Picture

I thought this was a cool picture. It is from and ad for Patagonia. I know I would never like to be in this position but I love the picture. I love the light and the weightlessness of the pic.

THICK

Today is hot and humid and I feel like the air is thick! You walk outside and the heaviness of the air hits you. I didn't grow up with humidity and I don't particularly like it. I hate showering and getting out only to sweat while getting myself ready for the day. Thank goodness we have a fan in our room and a.c. We just went to R's softball game and the girls didn't make it the whole time. With half an inning left I went and put them in the air conditioned car and let them watch a movie. I guess I am never happy...I'm either too hot or too cold! I just want a happy medium.

left wanting

Growing up I always thought I wanted to be a mother. I always had some career aspiration's but knew in the back of my mind I would probably end up staying home to raise children. I guess that was the way I was raised, to a certain extent. Women grow up to raise children and men are the providers of the family. Although I cherish my children and love my role as their mother I often feel a sense of wanting in my life. I want to be somebody, do something. I know I am my girls everything but as hard as it is to say, I still want more. I want to feel a sense of accomplishment. I sometimes look at my husband with a degree of envy as he goes off to work everyday building his career. I'm not saying that I want a nine to five job but I do want to feel as if I am improving myself. I guess it is just hard knowing what to do. Maybe I should start volunteering at a nursing home. I always wanted to be a nurse when I grew up and I wanted to work with elderly people. Whenever I think of volunteering I think of my family and the time I would lose with them. I feel a pang of guilt over even the thought of going to help others when I am sure my family could use my help. However, maybe my family would have more of my full attention if I were fulfilling this need of mine and feeling like I did some good in the world. I feel guilty saying it but I guess I want more out of life. I want to be the best mom I can be but I also want to be the best me I can be.

In Bloom

Here is what spring looks like in our front yard. Of course it didn't come until May but it is finally here!

Five Questions

Five questions from A.


1. what was the last thing that made you laugh so hard you cried?

Last night I watched a show called The Real Wedding Crashers. It was so funny! I was watching it by myself because R was at work and I was laughing so loudly I thought I might wake up the girls. I tried to quiet myself but I just couldn’t. It was so funny I cried! (Imagine if a guest to your wedding showed up in a wedding dress!)


2. if you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be? why?

Today, if I could go anywhere on vacation it would be Utah. I know, you would think I would pick a new and exciting location but lately I’ve been missing the mountains and I would really like to have spring flowers and warm sun around me. I am also missing family.


3. would you rather eat liver & onions (or some similar nasty food to your dis-taste)? or be forced to watch the last barbie princess movie three times in a row? why?

I would totally watch the movie three times over. Since little M likes those kinds of movies I can pretty much zone out while they are on. I would consider it more like a time for meditation. Although the liver and onions would be quick it would most likely scare my taste buds for life!


4.what are you most afraid of? why?

I am most afraid of someone doing something bad to me. I have had weird anxieties my whole life about that sort of thing. I guess the thought of losing control of myself to another person is really scary. Even when R chases me up the stairs and makes a scary noise it really scares me. Another thing I fear is not being happy or having control in my own life. I always seem to let others decide my happiness and I am trying to change that. The last thing I fear is not being a good mom. I don’t want my kids to grow up and resent me in some sort of way.


5.what is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

The most beautiful thing I have ever seen was my two babies when they were born. I actually pulled M from me when she was pushed out and it was amazing. I thought I wouldn’t want to touch the baby until she was cleaned but that instantly went away when I saw her. I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe such a beautiful baby came out of me. When B was born it was a much different experience. She literally flew out of me and I saw her laying on the bed where she landed for the first time. (the doctor wasn’t there and R grabbed her leg since no one was there to catch her.) I saw this little girl who was yet again beautiful and it was hard to believe that such a beautiful thing came from me again.

{if you want five questions of your own, leave me a comment telling me so. you should include either an email address so i can send you questions. or you can leave a link to your blog and i'll post questions in a comment.}

Sweat off my Back!

Okay, sorry it has been so long since my last post. As I mentioned in a previous post I was set to run a 5k with R but little M got sick the night before and I was up with her all night catching her vomit. Sorry about the description...but it is what happened. Anyway, I have been running consistently and it feels great. Today I ran two miles and when I got done I felt the sweat running down my back. Most people would probably think this is gross, and it is, but it also feels great. See, I am the type of person that hardly ever sweats. I could do an hour of aerobics and hardly break a sweat. I only sweat (or perspire as my dad would say) when I am working really, really hard. So, to finish a run and feel a droplet of sweat run down my back makes me feel good that I was able to push myself to have a good run. Running is not easy for me and I usually have to play mind games with myself to make myself do it! I tell myself just one more lap and once that lap is done I convince myself I can do more. It goes like this until the whole run is over. I finally feel like I starting to get some control in my life and feeling the sweat run down my back reminds me that I am in control of me!

