SHOUT OUT! to Visiting/Home Teachers

Mark and I haven't had Home/Visiting teachers very regularly in our first years of marriage, but boy, when we do they are spectacular!  The Visiting Teachers that I have had this year are totally amazing, and I just wanted to publicly announce that!  As you know my birthday was last week.  So when they came to visit me today, just before the "Home Teachers" arrived (I will explain the quotes in a minute), and they brought me some awesome goodies!  Heather brought me this super yummy Fruit Pizza,

and Kathy brought me a fruit basket full of yummy fruits, 

and her husband's book which talks about goals. 

I'm not just raving about the yummy food, which I always appreciate, but also the fact that they take time to get to know me, and both know that I have an abundance of goals that I want to accomplish, one of which is losing weight, and they are both very considerate and supportive of this. 

We also have wonderful home teachers right now, Elder and Sister Davis, who are a senior missionary couple serving here in the Winter Quarters area, so not your traditional Home Teachers.  We love chatting with them, and could spend hours without even realizing it.  Tonight they came by right after my Visiting Teachers, and they shared with us about what Elder Ellis taught them last week (he was here for our stake conference, and is a wonderful speaker).  He talked about discouragement, and that Elder Ellis said that there are 3 ideas to combat it:  1. With God nothing is impossible, 2. Someone has already done it, so I can too, 3. Mark and I can't remember the third one, but once we do, we will add it. 

It made me start thinking about my previous VT/HT, and it reminded me of the ones I had in Utah.  To be honest, I can't remember if they were visiting teacher or home teacher.  Not that they were transgender, but because they, Susan and hubby, came as a couple.  They were some of my favorites because they would stop by, drop off some chocolate, and remind us of General Conference, or whatever else was coming up. 

I remember, too, as a little girl seeing my mom's VTs come over, and wishing that I could have women come over just to visit with me, and I am glad that now I do!

So there you have it, I have a special place in my heart for Visiting and Home Teachers.  Next time you see yours, give them a big hug or handshake, whichever feels more comfortable to you, to show them how much you appreciate them!

If you would like to know more about what Visiting Teaching is, visit: http://lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,8776-1,00.html

If you would like to know more about what Home Teaching is, visit: http://lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,4657-1,00.html

Ouch!

This morning I accidentally woke up almost on time, I say accidentally because I didn't realize that I had my alarm clock set for the wrong time.  Just after waking up, though, while still half asleep, I realized that Mark was laying on my hair.  Instead of slowly pulling it out, or asking Mark to roll off of it, for some reason in my sleepiness I had a panic reaction and yanked my head.  The immediate consequence was an intense pain in my neck and shoulder.  I couldn't even turn my head.  I only found one way to hold my head that wouldn't bring me to tears.  I immediately thought, time to chop my hair off again.  When I woke up fully I just realized that I hadn't pulled my hair up into a pony tail, which I had started doing from the time we first got married and had my hair yanked the first time when it ended up wrapped around Mark's arm and he rolled over, taking my head with him.

Mark helped me downstairs, where he gave me a blessing, then called my doctor to find out what we should do.  Luckily on Friday I had found the card that my doctor had given me with his cell number for emergencies.  Mark left a message for him, put birch oil on my neck, and we waited.

Dr. Drummond finally called back a few hours later and said that I needed to ice my neck for 15 minutes, then take it off for 45, and continue doing this all day, then go in early tomorrow for him to check out my neck.

So far the ice has been helping, as well as the Birch oil that I have been putting on it.

Hopefully all will go well tomorrow, and the damage isn't too serious!

Birthday Fun! Great Start to My Next Year of Life!

Plans for today were pretty simple.  Go to my Yoga class in the morning, study for and take my tests for classes,

 This is what studying looks like at our house...

then go to Relief Society activity, go home.  Mark wanted to at least go somewhere for my b-day, although tomorrow is when we are REALLY going to celebrate!  So, we decided to quickly go to my favorite fast food restaurant, Culver's, home of the Butter Burger.  http://www.culvers.com/  Sounds gross, I know, but they are soooooo good!  No worries, we worked off the calories afterward, and they actually have less calories than a basic hamburger somewhere else.

