Quandary

Well, no Christmas decorating pictures to show off yet... we did get the lights up on the eaves of the house, but I still have more stuff to put up near the front door before it's finished, so I haven't taken any pictures yet. We got all the boxes down for the inside decorations and the tree, but I was too tired last night to start it as planned. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time. We have a desk now in the area I used to put the tree, so I'm already trying to figure out how to rearrange the family room furniture to accommodate the tree.

We did get a family photo for the Christmas card taken last weekend. (Thanks to Lynette and her awesome camera and soft focus filter .... love that!) It looks totally professional.... I'm super excited to put it up on my wall. The family photo we are currently displaying is like 2.5 years old or something... Brayden was a baby when we took it. We've attempted family photos since, but because of said "baby", they were never worthy to be posted on the wall.

I'm working on updating my addresses for the Christmas card mail out. I'm not into writing the "traditional" newsletter. I don't think very many people care about my kids grades or their after school activities. I like to put some of our funniest quotes or comments or stories over the last year in my newsletter. Here's the quandary... now that I've been blogging for almost a year and a half, I'm going to have a hard time coming up with good "material" that hasn't already been seen by anyone reading the blog. What do you think... should I hope for some really great material in the next two weeks to work with, or use some of the same stuff from the archives? Does it even matter? Am I worrying about something that nobody cares about anyway? Do I even need to write a Christmas letter? Cuz seriously, I've thought about having our blog address printed on the card when it's made and call it good. I could really save a tree or two by discontinuing the "Christmas letter" mail out tradition (which would really impress all my "green" friends and family).

What do you think??? Speak now or forever hold your peace....

I'm Back...

...in blogland... I hope! I really have missed my "bloggy" friends... especially those who I've never met in real life... or those who are faraway family... or those who are long lost friends from high school or past places we've lived..... or my friends who live in the next neighborhood over and I get more juice about their lives online than I do at church each Sunday....

I really have been having blog withdrawls... I miss reading your blogs and I miss spewing out all my weird antics, activities and opinions online. I hope to be back in blogland more often now.

I'm excited to get down all my Christmas decorations and torture my husband with my "outdoor light demands". I'll never get exactly what I want in the outdoor light department, but I think Eric has finally realized the more effort he puts out, the happier I am about it. The first year we lived here, Eric didn't have time to put up lights... he was taking double credits for his MBA courses and so I had to settle for lights in the windows, which just wasn't the same. There is something about christmas lights that just makes me feel happy. I'll blame that on my maternal grandma... I think it's probably her fault I have a Christmas light addiction. If all goes well in the decorating department, I'll post pictures tomorrow....

Turkey Day Tales

At 7:30 a.m. we arrived in Mesa for the 39th annual Turkey Trot. The kids all ran a 2 mile fun run and Eric and I did the 10K.

Trying to keep the little guy warm.... it rained heavily all night!

Megan with Halle and Marin...

Ian was hoping to let Brayden push him, but he did really well on his run! Taylor lining up at the start... he finished well... too bad the 2 mile run wasn't competitive!The 10k didn't go as well for Eric and I as we'd both hoped. Eric wanted to finish in 40 minutes, but it wasn't meant to be. He finished around the 45 minute mark. I was running slower than I wanted to, but feeling good until the 3.5 mile mark... my darn knees... the ITB pain flared up in my left knee and I was really stupid and kept running for another mile. Yep, not such a brilliant idea... now I'm paying for it. My knee is very sore and climbing up and down our stairs is absolutely brutal!

This afternoon we are getting ready to take the kids out for a movie... we are going to go see this:

And then we are going to have dinner here... that's right... no cooking for me! Yay!

A Heavy Heart

On Monday, our friend lost his battle with Leukemia. Last Thursday evening, we found out the doctors could no longer treat him or fight his illness. They just had to wait for him to pass on and keep him as comfortable as they could. It was a difficult weekend for those of us that know this family. He's a really sweet kid and he's only 14. It breaks my heart to think of the sorrow his family is feeling.

