the house

My camera is broken, so I took some video of the house.  I will try and get nate to take some photos on his phone tonight so we can document the transformation.

Mikah is taking her first real nap this week and I am supposed to be putting in our mail box.

My mother in law told me that there was nothing wrong with having a painter paint for your.  I thought it was just her way of getting out of helping us paint!! Ha ha.  I am so glad she suggested it.  We are having our whole house repainted inside (minus the doors which I will eventually replace).  It has been stressful enough living in a barley furnished house with all of our belongings in the shop while dealing with the little ones at home.  I cannot imagine trying to paint on top of it.  I am also grateful for our shop.

Here are the details on what is going on and what will happen:

• Dry wall guy came and did a lot of repairs, including taking down a useless wall in the girls room. 
• Painter is painting the whole place.  I choose a buttery yellow for the majority of the house.  Our lighting is so bad in here it looks different all over the place.  Once the place is put together I think I will be fine with it.  The bathrooms are a blue gray, but they are looking more blue than I expected.  Again, hoping for it to look better when it is all done. Jake's room will be blue too and Maesyn's room green.  It is Mikah's room too, but she has no opinion on the matter. 
• Had and are having 3 toilets and a pedestal sink installed.  The other toilets were all different colors. We also had the plumber fix some pipes and make our washer and dryer hook up.  
• Having the cabinets painted a creamy white.  We asked for a quote and it was too good to pass up.  We are glad we are doing it.  Our kitchen has dark wood floors and the white cabinets will brighten it up.  Eventually we will have a nicer counter top installed and a sub way tile back splash. 
• Having all the trim painted a bright white color.  
• We are also going to trim out all the windows with moulding.  Our windows are few and there are not many.  We will not do curtains in our house- we will have blinds in the bedrooms for privacy, and then my mom will make us sheers that will be held on with pressure bars for all the windows in the house.  
• When money allows us, we will put nice fancy covering on the big window in the front of the house.  For now, I'll try not to hang out naked there! 
• Clean up the yard.  We took out at least 8 bags of trash from inside the house and have a huge pile of stuff to garage sale.  They also left at least 40 bags of pine needles on the side of the house.  My kitchen window looks out over the garden.  It is a mess.  I'd like to have it full of planter boxes, but for now I can just clean it up. 
• Front yard landscaping.  My dad is good at that.  We need to trim our juniper bush and then re do the garden bed and remove the random flower beds in the middle of the yard.
• Put closet doors on the closets
• Install ceiling fans and replace ugly fixtures
• have our deck repaired (and eventually stripped and stained!)
• Put a garage door on the shop (in a while) and a back door on it. 
• and in about $3000 or $4000 we can re do our awful bathroom.  I'll have to post a picture. - but we will need a new furnace before that happens!  

Aw...home ownership. 

Identity... Who am I? Lost of things..

I would not say I struggle with knowing who I am.  It is not that I'm floundering not knowing.  The thing is, I cannot pin point just one thing.  Some are things that you can just tell with out really knowing me.. or you can assume.   These are probably amoung the most importaint:

• Mother (if you see me driving my mini  van or with my kids at the school or grocery store- I am usually with my kids). 
• Woman- obviously.  But you can tell that I am not a girlie girl, or a diva.  I generally don't wear make up, I do on Sundays- but still minimal and I am always comfortable.  I do love a skirt. 
• Wife- wedding ring tells it and I talk about Nate quite a bit.  I am happy to know that I am sealed to my family for ever.  I love them so much.
• Daughter- to my parents obviously. 