My favorite thing at Culver's, though, is the scrumptious Pumpkin Pecan shakes that they have during the Autumn.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I absolutely LOVE pumpkin.  Pumpkin anything.  I could probably even eat a Pumpkin hamburger (Hmmm, I think I will have to try that!)

Any way, everything is going great, enjoying the burger and fries, and then the best part, the shake.  I took a few bites out of the tiny hole of the lid, and decided it was taking too long to get all that goodness in me, and I need to remove the lid.  I start prying the lid off, which at this point seems child-proofed so extremely difficult for me, and just as it comes off, the condensation on the outside of the cup gets the better of me and the WHOLE thing dumps into my lap (well, minus the first few bites)!

What do I do at this point?  I look at Mark and I say, "Yeah, I JUST did that!"

My next thought?  I'm still holding my spoon...can I just eat it right out of my lap?  I probably would have but there were a ton of people in the restaurant.  As a side note, after reporting the events to the women at Relief Society, many voted for eating it out of my lap.  Mark was kind enough to get me a bunch of napkins and then buy me a new one.  Nice, right?  I love special treatment for my Birthday!

Awesomeness!

So, off to Relief Society we go.  Mark went too so that he could watch kids while the women gabbed and such.  After Relief Society I was feeling a little sluggish and told Mark I wasn't feeling up to walking.  After stepping on the scale, though, I was suddenly in the mood for a walk.  And of course our dogs were very much in the mood for walking, as always.

So we are walking our normal 3 mile loop that we do down by the Missouri River, and we are realizing why the dogs love going at night.  Last night they were chasing toads around until the toads played dead and the pups would move on.  Occasionally a random rabbit would run by giving the dogs yet another thrill.  Tonight, they moved on to bigger and better things.

For a moment I couldn't understand why Roslyn was tugging so hard on her leash.  Then I realized that down the hill from us by the train tracks there is a Possum running along just down from Ros.  All for some good sport, I walk a little closer so Ros can get closer.  Apparently she got too close because the Possum turned around and starting hissing at her!  It was then that I realized that this thing was much bigger than Ros, and could easily tear her to shreds. 

Polly starts freaking out, but we eventually got them away.  All interest in the toads was lost, and they were on the lookout for more interest creatures the rest of the walk. 

Word of caution, if you are weak stomached, this next part may not sit well with you...

We are headed back towards the car, and about a mile away Mark stops.  He says "I need to go!"  So he starts to walk a little further, and says, I really need to go.  It was so bad he couldn't even hold onto Polly's leash anymore.  Realizing the danger of the situation, (being reminded of my own explosive business while on my mission that resolved itself right in the middle of a Guatemalan road, called Boo.  My companion laughed about it for a very long time, while I washed crap out of my garments!)

I asked Mark if he wants me to run get the 4runner.  He said that he is going to have to use the outhouse.  Outhouse = a horrible little portable John that has smelled as though it has never been changed, which happens to be right on our way to the car.  We have had many conversations about the outhouse, and I have even said that I would rather crap my pants than go in there.

Realizing at this point just how dire the situation was, I take off running the last mile to the car with the dogs.  I look back every now and then, and it looks as if Mark hasn't even moved.  I reach the 4runner, throw the dogs in their kennels, and take off toward Mark.  I get back to where he was, and I can't see him.  My first thought is that he has gone into the bushes, but I couldn't smell anything, and knew that couldn't be it.  So to the outhouse I go.  I pull up, and a chagrined looking Mark steps out.  Crisis averted, the outhouse saved Mark a pair of shorts (because they would have been thrown away, of course!)

