From the mouths of babes... err... husbands

2 quick short stories I would like to share:

Conversation I just had with Drew no more than 10 mins ago.

Drew: (getting ready to go for a run) Sadie, you can't come with me.
Me: (As I watch Sadie's nose cocked up looking at Drew) She wants to go.
Drew: It's way too hot out there for a dog like you... maybe if you were white, but you're black.
Me: You're racist.
Drew: No. I'm. Not.

Conversation I had with Drew a few months ago (also titled "How my husband makes me feel 'smart'")

I have a sudoku app on my phone, and once you've finished a puzzle it tells you how fast you are compared to all the other users that have finished that puzzle.
Me: Look honey, I'm faster at this puzzle that 35% of other people who played it without using hints.
Drew: So does that mean your stupider than the other 65% who were faster than you?
Me: (crushed and hopeless because now all my dreams of being a sudoku world champ won't come true) I never thought of it that way... buzz kill!

The Thirteenth Tale

"All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes - characters even - caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you. Well, it was like that. All day I had been prey to distractions. Thoughts, memories, feelings, irrelevant fragments of my own life, playing havoc with my concentration."
The Thirteenth Tale - by Diane Setterfield

Have you ever felt this way? I relate to this statement so much. I could never put it into words as beautiful as this author has but I have felt this exact feeling on several occasions. I don't know if it's a very good thing that I get too wrapped up in books to forget how to discern fiction from reality, but that's how I know I've read a really good book. It was this way with the book quoted above. I had a new book checked out from the library before I finished this one and I have only just barely started it, which is about a week after I finished this one. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. Usually I'm ready to go. Finish one book... jump into another. But this book was so thought provoking that I couldn't do that. I still think about the twists and turns that this book had to offer. Anyway, if you want a good read, I recommend this book. If you like classic Gothic novels. (I use the term classic loosely as this book was only just published in 2007.) But with subject matter and writing quite comparable to the Bronte sisters it instantly felt like a classic to me.

Ali Vincent

I remember watching Ali Vincent win The Biggest Loser, she was the first female ever to do it. Last Thursday I was able to go and listen to her speak at the Healthy Woman Expo in Tooele. IT WAS AMAZING!! I couldn't help but try to channel the energy she brought with her into my own life. I have been trying to better myself recently and I really needed to hear what she had to say. Not all of her speech was on weight loss, in fact most of it wasn't. She talked mostly about choice making.
Of course she talked about her own journey and about the Biggest Loser but she talked about waking up every morning and making a choice to get up or stay in bed, to be happy or sad, to do this or that. Of course these things are thing we all know but do we really think about them? About mind over body? She said she went on a journey and fell in love... with herself. That was a big choice to make, to actually love herself. To love who she was inside and out, no matter what she looked like. How many people would actually admit that they love themselves? Like it's a bad thing... it's not. Why are we ashamed of it? It's not a cocky thing to say, it's something to be said with confidence. Most people don't love themselves. Why? Because of how they look has a lot to do with it, what their financial situation is is another, what kinds of relationships they are involved in, and many other circumstances. I wonder if some people will ever be happy. Even if they changed their circumstances completely, like Ali did. Would they love themselves?
How do you love yourself? Where do you start? I have no idea... I'm just posing the question. I don't hate myself, I'm not sure I'm in love with myself either. I might be in like. I'm unsure. I like certain things, I don't like other things. Everyone is that way, I'm not sure even Ali loves EVERYTHING about herself. But can we make a choice to love ourselves? To find something we absolutely love and bask in it? Would that be so wrong? There is nothing wrong with basking, with finding, loving and basking. I love the sun, I love to find the sun, I love to love the sun, and I bask in it often. Of course it is harder to do when the object is your person. Let's try to look a little harder. Find something, no matter how trivial, either about your body (I like my feet) or about your inner self (I like the ability I have to read people). Can I learn to love these things about me? Can I really love my feet? Sure. Can I bask in my feet? Possibly. I'm not even sure how I could bask in my feet. But I could find a way, I'm sure.
I woke up Friday morning (the morning after listening to Ali) and I made a choice, I chose to be happy, I chose to take my dog on a walk, I chose to smile on my way to work. I may have stole some energy from Ali, but I couldn't help it, she was giving it away so freely. I had a great day on Friday. When things went a little skewy at work, I didn't get upset, when other drivers on the road did obnoxious things, I didn't curse them. I don't need some poisons in my life. That's all it is right? Poison. Everyone needs to be angry at sometime. It's a natural emotion and something that we need to release from ourselves but there are better ways to release the anger rather than unleashing on other people (or on ourselves). I'm still learning how to deal with my anger. I get angry often and I tend to take it out on those who are close to me.
I have been working on a lot of things as of late. I've been running lately. Not necessarily to lose weight but just to do it. I had a problem with my knee not too long ago and it was kind of painful. The Dr. told me I couldn't run for 2 months. If you ever want to do something just get your Dr. to tell you that you can't do it. During those 2 months I wanted nothing more than to go outside and go for a run. To hit up the gym and have my way with the treadmill. But I didn't because I know that it might injure me more. I made a promise to myself that I would run when I could. That I would feed that desire when I could. Granted it's not as fun now that I'm able to, but I'm trying to go often to help myself feed the fire. Hopefully the fire will rage and there won't be anything that can put it out. I know the flame is there, I proved it to myself when I was told I shouldn't run.
Anyway, this post hasn't gone the way I had expected it to. I didn't intend to blog all of this but I have. And I think I'll post it.

