Wednesday, October 30, 2013

What Do You Collect? ~ Day 18

  • Pennies from heaven - from Tyson
  • Heart ♥ shaped rocks - also from Tyson ♥
  • Lighthouses - I have been collecting them for many years.  LOVE them but I am picky about which ones I collect.
  • Purple anything - I am attracted to anything purple.  It's a sickness I know.  =)  My SIL told me if there was such a thing as purple poop, I'd like it!
  • Christmas ornaments - I have one for each year we have been married that goes with something that happened that year and I get each of my boys a new one each year as well. 
  • Miniatures - I started collecting these about 30 years ago.  I no longer really collect them unless I see something irresistible.
  • Anything from my boys that they made - especially letters - I am VERY sentimental and save everything they ever gave me!  
  • Pictures - I take a lot of pictures!  That way I always have a memory of things.
  • Journals - I have kept a journal since I was about 12.  I now have quite a collection.
  • Running race bibs - I save my race bibs and write my time and place on the back.  I have them in a book.
  • Race shirts - I run only for the t-shirts!  Ha - just kidding, but I do have a million of these that I am saving to make into a quilt someday.  Might need more than one quilt at this rate.
  • Race medals - well of course I collect these!  I worked hard for them!  To date I think I have around 25 medals.
  • Cards/letters from others- I save many cards, thank you notes, letters, etc., from others.  I enjoy going back and looking through them occasionally.
  • Recipes and recipe books- I have so many of these!  And I have even down sized!  I need to down size again now that I have Pinterest to collect all my yummy recipes!
  • Glassware- for some reason, I have always loved glassware!  Glasses were about the only thing I had in my hope chest before I got married.  I love to get new ones and I guess it's good because over the years most of them break eventually.  Right now, I have a collection of gorgeous purple ones.  We use them every day though, so that's how I justify it!  
  • Dishes (especially purple ones!) - Right now it's very easy to find dishes that are purple.  I am taking advantage of it because I know it won't always be the case and it's really the first time since I can remember that you could find so many dishes that are purple! But I love to collect other kinds as well.
  • Memories- these are the greatest thing of all to collect!  And they are something that no matter what, no one can steal or take them away from you.  Go collect some today!
*Speeding tickets- (Dave humorously threw that one in) hahahaha - not


I also have a whole collection of purple girl baby clothes that I bought with each pregnancy.  The only boy that I knew what gender he was going to be was Bryce. I still have all of those clothes.  Hoping possibly for a girl grand-baby someday.  But they will probably be way too out of style to wear. 


Some of my pennies (and other coins) from heaven...
 

♥ Some of my heart shaped rocks ♥


What do YOU collect?

How Do You Do Your Laundry? ~ Day 17

Oh laundry...  it's just loads and loads AND loads of fun!  
If only...

When I designed our home, I put the laundry room upstairs with the bedrooms because most of the laundry comes from those rooms.  A lot of people told me, that I should put it near the kitchen.  Why?  The only laundry that really comes from there are dish cloths and towels.   I LOVE having it upstairs near the bedrooms.  That way I don't end up with dirty underwear near my kitchen either. haha 
I have three laundry bins in my laundry room.  One for darks, one for whites, and one for towels and rags.  It makes it easy to have it already sorted before washing the clothes.

I am really picky about my laundry and I don't like to wash kitchen rags and towels with socks or underwear etc.  Ew!  That is just disgusting to me.  I always wash my clothes separately.  I wash my running clothes altogether and not with my regular clothes.  I usually wash Dave's clothes separate as well.   

I pretreat any stains before washing and I will soak difficult stains in Biz for a while before I wash it.  I have had a lot of experience with tough stains raising five boys (as you can imagine), and I can get out pretty much almost any stain.

I have always used Tide except when we were very poor struggling medical students. But I am a True Blue Tide fan.  However now that I have an HE washer I have switched to other brands as well.  I am just starting to use homemade laundry detergent and so far I have liked it.  I use Tide Sport for my boys football, basketball, track, (any sport) and all my running clothes.  It really does get rid of the odor in athletic clothes better than anything I've ever tried.

