Crazy kitty.

My husband's kitty, Dax, is 5 years old, but acts like a kitten still when new toys come out. I tried to get a photo of her holding the toy with her extra toes, but it didn't come out right :(.

And here she is enjoying her mousey prize :).


My kitty, Snake, rarely plays, she is 2 and feels way too old for that anymore. She just talks a lot and now that she is feeling better (she was pretty sick for about a week) she just wants to eat and sleep all the time.

I love having pets, though it's really hard when they get sick :S. I'm thinking chickens are my next pet, hehe.

Week 3

I almost didn't post this week because I ended up with 91% of my planned runs and though that is awesome, I was not totally pleased with myself. Then I talked to my friend that is also training for a marathon and she laughed at my thought of running this morning, just to get those 1.4 miles I missed :P. Yeah, I do get a bit stuck on the plan sometimes and forget that life will just happen, let it go and move in already ;).

Monday - planned rest day
Tuesday - unplanned rest day, sometimes being a girl throws ya for a loop once a month (or twice a month if you are unlucky like me :P).
Wednesday - 4.5 miles, pushed myself hard and it was awesome!
Thursday - 3 miles, ran slow to recover from Wednesday.
Friday - cross training in the form of crazily mowing the lawn and scrubbing down the house before my friends came over for game night.
Saturday - 6.1 miles, had to make up a mile, just couldn't live with myself if I didn't. Ran with my friend, had a blast :).

Total 13.6 miles

Week 4 is a big pick up week for me, 19 miles planned and I have to run my 9 miler alone (farthest I've run since March of 2007), we'll see how it goes :).

Week 2

Another week down, it was a hard one so of course now I'm worried about the real hard weeks coming :S.

Monday- rest day
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - 3 miles, ran it on the path by the canal. It was nice running on dirt and gravel.
Thursday - 3 miles, I was really tired after this run, very happy for the Friday rest day.
Friday - rest day
Saturday - 7 miles, went a bit faster than expected, woot. I also shopped with my Aunt and Cousin for 5, yes 5! hours and stood at the parade for 2 hours, needless to say, my feet and knees were mighty tired when I went to bed.

Total for the week 16 miles.

My yard progress.

First, I'll get the embarrassing shot out of the way. A shameless brag about my calves, I actually have muscles to show, woot!! This is L's artistic shot of my legs, she tried 3 times and this is the best of the bunch. Here is the front of my house, I put in those pavers myself, lots and lots of work! But I love them!
These sexagon hexagon (I'm such an idiot, I almost put sectagon too, lol) pavers were what we had for a path up to the front door, where the rectangle ones are now. They were spaced out so much, I had to leap from one to the next, not so great in a dress or in the snow. I always felt really bad for guests too, but hey they work great from the driveway. I'll be filling in that dirt with grass and taking out the sidewalk eventually.
Here is my backyard garden, still little but I have kept them alive for a week already, woohoo!!
And here is my side yard garden, I didn't have enough room here for all of the plants, that's why I have two gardens (not to mention the worry our neighbors across the street will help themselves as things ripen).
So my hours and hours of yardwork don't look like much yet, but it's a good start. I need to go find a before shot of the front yard, you'll be slightly more impressed :P. Hopefully my plants will get big and I'll show the progress :). I have *gulp* 14 tomato plants, 24 pepper plants, 3 cucumber plants, and 3 squash.

edited to fix my stupid mistake, thanks Lena :)

Week 1 done

So last week was the 1st week of my 18 week training plan. It ended up being a crazy week so I didn't complete all my runs, actually only half of them :S. But I did get lots of cardio and other workouts in, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Monday- planned day off from running, yoga is my cross training of choice.
Tuesday - 3 miles in 36 minutes, feeling really slow, I have never been fast but this is pretty slow for me, maybe the speed will come back someday.
Wednesday- didn't eat well on Tuesday, was exhausted so I took the day off. Ended up tearing out the carpet in the living room.
Thursday- another day of no running, but more furniture moving and carpet removing, good workout!
Friday - planned rest day, did housework instead.
Saturday - 6 miles, 1hr 7 min, 38 minutes for the 1st 3 miles (mostly gradual uphill, wears me out) and then the best news ever, 29 minutes for the 2nd 3 miles, my fastest 3 miler ever!! I'm quite excited about this! Maybe the speed is hiding in there.

Week total = 9 miles, was supposed to be 15, but I'm not too worried, it wont be a trend ;)

I'm going to make Wednesdays runs be my speed workouts, I'll try different things as the length gets longer.

