*Monday Memos*

*MONDAY MEMOS*

   

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 
Weekly recap of my rather crazy, insane, but fun and rewarding life!

dear blog, I have been having a hard time keeping this thing up!  If I can get back on top of it, it will be much easier, but not sure when that is happening!  If I can post this one on time, then I will have done three Monday Memos in six days.  It will feel good to get caught up!  Other than,  I still haven't done a post on our cruise!  Oh well, living life is much more fun than posting about it!  

This would never happen because mine is never posted on the same day!  hah

dear secret haven boutique, Halloween is in the air!  Yay!  Tracy invited me to go with her and her buds to the annual boutique.  Sadly, this is the last year they are doing it because they are closing.   It is always so much fun!  If you dress up you get 30% off one item.  I got a gorgeous table runner for my discount.  They had so much fun stuff!  I feel bad I didn't take any photos of the inside.  

dear harvest time, we canned tomatoes but didn't do even a fraction of what we usually do because we were gone to the cabin when they were ready and many went bad.  I don't mind canning tomatoes. It's even kind of fun.  You would have never heard me say that 20 years ago.  Peaches - no.  Tomatoes - yes.  Dave and Bryce sliced and froze a bunch of peaches while I worked on the rest of the tomatoes.  I LOVE our canned tomatoes.  I use them for so many things. 

dear registering for BOSTON!  Oh, my Hannah I have been so nervous for this day and it finally arrived!  My time to register was on Wednesday starting at 10 a.m. eastern time.  My time meaning anyone who qualified 10 minutes or faster under their qualifying time.  The 20 min or faster registered Monday and the 5 min will register on Friday.  Qualifying at your designated time is NOT a guarantee of being accepted.  Last year they turned away almost 5000 runners who qualified!  Just qualifying doesn't cut it now.  They start with the fastest of the qualifying time and then accept them as space remains.  Since I was 12 minutes faster than my BQ (Boston Qualifying) time then I felt pretty safe for getting in this year, but I was still so nervous!  It was so EXCITING to register!!!  I can't believe it is real!  Now, I just have to wait until they decide to tell me if I am in or not! 

Here is what I posted on Facebook:

This just happened... Pinching myself right now!
Still not officially accepted until all qualifiers have applied and then only if my qualifying time is fast enough. Running a qualifying time isn't a guarantee to earn a place at the starting line. I was 12 minutes under my qualifying time and so hopefully that is fast enough. Last year they turned away 4,562 runners who ran a qualifying time. The qualifiers had to run 2:28 minutes or faster under their time to be accepted and it supposedly increases each year. I will find out in a couple weeks! Crossing my fingers!!! Wish me luck! 

They keep making it harder to run Boston.  A few years ago I had five minutes more time to BQ, but they made that harder and now they are making it so only the fastest of the fast get in. I think I am good with a 12 minute window, but each year is different depending on how many BQ and how many register.  Crossing my fingers and toes and arms and legs and eyes and eyelashes!  People are so nice!  I got almost 40 comments wishing me luck!    

dear harp lesson, I had to rush to my lesson this week after I registered for Boston and I was still on cloud 999!  My lesson went really well and I am anxiously awaiting some books I ordered with Christmas songs and church songs.  

dear mona, after my harp lesson I had some time before my massage appointment and so I ran over to visit Mona.  She is now in the memory unit because of a stroke that caused her some mental issues.  She seems fine now and I think they need to move her back so she can make friends because everyone on her side has Alzheimers.  It's so sad. We were both so happy to see each other and it was a lot of fun talking to her.  I sure do miss her living close by.  She is a great lady and I have learned so much from her.  It just breaks my heart she is where she is.  Getting old is for the birds!   I told her Bonnie and I were going to take her to lunch and shopping soon.  I also told her we were willing to take her home after church if she can find a ride to church.  She said how she really misses coming to church.  I hope we can work something out.  I need to talk to her kids about it.

dear massage, oh. my. heavens!  It has been ages since I had a massage!  I think the last one was when I did them for winning the spa blog contest.  I have had a couple really short ones after marathons, but they lasted only 15 minutes or less.  Today I got a sports massage because my muscles have been so sore from the race.  Taylor gave me a gift card for one and so I used it today!  It was amazing!  I wasn't super thrilled with the location (downtown Ogden in the ghetto - hah), but I was happy with my therapist.  He knew how to get out the built up lactic acid from my race.  It was very painful, and I hope he didn't injure me, but I felt like a new person when I left!  And......I found out my good friend Dawn's son also works at that place!  Talk about a small world! 

