Week of June 18, 2012

We arrived in Yakima safely. Poor Aidan, Donna and Lance. It was a rough day! Apparently Aidan did fairly well on their first flight from MA to Chicago, but had a total melt down on the Chicago to Seattle leg. They were all exhausted when I picked them up at the airport. Unfortunately Aidan does not sleep well when he's not in his bed with quiet space. He doesn't want to miss out on anything! lol So, he wouldn't even fall asleep on the 3 hour trip to Yakima. He did well though. Donna was in the back seat serving as head entertainer! Lance and I served supporting roles! We saw lots of broom-broom's (any truck or substantial size vehicle, tractor, etc) and wa-wa's (river's, lakes, waterfalls and the sippy cup with water in it). And even saw horses and cows and a couple of deer. As Aidan started winding down at the end of the trip the Bus Song was a hit and we all had a sing-a-long! No meltdowns in the car, hooray! And the puppies at our destination were well worth the wait,at least as far as Aidan was concerned! He was quite delighted at the tail wagging welcome party!

I put together a dish of Tex-Mex lasagna to bake and made a quick run to WalMart for french bread. We're having Middleton's over for dinner too and Wendy will bring a green salad. I'll probably wash and slice a bunch of fresh fruit to make a 'fruit salad' for dessert.

SATURDAY - JUNE 23, 2012

Today's the day! I get to pick up Lance, Donna and Aidan from the Seattle airport for their visit. It'll be so nice to have them here to visit and to let them visit Lindsey's family in Boise and Mom in Salt Lake City. Lots to do before I head to Seattle. Need to get my run in this morning before it heats up!

I'm already enjoying my new calling as the Valiant 8 teacher. It's really nice to only have to prepare one lesson each week AND because I'm team teaching with Wendy Middleton it won't even be that often once we get through the summer. We'll trade off.

Having so much time to prepare gives me an opportunity to take more time to think of creative ways to present the lessons. Tomorrow we're going to have a 'raft' in class. The kids will need to choose two items from a set of eight supplies that they'd like to keep with them in the raft. The lesson tells us to have the kids imagine that the raft is riding low in the water so they need to dump all but two of their supplies and to place a list of the supplies on the board. Instead of this I'm taking our blow up baby tub as the raft and will have sample supplies in the raft itself. Fun stuff!

HAPPY DAY! I worked through another mental barrier! I jogged 5 complete laps around Kissel Park this morning for a total time of 32:22 during the day. I prefer running at night, so this is a big deal for me. To run during the day AND to run for almost 1 1/2 minutes longer than my previous longest run. I'm sure for some this seems insignificant, but every new extra minute that I run is a true victory for me! I'm not sure how far I ran as I was into the 'recovery' segment on my Garmin, but I know for sure that I ran over 2.9 miles, another first! My pace was 11:17 which I think may be a PR. Almost to the 5k! Hooray!

FRIDAY - JUNE 22, 2012

When I got home yesterday after my visiting teaching appointment to Toni McBean's Darvin asked me if I wanted to go to Walmart. When I inquired about the purpose of the trip he told me it was to buy bike gear. He'd bought himself a bike from Jake's Bike Shop. I'd bought a used bike from Joan Fair a few weeks ago and we'd talked about biking together. Unfortunately a used bike big enough for a 6'4" guy is hard to come by, so a new bike it was! I couldn't find my bike helmet, so we bought me a helmet (he needs replacement pads for his helmet but they didn't have those at Walmart in the bike section), we bought lights and pumps and a liner for tire puncture resistance (only had one set unfortunately, etc. Darvin got everything put on and we're going to take a ride on the Greenway this morning.

What a delightful day! We dropped my car off at the Firestone dealer on the way to the Greenway, then took a 7 mile, 50 minute bike ride. It was cool and sporadically rainy, but made for a nice cool ride. All I can say is, burn baby burn! It was a great workout for the legs and wonderful to get to spend some time with Darvin.

Afterwards we went and picked up Grandpa Clement and took him to a belated Father's Day lunch at Red Robin. Apparently it's been a while since I ate there, they removed my favorite Asian Chicken Salad from the menu! Oh well, I found an acceptable alternative. Once we got Grandpa back home and reloaded our bikes into the truck Darvin took me back to pick up my car from the Firestone dealer.

I stopped at the Yakima Co-op first on my way home and picked up some more deworming medicine for Bear. Poor little guys (actually not really little any more, he's up to 39 pounds!) has had worms since birth. At first I think we weren't treating them close enough together to break the cycle, and now hopefully we're getting to the end of the process. He had one small worm last time we treated him. Yuck, YUCK, YUCK!! I feel like the parent of the child at preschool who has head lice! I know it's just a question of time, but come on now! At least he likes the medicine. He laps it right up!