Other "lables" that I find to be importaint are:

• Daughter of God- We are all children of our Heavenly Father.  I don't think that we realize that of each other or of ourselves.  If we would identify with that label more often I think we would live our lives differently. 
• Family History Consultant:  This is my calling in Church.  It is really fun.  I don't even know if everybody in my ward knows that that is who I am.  My kids sure know and I like that. 
• A Mormon: I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

The Final ones, these are ones that sort of validate me.  I don't think that I necesssarly need to have these as the ones above should be enough to give me worth, as they are worth the most.  But these are little things that sort of make me feel a little proud of what I have done outside of the above.  I need to work on making sure that the ones above are enough to fulfill me.  But here goes my list:

• Artist/Potter:  I don't really think that I am that great of an artist.  I have a degree in Art Education and I'd say I know a lot.  I really enjoy pottery, but I would still consider myself a novice. 
• Runner/Athlete.  I've thrown the "Athlete" label in there just recently.  After training hard with purpose, getting faster and attaining a goal (a sub 4hour marathon), I feel that I could call myself that.  It sort of consumes me and it is something I really enjoy. I love the other athletic women I train with and who are my friends.  We often validate each other by pointing out our individual and collective accomplishments.  Aside from being dedicated runners/marathoners we are mothers and we sort of pride ouselves not only in what we have done as runners, but also in how we have taken this hobby of ours and done our best to make it have a minimal impact effect on our families. I cannot say it does note effect them at all (and some is good and some is bad) but in waking up at 4:30 several days a week to get our workout in before our family wakes is an action that comes up in conversation often.  That way we can do what we ejnoy, but not leave our family out.  (Sure we might need a nap later). 
• Gardener: This is failry new, I know very little and have only had a garden one year.  I don't know that I'd throw that around quite yet as a major label for myself. I don't want to get caught up in a conversation that I know nothing about.  For now I am learning- and have years of learning to go.
• Granola girl with gobs and gobs of fun:  I've often called myself this.  An all inclusive label for my love of being outside, camping, hiking at all the sort.  I hope to throw mountain biking in there next tax return.  I am a summer granolla girl.  I don't really like the cold and snow, nor do I have a passion for any winter sports (but I am willing to try snowboarding next year)

So, I guess if there were a photo to describe who I was- encompassing the important things to me it would be.

• Me after a dirty trail run, sitting down with my family to a recovery meal eaten out of a wheel thrown ceramic bowl.

The bitter sweet.

Before I complain about my stress levels and the pain it is to buy a house, I should begin my counting my blessings.  Well bulleting them.  By the way.  We close on Tuesday (hopefully)

• We found a house and are going to pay an awesome price for it.  Although it is difficult to sell a home in the econemy, we have have found a great deal. 
• Nate is employed.  After years of hard work (and 4 degrees) he has a great job that he is good at. 
• We are not living month to month and have saved money up for needed repairs in the house.  Now, we won't have the home in perfect condition right away, but we can afford some things right off that will make it seem "new enough" when we move in. 
• We are buying a short sale, that can come with lots of problems.  We have had problems but they are minimal. 
• We were able to qualify for a zero down loan.
• Our inspection was very detailed and found some problems with the home.  Most are minimal in expense and we will make a list of priority to have them fixed. 

Now for what we are dealing with and how I am doing - this is mostly for posterity and may not be very entertaining:
The House:

• Carpet.  We were not going to shop around and just go with the place that was recomended by the most people.  After we got our quote we realized we needed to shop around.  I was able to find a recomended installer and save us a few hundred dollars.  I also am ordering my carpet at a much cheaper price and getting better carpet.  I am saving over $11 a yard.  
• We are going to install comercial vinyl tile in our pantry and play room.  I got a better deal on install but I still want to make sure I'm getting a good price on the tile. 
• Paint.  After some  consult and adivice we decided to have a professional painter paint the house.  We are paining most of it yellow and the bathrooms blue and Maesyn's room green.  We are getting a great deal on Dunn Edwards paint.  I don't know what the cost will be yet, but I am going to save. 
• Dry wall.  We did not realize we needed dry wall work until our inspection.  There are lots of cracks and even holes that need paint and texture.  I have gotten 2 quotes and am unsure of who I will use. 

There are other things that need to be fixed.  Nate and I will make a list in order of priority and then when we have the funds/ time we will get to them.  These things, although cosmetic in nature, will give us a fresh entrance into the home.  There will always be something to fix, upgrade, make prettier.  I will try and post before and after pictures.  But for now I'm sick of going into the house.