What did I learn from this?  I learned that although things didn't go as planned, I am quite impressed at my own attitude.  At the end of the day, I still found all of this quite enjoyable, mostly hysterical, and easily manageable.  This next year is going to be a piece of cake, I mean, a bowl of salad!

It's my last year...

...in my 20's! And I am going to make it my best year! I feel very differently this birthday than I did last year. I think I had my midlife crisis way earlier than most people because last year's birthday I felt awful! THIS year, though, I feel great! I have so many goals and things that I want to do this next year, and I am so excited to do them!

To name a few, I want to be about half the person I am today, (while becoming a much better person) I want to work on being more frugal with money, I want to knit more and learn more knitting techniques (I still haven't finished my first hat, yikes!), I want to have our first baby, (this is a little less in my control but I am going to give it my all) I want to sell all of our business stuff, and last but not least, I want to go to Hawaii while my parents are still serving there (this ties into the frugalness thing). The ultimate thing that I want to do is a triathlon. For this blog, I will focus on only a few, as it is late, and I need to go to bed so that I can start enjoying my birthday bright and early!

First to tackle is that monkey on my back of losing weight, aka flatten the tire around my waist, clean out the junk in my trunk, whatever you want to call it.

I think I have a pretty good start on this one, though. Last week I reported that I needed to lose 100 lbs to get to where I want to be. Well, this week I have again met my goal, and I can report that I now only have 96 lbs to lose. Yea! This goal also ties in with the Hawaii goal, as I would be mortified to go to a beach in Hawaii looking like I do now. I would be worried that someone would mistake me for a beached whale!

 
On the frugality front, Mark and I have been trying to use our food storage for meals, and only purchase the absolute necessities like eggs.  We don't want to move all of it with us when we move to wherever we will be moving in June, and it also helps with the finances!  Not to mention eating at home also helps with deflating the previously mentioned tires!  We are trying to make do with less, which really just means LESS-ER since we weren't living on that much to begin with.  Every penny counts, though, right?

Mark and I also hope to have a baby in our home by the time I turn 30, either through adoption (which would be so amazing!) or through me getting pregnant and carrying it 9 months (which would be miraculous, and we would even be ok with only 8 months!).  So this is my little plug for Mark and I. 

If you know of anyone who is looking for a family for their baby (or babies), we would LOVE to adopt them! 

If that doesn't work out, I am currently having my back worked on, and hopefully getting that straightened out (literally) will help other areas of my body, so maybe I can carry a baby full term. 

Next, I know that this sounds weird, but I really want to do a triathlon, which will be a great test of my fitness. 

In January of this year, when I started working out again, I saw a poster in UNO's gym advertising a mini-triathlon here in Omaha to prepare for some of the real triathlons.  Mark and I decided then and there that we wanted to do it.  Unfortunately I really messed up my right knee and ankle and couldn't run anymore.  I am hoping that by Christmas Eve, which is one of my major goal markers, I will be able to start running again.  I would say I would enjoy doing a marathon, but after the first 5 miles or so, running just gets boring for me.  I will stick to running 5k's once I am able to run again.  I hope that the treatment that I am receiving for my back will help with my right leg as well as for my uterus! 

And there we go, my biggest goals for the next year.  I am hoping that my 20's will finish with a bang! 

Personal Triumph!

So, I don't like to talk about my weight loss because I feel I will jinx myself, and I don't like to talk about my weight gain because, well, that's just embarrassing.  But I had a personal triumph this week, and I feel I have to share it!

I'll start out by saying that Mark and I are one of those couples that has visible signs of our first six years of married life, except it isn't children.  My how we've both grown!  Since we just celebrated our sixth anniversary and we both feel very comfortable with each other no matter what we look like, {nervous laugh} and because Mark is finishing his last year of Grad school so we no longer have any reason to be slackers, we've decided that we are going to lose the past 6 years worth of baggage. (and boy there is a lot of junk in the trunk, if you know what I mean!)

