2 More Years

Medical School/Residency years start in July and end in June. It's already a week into July, but we are at the halfway point in residency and the three-fourths point in the journey to Spencer becoming an anesthesiology. We've been married for seven years now (!) and while there have been a lot of up and downs throughout those seven, especially where medical school is concerned, it's been worth the journey so far. May these next two years pass quickly enough to not seem like they are dragging but slowly enough to enjoy the ride. Here's to just 2 more years of residency!

What Counts as Fast Food?

It's about a week into the challenge and so far I've managed to avoid all the fast food traps like Wendy's, McDonald's, In-N-Out, and Taco Bell (ew). However, we have done our fair share of eating out recently so that's made me reconsider what could fall under the label of "fast-food." For the most part, I've tried to make better choices. For instance, when Spencer took me Olive Garden for lunch last Monday I ordered a lower calorie entire and saved most of it for dinner. When we went to Disneyland with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend I had the lobster Cobb and skipped most of the dressing. However, I've also had a burger at Buffalo Wild Wings and part of burrito at our favorite sit-down Mexican place. The amount of eating out this past weekend was unusual--we eat out more when we're playing the part of tourists on vacation showing our family around--but it did make me stop to consider just how much junk is out there to eat. The foods that sound most appetizing are laden with fats or processed carbs and while most places have low calorie fare now, a lot of it just doesn't sound good. So, while nothing I technically ate since the challenge started counts as fast food, I still need to work on bettering the food choices I make in general.

Exercise Bust and a New Challenge

The day after I posted that I would be doing the 30 day exercise challenge I busted. I got majorly sick (it's allergy season and I ran out meds) so instead of running or doing an exercise tape like I'd planned to do, I was curled on the couch in a fetal position clutching my head filled with swollen sinuses. No fun! Also within the last couple weeks I've had to work extra at work, had lots of evening obligations, and just generally have been bad at fitting it into my schedule. It would seem that the only sure-fire way to plan exercise in my day is to get it in before work which would require me to wake at 5AM and that's just not happening right now. At any rate, due to the events above and the fact that I know the next few weeks aren't going to be getting any easier, I've decide to start a new challenge.

The 30 Day Challenge I'm starting today is to not eat fast food for the next 30 days. That means no fries, no burgers, and no deep fried chicken sandwiches. Now, I suppose I can see an instance where we are out with family and really have no other choice, but in those cases I will keep myself to the fare on the menu that's the freshest (i.e. the salads sans dressings, grilled chicken no bun, or fresh fruit). Fast food is so easy to grab on the way home or at lunch so I think this challenge will help me focus on eating healthier and in turn helping Spencer eat healthier, too (since we will be forced to eat more at home or make better choices when we go out). The last day of this challenge will be April 16. Wish me luck!

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

No Soda Day 30 and 30 Days of Exercise

It seems I started a post about half way through this challenge but never published it, so here it is now:

"Well, I've reached the half way point and I'm proud to say while I've been tempted to quit several times, I've never actually given in. I find the temptations are strongest in the mornings and when I'm out to eat because that's when I would normally indulge."

It's now day 30. I successfully completed the challenge! I'm proud to say that I remained strong and won't be going back to my daily habit any day soon. I plan on continuing to limit my soda intake because I felt healthier overall while I was abstaining. Now, onto the next challenge.

My next 30 day challenge is to get 30 minutes of exercise a day. Today is actually day 3. I started Monday with dog agility, Tuesday was a 30 minute jog, and tonight I'm doing the Jillian Michaels ripped in 30 tape. I'll try to keep the blog more up to date for this challenge since its going to take more planning and effort to meet this goal. Sundays I will be limiting myself to dog walks though.

Here's to gettin' fit!

Day 10 No Soda

It's day 10 of the "No Soda" challenge and I'm still haven't caved. Sure--I really, really, really want a soda and I would love nothing more than to indulge, but I also want to reach my goal. One big plus from the challenge so far is that I'm less tired overall and I'm eating less fast food. It's just less enticing for me to think about eating fries and a burger without the cold diet soda to wash it all down. 

20 days left! What should I do for my next 30 day challenge?

