Roses are red...

My sister Amber is always encouraging me to "look on the bright side" and not be such a whiner. So, just in case anyone has gotten the impression that I'm a miserable grump, this is a long awaited post about "Things I LOVE"...

- My family! Brent is my best friend. Sometimes marriage (any marriage) isn't easy but at the end of the day I'm so thankful that he's with me. No one can make me laugh like him. And it feels so nice to have someone support me in my goals the way he does. Other then his ability to make me laugh, my favorite thing about him is his work ethic. He works so hard and is so committed and loyal to his obligations. My girls are the most precious people. Brynley is almost always smiling! I'm so eager to get to know her better. Mariska has SO much personality! She's so social and loves having friends and playing. I LOVE that she still calls milk "nilk". Her first version of the word was "gilk", then she evolved it into "nilk".

- Being Mormon and living by all the rules! I love the freedom from negative consequences that having high standards gives! Within the church I LOVE Relief Society and the Young Women's programs. I love R.S. because of the feeling of sisterhood that is there. And I LOVE the Young Women values that are taught: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works and Integrity... I'm so excited to have my girls learn and live these values, how much better would the world be if everyone put these values into their lives?

- Working Out! Be it aerobics or lifting weights, I LOVE exercising! It's really difficult for me to get into a good routine, because working out takes commitment and effort! BUT, once I get into it I almost get "high" from it! I get so invigorated! I feel so much cleaner and energetic when I work out, part of that is also because the more I do, the less junk I eat!

- Utah Mountains!! I can't tell you how much I miss the mountains! I've been tempted to make cardboard cutouts and tape them to our windows. I love the color they have in the fall and spring. I love the snow on them in the winter and all the rocks and shadows. I miss all the free fun stuff to do.

- Road Trips! While we may not be able to afford to go on any, I LOVE packing up the car and hittin' the road! This is actually the main reason for my wanting a mini-van.

- Italian Food! Especially italian food with seafood. Seafood and italian are pretty much tied for me, but italian wins out by a hair. I LOVE pasta. I could eat at The Macaroni Grill or The Olive Garden everyday for the rest of my life!

- Learning! While you couldn't tell from my pooping away my education when I had the opportunity for one, I love to learn. I LOVE the idea of being a nurse one day. I want so badly to have a degree. Just on my own, my favorite things to learn about are money and how to handle it, being healthy and nutrition, and how to be more organized and to plan ahead.

- Our house and yard! They are so perfect for us in every way. One of my favorite things is to look out into the back and see Mariska "helping" Brent with the garden.

- Harry Potter! By far my favorite books! The Twilight ones are good, but Harry Potter wins by a landslide! The movies are fun but the books are the ultimate proof that books are better then movies.

- Clean sheet night! Almost nothing beats the feeling of going to sleep in freshly washed sheets. All tight and crisp. Not to mention the smell of detergent. mmmm, I'm almost tempted to wash them today.

- Foot and back massages! This really needs no explanation.

- Old run down boarded up houses. I love finding old homes, I can't help but wonder about the story behind it. What kind of family or families lived there? I imagine Christmas mornings and a Mom wearing an apron taking a pie or turkey out of the oven. Depending on what it looks like, I may go as far to wonder what horrible things the house saw as well, like was someone killed there? Morbid I know, but that's part of my love for old houses, who knows what stories they could tell!?

While there are more things to list, I'll stop here. I love many, many things.

Show the rolls, or go frumpy?

All of you know I hate my weight. I HATE that I can't fit into any of my clothes. But I HATE the idea of buying bigger clothes too. I feel like if I have to buy bigger clothes, then I have to end up looking like this: The point of buying bigger clothes would be to hide my chunk. I don't care what anyone says, a shirt does NOT fit well if you can see lumps and rolls through them. And with my shape, this is the only kind of outfit I could wear to not have all my bulge hanging out.

But, right now I feel like all my other clothes look like this:

I actually had a pretty good week when it came to not pigging out and doing all my exercises, until Thursday. Thursday was really busy and I didn't get a chance to actually work out. And what I was busy with was shopping, and I made the mistake of buying some treats "for Mariska", and ended up eating an entire row of cookies from the package. So this morning I put the rest (except 2 for Mariska) down the garbage disposal. And I was doing fairly well with not scarfing down the house until Brent came home and HAD to go out because of his terrible week. I need to support my husband, if he needs me to go out to a restaurant with him and get boneless buffalo wings and a giant bowl of carbs, well that's just what I'll do! And that wouldn't have been quite so terrible if I had worked out today, but no, Brynley wouldn't give me that much time today. Although, I must add, my friend and I did try going on a walk but it started raining, so I at least get a few points for that.

I've done really well this week but how long it takes to actually see change is KILLING me!! Its like, "I've worked out 3 times this week, these pants I haven't fit into for 3 years should fit already!".

I have a few pet peeves when it comes to fat. And since this is a "venting post" I'm going to list them...

- I hate the women who claim to be proud of their fat. Big and beautiful my giggly rear end. Yes fat women can be beautiful, but they aren't beautiful because they're big. They would be WAY more beautiful thin and healthy (not twiggy) and they know it, stop pretending.

- I hate the "no fat chicks" phrase on shirts and such. I would love to manufacture one that says "no fat dudes" and see how they like it.

