Some Good and Some Bad

Let's start with the good.

We went to the temple last night and even though we had a ton of stuff get in the way, we still went. Once we had decided to go, so much stuff came up. We went to Provo to do errands which included getting the paint for the house. Well we got there got everything we needed and then I realized I didn't have the paint sample. After this I became tired and cranky and just didn't feel like going. BUT I knew I wanted to go and we needed to just do it. Because I was cranky, it didn't help with Jared's mood. We were dropping off Ryan at Jared's brother's house so his girls could watch him and then going to the Jordan River Temple. Well Jared wasn't too thrilled with the idea of having to drive all the way up to Salt Lake to go to the temple so we argued a bit about that. When Jared was coming to the car he slipped on our garage door steps and sprained his ankle. We still pressed on.

Once we got to their house and realized how late it was, about 6 pm, it seemed so much easier to just stay and hang out and eat dinner. I was very tempted! Then Jared hurt his finger on his coat, which added to the stress. I was on the brink of not going, and then I just felt this calm about going and everything would be okay. We didn't end up leaving until a bit before 7.

We got there a bit late for the 7:20 session and had to wait until the 7:40 session. It was so nice to go though. I love the temple so much! Because it had been such a crazy day I messed up some parts of the session, but it was okay. I learned a few things and my testimony was renewed. I felt the confirmation of my willingness to push through the day to make it to the temple and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity.

Ryan had a hard time since it was past his bedtime, so hopefully in the future we can plan it better. I am so glad we went though and just did it. I am lucky to have a husband willing to go with me, even if he doesn't want to. I just wanted to come on and say how glad I am that we went. I can't even express how much I love the temple.

Now for the bad.

Today I went to church and went to my new calling as a primary teacher. I wasn't teaching today, so I was just sitting in to listen. Before we started one of the girls, who is a talker and doesn't participate well, asked if we were going to switch off every week. The other teacher said yes and she said that she didn't like that. When the teacher said that she will just learn to like it, the girl looked at me and said she didn't want to come next week then. It just broke my heart.

The other teacher is an amazing teacher and is so good at keeping the attention and dealing with this girl so well. I just feel so inadequate for the calling and am wishing more that I didn't get called. It's so crazy to be feeling this way. I know that I shouldn't feel this way and to just ignore it and try to do my best. I will definitely still try to do my best, but it just made it harder.

I have all these crazy thoughts going on in my head like, I just don't do well with kids that age and that if my morning sickness with my next pregnancy is bad, I'll ask to be released.

It was just such a down day. I know that I need to pray and ask for strength and knowledge in teaching and dealing with the kids in the right way. I want to be a teacher that they love, not just the second best. I may only be the second best, but hopefully I can learn to accept it, or to just not let me bother me. I guess all I know at this point is that I am going to have to do a lot of praying with this calling.

I have such a mix of happy and sad emotions spiritually this weekend. I guess that's what it means to be a woman though. :) Hopefully I will be able to learn something from this and gain some happiness through the bad times as well. I really hope I am not experiencing this to just appreciate the good. I've already had to do that in a primary calling. Or maybe it's just my attitude. Either way, it's going to take a lot of effort on my part and some grace on God's. I just hope it's sooner than later. Thanks for listening if you made it this far in the post.

Day Thirteen

I am two weeks through!!!

I have never been this good with exercising, ever! Ever! I can't believe I've made it so far. I am so proud of myself for doing this well.

Changes:

1. In my resolutions I said I wanted to work out to be more healthy, not just lose weight and be "pretty." Well, I step on the scale everyday and check myself out in the mirror everyday to see if there are any changes. I have said to myself that if I don't lose more weight by 3 weeks and notice a change, what's the point in working out!? It's so hard to keep yourself from getting into that mindset because I feel like as a person, you want to see results quickly! The results you get inside your body are not as visible, therefore not as important.

2. But the good news! I worked out today and didn't get as winded. I thought that maybe I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I usually do and that's when I realized that I am just getting stronger! Wow! So my goal for next week is to follow the lady on the video who is doing everything a level higher. It will kick my butt, but I think I am ready for it. So I guess I am getting a view into the inner changes going on in my body. I am very excited!

