I do this every morning now. I'm not sure if I've lost any weight, but I've learned some Japanese. Nathan even does it with me, now. It's helped us grow closer.
I would love to hear your results from using this workout video! Post a comment and let me know! I've started wearing my bandanna with the knot under my nose.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Dialoguing Avery's Basketball Stitches
I figured this would be a good title that summarized everything in this post.
My Stitches!
Here they are; the pictures you have all been waiting for!!!! :)
I tried taking them out myself, like I did with elbow stitches I had, but this was waaay harder for three reasons: 1. I had to use a mirror to look at them, 2. they were stitched up tighter than the ones on my elbow, and the knots were smaller, and 3. digging around with little scissors and tweezers in a cut in my face made me a little woozy. See the band-aid gunk? Ick.
I ended up having to go to an urgent care place because I had cut off the top of the knots, but the rest of the stitch slipped under my skin out of my reach. The doctor was nice enough to remove them for free (without much trouble, too). :)
Avery's First "Dress Up"
For Easter weekend, we went to visit Nathan's brother's family. My 6 nieces and nephews had a lot of fun with Avery. Here she is with my niece, Victoria.
I have a feeling that this will be a pricey little lifestyle to support. :) Check out that bling!
Basketball
I was on our ward basketball team. We ended up beating all the other teams in our stake, so we went on to the "regional" tournament (a region has about 10 stakes). We ended up going all the way to the semi-finals where we lost to a team of all twenty-something year-old girls! Regardless, I was so proud of our team because only two of us are in our 20's. Everyone else is 30+!!! They were so awesome! It was so fun to get to know those ladies who I had only seen in dresses playing some rough and tough Bball! I want to be like them when I'm 40:
Below is a video Nathan shot of our semifinal game. We're in the white. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time...their player basically handed me the ball. :)
Calvary Chapel Interfaith Dialogues
We got to host another group at our house for some more interfaith dialoguing. This group was from an evangelical college in southern California. They even brought pizza, salad, and really good cookies with them! We actually even had a couple local evangelicals show up and join the Calvary Chapel group. It was a great group!
Most of the evangelicals in my group had taken biblical Hebrew and/or New Testament Greek. It was cool to hear the things they had learned from their professors!
And lastly, a video of Avery in one of her "everything-is-silly" moods. :)
My Stitches!
Here they are; the pictures you have all been waiting for!!!! :)
I tried taking them out myself, like I did with elbow stitches I had, but this was waaay harder for three reasons: 1. I had to use a mirror to look at them, 2. they were stitched up tighter than the ones on my elbow, and the knots were smaller, and 3. digging around with little scissors and tweezers in a cut in my face made me a little woozy. See the band-aid gunk? Ick.
I ended up having to go to an urgent care place because I had cut off the top of the knots, but the rest of the stitch slipped under my skin out of my reach. The doctor was nice enough to remove them for free (without much trouble, too). :)
Avery's First "Dress Up"
For Easter weekend, we went to visit Nathan's brother's family. My 6 nieces and nephews had a lot of fun with Avery. Here she is with my niece, Victoria.
I have a feeling that this will be a pricey little lifestyle to support. :) Check out that bling!
Basketball
I was on our ward basketball team. We ended up beating all the other teams in our stake, so we went on to the "regional" tournament (a region has about 10 stakes). We ended up going all the way to the semi-finals where we lost to a team of all twenty-something year-old girls! Regardless, I was so proud of our team because only two of us are in our 20's. Everyone else is 30+!!! They were so awesome! It was so fun to get to know those ladies who I had only seen in dresses playing some rough and tough Bball! I want to be like them when I'm 40:
Below is a video Nathan shot of our semifinal game. We're in the white. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time...their player basically handed me the ball. :)
Calvary Chapel Interfaith Dialogues
We got to host another group at our house for some more interfaith dialoguing. This group was from an evangelical college in southern California. They even brought pizza, salad, and really good cookies with them! We actually even had a couple local evangelicals show up and join the Calvary Chapel group. It was a great group!
Most of the evangelicals in my group had taken biblical Hebrew and/or New Testament Greek. It was cool to hear the things they had learned from their professors!
And lastly, a video of Avery in one of her "everything-is-silly" moods. :)
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Goodbye, Little Mole
A couple of days ago I went to the dermatologist so he could take a look at a mole on my chin that had grown in size in the past few years. He ended up just removing the whole thing to do a biopsy on it. I didn't mind; I never really liked the mole much, anyway. :)
In the office
He stitched up the hole, and his assistant taped some gauze over it with lots and lots of layers big, fat, white, tape. I felt a little funny walking out of the office (also because my lip was numb, so I felt like I was drooling), but figured that in a dermatology office, someone walking out with some gauze on their face isn't such a big deal. It was kind of annoying that part of the tape went over the bottom left corner of my lip. My day so far? Not bad at all. I got rid of the annoying mole. Big check off my bucket list.