- adding to that - I hate how okay it is for a guy to be fat over a girl.

- I hate having to pull out my shirt before I sit down so it doesn't get trapped in my rolls.

- I hate wearing panty hose to church because they make a swishing sound when I walk from my legs rubbing together.

- I hate how a shirt can fit just perfectly... except way tight in the arms so that if I bend my elbows at all they almost burst open.

- I hate how clothes makers seem to think that if you are a plus size, you automatically have huge jugs. My boobs are the LAST place I gain weight and the FIRST place I lose it, so a shirt can fit great except for the fact that the neck hole goes down to my belly button. This forces me to wear tank tops under everything which doesn't feel too great in 100 degrees at 60% humidity!

- I hate how clothes makers think that if you're a plus size your legs are 7 feet long. Or that if I have a giant rear end I'll still have a 32 inch waist.

- I hate how if your lower stomach is at all fatter then your upper stomach people automatically think your pregnant.

- It's really annoying when skinny girls complain about having stretch marks on their belly from having a baby... try them on your belly, thighs, butt, calves, hips, boobs, arms... mine have all basically just fused into one mega-mark.

Anyway, so I'm working on it, I just wish that as I start to work out, eat better and get to feeling good, that my clothes would fit as well as I feel. And I'm also annoyed that so many of my clothes are long sleeved, good for Utah, not so good here. That has nothing to do with being fat, but is still bugging me. But I really am amazed at how much working out stops me from craving 9 pounds of cookies and such. So I'm done. Thanks for letting me rant, assuming you're still reading this.

Our visitor

This little guy came running over to us on our walk today. We're pretty sure we know which house he came from but they didn't answer their door when we knocked, even though there were 3 cars in the driveway. We're going to go back over after Brent gets home. If we don't have any luck with that I guess we'll just get some food and put up flyers. At least I know where Mariska is all day, she's been just sitting at the gate since he got here! No complaints from me!

Easter... and yard

Happy Easter! We had a lot of fun this last Sunday. First we gave Mariska her basket and had an indoor egg hunt. After getting her sufficiently hyper on sugar we all got ready for church. We thus went to church and were spiritually uplifted to get us through the next week. Afterwards we went home and dyed Easter Eggs. While waiting for them to get dark enough we played Lucky Ducks. Mariska loved playing and is getting so much better at taking turns. Although we had to explain to her a few times that she can't give us our ducks when she picks them up, that we have to find them ourselves, but that was just cute. Brynley was of course, oblivious to all of this and took some nice naps. We tried to explain the resurrection and purpose of Easter to Mariska, but she's not quite understanding the whole death thing yet anyway. But at least the effort is there!

I've also included some pictures of our yard. We have adorable little apple and peach trees. Our tomatoes froze in a freak late freeze last week, so we had to replace all of them, and a few eggplants and pepper plants. But our onions, peas, beats, broccoli and carrots are all doing great! Brent has sure worked hard to get the garden set up and healthy. I'm sure Heavenly Father will bless his efforts and it'll pay for itself in saving on groceries. Brent is also finishing the project of putting 6 more shelves into our closet. This is where we'll keep the majority of our food storage and emergency supplies. Right now the contents of our closet is spread all over our room, we've had a few fun nights sleeping in the living room! Brent feels badly and thinks I care... I don't care, he gives me the big couch and I sleep just fine. Better actually because I can't feel him moving around. He's got the "jimmy legs".

Anyway, we're doing great! I'm also very excited to report that Mariska has new friends right across the street!! And it's extra exciting for me because I have a friend! We went on a walk today, which we want to make a some what regular thing, and we're going over for a play date tomorrow!! We also have a girl from Mariska's church class come over every Wednesday night while her Mom and Brent go to Scouts. I've seen Mariska's development skyrocket since she's had more "play dates". I love seeing her have so much fun.

We are doing great and things around here are starting to feel like "home". We miss family and Utah but we're really settling nicely here and it feels good. Love you all and hope you're well.

Had to share

This was so fun. I love how she laughs at the anticipation. I'm SO excited she's getting older!!

Family Home Evening

We are seriously lacking in the Family Home Evening department. I never think to plan anything, and when I do, it's not until right before we go to bed and I put it off until the next day, when I inevitably forget again. I want so badly to be good at it. I want our girls to grow up having Family Home Evening on a regular basis. I've found some cute "LDS web sites" that have a lot of ideas. Brynley still isn't letting me sleep all that much, but it's been so long that I just have to get over it and stop using it as an excuse to not do anything, like work out and all the other stuff I need to do, like plan FHE. With this last weekend being General Conference, I've had my semi-annual boost of enthusiasm to live my life better. The twice a year we have General Conference are more powerful for me then any sort of New Year resolution craze.

The last couple days I have had many of those moments when you get slapped in the face with the realization of just how old and grown up your baby is. I can't believe Mariska is almost 3 1/2! It makes me so sad when I realize I hardly remember her being a baby, it's hard to realize that she's the same baby I had 3 years ago. I almost feel like she's some other kid and that baby was just some kid I babysat a long time ago. Anyway, so that's my new goal: start and stick to Family Home Evening and taking the time to be more proactive in the gospel, namely reading my scriptures and saying regular prayers. I hope these web sites make coming up with things a little easier! So, that's my resolution. I want to be this family: