My Monster Treadmill

This should be good fodder for my friends...fyi: I have used it 75% of the days I have owned it, so far. This is a really good %. [Update: Now it's more like 85%] But the story goes like this...


I've been thinking about how lazy I am and how out of shape and obese (yes, I typed that word on my BLOG) that I am. So, since I know that I can and am able to lose weight and change my lifestyle, albeit when I lived much closer to a gym, that I have been thinking about getting a treadmill for a long time. I mentioned this to one of my friends (Shan, love ya girl) and she said, oh, I've got a treadmill. I said great for you - are you looking at selling it? She said they never use it and that the incline was broken. The incline is a fundamental part of the plan for me to lose weight so it might not work out. I convinced her to show me her machine (a very NICE machine) but it's broken.


So, we started looking online for used treadmills. Ok, remember what I said in the first paragraph about my size. For those of you who are skinny minnies or don't use treadmills b/c you are a skinny minny (btw, congrats on that, it's not a put down at ALL!), there are weight limits. This turned out to be my largest obstacle. Finding a treadmill that can handle my weight so I can work out to lower my weight. yes, well, anyway. I looked everywhere, went to discount dealer websites and even almost paid $1275 for a machine. In the end though, you'd be so proud of me that I hung up with that guy, I paid a nice young man with a 1 mo old who lost his job $500 for a $2800 machine that had only been used maybe 30 times. :)


It's huge (it has to be to support me) and the incline works and I love it. It does take up the entire living room and to be perfectly honest, I don't care at all. I walk on it either every AM or when I get home at night. I love having absolutely no excuse!!! not to use it.



The first workout was pretty difficult but mostly I believe it was because my back was all out of whack. I got done and stretched and listened intently to pop, pop pppop, ppop. Ah, the migraine went away and I can stand up straight again. :)

Well, I should take a photo and post it because it's so huge and takes up the entire room and almost blocks my view of the Christmas tree, but I don't care!! I think it's worth it. No buyers remorse here.

~Sharon

Trimming the Tree

Ok, so when mom and dad were out on Saturday, I got the tree up. But I couldn't get all the lights to work. It's not like I had a lot of time or energy to work on it either. But then Sunday came and went and nothing got done. Then Monday...so finally today, Wed. AM I decided to tackle the tree.

I am so grateful for my Savior. As I was "foofing" the branches of my fake, yet equal opportunity tree (it spins and gives every ornament equal time to be mezmerizing), I got the lights to work. I thought, oh how pretty it is with all of these white lights. Then, I began trimming the tree with reflective ornament bulbs and the light grew - magnified by the reflection. If the lights are the Light of Christ and we are the oranments, reflecting His love and mission, how much greater is our joy when we share His light? The tree became brighter and brigher, ever more beautiful as I added more ornaments. Then I began my "bow" fettish. This part takes the longest but this year, I allowed it to be "imperfect". And, I realized that the bows allowed the light to shine through them. Lots of metaphores and analogies this year. I just looked at my lovely tree and thought about how grateful I am to have a job, a family who loves me and I love them. We belong to the Lord's restored church on Earth, we live in the free-est land in all the world and we enjoy propsperity known to no other people (as a whole). I don't even think that I know "want". This is something that is in my patriarchal blessing - that I would always have my needs met. Ah, what comfort those words bring to me now as we have these difficult days and months ahead. You know, everyone struggles with something. Don't get trapped in that ploy of the advesary that you are all alone or no one understands. It's bunk. It breeds discouragement and disappointment in life.

I'll post pics just as soon as I figure out how to get my new computer working, promise!

~Sharon

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hola Muchachas,

I arrived at mom and dad's house like I was full blown moving in. I had two lunch box coolers worth of bacon, sausage and roasts along with a crock pot of a ham (Mr. Piggy came home from market and got roasted!) because my freezer wasn't working and had either begun or fully defrosted all of my food! Anyway, I had also brought just a LOT of stuff. Didn't hardly use any of it, but I'd rather have more than enough than not enough, eh? Arrived on Wed. afternoon after a 3.5 hr drive from Amity. It usually takes me about 1.5 hrs - traffic was INSANE in the membrane. My foot hurt from breaking so much.

Had a quiet night and woke up early on Thursday. Thank goodness too because I got my yam (1) and sweet potatoes all ready. They were, IMHO, fantastically close to perfection. I added peaches again this year and because I grabbed the wrong nuts, pecans along with the walnuts. So, if you are a nutty and fruity person, you would've loved my yams. I am both nutty and fruity and I LOVED THEM!

