to meet the new guys in the ward. (The word “meet” here means we would stand next to them in the buffet line and actually not speak with them at all.) Miraculously, a ward activity is where I met my husband, Tyler.

Show interest: This is one of the basics as you’re starting to date someone. I showed interest in Tyler by not texting him back for 4 hours at a time. This obviously worked like a charm, because we’re married. (Is anyone else reading this and wondering how I got married? Me, too.)

Have 12 year olds bring up topics that you’re too afraid to: After dating Tyler for awhile, I started seriously thinking about marrying him. Of course I didn’t bring this up, because it was completely terrifying. I’m not sure how long I would’ve waited to bring it up, but due to my incredible awkwardness a fair estimate is approximately 60 years. Anyway, I started dating Tyler during my first year of teaching. My students were incredibly excited of the idea that I wasn’t going to turn into an old cat lady (one of my students said she was actually really surprised) and really wanted to meet him. I promised that he would come visit them on the last day of school and they could ask him questions. After some of the generic, “What’s your favorite sports team?” or “Do you like Donald Trump?” questions were asked, one boy raised his hand and asked, “Have you ever thought about marrying Miss Hardy and having a family with her?” During this moment my emotions ranged from passing out, to failing this student from 6th grade, to turning to Tyler and saying, “Actually, that’s a pretty good question.” But I interrupted before he could even speak, calling the nice little Q&A session to a close.

If you’re taking your boyfriend to meet your parents, help him be less nervous by doing something stupid yourself: For example, I got pulled over for speeding on my way to taking Tyler home to Rexburg over the 4th of July. My wails of, “I can’t be pulled over! I vote EVERY YEAR! EVEN IN THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS!” was somehow drowned out by the wails of the police siren.

Don’t actually plan your wedding: This is a good task to pawn on someone else. Why figure out how many invitations you need to order when you can turn it into a math problem for your 5th grade class instead?

Rent an apartment that’s smarter than you: After we got married, Tyler and I moved into an apartment where you can control parts of the apartment through your phone. I can only assume this invention was made for one reason, and one reason only: pure amusement. Upon moving in, my new favorite past time became turning on and off the kitchen lights when Tyler was there, and I was in the other room.

Communication is key: Some people emphasize communication to prevent disagreements, but I say this because during our first week of marriage we both went to the grocery store on the same day without telling each other and ended up with 6 jugs of milk in the fridge.

Marriage is (kind of) an adjustment: Before getting married, I had people tell me over and over that I was going to have to make a huge adjustment in my life. After 6 months, I’ve noted that the largest adjustment I’ve had to make is that I no longer eat popcorn for 70% of my dinners. (But really we have dinner, and I still save room for popcorn later in the evening. So essentially the actual dinner is an appetizer, and the popcorn is my main course. Life continues as planned.)

Be prepared to answer a lot of questions: After we got engaged, people had a lot of questions. Did you get your wedding dress? What are your colors? Do you actually teach school anymore, or do you make your students listen to your engagement story on repeat all day? Once I got married, the question was mainly the same: “How’s married life?” My usual answer is “great!” but that is a serious understatement. Being married to Tyler is like walking outside and realizing it’s raining Cafe Rio burritos, and then finding out that’s the worst thing that’s going to happen during the day.

Looks like the 4 hour wait period while texting truly did the trick.

Chocolate Milk Rots: 10 things I learned in my first year of teaching

This past week, I finished up my first official year of teaching elementary school. The end was full of talent shows, dancing, tests, slideshows reminiscing old Halloween costumes and field trips, bribery in the form of doughnuts, and tearful goodbyes. During my first week of teaching I remember standing in front of the class, looking at my students, and thinking how hilarious it was that they thought I knew what I was doing. The last day of school as I watched my students leave, I was thinking THE SAME THING. There’s still so much to learn about teaching, but luckily I was able to come up with a list of 10 things that my first year of teaching taught me.