My hip and thigh are doing a lot better today. My hip hurt because of a lot of standing when I was working on my office (yes, I did that this week and my goal is to be done by tomorrow night, January 31st!). And my thigh felt better after a day. Today it even felt good doing squats. So weird!

MIND

We are going to get paint today! I am so excited. Jared's brother Dennis is going to paint for us. He doesn't have much work right now since he is construction, so he's helping us out and we're helping him out. We are going to paint the whole downstairs, staircase, and upstairs hall and bathroom this color:

The very bottom color. The one touching the granite and door.

I need to find a darker brown to paint Ryan's room. Also I am going to probably make my own curtains so I can get the colors to match his crib set. I am really hoping it doesn't cost an arm and a leg! I am not completely sure how I want to personalize it, but I want to paint it brown, then the closet sticks out and I will paint that the same green as the crib set. I am going to cut the back part of the skirt to make a valance and then get green fabric to match the closet and crib set for the curtains. I want to do a green stripe with circles or blocks in the middle of the wall and then that same pattern on the closet. Then I want to paint giraffes or dinosaurs and then of course the standard RYAN above his crib. I also got a cool idea about getting pictures and then doing some cool stuff in photoshop, so I'll probably do that as well.

I am definitely getting ahead of myself here! haha. First things first, I need to finish the entryway. As soon as we get painted, I'll be able to do that. I'm excited because the paint is that first step! Yay!

SOUL

I got called to be a primary teacher a few weeks ago. At first I hated it, but it will be fun. Teaching kids is kind of fun. Especially to see how excited they get when they answer right. The group of kids I have are all really good and participate well. Every other Sunday I still get to go to Relief Society and I am so glad about that! I need that spiritual nourishment so much!

I read one of my friends blogs about the keys to a good marriage. She wrote "I asked Brother Eaton about some patterns he set early on in his marriage that have blessed them. He mentioned a few things: Temple attendance as often as possible, even if it's not together, scripture study with the family, prayer and family home evening."

Guess how much of this we are doing? Yep, none of it. The only thing we do is pray at meals and church attendance. I have planned to go to the temple twice and we weren't able to go. I wanted to go today, but we are trying to get Ryan sleep trained, but guess how well that is going today! lol. We should have just gone. I really want to set it up so we can go once a month. I guess there is still time to go today. We'll see if we can find a babysitter! :)

I really want to start scripture study with Jared and then having family prayers and family home evening. I think we will start with the family home evening when Ryan turns one. I know that these things are really important so hopefully we can get started on them.

So many goals, so little time and room in my mind! But, goals are what make us happier and better people. As long as I am hitting my goals here and there and keeping on the track, I am satisfied.

I hope you all are doing well in your New Year's Resolutions! If you have any and want to talk about them, leave a comment. I will write you back here or on Facebook. Thanks!

Day Eleven

Okay today isn't going very well.

First off - I have a question. How long should you wait to exercise after you have eaten? Usually I try to eat when the baby eats, but sometimes it doesn't happen. Then the only time I have to eat is right before a work out. Is it better to eat right before or to skip it and eat after?

Second - My legs are killing me! Seriously, isn't this supposed to be getting easier? I had to stop my work out half way because I hurt my thigh doing a squat. I squatted down pretty low and it hurt my right thigh so bad! I can't really put any pressure on it. The rest of the work out used lunges or squatting or putting all the weight on one leg, and it just hurt to bad to continue. It's better to stop than hurt it more, right?

My lower back is start to hurt. Especially when we do twists and I am tightening my abs. I don't know if it's just the muscles or not, but is that supposed to happen?

Hopefully tomorrow my leg is better and I can get right back to it. Thanks for answering my questions!

Day Ten

The work out seems to get harder and harder every day. Why is that?? It makes me feel like a wimp! I should be getting better and better, right? I'm just a bit frustrated.

Day Eight

I can't believe it's been a week already and I haven't quit! :)

I have to admit that temptation is hitting me like a brick! Yesterday, which was day 8, I had to take a nap so napped when the baby was napping and then exercised while he was awake. When I was doing my sit ups, he thought it was great to come over and lay on me. He thought it was hilarious, so I had to laugh too. Those were the hardest, most inefficient, sit ups I have ever done! :)

I also am getting sore in different places! I woke up this morning with my back muscles and chest muscles hurting like crazy. I am guessing it is from the push ups and the exercise where you get weights and then bring them in front of your face with your arms in a 90 degree angle, then you bring them out to your ears. Those kill!

Another thing that is trying to keep me down is that I fell on the stairs yesterday. I landed on my thigh so it hurts so much when pressure is put on it. I am not sure if the lunges are going to happen today!

My plan for blogging is to blog when I feel like and update you guys on where I am; whether I have kept my goals or fallen and gotten back up. I think the first week went fantastic, and even though I feel like a lot of things are coming up for excuses to not exercise, I am doing good at ignoring them and continuing.

Now if I could only keep my goals with cleaning my office....

Day Six

Sorry I skipped a post for day 5! I was super busy yesterday so I didn't have time to blog.

BUT I did work out! Not only did I work out yesterday, but I worked out today!

I wasn't going to work out today, for the mere fact that it's the weekend and you shouldn't have to do anything on weekends that you do during the week. On Facebook, I asked about skipping Sundays and got feedback about 6 days a week is awesome and perfect at first. I knew that it's what I wanted to do, but quickly changed my mind as today, Saturday, was on us.

Since this was the mind frame I was in, what do you suppose got me to work out? It's way weird. I was putting Ryan down for a nap and he was not being compliant! I laid down with him on our bed to see if that would work. I got SO tired and wanted to take a nap myself, instead of cleaning, which is what I was going to do instead of work out. Then I realized that I will feel much better and more awake if I worked out for 30 minutes instead of taking a 30-minute nap. So I let Jared take care of Ryan and I worked out! Who would've thought?

I am pretty proud I have made it to day 6. It's crazy, because I am doing the same video and starting to feel my muscles working, like my abs. I am supposed to have my abs pulled in the whole time and at first I couldn't really feel it making one bit of difference in the exercises. Now I can do the exercise and feel my muscles pulling in and be able to focus on them. It's really cool.

Today's workout was exhausting. It's funny how I can do the same one and yet feel more tired than yesterday. But, I feel good, still a bit tired, but I do have energy to get me through this day, maybe some cleaning, we'll see about that!

Day Four

Here I am at day four already! I don't think I have ever worked out 4 days in a row. I am so proud of myself!

I am feeling better, but still really sore. That hasn't stopped me though! I am hoping that I won't be sore next week, although, don't you have to be sore to feel like you did something in a work out?

The only problems I am running into is a lack of time. I have so much to do today and about half of it won't get done. I worked out for 30 minutes, but that means I have to shower afterwards. Can I tell you a little secret that I didn't want people to know about me, but I'm going to be honest... I don't shower everyday. If I am going to be home all day long and the only people who see me are Jared and Ryan, then I will gladly take the time it takes to shower and get ready and put it towards something else. Don't get me wrong, I don't go TWO days without showering, that's just gross, right? :) So not only do I have to spend the 30 minutes working out, I have to shower and get ready which takes 45 minutes. Any time there is while Ryan is still napping is very slim.

I don't know how mommies do it. Even those who work full time get more stuff done than I do! But one thing that is for sure, is I am going to work out every day for at least 3 weeks. That is my goal. No matter what else pops up. (I am so sorry to the office, once again, you will not get touched. Such a sad sight! Someday I will get to you! I promise!)

Day Three

Yep, you read that right! Day three! I'm feeling pretty good except my legs are still SOOOOOO sore! When does the soreness go away? I can hardly walk up and down the stairs and changing Ryan on the floor KILLS me. Making a trip to the bathroom is also a lot of work! Who knew?! I'm pretty excited I'm still with it, and I don't see anything that is going to make me stop any time soon. Yay!

Question for all you work out mommies, if I have any readers :), does working out lower your milk supply if you are nursing? I hope not, but if it does, I would rather not work out than stop nursing before Ryan is a year. He is going through one of his nursing strikes again, and of course a million things are going through my mind on what I can do to get him to nurse better. I was also thinking that if things go well, I'll do P90X in about a month or two (when I've gotten used to working out everyday for at least 30 minutes). We've had it for close to 2 years and haven't even popped it into the DVD player. :) But this will only be if I can continue to nurse Ryan. That cutie is my number one priority.