I use Downy in the wash for certain items but now that I have discovered these little jewels...

...I use them more!  Downy Unstopables!  I love them!  They make your clothes smell soooooooo yummy!

I always use a Bounce sheet in the dryer, but I only use a half a sheet.  It works just as well as a full one and costs less.
  
My mother in law taught me the greatest thing when we first got married, which is to remove any shirts or clothes that will wrinkle after only drying them for 10 minutes and immediately hang them up.  I have always done that with all Dave's shirts and pants and all my boys shirts.  It saves hours and hours of ironing and folding. I rarely iron. And even less now that I got myself a steamer.  I love it and use it frequently for my clothes.

All my boys, as well as Dave and I,  have a different color hanger.  Bet you can't guess what color mine is.   When I take the clothes out of the dryer, I put their clothes on their color hanger and hang it in the laundry room until they can come and retrieve their clothes to go hang in their closet.  All they have to do is grab their color of hanger.

Each of my boys also has a laundry bin/basket inside a closet in my laundry room where I put their other laundry that I don't hang up (underwear, shorts, levis,  pants, socks, etc).  I have an extra bin where I put sports stuff like socks, underarmour, sweat bands etc. so that is all located in one spot.  I also have a bin for church pants and belts where my they can go and find something quickly for church (now that they can wear similar sizes).

My boys bins


In MY Laundry Room
 
 My friend gave me this sign.... Love it because it's so true!
 
Once my boys were able to all wear the same size of socks, I just bought socks in mass and have a large basket where I put ALL the socks.  I have one for the dark socks and one for the light socks.  It makes life so much easier. I also have a missing person sock drawer where all the singles go who are still looking for a mate.  The success rate isn't as high as match.com, but once in awhile I will see a perfect match-up.
I love my laundry room and I like it to stay neat and orderly.  Dave has decided to start helping me with the laundry and when he helps he does it his own way. It really drives me crazy.   Instead of putting the clothes on their colored hangers and in their bins, he just removes it from the dryer and lays it on the laundry room counters.  It really bugs me when I go in there and all these clothes are laying everywhere. He puts them in piles of shirts, pants, shorts, underwear, sports, etc., but I can't take the mess.  I told him how to do it my way, but he claims he doesn't know who wears what and so the colored system won't work for him.  So I told him that if he is going to do that then I am not going to be able to go in there or I will get crazy and so when he does that I just let him do the laundry and he is happy to do it.  I decided I can either complain about the mess and let it bug me or be stuck with doing all the laundry.  I would rather have help with the laundry!  My boys do most of their own laundry now too and that's really cut down on my loads of fun!




Here's a great recipe for the homemade laundry detergent I mentioned above:


 
Thanks Jen!


Monday, October 28, 2013

What Sports Have You Participated In? ~ Day 16

The sport I currently participate in is:
Drum roll please...
RUNNING!
As if you didn't know that....

My first full marathon. The Top of Utah in 2010
My second full marathon.  ↓ Ogden in 2013 (in a rainstorm!)
To date I have been running about 7 years.

So far I have ran:
 Two full marathons (26.2 miles)
11 half marathons (13.1 miles)
One 30 K (18.6 miles)
At least six or seven 10 K's (6.2 miles)
Four or so 4.7 to 5 milers
Four or five 4 milers and
 MANY 5 K's (3.1 miles) - lost count, but probably somewhere around 40?
And probably a few more I can't remember.



I have a lot of medals and a lot of race t-shirts as proof.  But the real proof is in how running has changed me. I have learned many life lessons from this sport.  It has made me a better person in every way.  I have learned to dig deep when I thought there was nothing left to give and I have learned to keep pushing even when it's so hard all I want to do is quit.
I ran out of room on my medal display and so the extra's are hanging on my door knobs until I can get another one. I have some pretty cool looking medals though.  