Ah, the signs of summer

Driving home from work today the signs of summer were everywhere. And it makes me so excited. In Tooele there is a drive in theater called the Motor Vu. When the weather is warm and they are showing movies obviously they have the movies listed on their sign. But when they are done showing movies they usually put something on the sign like "Gone fishing, see you in April." Well today I noticed that the sign says "Coming soon!" That is one of the signs of warmer weather. I remember when they changed the sign from the movie times to "Gone Fishing." That day was the worst. It meant the cold was coming. I don't like winter to be honest. I like the holidays, and I can handle snow for a little while, but after too long it becomes gloomy and horrid. I am such a summer girl. So the signs of summer excite me every year.
As I entered the neighborhood this afternoon there were children outside playing. Wearing shorts and t-shirts. Just wandering around the neighborhood. I could hear them laughing. I could hear birds. The grass is getting greener every day. The neighbor's tulips and daffodils are coming up. Soon we will have blossoms on our cherry tree. The windows are open in my house and the warm breeze is blowing through the house. This weekend I hope to smell BBQ. Our first ReAL Salt Lake game is this Saturday. All these things make me happier than I can explain. Summer is coming, this year I hope I can embrace it more than I did last year. I will love it til the day it is gone.

Scary lookin picture

I just found this picture of Sadie lady. She looks evil.

Let's zoom in on that face.

Wow.
But I will leave you with a picture of the moment. Kind of crazy that Drew caught this instant. Not really though, as the girl always has her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Usually licking someone all over.

...

I'm not going to say anything about my lack of blogging except that I'm glad that blogging is not my job, because I'm not very good at it.

Back in November I gave Drew and much needed haircut. He requested it, I honestly didn't mind his long hair, if you can believe it. Here are some "before" pictures. (I think he was playing a video game while I was taking these pictures, he didn't even bother looking at me)

Look at that mop!

I had a fun time straightening it. Some ladies would kill for his hair!

I don't think I need to say it, but I will. That's a LOT of hair!

So long, so pretty, so shiny! He does condition.
Now for "after" pictures, prepare yourself for shock!

A whole new man.

My Cousin's Wedding... (pictures included!)

On November 3rd, one of my favorite cousins got married. She would kill me if I ever posted any pictures of her on here, so I put that title so she would want to kill me then be completely relieved when she realized what the pictures are of... (little background) I was a bridesmaid and pretty busy. I didn't get to take any pictures. So Drew had the camera, THE WHOLE DAY! He decided to take pictures of everyone's shoes. I know, I know... he's weird. But here is our collection of shoes.

These are some pretty hott boots. I wish I knew who this was so I could find out where to go to pick me up a pair!

I don't know who most of these shoes are, but here's your standard wedding going slacks and shoes.

Here's another style of the standard wedding going shoes and slacks.

These shoes belong to my Mother-in-law.

These are Drew's. (Nice Socks!)

Not sure who these belong to, but it looks like they knew the picture was being taken and in fact, posed their foot for it.

These are Michelley's hott feet and flip-flops.

And this shoe belongs to yours truly.
Well can I just say that I am glad we have pictures of all these people's shoes from the wedding. I mean really, that's the most important part right? What people wore on their feet.

