day 5

Sorry guys for not posting recently. Let's just say that my arms hurt so much, it even hurts to type. But it's that good kind of hurt. So I worked out 5 times this week, which makes me very proud of myself! I remember the semester I was training to run a marathon, one day I was walking across campus with a friend, and like 3 guys said hi to me, which was really unusual, since guys usually say hi to the girl I'm walking with. (Case in point, the time I was with Maggie, and Nelson spend like 10 minutes telling her how amazing she was, and then said "I like your eye shadow, Heidy"...sigh). Anyway, so I said to my friend "why are guys talking to me?", and she pointed out that the constant running was having a very good effect on my physical appearance. That was nice. I have been working on changing my eating and workout habits for a few months now, and it has been slow going; however, in the past three weeks, several people have told me that I look good, which again, is such an anomaly, since I never look good. So it feels good to know that changes are taking place. I have felt so uncomfortable in my own skin for pretty much all of my adult life, though more so in the past two years than ever before. It doesn't help that that one guy in my ward working on his masters in phys ed called me up to find out my bmi to see if I qualified for a study he was doing, and said "oh...you're too skinny"...leaving me to think that he had called me because he thought I was fat enough for his study, and was disappointed to find that I wasn't as fat as he thought I was. So anyway, it's nice to know that my hard work is starting to pay off a little bit, and I've even felt attractive a few times lately-again a rarity. Okay, well-I think my arms are going to fall off.

day 4

I think it's day 4. Anyhow. I've upped it to level 2. And I may be regretting it. Let's just say that the last 6 minutes are brutal, and only someone on crystal meth could survive it without wanting to die. There's a lot of plank work on level two. Do you know what plank work is? It's when you get into push up position, and do crazy things, like jumping jacks in that position, or, oh, I don't know, weird oblique sit up workouts in the plank position. I wouldn't mind it so much, except that it really gets Mr. Jigglesworth going. That, of course, is what I call my jiggly tummy, which stays hidden most of the time, unless I'm in plank position, in which case, gravity wins. And gravity, of course, makes me hate myself. Oh well. Other than that, I'm really enjoying the work out thus far. And I may be a little optimistic, but I can feel it working-at least I can feel my muscles hurting. It'd probably work better if I didn't spend the day time eating Christmas cookies. If only I didn't have so many friends who keep bringing them to my house! Oh if only I weren't so popular and well liked amongst my peers!! Okay, well-I really stink, and today has been a pretty crap tastic day, so I'm going to go take my shower, watch an episode of Brothers and Sisters, because I'm a big sap, and go to sleep.

Day 2

Whew-go me. So for those of you who don't know what the 30 day shred is, let me explain it a little bit for you. It's a work out video by Jillian Michaels, the mean personal trainer lady from the Biggest Loser-only she's really not that mean. I thought I'd need someone yelling at me and telling me what a whale I am to get me going, but she's not that bad. Anyway, the way the workout goes is that it's 4 circuits of 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs, then repeat with different exercises. It's really pretty intense. There are 3 levels (obviously I'm doing the first level for now). I researched the workout quite a bit before buying into it, and so far, it seems to get really great results. We'll see. I opted out of showing you all pictures of me, my self esteem isn't that high yet. Just believe me at the end if I say it works!
So I've done the work out for two days now. I like it because it's pretty old school stuff; jumping jacks, jump roping, butt kicking, hand weights. It reminds me of high school gym class, and let's be honest, that was probably my fittest time in life, minus that one semester I trained for and ran a marathon-no really, I did. Seriously-I've got the bum knee to prove it. So, back to the work out. My legs feel like jello, and there are muscles in my tummy I'm feeling for the first time since I got knocked up-I'm sorry, was that crass? Oh well, it's true. So, thus far-it's good. Now I need to go shower.

the 30 Day Shred Day One

Okay, well I'm admitting to two things in this post. First, I opened my present from my mom way early-there, I admit it. And second, I'm still not happy with my body. Okay, so the last time I was happy with my body was probably when I was 18 months old and didn't realize that my body had meat on it. Oh well. Anyhow, obviously, I got some workout DVDs for Christmas (don't worry, I asked for them, it wasn't some covert insult from Mom-she just tells me straight up if I'm looking chunky, anyhow). So I'm going to do the 30 day shred. And I figure in order to make myself accountable, I'm going to blog it. So later tonight after Layla goes to bed, I'll do my first work out, have Zane take some before photos, and post all about it. And you can all read about it if you're interested-if not, I don't care, I'm still blogging about it, just to keep me motivated, and on target. Why, you ask, am I doing this over Christmas? Well, for a few reasons-first, I think it's wise to start an exercise program when I'm eating like a cow, just to keep me in check a little, and second, I have a month off from school, so I thought it'd be good to get into a program now, while it's easier time-wise, and then when school starts, I'll already have this working out thing set as a priority. I'm warning you now that this blogging about working out and trying to like my body might reveal some of my emotional baggage. So again, if you're not interested in that, then don't read it. that's cool. Wish me luck!

Would You Rather...?