I headed back to South Ogden to run a few errands and then hit Smith and Edwards for Sky's favorite cookies (soft molasses) because we are sending him a package.

While I was in Costco, I had to take a photo of this ↓ and send to Taylor. haha  He is dating the 6th of the Six.   I should have bought one but the last thing I need is one more recipe book!

dear deer, I think guys were as happy as I was it was about to rain. 

 

We got a couple killer rainstorms (and some hail!) with crazy wind this week!

dear slaving over a hot stove, on Thursday I spent over three hours in the kitchen making a meal for a family who just had a baby.  I hadn't planned on taking that long, but I decided I wanted to do homemade rolls and homemade cinnamon rolls as long as I was doing rolls.  Dave wanted me to make Waikiki meatballs for them and so I made enough for them and us. That recipe is here.  I doubled the recipe but ended up with 80 meatballs! I was not expecting it to make that many!  It took a bit of time!  I made a really yummy green salad and rice and that was it, but I was in there for a long time.  Next time I think I will do spaghetti crock pot and call it good! hah  But everything was really good.  I forgot to take a picture of the final product.  I really am loving my new roll recipe and so happy I am now a real roll baker after trying to master that art for many years!  Mmm...they are so good!

dear stake yw volleyball,  we had our first Vball game on Thursday night.  It was a lot less stressful than basketball because we don't have to keep track on paper of the score and fouls etc.  The girls had so much fun too.  It was a lot of fun. I made the candy bar medals again for the sportsmanship awards too.  I love working with these ladies.  I took them both a hot roll since Ayako is the one who shared that recipe with me.  

dear runs this week, I am not sure if I can even call them "runs" because my legs have been so stiff and sore and so I did a lot of walking this week.  I think Thursday was my best day because I had the massage the day before and my legs felt so much better after that!  I found a lot of coins this week! Yay!  I get so excited when I find them!

Gorgeous view!

Standing in front of the gorgeous orchid vines and finding a penny. I look a little too happy here.  lol

I love seeing how pretty some people's yards are when I run.  I loved how they did this.

These horses on one of my routes are so cute and friendly and hurry over to greet me when I go by.  I had to fix the mask on the one because it was not on right.  They like to take selfies with me and pose so cute.  haha  Can you see the camoflauged coins?

 

dear....I'm going to BOSTON!!! Dreams DO come true!
#thiscallsforsomechocolate #workedlongandhardforthismoment #stillpinchingmyself #chills 

IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!  I AM GOING TO BOSTON!!!

I am honestly still pinching myself!  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would actually be running the Boston Marathon!  Never!  In my mind that race was only for the really fast runners and I was not ever going to be one of them.  It goes to show you what hard work, dedication, and goals can do when you really want something.  I do have to say I worked very hard to get here.  I read and studied what I needed to do to get faster and then I did what I learned.  But even then I still didn't think it would make that much of a difference.  I am here to tell you that it did.  Dreams do come true when you work for them!  That is the key.  Work!  That word that most people hate.  I cannot lie, the speedwork was brutal!  I really did not look forward to it and I tried to put it off, but deep down I knew if I REALLY wanted Boston, then I was going to have to endure it.  So I did.  It made all the difference.  That and following my training plan religiously.  It helped push aside all those self doubts I had.  And it was all in MY hands....or legs to be more exact.  ;)  It took me a while to get here, but I did get here!  I am so excited just imaging running down the streets of Boston and having those HUGE crowds cheering me on by name every step of the way!  There can't be anything like it!  It is something I never thought I would experience and yet in six months it will be me!  Boston!  The Boston Marathon!  My excitement really can't be expressed in words!  Maybe this is a little more accurate: 

I wrote a separate post here about my feelings as well as the Top 10 things I am most looking forward to about running the marathon. Some is a repeat.