At home
It's harder than you think to eat with tape across the corner of your mouth. Never tried it? Good. Don't. I got home and ate some fajitas for lunch. Juicy fajitas and a numb mouth make for a mess. The fajita juice got all over the white tape that was over the corner of my mouth and turned the tape brown. It was pretty gross. I didn't have any tape to replace it with, so I just left it. I also had decided that I was not going to go out of my house or answer the door if anyone knocked because of the white mass of tape and bandage on my face.
Out and about
Two hours later, mine and Nathan's manager (of the trailer park) came over. He wanted to look at a few of the trailers with me. AHH! I felt pretty silly walking out the door. We ended up walking around all 30 TRAILERS. And, because it was around 4:00, kids were home from school, and parents were home from work. I was trying to make sure that when I walked by people, my face was hidden, or that they could only see the right side of my face.
But, or course, lots of people wanted to ask me some manager-type questions, and I ended up talking to waaay to many people. They all kept staring at the dressing. In my efforts to keep their eyes off of the dressing, I tried to stare just as intently into their eyes to make them stare back at mine. I'm never sure if that works, but it made me feel better. Haha. :)
Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. There weren't any of what I would classify as "long, awkward stares." Just ones long enough to be able to tell what the white blob on my face was. No contorted faces or rude comments. But really, I can't blame people for staring a little. I'd be curious, too. Avery was the only one to stare at it for an abnormally long amount of time. She even grabbed it and pulled on it--which hurt. But at least she didn't say, "Mom, you look really weird. Take the tape off or else I won't go with you anywhere in public." She didn't even pull a strange face. She's really polite.
Oh, and since we we'll be out of town for when I'm supposed to go back and get the stitches out, I get to remove them myself. Cool, eh? I did that once with stitches on my elbow, but removing them from my face makes me a little nervous. But, hey, it'll be one more thing to add to my resume! ;)
Pictures to come!
In the office
He stitched up the hole, and his assistant taped some gauze over it with lots and lots of layers big, fat, white, tape. I felt a little funny walking out of the office (also because my lip was numb, so I felt like I was drooling), but figured that in a dermatology office, someone walking out with some gauze on their face isn't such a big deal. It was kind of annoying that part of the tape went over the bottom left corner of my lip. My day so far? Not bad at all. I got rid of the annoying mole. Big check off my bucket list.
At home
It's harder than you think to eat with tape across the corner of your mouth. Never tried it? Good. Don't. I got home and ate some fajitas for lunch. Juicy fajitas and a numb mouth make for a mess. The fajita juice got all over the white tape that was over the corner of my mouth and turned the tape brown. It was pretty gross. I didn't have any tape to replace it with, so I just left it. I also had decided that I was not going to go out of my house or answer the door if anyone knocked because of the white mass of tape and bandage on my face.
Out and about
Two hours later, mine and Nathan's manager (of the trailer park) came over. He wanted to look at a few of the trailers with me. AHH! I felt pretty silly walking out the door. We ended up walking around all 30 TRAILERS. And, because it was around 4:00, kids were home from school, and parents were home from work. I was trying to make sure that when I walked by people, my face was hidden, or that they could only see the right side of my face.
But, or course, lots of people wanted to ask me some manager-type questions, and I ended up talking to waaay to many people. They all kept staring at the dressing. In my efforts to keep their eyes off of the dressing, I tried to stare just as intently into their eyes to make them stare back at mine. I'm never sure if that works, but it made me feel better. Haha. :)
Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. There weren't any of what I would classify as "long, awkward stares." Just ones long enough to be able to tell what the white blob on my face was. No contorted faces or rude comments. But really, I can't blame people for staring a little. I'd be curious, too. Avery was the only one to stare at it for an abnormally long amount of time. She even grabbed it and pulled on it--which hurt. But at least she didn't say, "Mom, you look really weird. Take the tape off or else I won't go with you anywhere in public." She didn't even pull a strange face. She's really polite.
Oh, and since we we'll be out of town for when I'm supposed to go back and get the stitches out, I get to remove them myself. Cool, eh? I did that once with stitches on my elbow, but removing them from my face makes me a little nervous. But, hey, it'll be one more thing to add to my resume! ;)
Pictures to come!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Laughing Gas
I don't know what it was, but Avery was on one tonight. I was feeding her peas (yum) and all of the sudden she started laughing (and spat peas all over my face!). It was so funny! Everything I did would make her laugh. I'm glad someone thinks I'm funny. :)
You know, I think everyone with low self-esteem should get a baby. It's a sure way to feel better about yourself.
