Subverting the food system

About a year ago I met an awesome couple through meetup.com, one of whom is a fellow type 1, the other of whom works for Wasatch Community Gardens. In discussing some of his work educating youth about gardening, he talked about his success with youth by approaching gardening as a subversive activity. To a lot of city kids, and to a lot of adults as well, food is a thing that costs money and comes from stores, in boxes and cans. So the idea of food being something that comes out of the ground, for the price of weeding and watering and a little time, it's almost magical. And also a way to screw the corporations who take food and partially digest it with machines and add colors and chemicals.

I really like that idea, and it's been one of the many reasons I've particularly enjoyed the last few weeks as I've planted my first tiny plot in a local community garden. (It's a stake garden, a local church endeavor, not part of the Wasatch Community Gardens.) Gardening has been something I've always felt I ought to do, but as a renter and apartment dweller, wasn't quite sure how to get started. So I feel very lucky to have a little space now, as well as a few expert gardeners who share the space and can answer my questions.

I've also been thinking about other ways that I subvert the system. A few I've been engaging in recently: soaking and cooking beans, rather than using the canned ones from the store, and baking bread (with whole wheat I grind myself!). No, I don't grow my own beans to soak, or my own wheat to grind, but it's something. Also, the local farmer's market is starting this week.

Being subversive turns out to be more motivation than saving money or being healthy. I think I'll try subversion as motivation in other areas of life... And let you know how it goes.

Things I wish people understood about Type 1 diabetes.

{I wrote this a few years ago as a "note" on facebook, back when facebook notes were a thing.They're kind of not anymore. A thing, that is. Anyway, I recently re-read it and thought it was good and worth the copy and paste to make sure it doesn't disappear.}

1. Type 1 is not type 2.  They’re not even on the same planet.  Type 2 is closer to having hypertension.  Type 1 is closer to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.  When you first find out someone is type 1 diabetic, don’t tell them stories about your best friend’s aunt who is 63 and overweight and has type 2.  Not even close.  Not relevant.  And kind of insulting.
2. Type 1 is like an eating disorder.  Most type 1s are constantly fighting with themselves about food.  “If I eat this cake, what will it do to my sugar?  Will it go through the roof like last time I had three bites of cake?  Will that push up my A1c and bring me yet closer to scary life-threatening complications?  But everyone else is eating it… it looks so good…  just one bite.” Every day, several times a day, non-stop.   ALL.THE. TIME.  It sounds a bit like the typical (or slightly disordered) American female on a diet.  It’s worse.  In fact, I might say that most women with type 1 have several layers of eating disorder they are dealing with. 
3. Losing weight is really complicated for type 1s.  Or it’s really easy.  If you want to lose weight the smart healthy way, you’re messing with your metabolism, which messes with your insulin therapy system, which doesn’t like to be messed with.  Losing weight can be really easy if you simply don’t take insulin for a while.  That will result in chronically high blood sugar, which makes you drop weight really fast.  And, as an American female with “skinny” held up in front of me constantly as a physical, spiritual, social ideal, that’s really tempting.
4. Type 1s feel guilty, A LOT.  When we see a too-high number, we feel guilty.  It was because I screwed up.  It was because I didn’t pay enough attention.  It was because I ate the wrong thing.  My fault.  I failed.    (When the real truth is: mortality failed.  My DNA failed and my fricking antibodies attacked my frickin pancreas and now it doesn’t work, and it’s frickin NOT MY FAULT.)  And if we happen to see a doctor who’s an ass, he may just exacerbate this guilt.  He may feel the need to scare us into better control, by telling us how bad it is for our health that we had this high, or that low.  It’s possible that’s necessary for some type 1s.  But for most of us, we’re dealing with so much guilt about our food and our numbers that, for instance, to have someone look over our shoulder while we’re testing and say, “Oh, wow, that’s really high!” makes us want to either wither up and die that instant or punch you in the face.  Don’t do that.  Also, don’t ask a diabetic what his/her numbers are like.  It’s like asking a girl how much she weighs.  Don’t be an ass.
5. Type 1s are fighting a constant battle.  Every single hour of every single day, with no break.  Ever.  Sometimes, it’s ok.  Sometimes it’s exhausting.  Sometimes it messes with your mood.  Sometimes it messes with your life, your schedule, your commitments in ways that affect how other people perceive and interact with you.  Don’t try to give a type 1 advice about how to manage their disease or how to live their life.  Unless you are also Type 1 or have a CLOSE family member who is, you don’t get it.  You can’t possibly get it.  Even if you studied it in med school, you can’t understand without living with it.  I promise you: we are doing our best to stay sane and alive.  DO offer your support and listening ear.   

