Easter

4 days of prep, 3 hours of party.

Yep, that was our Easter. We did manage to have a nice time even though we had a giant storm come through. My Mom didn't come because she was sick. Scott's parents didn't come because his Mom said it was too much for her now. So it was just my Dad and my brother's and their families.

This morning the kids still wanted to hunt for the eggs they dyed (I tried to get them to just do the plastic ones with the cousins but they wanted to do both). Well, the younger 2 anyways

Rusty was trying to figure out what we were doing out there. Too cute. 

Then we did it again with the filled plastic eggs with the cousins

While we were sitting outside this HUGE storm cloud came in.

Needless to say we didn't spend much time outside after that!

Luckily Scott got the food done before it started coming down. 

We also celebrated the girls' birthdays (Jessica's is April 29th but she might not be home)

and Melissa's is April 8th

I have always done their family parties on Easter so everyone doesn't have to come over 3 times in a short time span. (and if you are paying attention you'll notice we did Trevor's after his birthday so we had all 3 kid family birthday's in one month)

I told the girls they could be in charge of their cakes and Jess made this awesome Kit Kat cake.  They put candles on for both of them.

Which took forever to light

I was trying to get my niece to take a picture with me but she said no so my sister in law took one with me instead. 

Right after we were done with the cake the storm LET LOOSE. 

POURING, thunder and lightening.

The kids were cute sitting at the back door watching it. 

Everyone left not too long after. 

We all played two games of Yahtzee 

and now I should go finish cleaning up the kitchen and pick up the toys. Tomorrow is Monday already. I need another day or 4 to recover.

March Progress Pictures

Happy Easter!!

I'm procrastinating finishing the cleaning, and you know, today is the end of the month so I had to do my pictures and stats.

I'm feeling really positive about myself right now. Might sound weird to say but I've been working hard! The scale did dip back down to 149 yesterday but then I didn't make the best choices yesterday and had drinks last night. So of course, for my end  of the month I am back up a bit. Oh well. The drinks were worth it! And it's not like I'm gaining 2 pounds of fat over night, it will all flush down the toilet eventually.

Stats:

weight 151.8 (up 1.2)

neck 13

arm 11

thigh 19.5

chest 34.5 (-.5 poor bb's)

back 33

waist above button  31 (down .5)

waist at button 31 (down 1.5)

waist below button 31.5 (down .5)

hips 34.5

so up 1.2 pounds and down 3" almost all in my belly! I'll take it!!

7 months of picture progress

and just for fun I'm going to list the weights. 

Everyone is always so worried about the scale but this is only a 5 pound difference.

156, 154.6, 152.4, 151.4, 149.8, 150.6, 151.8

Proof that the scale isn't everything. 

Goals for April

Run Mon, Wed, (maybe Friday) and Sunday for a goal of 70 miles. 

I'm doing my half marathon training so I should get close to that just with what is scheduled. They have 4 days of running on the schedule but I usually only run 3 so we'll see how I feel about adding in one more day.

Weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays

Bike on Saturdays

We have a lot of stuff scheduled for April already. It's going to be a busy month! 

Running, Robbery, Gardening and Easter (o'le)

I started my morning nice and early today.

I finally hit 149 again on the scale. WOOT WOOT

We did our "long" run with the running group today, a 58 minute run. There was another person doing the training today and I really liked her. She did all moving type stretches before we ran and explained why we were doing things. She also talked about the different kinds of fuel and drinks we should use while running. I think next weekend I will take my fuel belt and try it out. Next Sunday is a 7 mile run so we will be out there awhile longer.

In 58 minutes today I was able to do 5 1/2 miles. Not too shabby.







My step mom wasn't able to make it so I ended up running by myself. Everyone else seemed to be either way faster or way slower. The weather was beautiful, which made the run even nicer. I was feeling really good after the turn around and picked up the pace a little bit. I ended up having to run a little bit past the meet up point since I came back faster than I went out.

After running I called the insurance company to find out what to do about the truck. They said to try and get it out of the tow yard (if it was drive-able . I called the tow place and I think I woke the guy up. I eventually told him I couldn't really even understand what he was saying (mumbling) and maybe he could call me back when he got his stuff together.

Then I went to the grocery store and got all the stuff for Easter.

