(Sometimes I crack myself up. Dearest Internet, bless you for accepting stupid little comments like that.)

One of the ways I’ve decided to carry on and keep things sane and focused during these times is to start running every morning. And eating super well. I’m having second thoughts about Curling and I think I need to put it on hold; it might be a little too overwhelming for me right now. You know me and my crrrrazy out-of-left-field ideas; sometimes they don’t exactly come to fruition. But this new health kick will take its place. Running, eating well, and feeling good.

If you walk up to the top of Linda Vista Lane there’s a trailhead that leads to a path through the hills overlooking Sandy. It loops around for about four miles or so and then spits you back out in the same place. Perfect distance for a run. And, goodness, it is absolutely beautiful through there. On a good clear day like today you can almost see the Lake out there in the distance. Makes you realize there’s so much more to the world than just our little suburban neighborhood.

People are just so gosh darn friendly on that trail, too. Really, almost everyone I ran by said “good morning.” It really changes how you go about the rest of your day when you’ve gotten so much positive energy first thing in the morning. It put me in such a pleasant mood! It will be a great place to take the kids once in a while.

So today is day one of my new physical self, and already it’s been helpful. Would you believe that for the past couple hours I haven’t given any thought at all to the hole my family has dug itself into? Or to VSN. (By the way, Beverly is honoring a “vacation” for me while I sort things out, but I’ll still have to confront her about things… eventually… ugh.) Out on that path, practically in the middle of nowhere, there’s only one thing on my mind: one foot in front of the other. Everything else gets put on hold, gets stored somewhere in the corner of my mind. And now that I’m back home sitting in my kitchen, maybe some of those “what happens now?” thoughts are creeping back into my head, but I just exercised and I’m eating the healthiest breakfast EVER, so I feel great.

As soon as I got home I made myself some special yogurt. It’s DEEEElish. And healthy, of course. Feel free to give it a try. Very easy to make.

Yogurt by Margene

1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1 cup berries (your choice, I use blueberries and cut-up strawberries)
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1 tbsp ground Salba or flax seed
Dash of cinnamon
Agave syrup to taste

First spoon the yogurt into a bowl and mix in the Salba seed, cinnamon, and Agave. Put the berries and almonds on top and presto! OR: put it all in a blender, add a little orange juice, and enjoy a tasty morning smoothie.

People always associate the word “healthy” with boring or bland, but let me tell you, that is NOT true! My breakfast is perfectly healthy in so many ways. For instance, the yogurt has lots of protein. The berries have plenty of antioxidants, and they will help replenish the carbs lost during my run. The almonds have good monosaturated fats that help prevent heart disease. Salba has fiber, more antioxidants, and lots of Omega-3s. And then cinnamon helps with cholesterol and blood sugar, believe it or not. There! Everything you need to jumpstart your day. And look at all I’ve learned, people! Aren’t you proud? I’m slowly getting a better feel for healthy living by reading online or even asking around at the grocery store. There’s so many yummy healthy options out there; you just need to know what to eat, when to eat it, and where to find it.

Okay. I need a shower. Bad.

And about that hole I mentioned earlier: We’ll dig ourselves out. We’ll get by. I know we will.

I do not want my boys to be worried in any way. Not during this crucial growing period for them. They’re too young. That moment with Lester made me realize that I need to find a way to start filling in all this new negative energy in the house with more positive things. Like, how about… every night from now on I’m going to read to them. Maybe they’ll take a liking to “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” like I did when I was their age! I think that same copy Mom read to me is sitting in Nell’s room. On top of that, we’ll have movie nights! Every once in a while, as a family. And maybe I’ll find a good TV show for us to start following. Or there’s plenty of easy hiking trails around here. Anything to just get them away from the real world, which happens to be just a little harsh right now.

It’s really nice having Benny over here too. I think they see him as a father figure when Bill isn’t around; I’m not sure how I feel about that, but as long as the kids are happy, so am I. They really do love Ben.

Barb mentioned at our last meeting that it would be a good idea for us – the wives – to take on a new hobby. To focus us a little bit more and keep us grounded during these times. So, that started me thinking: what could I do, aside from finding more fun activities for the kids, to help center myself? How should I challenge myself? What new undertaking could I master, outside of work or home? First things first: it would have to be something physical. It just feels so good for me to get my worries and aggressions out through exercise, like when I took up aerobics when Mom died. There’s something about working up a good sweat that helps with coping; it’s a very cleansing feeling. Also, I’d want this new hobby to be really really out there, something completely unrelated to life right now so that I can just pull the plug and disconnect from the world. You know, just totally get in the zone. This new hobby should be something that no one would EVER expect out of Margene Heffman.

Then it dawned on me: Curling!

