One Word

I've reached the end of my blog motivation, which has led me to take drastic measures. I'm participating in a one-word meme, if not to give you an insight into my exciting life, at least to fill in a day of blogging.

Enjoy.

1. Where is your cell phone? Pocket

2. Your most significant other? School

3. Your hair? Brown

4. Your mother? Heaven

5. Your father? Handsome

6. Your favorite? Family

7. Your dream last night? Nope

8. Your favorite drink? Coke

9. Your dream/goal? Happy

10. What room you are in? Dining

11. Your hobby? Facebook

12. Your fear? Failure

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Done!

14. Where were you last night? In-Laws

15. Something that you aren't? Shy

16. Muffins? Top

17. Wish list item? Car

18. Where you grew up? Utah

19. Last thing you did? Text

20. What are you wearing? Clothes

21. Your TV? Disney

22. Your pets? Nope

23. Friends? The best!

24. Your life? Crazy

25. Your mood? Bitchy

26. Missing someone? Mom, always

27. One place that I go to over and over? McDonalds

28. Something you want: Graduation

29. Your favorite store? Kohls

30. Your favorite color? Pink

So there you go. Nothing too exciting, but if you want to participate, go here and link up.

It's A Girl

That title got your attention, huh?

Gotcha.

This is all about my Gretta, my baby, the one and only fetus of which we knew the sex, turning 4 years old today.

She got a new bike and a new helmet. She was in heaven. She said "Thank you" a million times today. It was adorable.


She also got a new snowglobe. The one she had from Christmas broke, and she was devastated. Emma was very thoughtful and found this one for her at the hospital gift shop. (That's a whole nother post.)

I can't believe my baby is 4. Where has the time gone? She was once a sweet, wriggling mass of babyness, and now she is a preschooler, and a stinker.

I miss those days of she and I chilling at home, her in her helmet, me in my, well, not helmet. I miss her crazy flailing arms and her pterodactyl scream. I miss her crawling, her crib full of stuffed animals, and the swish of her diaper as she toddled around the house. Those days pass so quickly, it's hard to remember what the day to day life was like back then.

Now I love having her as my eternal sidekick, always intent on being right in the middle of whatever I'm doing. I love that she'll talk and talk, and talk, and then suddenly be asleep, practically mid sentence. I love that she can buckle her own seat belt! I love that she will get dressed by herself, and help herself to my cookie stash under my nightstand. I love that she loves to fall asleep in my bed at night, and that she will tell me she has "logged off" the computer when she's done playing.

She is such a big girl, and a great helper. I love having her home with me and Maggie to keep us both company. She is a great little sister, and I'm lucky to have her.

Happy birthday, Gigi. We love you!

Just When Things Are Running Smoothly

So as you can see on my side bar over there <----, I have successfully logged some miles for this month. Yay for me.

Boo for injuries resulting from said mileage.

It would seem that despite my best efforts at being a trooper and buckling down and getting my happy ass out the door to run and complete my goal, I have suffered a strain to my Peroneal Tendons.

I need to reiterate, this has no affiliation whatsoever with the Perineal anything. Totally different part of the body.

But this stinking injury has really put me in a mood. Now I can hardly walk, let alone run, and I just know I'll miss my goal for this month. The first month in, and I'll fail. What a way to start off the year. Bummer.

But I also know that unless I take it easy and let this thing heal appropriately, I'll be battling it all year, and that would be worse.

So I'm giving myself a pass on this one. I'm gonna bow out of January gracefully, and let myself pick up when I've healed fully. I know, I know, it seems like I'm just one of those people that sets goals and then doesn't follow through. I totally am, by the way, but not this time. I'll take whatever mileage I'm lacking at the end of January, and divide it into the remaining months, so when the year is all said and done, I will still have completed the initial amount of miles.

Win win. Good and good.

Because I'm Totally Failing

As you may notice, I have accumulated exactly 0 miles toward my goal of running 26.2 miles this month. I'm a winner. First month in and I'm already failing.

I have lots of good excuses, though. This reminds me of an ancient Chinese proverb that Sean reminds me of repeatedly.

"Excuses are like butt holes. Everyone has one, and they all stink."

Ahh, poetry.


In an attempt to quell the voices of failure that are rampant in my head right now, I am actually doing something good for my body. I am currently, as we speak, presently, eating a cup of fruit.

Eating would be a word I'm using loosely, because mostly I'm gagging it down one piece at a time.

I searched out a specific kind of fruit cup, the ones that are being advertised as being packed in 100% juice, because I thought they would be easier to eat than the ones packed in ooey gooey syrupy ick.

