The Dreaded Weigh In.

     If you are friends with me on Facebook, you know that I have completed a thirty day challenge which consisted of exercising for thirty minutes a day for thirty days, except on Sunday. This was tougher than I thought it would be. Sometimes you just don't feel it, if you know what I mean, but I stuck to it and now I am working on the next thirty day challenge.
    Since I started on a Tuesday, that is the day I do my weigh ins to see if I am making any progress. I swore to myself I would only weigh in once a week, so as not to get discouraged by a lack of progress or even backwards progress due to what time of the month it is. I know all you women out there who have ever worked your behind off and wound up gaining two pounds, know exactly what I'm talking about here.
     So I have been giving weigh-ins a lot of thought and I have decided that the proper weigh in procedure should go as follows, be totally naked, first thing in the morning, after fasting for many hours, don't brush your teeth before hand, you might swallow a little bit of water and invalidate your progress, and always lean on the towel bar for stability. If the towel bar breaks off you can always replace it, the important thing is that the scale shows a drop in poundage. Of course, you have to be realistic if it shows a drop of twenty pounds or more in a week, a little less pressure on the towel bar may be considered....then again maybe not. What is your weigh in procedure? Anyone have any better ideas? I am open to any and all suggestions.

The Day After.

     The insanity continues around here, we have out of state company today. My sister, her hubby and four of their kids came to visit and my husbands aunt, her daughter and hubby came to visit.
      My daughter is leaving tomorrow at five am. Thankfully, the hubby is taking her to the airport while I sleep in. What a good husband. I am really going to miss my daughter, I want her to move up here so bad, especially now that she is going to have a baby. She also took my youngest two boys and my grand daughter to the movies. Is it any wonder I want her to move here.
     The best thing about today though is we have plenty of leftovers. And I'm going to go and eat them right now. I hope your Thanksgiving was as yummy as ours was.
     
 

Happy Thanksgiving!

     Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends. May your day be filled with the best of family, friends and food. What more can you ask for out of life? Besides health, happiness, success, love, joy, and all of that good stuff. And I wish it all for all of you.


                             Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!

Here We Go Again.

      As much as I love the holiday season, I am exhausted and it isn't even here yet. It makes me wonder how I am going to make it through the next five weeks.
     My daughter Katie is visiting from So. Cal this week and I have been trying to make sure she has a good time, so we have been to Babies R Us, Cafe Rio, Red Robin, Walmart and several other places in the last few days.
     Tomorrow I will be cooking for about 20 people give or take. It will be a small Thanksgiving for our family, but it still will mean cooking two turkeys, a ham, ten pounds of potatoes, gravy, green beans casserole, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce, my special strawberry Jello, rolls and seven, yes, seven pies. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
     And to make matters worse I had nightmares all night last night that when I took the turkey out of the oven it was still frozen solid. Yikes!!!
     Is it any wonder that I am happy to see the end of the holiday season.

The True Meaning of The Season

     Here we are at the front door of the holiday season ready to knock and let it in. Are you ready? Have you started your Christmas shopping? Is your turkey defrosting in the fridge? Are you craving pumpkin pie? I say yes to all of it. Bring it on. It's all good, right? Or is it? I wish I could somehow make Christmas less stressful and make the true meaning of the season come to life for my family.
    I have often wondered what would happen if they unwrapped a gift on Christmas morning and instead of a new pair of jeans or a game for their Nintendo DS's there was a letter from their mom. I would write a letter telling them how much I love them and how much they mean to me. I would write about all the hopes and dreams I have for them as they journey through this adventure called life. I would share all the sad, hard and important lessons that I have learned, so that they don't have to learn it the hard way like I did. I would share my testimony of the Gospel and hope it would make a difference to them that their mother is a woman of great faith. I would tell them how important kindness is and how much we need more of it today. I would tell them how family is the most thing in life and to spend as much time with them as possible because time goes by so fast before you know it your children are grown and they have babies of their own.
     I would try to tell them all of this so they would have an appreciation for their blessings and not take it all for granted. The question is, would they listen? The Christmas season means different things to people but for me and my house I want it to be about the birth of the Savior and the impact that has on our lives. If you don't focus on that, the holiday season is just another day off from work.

The Happiest Place On Earth?

     The happiest place on earth. That's where we are. We are spending a week in sunny and warm So. Cal. I have been off line the past few days as our hotel charges for internet, how cheap can you be? So I haven't been able to blog, sorry if you missed me. I will be back at it on Monday, when my life returns, for better or worse, to normal. That is if you can call my life normal, which I don't. It's crazy and the thought of all the laundry I'm going to have to do when I get back makes me cringe. It will be just as bad as all the laundry I had to do to go. We moms pay a high price to enjoy all this relaxation. cough, cough. You all know what I mean. Anyway, so long for now going to spend some prime time with the fam. Love ya.

I Don't Want To Be The Mom Today.

     Here it is late in the day and I am just now getting to my blog. That should give you an indication of what kind of day it's been. Why is it no matter how hard you try to be on top of things, life just gets the better of you sometimes and you wish you would have crawled right back into bed. It hasn't been a bad day, I just didn't get to all the things I wanted to and now the day is done and here I sit discouraged about my lack of accomplishment.  I did exercise this morning and I did read my scriptures. I also showered, ran a few errands and paid a bill, just a few little things. I did parent teacher conference also.  I won't list all the items I had planned that I didn't get too because I don't have that much space. Let's just say that my to do list is full and then some for tomorrow.
     I have had other days when I don't get to everything on my list, but today it is bugging me. It feels like the perfect storm of discouragement. I should focus on what I got done, not what didn't and move on, but what I have to move on to right now is making dinner and I just don't wanna. Sometimes I want some else to be the mom. Do you ever have days like this?