dear celebration,  a DQ for a BQ! While I was out, I decided to go to Dairy Queen and get myself a Frozen Hot Chocolate! They are one of my most favorite treats on the planet!  I very rarely allow myself to indulge in one of those things mainly because they have like 650 calories and I can't afford that many calories from just one drink, but on Friday I decided to reward myself for getting into Boston!  A DQ for a BQ!  I still only drank about 1/3 of it because they are so rich, but I enjoyed it immensely!  I have three things that I reserve for rewards for special goals I've reached.  The DQ frozen hot chocolate, Swigs sugar cookies, and Old Grist Mill's raspberry rolls.  They are some of my favorite things, but I won't allow myself to have them very often and so I use them for rewards for certain things which motivates me to do whatever particular thing it happens to be so I can indulge. 

I only indulged in the DQ frozen hot chocolate this time.  Not all three!  Though they are all very tempting! 

dear mini get away, I think I have more fun at a car wash than a kid does.  I really love to go to the ones that have the big brushes that give your car a good cleaning!  They take a while and it feels almost like you are in a secluded place where no one can bother you.  It's like a mini get away!  hehe  Yeah, even though it's only for 5 minutes, it still is peaceful!  And the colors of the soap.....wow! That is pretty.  It doesn't take much to entertain me!

dear thai dinner, Scott has been trying to get us to go with him and Carolyn to a Thia restaurant in Ogden for months.  We finally found a date that worked for us all and that was Friday.  It was called Ruan Thai.  It looks like a bit of a dive on the outside, but the food was really good!  I love curry! The best part was the guy that plays a guitar and sings while you eat.  He was very talented and sang a ton of oldie songs.  I loved the Elvis ones.  We had fun chatting and had a good time.  I want to go back again. 

It was kind of funny because I happened to look behind me and saw my friend Dawn's son sitting right behind us!  I knew it was him because I just saw his picture on the massage therapist blog.  I had never met him, but I had to interrupt his group and ask him if his mom was Dawn. I also recognized him from her blog and Facebook.  I am pretty sure he thought I was a bit crazy because he was kind of looking at me that way.  haha He was on a date and so he probably was thinking I wish this crazy lady would stop talking to me!  lol  Especially when I told him I had to take his picture and send it to his mom.   But I figured his mom would have done the same thing, other than she would have probably been in the picture with him, but I knew Dave would have told me no on that one.....haha.  Kind of fun!

The picture of Dawn's son and his date.  LOL

The temple looked so gorgeous pulling into town because of the full moon.  By the time we got close enough to get a photo, the moon had really gone down and didn't look as big.  But you can still see a glimpse of it.

dear final long run!  I met Robin at 6:45 a.m. and we did a 12 mile run.  It is our very last long one for this marathon training! We ran north and then out to Perry and back.  I stopped at her house and got some more shoes I ordered.  I have bought way more than I need right now, but Grant got me such a killer deal I wanted to take advantage while I could.  It feels so good to be done with those long runs!  St. George is in two weeks!  Yikes! Not sure I am ready yet. I know I am physically, but not so sure mentally.  Marathons still make me nervous and I always have a bit of fear before each one because it is such a long distance and anything can happen.  I just have to trust in my training and focus on how well my 20 milers went and relax!  I am wanting to BQ again and so I feel some pressure. 

dear the boy is back in town, Rouze showed up unexpectedly on Saturday afternoon.  It was good to see him.  He was going to let me cut his hair but decided to wait until next week.  He posted a video on snapchat about it.  He does look good with it, but it's time.  He also won the contest so it's definitely time.  He hung out while I made cookies and then Dave and I took off for our anniversary and when we got home he had completely done all the dishes from the cookies and emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the entire kitchen.  He also left us a sweet anniversary card on our bed.  He is such a good kid.

dear granny ola cookies,  I needed to make a treat for my Sunday School class and also because Taylor was home I wanted to make something to send home with him for him and his roommates.  I ended up making my breakfast cookies.  They are made with granola and very healthy but also very good!  They tie in so well with my lesson too because it is on keeping the commandments and I want to use the analogy that although we think of them as restrictions sometimes, good things come from obeying them just how the cookies are full of healthy ingredients and we may think they are just something we should eat because they are healthy but won't taste good, but they can also not only be good for us, but also good to eat as well.  Kind of like the commandments and rules.  It made more sense when I taught it to them.  :)

 I used to love to make up my own recipes.  This↓  is one of them that I came up with many moons ago, but it's really good.

dear happy 34th anniversary, it so hard to fathom that we have been married 34 years!  When you stop and think how long that is, it is hard to comprehend!  It sure does not seem like that long!  