In college, we used to play a game called "Would You Rather...?". Basically, we would pose questions to each other, like this: would you rather have a nose that constantly bled, or pee nonstop all the time? Pretty easy game to play. This blog is dedicated to Maggie and Steve, with whom we always played this game, always striving for the morally vague "would you rather kill your mom or your best friend?". What a great way to spend your friday nights. Well, the last few days, I've been thinking about this game. Because it's not so much theory anymore, as it is a horrible reality. For example:
Would you rather
-take a 13 month old to Church for 3 hours, or have a stranger punch you in the face every morning for a week?
-give a 13 month old a bath and get her ready for bed, or hold a hand grenade in one hand while being tickled constantly?
-cook dinner every night for the Rest of Your Life, or have your toe nails removed one at a time?

See, when I was in college, these were easy ones, I mean, really, how hard could it be to take a kid to church, right? Oh, my friends. Every Sunday morning, as Zane and I get in the car (always 15 minutes after church has started, mind you-and we've got a good 25 minute drive to get there), we are still optimistic. And then I get to church. And wish someone would punch me in the face. Because, seriously, could that be any worse?!

So if you see me any time during the week, and I look just a little less than my best-don't judge me. Just, please, punch my daylights out. At least that way, I'll get a little bit of sleep.

and time marches on

It's hard to imagine that an entire year has passed since Layla was born. I don't remember much from those first few days-I was pretty doped up on some weird drugs. JJ likes to tell the story of how while in recovery, I called him and told him I felt like a mermaid. My sister in law saved the voice mail I left her-for a year so far. But I will always remember the moment a nurse came in to give us, finally, and update on Layla's condition. At the time, they thought she had a hole in her heart. I felt like I was underwater, trying to swim to the surface to get to Zane, to breath, to fix whatever was wrong. Stupid nurse. Thankfully, there was no hole-or at least, after my family fasted, her name was put on temple's prayer roll, and we all started praying extra hard, by the time it was all examined in whole, Layla only has a mild heart murmer. I think sometimes I forget about what a miracle that is. When I'm chasing her around all day saying "what did you just put in your mouth?!" for the one millionth time, I forget how lucky I am to be chasing her around. Layla had a week of celebration for her 1st birthday-we started out at Rene and Larry's, where Layla was dressed like a princess, complete with crown. This picture doesn't do it justice, believe me! She had on an adorable little tutu, as well. Just too cute!
So the next day, we headed off to Utah to visit my family. After a nice Memorial Day picnic and reunion with Doug and Jo and Jason and Jackie (congrats again!!), the family headed to Heber City to spend a week up in the mountains. And Layla rang in her first real year hearty mountaineer style. Or Barger style, at least. Shiney and I made her a puppy dog cake, Layla opened lots of cute presents, got frosting on her fingers, didn't eat the cake, and was trampled by her cousin Andy. It was great. So Happy Birthday to the cutest darn kid in the entire stinkin world-love her to death!!!


!

How 'bout I punch you in the face?

And why not start with a picture of me in my wedding dress sitting on the can?! Exactly! Well, this week has, of course, been both mundane and crazy. Weird how that works. We used to always joke about the SVU time warp, where days seemed to drag on forever, but the weeks some how just flew past. It's not just the SVU time warp-it's the time warp of life. Everything just flies by, though the moment to moment time seems like they've added an extra 60 seconds to each minute. It could just seem that way because I spend the majority of those minutes putting books back on the shelf, and taking foreign objects out of Layla's mouth. And remember when I decided to blog and make taco meat at the same time, and then forgot I was making taco meat until the house started smelling weird. I sure do. Our quote for today is this one:
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity". Henry David Thoreau. Why would we want to kill time? Why not use it, or enjoy it? Why are we always killing it, waiting for the next best moment to come along? Eternity is the ever present now, and if we're always trying to kill that time, hoping the next minute is a better sixty seconds than the last, aren't we really just saying that our Eternity isn't good enough? And now, I'm off to spend 60 seconds making Layla a bottle-it's not a sucky sixty seconds-right now, she's my Eternity.

Let us begin

This is my real blog. I've had a hidden pretend one in the past. But this is for real. And because it is real, it is guaranteed to be boring, and sometimes self indulgent. So there. Mainly it will be pictures of Layla (because she's a lot cuter than me), quotes that I like, and me pontificating on different subjects.



We begin with a picture of Layla-because really, she's adorable. Though maybe not as adorable in this picture as she is in real life, mainly because this is about 2 hours after we discovered her egg allergy. So she's got hives all over her face and body. Because I suck as a mother. Thankfully, as a species we have the ability to adapt for survival. Or Layla would be toast, considering my mothering abilities.

On to my quote for the day: My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. Oh, Ani Difranco, how I do love the things you have to say.

I thought I was exploring my right to become myself, when things got thrown a bit of a curve ball. I didn't plan to get pregnant right off the bat-I was trying to prevent that from happening. It was my worst nightmare. And it came true. Only, really, Layla is that "whatever" that I needed to help me become myself. I wasn't fully or entirely me, or the me that encompasses the full female experience until Layla showed up at our doorstep. I remember one day during my pregnancy, I was pretty much hating everything about it-and started griping about everything I was giving up, when a wise friend of mine said "grad school will always be there. those buildings have deep foundations and the minds that preside there usually get hired for life. so you're safe. i'm seeing layla as the factor that you weren't counting on who will guide you to where you want to end up more soundly than you could alone." And how right you are, Hannah-how right you are!