You know, I think everyone with low self-esteem should get a baby. It's a sure way to feel better about yourself.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Say aahhh!
Hello, my fellow mothers and fathers out there! This post is dedicated to you: the parents who spend countless hours trying to get a baby to open his or her mouth during feeding time.
I took this video of Nathan last night because I noticed that when he feeds Avery, he provides some great non-verbal encouragement for her to open her mouth. Just watch (Nathan didn't know I was filming):
I love how he not only opens his mouth, but he even sticks his tongue out!
I actually had to sneakily cough while turning on the camera (because it has a loud "power on" jingle) and then stay out of his direct eyesight while I recorded him. I felt like James Bond.
He initially didn't notice that he opened his mouth, so I tried everything to get him to notice when he did. He even told me to yell "FREEZE!" right when I notice that he opens his mouth, so he would notice it when it happened. We tried that many, many, times, but to no avail. So he told me to sneakily record him doing it so he could watch it. So I did. :)
The funny thing is is that I noticed that I actually do it, too!
It's so funny! So now I just have to know, do any of you do the same thing? If not, that's ok. We can still be friends. :)
I took this video of Nathan last night because I noticed that when he feeds Avery, he provides some great non-verbal encouragement for her to open her mouth. Just watch (Nathan didn't know I was filming):
I love how he not only opens his mouth, but he even sticks his tongue out!
I actually had to sneakily cough while turning on the camera (because it has a loud "power on" jingle) and then stay out of his direct eyesight while I recorded him. I felt like James Bond.
He initially didn't notice that he opened his mouth, so I tried everything to get him to notice when he did. He even told me to yell "FREEZE!" right when I notice that he opens his mouth, so he would notice it when it happened. We tried that many, many, times, but to no avail. So he told me to sneakily record him doing it so he could watch it. So I did. :)
The funny thing is is that I noticed that I actually do it, too!
It's so funny! So now I just have to know, do any of you do the same thing? If not, that's ok. We can still be friends. :)
Monday, March 8, 2010
Websites are easy things to mess up
We have been really busy which means we have lots of fun updates!!
Family History Expos and Fairs
This has been the week filled with Richardson Design events. We went to St. George last weekend and to Bountiful this past weekend to man our booth at some Family History Expos:
They are so fun! I love getting things ready for our booth: finding a matching tablecloth, a flower arrangement that matches the colors and style, and finding some nice-looking floor and table easels. However, after being away for two weekends in a row at the expo and the fair, I am more than ready to slow down again.
It was much less rushed than last year because we already had the posters, flyers, and business cards printed. But because I had more time to prepare, I started to dabble in things I probably shouldn't have; namely, PHP.
My Piece of Humble Pie
I had one of the scariest moments in my life last week before the expo. It was one of those moments where I tried to be helpful, but instead made a big mess at a very inconvenient time.
We were getting Nathan's new website prepped for the expo and I was having fun adding new widgets to make it look really snazzy. Nathan told me the day before, "Just make sure you don't mess with the php (complicated website code stuff) because that can really mess the website up." I told him I had been doing little things here and there, and nothing had happened. So I told him that I'd be really careful anyway.
The widget I was working on wasn't functioning correctly, so I decided to edit the php template, like I had done before. I pasted, and then deleted the little line of code, and clicked "Update Site." For some reason, the site didn't like that I had inserted, then immediately removed the code. I got an error message saying that a "fatal error" had occurred. That word "fatal" made my heart drop into my stomach. I tried to go back on my browser so that I could "undo" my edit, but all of the sudden, none of the website worked. I couldn't even log in to edit the site. I even tried going to my browser history and going to my previous pages, but to no avail.
Every time I typed in http://richardsondesign.org in the browser, the same "fatal error" message came up (in fact, if you add the "www." in front of richardsondesign.org, you'll see the error message I got...currently it only works if you skip the www. and just put in http://richardsondesign.org). I called Nathan at work and left a message on his voicemail telling him to call me ASAP. I spent the next 4 hours trying to fix my mistake before Nathan called back. I was dreading having to tell Nathan that I had done precisely what he had warned me NOT to do. Luckily, one of Nathan's old roomies answered his phone and he helped me get the website restored to almost normal-working order (thanks, Mike!).
