starting something new

so i have started jogging.  i'm sure i look hilarious and i feel like a humongous doofus.  but i'm doing it.  so far my personal best is 2.04 miles in 26 minutes.  i'm on my second week of doing it and have learned some things already.

1.  my poor old knees cannot run on cement!! i need to run on asphalt or some other surface with some  give. 
2.  i can't compare myself to my hubby, he's a natural athlete and this sort of thing comes easier to him.
3.  taking care of your body is hard!  it's so much easier to say "i just don't have the time."  this shit is work!!

oh, and something else i'm doing is tracking calories through an iphone app "my fitness pal".   it's awesome.  i'm only gonna do this for a month, maybe two.  just to really understand how many calories are in what i choose to put in my body.  i'm not eating healthy 100% of the time, maybe about 75% of the time i do, and for me, right now, this works. 

i'd really like to add in some sort of ab work out as that is one of my "trouble areas" but i'm so damn tired after jogging. just taking a shower is a mission afterward. 

the kitchen and living room floor is in!

i still don't know how to rotate this!

My hard working honey is done with my new flooring.   now on to the next project! woot woot! my  house is really feeling like a home. 

a few DIY tips

so the hubby and I have been living in our home since November and we have decided we really hate the existing floors.  it's carpeted and it's a beigy brown, way to light for a family with 3 kids, plus the previous owners didn't do too great in the upkeep of it.  we also didn't care for the dingy white linoleum in the kitchen so we dedided upon wood laminate flooring.  we had to rip out the carpet and linoleum, remove the base boards and clean all the glue off of the concrete foundation.  talk about FUN, yeah right, it's torturous!  but it's oooh so worth it.  it's coming along really nicely.  i just wanted to share some tips. 

but here's a pic of the before, and i will post an after photo soon i hope.

1.  read instructions completely, we didn't and we started the floor off with the planks in the wrong direction. right way: tongue against the wall but with the tongue sawed off, wrong way:  groove against the wall. yikes!  good thing we realized after placing 2 rows!
2.  this goes with #1 follow instructions! the instructions said to lay full boxes of planks or something with substantial weight so that the floor wouldn't "float away" from the wall.  so halfway throught the length of the kitchen and dining room we realized that our 1/4 inch gap had turned into 2 inches!! holyfuckingshit, right?
3.  have fun, and help with what you can.  i am not handy or coordinated, but i helped in laying the plastic membrane needed and i handed planks, kept the hubby fed and hydrated, oh, and i also kept the place as clean as i could, you don't want any little debris under your boards.

here's a pic of the project we still had a ways to go. (sorry, i don't know how to rotate it:( )

but you can kind of get the picture.  my hubby is off all week and will complete this project along with another little project in our back yard, or so i hope! 

i've been whining that i really miss my old back yard, we had a pool and a patio, now we have neither, not even a slab of cement to set up my old patio set.  so the hubby is promissing to make the back yard look nice.  so far we have a lot of sand back there. heres a pic.  we hope to add a slab of cement and eventually a patio for shade.

the kids having entirely too much fun with the sand!  i love how much fun kids can have with something simple like sand. 

I WON!! I WON!!

I feel like a little kid. I want to jump up and down and scream I WON! I WON!  Let me backtrack and tell you, I never win anything, but when I do it's usually something pretty awesome.  Like a trip to Vegas one time at my old job.  And then today, I went to "the pretty poppy" because they always have neat-o tutorials and great ideas, and guess what?  I WON a drawing for a wonderful locket.  If you haven't checked out their Etsy shop do so now- go here !  Wonderful stuff, (wish i wasn't on such a tight budget, or i would buy 2 of everything!)   Isn't that just awesome!  I just feel like I might be on a spree of good luck here.  There are some other really great things happening for me right now.  I just have to be patient and wait and I will keep u  posted when it's for sure.

Calling all mind readers...................

I hate getting old.  Not that I'm vain, or anything.....ok, maybe just a little bit.  The part about getting older that I hate is how my mood has been changing.  I feel like Satan himself is sitting in my uterus at a certain time of the month.  I just feel like I don't want to talk, because if I do, I  might will say something I regret.  I feel really bad for my kids and hubby.  So bad that I even went to my doctor and asked for some medication.  I will start to take a birth control pill and that is supposed to help.  I really hate taking medication.  I'm going to look into natural herbs and such and see if this might help.  And if it doesn't I'm taking those BCP's.  The other thing I do lately is I get mad and then expect the other person to read my mind.  Isnt' that how it works?  I wish.  So, I need to do better with expressing myself and ask "why am I upset, is it something they did or said, or do I just truly want to be mad just to be mad?"  I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just wish my hubby could read my mind.  I think I do a pretty good job of reading his.  Like right now, he's thinking "man, I hope I get laid tonight."  This would help so much, if he could just know that if he picked up his work boots so that I don't stub my toe on them in the dark my life would be 1 bajillion times better.  ok, so that's all for now.