I headed to K-Mart next to exchange some hair color. They'd had it on sale a while back and so I try to stock up, but they didn't have as much in my color as I had coupons to purchase, so they'd told me I could buy the wrong color and then exchange it later. Glad that's done because I'd had the color in the trunk for a while and kept forgetting or wasn't down in the area when I did remember. I use Clairol, Nice N Easy, 116A Light Golden Brown. My daughters are in charge of keeping that detail, so when I die if my roots are showing, they can cover them up! I'm not kidding girls!! One last act of vanity!! lol

Then I went to Costco to get gas for my trip to pick up Lance and his family, and some groceries and more rawhide for the dogs. Did I mention that my brother and his wife and son are coming to visit tomorrow?!!!! I'm so excited!!! They arrive about 6 p.m. in Seattle and then we'll head straight for Yakima.

When I got home and gave the dogs each a piece of rawhide Abby acted quite standoffish about hers. Now that Bears had his share, she's currently working on one. I'm not sure if it's hers or if she's stolen his, she always seems to prefer what he has and vice versa! lol

In a little while we'll go pick up the Gum's and take them out to dinner. They did puppy daycare and sometimes night care for us when I was gone to Boise and Darvin was at work.

THURSDAY - JUNE 21, 2012

I am extremely tired. I don't know if it's just the fact that I've never exercised so hard and so much in my life, or if I need to do some nutritional adjusting with my diet. Today I need to run. And I need to do it during the day since I have Bunco this evening. I need to take some Primary materials over to Wendy Middleton's (my team teacher). She lives out in the country with nice paved streets and not a lot of traffic so I think I'll drop off the materials to her and then get my run done.

Denise Gum and I have a visiting teaching appointment at Toni McBean's this afternoon. We'll meet her at her office today. Usually we schedule a temple trip each month for our visit, but it just didn't work out this month with everyone's schedules. Darvin is off work and feeling a little neglected. I try to spend as much time with him as possible on his days off but today is going to be hard.

Last night my visiting teaching appointment with Nancy Whalen was cancelled. So Darvin and I took the opportunity to attend the Bears season opener game against Salem-Keizer. The Bears won 8 to 2! Hooray! There were fireworks afterword that were REALLY good! Oh, and during the game I thought for a time that we must be at Walmart. We were sitting in the general admission seats behind home plate. There was a heavy set woman that was sitting in the reserved seats down below us. She stood up and we saw about a mile (ok maybe 8 inches) of butt crack! OH MY GOSH, I'm not kidding either! I think Dad and I were scarred for life by that, totally disgusting! I'm totally amazed at people's lack of modesty sometimes! Dad said that he considered telling the woman that he'd buy her a belt and some underwear. I think what she needed was a belly band (like those kind that pregnant woman wear, because he jeans were definitely WAY too low!

Tonight was Bunco. What a fun time! I love the women in my Bunco group!

WEDNESDAY - JUNE 20, 2012

Another milestone! Last night after I delivered the new printer to Darvin's dad (which won't work because the operating system on the computer is Windows Millenium) I stopped at Kissel park to run. I was 'supposed' to run 30 minutes, but decided if my watch advised me that I was done before I ran 5 complete laps around the park I'd continue on a little longer. It went off about 2/3rd of the way through the 5th lap so I decided I'd keep running until the end of the current song. When the song was over I checked my Garmin and I'd run an extra minute, so I ran 31 minutes in a row for the first time in my life as far as I know! I made it to 2.73 miles at an 11:20 pace (which is good for me-I think another personal record!). Hooray!!

My total mileage including warm up and cool down was 3.72 miles. I'm going to bump my run time up to 32 minutes for the next run day and every time I hit the goal time I'll add another minute. If I can keep the same pace I should be able to hit the 5k mark at just under 35 minutes! It's my goal to run 35 minutes and 5k by the last workout of next week. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

I'm finally breaking through my mental barriers that have confined me all my life. The mental self-talk of what I CAN'T do. Well now I'm turning that self-talk around telling myself what I CAN do! It's AWESOME to be making new good habits and feeling healthier and stronger and more balanced each day.

Here's a quote that my nephew Jordan posted on facebook today: "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't."
- Henry Ford

TUESDAY - JUNE 19, 2012

Darvin's on graveyard shifts which began Sunday night and end tomorrow morning. It's really hard for him (and me) to transition from a regular day shift to graveyards and then back again. It seems like he has to work graveyards at least a few times a year when the regular graveyard pharmacists go on vacation. So, being the night person that I am, I procrastinate doing too much during the day because he's sleeping and I'm trying to be quiet. I know, excuses, excuses! Last night was a typical late night for me and I didn't get my run in and it was cold and dark outside so I decided to do the Biggest Loser dvd workout instead. I was getting tired, but gave it my best shot and actually worked up a pretty good sweat! The dogs were down with me at the beginning of the workout getting underfoot. When it got to the point that I had to get down on the floor in plank position I knew that Bear was going to have to go to bed! Little stinker was up in my face trying to 'help'! So I ran upstairs with him and put him in his kennel. He must have realized it was after bedtime because he entered willingly! Then I headed right back downstairs and finished the workout. I'm so glad I bought that dvd because I've been seeing tremendous changes in my body since I started it such a short time ago. It's a full body workout so I'm burning maximum calories and lots of different muscle groups. Hopefully by the time of the half marathon in September I'll be looking and feeling a lot more like a runner instead of a fat couch potato! I'm really starting to see results in my hips and thighs and in my upper body, losing some of those disgusting flubber rolls! AND, I'm still in the lead for the Getting Healthy Challenge. I have 1364 points, Dadra Clement has 1354 and Tanya Permann has 1350 points. It's still too early to predict, but I might have a shot at winning this challenge! I have 'an edge' over the other two leaders because I have a lot more weight to lose. Both of them have lost some, but they're both super fit already so they don't have much, if any, left to lose and I have a bunch. Apparently I'm the only one of the 'fat girls' in this challenge that is trying to get maximum points every single day! lol