On to week number 2!!

I haven't been running.

I took a couple extra days off of running, I seemed to have found something else to keep me busy instead....

Gross stains that keep coming back.

A good picture showing the before and after, on the left is the floor that was just covered by carpet and on the right is the floor I refinished last year.

The floor is in pretty good shape, I will refinish it though.

Just another view.

Yeah, I also did more work on the yard too, it's raining today so I wont be taking any pictures just yet. Patience, my child, patience.

Hobble Creek Half Marathon

If you are planning on running this race, you need to register ASAP! I spoke with two of the clerks at Runner's Corner and they said it will most likely fill up in the next day or two. I haven't run this race yet, but I've seen the course, spoken with many that have run it and know the people that organize the race, it's going to be a great one. And it fits perfectly in my training for St. George, so I gotta figure out how to convince my hubby that racing is fun and worth the $30 ;). Plus it's not until August 24th so you have time to train, hehe.

I decided that my Garmin's name is now George. George was the name I used for everything when I was younger, I had a cactus named George, a mole named George, and many other things. So George it is :).

I have been working really hard on my yard the last several days, I need to get a picture put up here soon so you all can be amazed at my skills. Either that or laugh at my lack of skills ;).

Garmin 205, oh how I love thee!

Stu got me a Garmin 205.
I have been lusting after one for over a year! When I first started running, I enjoyed just going and then coming home and figuring out how far I went. But then I started training for various races, so I had to run a specific distance, which usually meant I had to plot a course before I went out the door. I didn't mind for a long time, then I started to get bored and it was harder to find a route to run that wasn't full of hills.

With the Garmin, I can just take off out my front door, run where i feel like it and track my mileage all at the same time. Plus! I can do all sorts of other cool stuff, like tell it what pace I want to run and then a little training buddy pops up on my screen and I try to keep pace with him, how fun is that?

I have been sick for the last week, but finally got to take the Garmin for a run this morning, I think I need to name him. It has to be a him because it's freaking huge :P but that's ok. Anyway, I had a great time, just ran out from my house for 1.5 miles and then turned around and came home. But Saturday I'm running 8 miles and I look forward to checking out new scenery :).

Oh and I love my Hunny too, and not just because he buys me cool gadgets ;).

Riding on the crazy train, choo choo!!

I have been wanting to run the St. George marathon for 3 years now, but have been too chicken to commit to it. You have to register for the marathon by May 5th and the marathon isn't until October 4th, what if something happens and you can't go?

Well, I decided to just go for it and I got in!!! Woohoo!!!

I'm excited and scared to death at the same time, lets just hope gas isn't $10/gallon come October, because the marathon is on the other side of the state, lol. I guess it's time to bring the blog back around to fit in with blog name :).

Choo Choo!

Happy Birthday LittleMan!

The time is flying by so fast, I can't believe it has been 6 years already! You have grown so much, many changes are made right before my eyes.

We had a bit of a rough start, you came 3 weeks early, though were huge, and had problems with food allergies right from the start. Add on ear infections and asthma stuff, RSV, pneumonia, many trips to the doctor, very little sleep. But you always had a smile on your face, such a content little boy. Though true to the stereotypes, you have quite a redhead temper!

My camera decided to die today, of course, so you'll have to make due with old photos and hopefully I can get the pictures off the memory card and maybe kick my camera back into submission.

Turning 3, what I get cake?


Turning 4.

And turning 5, he didn't like the smell of the smoke after he blew out the candles, lol.


You have learned to read, add two digit numbers, and sometimes you can even count passed 20. One of my favorite things about homeschooling this year is seeing each kids personality and what they enjoy. LittleMan loves to do math, he can't count very well still and doesn't know all of his letters but he can read. It seems he doesn't like to do anything easy, let's jump on in to the hard stuff and get going!

I look forward to another fun filled year with you, little guy, I love you.

10 Random Happies

Hey, long time no see :). I was told that I needed to update and I can't really argue that, it has been quite awhile.

My last post had blah's and I have more happy stuff this time, but no pictures so maybe that will come next.

1. Dax is fine, the vet put her on antibiotics and the vet tech helped me clip her toenails, her very long toenails. She seems to have adopted me, since I let her sit on me all the time. Does that mean I sit too much? ;).