So Proud!!

I have 3 children whom I adore.  My husband and I try to keep them pretty busy by having them participate in extra curricular activities.  My oldest is currently taking guitar lessons, boy is that hard!! She was teaching me some of the notes and how to strum, and I just don't know how to do it.  My middle one Bree is so interested in mostly all sports.  She just finished basketball only to jump into softball, and has been bugging me for a month to join the swim team.  I love that she is so sporty and wants to be involved.  And it's a lot of work toting her around with all her gear.  The husband and I both work full time, so it's hard finding the time,  BUT, we do it, we figure it out, he may drop one off and I pick one up and you get the picture.  My lil guy is so lazy. He doesn't care for sports, unless he's coaching.  He played soccer for 2 seasons, but insists all the coaches are "dumb".  I think he just really doesn't like sports, but boy, can he play video games, he loves his PS3. 
It makes me kind of sad that my parents never did that for us (my brothers and sisters).  The toting around, showing up, clapping, cheering. They never went to the plays I was in or award ceremonies. And, I imagaine there are parents out there who just can't be bothered to do these little things. I know my babies appreciate this.  They always say "thanks mommy and daddy".  I love that.  I took Bree to swim team tryouts yesterday and she made it!!! We've had a built in pool and the kids have been swimming since they were wee ones, but I was unsure if she would make it because she's not a pro when it comes to all the fancy strokes.  So yesterday, right before tryouts we did a youtube search and found out the basics.  I love technology!! She did marvelous.  I felt sorry for an older boy who tried out and couldn't make it accross the pool.  I am not looking forward to meeting all the parents, I get rather nervous when meeting new people.  Plus, I feel out of the loop.  I'm sure there will be a whole new vocabulary I'll have to learn.  I'm sure Bree doesn't care if we're not "hip swim parents" just as long as we're there to cheer her on. 

The Cats Meow

This weekend was crazy fun.  Being a parent is very rewarding.  I love my kids, and I do everything I can for them.  But you know what?  It's so tiring!!!  Oh well, I'm sure when they're older they'll appreciate all the things we (the hubs and I) do for them....right? We picked up and dropped off Cam for her Disneyland trip, thank God it was just to her school and not to Anaheim! then it was Bri's Girlscouts trip, and I had to buy the vest and patches, lest she show up vestless and patchless to her huge Girlscout jamboree, then it was Suckers lil friend wanting spend the night and the both of them being little pig boys....

(that's me on the right)

AND I had school Saturday, I'm currently taking a  hybrid anatomy class with my awesome friend Christina.  We have to meet for 4 labs on campus, and we do the rest online.  This week was a lab week.  Let me tell you that it was tough work.  First we had a lab practical test on the bones of the body, and I did pretty well on it.  Then we had our Student Learning Objective which consisted of dissecting a cat.  Now, let me start off by telling you I have 3 babies and dog, so I have picked up, and wiped off my fair shair of shit, I've been thrown up on and IN, yes IN, (TIP:  don't sleep facing your sick childs face when he/she is ill and just wants mommy to snuggle, I repeat, FACE AWAY FROM THE SICK CHILDS FACE!! unless you want a mouthfull of projectile vomit) Sufficed to say I do not have a weak stomach, but the smell from the old cats sitting in formaldehyde (yes, i said old cats, someone said the date on them was '09, i'm very sure dead cats go bad at some point right?) this smell, it was just God AWFUL! my hair, and clothes and skin were penetrated by said smell, I reeked of dead cat!! The good part, YES, really there's a good part, I can do this shit...I mean, If I can handle this kind of thing, then I can really do the nursing thing.  One of the gals in class is an L.V.N. and she said she could not tolerate the smell wafting through our warm classroom, she said "I can eat a sandwhich while assisiting in a colonoscopy, but I cannot tolerate this smell." Which made me feel soo good because  at one point I thought that I could not deal with all the shit and other body excretions nurses have to deal with, but you know what?  I can totally put up with it.  I handled this task like a champ.  My poor friend loves cats and all creatures and just could not deal with the dissection.  She helped set up and clean up and read us all the instructions.   I think she may have cried, bless her heart.  I jumped in there and helped dissect that cat like nobody's business.