Apfel Kuchen

{credit for this recipe goes to my high school friend Regina McConaghy.  I'm pretty sure she made it for some German class potluck or other.  Incidentally (this according to Facebook; we haven't really kept in touch) Regina's scholarly pursuits include both German and Women's Studies, so it seems particularly appropriate to share this recipe with my feminist friends... }

1/2 cup butter
1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1/2 cup flaked coconut
2 cans (20oz) pie sliced apples  OR
    2 1/2 cups sliced apples
2 egg yolks
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 350.  Cut butter into dry cake mix until crumbly.  Mix in coconut and pat mixture into ungreased 9x13 pan, building up edges slightly.  Bake ten minutes.

Arrange apple slices on warm crust.  Blend sour cream and egg yolks and drizzle over apples.  (Topping will not completely cover apples.)  Bake 20-25 minutes, until edges are light brown.  Mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over baked apfel kuchen.  12-15 servings.  

Kale Salad

Because my kale salad is too good not to share with the world.  I've been perfecting this recipe for about a year now, and I now declare it perfect.

But here's the thing: I am basically incapable of following recipes.  I constantly modify them, and measuring things always seems ridiculously tedious, so I never do.  This recipe will reflect my attitude toward recipes generally, so good luck.

1. Buy a bunch of kale, and chop up about half of it.    You'll want to tear off the green of the kale from the stalk, because, although the stalk would be very good for you with all that fiber and all, it'd be a bit tough, I think.  Take bunches of the greens and chop them finely in at least two directions.  The finer you chop, the easier it is to eat.

2.  To the chopped kale greens add about a half an apple and two stalks of green onion, chopped very finely.

3.  The dressing: this is the best part.  You have to get some nutritional yeast.  It's kind of a pricey health food store item, but it's worth it.  I use it lots of homemade dressings.  It gives them a richness and depth that some compare to cheese.  Yeah, maybe.  Whatever--it's yummy.  But first, add 1/4 cup each of EVOO and lemon juice to a bowl, and mix well.  Add two heaping tablespoons nutritional yeast, a heaping teaspoon curry powder, salt and pepper.  Add sugar to taste (of course you don't have to add sugar, but you don't have to add much for it to make a big difference).

4. Dump the dressing into the salad and mix well.

5.  Eat it all.  Because it's so healthy!

My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe

Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

barely adapted from Anna Olson, Food Network Canada

Ingredients:

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. all purpose flour

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

3. Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.

4. Using a standard-sized cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough onto a prepared baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. (The tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than ten minutes.)

5. Let cool, on the sheet, on a wire rack for five minutes. Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely. Makes approximately 3 dozen. Try not to eat them all.

"I'm a better mom because of my education and my career."

This week's interview is with Stephanie Reynolds, a member of my ward in Springville. (Our husbands are both named Mike and they both serve in the Elder's Quorum Presidency!) Stephanie graduated with a BS in Biochemistry in 2002, and an MS in Developmental Cell Biology in 2006. Her research has been published in Developmental Biology and Developmental Dynamics. Stephanie has taught biology at Utah Valley University since 2006. Stephanie tells the story of balancing raising her three kids with her education and career as a biology professor.

I chose to go to BYU when I was only 13 or 14 years old. My sister and I had a really hard up-bringing. Our parents had a lot of issues. My mom has severe anxiety and depression, and my Dad took himself out of our lives when I was 13 years old with the decisions he made. I wanted to go somewhere where I I would be surrounded by really good people, where I would get the best education possible, and where the gospel was taught. So I only applied to BYU.

I didn’t have a fantastic overall GPA because of my situation in high school. One year I didn’t go to school very much at all--I missed 97 days of school. So I had to really succeed and excel my junior and senior years. Well, I got in to BYU, and of course I was ecstatic. I came up to Provo in 1996.