I so did not buy these but I so wanted to buy them and eat them all.

When I got home I asked Scott if he thought I should call the tow place again and he said yes, so I did. The guy was actually awake this time and could answer my questions a bit better. He said he thought it was drive-able and to go ahead and g
o to the yard and call him when we got there and he'd come and meet us.

So we get to the yard and I call him and he asks "isn't there someone there?" I was like, well I don't know since I thought I had to call you I didn't go check it out. He said his partner was there and would be able to help us. I go up to the door and some kid is in there and yells to me to go over to the fenced area. 

We walk over there and there are some people unloading stuff from a large tractor trailer. We could see our truck so I just walked over to check it out. Someone yelled at us that we couldn't be in there and I told them we were trying to get our truck? Can someone help us? They said yeah but you have to get out of this area. Ok. 

So we walk back over to the office area and wait. And wait. And wait some more. So I called the guy again and was like hey, you need to call someone and tell them we are outside here and we need someone to actually come to the office and open the door?

That worked and some guy came over and opened the door and we went inside so mullet man and his mullet kid could help us. Seriously I have not actually seen someone with a mullet in years. I felt bad for the kid. Sheesh.

$290 later we had our truck back. Nice how someone can steal your car and you are out $290 just to get it back. The weird thing is that there is nothing wrong with it. Not sure how the guy got in and got it moving but he did and managed not to break anything. I'm not sure what our deductible is but if it's $500 we are just out the money.

After we got home I finished planting the flowers I bought yesterday. I kept finding more stuff to do so finally I told myself I really needed to stop and just go inside and focus on working inside the house.

stupid gopher

Jessica did some cooking and the kids did some cleaning. I told Scott he could clean the bathroom or put away the clothes (joking) and he said he'd clean the bathroom. SCORE! I hate cleaning the bathroom. 

I still have some stuff to do but I have 0 motivation to do anything else. The girls are cleaning up the kitchen so they can dye Easter eggs now.  Fun fun! I could go for a nap.

Gardening & Thieves

Today was AWESOME. I spent all day working in the yard. It's looking pretty fantastic if I do say so myself! I spent about 6 hours working on it before I took a break to go to the store.

I ran to the store and got some petunias to stick around in the front yard and a little pack of inpatients to go around that tree since it's mostly shady there.

I was going around the yard planting when Scott called. He got off the train and his truck was missing. Someone stole his truck! They also smashed a ton of car windows and stole random things.

I went to pick him up and two police officers were there taking reports. They called in his truck and found out that it had already been towed. The person that stole the truck had got arrested for something else and they towed the truck because he was an unlicensed driver. Apparently they didn't notice it was stolen until we called it in.

So we spent hours waiting around until we could get this release form that they told us to go pick up. But of course the tow company is closed. I called the insurance company and they took the report but couldn't answer any questions.

So frustrating. 

I need to get up early and go to my running group (they changed to Saturday because of Easter). I still need to make a list of all the stuff I need from the store for Easter dinner and go to the store. I am planning on doing that after running. Such a procrastinator! 

Working Out In The Garden

My gym today? My yard.














I spent about 4 hours after work weeding (and a little mowing). I got all the weeds out of the brick walkway and got the back part of one side done. Just have one big section left (in the front, then I can move onto the side yippee). I worked on that section awhile back so it shouldn't be TOO bad.

While I was out working in the yard Trevor asked if he could mow the grass. Um yeah! He's 10 now, plenty big enough to help mow.

Scott did the majority of the mowing yesterday but ran out of day light so Trevor worked on what was left. He did pretty good. He probably mowed for 45 minutes or so before he got too tired.

There is just one area in the back of the empty lot that needs to be done. I figured I'd finish that up tomorrow.  I love when the field is green but it's a lot of work!

I need to buy some hedge trimmers now that my little bushes are finally getting bigger! I trimmed them with some little hand clippers for now. I need to move a lot of things around in the garden. I had planted a lot of things when they were really small and now they are BIG and all crammed together.

I also have a gopher in my garden. I need to dig out my gopher pellets. Little bastard.

I am so glad I took tomorrow off. I think my plan is to work in the yard until I get tired and then I'll go run errands. We'll see how that works out.