I run on an average of 5-6 days per week.  And an average of 30 miles a week depending on what I am currently training for. If it's for a full marathon, then about 40-50 miles a week at some point.  I do not own a treadmill or a current gym membership and so all of my running (even in the bitter winter temps) is done outdoors.  Running outside is one of the reasons I love to run.  There is something about being outdoors that does something for my soul.  


I am also currently playing PICKLEBALL.  It's a relatively new sport and touted as the fastest growing sport right now.  I would describe it as a mixture between ping pong, tennis, and badminton.  Dave thinks it more like Ping Pong on steroids.   We just got some new courts in our city and it's been really fun to play.  Dave is really good at it and I just do my best...but I am learning!  He is a natural and his Ping Pong skills come in very handy as well as his long arms and height.  He is signed up for his first tournament this December and wanted me to play doubles with him but I told him I need a little more practice first. I am really excited to go watch him play though!



I also participate in the sport of FISHING!
I have done a lot of fishing throughout my life.  My Dad used to take us every weekend when I was growing up and so I have done a lot of it.  I do not like to worm the hooks or touch the fish and I really don't like to eat them, but I still enjoy fishing if I am taken along with Dave and the boys.  I have been to Alaska twice and done some river fishing and salmon fishing as well as some deep sea fishing.
(the two bottom photos are not the same- you will have to enlarge to see why-haha)

This was our Christmas card last year:


A few of the other sports (there's more if I had time to think about it) I have participated in are:

Water sports 
Snorkeling
Wave Running
Water Skiing
Boating

High Adventure Sports 
White Water Rafting
Skydiving




Winter Sports
Ice Skating
Snowmobiling
Skiing (do not like it)


Spectator Sports
Baseball
Football
Basketball
Hockey
Track
Soccer
etc.


And of course the greatest sport of all..
being a 
DANCING QUEEN!  hehe
But seriously, I spent a LOT of my time as a youth and as a newly married in the sport of Baton Twirling (as well as Dance). It was a great sport and it taught me many life lessons as well.  It also helped me earn an income when I began to teach it to help support our family at time when we really needed it.


There is actually a sport called Extreme Ironing that I used to participate in occasionally but have since resigned now that I have a steamer to get the wrinkles out. haha

Serious...there is. Check out this link here! =)



Provo Halloween Half Marathon


I have been looking forward to running this Halloween Half Marathon for months now! The day finally came this weekend and I was so happy things worked out with McKay's football game being moved to Wednesday so we could head down on Friday night and stay at a hotel so we didn't have to get up so stinkin' early on race day!  Even though we did get stuck in rush hour traffic and a million cars heading to a BYU football game which meant it took us three hours to get to Provo! But when you are with fun friends, it doesn't matter.
Our first stop was to the Packet Pick Up and Race Expo to get our bibs and shirts.  We had to stand in three different lines to get it all, but once we did we headed out to Carrabba's to carb load!  I was looking more forward to that part of the weekend than probably even the race!  I ordered the Lasagna (thee best!) and after we ate our main course the waitress asked us if wanted dessert.  Do birds fly?  Do zebra's have stripes?  

HELLO!


Do we want dessert?  That is WHY we came!  When we told her we wanted the Chocolate Dream Cake (aka Sogno Di Cioccolata) she asked if wanted to share one.  Umm....NO!  We each wanted our own!  Of course, while we were eating it we decided we probably should have shared one.  We couldn't finish it all and so we took the rest with us to our hotel and happily we had a fridge!  
Jen and Heather had a little battle over the biggest piece.  They were trying to make the other one take the biggest one.  Lol.