Non physical fitness related stuff:

I have chosen a color to paint! It's a little darker than I wanted, but I think it will lighten up when everything is that color. I liked one and painted a huge chunk on the wall and it was WAY too light. I am so glad I decided to test it out. Jared was horrified when he came home from work to see all these different colors painted on our wall. He said, "What happens if we don't like any of them and we want to keep it white?" I said, "I guess we have no choice but to pick a color and paint!" :) If you ever want to paint and hubby won't let you, just go get some sample paint and paint it on the walls! I'm sure it will work every time!!!

I am trying to get better on organizing my time, but it is so difficult. I wanted to finish unpacking our office this week and here is it Wednesday and I haven't even started. I would like to do it today during Ryan's 2nd nap, but it's his 10 month birthday today and that means picture time. I always take his pics and post them on our family blog. I'm super excited though, because it will be my first time editing with photoshop! So as you can see, that might interfere with unpacking the office. Tomorrow I am going to post what our office looks like right now, and maybe that will be motivation!

I am feeling great! and I hope all of the readers are too! If you are working out, novice or expert, let me know! Being held accountable or working with someone helps a ton!

Day Two

I woke up today SOOOOO sore! I decided that I was just going to work out three days a week so I could skip today. When Ryan went down for his nap, I took a nap instead of exercising (and doing dishes and other to-do things.) We woke up, and I was even more sore than I was before my nap. I decided to just exercise and maybe it would make me feel better? I don't know what I was thinking, but it got me to exercise.

I totally got punished for skipping my workout during Ryan's nap time. It is SO much harder to follow a DVD while you have a 10 month old pulling up on your legs every 30 seconds! Ryan even fell a couple times during the lunges. :(

I got through it though! I finished the whole workout. Yesterday I followed it and did jumping jacks and those totally kicked my trash. Today I only bounced and moved my arms during the jumping jacks and I was able to finish. Who knew jumping jacks were so hard?! I'll try them fully maybe next week.

I am just glad I ended up doing the work out and finishing it. It will be fun to see if I really do lose 5 pounds in 3 weeks!

ALSO - brownies are not good breakfast foods. That's all. :)

Day One

My butt just got kicked. Hard. I couldn't even finish my work out. I pushed myself to finish the last 5 minutes and then I just didn't have anything left in me. How do you push yourself when you feel completely depleted?

I'm doing Lindsay Brinn's Shed 5 Fast DVD workout. It's a 30 minute work out and it wasn't that bad until the lunges. My legs are going to KILL tomorrow. I can't even imagine doing this all again tomorrow.

Now that it's over, it wasn't that bad. I can't wait to lose these 5 pounds!

New Year's Resolutions

Okay, it's taken me way too long to write this post, but what's important is that I'm doing it! We've been sick all last week so I feel like I've wasted a week, and I'm totally ready to start these resolutions!

1. Be more organized.

This is with my time, as well with everything important in my life. I really haven't totally unpacked yet from the move and I just feel like everything is scattered. By the end of the month, I want to have my office completely unpacked and organized.

I want to have a weekly schedule where I sit down on a Saturday or Sunday and write down my goals for the week. I've always worked best by thinking about stuff weekly. If it was something two weeks in advance, I would completely forget about it and put it out of my mind. By writing it down, I will have more of a chance of getting it done.

2. Decorate my home.

Each month I have allotted $100 towards decorating my home. This month I am focusing on painting (which doesn't count toward the $100), and setting up our entryway. I am so excited for this! I am going to get a table for our shoes/mail/whatever, a nice mirror to go above it, a coat hanger thing for guests, a long runner rug for the hallway, and then decorate the long wall with a ton of pictures. I am going to put up pictures of us through out the years and then put up vinyl narrating our journey. It is going to look so awesome!

I am pretty sure that I won't be able to finish the living room in one month with my allotted money allowance. So instead of saying which room will get each month, I'll just list the order I am going to decorate in.

Living Room
Kitchen (minus the backsplash and dining room table)
Ryan's room
Bathrooms
Master Bedroom (this will be pricey, which is why it is last)
Kitchen backsplash and table

Somewhere in there, I'll get a piano. It will definitely not be part of the $100 allowance. :) We just need to get our debt paid off first, which leads me to the next one...

