Lame Rules

A few weeks ago we got a completed wedding montage from our videographer.  He did an amazing job with it, and set it to the song we did our first dance to ("Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat).  We had a few edits for him to make, which he did.  When he delivered our completed wedding DVDs, the final version of the montage was included.

Today I realized that we hadn't posted the montage up for people to see, so I went looking for it.  Unfortunately, the only readable versions I could find were from before the edits we requested.  The final version that we wanted to use was only on the completed DVD he made us.  Not to be stopped, I used video editing software to import the entire DVD and then cut out only the video montage and export it into a readable format.  Yay me!

I uploaded the video to YouTube, all excited and proud of myself.  Immediately I got an e-mail from YouTube about the song that was on the video and how it is owned by WMG (Warner Music Group) and may be blocked.  Sure enough, when Donovan tried to view the video that I had just uploaded, it was blocked.  :(

Once again, not to be stopped, I decided to post the video directly to Facebook.  Take that, YouTube!  Sadly, the quality was not nearly as good.  In the meantime, Donovan found a work-around for getting my video back up on YouTube.  My hero!!  I re-posted a link to the YouTube video on Facebook, and all was well.  Until...

I got an e-mail from our videographer requesting that I take down the video from both YouTube and Facebook.  Apparently record labels have started suing wedding videographers for using copyrighted content, and because of the contract we signed, that would make us liable too.  So, I took down the video from YouTube and Facebook.  :(  A few lucky people got to see if before that happened...

I asked Jason, our videographer, about re-editing the video with a non-illegal song, and he pointed me towards some websites that have appropriate song content.  Unfortunately, they all charge $60+ per song, so I don't think I'll be doing that.  Lame rules!!!  :(

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Lazy Sundays vs. Coast Rides

I am officially a fan of lazy Sundays.  Today we got out of bed at around 1:00pm, had our protein shakes, went for an almost two-hour walk, grilled up some super tasty turkey burgers and had them with our friends Crystal and Mark.  Played a game with them after dinner, and then a little bocce ball on the PS3.  Super fun! 

The only problem with our day is that we were scheduled to go for a coast ride on our bikes this morning.  We've been feebly attempting to go on a coast ride for several weeks, and I promised Donovan that we would actually go today.  The alarm went off at 8:30am, and neither of us jumped out of bed.  It's just so darned cozy!!!  At some point in the morning, we decided that it wasn't really feasible to go anymore, and that's when we decided to go for a walk instead.

I'm sad that Donovan was disappointed about not going for a coast ride.  Don't get me wrong, he enjoyed our lazy Sunday too, and he really wanted us to go and do that ride.  It's just really nice to have a day where we don't have any appointments until much later on, and we can sleep in and hang out in bed.

We had a similar Sunday a couple of weeks ago where we were supposed to get up early to go and do a coast ride and ended up staying in bed for a majority of the day before getting up to go for a walk at the lake.

So, knowing our trend with Sundays, we've scheduled a coast ride for the next Thursday Donovan is taking off on 2/9.  Hopefully the bed won't be so tempting on a Thursday...

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Pole Dancing

I had my first experience with pole dancing tonight.  My friend Emily had a girls night out for her birthday, and first thing we did was take a pole dancing class at Fun Pole Fitness on University.  It was a special private class just for us.  There were six of us, plus the instructor.  The studio is set up really nicely...they have ten poles for students and one for the instructor.  Included in our package were the shoes.  Oh, the shoes...these were six-inch stilettos with a two-inch platform.  Let me just say...OUCH!!!  Now, I'm a girl who normally wears flip-flops, Uggs, or tennis shoes, so take that with a grain of salt!

 Oh, the shoes!

Our instructor was the studio owner, Marie.  She started us off with learning how to walk around the pole, and taught us some simple choreography.  She has a really great style of teaching.  She broke things down into little steps, so that we could really get them.  Once we were comfortable maneuvering around the pole, she started teaching us some of the turns that eventually had us holding ourselves up on the pole with just our hands while we spun around.  It was crazy fun!  She would teach us something new and then we would add it to the choreography and do the whole dance to the music a few times.  We were picking it up so quickly that she ended up teaching us an extra move that she normally doesn't do for parties.

It was such a fun experience!  Minus the shoes being incredibly uncomfortable, it was a total blast.  I've been curious about pole dancing for a while, and really had no idea what to expect.  They offer a bunch of different classes, including one that is all tricks.  I'm definitely interested in going back!  After our class was over, she showed us some of the crazy tricks that she can do.  I tried to climb the pole, to see if I could, and I did!  I managed to pull myself up and hold myself in place with my inner thighs for a few seconds.  I'm curious to see whether this is something I'd be good at or not!