My biggest challenge, though, is the barrier of 10's.  Let me explain.  So as to not give away what my real weight is (not that you can't SEE my massive amounts of goodness) I am going to use an extremely large number.  Say I weighed 455 lbs.  My challenge would be to get below 450.  Once I reached 449, I would drop the next 9 pounds like a piece of cake(which is, ironically, probably what put the weight there!).  Then it takes me FOREVER to get to 439, and once there I easily drop another 9 pounds or so, and the cycle continues.

Well, this week I got past another 0, and am now on a 9.  I have been weighing under the 0 for 3 days now, so it's safe to say it is real!  So there you have it, I triumphed once again!  So far this year I have lost 20 pounds.  Not huge compared to what will be lost over the next 9 months, but a respectable start.

My goal for now is to no longer be considered overweight by the CDC, which means another 80 lbs.   My ultimate goal is to be a size 6, which I have never ever been before, which means 100 lbs.  I hope to get there by the time Mark graduates, so then he will be motivated to take his newly super fit wife who looks something like this...

to a really awesome beach somewhere for a really great vacation!  

Any prayers in my weight loss behalf would be greatly appreciated, as well as offering me salads instead of cake!

My Faithful Companions

I want to dedicate this cheesy blog post to my best four-legged friends, Roslyn and Polly.  They have been such a great help for me in my sad times, ie miscarriages and such, and I am so grateful that I have them.  They love me, oh and Mark, unconditionally, and provide hours of entertainment, unintentionally, of course!  So here is what they do on a regular basis.

Oh, by the way, pictures of Roslyn, the little black dog which is NOT a Chihuahua, are really hard to come by.  She has a mortal fear of cameras!  Whenever she hears one she runs and hides.  For instance, a couple days ago I turned the camera on to take some pictures for our business.  She was in the dining room bathing in the sun, I was in the front room.  She definitely couldn't see me.  When I turn the camera on it makes a beep, and as soon as she heard that beep, I could hear her get up, and then run downstairs.  A while later I went to find her and she was in the basement, in the furthest corner away from the stairs that she could get into.  To point out just how frightened she is, she HATES to be cold, and the basement is freezing all the time.  Yet, she would rather brave the cold than to be near a LIVE camera!

Begging for treats

Hiding under the couch, once again, from the camera.

Just a little bit of daydreaming

Polly's favorite activity.

Before Ros' fear of cameras, she would sit in her bed on my desk while we studied.

 Weenie Roast!

The warmest spot Ros can find is behind Mark's back.  Don't ask how it started, I couldn't tell ya.

 Polly still thinks she can fit into Ros' bed.  Dreaming of smaller days!

Sleeping obviously doesn't work, so try sitting.

Polly is Mark's right hand, erm, dog.  She is very helpful when looking for something.  She is always there with a lick ready for your face when it gets anywhere near the ground.

Roslyn thought Mark needed a shower, so she took it upon herself to clean him up, head first.

 I think this is when the camera phobia began.

 Just chilaxin'!

She REALLY wanted to go outside.

For some reason the dogs just love laying on Mark!

 Polly working hard!

Friendly Neighbors

I came home from Yoga today to be greeted by this little guy.  He has been driving the dogs crazy for months!  He was right in front of our door when I walked up, and then he hopped away a little bit, and gave me this look like, "You're cramping my style, lady!"  Even the squirrels around here have attitude!

The Salt Lake Temple

This is one place we definitely miss about Utah. This is the place where we were sealed together for time and all eternity just six years ago from last Friday, September 10th.

We want to help Richard out with his experiment and post a picture of the beautiful Salt Lake Temple.  Since we've posted this picure, Google will rank it a little higher in importance.  So when someone googles the term "Mormon" this will show up closer to the top of the search results.  We would like to invite everyone to do the same.  To do this, just reference this picture by saving it as an image, or reference this link from lds.net (http://www.lds.net/forums/mormon.jpg).