1. I now know the exact stench of chocolate milk if it is left unrefrigerated and stuck in someone’s desk for three weeks. Do I get worker’s compensation for having to smell that every day? Luckily I simply adore the student that was harboring away the stink bomb in the back crevice of their cubby.

2. Life is easier with personal servants. You would think that teaching would be hard because it’s like taking care of 24 twelve-year-olds all day, right? Life is actually way better when you have 24 twelve-year-olds taking care of YOU. Whenever I was teaching and my voice started to grow hoarse, a student would jump out of their chair and bring me my water bottle without me even asking. Anytime I needed a box moved to somewhere else in the school I never had to bother lifting it because most of the students were begging for the chance to carry it, and whenever I wanted a student to push me around in my rolling chair, they did.

3. Some students appreciate the classics, as shown when I asked for song requests for our class party. 

4. Being the adult is sometimes hard. Whenever I saw kids playing soccer in the classroom I would think, “Man, whoever’s in charge of them better stop that before something goes wrong.” Then I would realize: I AM THE PERSON IN CHARGE. If I didn’t know the answer to a question a student asked, I looked frantically around my class, looking for someone more educated than I. It was very early on in the school year that my students accepted that Google was their true teacher.

5. Creativity is not wasted on the young. Upon telling them my heater wasn’t working, one student told me I should simply ask my roommate to flirt with the repair man so we could get the heater fixed for free. At least one student realizes how little the teacher salary is.

6. My students are going to make great politicians. While teaching the French Revolution, I made one student the king, two students nobility, and the rest were peasants. As we role played, the comments ranged from things like,  “Too bad, you’re poor ” to students screaming at the top of their lungs, “IT IS TOTALLY NOT FAIR THAT WE HAVE TO PAY TAXES! IF WE HAVE TO THEN YOU HAVE TO AS WELL!!” I was so proud.   

7. Students are able to learn the most life applicable lessons from books. 

8. Being sick is not all bad. During February I got sick and had a substitute for a few days. I felt completely miserable, but when Emmie returned home from school she brought me a ginormous get well card made by my students, complete with notes like, “No more subs!!” and “My cat and I hope you feel better soon!!” As sick as I was feeling, it made me feel a lot better. This is probably what the sub had them work on instead of math, but whatever.

9. Students leave the best notes. My wall is covered with quips like “Miss Hardy, you’re cool because you stay up on the trends.” (Unsure how many times I did the Whip Nae Nae in class, but once was enough for one student to remark, “My eyes are burning.”) Another personal favorite was a student who thoughtfully penned, “Miss Hardy, you are like ohana to me. You are like my 23 year old daughter.” Oh, to be young. 

10. Having 24 students means you have 24 best friends. They always asked me what I did on my weekend (usually during a science lesson in an attempt to get me off topic) and they’re painfully honest (like the time my student asked, “Why does your face look like that?!”) They’re people who I could always count on to play wall ball and do art projects with me. They're the kids who all made brackets to participate in the March Madness bracket competition and howled with laughter when the team I picked to win lost during the first round. They’re kids I will love for the rest of the life, and I can’t wait to see who they become. 

And now, to end my blog the same way a student loved to end his essays:

Ta-Da, indeed.

Disneyland: An amateur's quest for the perfect churro

Some people find a sort of thrill when telling people something incredible that they’ve done. They’re excited, so they want to share. My Instagram feed is full of people cheering at Justin Bieber’s concert, sitting in airplanes flying over the ocean, and walking through the streets of a big city. I’m not sure if it’s due to my desire to be different from everyone else or the fact I’m perfectly content with my seemingly boring lifestyle, but I get a thrill from telling people things I haven’t done.  The Dark Knight? Haven’t seen it. I live in Utah? Never gone skiing. The Backstreet Boys? I didn’t listen to them until college. The responses are always part shock, part despair, part panic. EVERY. TIME.