I took some video with my phone.  Unfortunately, it focused on my arm up close, so everything I shot was out of focus, but you can get the idea.  I'm in the back left corner wearing the blue tank top and black shorts.  You can see me better if you look in the mirror. :)

Lo and Behold...

Yesterday I said that next on my list would be to create a wedding album on Facebook.  Today, I did it!  Five plus months after the wedding, I went through all the photographs that our wedding photographer edited and picked out the 150 best of them to post.  In all fairness, we didn't actually get our digital photos from the photographer until the beginning of November, but still!  That's almost three months ago!

It was really fun going through all the pictures from the wedding and remembering that day.  It really was the most amazing day for me, part of an incredible weekend.

A few days ago an old friend/roommate of mine from college posted something on Facebook about planning her wedding in San Diego.  I immediately posted her a comment letting her know that I have recommendations for amazing vendors if she wanted them.  She asked me to e-mail them to her.  Yesterday I sat down to compile that e-mail for her, and I was again struck by what an AMAZING team of people we had working with us on and around our wedding day.  The florist, the photographer, the videographer, the DJ, the coordinator, the incredible officiant, and many more.  They were all just outstanding professionals, and so much fun to work with.  It's no accident that our wedding turned out as amazingly as it did.  We hired the right people!

So I was even more aware of that as I looked through all the wedding photos today.  Everything was beautiful, everything worked right and went smoothly.  And all the people who came to celebrate with us!  So awesome!  From all over the globe, and all different times in our lives.  We are so loved, and it's such a blessing!  I'm smiling in practically every photograph.  And when we started watching the wedding video that our videographer made for us, I got to see how giggly and giddy I was throughout the entire ceremony.  I honestly think I spent the majority of that whole weekend smiling and laughing.  What a lucky girl I am!!!

Finally!

I've been wanting to post an album of remodel pictures on Facebook for months now.  I intended for it to be a work in progress, adding to it every time new stuff happened.  Alas, I didn't make it a priority so it didn't happen.  Until today!!  For whatever reason, today was the day for me to take a bunch of time and finally do it.  I've been sort of slacking on my school work so far this week, and seem to be having a few do-other-stuff days.  So today I went through the 300+ pictures we've taken of the remodel since it started in September and picked the best ones.  I posted them all to Facebook and added descriptions.  Yay!

What I've learned from this process today is:

1. We didn't take nearly enough before pictures
2. Bob is a fearless man with a strange sense of humor
3. Donovan did a great job of documenting the process (minus some missing before pictures...)
4. We did a heck of a lot of work to this house!
5. I love our new house!!!!!!  :)

So, if you're on Facebook and you haven't checked out the pictures yet, check them out!  And if you're not on Facebook, this link should allow you to see the pictures anyway.  Let me know if it doesn't work.

Next on the list?  A LONG overdue wedding album on Facebook with pictures from our official photographer and others.  I'm guessing it will be a while yet, but you never know...

Travel Plans

I'm noticing something interesting about myself.  When I know that I'm going to be traveling somewhere, but the plans aren't finalized, I feel rather unsettled.  For example:  early last year we decided that we were going to go to Maui for our honeymoon.  I immediately started pricing out flights, rental cars, and both hotels that we wanted to stay at.  And long before we had any of the wedding details finalized, I had booked our entire honeymoon.

In March, I'm going to New Jersey for Mod 4 of my iPEC training.  I've known this fact since probably November, but iPEC didn't have the exact location information available until last week, so I didn't feel comfortable booking anything.  Last Tuesday they (finally!) sent out an e-mail with all the information in it.  My heart leapt with joy, and I was immediately on the phone booking a hotel room and on the computer booking myself a flight (thankfully it's a hotel near the airport, so I won't need a car...).  Once that was done, I felt an immense sense of peace.  For months I had carried it around with me as this uncertain thing that wasn't completely planned or booked.

For the past few weeks, we've been talking about this conference that Donovan is going to attend in San Francisco at the beginning of March.  That week happens to coincide with a time that his parents are going to be in San Jose (they live on the big island, Hawaii).  We've been tentatively planning on going up for the whole week and seeing my family, his parents, and some other family friends, but we had no solid plans.  What I'm realizing is that these kinds of un-finalized plans just circle around in my head like a major to-do that I'm always aware of and want to do something about.  So today Donovan talked to his boss and found out all the details and we picked our flights and sent his to the appropriate person at work, and I booked mine directly through Southwest.  Yay!  Now we're really going, and I can have some peace and quiet in my brain about it.