 A few of our engagement photos↑

Some of these were taken at the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  The bottom right is at Flaming Gorge.  The center one in our matchy matchy shirts was actually from our honeymoon.

 Wedding day! We were just babies!

 This↑ has always been one of my favorites because I was trying to push Dave in the fountain.  I know! I knew he wouldn't actually go in and I was just having fun! But even if he had gone in, what a memory that would have been forever!

This ↓ was from last year on Facebook that popped up on my memories.

Here is what I posted on Facebook:

Celebrating 34 years today! ♥♥ᕼᗩᑭᑭY ᗩᑎᑎIᐯEᖇᔕᗩᖇY!♥♥ to my amazing and handsome husband who treats me like a Queen (amongst all my princes!).
#beenafewyears #goshwewerejustbabies
【ツ】L♥VE 【ツ】☆【ツ】L♥VE 【ツ】
✿•*¨`*•. (¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯) .•*¨`*•✿
. . . ✿•*¨`*•.¸(¯`v´¯)¸.•´*¨`*•✿ . . .
….…………. •.¸.•´……….........

 I got so many sweet comments and likes.  I am amazed at how sweet people are to take the time to comment. 

I made reservations for us to go eat at Fleming's in SLC.  Julie and Beattie gave us a $50 gift card for it for Christmas and we hadn't used it yet.  That place is considered very fine dining and very expensive but we wanted to try it since we had the gift card.  When we saw all the Mercede's Benz cars in the valet parking we knew it was going to be pricey!  It was!  Everything is sold ala carte and just a salad is $11-12.  A baked potato is $10.50. And if you like caviar, that is between $90 and $225!  The entree's were between $39 to $80.  I had a hard time ordering a steak for that much because I knew I wouldn't eat it all.  So I ordered off the small plate section which only had a few options but they were $20.  I should have just splurged on the steak like Dave did because what I had was not good.  What I really wanted was to just order the Lava cake for $14 and call it good!  But I got a salad and we got a baked potato to share.  For some weird reason the sides are to share. Seems weird in a high class place like that, but whatever.  It was definitely way over priced for what we got, but fun to see how the other half lives!  As we drove out of town we passed several homeless people on the streets. I couldn't help but notice the unfairness of life.  Two complete extremes.  I will not go back because I just cannot justify spending money that way.  It's so completely against all I believe.  Even if I was rich, I don't think I could be that extravagant.  It just seems so wasteful to me.  It was a fun night!

 💜💜💜 Fun night on the town with this awesomely hunky guy in the big salty city. 💜💜💜 #anniversarypartay #slcfinedining #34years #stilljustkids

From the cruise.  I couldn't resist!  Aye... we've been mateys for 34 years now!

dear surprise, when we got home this cute little candy bar bouquet was sitting on my counter. I had no idea who it was from because the card wasn't signed and only said, "Congrats!"  Later, my friend Julie text me and asked if I had gotten it.  How sweet is that of her to do that!  It was to congratulate me for getting in Boston!  What a sweet friend she is!  I love it!

 

dear sundays are not a day of rest, Sunday I felt a bit frazzled. I had something with all four callings at once!  I had to teach Sunday School, play the piano for Relief Society, organize a photo shoot for a slide show for my humanitarian calling, and do some emails for my stake calling.  My SS lesson went well and I survived playing the piano in RS even though I made several mistakes, but I was hoping no one noticed...until I talked to Audrey after and she said she noticed them, but she was listening for them because she also has the same calling.  My friend Julie told me she didn't hear any, but I'm sure only because she wasn't paying attention or listening for them.  I never used to notice mistakes unless they are really bad, but now I do since I have this calling.  The crazy thing is I had both songs down pat but when I made one mistake it was like it threw me off and I was hesitant to play that part again for fear of doing the same thing which really throws you off.  haha  Over time, I am sure it will get easier.  After church I had to take a bunch of photos for the slide show for the General Women's meeting.  I didn't get home until after 1:00.  Busy day.  I was beat when I got home because I didn't sleep well last night, but I had to get McKay's letter written and sent and do some stuff for my YW stake calling. I finally did a chance to take a nap!  Ahhh.......

