what a world, what a world

Today has been a mixed kind of day. Lots of good things, but a couple of things that just... grrrrr. We'll start with the grrrr's, then going into the perks.

Grrrrr-- K didn't have school so I had a bored child on my hands. Said bored child had a sleep over last night, so stayed up way too late and was cranky as. Even though I took her and her friend out to lunch and to the mall she remained cranky to the point where she full out yelled at me. This isn't the first time, but I got real quiet and close and told her that the next time she yelled at me there would be serious consequences. (This story continues as a perk...)

Grrrr-- So my boss and K had a thing tonight, so I had dinner/football duty for B. Not a big deal. I spent quite a bit of time getting dinner ready to go in the oven the minute we walked in the door. I made those chicken puff crescents, you know, the ones with the cream cheese-- yum, right? Wrong. B refused to even eat one! I was so frustrated, but too tired to force the issue.

Grrrr-- I got home from football, made dinner, and my bosses informed me that they had been invited to the neighbor's house for beers, so I had to put the kids to bed. That means I've been working pretty much since 6am... yuck.

This is about how I feel today:

source (Ok, I love pinterest, so sue me)

Ok, so since I don't like to be all negative, here are the happy things that happened today:

Perk: So, remember how K was being all rude to me? Well tonight she did it in front of her dad. BAD IDEA (for her) He totally took up my cause and yelled at her for being rude to me. I just appreciate that he had my back. It's always good to know.

Perk: I made a big batch of frozen breakfast burritos today. Roasted potatoes, bacon, ham, eggs, mmmm. Just pop those babies in the microwave for 3 minutes while the kids get dressed in the morning and life is awesome.

Perk: On the way home from football I saw our neighbor (the one who made us steaks the other night). Today he had his official promotion to Colonel, so I popped my head out of the house (after turning on the oven) and told him congrats. We yelled between the houses for a while, and he ended up saying something along the lines of  "I always like seeing you, Em." I like that he calls me Em-- not many people can get away with that, but I like him enough that it's not a big deal.

Perk: I have been invited to go to Girl's Camp as the YCL leader! When I was a youth my YCL leaders were awesome people, way awesome, so having that responsiblity is kind of a big deal to me. That being said, I met some of the girls tonight and it was really great! They seem really awesome-- and it's going to be a great week! (If I can get work off... but that's for another day.)

Perk: today we got a call from the school district that told us the list of schools not in session tomorrow due to continued power outages. Today, for the first time this week, the list did not include k's school (hooray!)

Now I just need to wash my face and hit the sack, because tomorrow starts at 6am. And includes a 6 mile run (which I can do in the middle of the day because the kids are in school!YAY!)

Too good not to share.

source

"Tots redic*"

Two weeks ago I was sitting in church, probably the 4th row back. Enjoying sacrament meeting in my ward is... interesting. More than half of my current ward is less than 5 years old. And most of the adult population seems to have no clue on how to keep their less than 5 year olds quiet. It's something that I've learned to deal with, but it's sad to see the weekly parade in and out of the chapel as parents and children alike have to go to the bathroom, blow their noses, change diapers, etc.

But this family takes the cake.

I was sitting there, half way through Sacrament meeting, 12:00 ish, and I see the mom of the family sitting in front of us grab the diaper bag and one of the younger of their 3-4 children and head out of the chapel. I don't think much of it till that child comes back and whispers to their siblings "Mom says lunch is ready." And the entire family including the dad filed out of the chapel for lunch.

I was shocked! Are you kidding me? Seriously? Church is at 11:30am. Sacrament meeting lasts from 11:30 to 12:35. Either feed your kids before church, or do the whole cheerio bag thing to hold them over till church is over. Oh my goodness.

Lest you think I'm being judgy (which I am), I can understand that perhaps the family (the whole family?) has special dietary needs (that for one reason or another they can't adjust for one day a week...) But seriously. If you're going to go traipsing out of the chapel mid meeting, at least have the courtesy to sit in the back!

*tots redic- /t-oh-ts r-ee-dic. short for "totally ridiculous" showing that whatever action is not even worth the effort to say the whole phrase. ex: Making and feeding your kids lunch in the middle of church is tots redic!

So these are the diverse places...

I know, I know, it's corny. I really feel blessed to have come through 2 semi-major natural disasters scott-free this week.

Tuesday there was the Earthquake:
I lived on the pacific rim most of my life. I distinctly remember the earthquake of 2001 in Seattle, remember seeing the floors roll as the waves hit. We laughed through that one (the invincible 15 year olds that we were) and quickly moved on to more important things.