I think it's going to be very useful for me to know about and understand this pattern in my brain.  It may also help Donovan understand why I'm always asking so many questions about our future travel plans and why I'm always so eager to finalize those plans.  It literally creates space in my head!

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A New Kitchen!!!

We spent three and a half hours today at Home Depot finalizing our new kitchen plans.  I've been itching to do this all week long, but couldn't get a hold of Holly until today.  We got there right when she had gone on her lunch break, and decided to wait and stalk her when she got back.  In the meantime we looked at the counter-top options again, and settled on the Corian pattern we had chosen on Monday when we were there.  There were a few things in the kitchen design that we were iffy about, so once Holly got back from lunch we sat down with her and the rendering software and hammered it all out.

There was a little bit of disagreement between Donovan and I about the pantry situation.  In the original drawings we had put in this very elaborate pantry cabinet that was kind of funky and we weren't sure if it was going to be functional enough for us.  So the debate was between full-extension pull-out shelves, or these tall pantry pull-outs that are open from both sides when you pull them out.  Donovan was rooting for the tall pantry pull-outs, and I was rooting for the full-extension pull-out shelves.  For a few minutes we were looking at a combination of both, but in the end we went with the full-extension pull-out shelves.

We made some other changes, and finally got it to the exact way we want it.  Holly worked on the numbers for us, and we got our final price.  When we were there on Monday, she told us that they have 12 months interest-free financing on their Home Depot credit card, but today the sign on her desk was gone.  Apparently that offer expired on the 18th.  Argh!!  Not to worry, though.  She called her store manager and got his approval to give it to us anyway.  We went through the credit application process and got approved for the whole amount of the kitchen.  Later, Holly called their credit department and actually got us 18 months interest-free financing!  Woo-hoo!!!

We're going back tomorrow to go over all the detailed paperwork for the cabinetry, and then the order will go in on Monday!  It should be 4-6 weeks before the cabinets come.  Once Bob and Michael get those installed, the counter-top people will come out and measure and make their templates and then hopefully it should only take a week or a little bit more to get our Corian counter top installed.  So by the middle of March we should have our brand new kitchen all done!  I am SO VERY EXCITED about this!  It's going to make a world of difference in the house, and the amount of space that we're gaining in the kitchen is awesome!  We're going to be so well organized we won't know what to do with ourselves!  :)

 

Rendering of what our kitchen will look like (more or less)

I Am Not a Runner!

I meant to blog about this a couple of weeks ago, but it seems that I forgot...

Since I had my breast reduction in late 2007 and started doing triathlons in 2008, I've been trying to turn myself into a runner, sort of.  It was mostly self-training for the first year, and then at the beginning of 2009 I started working with a private running coach while I was training for a half-Ironman.  Ricardo is an amazing athlete and an awesome running coach.  He's a blast to work with, and we had a ton of fun together.  My running did improve while I was working with him, for sure.  But running has always been a struggle for me.  In junior high when they would make us run a mile, I was always the one walking.  And in all the triathlons I did I ended up walking a good portion of the runs.  And after all the training I did on my own and with Ricardo, I still bombed the run portion of Vineman, the half-Ironman I did in July of 2009.  Granted it was over 100 degrees by the time I got out onto the run course, but still.

After quitting endurance sports in August 2009, I still didn't let go of the dream of becoming someone who loves to run.  It kind of sat over my head like a cloud that followed me everywhere.  Not that I did a whole lot about it most of the time...I just hung on to the hope.

Last year in March I signed Donovan and I up for the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December, figuring that even with all the wedding stuff, I would still be able to train for it after getting back from the honeymoon.  Donovan had no intention to train...his plan was to walk it.  Having not completed the 13.1 mile run portion of Vineman, I had yet to complete a half marathon, and it was something I wanted to do.  Post honeymoon running training didn't really happen, and neither did running the Vegas half marathon.

Over the holidays, I really got to thinking about the whole running thing, and the realization that I came to is this:

I AM NOT A RUNNER!!!

See, here's the thing.  At my best, when training with Ricardo, I think I was running at a pace of 5mph (which is slow!), and it sucked.  I was miserable.  I didn't experience the "runner's high" that people talk about.  And at a fast walk, I can go about 4.25mph.  So why kill myself (and my knees) to go that extra 0.75mph??

