Dealing with a Modern Addiction

Drugs, Facebook, Downton Abbey... a person can be addicted to anything.  I am addicted to dieting.  Sure you can be told a million times that society feeds you crap on the 'shoulds' of what real women look like but the effects of these messages can creep into people's lives in very sneaky ways.  Keep in mind as you read this that I have pretty much always been in the 'normal' weight category.

When I was 11 I became a vegetarian.  My grandma was a vegetarian and lived a very vibrant and healthy life.  Every time I left her house I felt like I had been cleansed by all of the natural food she forced us all to eat and I wanted to feel like that all of the time.  My decision to become a vegetarian was made over night and I never faltered.  Though I had no clue as to how to eat properly without meat (read: several years of straight carbs) I felt better!  Shortly after this transformation I gave up chocolate, eating it only on my birthday each year.  I also started Weight Watchers for the first time (of 4).  Between the age of 11 and my current 27, I have participated in over 25 different diets or programs. Many of them more than once.

Taking a step back now I can see that at 11 years old (4th and 5th grade) I was 5'4" and weighed about 120lbs, maybe more.  I was bigger than most of my girl friends and virtually all of the surrounding prepubescent boys, making me incredibly self conscious.  Isn't Jr. High the best?!

Cutting out meat and chocolate made me feel like I had control and I saw a difference in the way I looked.  As the boys got taller, my height stayed put and I thinned out (due to incessant running and obsessively controlled eating).  People noticed and praised me on how good I was looking.  I also went through puberty, which both helped and hurt.  My diet during puberty was so nutritionally empty that I was not able to develop properly (personal opinion) and while I'm grateful to have a clean slate for a future boob-job, it would've been much cheaper just to eat some chicken and scratch the soy milk.

I started with Weight Watchers, making it a game to see if I could eat less than 10 points a day.  Atkins to prove that I could go high protein without eating meat.  HCG because more than 500 calories a day is for people without restraint. Total Health and Fitness because 'Hello!?  It's all about balance!'.  Low Carb.  High Fiber.  No Fat.  Only Greens.  Two a Day Workouts fueled by celery.  No Sweets.  Control Control CONTROL!  Sensing a pattern here??

It was after turning down an elegant meal made by my brother in law to commemorate the passing of his father that his wife pointed out a problem.  Of course I couldn't eat the meal because I was 'on a little plan' and what some call cheating, I saw as failure that I knew the scale would not forget.  She told me she had never been on a diet and was happy with herself.  I was confused.  Happy with herself?!  Not even Angelina Joalie is allowed to admit that she is happy with herself, let alone a normal sized, normal shaped young person.  No diet??  EVER??  REALITY CHECK #1.  My mind was blown.  I literally could not remember ever NOT being on a diet.  She asked me to stop.  To commit to figuring out how to live without the crutch of a 'plan'.  Again, confusion... 'does she mean I should just jump straight to my maintenance phase?'  **Note: I have never completed a maintenance phase without starting a new plan.**  In that moment I realized that I needed to stop.

But I didn't.

At the time my husband and I had been trying for about a year to get pregnant and I was beginning to loose hope that I would ever give birth.  I saw a specialist that basically told me to 'go eat a steak' before talking to him again.  I laughed at him and never went back.  Shortly after I had a remarkable (little too personal for blogging) experience that left me sure that I needed to add some protein back into my diet.  With a HUGE leap of faith, the addition of chicken to my diet, and the help of some modern day medicine, it took just one month for me to conceive. I was thrilled but a little disappointed because I had finally reached my goal weight for the... wait for it... FIRST TIME.  Don't be excited for me.  I dieted for 13 years STRAIGHT before actually reaching my 'goal weight' and when I got there, I changed it.  I only stopped this diet because my husband asked me to... because it was severely affecting my emotional well being, and therefore his sanity.  This request was REALITY CHECK #2. 

While pregnant I followed the diet outlined in What to Expect When You're Expecting.  My son came nine months later and then I was left to my own devices to figure out how to shed my extra pounds.   Despite my husband's request... more diets.  I got most of the weight off, then got pregnant again at a peak in my never-ending yo-yo.  I had Elle Louise four months ago and am currently on my way down again.  But something is different this time...  I have a girl now.

On a recent walk I passed by a woman around the age of 65 talking on her cell phone.  'Ya! I think it will be great!  The first three weeks are high protein, low carb, then a cleanse...'  Enter REALITY CHECK #3.  There are almost 40 years between this woman and I and we are both caught in the same trap.  What does she hope to gain from this new plan??  What have I ever gained from mine? Will I ever be... how did Savanna say it... happy with myself? AM I STILL GOING TO BE ON A DIET IN 40 YEARS!?

The answer is no.  I will not be on a diet in 40 years.