Day 4 of No Soda

Day 1 was by far the easiest day. The only temptation came at the end of the day when I decided to do some last minute Costco shopping. I was coming home from dog class and had Percy with me, but just needed to grab a couple of things so we could eat for the week. I was in and out in under 10 minutes, and on my way out I grabbed a hot dog combo. Those darn things come with a fountain drink so I simply grabbed a regular Coke (ew) for Spencer and then wolfed the hot dog down much to the disappointment of Percy. It was tempting to just grab a diet soda like I normally do, but I wanted to remain committed to this challenge. I had posted it here AND told my coworkers. I couldn't just quit one day in, could I?

Day 2 was the hardest. I woke up completely drained after a less than restful night of sleep. I was tossing and turning and the dog was whining to get out of his kennel for most of the night. Needless to say, I was extremely tired. On top of that, I had physical therapy around lunch time and my habit has been to swing through a drive through on my way back to work. This time, however, I decided to skip the fast food and the accompanying diet cola and ate at home instead. I was tired all day and had a hard time focusing and staying on task, but my body felt better. I was less swollen/bloated and more comfortable in my clothes. I hadn't realized all the caffeine and fake sugar was making me feel that way, but if it really is then it's worth avoiding the temporary pleasure of a nice cold diet soda.

Yesterday was Day 3. I'm was tired again that morning, but only because Percy woke me around 4AM to use the facilities. That's pretty good considering I put him in his kennel around 9PM the night before. Spencer was up for work about an hour later and then I had to get up as well. I was craving McDonald's breakfast but I made sure to leave late enough to make that stop impossible if I was going to make it to work on time.

Today is Day 4 and besides the McDonald's craving again this morning, I really didn't think about it. So far this challenge has been pretty doable. It's hard, but not so hard that I don't think I can't complete it.

4 days down--26 to go!

30 Days

I have a friend who does "30 Days Without" challenges just about every month. For instance, one month is was "30 days without sugar" and another was "30 days without bread." She's using it as motivation to lose weight, but I think it also helps her work on being more disciplined on an area of nutrition where it's harder to be "good." I suppose this makes sense. After all, they say you  need something like 21-30 days to form a habit. Being the food-lover that I am, I never jumped on the bandwagon, but since I started working full time I've developed a habit of having at least one can if not more of diet cola per day to help keep me alert. There's tons of chemicals in diet soda that are bad for your body, teeth, etc. and I'd like to break the habit. And so, with my friend's example in mind, I'm embarking on an attempt of "30 Days with NO soda." I'll post at least a weekly update to let you know how it's going and if I slip (or I guess you could say sip, haha) up.

Here's to day #1.

A Year [2012] In Review

This past year I slacked a lot in the blog department. We were busy having fun, but it was mostly the same so I didn't really feel I had a lot to blog about. In no particular order we did the following:

• I started training Percy in agility and obedience. This consumed most of the first half of the year.
• We made numerous trips to Disneyland and the beach.
• I had a girls day at Glen Ivy and then another at Wrightwood.
• We traveled to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam with Spencer's mom and brother.
• Spencer finished up his intern year and started the anesthesia part of his training. He also got his medical license.
• We took a cruise down the coast of Alaska and finished it up by visiting Canada for a little under a couple of hours.
• We visited family in Utah and Portland, OR for the holidays.
• I got a new job.
• We had numerous house guests including friends, family, and several hopeful LLU residents.

We also spent time working on our new home. We are slowly getting it organized and just starting to decorate. Maybe it will be done by 2014, but maybe not. In observing my parent's and Spencer's parents more closely, it appears that a home is never "done," but rather a continuous work in progress.

In looking back a my goals for 2012 I can say I can close to meeting most of them but fell short on a few. I tripled the number of books I read and almost doubled the number of knitting projects I completed. I keep the house reasonably clean and I tried to be a little nicer and more forgiving. I'm not sure if I actually succeeded in that, but I tried to be more cognizant of it so I'm counting it. 