I actually met my husband only six days after I moved up here. He was a friend with my cousin, and they came over to our house to give us blessings before the school year started. After introductions, my cousin gave my sister a blessing. Then he said, “Hey do you mind if Mike gives you a blessing, Stephanie?” I thought, “I don’t know him! I’ve never even met him!” So I was kind of hesitant, but I agreed. Of course it was a beautiful blessing. He had the spirit, and Heavenly Father spoke through him. Maybe only two months after that, I knew I was going to marry him.

I had our oldest child, Hannah, in 1999 while I was still in school. But I knew I wasn’t going to quit. Becoming a mom was the single most important thing to me in my life. I knew for sure that I wanted to be a mom and raise children, and because of my own difficult up-bringing, I wanted to raise them right, in the gospel, with a sure, strong foundation. But I also knew my education was important. My patriarchal blessing talks a lot about a gift I have, of intelligence. It says I should get a good education in order to be prepared for the trials that come in life. I remembered thinking that means I have to be prepared in case I have to sustain the family. When I had Hannah, I never thought for a second that I wouldn’t get a bachelor’s degree.

I chose to major in biochemistry. I grew up loving biology, but really loving chemistry. I thought chemistry was going to be my thing. When my sister chose biochemistry, I thought that was a good combination. It wasn’t an epiphany, it was just… “My sister’s doing it—it sounds good—I’m gonna do it!” It turned out to be a difficult major and I wanted to quit several times. It helped that my sister and I took classes together. We relied on each other a lot. We started working together in the physiology and developmental biology lab with Michael Stark, focusing on developmental cell biology and molecular biology. We even graduated together in August 2002.

My sister immediately applied to the master’s program in physiology and developmental biology, but initially I was happy with a bachelor’s. I was proud of the accomplishment and the work that had gone into it, and I wanted to have more kids. But I realized that it would be really hard being a mom and working in a research job. Most of the available research jobs were full-time positions in Salt Lake, so I’d have to commute. And I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let anyone else raise my kids. I wanted to be the primary caregiver, I wanted to hear their first words. I eventually realized that if I did a master’s degree, I could work part time. I could go to school, take some classes, usually two or three per semester, and do research. But most importantly, Dr. Stark was a family man. At that point he had five children, and he was fine having kids come into the lab. I could also work as a research assistant and teaching assistant. I could be there for my kids, and I could also do something with my career. And of course Heavenly Father opened doors. For the first time students were able to apply for winter enrollment that year. So I applied Winter 2003, and I got in! I was ecstatic.

I got pregnant again just as I started the master’s program and Noah was born the following August. Once I had Noah, he came with me. My sister had had a child in June, and another graduate student had a child in August. So there were three girls in the lab with babies. We all brought strollers and just lined them up! They would hang out and sleep, and we would do our research. On the floor where we worked there was a mother’s area for breast-feeding and changing diapers. It was such an incredible, family-friendly place, and I was so happy to be there.

The focus of my master’s degree was developmental cell biology and my thesis was on the role of Fgfr4. Fgfr4 is a protein on the cell surface. The cell surface has a plasma membrane that encloses it and protects it. There are proteins on the cell surface that help regulate passage of things in and out. FGFR4 regulates a single transduction pathway that induces a response in the cell. Basically it tells the cell to activate certain proteins or molecules. This regulates the expression of DNA. Single transduction pathways are extremely important during development. They ensure that the right genes are turned on so that the right proteins are made and development occurs correctly. My research was on the pathway that resulted in enervating the face—sensory neuro-development.

However, research doesn’t work 90% of the time, and it’s not all that fun sometimes. I was having a lot of trouble getting my experiments to work. You write a prospectus when you start your graduate degree about what you want to accomplish, and I wasn’t accomplishing any of my prospectus. It was really frustrating.

But not only was I doing my own research, I was also a teaching assistant for three different professors. One professor let me take over the class. I facilitated a week-long research opportunity for the students in the professor’s lab. They picked a specific topic they could do in a week, a simple experiment, and they applied the scientific method. I was doing research with the students and acting in a teaching role--guiding them, and giving feedback and suggestions. I realized, maybe this is what I’m supposed to do. I’m a people person, I love to talk and I’m very outgoing. Being stuck in a lab doing research that didn’t work most of the time got me down a lot.