I won't say that I have washed myself clean and will never be tempted to go on another diet.  That is why there are 12 steps to AA right?  As the late Robin Williams said:
 “It’s (addiction) — not caused by anything, it’s just there,” he told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in 2011. “It waits. It lays in wait for the time when you think, ‘It’s fine now, I’m OK.’ Then, the next thing you know, it’s not OK. Then you realize, ‘Where am I? I didn’t realize I was in Cleveland.'” -Variety Magazine

While my addiction to dieting is not life threatening, it is real and I refuse to pass it on to my own daughter.  I want her to understand how to take care of her body, how to stay balanced, and just how beautiful she is.  I have recently been reading a book about balance and health being attained by merely 'paying attention'.  Rather than a diet, it is a mental training program designed to help readers get into good habits, enjoy eating and respect food.  I am currently on phase 3 of 4 and have never felt more in control, healthy, happy and GUILT FREE.  Instead of counting calories I have self-defined parameters like: sitting at the table to eat, paying attention to the textures and flavors in each bite, etc. (the book: French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano)

To someone that hasn't really talked with a dieter, this may sound silly.  I know first hand that it is not silly.  It is a gateway to eating disorders and is too scary to play with.  I am still a partial vegetarian and haven't had chocolate (except for my bday) in 14 years.  I am not ready to change those things.  Eventually I would like to let those crutches go.

One thing at a time.

If you are interested, here are a couple of articles about diet addiction:
Why Dieting Can Become Addictive
Are You Addicted to Dieting?
Are You Addicted to Food or Addicted to Dieting?

Cannon's First Dinner

Cannon turned four months on Sunday.  I've taken his pictures but since his MD appt wasn't until yesterday I held off on finishing his letter...  I'll probably post the lot of it later today or tomorrow.  More exciting than his 1/3 birthday, however, was his VERY FIRST MEAL!  I knew Cannon was ready for food like 2 months ago but wanted to wait as long as I could for convenience and developmental reasons... Four months is typically the very earliest a baby starts solids... This baby could wait NO LONGER.  Check out the little video below to see what I mean.

CANNON'S FIRST MEAL VIDEO

Reunited Part 2

I was scorned by the motherhood gods immediately after my last post in the form of severe sunburn by the pool. You would think that this fair-skinned mother-in-training would have been able to handle an hour of happy sun rays but the abilities of tanning oil should not be underestimated. Luckily (??) I only put it on my front side so my back is still nice and pasty white. As for my chest, tummy, and legs however... think lobster. I was going to post a picture but it felt weird. Too much skin.

After spending an hour chatting with my long-lost bestie Mush while frying by the pool I took a shower and dolled up for my honey. He got home around 2:30 to take me to Disneyland to recreate the commercial I mentioned before and to spend some more good quality time with Ariel. I don't know if I have a Disneyland threshold but I certainly don't feel as if I am close to reaching it any time soon. We had so much fun playing with the camera and holding hands. I have only been away from Michael for about three weeks now but seeing him just made me realize how wonderful it is to be able to have him around all of the time. My hat goes off to all of those army wives out there that say goodbye knowing that their sweethearts will be gone for 1+ years. It takes a strong woman (and a large hobby budget) to handle that kind of time frame. And a tangent for all of those 18-year-old girls with boyfriends that are about to leave on LDS missions... don't. do. it. Say your goodbyes today so that you have moved on before he leaves... then you can love him again when he gets home!! Just don't tie your <3 down like that. Anyway, we held hands. That was where I was going with all of that. It was great.

After Disneyland we went and saw Zookeeper with Kevin James and I was actually SO surprised at how much I laughed. It was the perfect post-Disneyland movie. Tired brains could just watch and laugh mindlessly without having to thing about anything at all... except Michael. Somehow working on movies all day doesn't make him tired of analyzing everything he sees. If you do not have your feet firmly planted regarding your like or dislike of a movie, Michael can surely sway your opinion with his analysis. My family no longer allows him to give his opinion on anything they have already seen or may see in the next 15 years because his points of view taint your entire experience. I'll have to have him do a movie review on here one of these days... with spoiler alerts all over it. He holds nothing back. Anyway, I thought Zookeeper was funny. He thought it was funny but that the storyline was completely flawed so it was hard for him to concentrate... I thought it was about talking gorillas... how can that be flawed?? Anyway, we held hands during the movie and it was wonderful.

On Saturday morning we got up and got ready the slow way, where showering somehow takes 30 mins even though the water is only on for 9. Rachel (my sweet mother in law) had gone through her closet and had me try on everything that she was through with. I must say that I now feel cute and SOO relieved! My work pants were starting to cry when I pulled them out of the closet every morning because they are all so old. I feel like a new woman now... and I think it has something to do with the fact that I now own my first pair of BKE's. Dream jeans. I am so grateful for Rachel's giving attitude. She firmly believes that if you don't love it or you don't wear it that you should get it out of your closet. I went home so pumped to cut my closet in half! When I went in to go assess the situation though, I decided that I need an intermediate phase. SOOO... I am going to transfer anything I haven't worn in the last 6 months-ish into Michael's closet. If I don't think about it before he gets home in 5 weeks, it's toast (Toast = have my favorite SIL take anything she wants, have my beehives take anything they want, dump the rest at DI). If I do think about it, the article has earned its spot back among the ranks of my other clothes purchased in high school. Oh gosh - I have a tangent disease today.