Coming to the conclusion that I am not a runner, once I gave my brain a chance to process it, gave me enormous peace of mind.  Cloud, gone!  No more pressure from myself to do this thing that I don't enjoy.  And it fits perfectly with my current plan of finding exercise that I *do* enjoy, like tennis, Zumba, walking, etc.  Yay for not being a runner!!!  :)

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A Lesson Learned

Monday night, a little before going to bed, I learned an interesting lesson. 

I finally took down all the holiday cards from the mantel, including the card I gave Donovan and the card he gave me.  I came into the bedroom and put the card he gave me on my nightstand and handed him the card I gave him.  I don't even remember how the topic came up, but he said something along the lines of "I throw all cards away."  What?!?  Even the cards I've given you?!?  Yep.  All cards. 

So.  Now.  Enter the emotional, irrational me.  I am horribly appalled at the thought of every card I've ever given Donovan being gone.  Never to be seen again.  Never to be shown to our kids, to our grand-kids.  Never to be read by us together on our Xth anniversary.  It hurts me to no end to think that my husband doesn't care enough to keep the cards that I painstakingly pick for him and write sweet messages in.  I am hurt, I am sad, I am devastated at the irreparability of the situation.  I say that this makes me not want to give him cards anymore, if this is how he treats them.  Doesn't it matter to him at all???

And he's sitting there looking at me like I'm insane.

Completely has no idea why I'm so upset and making such a big deal out of nothing.  And really, he just wants to go to bed.

But no, now we need to have a long and drawn out conversation about why I'm so upset by this.  And mind you, the more it feels like he doesn't understand my point of view, the more upset I get.

From his point of view: He loves the cards that I give him.  They matter to him.  He reads them, enjoys them, basks in the love they contain, and then...gets rid of them (occasionally taking a picture for posterity) so as not to create more clutter in our home.  Totally logical.

From my point of view:  Special cards from special people are something sacred to be kept.  They are a timeline of sorts.  They represent something.  They matter to me.  I don't keep all cards ever given to me, but I do keep ones that are special to me, and have for as long as I can remember.

The lesson I learned (and I imagine it's a lesson I will learn over and over again as a married woman):  We are two different people with two different points of view, and both are okay.  He had no idea that I had this expectation that he would keep the cards I gave him.  He knew that cards are important to me, which is why he spends time and effort picking out great cards to give me.  I had no idea that he was getting rid of all the cards I gave him, or I might have requested that he not. 

See, my husband is not a cold, uncaring person who simply throws away symbols of my love.  He is the man who painted our names in a heart on our floorboards so that they would always be there under our bed to represent our love.

So now we have a new arrangement.  When I give him a card, he will read it, enjoy it, bask in the love it contains, and then give it back to me so I can keep it for posterity.  :)

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What's Really Important?

I had a coaching session today with my peer coach, Patrick.  We've been working together since mid-December, so he's gotten to know a little bit about me.  Today I was talking about feeling behind on my iPEC course work, and we talked some about what I can do to feel more on top of things and also about patting myself on the back for what I *am* doing and staying on top of.  At one point he asked me how important the iPEC program is in my life.  I thought about it for a while, and it's one of the big things that I'm investing my time in these days, even if I don't feel that I'm spending *enough* time on it, so it's definitely important. 

Somehow in the midst of this conversation, I started telling him about these meditation CDs that I bought at the first iPEC weekend, and how I haven't listened to them yet.  I told him how meditation is one of those things that I really want to do because people talk about how great it is, and I feel like I could really get value out of it.  In the book that we were assigned to read for the program, the coach talks about using meditation techniques to center himself before important meetings or events, which sounds like it could be useful.  So far in my life I've had one or two experiences of "good" meditation, where I really managed to still my mind for a while and go to a "deeper" state, and that's about it. 

So, I'm talking to Patrick about really wanting to schedule some time in this week to explore the meditation CDs, and he asks me another question (because that's what coaches do!).  Is it possible, he asks, that maybe the fact that you're not making time for the meditation CDs is an indication that they're not actually that important to you right now?  And, he adds, that's okay.  They don't need to be important to you.  Can you be okay with that?