I wanted to share a couple lessons I have learned so far from this experience:

Bad things happen to good people. There is no "fairness" in all of this. Our purpose in life is to be tested for greater things and we don't always understand why bad things can happen to such good people. The bottom line is that no one is invincible to sorrow or tradegy.

I can do all things when supported with the power of the Priesthood. On Thursday last week we got the news of David's condition. By Friday I was falling apart emotionally. How would I be able to be helpful to the family if I couldn't keep it together myself? Eric gave me a blessing on Friday and that has made all the difference in the world. I've been able to feel peace and move forward with providing service to this family in their time of need. I've been able to work with the bishopric in planning the funeral service and luncheon afterwards and hold it together. I've been able to give comfort to the family and to others who are having a hard time coping with such a tragedy.

You never know when your time on earth will be over. It can happen over the course of a long and difficult illness or it can happen in an instant. I want to try to remember to make each moment count. I've noticed over the last week, I've been less short with my family. Even though I've been put under enormous stress, that would normally induce crankiness, it hasn't really come through like you would expect. I've learned from this experience that we have to cherish each moment we have with the people we love.

When no one else can understand our sorrow, God can. I've been trying to figure what to say that might give them comfort. I've never lost anyone this close and I don't think anyone out there can understand the pain of losing a child until it has happened to you. I'm not even going to try to pretend I understand the pain they are suffering. A friend of mine said something really profound yesterday... when no one else can understand, God can. He did send his son to earth to die for the rest of us. He could have stopped it and saved his son, but he didn't because he loves all of us. He knows how it feels to watch a child die.


And here we are the day before Thanksgiving, and I find myself with many emotions. I'm grateful for my family and for my beautiful children and for our good health. I'm grateful for my husband and for his compassion and his generosity. Over the last few days, I have been tethered to the phone and have spent a lot time away from home dealing with all this and he has never once complained. He has even cooked meals and washed dishes without being asked to just to make my life a little bit easier. He's been emotionally strong for our family and been incredibly supportive with all the difficult tasks I've been asked to do. My kids have been incredibly understanding too. More often than not, they turn to talk to me, and I have to hold up one finger and silently tell them "hold on" because I'm on the phone and can't be interrupted. I'm hoping to finish all the arrangements today so that there will be time to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family. I want to be able to cuddle on the couch with my kids and watch a movie with them. I want to be able to play RockBand with them and laugh with them and more than anything else, I want them to know how much I love them. That's my goal this weekend... to make sure my kids know that.

Trying to Be a Teenager Again

Last night a bunch of girlfriends and I went to the midnight showing of Twilight. We had NO IDEA the magnitude of this event. We decided to meet at a restaurant next to the theater at 8:00 p.m., have a late dinner and then scope out the line situation after we were done eating. As we pulled into the mall complex where the theater is, I gasped... there was a line of people snaked down the sidewalk to the very end of the movie theater building (at 8:00 p.m.!!!)

So, we decided to regroup and get in line immediately. A couple gals in our party had already had dinner, so they headed for the end of the line and the rest of us quickly grabbed some food in the mall's food court and carried it back to our spot in the line. I had a delicious stuffed baked potato and a huge diet coke while sitting on the sidewalk with some of my best friends! Here's a photo of the line in front of us....and this is the line behind us.......turns out our theater sold enough tickets to fill 8 auditoriums!!!! Crazy, huh??? Lucky for us, we were able to get into an auditorium and wait in comfy seats for the last 2 hours before the movie, which was nice to have unlimited access to the restrooms while I waited for above mentioned diet coke to filter through the bladder!

I've promised not to say a word about the movie itself for a few more days... I'll try to be good and keep that promise! But, if you want to see it, do it soon so we can all talk about it together!

"James Bond is Recession Proof"

James Bond movies are good for my marriage. We always get a quality date night out of watching a 007 movie. Eric gets to watch an action packed blockbuster and I get to watch a handsome James Bond in action. Everybody wins! We saw Quantum of Solace on Saturday afternoon. Warning - if you have not seen Casino Royale, don't go see this movie until you do. For the first time that I can remember, the two plots are connected. I haven't seen Casino Royale in a long time and I regretted not watching it again before we went. I found myself trying to remember who everyone was and how they were connected before.

