A new profession for me?

For some reason, there is an open pipe in the crawl space under my house, it was attached to a sink the previous owners installed in the garage, but now it's just hanging out down there. I just ignored it because it was out of the way and causing no problems. Until a couple of days ago....

Now it looks like this when I do laundry....




And this was my attempt at fixing the problem...


And this is what happens when you just make the problem worse...
(that's a towel soaking up the flood in the laundry room from that pipe backing up and shooting out the drain, better than a toilet overflowing I guess ;) )


Jealous? I thought so :P

(I just tried drano to see if that's enough, stay tuned.....)

Edited to add....FAIL



I guess we get to stimulate the economy by hiring a plumber :P

Overcrowding

I park in the free parking at school, it's about 1/2 mile to the school, which isn't too bad. I do ride the shuttle bus if the weather is bad, otherwise I just walk. The first time I rode the shuttle, I was one of the last ones on, which meant I had to stand and hold the bar overhead. Not a big deal for most people, but I'm short and along with that are short arms, lol. I ended up having to stand between some guys legs the whole time. Oh so enjoyable for me :P. so I've only ridden it twice since then, lol.

Picture proof, sorry for the crappy photo, it was with my cell phone while we were moving.




If you look at the arm with the two white stripes around the bicep, that is a girl that is probably 2 inches taller than me, can you see how stretched out her arm is? Yeah, rude that guys don't give us shorties a seat!

Easily amused.

I found out about pandora.com from a friend and fell in love with it right away. I currently have three "stations" on there, country, Enya type stuff (so soothing, love it), and today I added a Bon Jovi station. It has been so much fun listening to all the "hair bands" and love ballads that I constantly listened to in High School and beyond :).

I guess I needed some cheering up after waking up to the mountain of clean laundry needing to be folded and the snow falling outside, arg.

I do have 3 posts planned in my head, so hopefully I get around to them soon :)

Putting an end to the worries

I have been getting worried emails from some family members over some weight I have lost. I am a muscular person, always have been, always will be. I weigh much more than most people think I do, which is fine by me :). Anyway, I took a couple of photos of me to show that I still have my muscle and my big butt, so stop worrying ;).

And sorry for the blurr and dirty mirror, it's cold in my house so I was shivering a bit :P



Edited to add that I'm not mad or anything, I hope it doesn't come across that way. I just want to make sure everyone knows that I'm fine and am taking care of myself the best that I can :)

Update

I spoke with M again and we discussed ways to deal with teasing and he spoke with his teacher. I also spoke with his teacher and she spoke with the class about respect. M has had two good days at school, so hopefully that's a good sign.

Thanks so much for all of your advice and support :)

In need of some advice.

M, my sweet, rambunctious, doesn't stop moving, loving, sensitive, little 8 year old boy is being teased at school. I don't know that we are at the bullying level yet, but I just heard about this last night so I need to delve further into the situation. He said there is one girl and one boy that pick on him all the time, they tell him his ears are dirty (poor guy has lots of ear wax, always has), his fingernails are too long, or that his hair looks funny.

I told him that sometimes people make fun of other people because they don't like themselves but that didn't fly with him. So I told him that he can play with other kids and he said this is happening in the classroom. He said he told his teacher that they are being mean but it hasn't stopped. So I told him to tell her again that they are being really mean to him and can he please move. After school today I plan on talking to him more, seeing if anything was better today and then I guess it will be time for a conference with the teacher.

What else can I say to my sad little guy? He cried when he got out of the van today, that's when I knew it was worse than he let on yesterday. I know this is part of life, but it doesn't mean I have to like it and I want to better prepare him to deal with it. He is quite small for his age too, so I'm sure stuff like that will be used against him in the future as well.

Mama bear wants to go beat up the kids and their parents, lol. Help.

Happy New Year!

We started a tradition a few years ago, mostly because I was lazy and didn't feel like cooking, lol. But the kids love it so we continue it :). I cut up some meat and cheese, put some mandarin oranges, maybe some pineapple, crackers, just little things we can spear with toothpicks and eat. The kids have a great time every year, clean up is easy, and I win the cool mom award (even if it's only for an hour or so :P)

The table all fancied up with the "nice" glasses too! hehe

A close up of the spread, go me!

May the New Year bring much happiness and love to you all. May we all have the strength and determination to give ourselves what we deserve. ((hugs))

Merry Christmas

Nothing says Christmas in Utah like snow.

Or mini mittens and socks for the tree, aww :)



It's snowing hard out there today, crazy. I was planning on a library trip but I think we'll wait until tomorrow ;). Fine by me, I can knit more cute ornaments, each takes about an hour which makes me feel like a super power knitter, lol.

I would like to wish each of you a Merry Christmas.

So proud!

LittleMan was behind in reading when he started 1st grade, he didn't know most of his letters or their sounds. When we homeschooled he had begun reading but lost a lot of it over the summer when I let him just work on math, since he loves math! Anyway, we just got his report card, he is officially on grade level now, woohoo! His reading resource teacher works with him daily and he practices at home daily as well. His confidence has grown and he catches himself reading without realizing it, so fun!!

I'm proud of you big guy :)

M is on the left, he is pretending to be missing a finger (I think he needs to work on that trick, hehe), cousin W in the back as Spiderman and LittleMan as a fire fighter.

Angry!!

I am so angry and frustrated and mad and pissed off!! Ok, so they all mean basically the same thing, but since I don't swear I need to repeat myself, lol.

Anyway, my Personal Injury Protection (PIP) is $3,000 here in Utah and my insurance is required to pay that out, they go after the other drivers insurance for reimbursement. If the costs go over that I have to get a lawyer and fight the at fault drivers insurance. Well, I was informed that I've run out of my PIP and now I have to go through my health insurance ($40 copay) or get a lawyer.

The accident was not my fault, but the whole thing has been this huge hassle and now I get to add more to it. I'm just MAD!! gah!

Choices

LittleMan is sick, he is 6 years old, too young to stay home alone. But I have school too, is he sick enough he shouldn't go? Well enough he can walk about a mile each way to my class (yes, it's that far literally)? Me staying home isn't ideal either, only a few more weeks of school, finals are coming.

It's time like these that I second guess my decision to go back to school, I'm sure I'll have times like these when I go back to work too. Parenting, isn't it fun?

p.s. yes I love being a mom, just being a bit grouchy this morning, we'll figure out what to do.

Edited: I took him with me, he got winded pretty easily this morning but by this afternoon he is feeling a lot better. Though now he wants to go to school with me again tomorrow, lol. Thanks for the support girls, you are the best!

I am such a dork!

I was taking a quick shower this morning, our water heater runs out of water really quickly, and started running out of hot water. I decided to try and rinse the conditioner out of my hair while I shaved my legs. Well, I only did the back! I forgot to rinse the front, lol. I was rushing out the door to my chiropractor appointment when I realized my mistake.

Oops.

Yeah, so I went anyway, luckily for me, I didn't put much on the front so it wasn't too noticeable, or is that lucky? ;)

"School" pictures

I decided not to purchase school pictures this year, I knew they wouldn't turn out and they are freaking expensive. But I have been harassed by my mom, Aunt, Grandma's, and MIL about new pictures of the kids, so we decided to head up the canyon and take some pictures on our own. (and, no, the school pictures didn't turn out, hehe)

I need help deciding which ones to print for wallets and then 3 x 5 or 4 x 6's for the Grandma's.

#1 (incidentally, when did she get so grown up?)



#2
#1
#2 (yes, we'll crop out annoying man that refused to move so I could take this picture)
#1, this one has more shadow that I remember :S, so I don't think it's even in the running but here it is anyway :)

#2
#3

Yes, they are much better quality than it appears here and we'll crop the photos too. Maybe I should beg one of my sisters to come out and take pictures, they are much better than me.

Pictures

Ready for my scary pictures? Well, if not then don't look because here they are, lol.

Just laughing at a man in front of me trying to get his shirt back over his head, he had it behind his neck so the shirt wouldn't rub his nipples any more (they were bleeding, eww and ouch!). He had his race number on his shirt and the photographer wouldn't be able to identify him without the number, lol.



Texting my Hunny and my Aunt, it was cold, I was wet, tired, miserable and needed the encouragement. This was around mile 18.

I look dumb, but I was so surprised at the muscle definition so I had to show it off, lol. This is almost at the finish line.

Woohoo, exhausted, cold, and my legs didn't really work anymore. But I did it :)

St. George marathon race report

Sorry for the long and rambling report, I promise I edited it to shorten it and this is the best I could do :P. I will post pictures as I get them. And thanks to all of you that have supported me, I definitely needed it and thought of each of you while I was out there.

I obsessed with the weather up until Friday morning, I was so busy preparing for the trip and our mini vacation afterward that I forgot to check the weather one more time. I was prepared for a chance of rain and some cooler temps but not prepared for what I got.

I knew I wouldn't sleep, so I decided to ride up on the early bus and just hang out and enjoy the experience. When I arrived in St. George is was pretty warm so I didn't put my pants on, I figured my legs would be warm enough. What a mistake that ended up being, I was freezing. The wind was really strong up at the start so we couldn't all huddle around the fires, you had to stand along the sides for quite a while. Then the rain began, luckily a sweet woman next to me had an extra mylar blanket so I used that until the volunteers started giving out trash bags.

I joined the 5 hour pace group since that was my original goal, but 15 minutes slower than my predicted time after Hobble Creek. I was worried since I missed so many runs due to my car accident and hip injury. The pace team leader was hilarious and I really looked forward to running with him, unfortunately he apparently decided to bank some time after hearing about Veyo (he was from New Jersey) the first mile was 11:23, just a tad fast (shooting for 11:27) but the next mile he started pulling ahead, I tried to hold my pace and I finished it in 10:57 oops, mile three the group was quite a bit ahead and I hit it in 10:27, at this point I knew I was on my own. I was cold and wet and not happy to running 23 more miles in this weather.

I'm thinking that maybe if I could run faster I wouldn't have frozen so much ;). By mile 11 I was really struggling with the cold, I was shivering and angry. I never thought about dropping out, I was just mad that I had to continue in this rain, hehe. I decided that I had to start using up my motivations early, I had planned the last 6 miles to run each one for a family member or friend that inspired me along the way. I chose my Uncle Jeff first since I wasn't really hurting, but mentally I was struggling, he died from complications of arthritis at the age of 52. He spent most of his life in excruciating pain and he always just tried to do his best and keep plugging along. Thinking of Jeff really helped me for the next several miles.

Mile 13 was a low point for me, I couldn't feel my fingers any more and I knew I hadn't even reached the hardest part of the race yet. I'm actually thinking that mile 13 was my "wall" because after that I knew I just needed one foot in front of the other. I did cry at the aid station, I couldn't open the stupid banana and I just cried, so embarassing now. One of the volunteers laughed and then caught herself and said "You can do it, sweetie, you are halfway there" I was mad at her for laughing at me, but it did give me something to think about, so that's good.

At mile 14 I took a picture of myself with my cellphone and text it to my husband, my Aunt and some friends hoping for some support. My husband and Aunt sent encouraging texts which really helped through the hard times. At mile 18 I started to hurt, my left knee was really complaining by then and my stomach was already complaining about the Gu. I think I sat in the porta potty here for 3 or 4 minutes, just to dry out for a little bit and to prepare for the continuing rain.

By mile 21 it was just a drizzle out, but I was so wet I didn't notice if it was raining or drizzling or dry, I didn't care anymore. I discovered that I liked carrying some toilet paper in my hand, I could have one dry spot on my body and that a big comfort to me. Strange how odd little things keep you going.

At the mile 25 aid station I saw a porta potty and decided to use it so I wouldn't have to worry about it at the end, lol. After the little potty break I decided that I would do no more walking or stopping and would finish as fast as I could, after many 12:45+ min miles I finished this one in 11:02 and the last .2 in a 10:15 pace. I saw my family standing on the side waiting for me and I began to cry, I'm sure the finishing photo is going to be flattering, ha.