Easter

Easter was pretty exciting at our house! The girls both looked cute in their dresses but I couldn't get B to pose with M for the life of me. They both loved looking for their Easter eggs in the morning! B was so excited to run and pick up an egg and put it in her basket. M was a good big sister and helped B get her fair share of eggs!

They also both loved dying easter eggs...probably because they are usually not allowed to touch eggs! (they have yucky germs on them)

Aer yuo one fo teh chsoen 55?

I found this on a random blog and thought it was cool... I'm one of the 55, are you?
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?

ME

So, today I am joining weight watchers with some of my friends. I have thought a lot about posting this fact, I mean, do I really want the world to know that I'm overweight?! I guess I decided to share this part of my life because my weight has been a life long struggle and I need to once and for all acknowledge it and accept that I will need support in my journey. I guess posting about it is also a way to feel some sort of responsibility. Now that anyone can see I'm doing this I will get questions about how I'm doing and I will need to be accountable. I think the hardest thing to realize is I won't go from my current weight to 125 overnight! It will be a long battle and I am ready to start! Another announcement is that R and I have decided to run a 5k in two weeks! It makes me a bit nervous but it is something I have always wanted to do. It is interesting because I have always wanted to attempt a 5k but have never felt ready. Even when I was running regularly and was 125 I felt like I still wasn't good enough to run a race. Now, I am probably the most out of shape I have been and yet I am pulling the confidence out of me somewhere to attempt this race! I think my husband has a lot to do with that confidence. He said he will run the whole race with me which is nice since he will be slowed down quite a bit! He just made me realize that actually running the race and finishing it is more important than the time it is done in! Anywho, here is my post to the world...I am working on changing ME and being good to ME!

Bumper Sticker Humor

This bumper sticker I found online and is in honor of my father...we all know how much he loves the French!

So today the girls and I ran a few errands. (yes, Target was included!) On the way back to our car I saw a funny bumper sticker that went something like this..."It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber" I thought this was pretty funny! One reason I like living in Upstate NY is that there are really good public schools here. I feel that my kids and their education is pretty important, equally as important as the armed services! Just my little soap box for the day!

Gymnastics

The girls love gymnastics!
M takes a ballet/gymnastic class combo and B takes a class with mommy or daddy while M is in her class. I think M is one of the ballet teachers favorites!

B loves to swing and hangs on to the rings/bars all by herself. She also loves the end of the class when she gets a stamp on each of her hands from her teacher. She is so proud of those stamps. She walks around the rest of the night showing everyone her stamps.

When I ask M what her favorite thing is about her classes she says everything! It is fun to watch her on the trampoline when they put her in the harness and she is swinging through the air. She is laughing so hard you can hear her throughout the whole gym!

B also likes the trampoline. They put the kids in a harness and pull them up in the air and swing them. B is so small that she usually slips out of the harness but this week she realized she could hold onto the ropes and that helps keep her in.

HAPPY APRIL!!!

Here is what April 4th looks like in New York! It has been snowing all evening and looks like it will snow for a bit longer!! Can someone please send us the sun?!!

Flowers

So, I have the best husband in the word!! He is so positive and supportive of me no matter how negative and down I get. I was not having the best day Monday and woke up still a bit out of sorts Tuesday morning. After wondering through my day Tuesday I got a delivery around three in the afternoon. I went to the door and was greeted by a man holding a HUGE bouquet of flowers. It was such a wonderful treat! In order to brighten my day R had ordered me flowers. When I talked to him later I asked him if he just told the shop to put together a bouquet and he said no. He had told them to put together a bouquet of some of my favorite flowers. He told them he wanted stargazer lilies, snap dragons, and hyacinths! I was shocked that he remembered the names of some of my favorite flowers. He is so great. Now my house smells so good (thanks to the lilies and hyacinths) and every time I see the flowers I am reminded how lucky I am to have someone who loves me in spite of all my flaws! (A funny side note, when I first got the flowers I was a bit annoyed because I had to trim them and arrange them in a vase. I instantly realized how stupid that sounded but I later joked with R that next time her should have them put in a vase! I think he was in a bit of shock until he realized I was joking!)

You Whine Like a Mule!

