Wednesday, April 23, 2008

4.8 lbs.

After last weeks depression over gaining a pound after a week of hard work at the gym - today at my weigh in I had lost almost five pounds! I am back on the diet/gym bandwagon! Just in time to ruin it all on my vacation! Not really, I intend to TRY and make healthier choices when available, bot not deny myself those wild cherry m&ms! Can't wait.

I have had two incredibly hard days at the gym. Yesterday after doing a weight lifting class (lifting weights in time to music is supposed to be easier?) I called Alan and told him that I felt like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz (except for the if I only had a brain part) I was all jelly in my arms. Today we did a spinning class - a very intense spinning class. When it was time to get off of the bike - I didn't know if my legs were going to carry me out of there.

Tonight I am going to do a focus group. It pays $75 for one hour! I love that! More spending money for Tai Pan and Rod Works next week when I am in Utah for Women's Conference. This is the thing though, the focus group is tasting some new products that Dairy Queen is coming out with. I will feel so naughty eating that stuff! But not naughty enough to not go! Apparently my dedication is pretty cheap to come by! Would you mess up your diet and your gym work, potentially sabotaging an impressive weight loss for $75?

Monday, April 21, 2008

To Do List

Clean:
fridge (another soda exploded in there!)
den (also referred to as "the junks")
the entire upstairs portion of the house

Get:
new suitcase before going on vacation
daughter ready for field trip to California at the end of the week
tires rotated before husband strangles me

Buy:
Family Home Evening treats
A string for other daughter's viola
milk
blush (one that wont crack and break while traveling - any suggestions?)
shampoo / conditioner for kids

Make:
four food group dinners
prizes and tags to go with prizes for Women's Conference friends

Don't Forget:
scouts
weigh in
return library books
all four kids to dentist on Wednesday
1/2 day Wednesday for Jr. High kids
no school Friday for elementary
go on band field trip on Thursday
stake youth symphony on Friday and Saturday
tending niece Monday
shop, pack and get ready for Women's Conference!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I'm Back

To celebrate my computer being back to work - I changed the look of my blog. I don't know if I like it yet. I am a very plain Jane when it comes to things like this. I was okay with the Minima template I was working with but I have let my daughter influence me. I have a very talented niece (Ashley) and she has a very talented husband - they make movies, take pictures and now Ashley has been putting together new blog templates for people to download for free. My daughter convinced me to do it and I did.



Speaking of my daughters, two of them have started to blog. C actually has two blogs, one that she created for herself and then her good friend wanted to do one too so they created another one to do together. M also decided to make one. I am linking them here but I will not be responsible for what you read on their blogs. I'm just their Mom - that doesn't mean I have to be accountable for what they put out in cyberspace do I? I just got my computer back and now they are going to want to be on here posting to their blogs. This might be a bad idea.

And speaking of my computer being fixed. I was waiting for my super computer savvy brother to come over and do it for me, but he wasn't going to be able to come until Monday. Yesterday, my dearest husband thought he would give it a whirl. He opened one of the side panels of the tower and saw that it was covered in dust - he vacuumed it all out and used one of those compressed air cans to blow out what he couldn't vacuum. Then, it started working fine. I am so disgusted that the only thing that was keeping my computer from working was filth that got in there from my own house! But I am so glad he thought of that.

My dearest husband has been quite the renaissance man lately with his computer fixing and automobile mechanics. His day job is very much an office job with little to no manual labor or hand dirtying of any kind. A few weeks ago when our very trusted mechanic told us that our suburban was in need of about $1500 worth of repairs, Alan took matters in to his own hands. Our mechanic told him what to do and how to do it and he did it. He fixed everything for about $400 and one day off of work.

I wore my new dress to church today (25 lbs lost reward) and I kind of felt like a Sunday celebrity. I got so many compliments on my dress and hair that it started to have the opposite effect. I seriously started to wonder if I have looked bad all of my previous Sundays in this ward. I taught my lesson today as well. I was glad I was wearing my awesome shoes because I know people were looking at them under the table - I am hoping that some were distracted by their awesomeness and totally unaware that I was feeling inadequate up there teaching.

The lesson was on the Mission of John the Baptist. It was kind of a deep lesson involving the legal authority to establish the Kingdom of God and what the Kingdom of God actually is. It also taught about the Spirit of Elias and who has that spirit. I got it - I just don't know if I was able to teach it well. I was able to share my testimony of the blessings of the Aaronic priesthood. Something we don't really talk about much when we speak of the blessings of the priesthood. I'm glad I have an Aaronic priesthood holder in my home. Speaking of that - I love this post written by a Deacon.