We got to our room at the Day's Inn and that place was packed due to the game.  We asked our interesting check in guy who was clearly from India if we could get a late check out so we could shower after the race.  After a little negotiating he told us we could.  We were VERY happy about that!  We got all settled and hung around the room talking when we decided we needed to get some safety pins to make sure our candy bar costumes didn't have a wardrobe malfunction in the morning, so around midnight we headed to Walgreens.  We had a blast shopping in that fun store.  It's amazing the fun you can have when it's midnight.  Heather even bought some stocking stuffers and prizes for her little ones.  We all bought matchy comfy leggings to sleep in too.  No photo - dang!

We were so happy the race start wasn't until 9 a.m. which meant more sleep!  We had to be to the bus load spot by 7:30 am and so we got on our costumes and off we went.
What else were you expecting?  Perfect costume for me! 

 When we arrived at the bus load place we got in line and got on and off three different buses because they were already full.  All the buses left and there were still a ton of runners that didn't get on one.  We kind of panicked until a man told us that they didn't have enough buses for all of us and so the buses would go drop off the first loads and then come back for us.  We didn't mind because it's always colder at the race start and we just as soon wait where it's warm.    


Avatar getting her chocolate for the day!

We went back and waited in Jen's car with the heater on.   After about 30 minutes the buses finally arrived and we loaded up and headed for the starting line.  

We noticed on the way up that there was a lot more UP hill than we planned on.  But that thought quickly dispersed when we approached the start and noticed that the gun had just gone off and the race had started WITHOUT US!  We were watching the start of the race while we were riding on the bus!

Really?

We could not believe it!  There must have been 10 more bus loads of runners that still were not there yet and they started the race?  Instead of waiting for everyone, they choose to start on time which meant we started about 10-15 min. after the gun went off!  To make it worse the bus dropped us off at least a half mile away from the start!  CRAZY!  There were not a lot of happy runners at this point.  Mainly because even though your chip won't activate until you cross the start, if you wanted to run with a pacer, they were already long gone!  Or so we thought!  Come to find out a lot of the pacers were on the late buses!  That meant that even some of the ones that got to start on time, didn't have pacers!   
The course WAS gorgeous though and so that made up for the insanity at the start.
Sorry these are blurry, but I took them while I was running.


EYE see you...
Those hats are giant eyeballs!  Kind of freaked me out at first. 

It was a tougher course than I planned on, mainly due to the up hill, but I really wanted to finish at a sub two time.  I didn't have a pacer and so I just pushed it to where I really couldn't push it any harder and pretty much kept it up the entire 13 miles.  I was feeling it at mile 10 and was just so ready to see that finish line.  UGH.  Those last three miles were really hard for me and my hamstrings were killing me.  About mile nine, I see the 1:50 pacers pass me!  I asked them if they were actually going that pace and they said that they were on the late buses and so they were just pacing their time but wouldn't finish at the 1:50 gun time.  They said they were doing an 8:23 pace.   I kept them in my view the last three or four miles because I knew if I stayed with them I would be finishing under two.

I did!  Yippee!  

I finished at 1:56:00 and came in 5th in my age division out of 43.  I was 203 out of 1028 In the overall woman division.  So I was very happy  with my time!  

There were some awesome costumes and it was so fun to see people running in the craziest get ups!  Here's a few of my faves: 
The couple on the top left got engaged at the finish line! 

It was a party after!

With the famous Halloween Hearst!

We didn't have a lot of time to party after because we had to get back to our hotel and get showered before our check out time.   

On the way home we stopped and did some Trick or Treating at Krispy Kreme in our race shirts!

I loved the medals!
 Overall it was a super fun time even with all the problems with the race.  They need to get some people on board to get it a bit more organized at the expo and better fitting shirt sizes and of course, the bus situation needs to be fixed.  But other than that, it was a ton of fun!  It's always more fun when you get to do it with great friends too!  And our costumes were pretty saweeeeeet as well!  I loved all the cheers I got during the race from people yelling how much they loved chocolate or saying things about Hershey Bars.  The best was seeing the little kids eyes get all big as I ran past them.  I think some of them really thought I had a giant Hershey bar inside that costume.  I guess if you actually did the math, over the years, I probably have much more than that inside this body of mine!  haha

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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