Over the past eight years R has discovered a little secret about me...I complain. Early in our marriage he would say, "You whine like a mule" and I would take great offense to that. Of course I was thinking in my "fat" mindset and thought he was directing his comment to my body shape being similar to a mule. He set me straight on that one and let me know he thought I looked nothing like a mule...he was just sick of my whining like a mule! One night on a walk home from campus he said to me, "I am so sick of your complaining!" I immediately responded that I was sick of him complaining about me complaining. That broke the tension and we avoided an argument! I guess his comments teasing me about whining like a mule over the years has made me realize that sometimes I do complain a lot. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. This week on Oprah I saw a guest named Pastor Will Bowen. He is the pastor of a church in Kansas City, Missouri and during one sermon he challenged his congregation to stop complaining for 21 days. In order to make the challenge a bit easier he gave everyone little rubber bracelets to put on a wrist and each time they caught themselves complaining they had to switch the bracelet to the other wrist and start their 21 days over. His church sends these bracelets out free of charge and is challenging to world to live complaint free lives. (see www.acomplaintfreeworld.org) He is not saying we don't have problems in our lives and not to acknowledge them, but go about discussing them in a different way. The attitude we approach our problems with and the tone in our voice says a lot about the person we are. Sure, life will always have its moments, but we just need to go about them with a more positive outlook. (On a funny side note, the pastor told a story of a group who ordered hundreds of bracelets, remember you get them free of charge, and sent them back saying they were of poor quality!! I guess they missed the whole complaining point!) I guess I just want to live my life with a more positive vibe. I know this won't change my world but who knows, it just might!

Responsible

Today is a new day! I have decided there are no more excuses for me. I know this is not going to happen over night and it will be a change in progress but I am responsible for me. Some days I wake up wanting to have a good day and then things go wrong and then I think o well, I guess I will have to try again another day. Guess what, I will not always be able to control the situations around me but I can control my reaction to the situations. I know this all sounds great and all but I am really going to start trying and living like this.

New Furniture

My new bedroom furniture!! I love it!

M's Haircut

BEFORE

AFTER!!

Happy

I wish that every day I could just wake up happy...I mean what do I not have. My life seems like the perfect life. A wonderful husband, two cute little girls, financial stability, a home, good friends and family, and yet I still struggle with being happy. I just wish I could love myself as much as I love others. O well, I guess I just have to keep trying.

Heart Stress

So yesterday I called my doctor because I had been having heart palpitations for over a day. The nurse at the doctors office told me I should "go straight to the ER...we don't mess around with the heart." After that reassuring phone call I broke down in tears for a few minutes and then had to call R at work and ask him to come home and take me to the ER. My lovely neighbor watched the girls for me and while I waited for R to get home I cleaned the house. I mean, what if something serious happened to me and someone needed to come to my house? Of course it should be clean. (Okay, I know I am a bit crazy but that's just me!) After some poking and testing at the ER nothing was found except that yes I was having Heart palpitations and no it wasn't going to kill me. The doctor told me anything from stress and lack of sleep to an excess of caffeine would give me heart palpitations. They wouldn't kill me but they would just be annoying. Now I don't think my intake of caffeine from chocolate is enough to give me palpitations but possibly my ability to make myself stress out is! When we got married R found it funny that I said I was stressed out as much as I did. I guess I use the term loosely. For instance, when I walk by a room in my house and it is really messy I usually feel stress. (This sometimes is a overwhelming feeling and it is often accompanied by a pressure on my chest, not my heart though) I know, weird stuff. So the Doctor just told me to cut back on stress in my life (especially emotional stress) and relax. Well, now I just have one more thing to stress about...my stress is causing heart palpitations, GREAT!!

The Black Look

So here is the picture of B giving her black look. When she was a bit younger all you had to do was tell her no and you would be rewarded with the black look. In all fairness to R's side of the family I am sure she inherited it from my side of the family. No, not from me, from my lovely sister T and (I've been told) from my mom. Isn't this picture of her worth a thousand words?! She doesn't pull it out as often now (she has other forms of expression like screaming) but when she does it is priceless!

RUNNING!!

Let me indulge and get this off my chest...I HATE RUNNING!!! Maybe I should clarify. I hate getting up and knowing I need to go running. I delay the run as long as possible. I play with the girls, talk with Ryan, watch the news and do whatever I can to delay the inevitable...running. I need my dad to wake me up every morning and tell to get dressed, we're going running. That was the only time in my life when I actually went running consistently!! Once I am on the treadmill I still don't particularly enjoy the run. Once I am off the treadmill though and done with my two miles I LOVE RUNNING!! I know, I'm a bit weird. I don't really enjoy the running and don't know if I ever will but I love the feeling I get when I am done. I have had a several year love/hate relationship with running and I know I will keep it up. It would be nice though if I could just get up and run without all the delay. So in spite of all my delays I guess in the end I LOVE RUNNING. (Just don't try to tell me that before my run!)

