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I have pretty great parents. I grew up in a very socially and ethnically diverse area. I feel it made me a pretty understanding and tolerant person.

As a kid I was aloud to try many religions, and have learned some amazing life lessons from all the wonderful religions I had the opportunity to visit. I loved how the Southern Baptists celebrated there faith with music and dance. While visiting you could really feel there faith. They also had a awesome summer Bible camp that I attended every summer (until they found out I was Mormon, and asked me to never come back)

As a kid I remember the Jehovah Witnesses as being the funnest church, did you know that a lot of there buildings have cafeteria’s with ice cream machines ( I think it’s their equivalent of a Stake center). During intermission my friend and I helped ourselves to huge cones and I couldn’t help but think they were way cooler than our church.Â

As a teen I went to a Methodist sleep in, totally fun. It’s like a huge slumber party only better.

I enjoyed the solemn rituals of the Catholic church, (the Catholic church was by far the dominate religion in our area) and learned from the Muslim’s to always research what you believe, and not just take everyone else’s word for it. Gain your own testimony not just have one handed to you.

The lesson’s I’ve learned have served me well in my life, but our religion has always been where my heart belongs. All the other church’s had a lot to offer, but I always came back to what I knew to be true. I have always been grateful to my parents for giving me the opportunity to find out for myself.

I want this for my kids, but find it difficult to show them diversity while living in Utah. Don’t get me wrong I love living here, I just realize I have to work a little harder to teach my kids that not everyone thinks the way we do and that it’s ok.

This year I have decided to join the Lent band wagon. I am not Catholic, but as a Mormon I know a little something about self deprivation. So this year in honor of Lent (and my diet) I will be giving up soda. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but for me it is A LOT.

In honor of our dear late prophet I will also be reading the Book of Mormon in 97 days for the 97 years of his life.

So tell me are you giving something up for Lent? If not do you have any special goals or New Years resolutions?

I just did my very first ever guest post over at Fight the Fluffy. (who am I kidding, it isn’t really a guest post if you ask to join ;0) Go check it out.

So I asked for suggestions on what I could write about, and I got a couple of great ideas. Lucky says that I should write about my childhood, but I don’t have interesting stories like getting run over by a taxi while laying in the middle of the road on a speed bump like she does. Really you should ask her about it sometime.

Compulsive writer suggested that I write a year in review, and since it is New Years Eve I thought that wasn’t a bad idea. The problem with that idea is that we had a really REALLY horrible year that I have so generously spared you the details of.

I think a year in review is the perfect way to say goodbye to a horrible year. If you choose to click away now I would totally understand. If your still with me here we go.

January started out as a total whirlwind. January is our busy season (we do wedding trade shows) and we worked even more than usual. My hubby travels about half the month, but this year he was gone the whole month except for a few days when he was home in passing. So I spent the month playing single mother, while putting out fires at work. Ash spent the month in airports, and hotels.

January spilled into February, and although life was suppose to slow down we found ourselves working 7 days a week through all of February. Ash was asked to speak at conferences so he ended up out of town about half of February.

March came, and we were ready for life to get back to normal for a while, but it didn’t happen. While going to the doctor for a physical so she could put in her mission papers, my mother in law found out she had breast cancer. When they went in to do the surgery they found that it had spread through her lymph nodes and was worse than they thought.

By April we decided that we were in desperate need of a family vacation. There was a huge divide between us and the kids because we had been in survival mode for so long. We set off for southern California to hang out in the sun, swim in the pool, and be with Ash’s mom while she recovered from surgery and began chemotherapy. The day after we got there I received a phone call that my dad had passed away.

My dad left before I was 2 years old, and only made brief appearances in my life for the next 18 years (that is probably a post for another day). I never realized how much pain and grief I could feel for the loss of a man a barely new. I grieve the loss of opportunity to spend what little time I had with him. I find myself angry at those who kept my dad from being part of my life (his second wife). I once read another bloggers post about her dad, and she said she felt like she had “a dad shaped hole in her heart”, and that’s how I felt.

The next few months are a blur, as I put my head down and avoided life. I trudged through every day until the dark skies finally parted.

In June Ash got me a new puppy, that I love.

In July my mother and father-in-law moved to Utah, and I threw myself into taking care of her to distract myself from my own pain and problems. I cooked, cleaned, and ran errands for her while taking her to many appointments for her cancer treatment. We also had 3 teenage nephews come and stay with us. Two of them came for 10 days and the third stayed for 6 more weeks until mid August. We had a great time, and it was a wonderful distraction, but was also very tiring.

August was spent entertaining the nephews, and showing them all over Utah. I went to Cub Scout day camp with my Wolf den. During lunch I got a phone call that my mother-in-law had a seizure and was on her way to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up ok she had a few stitches and a huge black eye but over all she was fine. They did take her license away for six month so we started having to drive her everywhere.

