1 French Toast with syrup

2 sausage

Orange Juice

Cafe Rio sweet pork salad

Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich

Chocolate milk

I know that you all are DYING to know what I ate this week

Thanksgiving is all about family, food, and fun and we sure had all of that this week. In order to maintain at least some of my progress – I worked out every day and held off eating dessert all week until Thanksgiving day.

Tuesday was travel day:

Yogurt with Granola

Orange Juice

Delta’s Biscotti cookie & Pretzels

Balsamic Chicken Caesar Salad

White Rice

Assorted Thai dishes – served family style (panang curry, spicy basil, pad thai, cashew chicken, orange chicken, asparagus)

Pomegranate Greek Yogurt

Cup of Fruit (Pears)

Half Club Sandwhich

2 Pickle Spears

5 Baby Carrots

Half a Grapefruit

Mashed Potatoes

Spinach, Tomato, Feta Salad with Poppyseed Dressing

3 Stalks Celery with Peanut Butter

(Kind of random stuff – can you tell I was cleaning out the fridge before we leave town???)

Greek Honey Yogurt with Granola

1 Banana

5 Baby Carrots

1 Chocolate Chip Granola Bar (high fiber)

Hamburger

Grilled Asparagus

Fried Potato Slices

A few weeks ago, WE and I set a fitness challenge for ourselves. We wanted to exercise and diet enough to lose 50 pounds as a couple! I’m ready to lose all my baby weight plus want to feel healthy and energetic again. WE is along for the ride. When we lose 50 pounds, we are going to celebrate with a trip to Hawaii!! So I’ve got plenty of incentive besides just feeling great to get my butt in gear.

A few people recently have recommended that I try weight watchers. I’ve heard pretty good things about it. But instead of paying for the peer pressure (like what comes with doing group weigh-ins) I decided to let you all (my blog readers – who are really just my close family and friends anyway) be my peer pressure. So for the next few months – this might be all that I blog about. Sorry, you’ll get bored I’m sure. But just the idea that someone out there that I know might read this will hopefully be peer pressure enough for me.

So now on to the embarrassing (they say that the first step to changing is fully coming to grips with the problem). Until the beginning of November – the most exercise I was getting was maybe a walk with WEjr in the stroller once or twice a week (which also included my weekly Saturday lawn mowing). Pretty pathetic for someone who grew up running every morning and playing soccer, basketball, and racquetball. My eating habits have gone way down hill pretty much ever since the mission…and I wonder why I never got off that mission weight…ha! I’ve done better since having WEjr – but I’ve also gotten real used to eating out with co-workers for lunch and eating out quite a bit with WE for dinners too. There are a million good restaurants in Dallas and let me tell you – we know how to pick em!

On Oct 30, I weighed 160 lbs.

My goal is to lose 25 and get back down into the ‘healthy’ range for my age/height. Since October 30, I have exercised for at least 30 minutes, 5-6 times every week. I got a gym membership at my work and have been getting up a few minutes earlier every work day (4:25am) so that I can exercise – switching between cardio and strength training. Now that I’ve been doing that for three weeks – I’m anxious to keep off the 8 lbs that I have already lost and then continue to lose about 2 lbs per week. With the exercise in place – all I need to do now it watch what I eat and then I think I can reach my goal. That’s were this blog comes in. You all are going to “watch” with me. Starting tomorrow – every day I’m going to list on my blog what I ate. If I know I have to write it down like that – maybe I won’t eat it or eat less of it.

I’m still breastfeeding WEjr but will be fully weaning him during the course of this challenge. So it will be interesting to see if/how that factors in…

Overall, I’m committed to this challenge and may be obsessive (sorry WE!) about it for the next few months. Hawaii here we come!!!

WE got free tickets to see Brian Stokes Mitchell perform at the Winspear. Who is that, you might ask? Unless you are like WE – you probably have no idea. Although if you are an avid Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert goer – you might remember him…

He has a huge voice and huge hair to match.

I’m not a broadway buff like WE – but I can hang with the best of them. (Although I did have to roll my eyes once at a lady in the far back of the opera house that cackled so loud at BSM’s jokes that I thought to myself “She is either an overly zealous fan or else just REALLY tipsy from that drink line I saw out in the lobby.” Come on, his punch line wasn’t THAT funny.)

But I must admit – I really enjoyed the night out with WE. WEjr’s uncle Ben was watching him so that we could go to the show. I liked seeing WE’s eyes light up when BSM started to sing a Brazilian ‘list’ song (some of it even in Portugese). I giggled when WE couldn’t help belting out his own version of Man of La Mancha’s ‘Impossible Dream’ in the car on the way home.

Most of all – I fell in love with a new song.

It’s called ‘New Words’ and is a show tune written years ago by someone I didn’t recognize. It’s about a parent teaching their young child new words. Here’s the lyrics and a link to a video I found on youtube:

Look up there, high above us
In a sky of blackest silk;
See how round, like a cookie
See how white, as white as milk;
Call it the moon, my son, say moon
Sounds like your spoon, my son, can you say it;
New word today, say moon.

Near the moon, brightly turning
See the shining sparks of light;
Each one new, each one burning
Through the darkness of the night;
We call them stars, my son, say stars
That one is Mars, my son, can you say it;
New word today, say stars.

As they blink all around us
Playing starry eyed games;
Who would think it astounds us
Simply naming their names.

Turn your eyes from the skies now
Turn around and look at me;
There’s a light in my eyes now
And a word for what you see;
We call it love, my son, say love
So hard to say, my son, it gets harder.

New words today, we’ll learn to say
Learn moon, learn stars, learn love.

As soon as he sung the word ‘Moon’ I was hooked.

Because I love WE past the moon and WEjr more than the stars in the sky.

A2 – 953

WE – 290

Bam! WE has got some catching up to do. We are indexing and keeping tally as part of a regional church goal to index 1 million records by the end of 2011. We are trying to make sure our family does our part. In addition to our own family goal – we’ve had ‘indexing parties’ at our house for the youth to teach them how to get started.

The project aims to create searchable digital indexes for scanned images of historical documents. The documents are drawn primarily from a collection of 2.4 million rolls of microfilm containing photographic images of historical documents like this one below.

If you want to sign up, so to familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing - while this is a non-profit organization of our church, anyone can sign up to volunteer their time to help others find their family’s records

Today was the YW volleyball end of season tournament….

(more…)

Out of the night that covers me

Black as the pit from pole to pole

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud

Under the bludgeaning of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade

But the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid

It matters not how straight the gate

How charged with punishment the scroll

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul

Tonight WE and I were discussing the possibility that a current project at work might take me overseas for an audit. Right as we were talking logistics and if we could make it work, I opened my fortune cookie from dinner.