When Nathan got home, I approached him like a little puppy with my tail between my legs. I told him what had happened. He didn't do anything except just hug me and tell me that the site would be fine (which it was). No scolding, even though I deserved it. Not that Nathan ever scolds me, but I thought for sure that'd be the only way any normal human would handle such a bad mistake.
Basically, it was a very fun week with lots of scary moments, and a nice husband to share them with. :)
We still can't actually log in to the site to make changes, but hopefully that will get resolved soon. I just won't be the one playing with php trying to fix it!
Hosting an Interfaith Dialogue
Yesterday Nathan and I were able to host an interfaith dialogue at our house with a dozen evangelical students from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and a dozen BYU students.
It was really fun to talk with them. Evey time we have the dialogues, we always wish we had more time discuss and ask questions. Time always flies! It was actually the first time we have held them at our house. We barely had enough seating, so my assignment for this week is to go purchase more folding chairs for the next time we host a dialogue. :)
Avery's Love of Splashing
Avery update: We realized we've never take pics of Avery at bath time, so here they are!
Avery loves to splash. :)
Family History Expos and Fairs
This has been the week filled with Richardson Design events. We went to St. George last weekend and to Bountiful this past weekend to man our booth at some Family History Expos:
They are so fun! I love getting things ready for our booth: finding a matching tablecloth, a flower arrangement that matches the colors and style, and finding some nice-looking floor and table easels. However, after being away for two weekends in a row at the expo and the fair, I am more than ready to slow down again.
It was much less rushed than last year because we already had the posters, flyers, and business cards printed. But because I had more time to prepare, I started to dabble in things I probably shouldn't have; namely, PHP.
My Piece of Humble Pie
I had one of the scariest moments in my life last week before the expo. It was one of those moments where I tried to be helpful, but instead made a big mess at a very inconvenient time.
We were getting Nathan's new website prepped for the expo and I was having fun adding new widgets to make it look really snazzy. Nathan told me the day before, "Just make sure you don't mess with the php (complicated website code stuff) because that can really mess the website up." I told him I had been doing little things here and there, and nothing had happened. So I told him that I'd be really careful anyway.
The widget I was working on wasn't functioning correctly, so I decided to edit the php template, like I had done before. I pasted, and then deleted the little line of code, and clicked "Update Site." For some reason, the site didn't like that I had inserted, then immediately removed the code. I got an error message saying that a "fatal error" had occurred. That word "fatal" made my heart drop into my stomach. I tried to go back on my browser so that I could "undo" my edit, but all of the sudden, none of the website worked. I couldn't even log in to edit the site. I even tried going to my browser history and going to my previous pages, but to no avail.
Every time I typed in http://richardsondesign.org in the browser, the same "fatal error" message came up (in fact, if you add the "www." in front of richardsondesign.org, you'll see the error message I got...currently it only works if you skip the www. and just put in http://richardsondesign.org). I called Nathan at work and left a message on his voicemail telling him to call me ASAP. I spent the next 4 hours trying to fix my mistake before Nathan called back. I was dreading having to tell Nathan that I had done precisely what he had warned me NOT to do. Luckily, one of Nathan's old roomies answered his phone and he helped me get the website restored to almost normal-working order (thanks, Mike!).
When Nathan got home, I approached him like a little puppy with my tail between my legs. I told him what had happened. He didn't do anything except just hug me and tell me that the site would be fine (which it was). No scolding, even though I deserved it. Not that Nathan ever scolds me, but I thought for sure that'd be the only way any normal human would handle such a bad mistake.
Basically, it was a very fun week with lots of scary moments, and a nice husband to share them with. :)
We still can't actually log in to the site to make changes, but hopefully that will get resolved soon. I just won't be the one playing with php trying to fix it!
Hosting an Interfaith Dialogue
Yesterday Nathan and I were able to host an interfaith dialogue at our house with a dozen evangelical students from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and a dozen BYU students.
It was really fun to talk with them. Evey time we have the dialogues, we always wish we had more time discuss and ask questions. Time always flies! It was actually the first time we have held them at our house. We barely had enough seating, so my assignment for this week is to go purchase more folding chairs for the next time we host a dialogue. :)
Avery's Love of Splashing
Avery update: We realized we've never take pics of Avery at bath time, so here they are!
Avery loves to splash. :)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Geekfest
We had a fun and interesting weekend. BYU holds an annual sci-fi and fantasy symposium called "Life, the Universe, and Everything."
It's a three-day event with classes from morning until evening about every topic under the sun: creating realistic monsters, how to write a strong female character in a medieval setting, incorporating romance into your plot, how to build a culture, etc.