After getting ready and spending 45 minutes hugging my new wardrobe we went off to the Orange County Fair to eat some roasted corn, go through the fun house, make Michael go on a bunch of spinny rides, and pet tons of animals. They had cows whose back end stood taller than Michael. I'm not exaggerating. Their bottoms were 6' tall!! Michael also promised to get me a miniature potbelly pig as soon as Tank and Ruby die. It might be a while but I'm not going to forget. After the fair we met up with Chad and Rachel for some KFC before they headed out of town to spend their 2 year anniversary in Vegas. We then took a long hard nap, waking up just in time to jump back in the car to head to the Sawdust Festival. It was a brilliant fair filled with glass blowers and people with dread locks. We had a blast. Probably because we were holding hands.


Michael bought me ice cream at McDonald's on the way home. :-)

Sunday morning we went to church then jumped in the car and took Carmageddon by the horns in our drive to Santa Monica. I spent some time in Santa Monica on a trip with some friends in high school and it has been a romantic destination to me ever since. Hopefully nobody from Sony is reading this blog post (does anyone read them when they get this long? I think not. My posterity will thank me later though, I'm sure.) because we definitely broke into Sony Imageworks so that Michael could give me a tour. We saw the normal things like the beautiful courtyard and cafeteria AND the top secret things like cardboard cutouts of the Smurfs and things like that. It was awesome. I can't even tell you how happy it makes me to know that Michael receives fulfillment in his work. That is worth more than any salary could ever pay and almost more than going to school for 12 years for an undergrad degree. I know that he loves what he does and it inspires me to spend my time on things that I love to do. I believe that passion is service. It feeds the souls of those around you. I wish everyone could do what they love to do.


After my top secret tour, Michael and I walked up and down the Santa Monica pier, then strolled down the beach to take a nap on the sand. It sounds like we did a lot of napping. We did. It was wonderful. On our way out we stopped by an apartment complex to tour one of their units to see what things look like living in LA. In three words? Small and expensive. In two words? Snow-less winters. In one word? Yes. I love California. I don't want to live in a place with barred windows where my children cannot play on my front porch (LA) but the California suburbs are to die for. We will see what happens!

The last leg of our journey included a sad parting of ways at the Orange County airport. Michael didn't know but I had already cried earlier that day so that he wouldn't see me cry when he dropped me off. We're almost halfway through his internship and I really am doing fine... but I married that man for a reason and living without him will never be my #1 or #100 choice. Only 4 more weeks till I get to see him again!!

I wish every day was freedom day!

I just love the Fourth of July. Christmas and Thanksgiving are wonderful but for me... Fourth of July is the bees knees. Though I love celebrating Jesus' birth at Christmas, there is a bit of a division between those that celebrate the holiday and those that don't. Fourth of July is a holiday of complete union. There is no stress of gift giving or money and you don't have to decorate your house; you just have to wear red, white, or blue and be American. I love ice cream and watermelon and BBQ's and fireworks and outdoor events and swimming and parades. I love being able to take my dogs to any 4th of July event because they are all outside... and having a dog is All-American, of course. I love softball and baby contests and sparklers and hot air balloons and the big huge bows that end up in every little girl's hair. And best of all this year? My parents came to town to celebrate with me since my sweet husband is in California for the summer. I missed riding the scooter with him but my parents were the perfect stand-in accomplices. Thanks mom and dad for coming all the way to Utah to play with me!!! And now for some pictures:

We started Saturday morning off at the Freedom Festival in Provo. I got so excited when I saw this storm trooper that I accidentally asked him to take MY picture instead of to take a picture with me and he was really confused as to how to press the button with his plastic finger:

Dad and I trying on some patriotism:

After the Freedom Festival we moved to Orem for Colonial Days. My mom loves to learn new things:

We tried to protect her from herself by locking her up for a while but she was able to get a hand free enough to smack me to let her out. Mother of the year!

Mom and I becoming colonial:
And then we went home and took a nap. Wakey wakey daddy!!!

All the while, my dad was sneaking away to do nice things for his favorite daughter. It was SO CUTE and MUCH APPRECIATED!! He fixed my car, worked on a broken light socket, sprayed down my house, fixed my lawn mower, took care of the dogs, and watered my lawn every day. A couple of cute highlights:


We took the puppies to the park to play:
And played Just Dance 2:

Had a fun All-American meal:

Went to see the fireworks at Thanksgiving Pointe on Monday. Here is the cow train:

And mom and I finished off the weekend by attending American Fork's Steel Days Local Band Night at the outdoor amphitheater last night:

I love my family and I love 4th of July. Let Freedom Ring!!

The Food Pyramid

There are some foods that are just GOOOOOD! For example:
frozen yogurt
graham crackers
mandarin oranges
yams
marshmallows
pears
dinner rolls

There are others that are just NAAAAASTY:
olives
pickles
beef jerky
cottage cheese (I want to like it so bad... but its gross so I can't)
cucumbers
ketchup
doughnuts

And some that have gotten better over the years:
grapefruit
french fries
nuts of all kinds

You're not sure why you needed to know this?? 'They' will probably redo the food guide pyramid again soon and I want to make sure that it doesn't distort your understanding of what is good and what is not good.

SUBWAY SUBWAY

I FINALLY GOT HIM TO CONFESS!!!!!!!

At around noon my sweet Michael showed up to my office with an arm full of SUBWAY!! Haha - he HAD stolen my pizza but only so that I would not eat before he arrived with delicious sandwiches!! And he laughed for like 20 minutes at the fact that I thought he stole my pizza for himself.

Anyway, like a true man he came in with his game face on and an agenda (my agenda, his agenda... same same same). I work by myself all day so a lot of the time the essentials take a back burner if I decide they aren't really essential. He is so wonderful.

We ate delicious sandwiches:



He fixed my computer:



He plunged the toilet:



And he tried all of the office gadgets that he wasn't familiar with. (finger squeegee pictured):



And he is going to be gone for 2 whole months!! Don't be surprised if you get a prank, "toilet emergency" call requesting an immediate report to an address in American Fork, UT. I don't do toilets.

PIZZA PIZZA

All weekend I have craved Little Caesars pizza. I thought that when we went out for really nice "gourmet" pizza (that was for you Jon) that it would fill the void... but I was wrong. Sometimes you just need the cheap stuff.

So last night after softball we went and grabbed the most beautiful Hot N' Ready I've ever seen, drove home, picked off some pepperoni, and devoured!! (This is all part of the diet mom). After all was said and done there was one piece of pizza and two bread sticks left over, which I put in plastic baggies and threw in the fridge.

This morning before Michael came into the kitchen I sneakily (or so I thought) zipped them up in my purse. When I wasn't looking, however, my extra attentive husband STOLE THEM OUT OF MY PURSE!!!! I am now at work wondering what lunch will become. I'll probably wonder until like 2pm when I finally cave and decide a) I must go buy myself something even better than cold pizza or b) I can survive off of the gum that a random marketer just brought by the office.

All I can say is... muah ha ha... revenge will come my honey bear. Revenge will come.

Running Isn't Easy...

I'm not going to lie... Yesterday was a hard day. I hate being a complainer but it was a legitimately hard day. There were lots of stinkers at work which is hard when you work by yourself all day every day. If someone comes/calls in with lots of stinker-like things to say it is not as easy as if you had someone else to talk to to bounce back. After the 8th of these little encounters I decided that I needed to plant an end goal for myself and decided that I would start off my running career right by jogging to Frozen Yogurt Junction after work. I got off work, got home, got dressed and took off. The frozen yogurt was incredible. Cake batter with coconut and graham crackers (my go to toppings bc I love them and I hate paying for heavy toppings). The run, however? Horrible (sugar coating not available). I felt like it was so much harder for me than normal and we only went 1.5 miles. The book that I have been reading and publicly raving about makes it very clear that there are days that your body is easy to run with and days that it is not and I think that yesterday was just a hard day. I felt defeated and on several occasions during the walk back (ran to FYJ but opted not to run back on a full stomach of frozen yogurt) contemplated stopping to cry. Is that silly?

I stuck with that mentality until I remembered that the last time I ran I went over 2 miles without any trouble at all and decided that yesterday's run was probably just a hard day for my body and my emotions for whatever reason. I am going to go for it again tomorrow. Don't worry - I am not going to throw in the towel on my SUPER EXCITING half-marathon after one crappy run. Even if that means that I will have to run 10 times the distance that I struggled through yesterday... I'll be able to do it. This is really important to me. Sorry this post wasn't full of sunshine on this snowy April day!

Happy Yeaster!!

I don't want to run with the 'fears' topic too much here but last night I conquered a huge one that you need to know about. I am... WAS... legitimately terrified of yeast. You are probably thinking about all of the wonderful qualities of those round little activators but not me. The 'quick breads' section of my cook books are wrinkled and dripped on but the 'long breads' (what do you call non-quick-bread?) is perfectly untouched. Here is the thing... I am pretty good at cooking vegetables. It is easy because they are already picked for you and there are no rules about tasting them all along the way so that you know when they are cooked to absolute perfection. Meat? Perfectly dead from the time you throw it in your cart to the time it plops on your plate and you are able to gauge it's progress on the grill at any point by checking it's internal color! Easy peasy! Yeast? YOU CAN KILL YEAST!


The motivation? My sweet friend Megan Demasters gave me some homemade rolls that were TO DIE FOR a couple of weeks ago and they just HAD to be attempted for today's Easter Egg Hunt/Lunch. So I measured out 2 cups of warm water and felt it with my finger... then dumped it out and repeated the process like 40 times until I thought, "I would shower in this! Not too hot, not too cold!" and sacrificed my yeastlings. The beautiful thing? I was right! It was PERFECT!! They swam and swam until they dissolved and were combined with all of the other magical ingredients in my very own kitchen aide. (This is a dilemma to tackle at another time but do you use your kitchenaide for long breads? I felt like I was wrestling the thing 99% of the time - not pretty). I then balled them up and let them RISE (which they actually did!) for two hours before baking them to utter perfection. Michael and I tried them while they were warm and I had a 'died and gone to heaven' moment. The rolls were good but the yeast... heaven! I'll let you know how they go over at the lunch today but I really feel as if the accomplishment has been made. Thank you to Megan, Merrick and all of my other yeast inspirers! And a special thanks to Michael that stayed up 30 mins later than me to let them cool before sealing them away to keep them fresh! What a guy...