The sweet volunteer handing out the metals was an older gentleman, reminded me of my Dad. I was crying by now and he gave me a big hug, told me he was so proud of me and that I worked really hard and should be proud of myself. I hobbled over to my family and gave them all hugs and cried some more. One downside to being slow is they run out of food sometimes, I got an ice cream but the only other thing available was melons and grapes, I don't like melons and people were just sticking their hands in the grapes, eww so I didn't get anything else to eat. I did get a coke to drink and we hobbled over to get my gear and the car.

I ended up using the porta potties 8 or 9 times during the race, my garmin has me running for 5 hrs 18 min, so I wasted a lot of time in the potties. I didn't drink more than normal, in fact I drank less than normal so I don't know why I had to go so often, that's something I'll have to work on next time. Yes, there will be a next time :)

I hate the cold, always have, so I doubt I'll be running any winter races after this :P

A quicky

I will post a long and rambling report later. I just wanted to let you all know that I made it :). It rained, a lot, it was windy from time to time. I froze. I cussed. I finished it.

5 hours and 40ish minutes.

About to freak out.

The marathon is in 4 days, or 3 days and 20 hours if you go by the countdown clock on the stgeorgemarathon.com website :P.

I'm as ready as I'll ever be, I'm just about over the cold that tried to suck out my soul over the weekend (yeah, I heard it's normal to get sick during the taper, but didn't my body know I like to not be normal? yeah.), I have a huge list of stuff to do before Friday morning so we can head down south for the race. I just bombed my math test, because I suck. And here I sit, about ready to have a panic attack rather than doing laundry or washing the kitchen floor, or even making my bed.

Me, anxious? why do you ask?

And here I am contemplating planning my next marathon for next May and I haven't even survived the first one yet, lol. I guess I like this near panic feeling :P.

Can I join the "real" mom club now?

That's right, I finally got my mini van, woot!And Stu thought we were going to get a little sporty car for our second vehicle, hee!

So happy, I sucked in my gut so you wouldn't see how I look pregnant next to my mom mobile, lol.
Yeah, haven't been running, cleaning, doing homework, much of anything except going to school and walking all over campus again and again. And again.

p.s. please ignore that I'm wearing socks with my sandals, I took my tennis shoes off and Stu wanted me to pose by the van so I slipped my sandals on quickly. I promise I didn't leave the yard like that ;).

Random Pictures

M at his birthday party, mmmm....cupcakes

The Comcast cable guy, no way could I do his job. High ladders and hanging on wires, no thanks.

L at the zoo on the carousel, too grownup!
LittleMan eating a snowcone, mmmm....snowcone.

Update

I didn't give a lot of information on my fender-bender after my race, so I thought I would throw that out here now. I was rear-ended at about 20-25 mph and I had just gone over a bridge so I was pointing down at an angle. Immediately after the impact my right hip started hurting, I forgot about it with the adrenalin and all that going on after the accident. The day after the race I realized my hip was still hurting, more than my very sore quads, not good.

Sunday I was able to rest for most of the day and Monday I resumed my regular schedule, with my hip hurting more and more. Tuesday I realized that I really wasn't walking normally and my muscles were feeling much better yet my hip still hurt quite a bit. I decided to see a Chiropractor the next day and he told me that I shouldn't run, walk for long periods or sit for more than 20 minutes. Crap! I felt quite a bit better after the adjustment so I decided that maybe I should find someone with more sports related experience.

I started running again yesterday, after 9 days of resting and it felt great! I did end up sore that night, but felt fine this morning for my run. I saw the new Chiropractor today and he said I should still run but if it hurt at all I needed to stop. He is going to watch me run on Monday and help me see if maybe my stride or shoes contributed to the injury and hopefully he can fix me fast enough to run the marathon.

So for now, I'm optimistic that it will still happen but also know that I may have to alter my plans and run a marathon in December or January.

All for now :)