It’s perfect! I hear there’s a league in Sandy that’s getting some teams together for this season. Practices and matches are held both at the high school rink and on a nearby pond once the weather is right, and whichever team wins the league goes on to the state championship in Ogden. You know what $tate champion$hip means? Ha! This is NOT to say that I’d do it solely with the hopes of getting a cash prize, – it seems like a really fun opportunity to explore something new – but it’s always fun to get a little bonus on the side. You know me ;-) And guess what? I think I just might have it in me to be the next Curling State Champion. H, maybe even WORLD Champion! I could be the next Curling Champion of the World!

So! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Curling, it’s my favorite Olympic sport. And it’s pretty popular here in Utah. It’s a game played on ice involving two teams of four players. You slide these big stone clunkers from one side of the ice to a target on the other, and points are awarded to the team that gets the most stones nearest to the target. Not only is it physically exerting, it’s a mental challenge as well. It’ll be a great way to shift my energy and mind away from what’s going on at home and work, if only for a few hours a week. It’s an all-girls league, too, so it’ll be a good way to connect and make new friends.

I’m fully prepared to confront Bill about the cost of my new endeavor, and it really wouldn’t be all that expensive. Just a $150 entrance fee will cover me for the entire season. Then the league provides stones for each game, the rink time, and my very own jersey! All I’d need to provide for myself is a good pair of sneakers to play, no skates or anything for this game. Doesn’t this sound like a good plan?
What other ideas do you have for my new hobby? Or for activities with the kids? I’m still young and relatively new to the mother thing (Lester turned 5 this year), so any help I would appreciate bunches. Thanks, Internet! Until next time…


All of you regular readers know our secret. Well, I mean, it’s no longer a secret now that Bill won the election and outed us. (I’m still trying to get used to the fact that Bill actually won, and that we’re all just…out there. In the open.) But anyway, some of you have known about us all along, and those of you who are maybe reading my blog for the first time probably came here to find out more about why.  Why we did what we did. What was Bill thinking? Why did we expose ourselves? I’m at the point where I really don’t feel comfortable answering those questions, and hopefully you all understand. If you want to know more I think you’re just going to have to wait a while until we’ve had some time to figure ourselves out. And until I figure myself out. Just bear with me for a bit, guys, so that I can get my head straight.

I always put on such a bright face to cover up what’s underneath and, believe me, there’s a lot under there that nobody’s seen…ever. Not even Bill. Or my mother. I’m naïve and I always act on my instincts. When I married Bill, when I came into this whole thing, it was my instinct… I loved Bill. Love Bill. I acted out of love. But, just, maybe at first, when I took his hand, I wasn’t completely ready. Ready for polygamy.

I don’t know if it adds anything to this post to know that I’m in tears right now, haha. But I can barely control it.

Maybe it wasn’t Heavenly Father’s plan for Bill to be state senator. Maybe Bill was destined to take Roman’s place at the compound. Maybe there’s no such thing as destiny. I don’t know. I’m not sure Bill knows. I do believe, though, that in the end, no matter how many emotions and rough patches we’ve encountered along the way, Heavenly Father knew our family was ready and up for the task of exposing ourselves – of bringing ourselves into the spotlight – for some greater good. I’m just still grappling to find out why.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m changing… growing. We’re all growing. The past couple months have been a wild ride, and gosh do I mean WILD. And through it all I’ve learned a bunch about myself and about our family. The night of the election, there were definitely still a lot of bruised feelings between all of us that were never addressed or fixed. There’s a lot of tension between Bill and Barb, and me and Ben still, and who knows what’s going to happen to Ana and Goran. All that ugly stuff still exists and we’ll need to resolve it all under this whole new guise of being public polygamists.

It’s almost bewildering to me that I grew to the point where I was comfortable stepping onto the stage on election night. With my business, with all my friends who just assumed I was regular old LDS, going out on that stage with Bill and Nicki and Barb really changed things. And I’m not sure how, yet, but I do know that everything will be completely different from now on. When it happened, when I was in the moment, I knew that it was the right thing to do. It was my instinct. We had gone so far, how could we turn back? …But now what?

Now that we’re out, it doesn’t feel like I thought it would. Instead of pride and comfort I feel guilt and humiliation. I’m being pulled in so many different directions but as long as I have my family to fall back on I know I’ll be alright in the end. We will grow together through it all.

I remember my mom reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to me as a little girl, and I remember it well. One day the caterpillar eats an entire apple. The next day he eats two green pears, and the day after that he eats three purple plums. His body grows and grows as he eats more each day, and then, once he’s grown too much for his body to contain him any longer, he turns into a butterfly. I think our family is right on the brink of making a very similar transformation. We just need to do a little bit more growing before we can turn into something beautiful. After all, the caterpillar was always beautiful on the inside; it just took a while for him to prove to the world just how beautiful he really was.



And it makes me wanna...pounce. I hate that I'm all defensive but it makes me wanna act like a little girl and point fingers and say, "well you did this," and "you're doing that," and "and you're not listening to anyone."