Huh.  Not that this is anything earth shattering, ground breaking, or even new to me.  But apparently that moment was the perfect time for me to hear it.  The lesson?  I get to say what's important to me, I get to say what I spend my time on, and, most importantly, I don't have to beat myself up for all the things I think I want to do but don't actually make time for.  I can just be okay with the fact that right now, they're not actually that important to me.  That will probably free up a lot of brain space and energy.  Thank you, Patrick!!  :)

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Our Bedroom is Done!!

Today we had the carpet installed in our master bedroom.  It (and the closets all over the house) were the last vestiges of old or no carpet in the house.  Now the whole house is carpeted in our fabulous new carpet!!!  After vacuuming all the little carpet pieces away, we moved our furniture back into the master bedroom.  We brought in the nightstands, reassembled the bed...it looks just like a real room now!  All did not go totally painlessly...we were carrying in the first nightstand and I was walking backwards up the three stairs to our master bedroom.  While on the second step I apparently thought I was done, so I ended up on my ass with this big stack of books from my nightstand falling onto me, and the weight of the nightstand now resting on my right thigh while both Donovan and I laughed hysterically.  Don't worry, the second nightstand went much more smoothly...  :)

Our bedroom before

Oh what a difference some carpet, paint and overhead lighting makes.  Our bedroom looks amazing!!!  The blinds still need to be installed (Thursday!), but that's a small detail.  And when putting the furniture back, we moved everything as far over to the other side of the room as we could so that we can get me a dresser and put it on the wall by the door.  A dresser!  With loads of extra space for all the things I don't have space for!  I can't wait!!!

Our bedroom after

This morning we took Bob and Michael and went to Home Depot to get a quote on redoing our kitchen.  The kitchen is definitely something that we both really really want to do, and completely redoing a kitchen can be a wee bit pricey.  However, with the rest of the house now remodeled, the kitchen starts to stand out like a sore thumb.  Bob took all the measurements, and Holly at Home Depot made us a rendering of what our new kitchen will look like.  HOLY CRAP!!!  It's going to be SO amazing!!!!  We're going to gain something like seven feet of counter space and a bunch of cabinet space as well.  I am so very excited!  We haven't ordered anything yet, but it's looking very likely that we will do it soon!

What's really amazing about this whole thing is that six months ago I was ready to go buy a new house so that I could escape this one.  Now I truly love this house!  In fact, the other night as we were laying on our mattress in the middle of our living room, I looked around the house in the semi-darkness and realized that I don't not-want-to-live-here anymore.  In fact, the thought of moving out of this house in a couple of years when we've started our family makes me really sad!  All thanks to some paint, carpet, light fixtures and a lot of hard work by Bob and Michael. Yay!!  :)

My Phone Dilemma is Back!

Two weeks ago tomorrow I upgraded my Droid X to a Droid Razr, the latest and greatest in Droid phones from Verizon.  I'd had my Droid X for almost a year and a half, and it was having serious hanging issues for a few months before I replaced it.  The interface on the Razr isn't much different than on the X, which makes it an easy learning curve.  It's a bigger screen, a thinner phone, faster service (4G), and it doesn't hang, which is a major bonus.  So, all should be puppies and unicorns in the land of cell phones, right?

Wrong.  It has come to my attention that over the past week+, I have missed several text messages from a few different people.  This is one of those awesome intermittent problems that is challenging to diagnose.  It's also one of those problems that makes me completely not trust my phone, because I have no idea if I'm missing texts, from whom, and when.  Also in the past week+ I've had a few occasions where I went to use Internet on my phone, and it just said "No Internet" even though I seemed to have service at the time...

Tonight I called Verizon technical support and spoke to a very nice woman who tried to diagnose my issue.  After a bunch of questions and a few attempts at checking things (reboot my phone, sent me a test text message), she passed me up to the next tier of technical support.  The woman there pretty much said that I should go to the Verizon store tomorrow (the last day in my two week trial period) and get a new phone, because there's probably something faulty with my hardware.

The issue I'm faced with now is whether to get another Razr or whether to try the iPhone 4S.  This has actually been the question for a couple of months now, and two weeks ago I decided to go with the Razr.  But now I potentially have a trust issue with the Razr, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't switch to the iPhone.  Do I go to a totally new interface, lose the ability to have voice and data at the same time, lose Swype, lose 4G and go to a non-Google phone?  Sure, I'll gain Siri and an awesome camera and some other cool Apple stuff...but is it worth it??  I pretty much have to choose tomorrow, since it's my last day to return my phone.  Wish me luck!!

 Razr vs. iPhone 4S

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My Husband is the Sweetest...

