Father's Day

Father's Day this year is a little bittersweet for us. We had a great weekend because my mom came for the girls' dance recital and she brought two of my little nieces with her. We always love seeing our nieces, and although it was a short time they were here, we had so much fun with them. The younger one is hilarious, she's always cracking everyone up. The older one is such a sweetie, and she's just a year younger than Lindsay (and they're in the same grade) so they play fabulously. So the bummer is that my mom left today with my nieces and all of my kids. They always go to Grandma's house during the summer for about six weeks. It's nice for them because they get to escape the heat, they get to see a lot of family they don't get to see very much during the school year, and of course they get spoiled by grandparents. Not to mention we feel like it's good for them to have the independence of being away from mom and dad every year. My mom loves it because she always loves spending time with the kids, and I think this summer is going to be harder for her because my dad is never home (he's a long haul truck driver), so at least of the next six weeks she has the kids to occupy her. And we love it because it gives us some time to spend with just each other, focusing on our marriage and having a break from being mom and dad all the time. I really think this is one of the reasons our marriage is so strong. Beginning our marriage with one child and adding a honeymoon baby nine months later didn't give us the time together we wish we had back then, so it's really nice to be able to spend that time connecting with just my husband. This year was harder to say goodbye to them for some reason though. Usually on the first day, I might cry when they leave, but that's it for at least a week. Not today, though. I don't feel like I got to spend the time with them that I wanted to before they left, so I'm pretty bummed. As I told them when they left, though, I'll see them in just two weeks, so I'm trying to toughen up and enjoy my time with my sweetheart.

So I frantically tried to put together a good present for J the last couple days, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I let each kid write whatever they wanted to for their dad, I just gave them a couple questions they could answer so they would have an idea where to start. Bailey and Cole both wrote about why their dad is awesome, and Lindsay about why her dad is her best friend. I love that it's in their own handwriting and their thoughts completely.

Bootcamp

Tonight I finished a four week session of bootcamp. I've been down about my weight for awhile now, but I hate just walking and don't know how to use the majority of the machines at the gym. So when my friend offered a session of bootcamp, I jumped at it. This girl is so funny because she will talk about how she doesn't feel fit right now, but she's the skinniest little thing, but she's also tough and I knew she would kick my butt if I let her. So two nights a week for the last four weeks I've showed up and worked as hard as I could--and complained a lot while we were at it. :D There were definitely nights when I didn't want to be there and had to force myself to go, but I only missed one night (hey, it was my anniversary, so I figured that if J wasn't coming with me to bootcamp, I better go out with him). And of course, I was my usual sarcastic (and occasionally funny) self, complaining but really enjoying that someone was making me work so hard. I only weigh myself once a week, even when I'm tempted midweek to take a peek and see how I'm doing, so I'm not sure what the total results were for weight loss, but I've lost 5 pounds so far, so I'm off to a good start. I'm hoping this weekend to see that I've lost another couple pounds, but as long as the body fat goes down, I'm happy. It feels really good to be using muscles that have been dormant for so long, and to start to feel like my old athletic self. I'm actually looking forward to next month to pick it up again and keep working toward my goal of not just weight loss, but getting healthy.

10 years later

It seems like it happened in the blink of an eye, but somehow Jason and I have been married for ten years today. One of my sweet friends who is a spectacular photographer took some pictures of us for our anniversary and delivered them to me today. Of all the decisions I've ever made in my life, this was definitely the best one I've ever made. I know it may be cliche to say it, but I love Jason more every day. I'm so happy and grateful to be married to my best friend and I'm looking forward to the next ten years.

Craziness as usual

My boss resigned on Friday afternoon, and I decided to follow suit. The only problem is that they're insisting that I give them two weeks notice, so my plan to be home with my kids the last two weeks that they're here isn't working out quite the way I had hoped. I'm taking the rest of this week off and am planning on doing some fun (and hopefully cheap) things with the kids, and then putting them in camps next week. We're coming up on the girls recitals, and the day after recital will be the day they leave town for the summer with my mom, so my last week of work will be easier since I won't have to worry about what to do with the kids. Although it's stressful to be quitting, it's been such a relief to me. As soon as we came to the decision that I should leave my job, I've been so much happier about being there. And although I know it's going to make some things harder, it's a relief to finally quit a job that I truly hate.

Much better

I really hate how sometimes I let things bother me to the point that it affects everything else in my life. But, a few days ago I decided that I was over it and I was going to feel better and I've really been doing much better since then. I just needed to make up my mind that I was going to be happy and so far it's working. My stamp therapy definitely helps, and I'm trying to do as much of it as I can because it really does relax me and makes me happy. I think another thing that has helped has been the boot camp that I'm doing. One of my friends is running a boot camp this month and it's great to get out there two days a week and have her really work us. It's nice to have those endorphins working for you and it really helps to see the progress in my weight as well. The last thing that's really been working for me is watching the college softball world series. One of my favorite sports to play and watch, I look forward to the world series every year (mostly because it's about the only time you can find fastpitch on tv). UCLA is rocking and I'm loving that my kids and J will come watch with me.

A little therapy

It's been another difficult couple of weeks for me. The kids are out of school, which I know they love, but it's really hard to take care of them and deal with work at the same time. And it always falls more on my shoulders than J's because my job is less important (and I've got more freedom too--I've at least been working reduced hours since they got out). But it's still stressful to try to be a good mom and worker at the same time. In the same vein, work is horrible. It's so boring it's not even funny, and it's really a relief to have the reduced hours right now. But, it just adds to the stress that I'm already dealing with. Hopefully that stress will be gone in a few days, but there's no guarantee, so I'm kind of in limbo waiting for things to happen that are beyond my control. On top of all that, I've been in a horrible funk for the last couple weeks. A family member hurt me very deeply in a very public way, and I'm finding it really difficult to pull myself up and act like everything is back to normal for me. So I was hoping that a little stamp therapy might help me.




I really liked the paper that I had for these and I wanted to try to use up as much of it as I could so I wouldn't have scraps left over, so these three all ended up with the same color scheme. I'm hoping to take some more stamping to work tomorrow, so maybe in a few days I'll have more to post.