I grew up watching 007. I don't remember too much about the Sean Connery days, but I've faithfully followed 4 James Bonds in my time. Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and now Daniel Craig. My parents owned a Laser Disc machine way back when I was a teenager. This was the predecessor to CD's and eventually DVD's. It was a record size CD that contained a movie on it... but the format was so large, that you had to "flip" the disc halfway through the movie and finish it on the reverse side. Here's a fun picture from wikipedia:

(Side Note: when I run into old friends from the growing up days, and we talk about the things we used to do as kids, they almost always mention the fact that my parents had that cool movie player!) Okay... back to Bond....

Here's the Roger Moore I remember... he was considered "hot" in the 80's right?

Timothy Dalton only did 2 Bond Films, but I liked them. I thought he did a good job, but Eric says he was the wimpiest Bond of the bunch. Probably true....

Then we had Pierce Brosnan who already had a reputation for Hotness growing up in my household.... (my mom was a faithful watcher of Remington Steele!) Can't remember how many Bond movies he did.... four... five??? (I could look it up, but I'm too lazy!) My favorite was Die Another Day.

Then, they decided to give Brosnan the shaft and bring in Daniel Craig. Good Call. At the time, I was skeptical, especially with his blond hair, but by the end of Casino Royal, I was converted! Eric loves Daniel Craig as Bond. (He thinks Brosnan is getting to old and is too soft.) A direct quote from Eric as we left the theater... "Daniel Craig is totally ripped!" I can't argue with that, can I? (I picked the above photo just so I could verify Eric's assessment!)

So, ladies, don't miss out on a great movie just because you think it's just for guys... James Bond is for you too! And I went to see this movie on opening weekend without even seeing a trailer or knowing anything about it.... that' s how much we like James Bond around here!

Treadmill or Street?

I have a question for all you runners out there... which do you prefer... running on the street or on a treadmill?

For the first time in about 4 years, I'm back into running. For the first time EVER last week, I went jogging with my dad and we logged almost 5 miles together in the neighborhood down the road. Yesterday I went to the treadmill with the hope to run 4 miles, and it seemed harder than my 5 mile run on the street. Is this normal?

I'm trying to train for a 10K on Thanksgiving Day. I want to finish in an hour. That means I have to run a 10 minute mile pace. I can't do that on the treadmill and keep it up for long, but on the street I can. Since treadmill running seems to take more out of me, I figure if I continue to train on the treadmill, then the actual race on the street will feel a bit easier... do you think this will work?

Input people... that's what I need... and I know a LOT Of you run out there... any last minute training tips? I've never in my life run over 3 miles before, so this is virgin territory for me!

Design ReMix

Have you ever seen this show on HGTV? I don't have time to watch it much, but I've seen it once or twice over the last year or so... I love when they don't spend much money and they remake a room using things you already have in your house. Sometimes, it's just about fresh paint and rearranging the furniture that will transform a room.

I love to rearrange furniture. Nothing motivates me to really deep clean my house more than a good rearrange of the furniture. I guess I just get tired of looking at the same old arrangement. Friday I wanted to clean my "scrapbooking" desk off so I could start working on my Maui trip Friday night while Eric and Taylor were on a campout. While I was cleaning out the drawers and piles of junk stacked on the floor all around my desk, I stumbled across some fabric I'd bought at Walmart a year ago for $2 a yard. It's a cute fall colored gingham check and I bought 5 yards of it thinking that someday I'd find a use for it.

Well, in just a few minutes time, I'd changed directions completely. I finished cleaning out my desk and then went digging for more fabric left over from other projects that would match my check fabric. I found some leftovers from curtains I made in my Dublin house and started planning. For a long time, I've been wanting to make valances for the 3 windows in my loft and redo the fabric coverings on the two desks up there. I had just enough check and extra fabric to pull this off! I started cutting and sewing Friday afternoon and kept at it long into the night. By midnight, I was so tired I was making stupid sewing mistakes, so I decided to quit and go to bed. Saturday I got up and kept working and late last night (midnight again) I finished. I just need to mount the valances over the windows. I moved my desk so it no longer faces the wall and brought up our old DVD racks from the game room downstairs for extra storage. I'm really happy with how it looks and now my desk faces the computer screen, so I can pop in a DVD and watch a movie while I work!