April Birthday Presents

You may have picked up on this trend of me thinking runners are amazing. I can’t quite put a finger on it but every time I see someone jogging around my neighborhood or down the street I can’t help but wish there was a little box above their head letting me know how far they’ve gone, how far they are planning on going, and why they are running in the first place. To keep myself tuned into the running crowd I spend a lot of time thinking about running, reading about running, and watching people run. On Sunday I finally got up the courage to talk to a woman in my ward that I always see running by my house when I get home from work. Though I stumbled on my words once or twice we had an awesome conversation about the part that running plays in her life and her dream (that she is going to accomplish this August) to run her first marathon! At the end of the convo she asked me if I was a runner… I told her that I read a lot about running but that, no, I am not a runner. When she asked why not my brain shut off and the truth jumped out! “I am too scared!”

After we left church I kept thinking about my answer and you know what? IT’S TRUE! I have been too scared! I’m not scared of putting on my shoes or choosing a playlist on my ipod, I’m not even scared of people seeing me jog around without a destination. I think I have been scared that I would start training and then quit. Scared of quitting… I don’t need anyone to tell me that that is a silly thing to fear and that I can do it because I think it’s a totally normal thing to fear! There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ with trying something new and a lot of those could potentially lead to quitting if you give yourself that option. I think the answer is to have a clear cut goal. Something you really want. To enjoy yourself along the way as you listen to your body. And not give yourself the option of throwing in the towel. The book that I am reading right now (John "The Penguin" Bingham's The Courage to Start: A Guide to Running for Your Life) has been an awesome motivator and has made running sound like something EVERYONE can do, not just those you think of as runners. Why? Because everyone you think of as a runner is just a person that runs… and I can totally fit that mold! The more I thought about my fear the more I wanted to stomp on it and show it who is boss but I felt like that ‘clear cut goal that I really want’ wasn’t there yet and I didn’t want to set myself up for failure by any means…

And then I came home from work yesterday...

I HAVE THE BEST HUSBAND EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! When I got home my sweet honey told me that he had planned a little service date for us – we were going to go to the dollar store and put together snack bags for less fortunate children. The instructions said to include a small toy and we may have gotten a little out of control with that but we had SOOO much fun!!!



We even splurged an extra dollar to buy those useless (but really cool) little capsules that you put in water and wait for them to expand! The only problem was that some of them were obscene (see the yellow bull with three legs and boy parts) and the rest were unidentifiable… but they were so fun!!


The OTHER part of the surprise was my BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!! (Don’t worry – you didn’t miss anything, my birthday is still January 1st but Michael got me an early birthday present!!!) He opened the computer and told me to go look for it so I started with a ‘present for Brit’ google search but that came up with a video of a when Britney Spears' dancers played a prank on her and came out on stage without pants on – haha!! Eventually I got to our Disneyland Day blog (click here to see his original post) where Michael had announced my registration in the first ever Disneyland’s Tinker Bell Half Marathon!!!!!!! HALF MARATHON!!!!!!! LIKE 13.1 MILES!!!!!! I got REALLLLY excited, then had a minor freak-out (since the longest I’ve ever run was like 4 or 5 miles) then got REALLY excited again!!!!!! I can’t believe how thoughtful that boy is sometimes. He knew I was searching for a goal so he plopped one right in my lap, knowing that I probably would never have gotten as far as registering for something so magical. You have got to read his darling post, even better – his darling comment on the post. He took the race route and overlaid it on a map of Disneyland to see exactly where I would be running in the park then spent the next 30 minutes figuring out HIS route so that he could see me running and take pictures at all the right times. Did I mention that I have the cutest, most supportive husband ever? He is currently planning on seeing me on Main Street (mile 2.5), at my biggest wall (we’ll know where that is once I start training), 11 miles, and at the end. I think that he will probably end up doing almost as much running as I will that day in order to catch me at all of the different points along the way. I love it. The race isn’t until January 29th so there will be a lot going on between now and then but having my eye set on that Tinkerbell medal is all I really needed. (Not to mention that we will be traveling to THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!!!!!!!!) CAN’T WAIT!! THANK YOU SNOOKER!!!!!!!!


PS. And then he took me out for frozen yogurt at the Frozen Yogurt Junction by our house. It was incredible. The second I took my first bite I regretted my moderate (yet still bigger than Michael’s) serving size!! Yummmm…

Michael's Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY BEAR!!!!