I tried to recruit a few others, but to no avail so I "got" to be in the VT shot.  They look SO staged, but oh well!  Got it done!

dear mckster, this boys mission president's wife sent us some pix this week of their zone conference.  She always sends pictures of them with food...haha.  Probably so us moms know they aren't starving! 

 His zone

dear mr. cat,  spoiled, spoiled, spoiled!

But loved!

dear old ward scrapbooks, I had to go to the church and get in the Relief Society closet to see if I could find some pictures of our humanitarian projects for the slide show they are doing for the Gen Women's mtg.  How ironic that me.....the one who take tons of pictures.....did not take any of all of the humanitarian projects I have been in charge of!   So I had to go through a ton of the old scrapbooks to see if I could find any.  The sister in our ward that was in charge of the RS history did a phenomenal job on the scrapbooks.  I found a few, but the other pictures I found were the real treasures!  What a trip down memory lane!  I will add a few of my faves.

Me and Janet dressed as witches at one of the ward Halloween parties.

LOVE all these amazing missionaries!  There is MY boy on the bottom in the middle!  What a great bunch of Elders and Sisters! 

I found all of these of when I have taught various classes through the years. One on stress management, one on using digital media to spread the gospel, one on gratitude, one on journals, and I honestly can't remember all the others, but over the years, I have taught a lot of mini classes. One of the pictures is from when I was put in charge of making ornaments for the Boys and Girl's Club tree.  I remember how hard I worked on finding the perfect ornaments that the sisters could make.  Oh wait, or did I make all of them?  I honestly have no idea, I just remember it was labor intensive and a lot of work and time, but they turned out so cute!  I did ice cream cones and gumdrops balls, cupcakes, and ribbon candy, etc. SO fun!

A photo of me and Mona a very long time ago. We had an AMAZING Grinch party! And the cultural celebration pictures from the BC temple that I was in charge of for our ward.  Great memories!

 McKay's Eagle project (Aloha Run) to raise money for Tyson's scholarship fund even got a two page spread!  And the bottom are of a service project (Dave's in there loading trucks) we did to send clothes etc to Africa.  A lot of Tyson's clothes went in that shipment to Africa. I have a hard time giving them to the DI, but when I knew they would be going to someone truly  in need in Africa, it made it a little easier to part with them.

 They were FULL of pictures of Dave when he was serving as Bishop and his Bishopric messages.  None of the counselors, just Dave.  haha

 

dear flashbacks, I have said how much I love when Facebook pops up with the "On This Day" photos from other years.  I LOVE remembering the fun things in the past and being reminded of them daily! Here is a few that have recently popped up: (Sorry if I have already posted some of these!  I save them and then forget if I have posted or not!)

The HOT MUDDERS!  What a fun race!

 From our girl's trip to Vegas!  That is chocolate!!! COME TO MAMA!

From our recent cruise.... this was added on a post as a comment.

Now this is a real oldie.  This is from my college days.  Oh, to be that young again.... actually, let me rephrase that.  Oh, to look that young again. I am not sure I really want to be that young again, but then again, I just might.

dear random, I may have already posted this too....... oh well.  It's Spiderman (aka Bryce) at the cabin on Labor day weekend.

THIS!!! ↓ I am still laughing! 

THIS popped up on my phone so randomly as we drove past this place.  The best part is what it says!!!  What if it had pocket posted?!!!  Oh my heck! So, so funny!  I had nothing to do with it!  It seriously just popped up JUST like this!  How? I have no idea!  If you know, please inform me!  Trust me, it didn't happen!  But I could not stop laughing when it came up.  Dave kept asking me what was so funny. I was laughing so hard that I could not talk, I had to show him.

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