Turns out, the juice packed ones aren't making it that much easier on my fruit-phobic palate.

But it is thwarting the failure feeling inside me by distracting the voices from saying "nee nee nee nee nee, we knew you couldn't do it!" to a glom of confusion with this new healthy snack.

Just when I think the voices have triumphed, they are the ones that are failing! Take that, voices! Ha!

Angry Beavers

Obviously blogging wasn't one of my new years resolutions. I figure that takes away a feeling of failure for the time when my blogging is sparse.

Like now.

I really feel like I have nothing to post about. My days are busy, but not in the way others would percieve as fun or exciting. I wake up, get Emma off to school, watch a little news or New Adventures Of Old Christine (of which I've seen every episode, but still love), get dressed, do school with Mags, make lunch, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed.

See, super exciting.

One new development is my anger issues. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but lately the littlest thing sets me off. I've always had a little anger problem, but my happy pills usually keep it at bay for the most part. Maybe it's because I'm working a lot and not running (yucky inversion!) that's making me angry. Maybe I just need to have a good attitude adjustment. Maybe it's my delayed reaction to things that happen in my life.

Whatever it is though, I've got to work on it. I've tried harder the last couple of days to be more patient with my kids and let the little things slide by. I've made an effort to pay attention to my thoughts when I start getting that angry feeling to see what the heck I can do to calm the crazy voices in my head.

*Just so we're clear, I'm not really hearing voices. No I'm not. No, I'm not, I swear.

So if you see me at the grocery store or the library and I have a larger than normal scowl on my face, just disregard it, and pretend you don't see me. Trust me, you're probably better off that way.

And lets pray for an early Spring, mmkay?

From Whence I Came

So my Emma, being an old soul like she is, has suddenly taken to the idea of finding out more about her ancestry. I, being basically repelled by the idea of genealogy, tried my darndest to keep putting her off. She asked if we could go to the family history library that just opened up near our house. Lucky for me it was closed during Christmas break. Then she asked again last night. I was pretty sure it closed at 5, but I looked it up for her anyway.

To her delight, and my chagrin, it was open until 9.

So we loaded her up in the car, Maggie tagging along, and she brought her papers with some family names from Grandma's side of the family.

We walked in, and it felt so, like, well, a library. It wasn't like I thought it would be. I had envisioned a musty dimly lit room with decrepit old men hunched over old dusty books with their beards dangling into the words, with their canes and walkers perched nearby. There were no old men like that, just so you know.

We had a super nice Sister Missionary come and help us get started, and she told Emma she began having an interest in her family history at about Emma's age. We searched and found quite a bit of information, which I won't bore you with here. Emma was starstruck. She wants to go back tonight. I think we need more info before we go again, but she doesn't care. She just wants to keep searching and searching.

I find it completely astonishing that a girl as young as Emma could have such a vision to want to know her ancestors. I always knew about mine on both sides, but after doing so much searching, I realized she doesn't really know her great grandparents on Grandmas side. Knowing how special Grandpa Hashbarger was, I find a renewed importance to let Emma understand that she comes from an amazing past.

I always knew my kids would challenge me, but I never realized they would teach me more than I could teach them.

I Resolve

Well, it's that time of year again. The time when we all make promises to ourselves that we're certain we won't keep, thus leading to immense feelings of guilt and failure. Sort of like the reason I don't send out Christmas cards, remember?

There was a time, a long time ago it seems, that I made a resolution for the new year, and it actually worked. I resolved to read each Ensign from start to finish for the entire year. I did it. I really did. I gained a new perspective on things, and it made me feel like a better person.

Then there was last year. Last year when all my hopes and dreams and aspirations basically seemed to go to Hell amidst one of life's largest upheavals. Not a good year for resolutions.

So this year I'm back on track. Literally.

I resolve to run 26.2 miles each month for 2011. I've done it once before, so I know I can do it. But I've had a few setbacks, what with the appendix out and the rib dislocation. I know to all you hard core runners that seems like a cake walk, and it really works out to be less than a mile a day. The theory I'm sticking with is aim low, then I can achieve and feel good about reaching my goal. Then maybe next time I'll aim a little higher and know I can do better. It's like a sort of stair step thing, see how that works?

So there, I've resolved to all the internets and all my readers, so I must be held accountable. I will (try to) put a mileage counter on my blog and update it as I go, which I think will be pretty cool, especially as the year winds down and I can look back at all the mileage I've completed. Hopefully I'll learn something through all this, and possibly lose a pound or two along the way.