On Tuesday my hunk man turned 26! I've tried not to remind him that 26 rounds to 30 but it's hard to keep it to myself sometimes. We started his celebration with a fun weekend with some of Michael's former college roomies and their wives up in Park City at our Uncle Bruce and Aunt Lisa's condo where we had a fun pizza dinner, did some great shopping at the outlet mall, and played some INTENSE Rook... Well... the intensity was relative... the boys beat us by like 330 points the first time and we only played to 300. Don't do the math - it's embarrassing. We came home on Sunday morning for a great day at church where we both got to teach our youth lessons. Michael's was on the priesthood and mine was on friendship. Sometimes the girls look at me while I'm teaching like they forgot where they were and how they got there. I love them to death - I hope my lessons at least polish their darling little ears as my words float in one side and out the other!

Monday we took a birthday break. The weekend had been wonderful and we needed that day to gear up for the real deal! Tuesday morning I made Michael his favorite breakfast from the Dominican Republic called platanos fritos. Basically you get a platano (a cross between a banana and a potato) and cut it in about 1 inch little segments. You then stick it in some super hot oil to fry it until the platano chunks are just barely brown around the edges. Take them out of the pan and smoosh them between two paper towels so they are flat then (the most nutritious part) stick them BACK in the pan to be fried once more! Good thing calories don't count on your birthday!! I'm also pretty sure that you're supposed to add salt to them but I missed that part... to preoccupied with all the oil and trying not to burn myself while smooshing. Serve these little guys over a couple of fried eggs and you've got yourself a winning meal! Don't accuse me of anything if my sweet husband has to get stints to his heart on his 27th birthday... there was broccoli in the fridge!


After breakfast we both hurried off to work (I have been carpooling with the lovely Laurenita Olsen to work lately and it is WONDERFUL). At the end of the work day Lauren took me to pick up Michael's birthday present and we hurried home so I could toss his ooey gooey cake in the oven in time for it to cool while we spent a couple of hours with the kids from the ward at mutual. Michael is so cute. He was the hardest worker out there. It could have been because he knew there were fruit snacks at the end, because we were playing rounders after service, or because he is super ripped but I think it's because he has such a sweet little heart. Anyway, Jon and Savanna were the perfect addition to the hoppin party and even brought Michael a new REMOTE CONTROL CAR!! You'd think he were in heaven. Boys and their toys!! The cake was ooey and oh so gooey (Jon even asked me how to make it which is a HUGE compliment if you know that chef of a man) and we were all rolling around on sugar overload until a couple of inappropriate birthday jokes were made and we called it a night!



The last part of Michael's birthday (k seriously... we would've done this all in one day but there wasn't really time with everything that was going on this week) we did on Wednesday when I made his specially requested birthday dinner, La Bandera. I think he must be missing his mission lately... or maybe the senility is kicking in with his old age and he thinks I'm his Dominican maid?? He said it was good and gave me some helpful pointers to make it taste a wee bit more authentic next time (EXPERT gringa here!) and we went to bed stuffed full! I am so grateful for my sweet Michael. He is such a love - always thinking of his wife before anything else. He even goes to bed and wakes up with me now which is a HUGE blessing in my life. Thank you sweetheart for being my one and only. I love you love you dearly... Lets sit down to pluck some gray hairs from that salt and pepper head of hair tonight ;-)

Time to Do the Body GOOD!

Not too long ago I posted about how I want to be a better runner... right?? So what is the difference between me/you/anyone that wants to be a better runner and that beautifully sweaty girl that we talked abt in my runner post?? I think mindset!!

Call me a sinner but I think it's pretty easy to get stuck in the "workout for a rockin' hot bod" rut instead of deciding to release your inner athlete! I've been reading a lot of HungryRunnerGirl lately and it made me realize that I've just got to decide to start with the right supplies for success to be inevitable! A couple of necessary supplies:


1. Stock your kitchen with awesome food that will make your body and your mind happy. If you love marshmallows (AH! I am really ready to proclaim my marshmallow addiction to the world??) then have them in your cupboard but (here's the key) decide when you're going to eat them! All the time? Just for breakfast/lunch/dinner? One after each meal? 12 after each meal?? A whole bag before bed time??? This is getting good!! When you're not eating your marshmallows make your body smile by stuffing yourself to the brim with things that it actually wants! Spinach, bananas, oatmeal, eggs, broccoli, protein protien yum, yum, yum!!!


2. Exercise how you want to! I have concluded that I am not a confident runner because my endurance is well... pretty pitiful (for now!!). Know what builds endurance though? Anything that takes a long time! (Lightbulb!!!) I really enjoy a good cycle or stair climb time so starting there is my own little key to success!! Do I need to push myself?? Heck yes! That's part of the fun! I have little key indicators for myself too... Hmm... More open confessions? Ok! I am an armpit sweater (not quite as bad as nasty man above but who knows!? I'm also not quite 40 yet either!)! Basically I can do a cute 5 minute ab workout and need to stick some paper towels in the pits before seeing another human being BUUUT it takes a lot of pushing before I sweat from anywhere else!! How do I know if I pushed myself hard enough?? You've got it! A little sparkle around my hair line, on my neck or back and I'm golden. Last night I did 40 minutes on a bike with some killer arm workouts as I went (don't worry - stationary bike). By the end of my circuit I had accomplished the following: watched the last 5 minutes, credits, and first 25 minutes (in that order) of Clash of the Titans, biked 8 miles, turned my arms to Jello pudding (yummmm...), and! created some beautiful neck glistening!! Goal accomplished!! Today I will follow it all up by sitting in my office chair for 8 hours deciding how to make Michael's birthday picture perfect!! I will post about it tomorrow... Don't want to ruin the surprises! Make sure to send him a cute Happy Birthday text though and he will love you forever!!