Disneyland is the same. The last time I went to Disneyland was when I was four years old. I have few memories of the event, but my family lovingly retells the story of me begging to go on the Monorail, which instead of being an actual ride at Disneyland with twists and turns and loop de loops, is just a boring train. Instead of going on a daring adventure with Indiana Jones or through the dark at hyper speed in Space Mountain, I wanted to ride something similar to the amazing adventures of a daily commute like TRAX. The first evening my family departed Disneyland nothing could be heard over the wails of “I WANT TO RIDE THE MONORAIL!! I WANT TO RIDE THE MONORAIL!!!” I can only imagine this was one of the many times my parents pretended not to know me in public. Luckily good prevailed the next morning and we rode the monorail.

Whenever I tell people that this is essentially my only memory of Disneyland, the reaction is priceless, especially if I’m talking with an avid Disney-goer.  Once people have gotten over the shock, they try to catch me up to speed on everything I’ve missed including Dole Whips, Cars Land, and fast passes with exact statistics on exactly how many minutes they’ve waited at each ride. When Emmie suggested we go with our friend Karlee over spring break, I figured it was finally time to catch up with the rest of the world. Upon arriving at Disneyland, I soon realized Disneyland was much different than I thought.

Expensive Churros: If there’s one thing I’ve heard about Disneyland, it’s the churros. I was told that Disney was home to the most expensive churro to exist, and that I would certainly be spending a lot of money on food. My parents told me. My coworkers told me. My friends told me. I even saw it on TV! For the amount of times I was told, I figured the price was astronomical. Yeah, I would talk about how expensive a churro was too if it was $20. Or $50. Or $75. So when I got in line and they told me the churro was only $5, I laughed because I had been saving up my churro fund for years, with my own churro investment bank, with hopes to someday have a churro 401K. So instead of spending an entire year’s worth of rent on half a churro,  I bought 80 of them instead. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re still expensive. Feel free to donate to my churro foundation to help churro-less people in need.)

Waiting in Line: Another thing people always discuss about Disneyland is waiting for rides. Whenever my dad and I went to the store together and had to wait in a lengthy line he would always quip, “You’ve always wanted to go to Disneyland, right? It’s exactly like this!” After hearing I was going to Disneyland, I had multiple people in a hurried rage tell me the exact order of rides to go on first and which fast passes to get in order to wait in the smallest lines possible. So, I came to Disneyland thinking I would be waiting for HOURS for our first ride. I didn’t even take motion sickness medicine in the morning with my breakfast because I thought we would arrive at the park and have to wait for at least an hour. (Sidenote: Yeah, I take motion sickness medicine because I’m practically a grandma. If you have any other questions, feel free to meet me in between my BINGO games) Imagine my panic and all the stares from the other park goers when Emmie told me we’d be on a ride within 15 minutes of walking into the park and me shrieking, “I’M GOING TO BARF ON EVERYONE!” (Another sidenote: I totally didn’t barf on anyone. Major let down.) 

People watching: I adore people watching. I couldn’t wait to see all the parents dragging their kids on leashes and overly excited Disney fanatics and overhear bizarre conversations. You know how there are always those weirdos wearing ponchos that are perfect for people watching? It was definitely us. And it was definitely awesome.

Making Decisions: It is no secret to those close to me that I have a difficult time making certain decisions. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I enjoy doing a lot of things. I like to eat most foods, so I have a hard time picking restaurants. I had a hard time picking which rides to go on because all of them sounded good to me. (With the obvious exception of It’s a Small World—that’s one ride I could’ve recreated by myself by listening to ‘It’s a Small World’ 80 times on repeat and driving around my apartment complex while banging my head on the steering wheel) It got to the point that Karlee and Emmie told me I HAD to make decisions. This was obviously the worst moment on the trip,  narrowly beating out when we waited 30 minutes in a gas station Yermo to use the bathroom. The obvious solution was to start making poor decisions. I let them know I wanted to ride the monorail as our next attraction, and was hoping we could sleep in the car that night instead of pay for our hotel room. Immediately my decision making powers were relinquished for the entire trip and I was happy as a clam.

Dole Whip: If there are 7 billion people on this planet, how is it possible that there were 8 billion people in the line for Dole Whips at all times?! At least it gave us plenty of time to work on the lyrics to our new best-selling single. 