Running In Circles

Today I had my half marathon training. We were supposed to run intervals but when I got there they said we were just going to run 30 minutes around this park.  The park? Not that big. Talk about a boring run, it was one step up from running a track.

Round and round and round and round. I lost count on how many times we went around. We cut it short a few minutes because we got back to the start point and only had a couple minutes left. Probably could have made it back around again!

When I got in the car I was looking at my Runkeeper and realized that I was only 2 miles away from my goal of running 50 miles for the month. 

I knew Scott was planning on doing day two of the 5k-10k training so I went with him and got my 2 miles in!

Woot woot!

I should be able to get in a ton of miles for April with this half training. I just noticed today that I'm supposed to be running 4 days a week not 3. Not sure if I'll be able to work that in or not. We'll see! 

In other news I worked in the yard for an hour today. Easter is fast approaching and my yard? Looks like crap. Although I did find a couple pretties.

I've got about half of the front yard weeded. I need to go pick up a few things and plant them to brighten it up a bit more. Although it's supposed to RAIN on Easter. F'my life. Every freaking time I have a party. 

So we have 50% chance that I'll be squishing 20 so people into my house or 50% chance we can sit outside and enjoy the day. Let us pray.

Silent Tears

Sunday afternoon I had book club. We bumped it up a week before Easter. Luckily the book was a good one and I got it done quick! For the month of March we read

Silent Tears A Journey Of Hope In A Chinese Orphanage 

by Kay Bratt

Silent Tears. I was really surprised that the gal that picked our book for the month picked this one. She's usually more of a murder mystery/suspense type girl. Someone asked her why she picked it and she said she was looking for "real" stories to read.

Sounds like a good reason to me!

This book is about the author's experience volunteering in a Chinese orphanage. She is an American and her husband gets transferred to China to work for a few years. They bring along her youngest daughter but leave her older daughter at home in the states. I found that a bit strange but I guess I could see her point about not wanting to have her move while she was a teenager (but I would have either not have went or took my kid with me anyways).

As you would suspect the move to China was difficult at first. They live in a little compound of sorts with other families that are transplanted there for work and through someone there she gets an "in" into the orphanage.

This book is not for the weak. The way the babies are treated is just appalling. Sadly this isn't an "old" story but happens in the mid 2000's. The author helps you understand the best she can why things are the way they are and by the end of the book I could see how maybe they were doing the best they could at the time.

The book is very well written. The only thing is that the names are so confusing. I wish she would have changed them up a bit. So many were really similar and it made it hard to follow who she was talking about.

Someone at book club said that she has a couple other books out and I'd like to read them.

Half Marathon Run and Training

Sunday I got at 6:00. Yes, on a SUNDAY I got up early. Why?

To run of course.

Funny how getting up to run is so much easier than getting up to go to work. Well maybe not so funny.

Last week I signed up for my first half marathon. I've been talking about running one in May and have had a little schedule figured out but had never signed up for one. Well I finally bit the bullet last week and signed up. SO SCARY! But exciting too!

I decided on the Avenue Of The Vines for a few reasons.

1. It's flat

2. It's my old stomping grounds. I went to Lodi High School (GO FLAMES!) and thought it would be fun to run around there.

Frequently when I'm running I have flash backs to junior high and the really hard PE teachers we had and me struggling to make it around the perimeter of the field in time to NOT be put in the fat kids group. They had three groups and you'd be put in them according to how fast you could run the mile.

Fast kids got to play the fun sports, Medium kids sometimes played with the fast kids but sometimes had to do more working out and the Slow kids had to run/walk the WHOLE class period while everyone else got to play a sport. Nice, huh? I usually made it to the medium group but just barely.

Funny how when I'm running the memories of that PE class (two years of it) are so so vivid.

In high school I went out for track. Mostly because no one got cut and I wanted to do something. I "tried out" for sprinting but they put me in shot put and discus. Always pissed me off that I didn't get to at least try what I wanted to do.

3. It's not too far from home. So we could get up and go in the morning without having to say the night somewhere.

4. It wasn't too expensive.

I signed up and posted it on my Facebook and then was reminded that my step mom had signed up for the same race!

Fleet feet is doing a training group in our city and my step mom called and offered to pay for me to join the training and do it with her. Sign me up!