2. M just lost another top tooth, now he can't say his s's very well, it's quite funny. I need to take a picture soon! Also, he had an extra tooth grow in and when he was about 18 months we took him to the dentist, they told us that he would need it pulled sooner rather than later since it was too crowded in the front. When he was almost 2, we had the tooth pulled as it was pushing over his front teeth, he liked being first in his kindergarten class to have lost a tooth. Now it looks kind of funny hanging out there alone, you'll have to wait for a picture to see what I mean.

3. The Spring semester is over and boy am I happy to have survived, it was a nightmare there at the end, still not quite over but we don't need to talk about that here ;).

4. I quit my job, such a relief, money is tight again but I am happier and therefore, everyone else in the house is as well :).

5. I challenged my friend to a workout competition, just the two of us. Loser takes the winner to dinner, so really we both win ;). We are both very competitive so this will be interesting. We are just going by minutes exercised. This is our first week and I have worked out three days in a row, sadly though, I'm pretty sure Cathleen cheated and did a double workout today so she is in the lead ;). Don't you fret, I will win, oh yes, I will win.

6. I don't think I mentioned on here that we decided to put the kids into regular public school next year. L is very happy, the social butterfly can't wait to have lots of girls to chat with, she also thinks it will be much easier, we shall see ;).

7. With the kids all in school all day, I decided to move up to full-time at school so I can graduate sooner, woohoo!! I have been in school for so long, I think I'll go into withdrawals once I graduate, or maybe not.

8. Our tv is almost dead, why is that a happy? Well, it means we'll get a flat screen tv (eventually) and I can get rid of our beasty old tv and entertainment center, woot!

9. Spring is here, sure we'll get snow here and there but I'm ignoring that, I went running outside on Monday afternoon, it was glorious!

10. Stu took me to the driving range, I have never been and it was so much fun, we decided to go golfing this weekend, woohoo!! So I need to see if I can say that's a workout because I'm totally counting it if it does, mwahahahah.

Catch ya later!

Random blah's

1. Dax is sick, she sneezes and coughs a lot, plus she is stinky. So I'm taking her to the vet this afternoon, I hope it's just a cold and that it will fix her stinkiness, she is a lap cat, I don't love her smell. I really don't want her smell on me :P.

2. I have been putting a lot of time on for work, they are really busy so they assigned me extra work, I have typed up 141 pages in two days, my wrists hurt, a lot. My ears also hurt a bit from the head phones, no fun.

3. I finally am caught up with work and now a storm is coming in so I didn't get to enjoy any sunshine while it was here :(

4. It's my spring break from school, no fun plans, no real break from anything, blah.

Lets hope things are better tomorrow! Oooh, I just remembered that my Hunny it taking me on a date tomorrow night, woot!

New babies....

We are done having human babies, so we decided it was time for some fur babies. I love most animals, so it has been hard not having any of my own for so long. Stu
only likes cats, so we decided to get cats (for now), after weeks of checking the Humane Society's website, we decided to bite the bullet and go get a kitty. Then we thought that we probably should get two so they wouldn't be lonely.

Up first is "Snake" she "rattles" the tip of her tail when she is nervous, too cute! And she never stops talking, seriously!




And then we have "Dax" a Star Wars character on Deep Space Nine. She has extra toes, pretty freaky looking actually. But she is cute when she isn't being grouchy, she does not like Snake at all! Though today she actually looked at her a few times without hissing or growling, that's a step in the right direction!
Snake puked this evening, I forgot that cats puke sometimes, this better not be a regular occurrence :P.

Speed

80 words

Speed test

You type 422 characters per minute
You have 80 correct words and
you have 1 wrong words

(the wrong word was "them", for some reason when I'm going fast, the 'h' is always faster out of the gate ;) ).

One good thing that has come out of being a transcriptionist, I can type faster now :P.

We wont talk about the annoying parts of the job, like hearing everyone's "um, uh, and, and" stuff that they do, when I read closed captioning on a show and they don't show everything the person said, totally bugs me!

Anyway, carry on ;)

No words

I have been contemplating how I would sum up the funeral for Semisi, but I know that I don't have the right words, so I'll pass you over to my Hunny's blog he summed it up quite eloquently, as always.

I will say one thing though, I am grateful to my Aunt for allowing me to show my love and respect for Semisi, by signing "I am a Child of God" with my M and LittleMan at the funeral, LittleMan decided he didn't want to complete the song, but he made it 1/2 way through the first verse, I'm proud of him for that. M didn't know the 2nd and 3rd verses but he followed me the best that he could and I'm proud of him for that as well. I, on the other hand, screwed up and am grateful no one there was the wiser ;).

