Dinner and a Show

A month or two before Katie Jane was born, I was given an opportunity to write a weekly historic piece for the Deseret News. I was very excited about it and thought I could do both -- writing for the D-News and continuing my weekly restaurant piece for the Standard.

Alas, I could not. I was forced to choose. And, more money tipped the scales in favor of staying with the Standard gig.

As soon as Katie was born, the chaos in my life escalated beyond anything I had expected. Things got crazy, crazy, crazy and I knew I had made the right choice to keep writing for the newspaper I've been with for more than a decade. Switching to something new would have added stress that I could not have handled in that moment.

So, I've mostly been grateful for that decision. But, now that things are settling down just a little, regret has crept in. I would have loved the new challenge of writing for a Salt Lake newspaper, and I would have interviewed so many interesting people and learned so many new things while doing the historic piece. And, perhaps, the most bitter part of all was remembering that there was talk about getting to cover the Ogden city council meetings (again, something I could not have done for the past year-and-a-half) and I would love to have my finger on the pulse of Ogden and see the politics unfolding.

These regrets were just starting to creep in, but, then I decided to call my editor to see if I could write a few more stories than one per week and guess what she told me? Right before I called, there was a rearrangment of staff and she was trying to figure out where to assign the theater beat. So, now it looks like I get to cover restaurants and theatrical performances (not movies) and I'm really, really happy about that.