This is the computer desk "before" picture... half the fabric covering was gone and the desk was a disaster.

Computer desk "after" shot... much better!I didn't think to take a before shot of my desk, but it was positioned against the wall in the background under the photos and had different fabric covering the drawers... everything about it was falling apart! And the piles of "stuff" everywhere had gotten out of control!View of the loft when you first come up the stairsHere's one of the 3 valances I made... obviously it will look much better over a window! Total cost for this project $20.04. I needed a 1x4, "L" brackets and screws. Can't wait to hang them up tomorrow.Now if I could just dress up the sewing table in my bedroom.... sigh....
I must put in a good word for my serger. If you do any kind of sewing, I highly recommend one of these! It's so awesome to run down a seam in lightning speed and have the seam sewn, finished and cut. You just can't beat the efficiency, especially when you are working with fabrics that frey heavily. And I only really know how to do one thing with it... imagine the possibilities when I can learn more than one technique!

Perspective

Since I got my new church calling almost 2 months ago, I've had a hard time managing my time well. It's starting to get better and I think I'm starting to get the hang of my new "life" as the RS Pres. (Like the extended 3 hour block that includes time in the clerks office after church and a meeting in the Bishop's office that extends church to the "5 hour" block for me!) But, during the last two months, lots of things that aren't super important have been moved to the back burner. Blogging is one of those things. (It will be too embarassing to list the other things that have also been put on the back burner, so I won't!) I still want to blog every day and I still have lots on my mind and plenty of things I want to say, but I can't seem to find uninterupted time to do it with... Sometimes, my new found perspective stops me from blogging. When I want to gripe about my technical problems with my cell phone or computer or digital camera, I've stopped myself, because it seems so ridiculous to me now to complain about something so trivial.

Yesterday, I travelled to Phoenix Children's Hospital with a friend to visit a family in our ward. Their 14 year old son is fighting Leukemia. He was diagnosed less than a year ago and let's just say that his chances of beating this thing are less than 50%. It's not looking good at all. The first time I called the mom to introduce myself and check in with her, I held it together while we were on the phone for 15 minutes or so, but then I got off the phone and cried for 15 minutes or so. I absolutely can't imagine the trial she is enduring right now. I also have a 14 year old son, and I think it would KILL me to watch him suffer with an illness like this. Situations like this have given me so much perspective. So many reasons to be grateful for the hundreds of blessings I have that I never take time to appreciate. I'm really grateful for this very real lesson on Gratitude right before Thanksgiving. I needed it more than I'd like to admit!

Here's a list of things I'm grateful for today:
*my children's good health
*my testimony of my Savior's love for each of us
*my husband and his love and support
*our beautiful home
*two working cars and lower gas costs!
*health insurance (even though I don't like my current plan options... at least we have it!)
*inspirational music
*the power of creativity
*a good work ethic
*cool days and COLD nights! :)

Kind of an odd list, but it's more for me than it is for you! So, if you are like me and you've let your attitude be soured by all the political crap, poor economy and the overall doom and gloom all around us, take some time and make a list of things you are grateful for.... you'll be surprised how quickly it grows out of control and makes you feel better!

The Golden Ticket

The ULTIMATE Girls Night Out....


I can't WAIT!!!

Lightning Bolts Strike Again

Ian has started playing soccer - here are some great pictures of him taken by my dad with his digital rebel... only two more years until I'm going to have one! (I'm purposely waiting until Brayden is in kindergarten, so I will be able to have the time and free hands to lug one around!) All these pictures were taken from a cozy camp chair on the sidelines... aren't they amazing?