 

In looking forward to 2013 I'm hoping to accomplish many of the same goals from last year and few new ones as well. They say that setting really broad goals ensures that won't reach them, so I have tried to make them as specific as possible. This year I'd like to:

• Paint my kitchen, living room, guest room, and master bedroom
• Finish the backyard (this will mostly be Spencer's project)
• Read even more books--4 per month would put me up to 48 next year
• Finish all my pending knitting projects and also make a few more--20 seems like a good goal
• Lose the weight I gained last year and then some
• Train for and run a half marathon by June or July

63 Days Unitl Christmas

Well, it's almost November which means 3 things:

1. My birthday is in about 2 weeks and I will only have 2 years left in my 20's.
2. Thanksgiving is about a month away.
3. Christmas is a mere 63 days away!

These 3 things have caused me to have the following revelations:

1. Holy crap I only have 2 years left until I turn 30!! That's old!! That's when people know what they want to DO with their lives and I still don't know what I'm doing with mine!
2. Mmmmm....turkey...stuffing...cranberry sauce...pumpkin pie...mashed potatoes...gravy...food coma...
3. I am really, really behind on my knitting goals.

And those 3 revelations have caused me to produce the following task list:

1. Figure out what I want to do with my life and find a way to do it.
2. I need to invite people over for turkey day so I can make a boat load of food and not feel bad about it.
3. Knit 4 beanies, 2 cowls, 1 pair of hand warmers, and a scarf by December 25th. Oh and wash them, block them, and wrap them.

Image taken from here.

April-May-June-July--August???

How has it been FIVE MONTHS since I last posted??

Oh wait. I know! Every time I sit down to post something something far more interesting (like a trip to the beach or a project at work with a surprise-it's-due-tomorrow deadline) comes up. So that means my posting has been few and far between. What have I been doing with my time aside from that?

Reading.
Book-clubbing.
Knitting.
Beaching.
Disneylanding.
Vacationing.
Cooking.
Video gaming.
Craft-clubbing.
Dog walking.
Running.
Dancing.
Baking.
Cleaning.
Ant-killing.

Phew. Who has time to blog when there's so many more exciting things to do?

I Work Out

I have been trying to get back into working out a little more frequently for the past few month or so. I kept putting it off and putting it off because I was too busy or we had just moved or we had a house guest that came to stay with us for 2 weeks unexpectedly. Before I knew it though, January was over and I knew my excuses were, too. I signed up for a free 5k mid March so I knew I had to do something or that race would be torture. With February looming in the not-so-far distance, I made a commitment to myself to get some form of physical activity for 30 minutes a day with ideally an hour of activity for at least 6 days a week.

With that, I started running again. I started slowly. I find that I (and most people, by the way), burn out if I try to take on too much at once. Every month our schedule changes and every month I have to adjust what I'm doing to work better around what Spencer's crazy residency is making him do. It's exhausting. I began doing the couch to 5k program again, but only intermittently. Soon, it was time for the 5k and even though I wasn't totally ready, I decided to give it a go anyway.

The 5k went pretty well for where I was in my training. Up to about a week before the race, I was only going at most 2.5 miles and that was about half walking and half running. I did a trial 5k a few days before the race and finished in about 40 minutes. On race day, I only walked at the water station and for about 1 minute going up a steep hill. I finished in about 38 minutes. My shoe chip was 37:53 and the clock showed 38:23--pretty good for where I was. I came in 650th out of 1956 finishers (there were walkers in there) and the results just made me want to try harder. A friend of mine had posted about the Disneyland 1/2 marathon and so with that as a goal, I started training yesterday for my first half marathon.

I am following Hal Higdon's novice 2 program. He has a plan for every day of the week. I started yesterday with the 3 mile run. Today, it's another 3 mile run. It is my intent to follow his plan as scheduled with a brief adjustment for a vacation at the end of April/beginning of May. Part of his plan involved signing up for a 5k at the 6 week mark which for me would be April 21st. I plan on running the 5k out in palm springs. It's my goal to get my overall time down around 30 minutes, and I think with consistent training I can do that. I don't ever stop because I'm out of breath. I usually only stop because my legs or feet or ankles are so tired and sore that they feel like lead. My muscles just aren't used to this but I guess that's the point. You have to train at whatever you are doing to get to where you feel comfortable and it becomes easy, then you push past that point and keep going. It's the only way you can ever have any growth.

Why I don't talk politics.

Politics. Ick. Where do I begin?