I finally got my experiments to work, and as graduation got closer, I applied to teach at UVU. My sister had transferred into a PhD program, and I was encouraged to get a PhD as well, but I thought I was supposed to teach—to take what I know and my experience, and teach, and have that be my calling, my career. UVU offered me a job teaching some labs, and I loved it!

I scheduled my thesis defense for February 27^th, just a few weeks before my third child was due. I’d had several meetings with Dr. Stark to prepare for my defense, and I was ready. He had told me the previous weekend, “Stephanie. DON’T have the baby!” Of course, she came early. My defense was scheduled for Monday--Saturday, she came. So we had to reschedule my defense for a few weeks later. My husband came and brought her in the same stroller I used when Noah was born!

I was already teaching at UVU at this point. My husband and I moved our schedules around. Even though he’s gone a lot in his job as a cop, he is flexible. I would go to class at certain times, so that, no matter what, our kids never went to daycare.

As the kids got older and our schedules became more flexible, I took on a few more classes at UVU. Now I teach four or five classes each semester and I’m usually gone about 15-16 hours a week. I try to schedule my classes for when my kids are in school. This is the first semester that I’ve used someone other than family to watch my kids, and that’s because my sister moved. My next door neighbor (who is sort of like family anyway) started watching my youngest. Prior to this it’s been only family.

I reached my goal!--I succeeded in having a strong foundation for my kids, with good parents who are faithful and strong and loving, love the gospel and love the Savior. They are good kids. They are happy, normal kids. They love the gospel. I did it! I wanted to make sure my kids were taken care of by their mom. I was there for them.

I think I’m a better mom because of my career and my education. I’m stronger. I love to learn, I love to grow, and I’m constantly doing that. Science is always changing, and I have to know about the advances as a teacher. I can’t not be aware of new discoveries. I’m constantly reading and learning. And I think my kids see that example.

BYU Family Friendly Jobs Discussion Panel

This week I attended the Family Friendly Panel Discussion, an event put on by Women’s Studies in honor of Women’s History Month. Actually, I almost didn’t go because it was my first morning free in a long time! But—I’m so glad I did. It was wonderful to hear from three professors, three different, faithful examples of balancing raising children and developing a career. It was refreshing to hear that such a balance has been not only possible for these professors, but incredibly rewarding.

E. Jeffrey Hill , PhD in Family Life and Human Development, also received degrees in Interpersonal Communications and Organizational Behavior from BYU. He has worked in Human Resources and employee research for IBM. His numerous publications include research in work-place flexibility and work-life harmony. His most recent book, Handbook of Families and Work: Interdisciplinary Perspectives was published in 2009.

“I study finding harmony between work and family life. The truth be known, you often study those things you are having most difficulty with yourself. My wife and I are blending a family of twelve children. Both of our first spouses passed away. In my first life I was an IBM employee who wanted to be involved in the home, but the way the workplace was set up, I was gone from 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night, which didn’t give a lot of opportunity to be with children while they were awake and alert during the week.

“I was in technical support at the time, and at one point I chose to take paternity leave. I stayed home for 6 months and got to see what was happening at home. This was when we had only 6 children [smiles], and I realized there was a lot going on there that I wanted to be a part of! I had been missing out all this time. I proposed to IBM that I become one of their first telecommuters. I worked from my home office in Logan UT when that was strictly against the rules. The rules did not account for that. One of my managers said, ‘You can’t tell anybody that you’re doing this.’ My company was in New York and my office was in Logan. They put a New York telephone in my office in Logan, so people could dial the same number and get to me, and they would THINK I was in New York.

“One experience was quite comical. I was recording my voice mail greeting in my home office downstairs. Across the hall my wife was folding the laundry, and my 6-yr-old daughter had showered and couldn’t find any clothes to wear, so she came downstairs in a towel to find some clothes. When my wife saw her, she said in a loud, giggly voice, ‘Look at you, you have no clothes on!’ Several people commented on my voicemail greeting, ‘This is Dr. Jeff Hill with IBM global workforce diversity. Look at you, you have no clothes on!’