One thing is for sure: once our single is released, you’ll be able to purchase tickets to our concerts wherever $50 churros are sold. 

2015 Christmas Card

Dear Family and Friends,

Another year has come and gone, and so have your Christmas cards. I am dismayed to announce that only 6.5% of the Hardy Family card that was sent out to relatives was dedicated to me, but 16% of the card was dedicated to my youngest brother and the fact that he needs to let out the hem on his Sunday pants because he is growing taller. Plans to dominate the Christmas card next year include eating plenty of Big Macs and putting on enough weight so the family picture is essentially me with my brothers and sister peeking out from around my enlarged quadruple chins. Stay tuned.

Christmas cards are an interesting concept to me. Hundreds of our closest friends and family dumped 200-some cards into the mail on December 1st all saying the same thing: 2015 was a good year for our family. We did lots of cool things. (Insert a list of cool things done) Merry Christmas! We hope you have a great New Year! This is sometimes accompanied by a family picture in which everyone is forced into wearing an unflattering yet matching sweater. This is great, and I love looking through cards from people I care about.  However, more often than not I finish reading a card wishing the author had included a bit more about their year instead of the traditional message. As I was only allotted one line in the family card, I have taken the liberty of writing a little more here:

2015 was a good year for me. I started teaching 6^th grade, which I assume is similar to motherhood (mediating playground drama, listening to stories that sometimes don’t make sense, etc.) without the tax benefits. Within the same day I was told that my outfit was “on fleek” by one student and asked if I was pregnant by another. I’ve taught them important things like finding percentages but also things like how to manage a ‘thug life’ while also doing homework.

I did lots of cool things. I convinced my dad to set up a Twitter account. (#prouddaughter) I threw up on the floor of the church hall during Sacrament meeting. For three straight months after I graduated I used the “I don’t know, maybe we should ask someone with a BACHELOR’S OF SCIENCE to answer that question” quip whenever anyone asked a question ranging from what temperature to cook a casserole at to what we should do that evening. I took a total of four passport pictures until the lady at the desk said, “Okay, I think your eyes are open enough in this one.” After she had printed the picture she decided my eyes WEREN’T open enough, so we took it a few more times until she printed out a photo that I think is of me if I was actually an American espionage. I tweeted at Barack Obama and also Donald Trump. (Still awaiting their responses, but I am confident they will reply as soon as their busy schedules permit) I sent a text to someone using the wrong there/they’re/their spelling and was so embarrassed I wanted to burn my phone in a furnace. My annual tradition continued and I made a gingerbread house that collapsed within minutes of making it. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Above all, take a little time to remember the true reason for celebrating the Christmas season. This past week I had an unexpected visit from two of my favorite neighbors bringing boxes of books to my classroom as a gift from my old Relief Society. My students were so excited and I was so touched that there are so many good-hearted  people in the world. Nothing brings the Spirit of Christ into someone’s life like sweet selfless service. (I’m not really sure, but does shoveling snow count even though usually half the snow I lift up ends on my sister’s head? Comments welcome.)

Merry Christmas!

Dear Moose: a passive aggressive letter to the world's most annoying animal

Dear Moose,

Let me begin by saying I am overwhelmingly impressed with your tenacity. Your willingness to stand up for what you believe in and never give up your ground exceeds any human I have ever associated with. The persistence and nerve you possess is something the greats of this world have only dreamed about.

Let me explain. Last week, I had Fall Break. Unlike my made-up Fall Breaks that I created for myself at BYU where I ditched class to take my razor scooter down the canyon, this was an actual Fall Break from teaching. Being a teacher is similar to being an astronaut. Astronauts work so hard, yet when you imagine them you just think of a guy spinning around with no gravity eating freeze dried ice cream. Teachers work hard, but most people only think of recess and multiplication tables. (Obviously, I am comparing how the most difficult parts of our profession are overlooked. If I was comparing our pay, I would compare a teacher to an astronaut who was mugged and only got to keep their Famous Footwear stamp card.) So naturally, I was pretty excited for a break. The first night, Emmie and I sat down and planned our whole forty eight extra hours of glory. For Friday, we planned to go to Park City and ride the Alpine coaster.