Thanksgiving was just lovely. The niece and nephews were just "good" enough! LOL...we danced to Shake your dragon tail and the theme song from Dragon Tails. That, and Betweent the Lions are my favorite kids shows. I adore PBSkids.org. I'm sure that parents aren't really interested in their toddlers wanting to use the only computer in the house but this is where you go to DI or GWI and get a used, working crappy lap top and let them play and learn to spell, type and have fun. :)

Anyways....Ah, I stayed up too late on Thursday even though the plan the entire time was to get up at the o'dark 30 and get to shopping. I got a txt from my friend Cherish around 10:30 and I txt'd back and said, hey gal, I'll pick u up at 5 am. She said sure. I was stoked! I woke up right around 4:30 and txt her to see if she was awake and she ---- WASN'T. That's ok, I just laid back down and went back to sleep. However, she called at 500 or 530 and I went and grabbed her and we headed out. DISCLAIMER: This was both her and my first time ever doing the Black Friday thing. I might have done it once as a teen, but 10 am doesn't constitute "early radical" shopping and working at the mall really does not count at all.

We first went to Jantzen Beach - for you non PDX'ers, this is a very large shopping center dedicated to serving mostly Washingtonians because it's just .4 miles across the bridge allowing us to shop without sales tax. Yes, it's nice, except I'm an Oregonian anyway. Back to the meat of this story. We started a Circuit City and then Best Buy. Cherish headed to Toys 'R' Us while I went in and checked out laptops. Now, listen here folks - it was 6 AM and there were no parking spots. And, all of the computers were gone - or at least committed to folks who I guessed lined up at 2 am. That is just crazy. I got the whole "You should come back at 9 to see if there any remaining" message. So, we headed over to Burlington Coat Factory and then Target. For anyone in the TV market, they had a heck of a deal at Target for 26" lcd for $299. Hard to beat...but WalMart did. WalMart at 10:15 was still chaotic and they still had 50 Wii's. This is a record because it is pretty tough to find a Wii anywhere around this neck of the woods.
After WalMart, we weren't done...no, we had to go to Ikea, back to the other side of PDX, by the airport. It's a good thing that PDX isn't that big of a city, lol...but there Cherish visited many more stores than I did. In fact, I've lost track. I did go in Dress Barn and she went into Bath & Body Works, I think. I wanted to get to Ross, but my feet were killing me and I'd been shopping for 6 hours. Ladies and Gents, this is a record for me!!!! Plus, I'm far too out of shape to shop for 6 hours. I don't know how I made it.

Then we picked up Cherish's precious cargo and headed for my parentals for left overs and to watch PS I love you and The Golden Compass. The food was even better on Friday, plus, we were HUNGRY. I ended up with a skirt, a sweater blouse, a new laptop and three movies, which I am giving to my parents. Oh, and a new mp3 player - a really great steal, 4 GB for $25~.
The next day I got up and drove home and tried to pick up, etc. because my parentals were going to come over and look at my freezer, etc. Plus, it was my plan to put my tree up and get it all trimmed. So, I spent Saturday shopping for plumbing supplies with my dad on the awful concrete floor but seriously, my dad is pretty smart after all (love ya daddy!) b/c he knew that buying the stuff would be less expensive and he was right. He also fixed the front porch light for me. Gosh I need a man who is as good as my dad. They just don't make 'em like that anymore - or do they and I'm just not cutting them any slack? That's another post.
Sunday it was lovely to go to church and see my "ward family". I had missed them.
Ok, that's enough for 4 days, seriously. It was a very enjoyable weekend and although I was busy and tired most of it, it really was the way life should be.

Oh, and for the record - I decided on November 30th, that would be Sunday? that I would read the Book of Mormon from the Introduction to the final page in December. This gives me 31 days to read it. Anyone want to join me? I plan on 20 pages a day and that takes just about 30 mintues. If you are late, you can simply read 21 or double read and catch up...it is only December 3rd. And it really only takes 18 pages a day to complete it. Come on, you can do it. Click here to join me! I am looking forward to the quick read type of study this will bring. I have already caught some very sweet whisperings from the Spirit. One about "tender mercies". Those mercies have a special place in my heart and are included in Step 2 of the churches recovery program guide. Plus, that talk was given the April after Will moved out (Jan) and how grateful I was for someone to recognize that we all have need for tender mercies in our lives.

Hugs,
Sharon

Just like the movies...

Ok, work with me here a bit...