You thought I wasn't going to put up any pictures of the wedding, didn't you? Well, I'll put up what I think would be allowed by the bride.

Picture of the gorgeous cake. The cake that had no problems at all! :)

Another shot of the cake.

The reception was at Wheeler Farm, and Here is what it looked like when you looked up from the dance floor. Pretty lights and ginormous puff balls (which the bride made herself)! I know, talent! Alright, I think those are all the shots that I can share without being killed, and since I do cherish my life, I will stick to the unwritten rules.

Another sun soaked season fades away...

Goodbye summer, until next year.

Ok so really it faded away a long time ago, but I knew I would wait to blog about our trip to Cali when I was really missing the sunny weather.

Drew did this in the sand. It's A+M for Andrew and Miranda, not Texas A&M, we are fans of us, not them!

Check out these photography skills, mid-landing!

I want to surf so bad! I'm really not trying to surf in this picture, just planting my feet so I don't fall over!

The BEACH!!!

Newport Beach Temple! It is so pretty!

We have been calling Sadie, Shamu, because of her white belly and cool white markings. See the similarities.

Well of course without the soaring out of the water... I've trained Sadie to lay, very well. I'll work on the swimming, jumping and lifting me up on top of her nose.

The leopard sea lion. I love the way they look.

Funny scratching! Reminds me of a dog.

This is the sea lions idea of sun bathing! This guy stayed this way the whole time, regardless of whether food was being thrown at him or not.

Because we decided to go on this cool water ride...

And this cool water ride right before Sea World closed...

I was completely soaked, head to toe and I had to get hot chocolate as we were leaving! Still had a long drive back to the condo we were staying in and I'm pretty sure this is why I came home with a cold.

We watched the fireworks in Disneyland over by It's a Small World, but we saw way more stuff going on over by the castle. This was one of the cool shots from the first night we saw the fireworks, but it was TONS better if you were in front of the castle...

"Halloween Screams" Firework Spectacular in front of the castle. Very, very cool! This was their first year doing this. I am sure they will be doing it in years to come! It was awesome! The music was brilliant... Check out the videos below!

(Sorry about the quality, I had to compress them because the files were too big)

TowMater, Me, Drew, Lighting McQueen!

This Goofy didn't really want to pose for pictures or sign autographs he just wanted to dance. So we danced with him. Drew is dancing... even though you can't really see his great dance moves.

Goodbye Disneyland, until next time! (oh yeah! we got annual passes) Hopefully we'll make it back!

Vacation follow up...

So of course with vacation comes the relaxation and the not caring of your appearance. I really, really, really love Drew with a little scruff! I told him he couldn't shave at all during vacation. He doesn't like it because he's itchy, BUT....

Look at this handsome Italian man! Not that he's not handsome otherwise... but this is just very good looking!

So after begging and pleading and whining for him to just keep the goatee for a couple of days...

He did this! Some people...

Well we are all excited around here. Getting ready for Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving comes before Christmas, contrary to popular belief, ahem... FM100, where's your Thanksgiving music huh? Also, Drew finally got cleared by the Dr. to go back to work today! That truly is a blessing and we are very thankful for it.

The post that was long overdue...

Summer time post... now that it is fall. Where to start? We got a new camera at the end of June. It looks like this...

Beautiful isn't it? It shoots HD video! That is what sold Andrew, seeing as this was entirely his idea. Funny story actually. His brother got a new camera and Drew saw all the cool things that Daniel's camera could do so of course, he started looking online for new cameras. I told him that we really don't even use the cameras... yes cameraS we have. So he starts carrying around his Cannon that he took with him on his mission. It's a pretty old camera, and from going on the mission with him, this poor camera really is quite lame! It's totally scuffed and scratched and it's slow. But he starts carrying it around to show me he likes to take pictures! :) haha, I saw right through him being the intelligent girl that I am. I think I actually lost brain cells figuring that one out. So Drew bought the camera after I finally let up... and he told me it would be here before my best friend, Casey's wedding! And it was... and she got married, and it was fabulous.
Next lets talk about Sadie Lady. Sadie doesn't really like to have her picture taken, but sometimes we sneak a pic or 2 in before she runs of. She really doesn't like the camera. But here is one of her while she was sleeping...
This is her signature sleeping position. She always has to have her head lower than her body. Well not always but most of the time. She frequently slides down and almost off of the couch. It's funny and weird all at the same time. She also has other weird tendencies. She acts like she doesn't like her toys but they move about the yard very frequently but we rarely ever catch her with one in her mouth. She's a closet toy lover. I wish I could get her to play fetch because she is so quick and I know she would love it but it's just not gonna happen right now. She also feels the urge to chew on most everything plastic. She's destroyed a remote amongst several other things including Drew's Bose headphones. $100 headphones. Someone was very unhappy but he was able to put them back together and they work ALMOST as good. They'll never be the same according to him. I can't tell the difference. She also is a crazy licker. She'll lick anyone and everyone and she never seems to run out of saliva. Most people would hate this but we don't really care. She's a very good dog compared to most. Oh and she's quite talented, she can jump up the flight of stairs in our house and when Drew was training for the marathon (we'll get to that in a minute) she would run 3-5 miles with him and LOVE it!