So that is why I was up early Sunday. I got there a couple minutes late and they were warming up doing static stretching. I was really surprised because I've mostly read that you shouldn't do static stretching.  My step mom turned to me and said "I don't really like stretching before I run". I was relieved and said I didn't either. We kind of just half assed stretched and then it was time to go run!

I wasn't sure how far we were running and it was pretty cold when I got up so I had worn a couple layers. Of course it was about an hour later by the time I was actually going to run and once I found out we were running for 50 minutes I knew I was over dressed. I stopped at the car and took off my extra layers (and had to take my shoes off and was making us behind everyone, I felt so bad!). I'm glad I did that though.

We took off running and it was great. We just talked the whole time and before I knew it we were half way done and turning back. We got back about 2 minutes early because we ran a bit faster on the way back.

One thing I learned already? Pay attention when they are giving directions on where you are running. We were talking a bit and I thought we'd all kind of be running along together like. Um no? We passed the walkers and then we were pretty much on our own. We were doing the "did they say to turn on this street?" game. At least it was a pretty short run being an out and back and it's not like I'm going to get lost in my own city (at least in this area).

Wednesday is our next meet up and we're going to be doing speed work I believe. That means intervals. Blech! We are meeting at a park. Hope it's fun! I see potential for a few new friends. Hope they pan out.

Bars and Bike Rides and a Birthdays

We had such a busy weekend. Funny how that can happen from a weekend with "no plans".

Friday night Scott and I went down to our little neighborhood bar to just have a couple drinks and relax. When we got there there was a pool tournament going on. There were quite a few people there and some people I had never seen before were battling it out on the pool table.

I have no idea who this guy is but he was awesome. When he was done he asked me  hold his cue stick and then left. I was like um, how long am I supposed to hold it? I thought maybe I was holding it so that his friend could use it when it was his turn but he didn't take it. Eventually I handed it off to Scott because, um, awkward? Scott held it for awhile and then leaned it up against the bar by the guys friend. I hope it ended up where ever it was that it was supposed to go. I'm pretty sure it was still there when we left.

Saturday morning we got up no where as early as we wanted to and went for a bike ride. Scott wanted to just stay in the area and I was like "but it's so boring". it's super flat here and just long straight roads. So we strapped on our helmets and left the house and started traveling the way I drive to work. Yeah, haven't seen this landscape since YESTERDAY. Once we got to the end of the long road we turned right instead of left and got to see some different scenery. We decided just to take this one road and see where it ended up.

It ended up windy as hell. I was riding in a lower gear just pedalling pedalling pedalling. Pushing against the wind. Wishing I had some sunglasses (again) and wondering if anyone would care if I stopped to pee in the orchard on the side of the road. We stopped for a minute and Scott took a couple pictures.

I should have snapped one of him too but I didn't. I suck sorry. See those mountains behind me? That's where we rode to.

We rode all the way to the Westley truck stop where it was BEYOND windy. BUT they have bathrooms! And a SUBWAY! So we took our bikes in with us and went into Subway to use the bathroom and then had lunch. At ten am haha. Believe me I was plenty hungry for it.  While we were eating Scott was looking at his map on his phone and realized we were right next to a road that would take us real close to home. 

I was a little sad we weren't going back the way we came because HELLO the wind would be behind us. But I figured whatever, and we took the road. And my eyes watered as we rode in the wind and I cursed myself for not going into the Chevron to buy a pair of sunglasses.  The only breaks in the wind were when we were between the orchards on both sides of the roads. It was still windy but not quite as bad.  

When we got home I got so cold. I was shivering! I went and laid in bed and then fell asleep for about two hours. When I woke up I took a shower and then I was super hot! I was wondering if I was running a fever or something but I took my temperature and it was fine. I think I just wore my body out a bit with all that riding in the wind. 

When I got out of the shower Scott was asleep. Glad I wasn't the only one that was tired! We eventually had to leave and go pick up some cake and ice cream and take it over to Scott's Mom's house for her 83rd Birthday!

We had some Papa Murphy's Pizza and of course cake and ice cream. I had a nice time visiting with Scott's sister and my in-laws. 83 years. I hope I'm as lucky!