Getting to know me!!

and you thought you knew me...
four jobs i've had in my life-
-I worked at a bakery…yummy
-MTC bookstore! Probably my favorite job ever!
-Secretary
-Victoria’s Secret…might I add my husband would wait outside the store for me when he picked me up because he didn’t want to come in. I also heard a little boy once tell his daddy he didn’t think they should be in that store!!

four movies i can watch over and over
-A Room with a View (especially with my mom and sisters)
-Return to Me
-Clueless
-Life is Beautiful

four places i have lived
-So Cal (Costa Mesa)
-Utah (Provo)
-New York
-Charleston, South Carolina

four tv shows i love to watch
-The Office- I usually laugh so hard I cry
-America’s Funniest Video’s- once again the crying applies
-Men in Tree’s- it is getting a bit soap opera like though
-Project Runway

four places i have been on vacation
-Italy- Roma, Venizia, Milano
-Boston-one of my all time favorites
-Washington D.C. –God Bless America!
-Kansas City, Missouri – a really beautiful place

four of my favorite dishes
-Roast Beef and Baked potatoes-Sunday Dinner
-4 Formaggi Pasta from a little Italian Restaurant in NY
-Mediterranean Style fish from The Cheesecake Factory
-Anything Mexican

four websites i visit daily
-laughtear blog -and then I just visit all of the links on that page!
-quickutz.com
-dooce.com
-My husbands email account because I don’t get enough of my own!

four places i would rather be right now
-Talking with my husband
-Hanging out with a good friend
-Talking with my mom and sisters -especially when it’s late at night and we get slap happy!
-Cuddling a newborn baby

Favorite Colors (especially for shoes)
-RED, RED, RED
-Purple
-Chocolate Brown-for the moment-Pink
-Pink

Bougainvilla!!

So, why title my post Bougainvillea? I suppose some of you don't even know what it is. (may I suggest looking it up on wikipedia.org) It is a flowering plant that usually has purple flowers on it and I saw it a lot growing up in SoCal (as the cool people say southern California, I'm just trying to be cool) Anywho, one Sunday our family was driving home from church and I saw a bunch of bougainvilla in a yard and just started yelling/singing the word bougainvilla. My family, especially my dad I think, thought I was crazy. I think it was funny the first couple of times I did it (I guess you had to have been there) but after that I think everyone was especially excited to get home and out of the car since I continued my little chant for the whole drive home. I am pretty sure I was laughing hard and crying at the same time because I thought I was so funny (I seem to think I am funny a lot and other people just stare at me. At least I can entertain myself, right?!!) This word, bougainvilla has kind of come to represent me. I am a bit crazy and overbearing at times and don't seem to care if people think I'm funny as long as I am having fun. Whenever I go home I try to pull out the bougainvilla chant at least once, if not multiple times! I usually get a cute laugh from my mom and my dad rolls his eyes at me and tries to hide his smile. I know he thinks it's funny though and just wants to pretend like he is annoyed! I will always be a bit crazy and goofy and that is what makes me like myself and have fun!! Does anyone in the fam remember this Sunday drive???

Grateful

Things I am grateful for today...
1. Target...need I say more?? I'm addicted
2.The Internet...it makes me feel connected with people I love
3.My husband for putting up with my craziness
4.Knowing that my cupboards are stocked...I hate knowing I am almost out of something!
5.My friends...I talked to three of them today and it's nice knowing they care
6.My girls...even though they fight sometimes they provide hours of entertainment.

FRIENDS

So lately I have been so grateful for friends, whether it is a sister, parent, child or acquaintance. I am grateful for my sisters who have always been my best friends. I am grateful for my friends who live by me now and are like sisters to me. I am so happy to have a spouse that is my best friend. I am also grateful that my girls have great friends. I love watching R play with the girls and they love to wrestle with him. Whenever they hear the garage door go up they drop what they are doing and run to the door to wait for daddy. I am so happy to have great neighbors who love my girls and in turn we love their little one. Whenever we go outside B tries to get over to the neighbors house. When we are over there she never wants to leave! M love little H just like her own sister. Here H and B are eating fresh snow!!

I am also grateful that my two girls are such good friends. I know that they will always be there for each other throughout life. Without my friends my life would be so dull. They are one of the reasons I get up each day. Even though so many of my friends are far away from me I know I will always be able to count on them and I hope they know I love them no matter how long it has been since we last spoke!

pictures

B and I stayed home from church today because she has a runny nose. She decided to dress herself in her sisters pants which kept falling off! She then decided to wear these red and white striped beauties with her pink/brown/cream turtleneck! Quite the fashion statement for a two year old. She is actually very opinionated on the clothes she wears.

So this is M's new favorite dress. She wore it to church today and I thought she looked so cute. The red shoes are my touch!! Someone told her she looked like Dorthy but she is a bit too young to understand that one!

does this work?