On Wednesday morning I was down here at my desk and Donovan called from upstairs asking me to come and take a look at something.  Our contractor's assistant, Michael, had just arrived a little while earlier.  I came upstairs and the door to the master bedroom was sort of shut.  Donovan asked me to look inside the room, so I pushed open the door and found this:

Donovan had taken the paint that Michael was going to be using for touch-ups on the wall and painted a big giant heart with our names inside on the floor boards right where our bed goes.  So on Monday when the carpet installer comes, he will install the pad and carpet on top of this heart, and the heart will be under our bed, always.  How freaking sweet is that?  Knowing, of course, what a sensitive and sentimental guy my husband is, I immediately asked Michael if it had been his idea.  Based on the "Hey!!" that came out of Donovan, I probably should have asked a little more quietly...

Every time I see it there on the floor I think about what a sweet and romantic gesture it is.  I'm a very lucky girl!  (And yes, I did ask Donovan's permission to share this with you, lest you be worried about him being embarrassed...) 

My cat Monkey showed her appreciation for the gesture by plopping herself down directly onto the heart and rubbing around for all she was worth.  Thankfully the paint was already drying and she didn't get it all over herself.  :)

Dinner with Friends

Tonight we went out to dinner with our friends Phill and Jen.  It was a rather belated birthday dinner for Phill (his birthday was two months ago!).  We haven't seen them in a while, and it was nice to reconnect.  They got married about five weeks before we did, so we've had a lot of common stuff to talk about over the last few months. 

Tonight Jen and I got to talking about the whole baby thing.  They're probably going to start trying in May, so they'll be ahead of us on that, too.  Jen is also going to be losing weight before she gets pregnant, and it was really nice to talk with her about the subject.  We talked about fertility testing, ob-gyns, vitamins, and other fun stuff while the boys talked about whatever boys talk about (grunt, grunt).

All in all we spent about three hours together at the restaurant, and it was just really nice to hang out, catch up, and chat about life, careers, and all sorts of random stuff.  We're very lucky to have an abundance of such great people in our lives, and I'm constantly reminded of that fact.

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Project Fit to be Fertile

For 2012, I am embarking on Project Fit to be Fertile.  If you like the name, you can thank Donovan...he picked it.  He says the most important part of a project is the name, so there you go.  What is Project Fit to be Fertile?  It is my new fitness and eating regimen, with the goal of getting as healthy and fit as I can before attempting to get pregnant towards the end of this year.   And how am I going about doing that?  I have re-assembled my dream team from when I was having great success with weight loss in 2009...my nutritionist Tara, and my therapist Rachelle, who moved to Dubai in 2010 and just so happens to have gotten back into town last week (serendipity!).  And contrary to what many people do when starting such a program, I have broken up with my trainer and Pilates instructor, and plan to pursue fun exercise on my own (for now).  Walking, Zumba, tennis, bike rides, elliptical at the Y...those are all current options, and I plan to try some new things and see if I like them!

I've heard it said more than once that overweight women have a harder time getting pregnant, and that if they do manage to get pregnant it can be quite challenging with the natural weight gain of pregnancy.  My goal is to stack the odds in my favor.  To that end, my intention is to lose one pound per week until I feel that I'm where I want to be.  I'm guessing it will still be nowhere near where a doctor's chart would want me, and that's okay.

This is NOT a new year's resolution.  I'm not sure why it's important to me that you know that, but it is.  This is me really understanding that there is now something bigger than myself at stake here.  Not just getting pregnant and having a healthy, smooth pregnancy, but being a model of a healthy lifestyle for our child(ren).  So that they can grow up in a household that doesn't revolve around weight and dieting.

In my first week, I lost 1.3 pounds.  A good start!  :)

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Babies Galore

Last night we went to our bi-weekly get together with our group from the 2010 Wisdom Course.  During the Wisdom Course it's a requirement to go to weekly "coursework parties," and we liked each other so much we decided to continue on after our course was over.  More people than usual showed up last night, which was great, and we sat and shared our visions for 2012 with each other.

One girl shared that she's seven weeks pregnant, another shared that she and her partner want to get pregnant in January of 2013, another shared that she wants to get pregnant this year with her second child, I shared that Donovan and I might start trying at the end of this year, and another girl shared that this might be the year for her and her husband, too.  Out of twelve people at this get together, five are either pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant in the relatively near future.  

I think it will be *amazing* if we all have babies right around the same time!  We are already quite a close-knit group (especially the girls!), and it seems like that would only bring us closer.