I'm still undecided on this league. We LOVE our coach and the other families on our team... but I've seen some coaching nightmares on the teams we compete against. This week's team??? So bad that I'm going to email the league and complain about the coaching and parents. It was appalling and embarrasing! Why can't the grown ups just let the kids relax and have fun?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turn 35... boy that sounds old, even to me! I remember when I looked forward to being 30... can't really explain why... now that 35 is here, not so excited... oh well!

I have just one request for my birthday - leave me a comment! It can be about anything in the world... but I'm just looking forward to meeting some of my blog lurkers out there! I promise not to bite... and I'm not going to talk politics either!

So, come on... I DARE YOU....

no, I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU...

wait, I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU...

I hope it won't be as painful as sticking your tongue to a frozen light pole....

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Today you turn 14! In honor of your 14 years, here are 14 of my favorite pictures of you....

Thanks for being such a great guy! We LOVE you!

Desert Grande Triathlon

Saturday morning was clear and cool and most importantly calm (no wind) ... we headed down to Casa Grande for their annual Desert Grande Triathlon/Duathlon. Here is my bike with my friend, Hillary's bike... we were in the minority as far as bikes go... most people had super streamlined road bikes... maybe next year....

Hillary and I just before we lined up to start... I did the Triathlon, she did the Duathlon (torture in my opinion... running, then biking, then running AGAIN!) I'd much rather swim!

The first leg... swimming... my favorite part! As prepared as I thought I was, the swim was much harder than I anticipated! Swim time: 9:33. ( I thought I could do it in 8:30, but I've been swimming in a 25 yard pool and this was a 50 meter pool, so my estimations were a bit off I guess....) I was really trying to save my legs during the swim, so I gave it everything I had with my arms and shoulders... the end result of that was that I could barely pull myself out of the water at the end. I was shocked at how hard it was to get out of the pool!

No pictures of me on the bike, which is just as well, because this was my weakest link. I didn't have biking clothing on, didn't have a road bike and didn't even have toe clips for my shoes! Oh well, I still had fun, although I was wishing I had my ipod or someone to talk to... 10 miles riding solo gets boring and tedious after about 15 minutes. (I missed you on this stretch, Maureen! Remember how fun the bike was when we did the Pleasanton Tri all those many moons ago?!?)
I didn't pass one person on the biking portion of my race... which can be disheartening, but thankfully I was prepared for that reality. I blame it on my fat tire handicap.... My bike time 54:25 (this includes the transition from swim and dropping off the bike to start the run).

The bike to run transition is BRUTAL! I had practiced it, but it still didn't prepare me for the real thing! I used Eric's garmin GPS watch to keep track of my milage and pace and it was an absolute LIFESAVER because I could easily tell how much father I would have to go before I got to the end... here I am just crossing the finish.... I was sooooo dang happy to see that finish sign, I can't even tell you! My run time was 29:45! Based on my treadmill training, I thought my best possible run time would be about 33 minutes, so I was dang happy about this one!

My overall time was 93:43!!! I was estimating 105 minutes, so I was very happy to come in twelve minutes under the expectation! Many thanks to Eric for getting up on the crack of dawn on Saturday to drive me down and cheer for me and take pictures and to Hillary for sticking around long enough to cheer for me when I crossed the finish line! I wish I could have done the same for her, but she finished before me!

I've come to a very interesting conclusion about myself... I have to be motivated by something to workout. When I don't have a "reason" to go to the gym, I can find all kinds of reasons to talk myself out of it. When I sign up for a race, then believe me, I'm motivated to get my butt to the gym and get prepared. (I have the same issue with cleaning my house... I often invite people over because it is about the only motivator to get myself to get it clean!)

Now I'm going to attempt something I've never tried... Eric and I are going to sign up for a 10K run on Thanksgiving morning in Mesa... I've never been able to run much past 3 miles, so this will be quite the adventure for me. Only 3 and 1/2 weeks to really ramp up my running, but I think for the first time in my life, I can actually do this! And, I've finally got Eric excited about trying out the Triathlon circuit... he was really wishing he had signed up with me on Saturday morning!