Selfless

As I was thinking of words to describe Semisi, my Uncle, I went through Loving, Caring, Generous, Kind, Gentle, Sweet, Funny, Loveable and finally settled on Selfless. Semisi was always the first one there, the last to leave, when someone needed help. He was always there with a smile. He never liked being the center of attention, he liked to be in the background, just doing what needed to be done. So I chose a few pictures of him with my boys, he loved them so much.

the first one makes me cry whenever I see it. It's Semisi holding M when he was a baby, I cannot remember where they were or what month, but I'm sure it was in 2000 based on M's size.


Semisi loved music, he had many guitars and a keyboard, he loved to sing and I know the funeral will be full of songs, mostly in Tongan, so beautiful.

This picture is of Semisi and M again, at my youngest sisters wedding. M was eating roast beef perched on his favorite persons lap.


And this is one of both boys with Semisi, this time LittleMan is munching on roast beef, I think they were trying to bulk up to be as big as Misi someday ;).


We love you, Semisi, you will be missed. You left some big shoes to fill, literally ;), and figuratively. I hope to instill the selflessness into my boys so they can grow up to be as big as you.

Thanks for the well wishes....

I'm feeling much better!!

Now I request that you please send your good thoughts, prayers, happy vibes, whatever, to my Uncle who is very very sick right now.

thank you!

Edited to add:

My Uncle passed away :( I'll probably post a tribute to him in the next few days or so.

3 days in bed, ahh.....

Bliss, right?

Nope, not this time :(. I have the flu, or something, that has knocked me off my feet. I started feeling sick Saturday night and after a full day in bed Sunday, I thought that maybe I would get back to blogging since there is nothing else to do when you have to hold really still in order to feel almost human, sigh.

I'm feeling worse today than I did yesterday so I'm hoping it's the end of this. I need to get back to homeschooling the kids, going to school myself, work, all that stuff I regularly complain about, I'm ready to have it back :P.

I have some good posts running through my head, so maybe later this evening, after a nap, I'll get them going, we'll see.

Now that takes talent!

or something ;).

Friday morning I was preparing for the day. For some reason I couldn't get my contact in my right eye, after several attempts I finally got it in. I went grocery shopping, got Stu from work so I could go to school. As I sat down in the classroom I thought "my right eye is really blurry, weird" so I blinked hard, then rubbed it lightly to try and get my contact in the right position. I assumed my eye was just being weird so I ignored the blurriness the rest of the day.

At the end of the night I tried to get my right contact out, I couldn't feel it (this is where you guys that know me begin to chuckle :P). I tried and tried and tried, no luck. I come out and ask Stu "help me find my contact, I think I got it stuck up under my lid or something, he looked and looked and finally said "it's not in there, you dropped it taking it out" So we look all around the bathroom, I find a torn up, dried out, contact lens.

That's right, in the morning, I as I was putting my contact in I somehow managed to drop it and not notice! So I'm out one contact and keep laughing at myself, I didn't notice that my contact was missing all day and didn't notice it wasn't in my freaking eye as I was gouging it out trying to get my contact out.

Talent, yeah, that's it ;)

My 5 year old, why I love him

I decided that I'm going to post something about each of my kids, to remind me why I love them and why I love the stage that they are in :).

I don't have time to get my camera out right now, so I'll try to edit this post later to add pictures.

LittleMan just lost his first tooth, it was so funny. He was eating spaghetti and bit something hard, he took it out of his mouth and L said "oh, it's your tooth!" LittleMan freaked out tried to shove it back into place and screamed, lol. I said "it's okay, buddy, now you can put it under your pillow for money" of course that perked him up, hehe. I told him to get a tissue to wipe it off and he promptly dropped the tooth, never to be found again :(. We have white carpet, baby teeth are tiny!! So we wrote a note to the tooth fairy and he got his "big pennies".

He also got his bike for Christmas, he loves that thing and makes sure he always has his helmet on, I never have to fight him to wear it :). He loves being my big helper and loves cuddling up with me at any time, so awesome.

In school he is doing 1st Grade math and just loves it, he's still learning letter sounds and even some of his letters, he just isn't interested, but that's okay with me, since he is trying anyway.

In Primary he is always willing to give the talk or prayer or tip over his chair or pull his teachers earrings, lol, such a character (never to hurt her of course, just playing).

Oh, time to go to school, I'll write more later, this was fun :).