30 Day Picture Challenge: Day 1 - Info on Me!

My sweet sister in law Savanna is doing the 30-day picture challenge and I think she is wonderful so I’m jumping on the band wagon! Feel free to join in yourself!

Day 1: 15 Facts About Yourself and A Pic of Yourself


On a "bike ride" in Mexico

1. My favorite color is white – a recent discovery
2. I love love LOVE chocolate but only eat it on my birthday every year
3. I want to be just like my dad when I grow up
4. I have the sweetest husband in the world that has centered his whole life around following his passions while providing for his family with love, time, the priesthood, and the necessary mula to get the job done
5. Fourth of July is my favorite holiday
6. My favorite foods are yams, whipped cream, and smoothies
7. I like buying new clothes and then leaving hanging them in my closet with the tags on so that I always have the option of wearing a new shirt
8. I love everything about the sunshine: being warm, being tan, being burnt, not being able to see when it shines in my eyes, everything
9. Down time makes me sad
10. I am slightly obsessed with Disneyland and Carrie Underwood… Not necessarily her music… just her.
11. I LOVE traveling – whether it is driving to Salt Lake for the weekend, spending a week at Lake Powell, or flying to Europe… I love it. Someday I want to do a cross-country road trip and meet people from the south.
12. I owe all that I am to my parents, brother, husband, friends, hard work, and my testimony of the gospel
13. I want to serve a couples mission when I get old… but I want to go somewhere like Hawaii or the Florida Keys… Where it is warm and there are no bugs
14. I love to learn… If I could be a part time student my entire life I would do it in a heart beat
15. When all is said and done I would like a four bedroom house, three children, and a boob job… in that order

Wings and Roses

Yesterday was WORLD'S BEST VALENTINE'S DAY!!! Michael and I met after a long day of work in our garage (so romantic) as I pulled up to the house. My sweet man was standing there waiting for me with ten beautiful roses. Why 10 you may ask?? I had no idea... I thought maybe they were discounted or something?? The reason was unveiled later.



And I emerged from my car with a heart plate full of super hot buffalo wings from Texas Roadhouse... It really didn't take long to get from that to this:



We took a minute to tidy up and primp before jumping in the car and flitting off to a ROMANTIC couples massage given by Jill. Find more information here. We have never been so relaxed and happy. I just LOVED glancing over at my little honey so happy and pampered. As we were walking to the car he pulled out another rose and started on this speech about how he had been having a really great time so far tonight and said "Brit, this is the 11th rose. Do you know what that means? It means you have made it to the final week. Please accept this rose and be mine forever." I DIED laughing!! DIEEEDD!!!! For those of you that think I am a horrible person - go watch the bachelor! There are 11 episodes in a season. A rose = immunity from being sent home that week. The girl that receives a rose on the 11th week, therefore, is proposed to... AND I MADE IT!!!! You should also know that I accepted the rose...

We then headed home to meet up with Michael's cousin McKay and his gf Lydia to play a Valentine-themed game at WalMart (they schooled us). And enjoy part of a chickflick... though littered with Mucinex commercials... I don't recommend pirated movie sites to anyone any more... It was a WONDERFUL and ROMANTIC night that could have only been topped with... a card ;-) Michael wrote me world's sweetest note and gave me a gift certificate to go buy the swimsuit I have been in LOVE with for the past month!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!! LOVE YOU HONEY!!!

October is Vegetarian Awareness Month!!

Haha!! Oh dear – as much as I laugh about my people and their need to be heard, sometimes I think awareness months are a poor excuse for extra coupons and interesting lapel pins. That being said, my weekly ‘Fruits and Veggies’ article on the topic made me think about my dear vegetable friends and why I’ve maintained my relationship with them and not their mooing, oinking, meowing counterparts. For those of you that may not have had the veggie convo with me before, it’s probably because I don’t talk about it much until I know the people around me pretty well. For some reason, announcing vegetarianism has a sort of kinship to the ‘coming out’ of a bi or homosexual… all of a sudden people get a little squirmy and don’t know how to have a normal conversation with you anymore. Typically after it is mentioned the topic passes quickly, another conversation begins, then some sort of explosive question erupts from the recent discoverer, who has not taken much of a part in this secondary conversation. Normally the questions are, “WHAT DO YOU EVEN EAT!?” or the more polite, “Why did you become a vegetarian, if you don’t mind me asking?” and sometimes they jump straight to, “If you were stuck on a desert island with just yourself and a hamburger…”

I became a vegetarian when I was 12, so it has been 11 years now. I started eating this way because my grandmother, who had always had a profound effect on my sense of health, had been a vegetarian for years and I believed her example to be a good one. As the years went on I learned about amino acids, cholesterol, vitamin B12, iron, and all of the other main vegetarian pros and cons that I was choosing with my eating habits. A couple of answers: vegetarians hardly ever suffer from protein deficiencies or high cholesterol. We do often lack some iron and all of our necessary B12. Now that I know a bit more than my 12-year-old self I am so grateful that I made this big decision when I did! Not everybody supports vegetarianism but my body just LOVES it! I really enjoy the clean feeling I get when I eat well, and feel like fruits and veggies are the perfect way for my body to do that!