Some of the past presenters have been Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson (author of the final book in the Wheel of Time series). So it's pretty much every sci-fi/fantasy fan's dream: three days of swapping ideas and learning ways to improve your writing from people who really know what they are talking about.
For the past four years, Nathan has taught a class entitled "How to create a realistic fictional language." This year he taught two one-hour classes with a linguistics professor, Dirk Elzinga.
Caption: "How many of you have ever wanted to kiss Galadriel or Arwen?"
Every year we go, I feel a little out-of-place for two reasons: (1) I have never read a sci-fi or fantasy book (let's be honest—I've never even seen Star Wars), and (2) I don't wear capes. There were lots of ... interesting (that's the most diplomatic word I can think of) people attending, as there have been every year we've gone.
When we broke up into groups during Nathan's class to fill out a worksheet together, I got a pic of the group I worked with. The guy wearing the hat in the picture below had memorized the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), filled our the worksheet in the characters of the IPA, and had already made up most of his own language. He said it sounded like Tolkein's elvish. Wow.
What does the International Phonetic Alphabet look like? Glad you asked. I wasn't sure myself, so I had to Google it. It's basically a way of writing every sound your mouth can make. Each distinctive sound has its own character. Here's a sample of what it looks like (click on it to see it in its full glory):
We asked Avery what she thought of of all the people dressed in their costumes (heck, maybe they're not costumes; maybe they wear it every day). Here was her non-verbal reply:
Speaking of Avery, for a couple weeks she did this funny thing with her leg. When she was in her car seat, her leg would inevitably lift up. And stay there ... for the entire time she would be in the car seat!! It was so funny, so of course we couldn't resist taking a pic.
Important update: I never did win the Valentine's Day drawing. Bummer. I really thought I felt some good chi, or karma, or whatever. :) Oh well, that won't stop me from entering more drawings! Our next project is getting Nathan's website finished so we can go man a booth at the St. George Family History Expo in a couple of weeks!
Oh, and Nathan just reminded me that I have read two sci-fi/fantasy books: Twilight and Ender's Game. Oops. *Blush*
I learned so much at the symposium this past weekend that I've decided that my next post will be written in my new fictional language. I was thinking of writing about spincy wouncers, but I might not because snorgle glakket chumble spuzz.
It's a three-day event with classes from morning until evening about every topic under the sun: creating realistic monsters, how to write a strong female character in a medieval setting, incorporating romance into your plot, how to build a culture, etc.
Some of the past presenters have been Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson (author of the final book in the Wheel of Time series). So it's pretty much every sci-fi/fantasy fan's dream: three days of swapping ideas and learning ways to improve your writing from people who really know what they are talking about.For the past four years, Nathan has taught a class entitled "How to create a realistic fictional language." This year he taught two one-hour classes with a linguistics professor, Dirk Elzinga.
Caption: "How many of you have ever wanted to kiss Galadriel or Arwen?"Every year we go, I feel a little out-of-place for two reasons: (1) I have never read a sci-fi or fantasy book (let's be honest—I've never even seen Star Wars), and (2) I don't wear capes. There were lots of ... interesting (that's the most diplomatic word I can think of) people attending, as there have been every year we've gone.
When we broke up into groups during Nathan's class to fill out a worksheet together, I got a pic of the group I worked with. The guy wearing the hat in the picture below had memorized the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), filled our the worksheet in the characters of the IPA, and had already made up most of his own language. He said it sounded like Tolkein's elvish. Wow.
What does the International Phonetic Alphabet look like? Glad you asked. I wasn't sure myself, so I had to Google it. It's basically a way of writing every sound your mouth can make. Each distinctive sound has its own character. Here's a sample of what it looks like (click on it to see it in its full glory):
We asked Avery what she thought of of all the people dressed in their costumes (heck, maybe they're not costumes; maybe they wear it every day). Here was her non-verbal reply:
Speaking of Avery, for a couple weeks she did this funny thing with her leg. When she was in her car seat, her leg would inevitably lift up. And stay there ... for the entire time she would be in the car seat!! It was so funny, so of course we couldn't resist taking a pic.
Important update: I never did win the Valentine's Day drawing. Bummer. I really thought I felt some good chi, or karma, or whatever. :) Oh well, that won't stop me from entering more drawings! Our next project is getting Nathan's website finished so we can go man a booth at the St. George Family History Expo in a couple of weeks!Oh, and Nathan just reminded me that I have read two sci-fi/fantasy books: Twilight and Ender's Game. Oops. *Blush*
I learned so much at the symposium this past weekend that I've decided that my next post will be written in my new fictional language. I was thinking of writing about spincy wouncers, but I might not because snorgle glakket chumble spuzz.
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