It seems like each year the election campaign starts earlier and earlier. I think people start campaigning for the next election the day the last election is over--perhaps even before then! The losers want to make sure that that years winners don't win again and do everything in their power to stop it from happening. It doesn't matter which side it is, I think they are all equally bad. Every time there is a news story about the Democrats this and the Republicans that I silently sing in my head, "Why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends..." Politicians are setting a bad example to us "ordinary" Americans. They don't cooperate, they don't do their job, they talk about each other behind each others' backs and drudge up dirt on their opponents just to make themselves look good. If I did any of that at my job, I'd get fired!

And don't get me started on the extreme groups! Those far left or far right groups that think they are right and everyone else is wrong--seems more like they have a screw loose to me. We talk a lot about tolerance and acceptance in this country yet it seems like the groups that get the most press really aren't all that tolerant toward others that have different opinions or ways of doing things. I sit somewhere squarely in the middle agreeing with some left points and some right points. I have yet to see a candidate for President in any of the elections that I could vote in that I A) actually liked and B) actually did what they said they were going to when they got into office. Is it too much to ask for a level headed candidate that can follow through to run?

So, if I don't want to talk politics with you it's not because I don't have opinions. It's because I just don't want to talk about the political mess that plagues this country.

Resolution!

When I typed the title of this post, I couldn't help but think of the line from "Pippin" where they say, 'Revolution,' and imagine the kid that said it from my high school. In my head, that line is extremely, extremely funny. But you aren't in my head--at least I hope not--so you get the explanation. Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled programing.

I do not make the typical New Year's Resolutions. It's just not my style. Change is a process, and I strongly believe that the more you try to force that process the less it works. People tend to choose large, lofty goals like "lose 50 pounds" or "run a marathon" in a moment where they are still stuffing their faces with Christmas cookies and lounging in their pajamas on the couch. For me, that type of thing just doesn't work. Instead, I prefer to evaluate how my life is going on a much more frequent basis. But, being that it's New Year's and everyone else is sharing their resolutions for the upcoming year, I thought I would share a few of my current projects and a little of how my last year went.

Highlights from last year included reading the Book of Mormon, reading several issues of the Ensign, and reading several books (10 total that I remember). I exercised more or less consistently with the two exceptions of when I had surgery and when I moved cross country. I worked on knitting projects and even finished a few--around 7 if memory serves. I tried to consistently read something spiritual each day and while I didn't do it perfectly, I did much better than I had in the past. I attempted to be more forgiving and give up old grudges. I think that for the most part I did. I worked hard at keeping my house in order and at doing my job well. I think I did an adequate job at both.

I did fall short on a few "resolutions" from last year. I didn't finish two knitting projects per month like I planned, but I did finish up 7 projects and have several more starting. If I just seamed a few things, felted one, and got the dang pattern figured out on another I'd have 4 more projects done just like that. I did not remember to pray morning and night for most of the year. I am just not that good at it, but I am also not that good at calling or texting other people so I'm taking that in stride. My house was never perfectly clean, but I started to learn how to take it in stride and just enjoy life instead of stressing about the mess all the time. I probably ate too much and exercised to little, but I feel like I did a good job overall so not accomplishing everything perfectly doesn't really bother me. I'm human after all, and humans aren't going to do everything perfectly the first time, the second time, or even the hundredth time. Life, like any other skill, is a learning process that we have to take one day at a time.

My projects for this upcoming year are an echo of past projects. I plan to:

1. Finish at least 14 knitting projects (doubled from last year!)
2. Read 20 books (doubled from last year)
3. Stop swearing (a nasty habit I picked up from working with surgeons, and I already failed at this one once. I believe there is some story about a prophet talking about giving up swearing and swearing in the same sentence--can't remember who and can't seem to find it on the web, but that's kind of how that slip up went. )
4. Walk the dog, play with him, or train him for at least 20 minutes a day
5. Clean up the house a little each day (once we are totally unpacked)
6. Try to be nicer to Spencer
7. Forgive old grudges
8. Only weigh myself once a month

Here's hoping we all made a few resolutions this year that we can keep and actually work on!