The majority of this work needs to be paid via check, so no credit card.  My fix up budget incluedes funds  through the end of April...that would be fine if I could put it all on the old credit card (which would be paid in full at the end of April).  I cannot , so I have made a very primitive looking paper pencil list with current funts and then new funds and the dates we will have them. 3 pay checks in March is a bonus and then our tax return will be around 3 weeks after we sign and fax a document that sits next to me.  Although my credit card plan was a fine one (because the money was on its way) it is easy to get carried away with a credit card and end up will a bill much higher than expected.  This will keep us more on track.

The Loan:
We shopped around for a lender and believe that we saved by doing so.  We qualified for a loan that is income based.   In the mean time Nate got a raise, which is a good thing, but we have been fearful that it would disqualify us for the loan.  Doing so would mean we would have to do a loan with a down payment and set us back as we raised the funds.

Some hasty mistakes on our part made the lender have to do more research and set worry in me (not a hard thing to do). I paid my cc bill twice in one month resulting in deposits into my checking account from over draft protection and then a refund deposit.  With our loan we have to make under a certain amount of money each month, but you also cannot have too much money in your bank account.  So if you have too much money in savigns (in our case we were saving to do fix ups on the house) you could be disqualifed.  You just cannot win in some cases.

The lender is awaiting our latest bank statement and then we should hopefully be good to go.  If we don't get our loan we will have to come up with some cash quick and we won't have any money left in savings to do the wanted fix ups before moving in. 

My lender, while pretty confident that the loan will go through, advised me not to pay for any of the items or services we want for our home until we close.  Buying a short sale or forclosrue is risky. 

Our house we are renting:
I feel that the place is a constant dissater.  There are many causes.  1.  I am running errands and not home to do regular clean up. 2.  I am home, but on the computer, phone or something else and cannot prevent some extra messes (flour spilled all over the carpet) or simply don't get around to regular clean up so it piles up.  2.  I have time to clean up but am stricken with stress that I just do nothing (this is a huge low for me).
I have let my house hit a record low standard of clean.  I hope that that standard raises in the future and this is not my new benchmark.
We need to be out on the 31st or I am paying rent for all of April.  I am not willing to do this, so we may have all our our belongings in the garage and sleeping on matresses on old carpet while we await the work to be completed. 

My Children:
Maesyn: I forgot about her singing practice on Monday as I was meeting with a drywaller that I schedueld to meet with during her parent teacher confrence.  Her teacher gave me the condenced version.  She is tip top and way smart.  She also competed in Odysessy of the mind last weekend and did great!
Jake:  Although this is stressful, I have decided that I did not want to neglect my kids.  I have made an effort to continue play dates and park trips.  They have not been as frequent as they should, but they still happen.  I do not do well with other kids at the house and I sort of shut down, but I hope they do not notice my incompetence as a person and enjoy the play.  In the end I feel exausted with all that I'm doing in addition to tyring to keep up my regular duties.  Then I am resentful of the lack of gratitude in the end.
Mikah: She is not helpful, until she takes a nap and then she is very helpful.  Today while comparing paint samples with a friend Mikah climbed on my back and pulled my hair as if her goal was to rip fistfulls out of my head.  She is a camp at taking all canisters out of my cupboards and trash bags out from under the sink.

My Parents will be taking the kids next week.  Hopefully I can be very organized and productive during that time.

Nate: 
I put Nate in charge of the lender, but I am controlling and sort of take over things.  So he will communicate with the lender and then I have to find all the paperwork - but he faxes it.  Truth be told, because I have been in charge of all that stuff I know where it is and can find it with more efficency.  I have also tracked our money.  Nate is excellent at excel and if I gave him the chance he would do fine, but I've sort of been doing it so long and know where stuff is kept.  I'm sure he cringes at my primitive skills and sloppyness.