“I research the influence of flexible work arrangements, particularly flexibility in when you do your work, and flexibility in where you do your work. In one study we created a break point. The break point was number of hours worked a week at which half of the people had difficulty with their work and family harmony. Without any flexibility, the break point is 52 hours a week: An average person at IBM can work 52 hours a week before hitting that point, if they don’t have flexibility. With flexibility about when and where they do their work, they could work 60 hours a week before hitting that break point.

“The findings for mothers at IBM with pre-school age children were very interesting. Their break point is something like 17 hours per week without flexibility. But with flexibility, it’s approaching 35 hours per week. So the flexibility makes a big difference. We had a big emphasis on flexibility with IBM, and I’m proud to report that now, 55% of mothers of preschool children work primarily from home. We’ve documented that they do a better job there, they are more productive, and they are more likely to stay with the organizations.

“Another study tested the following hypothesis: the best arrangement for families in the US is to have both parents working no more than 60 hours a week combined. I tested this with IBM and compared 3 situations: 1) those that have a traditional environment (generally a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home mother), 2) a dual career arrangement, where both partners are working full time, and finally 3) the families whose combined hours were no more than 60 hours a week. The results were very clear, that the worst environment for families was dual career, where both partners are working full time, and long hours. The next best was the traditional arrangements where one parent worked and the other stayed home full time. But the best arrangement for families was the model where both partners were employed but shared no more than 60 hours a week.

Laura C. Bridgewater is the chair of the department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology. She received her PhD from George Washington University. She researches arthritic pain and joint stiffness, as well as the genetics of bone cartilage and joint tissue. Her work has been published in prominent journals such as BMC Cell Biology and Matrix Biology.

Towards the end of my freshman year here at BYU, I had to pick a major. I was down on paper as an English major, but I knew that wasn’t the right one for me, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I heard a talk one day about gene therapy. I was inspired by the idea that we could cut and paste genes and use them to treat diseases. I sat there thinking, “that is so cool!” After the lecture I asked the professor what I would need to major in to do that someday. He said that microbiology was the closest thing we had at BYU. I changed my major that day, and I’ve been doing that ever since!

Obviously there wasn’t a lot of thought that went into my quick change of major. I used to feel kind of embarrassed about that. How do you make a decision like that without thinking about it? But lately I’ve been thinking it was probably a good thing that I found something that was fascinating to me. I think it’s a good idea to find something you really love, and then figure out how to make it work with your priorities. For me, and I hope for all of you, my priority was my family.

I wasn’t even married when I picked the major, but with a year left of college, I did get married. I realized that I was going to have to go to grad school if I was going to do anything with my major. Our plan was that I would do a masters degree, then we’d have kids, and maybe someday I would get a PhD. After my undergraduate degree, I applied to a bunch of master’s programs, including George Washington University. Soon I got a phone call from GWU saying they wanted to give me a fellowship that paid double what other graduate students got, was very prestigious, but it was only for PhD students. They wanted to know why I didn’t apply for the PhD program, and would I like to?

First of all, I didn’t know I could! I thought I had to get a masters degree first. It turns out that’s not the case in the sciences. But we had to think about it, because the plan was to start having kids pretty quick, and a PhD is generally about 5 years. We thought about it, prayed about it, and eventually decided we would try both and see how it went. If it didn’t work then I would just stop school. I wouldn’t be any further behind if I started and stopped than if I never started.

So I decided to do it, and to make a long story short, it just kept working. I ended up defending my dissertation three days before I gave birth to twins.

To sum it up, I would say things change. Every 6 months there was a new way that things worked. I can’t say “here’s how you do it!”, because there isn’t one way, and it’s going to be different for every woman who has kids and a career. It’s going to be different for different kids that you have. I think the key is to keep asking, “Is this still ok? Is this the right thing for me to be doing now?” Just because it was right two years ago doesn’t mean it will be right now. And if it is, then the way is going to open.