I have so much to do this week to get ready to go to Women's conference. I want to continue going to the gym every day - that has been a real blessing for me. I am sad to report that after my first full week of working out like a dirty dog I gained one pound. Everyone has reassured me that it is normal as muscle weighs more than fat etc... I was a little put out by it - but not too worried. I can already feel the effects of this gym thing. I feel great - even when my muscles are sore and I feel like my heart is going to pound right out of my chest - I feel great.

I have missed you my blogging friends - it is good to be back.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Very Random Blogging

I have really hated being without a computer. Today, I got so desperate for information that I went to the local public library to use their free Internet to check my e-mails and read a few blogs. I also had to do one of my church callings (building scheduling) and make sure that my Old Navy order had shipped!

The library is a wonderful place - I go a lot. Until today, however, I had never used their computers or internet or whatever. It was pretty easy to figure out - you get one hour. There were some Elders there checking their e-mails. I searched for an unused computer and sat down. I wasn't long in to my work when someone came and sat at the computer next to mine. I sneaked a peek out of the corner of my eye and it was a transvestite! I don't know why I was so surprised, obviously everyone needs the internet. I just don't think I had ever seen one in the library before. Not that there is a reason they should not be in the library, it was just surprising for some reason.

I think I mentioned that I have been going to the gym. I went 5 days last week and I went again today even though my body was begging me to stay in bed. Wednesday of last week I had a very weird experience. I met with the personal trainer, he weighed and measured me and then we set up a plan that is going to help me lose weight faster and get this fat, old body in better shape. I felt so good about it. Then, when I went out to my car - I cried my eyes out. I could not stop the tears from pouring out of my face. Tears were pooling in the bottom of my sunglasses and I wasn't even really sure why. I was happy that I was committing to doing something, I was sad that I had let my body get into such bad shape - I just had no control of my emotions. So I did what any drunk with emotion woman does, I called my friend Pam and told her how much I love her and thanked her for going to the gym with me. Is that weird?

Last night our stake had an incredible fireside. I cried a lot. Go here and watch the video and look at the pictures and read all about it. The filmmaker who did the documentary is in our stake and all of the people involved came and spoke of their experiences putting this exhibit together.

Two weeks until BYU Women's Conference! I can't wait. I need to buy some new clothes. Whenever I go on vacation I have the need to buy new clothes - that might be weird too. I know a lot of my blogging friends (well, women that I mostly stalk) will be there and I really I hope I see you. I will know who you are because of all of the cute pictures on your blogs and you will not have a clue who I am - but I will probably say hi anyway.

I will leave you with the awesome blonde joke I heard today:

A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please come over here and help me, I have a jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started.Her boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?"The blonde says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle.She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger."He takes her hand and says, "Second, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then....." he sighed, ...let's put all these Frosted Flakes back in the box."

My Copy Kelly Post

My friend, Kelly B, posted a meme about books. More specifically, a list of 99 "must read" books. Each person is to highlight the ones that they have read - Kelly is a super smarty and she said that she got an F on the list. I got 56 of the 99, that has to be a G minus. There aren't a lot of paperback romances on here... What is that scripture? ... out of the best books... Let me know which ones you think are the best books. Give the list a try and leave me a link to your post if you try it.

Bold the ones you’ve read- Italicize the ones you want to read- Leave unaltered the ones that you aren’t interested in or haven’t heard of.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) (I've read all of the sappy "sequels" as well, my Mom loves that stuff)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (JRR Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (JK Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling) (or Sorcerer's Stone in the US)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)(not really a sci-fi fan but my brother, Lonny, read this book 12 times in the bathroom - not in one sitting- and I finally had to find out what it was about)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) (I think you had to be a reader in 1988 for this one)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible (on my mission)
46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (JK Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
68. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)(I read it in English AND in French!)
69. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)(English and French as well)
70. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
71. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
72. Shogun (James Clavell)
73. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
74. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
75. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
76. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
77. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
78. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
79. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
80. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
81. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
82. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
83. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
84. Emma (Jane Austen)
85. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
86. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
87. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
88. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
89. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)(one of my all time favorites)
90. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
91. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
92. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
93. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
94. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
95. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
96. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
97. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
98. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
99. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sad, Sad, Sad News

My computer finally gave up the ghost and with $1500 in Suburban repairs this week - I don't know when I will get a new one. So in the mean time I have very limited access to my husband's laptop. What will I do with all of my new found time? Don't know.

I started going to the gym! You can read all about it here at Pam's. She was very nice to not mention how much that class today kicked my trash!

I watched conference over the weekend. It was great - you can read (or listen) all about it here.

I also watched Sense and Sensibility on PBS. I read a review from someone else here. I don't really know this person, I hope she won't be offended by my link.

And if you want to hear about real live pirates - check out Nic's post. I followed those links on her blog to the article about pirates - I hope I won't be travelling on any international cargo ships anytime soon.