At the end of August we decided to try another family vacation since our last attempt was a total disaster so we left for Hawaii. Ash and I have promised the kids a trip to Hawaii for years (Ash is from Hawaii). We can’t mange a family vacation without a major disaster, and this one was no different. We had a earthquake, and a hurricane during our trip.

Is anyone still with me?

Well next comes September, and September is our second really busy season so Ash was gone the whole month, and half of October to. By September I realize that we need to make some major changes and I started doing some serious soul searching.

October brought still more craziness, but attending the temple while Ash was out of town, and a lot of scripture reading brought a little peace to my life.

I got a phone call in mid October from Ash’s brother in Iraq asking me if I knew what had happened to his friend Ben. I will spare you the details, because I wrote about it here and here, but after a little detective work I found out that Ben had been in an accident, and was now a quadriplegic, and I spent the next few weeks at the ICU helping out as much as I could.

November was spent at the hospital doing what I could.

Mid November the bishop called me in to let me know that he was going to release me from my calling because he thought I needed a break.

In December family relationships came to a full boil (because of the family business) and we decided that it is time to leave the family business and do something else. I know this is the right thing to do, but it makes our future a little unsure. I have faith that the Lord will take care of us, but I don’t know what the next few months will hold for us.

If this whole post isn’t pathetic enough I’m spending New Years Eve taking care of my hubby, who is horribly sick.

I’m sure by now I have lost you all with my whining, but on the off chance that anyone is still reading this I need to throw in a few good things that happened this year.

1. Sadie went to the temple to do baptisms for the first time.
2. I discovered weight watchers, and have lost 22lbs
3. Ash met one of his idols Seth Godin (who shaved his head)
4. We went to Hawaii
5. My mother in-law finished chemo and radiation and appears to be doing well
6. My mother and father in-law got a mission call to London and will be leaving in February.
7. My children are healthy
8. We had a very generous friend donate a $200 gift certificate for Christmas to Ben and his family.
9. We raised about $2,000 at a benefit dinner for Ben.

Here is hoping for a better new year.

Happy New Year everyone!

I know you all are sick of hearing about the slow progress that is weight watchers, but I’m excited I lost another 3lbs. this week. I’ve got less than 5lbs to go.

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Wish me luck over the Holidays!

Today was our big weigh in, and I really worked by butt of this week. After gaining 0.7lbs last week I really wanted to loose 2lbs this week. I went to the gym 3 times this week and watched what I ate, and only cheated a few times and I lost 2 1/2 lbs. I am now 6lbs away from my goal! When I’m done I am going to post my “fat picture” along side a current picture, so every one can see how bad it really was before.

So today was our big weigh in after a 2 week break, and it wasn’t pretty. I guess it could be worse I’m up 0.7lbs. My goal for the week is to loose 2lbs., wish me luck.

I lost 1 1/2 lbs. at my weigh in today. I’ve got about 8 more to go. So close I can almost taste it. Oh and while on vacation I tried on a size smaller and it fit perfect. Success finally.

Halloween is in full swing at our house, and I’m feeling baa-humbug about the whole thing. It’s not that I don’t love Halloween, or any other holiday for that matter, but I hate the busyness of it. Of course since procrastination is my middle name I waited until last night to buy candy, and find a costume.

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Every year my kids ask me what I’m going to be, and I tell them “a grumpy old mommy”. They don’t think that’s very funny, so this year I did go out and get a costume, well sort of. I’ll post pictures later. Since I’m joining in the Halloween crap fun I thought Ash should to, so I made him go out last night and get himself a costume to.

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Halloween just isn’t fair to us Weight Watchers girls. I am totally over my candy addiction except when Halloween rolls around. Wish me luck tonight.

I have total writers block right now. It’s not for a lack of stuff to talk about, it’s a total lack of what to say about it. I’ve got lists of stuff I could tell you all, like my kids first day back at school, my husband traveling for work again and won’t be back for yet another week, my parents plan to move out of “T-town” and into the country of Idaho, the stuff going on in Iraq with my brother in law, taking care of my mother in law while she is now doing radiation and her hubby is out of town to. I just can’t seem to get the motivation to write any of it. (plus I have a new camera, and the photos are stuck on it until the technical one in the family gets home).

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I can usually write some crappy article for work that will do, but this time I can’t even do that. I’m just staring at the cursor willing it to write itself. All of this is leading me to eat ridiculous amounts of candy that won’t look good on Friday when I go to weigh in for Weight Watchers.

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I guess I do have something to write after all, to bad its all whining.

I just weighed in 3.5lbs. lighter than last weigh in (about 4 weeks ago). I not only lost the weight I gained from my vacation, but 1.5lbs more.