A Year of Firsts

The year is almost over. December snuck up on me and I'm left wondering how so much time passed without me noticing. It seems like just yesterday Spencer was starting medical school and we were hunkering down in Wisconsin for the second snowiest winter there in recorded history. Now, we've yet to see a flake (which is good) and we're living in hot and sunny California. The weather is messing with my sense of the seasons since I'm not used to it. Everything is turning green and rainy--it's the complete opposite of what I'm used to. Instead of getting blisteringly cold in the winter and hot and green in the summer, we get blisteringly hot in the summer and warm and green in the winter. Weird.

This past year has held a lot of firsts for us. First mean change and change is hard. There's a saying that goes something like "nobody like change except wet babies." I think that's pretty accurate, but it's hard to grow without change. The last year or so has resulted in a lot of growth because of all the changes we made. Though it's been hard a times, I think we are in a better place now than we ever were before.Some of the major firsts/changes we experienced over the past year are the first time neither one of us has been in school, the first time we bought a house, the first time I've been in a non-musical calling at church, and the first time Spencer will have to work on Christmas day.We adopted our first dog. It's our first time living within driving distance of the beach, the mountains, and the desert, and it's the first time I've lived in a community with a pool. The list could go on and on, but you get the point. We experienced a lot in 2011 and you probably did, too.

May we always remember the firsts brought on by 2011, and here's hoping for many more firsts in 2012!

Christmas 2011

 This year for Christmas was didn't do too much. Spencer was scheduled to work for most of the month (including Christmas Day and Christmas Eve) so we couldn't travel to visit family, so we decided to have people over instead. Miraculously, his scheduled ended up switching around so that he got both days off and we were able to spend the holiday together. On Christmas Eve we went with a couple of Spencer's work friends to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Seeing movies on Christmas is a tradition that my family had growing up starting when Beauty and the Beast came out. It's about the only time each year that we would go to a movie. On Christmas day I spent most of the day cooking a traditional Thanksgiving-type meal complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and my Granny's spiced carrot recipe. We had some of Spencer's friends from work over that didn't have family in the area and couldn't go home because of their schedules. We rounded the night out with the Packers and a quick game of Apples to Apples. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and most hadn't ever had homemade before! All in all I think it was a great success.

The New Pup

2 weeks ago we welcomed Percy, a miniature poodle, into our home. We are really loving having him and watching him explore his new home. He is a pure bred dog despite the multicolored coat. So far his favorite pastimes are destroying cardboard, destroying paper products of any kind, and just being generally cute. We got him from a breeder down in San Diego. He was one of two black puppies (both male) out of a litter of 6. The other 4 were an apricot/cream color. 5 were boys and 1 was a girl. Below are some of the pictures I took with the new camera my mom gave me for Christmas. Hopefully now that I have a camera I like, I will start getting better about taking pictures and posting them to the blog. Pardon the quality of some of the shots--it's very hard to photograph an active puppy. :)



Thanksgiving--Portland Style!

For Thanksgiving this year we drove up to Las Vegas, hung out for a few days, and then flew to Portland. While in Vegas we saw two shows: The Lion King and Mystere. If you have the chance to see either, it's worth it. The costumes and sets are amazing in both. The signing is really good and so is the acting. The story line is a little slow with The Lion King, but I decided that it was probably because we grew up with the cartoon version and the musical pretty much follows it exactly. We also did lots of other Vegas-y stuff that you do when you don't gamble or drink or go clubbing (i.e. walking around and seeing free stuff). We went to the Bellagio to see the fountains and indoor gardens, Caesar's Palace to gawk at the outrageously priced blue crocodile handbag ($10,000 for the medium and $4,000 for the clutch!), a buffet, Coke World, M&M World, and hung out at the pool. We also fed the slot machines about $9.00. We won some and lost everything we put in which was kind of the point. Once all that was done, we headed to Portland on one very tiny, cramped airplane courtesy of Spirit Airlines.