As a side note, it's really weird for me to be talking about getting pregnant as more than just an abstract concept!  Granted it's still a ways away, but...holy crap!!!  For the first time in my life I'm married and planning to get pregnant.  At age 37!  Wow.  And the more I talk about it actually happening, the more weirded out I get!  Excited, too, though.  :)

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My Eyes

Last year for an early wedding present, I got Donovan Lasik eye surgery.  I'm not sure quite how bad his eyes were prescription-wise, but he had worn glasses since he was ten-ish.  I got an idea of how bad they were for the first time when we were at the eye doctor for pre-surgery testing.  They put up those letters on the wall that you're supposed to read, only it was just one giant letter, which Donovan could barely make out.  So he was pretty blind.  Almost immediately after the surgery, his eyesight was darned near perfect.  Since then, he's enjoyed making fun of my eyesight.

I've been wearing glasses just when using the computer for a few years.  I can use the computer without them (as I am now) just fine, and using them makes things clearer and probably causes fewer headaches.  Last year when I went in for my yearly exam, the eye doctor also gave me a prescription for a pair of potentially all-the-time glasses, or at least while driving.  I picked them up a few months later, and they've been sitting in the glove compartment of my car since then.  When I picked them up I tried them on, and it freaked me out how much sharper everything looked, and I decided to be in denial about my eyes.

This weekend we were in a course at Landmark.  It's a new kind of course, and it involved a lot of reading off a large tv screen with a white background, from semi-far away.  In the first few minutes I realized how bad my eyes were.  At the first break I went to the car and got my glasses out of the glove compartment.  I put them on, and lo and behold the text on the screen was far more readable for me.  I think it's time for me to face an ugly truth about my eyes...I don't have perfect vision (by any means!), and my eyes may very well be deteriorating.  :(  I'll find out for sure when I go in for my next eye doctor appointment, which should be in the next few weeks.  I know it's not the worst thing in the world by any means, but I've always enjoyed the fact that I didn't need assistance to see, and this makes me kind of sad.  Oh well...c'est la vie!!

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My Cat, the Sock Murderer

My girl cat, Monkey, has a thing for socks.  For the life of me I can't tell you why, but I'm pretty sure she thinks that socks are something to be killed and brought to me as a prize.  She will jump into our laundry basket to find a sock, and from the moment she has the thing in her mouth until she finds an appropriate place to leave it, she makes this continuous extremely loud meowing scream/moan combination, which is not particularly pleasant to listen to.  It's become a running joke around our house for me to blame Donovan for all the socks lying around the house.  In fact, I've made it a sport to try and make him think that I'm really pissed at him about something..."Baby, I really need to talk to you about something important...(pause)...I've asked you repeatedly not to leave your socks all over the house..."  :)

With our bedroom taken apart for the remodel, the drawers from our bed frame are currently sitting in the dining room, exposed.  So Monkey now has free access to both mine and Donovan's socks.  Coming home is now like a find-the-socks party...apparently her need to kill is never satisfied.  On the one hand it's quite amusing, and on the other hand it's quite annoying!  I've tried numerous things to get her to stop the sock madness, but she's almost fifteen years old, and, well, she's a cat.  I don't think it's going to happen.  I guess I should be thankful that she's not bringing me actual bloody corpses...

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Choosing Not to Suffer

For two or three months now, I've had our wedding thank you cards "hanging over my head".  For whatever reason, yesterday I got a bug up my butt to finish them.  I sat down, printed out the envelopes I still needed, wrote out the remaining 25 cards, included our holiday letter in the cards to Israel, took the international ones to the post office to send, and put the rest of them into the mailbox to go out today.  And just like that...all done!  Donovan made a comment about how if I'd have just done that from the beginning, I could have sent out all our thank you cards in four days.  I'm pretty sure my response was "Fuck you!" (with a smile).  But you know what?  He's right!  Had I chosen to, and been committed to, I could have finished sending out our thank you cards mere days after starting, or even in just one day!  Instead, I chose to suffer over it, and let those cards hang over my head for months, likely causing my stress to just live at a higher overall level this whole time.

I do this all the time.  In fact, I'm doing it right now with the coursework for my coach certification program.  There are several assignments for me to do before the completion of the program (workbooks, book report, etc.), and I am procrastinating doing them because "they're hard" or "I don't want to" or some other lame excuse.  So they hang over my head and raise my stress level, and I suffer.  Because I choose to.  Kind of silly, right?