3. Pay off credit cards and start saving.

By the end of the year, I want to have one credit card of about $1,800 paid off and have at least $1,000 in savings. We have one credit card that has no interest for two years, and it doesn't make sense to pay it off while we have other debt charging us interest. This is going to be tough for us to do, because we will start paying for a bunch of maternity insurance in March. Our maternity deductible is $6,500 so we want to try to go through 2-3 companies and see if we don't have to pay for it at all! :) Doing this, though, we will be short on the cash until next baby is born, so budgeting will be very important.

Budgeting is something that I am terrible at. This goes along with the first part which is being more organized. I want to know where our money is going, how much we are going to spend on what, and more importantly, how much we are saving/paying off.

4. Be more physically fit!!

Notice I didn't say LOSE WEIGHT? Honestly, I don't care too much about my weight or even my size. I would like to be smaller and cuter, but I've given up on that image of me in my high school years because I am not a teenager any more. I am a woman. As much as I hate my saggy stretched skin, I love it too. I want to be able to look at myself and be happy with myself no matter what I look like.

I know that physical fitness is so important to our health. I want to be around for a long time. I watch The Biggest Loser, and I know that you don't have to be fat to have those scary problems. Exercising and eating right is so important. I don't think I will lose a lot of weight by exercising, so that is not my goal, because if it is, I will probably quit. My goal is to be healthy and love myself for who I am.

My goal is to exercise three times a week. It would be nice to say everyday, but come on, I hardly exercise now so I am going to start off slow and ease into it. :)

5. Be more charitable.

In our world and time, it is so easy to think about ourselves constantly. I'm guilty of this every single day. I want to be a much more giving person, who thinks of others before herself. The number one person who needs this is my husband, Jared. I need to be a much better wife emotionally.

I heard a comment, I don't remember where I heard it, that a lot of the time women give of themselves so much to their children, friends, communities, churches, and people they don't even know, and not that much to their husbands. In fact, there is only so little left for their husbands that when their husbands want something, the woman gets upset that he wants anything, because she hasn't given anything to herself. How selfish of him to want that last little bit of herself? I am so guilty of this. I complain vocally and inside about Jared WAY too much. I need to be attending to him and our marriage before giving myself to all of these other things, even our child. If our marriage is good, everything else will follow suit.

That said, I still do need to work on being a charitable woman. I am training myself to think positively about service and looking for ways I can serve in my family, ward, and community. I don't know how to quantify this, but maybe I can write down the times that I do charity and how my marriage is improving.

6. Start food storage.

I have this awesome book I got from my old ward that helps you get a year supply by buying one thing a week. I really like this idea, because it seems so easy and is pretty cheap to start off. By the end of this year, I'd like to be close to being done. This will take a little bit of extra work because I'll have to watch the sales. I've never been one to care for the case lot sales, but now I'm going to keep my eye on it. This will need a lot of help from #1. Do you see why it's my number 1 resolution? Without it, everything falls apart.

I have so many little goals for myself this year, and I really want to get them done. I want to end the year a much better person than I am now. I didn't say anything about my spiritual or "mind" goals, because once I am more organized, they will fall into place. I am so excited about this year and I can't wait to look back in 2011 to see how well I've done. *Positive thoughts!* :)

Do any of you have some awesome plans to make sure you keep your resolutions? If you have any of the same resolutions as me, let me know. It's always helpful to know you have someone else going through the same thing.

Getting Back On Track

Okay, I haven't found the time to come on and write my resolutions. I am reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and when I am reading a book everything else stops. This is why I shouldn't read! As soon as I am done, I have a few more posts to write on here, BUT for now I wanted to share this exciting news.

One of my New Year's resolutions is getting back into shape (not necessarily losing weight, just being healthy). I was planning on starting my Be Active on the Wii, but to be honest, I didn't love it and so who knows how long that would've lasted. So today on Babysteals.com, they had this steal:

Mom's Into Fitness Shed 5 Fast & Dance Jam

A lot of people who are Facebook fans on Babysteals.com said that they had her DVD's and liked them. I love to dance so I'm hoping the Dance Jam will be a lot of fun. These are all 30 minutes, which will be great. I'm so excited to get them and get started on this resolution!

Anyone else do workout DVD's and do they work for you? How do you make sure you keep it up? I definitely need advice from those of you who are awesome when it comes to fitness. :)