Remember when I said, 'nifty' all the time?

I gotta learn that there's no catching up with blogs once I'm behind. I've just got to pick it up with the most recent thoughts. I think I get this from my parents: if I'm going to write, it better be good and heart-felt.

That reminds me of Body for Life. We're in week three, and I've lost five pounds, which doesn't mean muchunless I keep it up. The similarity is that when I eat unhealthy foods during the week, I've just got to pick it up and keep going. I can't dwell on it or let it bring me down. I've got to remember that my actions are not matching up with my goals, readjust, and move on.

There are three ladies at the gym every morning who are doing body for life, too. I was excited to meet them, two of them are in week two, and the other is in her second challenge. She lost 20 lbs! I can't wait for that to be me. If this program really works, then I know what everyone is getting for Christmas: a book.

We're adjusting to our new life. Our house is still beautiful. We can't close on it until some minor plumbing and electrical problems are solved. Just flickering lights and fluxuating water pressure.

We just bought some more Bum Genius cloth diapers from Kelly's Closet. I commented in the order that I was from Norway, and the daugter of
John Governale, and I got a response from a girl I went to high school with. It was neat.

We also bought some cloth swim diapers from a different online retailer. Our membership to the local Rec center includes the pool (with slides, splash park and lazy river), climbing wall, weight gym, indoor track and machines. We got swimming probably twice a week, and diapers were getting expensive. One Swimmi is the same price as a package of swim diapers. I think we've already made them worth it.

My birthday is this weekend! I keep forgetting. Dave keeps saying I'm gonna love my presents, but he already bought me a house and I don't really know what would top that. Maybe a piano.

I'm trying to get back into school to finish my degree, but there aren't many options. Berklee offers a BA all online, but it's abut $400 per credit, meaning $20,000 for the remaining classes I need, or 40,000 for a complete degree. You'd better hope for a high-paying job after graduation!

It has been suggested that I e-mail the dean of the college of music at USU to persuade him to offer music courses through the extension in Vernal. This dean is actually Craig Jessup, former conductor of the Tabernacle Choir, and I'm kind of scared out of my pants to e-mail him for fear that I'll be dismissed and miss my one chance to be on a first-name basis with him. I've already drafted two e-mails and Dave, one, but I need to get it out there soon or there won't be time to structure the course. Sigh. Wish me luck!

So, I will be 24, as many years as there are hours; then tomorrow is a new day! I'll be a new me and I hope you still like me. Until then, friends.

A word about Body for Life

Day 1 is going smoothly. My lifestyle is so close to the program that the won't be many habits to break, with the exception of the habit of not pushing myself hard enough. There were a number of things that kept me from 'really' doing it last fall when I picked up the book. I consciously came to the conclusion that I didn't want to live such an extreme lifestyle, but I have since found that I didn't commit the program, not because I didn't believe it or didn't want to--but because I didn't want to dig down deep enough to make the change. I was afraid of making such a big change in life. I didn't know what it meant that I wanted to change my appearance. Did it, does it mean that I don't like myself for being a little overweight? And what if I don't like myself? Is it shallow to try to change myself into someting I do like? And what if I decide to change, but then don't succeed? Does that mean I have to live with a self I don't like knowing that I failed to keep another promise to myself? It seemed safer not to find out how I felt, because then I'd be forced to act or live a dishonest life.

But, I'm here now, and ready to make the change. I guess it's true that people don't change until the pain of change is less than the pain of remaining the same. Bring it on.

So, the spider story is that while we were sweeping out the garage last week a black widow came crawling out of the front corner by the door. After some mild freaking out, Dave smashed it with a hammer, and its grainy insides splattered all over our garage floor. Needless to say, we have since been in contact with the local pest control company, and they came on Friday to spray our house and garage. Just thinking about it makes me shutter.

It's been a busy week. I'm happy to report that I cooked 10 fabuous meals this week. I really should have taken pictures of all of them. I'll give you a run-down

Monday was memorial day and I didn't cook.

Tuesday morning we had scrambled eggs with toast. This was Dave's first day at work, so we made sure to get him off to work on time. That night we got library card and went swimming, but only afte eating bowties with grilled chicken pieces and brussel sprouts. I can't tell you how much I love my grill pan. Things just taste better with grill marks on them.

Wednesday was poached eggs on toast with orange slices. You know what? I love poached eggs. Try them. You'll like them. Wednesday was Ward temple night, and some girl watched our kids so we could go to the Vernal Temple. It's so llittle and cute! But beautiful and wonderful. We had a low-fat, high protein freezer dinner by birdseye or something like that.

Thursday - French toast! It is healthy only when you don't put butter, powdered sugar, syrup, etc on it like we did. Dave took the car to work while Sarah and Christian and I walked to the library for story time. It was about bugs, and they even made pom-pom bugs at the end. We got our paperwork for the summer reading program (100 books by July 31 for Sarah, 100 chapters for mom). I'm working on a biography of Walt Disney because they didn't have one on George Washington (weird?). Anyway, that night, after much deliberation, we ate homemade shake 'n bake chicken with mashed potatoes and asperagus. And watermelon for desert. Yum! Oh, also I made cute barrettes for Sarah. Yay!

Friday. Breakfast was Krusteaz brand pancakes, which have pretty much no nutritional value, so we had eggs for our protein. We had strawberry syrup by watering down some jam and then thickening it again with corn starch because I waterd it down too much. I pretty much just cleaned, and took Sarah out to pick flowers.

Saturday we had pancakes again. And for dinner we ate pork with this amazing Cranberry-soy sauce and some deep-fried artichokes (I'm a sinner!). Then we went to Stake conference and heard Elder Gong speak. It was great.

Dave and I are staring body for life tomorrow (for real). We'r both pretty motivated, and we'll keep you updated.


Goodnight!