Above should be the video of Drew finishing the marathon. He finished in 3 hrs 39 mins, much better than last year and his best time from his 3 marathons... by like 7 seconds but still! He's crazy because he only really trained in the month of July and he still ran fast, much better than he thought he would. In fact he told us he thought he would run between 4 and 5 hrs. So we got there like a minute before he actually did finish. At least we were there!
(customary before marathon picture)
(after picture)

We went to the Real Salt Lake game for the 24th of July (we have season tickets so soccer has taken over a lot of Fri and Sat nights, not complaining as we have fun!) anyway there were fireworks after and our camera has a firework setting. I don't think it is very good though or maybe we just don't know how to take pictures of fireworks correctly.


Sadie is even an RSL fan! :)
On 07/29 was the MLS all star game. MLS All Stars vs Everton FC. Everton is from the Premiere league in England which is arguably the best league in the world. Anyway the night before the game we went to an "All Star Party" at the Canyons.
Here are the RSL guys that made the All Star team. Kyle Beckerman, Javier Morales and Will Johson (Will is from Canada so we are friends)
Here is Everton FC. See the guy with the big fro? That's Fellaini and he is one of our Favorite players on Everton. I'm telling you this because...
For the game Drew "froed" his hair out like Fellaini. Not quite as good but he tried. This is a picture of Daniel, Kai Kamara (formerly of the Houston Dynamo, recently traded to the Kansas City Wizards) Drew and Drew's Dad at the pre-game activities.

So our friend Jared had a birthday and has recently joined the Army. He is at basic right now. So for an extra special birthday present with made something called the BACON EXPLOSION. Yummy huh?
First you make a bacon weave and season it with BBQ rub.
Next you put some sasuage on top of the weave and season some more.
Then you fry up some bacon and make bacon bits sprinkle them on top of the sausage and douse with BBQ sauce.
Then you roll it into a log.
And BBQ/smoke it. (Which took FOREVER)
It ends up looking like a bacon log, but here is an appetizing portion. Yes, I am owning to this. I ate some of this. And it was really good, but I could feel my arteries clogging as I ate. We also made some huge nachos, although I have no pictures. We just took tostada shells and put cheese on them and cooked them. These are both things that Jared has wanted to do so we saw it fitting we should give him a good birthday/going away present.

On August 15th Drew was playing his indoor soccer game and he was running really fast down to get on defense and he stopped really quick and twisted something. He sat down on the ground and then got up and had a hard time walking. After shaking it off and putting some ice back on it he thought he could go back in the game. After only kicking the ball once he game back out. Something was completely wrong and he knew it. So he waited a little while to make sure the pain wouldn't go away and then he went to an orthopedic specialist. He tore his ACL. He had surgery on 09/02 and has been on disability ever since. He has a physically demanding job so he can't go back until he has full clearance from the Dr. He's walking great now but it was really difficult for a while there.
This was taken the day he got the dressing taken off. We couldn't see anything for a week. We still can't see the incision because we have to wait for the steri strips to fall off. But check out that bruising! Beautiful eh?
Sadie and Drew have had a lot of time together.

Anyway, I believe that is all for this post. Holy moly! That was a lot of stuff. We are going to Disneyland in a week so there will be more to come. Maybe I'll post right after that happens rather than 3 months later. We'll see. ;) I'm not making any promises.
Happy fall to all.