That's a bad impulse. And I'm gonna try my best to avoid going there. I kind of lost my cool as Barb's "coping can" was filling up, but I don't really regret it, really. I really do want to understand her frustrations (not just about Goren, but in general) because I want to be on that level with her. But it's impossible when she doesn't make any effort – that lasts – to see where I'm coming from. I'm not the problem starter. There is nothing I'm more certain of right now. I don't see how I was a part of getting us in a lot of the messes we're in, but, somehow, it seems like I'm the go-to culprit when it comes time to throw your hands up and say, "this is all your fault!" It's garbage. It's like, it has to be my fault because it's impossible for it to be anyone else's. That stinks really bad for me.

SURE! OK! YES! My Goren idea is a bit extreme. I completely realize that. But, given everything else we're going through, really...it seems like it's right in line. And it does help everyone win. Why is that such a crazy thing to want? We can't let Ana and the baby just leave. Seriously, I think everyone would agree with that if they didn't automatically hate my idea because I'm the one that came up with it. (That is something to think about, though, right? Not to be on my high horse, but I'm the one going out on a limb here. My fanny's on the line. But...no one seems to think about it that way. Ever. OK, enough boo-hooing about that little specific.) It's not about not moving ahead with the family. It's about making sure the family can move ahead at all. How am I wearing the black hat in all of this? (Lots of questions to no one, I know. Sorry about that. I gotta vent these days. Just have to.)

I think I feel (how's that for deep!) that I get a lot of this stuff trickling down on me because I wasn’t always the me that I am now. I know I talked about this a lot last time, and I don't necessarily think anyone does it on purpose...but I can see them looking at Margene-from-five-years-ago sometimes.1 And what I've contributed over those years or how we've fused together doesn't get appreciated when the sharp knives come out of the drawer. I mean, not to sound like the youngest kid who's just complaining all the time, but what have I done to create ANY of these problems? I started a business. But that was all sunshine and daisy chains until I started saying it was important to me. Then it became a problem. Doesn't...quite...seem...right.

I guess I gotta get out of this defensive mode (seriously) and just know what I'm doing is the right thing to do...even if it raises some eyebrows. If I'm the only one that sees the tidal wave coming, so be it. I really think I can be the one that gets us to higher ground. I don't know if, once we get there, we'll just be arguing about the same things. I'd like to think that at that point, someone will say, "hey, we got up here because Margie took some big time actions," but let's not get ahead of ourselves. That's asking a lot.

Until then, if I can look myself in the mirror and KNOW that I'm doing this all for the right reasons – family security – than I can weather the storm. Goodness knows, though...it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

1About me and Bill, especially. I know Barb has the right to be upset about what we did before we were married, but the fact that we got married, are still married, and will be married forever should count for something. Not everything. But something. Her feelings can be hurt, and I know she deserves an apology, but I don't think she should side-eye me for forever more.

I'm going through a lot of weird feelings that seem like they are at odds with each other...which is a pretty big bum out. If I may just jump right in...

At this point in our relationship, I feel more connected to my family than I ever have in the past. I can honestly say that's true. I feel the bonds that have developed are thicker, wider, and stronger than ever. I am thankful for feeling this way. Years ago, that's exactly what I wanted. I would say, when things were tough or I was just upset about something, "just give it some time. Everyone's still working on coming together. Eventually, you'll all work as one and it will be great." That might sound stupid - "work as one" - and to some extent, I did have that wrong. Four people can never be one. But they can be four parts, each able to understand how the other three work/think/feel. I guess, I always hoped knowing how the partners in my marriage thought would help me understand why they make the decisions they do. I have to say, it's not the case. Or, at least, I'm not at that point in my own marriage just yet...

Because now...with a stronger sense of connection than ever before, I'm still, at this particular moment, very confused about a lot of Bill's line of reasoning and about why Barb and Nicki refuse to discuss why we might be heading for very choppy waters as this campaign continues.  Before, at the very beginning, I would worry that I was just a dangling extension of this family...that I went where it went and asking why wasn't part of the deal just yet. But more recently, I really thought - and would have said I know - that's not the case anymore. I think I know it's not the case anymore. I think Bill knows it's not the case. And I thought Nicki and Barb know it's not. My role has solidified over the years. (Right?) It has and I have to be thankful for that, too. But as I write this, I feel like I'm being looked at again as the string tied to the three balloons, like I used to feel...not one of the balloons, like I know I am.
Do I know it? Or do I just want to think I do?

It bothers me to wonder what it would be like if Barb was saying, "NO, NO, NO," and me and Nicki were moving in lock step with Bill on something. I feel like the train would slow down. I feel like it would warrant a discussion, not just a dressing down. I feel like no one would say with their eyes, "you're either with us or against us...and it kinda seems like you're against us." I tried to have discussions with everyone. I don't want everything to be side deals or "this for that" arrangements. I promise. I want to be in agreement on such a major decision. I want feeling connected to them to bring about some different results, though. I'm tired of feeling like disagreeing means disappointing. I'm tired of being more invested, but feeling less invited...even though, I'm told, this is all supposed to bring us into the light. Together. Together. Together.

Pretty, much...well, I'm just really tired, I guess.