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Every week we have a challenge that we are working on. This week our challenge is to give up 5 of our flex points. We will see how I do with Ash being out of town. I tend to eat out more when he is gone.

…Photo style, curtosy of my early Birthday present a digital camera. (my b-day is Thursday)

Cub scout Pack meeting rocket race. Big fun!

Cub scout Day camp with 16 boys!

This is supposed to be rafting, but it looks like a dock to me.

My boys painting with daddy.

Working hard.

The finished product.

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Oh and by the way 2.7lbs. until I hit my first goal. I can’t believe how good this feels. I’m still not even close to being done, but it’s a start.

Today we had our “Chub Club” meeting, and I weighed in 2.5lbs less than last time. I guess the stomach flu is good for something.

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I still have about 4lbs. to loose for my first goal, and I really want to get it done before we leave for Hawaii (in 3 weeks). We set goals, and then named rewards if we hit our goal, and mine is I’m going to buy a new bathing suit if I get to my goal. I really want to take a new swim suit with us on our trip, so wish me luck.

Well yesterday was supposed to be my Weight Watcher’s weigh in, but I didn’t go. I have a really good excuse thou, I’ve been really REALLY sick. I’ve lost 4 1/2lbs. in the last 3 days, and not the good way. I don’t think I’m really sick, I think it’s my bodies way of telling me to slow down. (mostly because no one else is sick, just me)

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This happens to me occasionally, my body says “well if you won’t slow down then I’ll make you.” The good news is I’ve had 3 days of laying around sleeping, and a real good reason to say “sorry I can’t help you with that.” (this is really hard for me) I’m feeling a little better tonight, I think by tomorrow everything will be great. The sucky part is since Ash is in the middle of a deadline, now was not the time to get sick. Oh well, you can’t plan these things.

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While lying around feeling totally yucky, I had a lot of time to think, and since my mind is as random as they come, (ADD) I recalled a time about 6 years ago when life was equally crazy.

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I was in Seattle with 2 kids going to Seattle University. I had 10 hour school days, with an hour commute each way plus 2-3 hours of homework each night. I was juggling 2 kids and school while my wonderful husband was in Sacramento for the summer working. Life was overwhelming, and depressing, and I hadn’t seen Ash for about 6 weeks. Feeling totally overwhelmed one day, I called his office on my lunch break and got a co-worker on the phone who I knew really well.

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I asked to speak to my hubby, and she started making all kinds of excuses about why he couldn’t come to the phone. The conversation went something like this:

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 Me: Elle tell me what’s going on.

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Elle: OK, but you can’t be mad.

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Me: Oh no what did he do (did I mention we needed this job)

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Elle: He left late last night and is driving through the night to surprise you for 4th of July because he can’t be away from you another minute, How sweet is that?

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Me: HE WHAT?

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Elle: Oh come on Monica, you can’t be mad, he missed you isn’t that so cute?

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Well he was lucky I had about 6 more hours to calm down, and realize how incredibly sweet it was, and how truly ecstatic I was that I would be seeing him in just a few hours. I had missed him terribly, and our kids needed there dad around. He ended up leaving the job in Sacramento, and coming to Washington to be with us while I finished the last few weeks of classes.

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That’s what I love most about him, he is great at the big gestures, and is always there when I really need him. He spoils me.

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I had a horrible week with Weight Watcher. I was sure that I gained all 5lbs. that I lost last week back this week, but when I weighed in this week I was down another 4 1/2 lbs. I really don’t know how this is possible, but that’s what the scale said.

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Half way through the week I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t stop eating. I kept putting things in my mouth without even thinking about it. Then on Wednesday night I realized what week of the month it was, and that explained the over eating. I still can’t figure out how I managed to loose weight this week, but yeah!

This was my first week doing Weight Watchers, and I was really sceptical if it would work or not. My mother, and half the women I know rave about how wonderful it is, and how easy it is but I wasn’t buying it. I’ve tried every other thing under the sun, and figured it was just genetically impossible for me to loose weight.

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Finally I gave in when a group of friends decided that we should all do it together. Most of them have just had babies and are just starting over. I don’t have a good excuse like that, but said sure why not give it a try.

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I was very careful this week not to ever go over my points (I’m quit a rule follower), I saved them for mine and Ash’s date night and then ate whatever I wanted (within reason of course). Today when I went to weigh in I was nervous, but when I got on the scale it said I lost 5lbs. pretty good for my first week.

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Now I do have to admit that I have packed on about that much over the last 4 months, so I think that’s why it came off so easy. We will have to see next week if it keeps working. Wish me luck ;0) Next I’ll have to bite the bullet, and go back to the gym. I haven’t been since a nasty injury, but that’s a whole other story.