I am, therefore, choosing not to suffer anymore.  So if you see or hear me suffering over something silly like this, please tell me to "STOP IT!" and to get off my ass and do something about it.  If not in the moment, I will definitely thank you for it later!  :)

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FitnessWave

In 2006 I opened a business, FitnessWave San Diego.  FitnessWave does three fitness tests:  hydrostatic body fat testing, resting metabolic rate testing, and VO2 sub-max testing.  I ran the business for five years, treating it more like a hobby than a real business.  I basically did the minimum that I could to keep the doors open; a little bit of marketing, testing people when it was convenient for me...all the while feeling guilty that I wasn't doing more.  Finally, in December 2010 I decided that I wanted to sell the business.  I hired a business broker for three months, and waited.  Lowered the price a few times, and waited. 

In the meantime, there were these couple of trainers, Justin and Siaosi, who were bringing their clients in for testing pretty consistently.  One day, during a conversation about their business and vision for the future, I asked Siaosi if they might be interested in taking over FitnessWave and incorporating it into their personal training business.  I indicated that I might be looking to give the business away, rather than selling it.  At that point, I was already "all done" with the business.  I just wasn't passionate about it, was ready to be doing something else, and not finding any buyers.  He must have thought I was joking.  I mean...who gives a business away?

In May 2011, after many many hours of training and several legal documents, I sold FitnessWave San Diego to Justin and Siaosi for a nominal fee.  Since I was on a lease until June 2012, they agreed to run the business out of my office, even though it wasn't particularly convenient for them, since it was about 15 minutes away from their training studio.  A few months ago they decided to move the business from my office into their studio, which really just made more sense.

Today Donovan and I visited the new FitnessWave San Diego location at Rawmana Fitness for the first time.  I had seen the room where Siaosi and Justin wanted to set up the testing...a room full of weight lifting equipment with ugly walls and cement flooring.  The room we walked into today was a far cry from that.  They painted the walls a nice chocolate brown (modeled after my office), tiled the floor, moved all the weight lifting equipment into another room, and decorated with all the paintings and artwork that had been hanging in my office.  The receptionist desk was there, as well as chairs, shelves and more.  It was like they took the best of my office and recreated it there in their back room!  I was totally impressed with how awesome they set it up!!  Justin did our body fat tests while Siaosi trained three clients out in back.

I always had this idealized vision of the "perfect" way to run FitnessWave.  It would be jointly run by a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and a business person.  The business person would do the marketing and business end of things, the trainer would test clients and maybe train them, and the nutritionist would put together a program for them and support them in their goals.  Clients would benefit from an all-around solution.  Seeing FitnessWave in Rawmana's studio today really made me realize what an awesome setup they have going.  They are trainers, whose clients now get the added benefit of built-in fitness testing.  Other clients of FitnessWave can benefit from their personal training services.  And they're talking about bringing in a nutritionist a couple of days a week to complete the picture.  I think they are really setting themselves up for a huge success, and I am so excited for them!

Siaosi tells me all the time how grateful he is for the gift I gave them.  It's really gratifying to see how well they're doing with the business, and how bright their future looks.  And really, it's them who are giving me the gift of taking care of my baby and making sure my clients are well taken care of so that I can pursue my next career with peace of mind!

Not Quite Ready Yet...

Happy 2012!  I'm not quite ready to get back to blogging...it was nice to have a little break!  After what seemed like months of a whole lot of travel (all of it good!), Donovan and I got to spend a little over a week at home together over the holidays, which was just really really nice.  He was off of work, and I took a break from my iPEC stuff, mostly.  We slept in a couple of days, we watched lots of movies, wrote and sent out our holiday letter (better late than never!), and we generally just hung out and relaxed.  It was awesome!

2011 was an extremely amazing year for me/us, and I'm very excited to see what 2012 brings!  We're off to a good start so far...yesterday we moved all of our bedroom furniture out of our room and set up camp in the living room.  It was actually very exciting to see our mattress all set up on the floor...made me want to crawl into it and take a nap!  We spent our first night camping out last night, and it was a fun adventure!  Bob came today and already wired up the lights and fan in the master bedroom, patched up the holes he made in the walls, and took out the carpet.  I think they might start painting tomorrow.  With any luck, we'll be in our brand new master bedroom by the end of next week!

Lots of good blog topics coming your way soon, so stay tuned!  :)

Our master bedroom sans carpet

 Our makeshift bedroom in the living room