We arrived at Park City on the perfect October afternoon. The sun was shining, the leaves were turning gold, and no 12 year olds had asked for my permission to go to the bathroom in more than a day and a half. We stood in line to buy our tickets for the coaster. After 40 minutes of waiting, we were about to walk up to the window when an employee in a forest green vest started announcing loudly, “Excuse me, but we are having a MOOSE DELAY on the coaster. I repeat, we are having a MOOSE DELAY.” It took me awhile (obviously I thought the employee was saying that there was a mousse delay. I assumed the operation of the coaster was being delayed because each paying customer was taking a short break from coaster riding and instead eating a large bowl of chocolate mousse, hopefully with oreos on top.) but once I finally got over my disappointment, I realized they were talking about you, dear moose.

Guess what? I was pretty thrilled at my chance to meet you! I imagined myself riding down the coaster and patting your muzzle as I whizzed by, throwing you a carrot on my way down. (Do moose like you eat carrots? Maybe I’d simply throw you a bowl of mousse.) My daydreams were quickly thrashed when the employee informed us the coaster would be CLOSED until you moved. We asked the woman at the ticket window if it would still be worth it to buy tickets. She said yes, and we figured you could be a good friend and simply move a few yards.

Emmie and I stood in line, waiting for you to move. At first we merely stood there laughing: who else had been part of a moose delay before? Was this the kind of event that would end up being one of those little known trivia facts on Balderdash in 40 years? Oh moose, you kept us laughing. After 20 minutes, the group of 50 or so people started to get restless. People started checking their watches and looking around at the other attraction lines. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. By then, each person had exclaimed at least once, “It’s a MOOSE! I could move it!” The long line of agitated people then took the next half hour to each walk up to the park employees and ask, “Hey, so have you ever tried scaring the moose away? Why don't you make a loud noise?” and pretending like they were the only ones smart enough to think about this. What a good practical jokester you are, Moose. You didn’t even budge an inch after more than an hour. After the park employees got tired of hearing complaints, they informed us you were getting aggressive. You REFUSED to move. Way to stand your ground. (Sidenote: could really NOBODY move you? I mean, who exactly tried to move you, anyway? Were they using a dog toy or something? I’m no Einstein, but couldn’t we have used a tranquilizer? Or at the very least, a moose leash? Emmie pointed out that if you really are that strong, shouldn’t you be part of our army? Wouldn’t America truly establish world domination if we invested in more moose?)

The next hour you were generous enough to help foster my creativity. I made multiple plans to make you move, which include but are not limited to:

·      Riding down the coaster and try to outrun you if you chased me

·      Bringing a bear from the nearest zoo and have you both fight for the right to be king of the Alpine coaster

·      Make the sacrifice myself and dress up as a bear, luring you away from the track. I only promised to do this if the next day’s headlines in the Park City paper would read, “Local girl becomes Moose Mousse”

Oh, but your kindness did not stop there. Not only did you foster my creativity, but you helped me manage my time. After waiting for an hour and a half, I realized I had better things to do, so I pulled out my phone and went to work on ordering my Halloween costume on  Amazon. There’s nothing like truly enjoying the outdoors by spending 30 minutes on your phone looking for the neatest Pokeball.

After two long hours, Emmie and I decided our stomachs were grumbling much too loud for acceptance from the public, so we left our spot in line and went to dinner. Just as we were exiting the restaurant, you finally moved. Excellent lesson in comedic timing. We were informed it would be another hour wait, so we made the executive decision to go home.  

I never got to ride the coaster that autumn afternoon. I never got to have chocolate mousse. However, we did come up with a way to take over the world, which of course includes an army of you and the rest of the moose the Alpine coaster has to offer. We also established Moose Awareness Day, to be celebrated next year by standing in a line for three hours and then going home. So, all in all, a successful day. For that, I thank you.

In the utmost sincerity,

Rachel