Being a professor is a great job for a mom. There’s so much flexibility. If I have to teach a class, then I have to stand in front of a classroom, but that’s a very small part of what I do. So much of what I do is research, and now administration, because I’m the department chair, and that is super flexible. I’ve spent so much time sitting in my car, outside my daughter’s ballet studio, reading papers, writing papers and grant proposals and things. There’s a lot of flexibility.

Jenny Hale Pulsipher received her PhD in American History from Brandeis University in 1999. Her research focuses on Native Americans and Europeans in early America. Her first book, “Subject unto the Same King”: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in the spring of 2005. She is currently working on a short biography of John Wompas, a seventeenth-century Nipmuck Indian mariner who tried to find a place in both native and English worlds.

I was an English major at BYU. Like Dr. Bridgewater, I got married a year before I graduated from BYU and my husband and I started our family pretty early. I did well as an undergrad, so I had various professors encouraging me to go on and get a PHD, and at that time I thought that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to start my family, and so I graduated, my husband graduated a year later, and in the year while I was waiting for him to graduate I started a master’s program here at BYU. We also started a family. By the end of that year I had my first child and my husband decided to go to medical school. I had not yet completed my masters, but we went off to Stanford where he did 4 years of medical school.

During that time I had another baby, so I had two young children, and was still trying to finish my master’s thesis distantly. That was probably the first time we had a crisis. I had delayed getting that master’s thesis done, and the deadline was coming up--I needed to finish it. I had been working at it, but it’s pretty intense work writing a master’s thesis. I was also trying to juggle the needs of two young children, and my husband was doing a 70 hour week. I felt like the child care was all falling on my shoulders. At one point my husband was doing a rotation and I basically said “I’ve got to have some uninterrupted timed to finish this thesis.” I had looked around a little to see if I could hire a baby sitter to come help me, but I had this probably irrational, but deeply -held thought: I needed him to do it. I needed my husband to take that time, and show me that the work I was doing was just as important as the work he was doing.

And he did! He went to his advisors in the medical school and said, ‘I have to take a two-week break from this rotation. It’s really important for my marriage.’ He took two weeks off, and I finished my thesis, and got done.

“Later, while my husband did a 3-year residency the Penn State Children’s Hospital, I started to think about what I wanted to do with my life, when my kids were older. I had an experience working as the young women’s president in my ward. I worked with the stake YW’s president, who was an empty nester, and a very intelligent woman. She had tried to get a job, to do something meaningful and contribute to her community. All of the potential employers told her she didn’t have enough experience. “You can do some volunteer work if you want,” they said. She was deeply frustrated by this. I saw that and it was kind of a wake-up call to me. I thought, I don’t want that to happen to me when I hit that point in my life when I have more time.

“So I started thinking about it, and my husband and I did a lot of talking about it and praying about it, and we came to the conclusion that as he was applying to his post-doc, I would apply to a PhD program. We aimed all of our efforts at Boston, since it had the widest range of possibilities. He did his post-doc at Harvard, and I applied to several programs in Boston and ended getting a full support and fellowship at Brandeis. It was a great place to go, really congenial, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Dr. Pulsipher described the development of her husband’s career in pediatric bone marrow transplant, alongside her own developing career as a history professor. She talked about sacrifices each made for the other, and for the family. When Dr. Pulsipher was offered a job at BYU, they prayed and felt they should take it, even though her husband would have to give up a research grant in his area of specialty to start a private practice in Utah as a general pediatrician. But eventually, the way opened for him to continue his work in bone marrow transplant at the University of Utah.

“So the doors opened. There were times when we really didn’t know that they would. We were committed to the family being the most important thing, and we were also very interested in nurturing our careers, which we both really loved. A lot of the time it felt like we were flying by the seat of our pants and just kind of waiting for doors to open, but then they opened. It has worked for us. It required faith and flexibility, and it can still be hard. My husband still works 80 hour weeks. I had four years where I worked half time, or I even loaded it all up in the fall and took the winter off. [My department] allowed me to be really flexible. I continue to juggle responsibilities. This morning I dropped off my 16- year-old at school and he asked, ‘Why are you going to BYU today?’ I said, ‘Well I have to be on this work-family balance panel.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I get this, you have to leave your family in Salt Lake so you can go be on a family panel….’ [laughs] It’s always a juggle, but it works for us.”