While in Portland, we spent most of our time hanging out with family. There was a nasty virus that went around which kept people in bed (my mother) or at bay (her sister) for most of the trip, but we did all manage to get together on Thanksgiving day for some quality turkey time. My dad, my sister Melissa, Spencer, and I went to the Muppet Movie. Melissa, Rachel, Spencer, and I went to burgerville (try the chocolate cherry shakes!). My husband and my grandpa hung out and watched football and grandma baked at least 6 pies over the course of 3 days--possibly more. I am now addicted to pie and have been going through withdrawals since I left on Saturday. Spencer, my sister Melissa, and I drove down to Cannon Beach and the Tilamook factory and had some wickedly good ice cream and cheese. My sister Rachel hung out and did home work a lot, but I guess that's how life as a student goes. My mom's other sister and her family were around, but were experiencing a tragically sick beloved cat so we didn't see to much of them. I decided it would be wise to go running in the pouring rain at least twice and came home soaking wet. In other news, Wisconsin has officially ruined my ability to properly experience temperature's so where most people would feel downright freezing, I only felt slightly cold. On the other hand, ever since I've been back in California, I've been freezing in the mornings because our water isn't set that hot and our heat is out so it feels REALLY cold when I take my morning shower.

And finally, several last pieces of advice I picked up on our way home via Vegas: restaurants that existed in casinos 5 years ago may or may not exist there presently (in our case not) and if you plan on driving home to California from Las Vegas on a Sunday, it's best to do it early in the morning or your 3 hour trip will at least double. Also, the road that parallels the highway does not go all the way to Primm and you will have to navigate a very bumpy looking dirt road if you decide to try to bypass traffic that way. We didn't do it, but we saw a lot of people who did.

All in all, it was a great trip and we're looking forward to our next set of travel adventures!

A Growing "To-Do" List

As we are about to embark on the new experience of home ownership, my mind has begun racing with possibilities for what we will do to make our new place "ours." True, no one has ever lived in this place before, but we still want to make it our own nevertheless. So, here's a short list of things I want/need to do once we finally get the keys:

1. Seal all the grout on the tile floors
2. Blinds for the windows so people won't see us shower/sleep
3. Curtains
4. Paint
1. Kitchen/dining room--green
2. Living room--shades of navy
3. hallways--linen white
4. banister--dark brown/black
5. master bedroom--perhaps a nice red accent wall with the rest white?
6. bathrooms--light blue?
7. other bedrooms--tbd
5. Kitchen back splash
6. Lights under kitchen counters
7. Get stools for bar
8. Landscape
9. Install water softener
10. New rug for living room?
11. Headboard for master bedroom
12. Get a real bed for one of the guest rooms--queen?
13. shelving around the garage
14. shelving in the laundry room
15. pull out drawers for the kitchen
16. closet organization systems for bedrooms
17. Christmas decorating
18. puppy proofing

Suddenly part time employment seems like a lot of extra work...

Things That Make Me Thankful

Image from here



Last year I did a series of posts called "21 Days of Thanksgiving" where I posted things I was thankful about for 21 days straight. This year, it seemed like anyone and everyone had jumped on that type of theme and I didn't feel like tagging along, but since Thanksgiving is a little less than a week away I did think it was time to do some sort of Thanksgiving-themed post. So, here is the brief list of things I'm Thankful for this year:

1. Days colder than 75 but warmer than freezing
2. Snow on the mountain and not in my driveway
3. New California friends and old friends from everywhere else
4. Airplanes that make travel oh so much faster even if security makes things slow
5. Fresh fruit and veggies
6. A loving husband who works hard 
7. Freezers
8. Plenty to eat
9. Wetzel's Pretzels--my perfect post-Disneyland treat every time
10. Going to Disneyland with my husband, our friends, and out of town family
11. Disneyland's chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick
12. Having family within driving distances
13. My calling in Primary
14. Car insurance
15. My iPhone
16. A job that's flexible enough for me to move my schedule around whenever I want
17. A loan guy that's stuck with us through this house buying thing even though we're taking FOREVER
18. Yoga
19. Running
20. Everything chocolate
21. Baking
22. Book clubs where you don't bring the book and spend most of the time chatting
23. Knitting and the closeness of a great knitting store with a great group of people
24. Alpacas, llamas, rabbits, goats, and sheep for giving me various forms of yarn
25. The easy availability of clean water
26. The calming effect of being near the ocean or on a beach
27. My two puppies that passed away recently
28. Hamsters
29. The various sitcoms that I watch and find amusing
30. A warm, comfortable bed to sleep in at night

I could go on and on and on with this list, but for now I'll leave it at that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The thing about house buying is...

it takes FOREVER,


                   but I am thankful to be able to at least attempt it.