Heidi:
Well, most of this is about me.  In addition to the move that I sort of command, I am training for a race.  In the end I will have trained 18 weeks total.  I am supposed to get pleanty of rest and eat well these two weeks prior.  We will see. 

At ends...

Oh, please don't mistake this look on my face as patience, it is actually the look of surrender.  To be said to any nice older woman who might complement my "patience" as I "calmly" deal with my disruptive children. 

I feel like I'm sort of letting so many things go.  Gone is my weekly bathroom deep clean, and linen washing.  It is now more speradic, a wipe down with a clorox wipe, a dump of bleach into the toilet.  If Mikah pees all over her sheets (at least once a week) her whole bed gets washed.  And I do belive I manage to get the rest of the sheets washed every other week.  at least.  

Nate and I have not been sleeping in our regular room.  It is huge and hard to keep warm in the winter.  Instead, we have been sleeping on two mattresses in the small guest room.  Cozy and warm.  I sleep on the actual bed and Nate on the mattress on the floor.  Sometimes I let him join me for a second or two, but then banish him to his spot because my back would hurt if we slept the entire night in a twin bed.  Hooray for the normal sized Master bedroom in our new house!

As I type the two yongest are on top of the kitchen table where I type.  Mikah tries to close the lid on the lap top and throws the napkin basket on the floor.  She has been throwing pisctacho shells on the floor for the last 10 minutes.  I feel that I cannot do anything productive until she is asleep.  She is off to unload cans from the cupboards. 
The truth is, I could probably get something done with her awake, if I tried.  It would just be so much more stressfull and take 4 times as long.  I step forward 2 steps back.

I am explaining to myself that my lack of organizaion, cleanlieness, control is all due to the fact that we will be moving soon.  "Once we are settled in I will be better, cleaner, more organized."  I am hoping that is the reason, and that I truley have not let everything go.

On the positive side, I have not let it all go.  I am a running, exercising machine.   I am keeping up with my training, adding cross training, and trying to get at least 3 days of strenght training in each week.  I am also tracking my eating (not perfectly) on a website that counts my calories and fat  and carbs and protien for the day.  I am hoping to loose a few lbs and get to my ideal racing weight.  Only to dissapointment.  I will be a few lbs down and then jump up again.  I am more concerned with my body fat.  I once or twice will have it at 20ish and then just this morning I was back up to 22.3... as if I never started to change by diet.  (granted, I often go over my calories).  My goal is 18 percent.  Hopefully by the first week of October I will be there.

BTW- Boston Qualifing and registration is in the process of changing.  And it has streessed me out too.

OK,.. So I have given the excuse of the move as my reason for being a slob...but I must add.  I am taking a class on line and I'm taking a class at the community college, and I need to find a paitner, dry wall guy, carpet person.  And once we move I need someone to fix the deck and update the electrical.  I need to get a fence built and a garage door added, and a side door added, and I need to replace toilets, and I need to make a list..that is what I need to do.

All this and Nate is teaching another UOP class and he needs to run the surgery center...and I get streessed that he does not do enough with the house, but I should be greatfull that he puts up with me, and my stress, and although he sometimes has to work late, he never brings home his work stress with him.

OK.. the rant is over. 
And we will see if I can pull it all together.
And get things taken care of.
I love a good list.
And soon, whenever I can see Nate while I'm not overly tired... I will go over it with him.
And hopefully.
Feel better.

blend tec

My stake is doing an order for Blend Tec blenders.  The wild side package.  $269...normally over $400.  Let me know if you want one and I'll give you the info.  March 10th is the deadline to get your check to the person in my stake that is ordering!

Here is a link to the blender:
blendtec

private

So, i decided to look at my stat counter to see who has been looking at my blog. Well, one place showed up in peru, and the entry picture was of Jake on Christmas morning trying on his helmet. He had decided to sleep w/o a shirt. The time that that picture was viewed was over 2 minutes. Then i noticed that there were 7 times that people entered my blog based on that picture.
So...if you want to view my blog please let me know so I can give you permission. I'm going to make this private on Sunday. I don't have all of your e-mail addresses to invite.