I've been struggling to find anything about my life humorous enough to blog about. Then, today I was opening my bag and I found a pink goodies bag from Pow Wow last Saturday. Here's the scoop ~

One of the classes that I signed up for was Eatible Crafts - sounds delish right? Well, it totally was. I purposely scheduled two of my friends to take this class with me and we were late - about 10 minutes late! Seating was scarce and she was already almost done with all of her "how to's" by the time we arrived.

Remember back to some scenes in various movies, the most memorable one for me is in Miss Congeniality where her coach guy has to leave and she arrives late to get ready for the day and her little friends jump in and help her - imagine that scene with me as, oh yeah baby, Sandra Bullock...I should never have been allowed to register for a class that called for craftiness or creativity!! HOLA, what were they thinking letting me in, let alone being late.

There were like 7 edible crafts that you could make and I managed one (1)! yes, you are reading correctly. So, the other "real crafty ladies" in attendance were all grabbing my project bags in order to help me get "something" to bring home. So, today, when I opened my pink goody bag, I found 4 treats!!! I am so lucky to have had such great neighors who acted like they would all make the best darn cub scout leaders in the world - (hint and reminder: I am not a den leader type!!!! I am a Committee chair type!).

The goal here is to dip your spoon in melted chocolate and add stuff to it then when you have your hot chocolate, you get double dip deliciousness.

The perfect craft or award for Space Derby Day!!! (We're substituting space derby for pinewood derby this year because our boys have a new found facination with space)

Cub Master and Den leader with our three, yep, an entire pack of 3, non-member boys. Our ward wraps 8 adults around 3 non-member boys. Two of them need it more than words can say. Scouting DOES change lives.

Thanks Den moms (and lone man who ventured to take edible crafts!)...I couldn't enjoy my hot schocolate with sprinkles dipped spoon without you or my rocket ship of life savers. You truly were my sprinkles that give color to my life and life savers that day. (That's from Ceremonies and Pizzaz class!)

Hugs to all the Cub Scouter moms out there who are creative enough to think these things up. I hereby leave this charge to you.

~Sharon

Motivational Quote

It seems that everyone is sucking it up at work so the big boss asked us today to find a motivational quote and email him about why we chose that particular quote. I thought of one I saw a lot on my mission in lots of Goethe books and really, every missionary had it. So here it is.

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Bis man festgelegt ist, gibt es Unschlüssigkeit, die Wahrscheinlichkeit, zurück zu zeichnen, immer Wirkungslosigkeit. Hinsichtlich ist aller Taten der Initiative (und der Kreation), gibt es eine grundlegende Wahrheit, dessen Unwissenheit unzählige Ideen und herrliche Pläne tötet: daß der Moment einer sich definitiv, dann Vorsehung festlegt, bewegt auch.

I like this quote because it means that taking one step forward in keeping the commandments creates endless opportunities for personal growth and blessings from our Father in Heaven. He can always take us down the proverbial yellow brick road without us knowing it or even which way we're heading. But attempting creates opportunities for MORE blessings. So, let's decide and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

PS: there is some doubt (ok, a lot) that Goethe wasn't quoting someone else when he said this. Oh well, I still think it's worth thinking about.

~Sharon

Stake Conference

I have been so negligent in posting and keeping my blog updated. Sooo much has happened and I haven't talked about it at all.

So, let's go backwards. We had stake conference this weekend and it was amazing as usual. Since I've been in this stake, I have found our Stake Conferences of upmost value. So, someone today or last night said "if you want to increase your vocabulary, read the scriptures." They of course were so much more eloquent.

Anyway...more to come later.

Additional posts include: Elijah, Joanne moving in? Grad school, Dukeman

Doe - a DEER!

I was driving around the Hills of Dundee this evening - around 6:30 pm picking up applications from my new pack in Dundee. The gal is rather well off and lives up in the hills. While I was about to leave, there were two deer - well, a doe and her fawn simply walking straight up the street. before I could get a good photo of both of them, the fawn trotted? (lollipopped) over to a bush and began grubbing down. Just thought I'd share...

Oh, and yesterday when I drove to PDX to pick up my bb gun kit for this weekend, Lisa and I went out for Mexican and not only was the company fabulous, the conversation was fun and witty and we both loved that Cloris lady who thumped her 82 year old leg up on Brunos desk as he was critiquing her dance on Monday...ah, the humor.

Here are some pics...ok, so dumb camera phone - stupid me because my real camera was sitting right there. So grainy that you can't see them really. Yucky.

Sorry folks.