Holy Jeans!

     It's only been cool here for about a month, which means by boys have only been wearing long pants for about twenty days. Before that is was shorts, man. This means that in the last four weeks I have been stocking up on new long pants to clothe said boys, to keep their legs from freezing in the early mornings. Ryan who is ten wears and size ten. Scot who is eight wears a size eight. They are considerate that way, trying to make life easy for their mom. Thanks boys.
    Every time I go to Walmart with a little extra money I pick up a new pair of pants for one, or both of them. They both are up to about five or six pairs each which is the goal. If I do laundry on Saturday or Sunday they have a full supply for the school week. Their is only one problem one of the brand new pairs of jeans that I just purchased has a big hole in the knee. What the heck is up with that?! They are brand new! I already threw away two pair left over from last year that had huge holes in the knees. I like to pass Ryan's old jeans down to Scot if possible, but that hasn't been the case lately.
     I know my boys love to play football at school before it starts, they have a following. A group of boys that get to school a half an hour early just to join in the fun and I'm happy about that. It's good exercise, they are never late to school and I don't have to fight all the mom's dropping off their kids right before the bell rings. I love that. But for heavens sake how many pairs of jeans can one mom buy in a month? At this rate I will have to replace all of their jeans again within a few months.
     This is a serious dent in the clothing budget, like I have a clothing budget. If you are about to go naked, or freeze to death, we get you new stuff, until then we don't want to hear about it.
     I haven't decided yet if the football is worth the cost of new jeans so often, I will have to weigh the pros and cons. Shoes are a whole other issue. We go through those like toilet paper. And speaking of toilet paper...never mind. That is a whole other blog. ")

Mayo, Butter and Campbell's Soup Hurray!

     I don't know if every family is like this, but in our family there are certain things you just can't do without. Things like Best Foods Mayonnaise, real butter and Campbell's soups. These are the things that make life worth living. These are the things that make the daily hassles of life worth the effort.  And when I get them on sale it makes it especially sweet.
    I bought 48 cans of Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup for 49 cents each and 24 cans of Cream of Mushroom for the same price. That is less than half price even at Walmart. I also bought ten jars of BF mayo for $2.99 a jar, not as great a deal, but still a dollar less than the Walmart price and I don't know what we do with all the mayo I buy, but it seems to disappear faster than almost anything else in the pantry.
     And can we talk about real butter, not the axle grease stuff they call margarine, the real creamy, nothing else tastes like it, butter. With the holidays coming our butter consumption sky rockets so when I can get fifty cents off a pound of butter, I get excited. I bought ten pounds of it. :)
     Then there is the fifty pounds of potatoes I got for around ten dollars. Yippy!
     If you get hungry this holiday season, come on over, we will be eating really well. 
     I love stocking up on food, it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. How about you?
   

It's Nano Time!

     It's Nano season! Happy Nano! Feliz Nano! Get your Nano on! I'm getting my Nano on!!! ")
  
     It is Nano time, in case the previous sentence didn't properly inform you. What is Nano? Nano is, National Novel Writing Month. Sometimes called Na No Wri Mo. Or NaNoWriMo. No matter how you spell it, you can Google it and it will take you to the same place.

     The object of Nano is to write a 50,000 words novel in a month. At the end of the month you have a complete or an almost complete novel. Unless you are me and my first novel is over 140,000 words. It took me seven years to finish it, in which I gave birth to not one, not two, but three more children, just in case I didn't have enough to do with the seven I already had.
    Nano is intense. It is a commitment. It is right at the beginning of the holiday season. And I am almost guaranteed to fail. But sometimes you just have to go for it. You have to grab that big brass ring.   
     We have write-ins where my writer friends and I get together and do nothing but write. No talking until the ten minutes at the top of the hour and then all heck breaks loose. Do you have any idea what kind of commitment it takes for women to be in a room together and not talk? One heck of a lot.
      Technically speaking, you are suppose to start with a new story that you haven't written a word of, but I am trying to finish the one I have been posting on my blog. I don't think it will take 50,000 words, but just to finish the rest this month will be a feather in my cap, a rose on my nose, a---never mind.
     Can you tell I was up until one am Nanoing? If you have an idea for a book or just want to try, sign up. It's free. Everyone has a story to tell, join us in Nanoing and you can give it a shot.

A Few Things I'm Grateful For.

     As we head into November and many of us are thinking a little bit more about all we have to be grateful for I would like to share a few of my thoughts on the subject.
     Every night before I go to sleep I pray and my prayers always start with all the things I am grateful for. Sometimes I feel as if I am repeating myself over and over again, but I am still grateful for those blessings in my life and I want my Heavenly Father to know that.
     I am grateful for my family and for the health and strength that we have that keeps us going every day. I am grateful that we have the relationships that we do. We are a family that may not always agree with what each other does, but when the chips are down and there is a crisis we are there for each other and we always will be. I really like who my children have turned out to be and I want to spend time with them. I think that says a lot about who they are.
    I am grateful for a husband that has a generous heart. He would give his last dime to one of his children if they needed it and he often does. I am grateful that my grandchildren live so close and I can see them as often as I do. I love them so much, everyone of them is special and precious in their own way. I am grateful for the home we have and where we live. I feel at peace here. I am sooo very grateful that I was born in The United States of America. I love my country and the freedoms we enjoy.
     And last but not least I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and for the opportunity I have to be with my family for eternity. I can see all of us gathered together generations from now, in a much larger family room than we have now, talking over the days events and planning what we are going to have for dinner tomorrow, even though we just finished dinner tonight, that's how we roll around here. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
     I don't know why I have been so blessed in my life to have so much, but I know enough to be ever so thankful for all of it.