I hope to be back soon. I'm sure my posts will automatically improve with a newer, improved computer!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Bad, Bad, Bad News

For my diet.


They are here. I have seen them. I have purchased them in large quantity although I have only opened one small package. They are tastier than I even imagined.


I have GREAT love for chocolate and cherry together. I am going to try and refrain until the end of the month when I go to Women's Conference for a few days and I am taking a vacation from my diet. I'm going to need some encouraging words, prayers, maybe some kind of box with a lock to give me strength to not eat them until then. Did I mention how delicious they are?

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Book Tag

I just got an e-mail with the cutest meme. It is only one question. So instead of answering the e-mail and forwarding it to all of my friends and having them send it back and then forward it to all of their friends... I am doing it here on my blog.

The e-mail read:

Open the nearest book (or book you are currently reading), turn to page 123 and copy the 5th complete sentence.

So here it goes:

"She was skeptical, because she knew the tricks the mind coud play - at the same time, her mind was - in every sense - where she was to spend the evening, and she had to be at ease with herself." - ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan

Now leave me a comment with yours!

I mean it! Go do it! Grab a book!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Of Mice and April's Fool

Last night something pretty gross happened. Let me start by saying that I got sick at church on Sunday. I had felt nauseous during Sacrament Meeting and then I threw up (in the bathroom) during the RS/Priesthood hour. I continued to barf all Sunday night and most of Monday morning. I felt better in the afternoon and decided to run to the grocery store.

About a month ago we went out riding motorcycles in the desert and got pretty muddy. I have an old pair of tennies that usually wear for such occasions and on this occasion they were so muddy I dropped them on the back porch. Saturday, Alan cleaned our windows and he threw those old tennies into the dining room floor where they remained until yesterday. Saturday night I kept asking who the stinky kid was - there was some serious stink going on.

So yesterday, before I leave to go to the grocery store, I ask one of the kids to take those tennies that have been in the dining room for two days up to my closet. I got home and they were sitting on the stairs - I reminded that child to take them all of the way up to my closet. Devon told me to smell them, I refused, he said I had to smell them because they smelled like a mixture of dog poop and sauerkraut. I reminded him that I have been sick to my stomach for two days and the last thing I need is to smell something gross. He gets all of his sisters to smell them. They all gross out. Then he decides to look inside the offensive shoe and he finds a dead mouse. A dead mouse that had been in my house for the last two days. I'm so glad he did not obey and throw those shoes in my closet - I can't imagine how gross that could have turned out.

The thing is, it wouldn't be the first time I had stuck my foot in a shoe with a dead mouse in it. When I was growing up we had to go and get our irrigation. I know this will sound funny to you non-native Arizonans but certain areas of our valley still rely on the extensive canal system first installed by early Mormon farmers to water their lawns. Usually in the back of your property you have a large valve that opens up to the city irrigation system and you are assigned a time to open and close your valve. You can only open and close during your allotted time or else your neighbors will not get their water. During the hottest months of the summer your irrigation time comes anywhere between 11pm and 4am. So you wake up and open the valve and then an hour later you wade through the water to close the valve.

Shortly after Alan and I were married - my parents asked to stay over at their house on their irrigation night because they were going to be out of town. I volunteered to wake up and do the irrigation because I had done it before and was familiar with the process. Alan, being from the Salt Lake Valley, thought it was weird. My mom kept a pair of rubber shoes (kind of like crocs now) by the back gate for doing the deed. So I woke up, walked out into the night with a flash light and slipped on those shoes to get the irrigation. Something was in the toe but it felt like balled up socks. In my mind I figured that one of my brothers had gotten the irrigation the last time, gotten the socks wet and stuck them down in the toe of the shoe. An hour later when I went to wade through the water to turn the valve off, I remembered to take the yucky socks out first. It was a dead mouse - I pointed my flash light and screamed - it went in the water. I was so freaked out that it was going to float by me that I ran the whole way there and back, shining my flashlight in a sweeping motion across the water, never mind that I had already walked the back acre and back with it right on my bare toes!! I still get so grossed out when I think about it.

So, the two day nausea led to me being able to pull of a pretty sweet practical joke. I told my husband I was pregnant. He fell for it, the kids too. And then the kids told my car pool friend who is in my ward and knew that I was throwing up. She fell for it too and called to see if she could bring me some ice cream and pickles.

For some pretty great April Fool's stories -check these out:
Dead Fairy for sale on E-bay
Taco Bell Corp. buys the Liberty Bell
Trick your husband into thinking you have accidentally removed all computer software
Read a whole bunch more here!

Happy April Fool's day everyone! I'm off to Saran Wrap the kid's toilet!