That all being said, my husband and entire immediate family all love meat and I love them all dearly. I even love them enough to toss some poultry or ground beef into their portion of the meal! I am not afraid of meat – raw or cooked. I don’t mind much when it touches my food or gets plopped on my plate at a BBQ. I embrace the wonderful bottomless-pit of a husband that I have and just ask him to switch me for his veggies and we both benefit  Someday I am going to find another vegetarian out there that will want to exchange regular emails full of recipes and snack-tactics but even then, I love my meat eating friends and I love how colorful my fridge looks after an afternoon at the grocery store where the checkout person always comments on how many produce bags I have lined up on her little conveyer belt. I love when life feels fresh and to me – this is as fresh as it comes!

Getting Organized

I don't know what happened there friends! I loved looking at everyone else's blogs for like 6 months but didn't really have much to say here... Well - the times have changed. As an update, Tank was graciously taken in by my mother-in-law and family and is so happy running around their California ranch all day! Unfortunately he recently got a little bit too liberal with his boundaries and wound up with an appointment to get his you-know-whats removed... I guess we won't be having any baby Tanks in the future! He will be back with us as soon as our contract is up at this apartment and we move somewhere that allows dogs. I miss him dearly but I am so happy that he is so loved over in Porterville. Michael... still feels like he has lost his right arm... but this too shall pass :-)

As for life in general I am on an organization overhaul kick. First I spent a couple of hours at the beginning of the week fixing up our budget so that it is back in working order. I don't know if it will work because we've never done anything like this before but let me give you a little overview of my vision. I first looked at our online banking system to see what categories they naturally give us with their budgeting tool. I then looked through our recent months' expenses and figured out what was practical and doable for each category, making sub-lists of what actually fell into each category. This allowed me to pull up Excel and make a little pie chart of my own that has all of our ideal spending amounts by category. I was so excited! Until I realized that once a month is over there is nothing you can do to improve or stay within your budget... So I got a little bit more detailed and made little pie charts for our ideal spending each week. Now the real excitement! Sure it took me a couple of hours but we are all about simple here in the Murdock house and I think that printing off one pie chart a week and comparing it to our ideal chart shouldn't be too hard! And this will give us room to fix things before the end of the month comes! Is it going to work?? I seriously have no idea - but I see potential. I was so jazzed, in fact, that this led me to another planning sesh to organize a menu for the next two weeks, go spend my allotted grocery money and prepare homemade breakfast and lunch foods that we can grab on the go! For all of you wonderful homemakers that are waiting for the climax... you missed it. That was all. I'm SO EXCITED!

Sloppy Joes, Slop, Sloppy Joes

As far as food goes, this week has been wonderful so far! We had a successful Hamburger Monday, a fun makeshift Tuesday, and big plans for... Sloppy Joe Wednesday. I apologize to Michelle, who hates sloppy joes, and to all other naysayers that may doubt the class of the tomatoe and ground beef (even if it's fake) mixture that is tossed on a whole wheat bun with the pure intention of staining beautiful faces everywhere. I'm sure I have had a sloppy joe at some point in my life but because I just recently decided to succumb to trying fake ground beef it hasn't really been an option these past 10 years. So all day I pondered as to how my face would look with a little tomatoe-based sloppy joe smile, getting more excited by the hour.

When the time came to take the plunge, however, I just couldn't find it in me to strike up the oven and lead the kitchen in its nightly concerto (performed by a beginning orchestra). I stood there in the kitchen with my favorite vegetarian cook book in hand trying every mind game I've been taught and just couldn't make myself do it! And then... I just said it. "I don't feel like making dinner tonight Honey!" It wasn't whiny, it wasn't rude, it just was...

And to that, my dormant husband sprung to his feet, delicately plucked the cook book out of my hand, set me down on the couch, and tuned the coconut cooking oil. After a matter of minutes onions were dicing and fake meat was grinding (appropriately). I smiled and watched as my sweet hubby poured extra love into the pan of mush that was perfectly simmering on our stove top.

I don't know exactly why he decided that tonight was the night to make music in the kitchen but I think he was glad he did. Something in me just lit up like a light bulb! The meal was absolutely amazing, the tomato smile was perfect, and something about him got about 2 million times more attractive. The kind of thing that made me: eager to do the dishes, prompt him to flip to ESPN, talk about computers, and... end the night deservingly. Thank you Michael, thank you sloppy joes, thank you Adam Sandler.