Thanks.

Race Report: Ethan's run Half Marathon

Over the weekend I ran my 6th Half Marathon. And got a PR. I have a feeling that I'm going to be PRing all over the place because I never really tried to run well before... I just had that pride in the fact that I could run for a long long time. Now I run the same amount of miles, just in less time.
The course was nice and full of hills. I liked the variety, but did not enjoy the head wind and hill at the end. Every mile varied in pace from 7:48 in the middle to about 10:00 for that very last hard one. Disappointed in that.
My finishing time was 1:53..Average pace 8:36. I came in 10th for my age group and 51 over all (116 runners total).

Maesyn, Jake and Nate ran the family fun run. 1 mile. Maes was fast and Jake got in the stroller for a while and then got out and beat Maesyn at the end when she fell down. So he did not really beat her. A

After the race was a fun area for the kids. Bounce houses, face painting. etc.

Next month I will run the Canyonlands Half marathon. We will have trained for 18 weeks for the race. Most of my other marathons were just thrown into the training of my marathons with the exception of Whiskey row, I did that after I had Jake and trained...you know, just to finish. I was so unconcerned with my finishing time that we stopped to see what was moving in the bushes along the course.

I recall several years ago trying to run one 9 minute mile. It killed me. And to know that now I can run 13 of them in well under that. I have really grown as a runner in the past year, and it is very exciting.

Tour de Pee Vee- fall 2003 training for St. George
Flagstaff Half - fall 2004 training for St. George
White Mountain half- fall 2004 training for St. George
Whiskey Row Half- spring 2007- after Jake
White Mountain half- fall 2010- training for St. George
Ethan's run - spring 2011- training for Canyonlands half.

Mikah prays

Mikah has been watching us say family prayer. She does not participate much, she is just there. Lately she has decided that she can pray too. The kids will kneel down and then bow their head all the way to the ground. (it is a sort of lazy way to pray).. so Mikah has the idea that you need to be close to the ground. She will get on all fours and put her head to the ground and then mumble. The first part sounds like "Heavenly Father" and she will go on. I asked her to say her prayers while I was changing her pants this morning. She closed her eyes and stared out her little prayer. At church I told her to fold her arms because they were saying a prayer. Right away she went on to pray out loud!

Mikah also enjoys singing with the kids and with movies. She is a fan of spinning circles. I remember when Maes was learning to turn circles. She would look at us while turning (to make sure we were watching?) Mikah is spinning just for her personal enjoyment. She could care less if she has an audience. It is fun watching my kids grow.. and to see how they are so different.

body image of a 6 year old.

Recently Maesyn has made comments such as:
"This makes me look fat!"
and "Will this (peanut butter) make me fat? I don't want to be fat."
I asked her why she did not want to be fat and she said because it would make her look Nerdy.

We had a little talk about it. I told her that she did not want to get fat because it is not healthy. And that some people can be very thin and still unhealthy and some people can be bigger and are still healthy. We talked about eating the right kinds of food for your body, which led to discussions about the digestive tract. We also talked about getting enough of each type of food and made a chart for each kid that they could cross off when they eat foods from each of the food groups. (a box for each portion they had).

Her recent comments made me wonder if I might have put some of those ideas in her head. My comments about running so I don't turn into a "fatty" and such. I must say, my primary motivation in running is not because I do not want to gain weight (although, it is probably my very close secondary). If I only wished to be thin then I would probably do other exercises and have a really focused diet. I happen to love running and getting faster!

In the name of vanity, I have begun some other exercises to have a nicer bum and more defined arms. (however - i'd love to find some at home weight lifting that would also help improve my performance...faster faster).

Recently I have really be reevaluating my diet. I have been reading a book that talks about our racing weight (previous post) and how it can effect performance. This motivates me even further to get my body fat percentage down. Of course I will loose a few pounds and have a more athletic figure (bonus). We are eating more whole foods and I am tracking all of my calories. Primary purpose=optimize my performance! Other benifts= way healthier body, less fatigue, more energy and of course better physique.