This week I was home, with the neighbor's 9 year old twins, and at first I thought that the washer was off balance. Then I realized that I wasn't doing any laundry. In super hero-like bounds I ran through the shaking house and gathered the scared little boys under a door frame with me. We watched the chandelier in the dining room sway as the house jostled back and forth. Eventually I realized that the shaking was slowing and we were all intact. I made the boys stay in the door frame for longer than probably necessary because at this point my legs were shaking violently. It wasn't so much scary, it was just that I was unprepared for an earthquake on the east coast. After we went outside and checked with the neighbors to make sure that there had really been an actual earthquake. Soon facebook lit up with posts from all over the eastern seaboard, and the news confirmed a 5.8-5.9 magnitude earthquake. For some reason, I wasn't able to shake it off as easily as I had as an invincible teenager despite the fact that the damage from this earthquake was significantly less than the 2001 incident.
     

Following the earthquake, and a crash course for the kids on what to do in the event of an earthquake, we began preparations for Hurricane Irene.
5 days ago she looked like this:

They projected category 3 hurricane heading straight for us. Wednesday I went out and bought 6 gallons of water for drinking and researched what to do in the event of a hurricane (fill bathtubs up with water for flushing toilets, hide under mattresses away from windows, tie down lawn furniture, etc). I decided to go down to Kristen's house so that if I got stuck somewhere I could be happily stuck with my family.
Saturday came as a very blustery, rainy day. It rained pretty much all day, but they'd predicted that the storm was weakening to a category 1. No big deal...

We went to bed last night around 11 with the windows open. About 2 or 3am, the power went out, and my cell phone died, no big deal. There were no witches riding bicycles, no flying cows, just lots and lots of tree branches down. It turned out to be (thankfully) not as bad as the hype built it up to be.
My sister's power was back on by the time we got back from church (which made us all happy). Abotu 5 I headed back north to check out the damage in my neck of the woods. Besides the very high lake, and this poor neighbor's house, all appears to be well.


On the bright side I have a semi-functional 72 hour kit (still need to add some bottled water, it was all sold out). I feel very prepared for a future natural disaster.

Some things make no sense!

On Wednesday I ran 5 miles (took me a LONG time, >1 hour). Thursday I felt great, not sore at all!

Thursday I did 18 minutes of on-demand recovery/beginners yoga. Friday I am so sore I hurt every time I stand up/sit down/walk, etc.

Would someone explain this to me please?

Insanity-- working on catching the bug.

My funniest sister R posted the following picture on my facebook today:


I am choosing to think she is generalizing, rather than referring to me, but I have picked up a habit, as of late that kind of puts me in the above category...

After I graduated and left Provo, I decided that I wanted to catch the "running bug". At first I couldn't run much more than a few minutes without collapsing in fits of asthmatic/out of shape spasms, sure that certain death was upon me. (I do attribute some of this to being in Colorado at the time and a mile above sea level.) Slowly but surely all of that has changed!

Tonight I ran 5 miles! Monday I attempted 4, but something happened and I wasn't prepared/feeling well/whatever, and I simply couldn't do more than 2.5ish, boo! Today I had to prove to myself I could do it. Why, would I put myself through THAT much running? Well, because there's a whole lot more coming where that came from due to the fact that I am



YEEK! I am running a half marathon on October 15th (that's only 8 weeks away, fyi)! A few ladies in my ward were running it, and one of them told me I should join them. I tried and tried to come up with a good reason why I couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't do it, but in the end, I decided that it would be good for me physically, emotionally and socially.(So by Christmas I should be super in shape or skinny even?....) Plus, then I could put one of those sweet 13.1 stickers/magnets on my future car...



then maybe a 26.2... yeah, we'll see. Anyway, I *hope* I can keep up with them... one has run marathons before, but just had her 4th or 5th baby, and the other one is new-ish in running and is super motivating/positive. I really like both of them (both are in my RS presidency...) and I'm excited for it! (Sick right?)

The other rewarding thing about running 5 miles in one go of it is that I can tell that I've worked out. Yes friends (wait for the overshare...) I can actually smell myself, and I'm kind of proud of that!

The shower awaits!

Put an X by the states you have been to. The average is 8; how do you match up? Just for fun, put an O beside the states where you have lived for 4 weeks in a row or more. For curiosity's sake, I'm making bold all of the states I've been in this summer alone, from April through today. Airports don't count! 


Alabama -
Alaska - XO
Arkansas-
Arizona - X
California – X
Colorado - X O
Connecticut -
Delaware -
Florida -
Georgia -
Hawaii -
Idaho - X
Illinois - X O
Indiana - X
Iowa - X
Kansas - X
Kentucky -
Louisiana -
Maine -
Maryland - XO
Massachusetts -
Michigan - X
Minnesota -
Mississippi -
Missouri - X
Montana - X
Nebraska - X
Nevada - X
New Hampshire -
New Jersey -
New Mexico -
New York - X
North Carolina - XO
North Dakota -
Ohio - X
Oklahoma -
Oregon - X
Pennsylvania - X
Rhode Island -
South Carolina - X
South Dakota -
Tennessee –
Texas -
Utah – X, O
Vermont -
Virginia – X
West Virginia -
Washington -X,O
Wisconsin -
Wyoming -X
Washington, D.C. - X


Totals: (because I'm all about the numbers)
Lived in: 7
Visited: 26
Been to since graduation: 15