MONDAY - JUNE 18, 2012

As part of our Getting Healthy Challenge we're supposed to make a journal entry every day. Thus the reason for beginning a daily entry on my blog of late. Rather than posting daily I decided that it would be better to post once a week.

Yesterday we got to church right before Sacrament meeting started. I had a picture that I needed to hide in my classroom before Primary and needed to make a copy and get Book of Mormon's from the library. So I sent Darvin into the chapel with Wendy and Evan Middleton. We sit together and they'd arrived at the same time we did. The meeting had started by the time I finished and I knew they would have called my name to be sustained as a Primary worker since I was teaching that day! When I sat down between Wendy and Darvin Wendy said, "They didn't waste any time giving you a new calling did they?" Which had been my sentiments exactly. LOL I replied in the affirmative and she then asked if they usually had team teachers in Primary. I told her that they sometimes did, and that, in fact, they'd indicated to me that they wanted my class to have a team teacher. She started pointing to herself, which confused me a little bit because Brother Lonnie Ellis had told me when he came over to extend the call that they were going to ask Wendy to team teach with me. She was so emphatic that I asked her if they'd called her to team teach with me. She said, no, but she WANTED to! That delighted me!

After sacrament meeting I walked up to the stand to give a member of the bishopric our tithing. When Brother Ellis saw me coming he hopped up and rushed over and asked me if Wendy was planning on staying for the rest of the meetings. I told him I thought so and headed to my class.

A little while later I see Brother Ellis's head peaking through the window in the door of our classroom, he opened the door and in walks Wendy! She left early because Evan was creating quite a diversion with the kids, but she called me later that evening and we talked for quite a long time.

It is going to be so fun to team teach with her. She's a school teacher by profession, so that part doesn't worry her at all, but she is worried that the kids will ask gospel questions that she can't answer. So we brainstormed about how to handle that if it happens and I'm not there to help (since I'll be gone about half the summer!)

She told me that her mom and step-dad were ecstatic about her receiving a calling! Yesterday morning her step-dad had been thinking that it was nice that she didn't have a calling to worry about and then he changed his mind and decided that it would be better if she had a calling and that Young Women's would be a nice place for her to serve, but as he thought about it he decided that Wendy would probably worry about the girls knowing more of the gospel than she did, so he decided that a Primary teacher calling would be perfect! How about that for an outside confirmation.

I told Wendy it reminded me of when I was called to be Primary President the first time around. I was TOTALLY taken by surprise by the calling and although I accepted I felt so very inadequate. I kept thinking about all of the other women in the ward that were much more qualified in many, many ways than I was. I really had a sense of apprehension and anxiety about it until the day I was sustained in Sacrament meeting. The Sacrament meeting chorister came up to me after the meeting and told me that she KNEW that I was going to be the new Primary President. I don't know why, but that seemed to be a divine signature from my Heavenly Father letting me know that indeed HE was calling me to that position and whatever I lacked in qualifications He would make up the difference.

Speaking of divine signature, my dear friend and visiting teaching companion, Denise Gum loaned me a book on cd: Divine Signatures: The Confirming Hand of God. I listened to it on the way to and home from Boise. It is PHENOMENAL!! I highly recommend it to everyone that has ever had any struggles, struggles now or will have struggles in their lives. In other words, EVERYONE should read or listen to this book. You can get the kindle version on Amazon for $14.29. This is a must read!!

This is from the book description: "Heavenly Father, are you really there? As Latter-day Saints, we know God exists, but at some point we may wonder, Heavenly Father, are you really there for me? When trials seem beyond our ability to bear, some people lose their spiritual bearings, while others are made even stronger. How can we strengthen our faith and deepen our testimony to the point that we can endure whatever life holds in store for us and come out stronger than before? In this unique book, Gerald N. Lund Reminds us of how much God loves His children and that He is anxious to bless them, especially when they are striving to do His will. Teaches that God often sends blessings in such a highly unusual, dramatic, or precisely timed manner that its as if the Lord signs the blessing personally so we know with certainty that it came from Him. Relates stories from Church history, from his own life, and from acquaintances that illustrate the inspiring and life- changing insights he shares."