Maes asked why we never have white bread. I explained that it is better to eat whole wheat. (and I am a big label reader- more so now than before- looking for things such as hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup- and 100% whole grains) I need to make sure that I use vocabulary that emphasizes the healthy benefits of our diet and being good to our bodies and make it seem that we do it all so we can be "skinny".

There is this big concern that young girls will develop eating disorders, but in America (and I'd have to research to get exact numbers)- our children are over weight, and I believe that over half of the population is obese.. and this extra weight is killing Americans.

I just need to make sure that I am maintaining a healthy home... both with nutrition, the way i treat my kids and the ides that I put into their heads (weather verbally or through my behavior)

Training Books

With so many books out there about running, it is hard to choose something to use as a guide line for training, nutrition, ect. I take a very scientific approach to it (haha).. when my friend Becky recommends a book, I usually buy it. It is nice to be on the same page as those you are training with. A husband of one of our running partners mentioned that Becky is the one that sort of cracks the whip in our group. I would say so. I think of her as the ring leader. She sends all the texts as far as where we will be running the next morning. Amy is the brains. She loves numbers and tracking her splits and telling us how fast we need to be running. Our program has pace, but we always ask Amy. She is the fastest by far, and really gets us moving. She trained with a coach and kept her notes. She is turning us on to our heart rate (well me at least- Becky is more experienced with it than I). I guess I would say I'm second in command. If Becky is out of town, then I'm more than willing to call the shots. Maybe I'm just bossy.

Here are some reads of mine.

I have not read this entire book. I will eventually ( i think I'll take it to Florida in May with me). We use an awesome pre race carb load plan from this book. I have read a lot of this book. The carb load really truly helped us at St. George last year!

I am devouring this book right now! I cannot wait to get through it. I want to perform my best this year and qualify for Boston. I have found that i'm in a good place with my wight and body fat. It is lower than over half the people my age. So I am just above the middle. Your peak performance weight is not where you want to be all the time. I need to loose 4.5% of my body fat and 6.5 lbs to be at that point. I am mostly concerned with my body fat percent getting down.. the weight will come with it (obviously). When you are not training it is fine to gain up to 8% of you peak performance weight. I am just 6.5 lbs over racing weight, so I should not be discouraged with my current weight. I am in training though. But i don't think I will ever really gain much higher than recommended. As it is with exercise. I do want to work on my diet. I don't think we will be having a year supply of white flour in our home. I cannot wait to read more about the nutrition part. Having a little more money will help (Nate's raise). I do have some concern though. I have hung onto about 5lbs for a while now. My weight is in an area that is harder to loose. I think changes to my diet will help. I am using livestrong.com to track my calorie intake and percentages of fat, protein and carbs I take in. I may change things as I get through the book some more, but tracking is an excellent way to stay on top of things and not over do it! I love sweets.
We are using this program for our training. It has programs with charts for every distance. And then individual charts to BQ (so you don't have to flip back and forth looking for pace). You run 3 days (speed, tempo, long) and cx 2 days. I am swimming. I throw in Yoga and some aerobic weight lifting at home (but I'd like to find a good book that focuses on cross training- specifically weight training) for runners. But something you don't need more than free weights to do. The 3 days of running is new to me. It almost killed me to go down to just 4. But the cross training helps to keep my fitness up and I know that this should prolong my running days! Less impact.

Our up coming races:
Feb 12- Ethan's run- 1/2 marathon. Just me- and not to race hard. The rest of the fam will do the fun run
March 19- Canyonlands 1/2 marathon. the girls. going for 1:45!
April - Pat's run (the family)?
Apil- Warrior Dash (nate and i)?
May Whiskey Row half ?
June- Pinedale run to the bridge...I just think i'll do the fun run with the family.
June - start training for st. george
September - white mtn. 1/2 marathon?
October st. george full marathon

lots of question marks...races cost a lot so i don't think we will do them all.. especially the ones with ? by them. the ones without are ones i believe we will do.