Tuesday, January 31, 2017

New Contacts

My contact seriously ripped, and I had to wear my glasses today.  I FINALLY heard from Costco that I could come pick up my trial pair, so it was excellent timing.


I also was able to get my prescription, so I can start checking out the least expensive option for purchasing a larger supply of them.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Artichokes

I had eaten artichokes maybe ONCE before last summer, when Jonathan introduced me to the exemplary vegetable.  I certainly don't remember them being as delicious as I find them now!  They are especially easy to cook in a pressure cooker, eliminating the almost hour it takes to steam them in a regular pan.  Whip up some melted butter with fresh lemon juice and you've got a tasty treat that is totally on diet!


Which, by the way, is going really well.  I am truly astounded at my not eating sugar of any kind for almost a week now.  It is truly unheard of for me.  I have discovered different carb free sweeteners, and recipes for making treats with other kinds of flours, and it's just not the same.  But I am going to stick with it, and look forward to carb night!

Friday, January 27, 2017

Check Ups

The girls went in for their check ups today.  It was very routine, and they are all growing nicely.  Mimi is still super tall for her age, Mac seems to be slowing down a bit, and Leiden is still pretty petite.  They are other wise healthy and developing as they should.


I mentioned to the pediatrician that we've been struggling with Mac lately, and talked with him for a bit about how we think she has some anxiety issues.  He seemed fairly unconcerned, but expressed that he was pleased we were looking into a therapist for her, and gave me an anxiety checklist.  It made me a little bit sad, as she qualifies for many of the markers, but it wasn't anything I didn't already know.  We will get her the help she needs and all will be well.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Running

Winter is so hard to get exercise in, and the girls, me, and Jonathan have been sick, so there has been way more chicken vegetable soup than exercise!  It felt good to get out and get my heart rate up.  The snow scares me a little because I don't want to slip and fall, but I managed to get through it with no accident.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Crazy Hair Day

It's Spirit Week at the elementary, which means crazy hair day!  I kind of forgot about it, and didn't want to go buy colored spray just for today, so last night I looked on Pinterest and found a gazillion great ideas, but I had no time for most of them.  Then I found one that uses washable finger paint mixed with a bit of shampoo, and this idea was born.


Crazy hair style with different colors all over.


They each kind of took a section of the rainbow, which was nice.  It made them different.


They were very excited to have me painting their hair with real paint!  The best part?  It washed right out in the bath this afternoon!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

New Beginnings

    More snowiness today.  Even when it's not a huge storm dropping inches of snow everywhere, we've had a fair few days where it's just lightly snowing.  I had lunch with Jonathan up at his new building, and you can really see the snow fall as you look out across the valley.  I should have taken a picture of that, but settled for this (terrible!) picture looking up into Parley's Canyon.


Tonight was New Beginnings for the Young Women.  As Leiden turns 12 this year (!), she was invited and introduced to the other young women and leaders.  I am SO excited for her to be able to participate.  The theme this year, as she enters is from James 1:5-6, which reads, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  But let him ask in faith nothing wavering.  For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."  Such wonderful scriptures, and so often verse 6 is left out of the discussion...let him ask in FAITH.  We ask, then we have the faith to listen to the answer.  To wait for the answer.  To accept the answer.  It was a wonderful night, where the spirit was felt in abundance.  She's pretty excited, too!

Monday, January 23, 2017

Homework: Bake a Cake

Mac has been very excited about a bit of homework she has had.  She had to choose something to teach the class, then do it, provide pictures to help instruct them, then write down the how-to.  It was a really cute idea, and she chose to bake a cake!


I supervised, but she did all the work.


She chose a jelly roll cake, so after it came out of the oven, she had to roll it up to cool to prevent cracking later.


After it was cool, she spread raspberry jelly over the cake and rolled it up again!


Cut into slices, and sprinkled with powdered sugar!


She was able to take her cake to school, and while the kids weren't allowed to eat any, due to it being homemade, she enjoyed showing off her masterpiece.


I know I had some pretty cool homework assignments and projects, but I'm pretty sure I never got assigned to make a cake!


On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, Jon, since I met him last year, has been off and on, but mostly on a ultra low carb/high fat diet.  Lots of meat based protein, tons of fats...butter, oils, and very little bread/sweets/sugar.  He has been coming over for dinner pretty much every single night now for about a month, and I finally decided I would join him and see what it's all about.  Apparently this diet burns fat like crazy, even though you're eating a ton of fat.  Carbohydrates are what cue cells to store fat as fat.  If they are deprived of carbohydrates, the body is actually able to use fat as a fuel source, hence the high fats required to maintain energy for the diet.  I am by no means overweight, but I was interested to see if I would see changes in my body as it burned fat and I worked to maintain muscle and other lean body mass.  There is an orientation period of 10 days, at the end of which we get to have carb night!  This is literally what feels like a cheat binge...a prolonged 8 hours in which you eat all sorts of carbs.  This tricks the body into releasing even more fat cells for energy, and then the cells are destroyed, which means they can't store fat anymore.  Then the next morning it's back on the horse for another 5 or so days, and rinse and repeat.  I know I have been addicted to sugar for some time, so I'm under no delusion that this will be easy!  But I'm excited for the challenge and to see what improvements I can make to my body.

Today was day one, so here goes!  First carb night is February 3!  I am honestly completely surprised I made it through a day without sugar, which is all the more reason to take this eating plan on!

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Sundays

It's a cold day outside, and that means herbal tea!  I am always so intrigued by the different flavors and brands.  And then they smell so good...and then they taste so WEAK.  I have taken to literally putting three tea bags into a normal mug of boiling water.  That's about right, strength wise!


Master Thomas is THE CUTEST!

Saturday, January 21, 2017

More Snow

It seems like it has snowed a lot this year.  More than in other years.


That means me again out shoveling, and not needing to visit the gym!  I usually only shovel what of the driveway I need to to get out of the garage without smashing snow, and then I call it quits!


The girls have gone outside and played, but I feel like that has gone down this year.  They are growing up and it's kind of sad!

Friday, January 20, 2017

Midway Ice Castles

Today was the inauguration of our new President, which has been hotly contested and protested by many.  I'm not sure when they just get over their tantrums and deal with the fact that he IS our president, like him or not, but whatever.  It just seems a waste to focus so heavily on something you don't like.  Go spend your time doing something useful that will better your own little corner of the world.


I did some more playing with the resist medium today.  I think I just really don't like the thick stuff straight out of the bottle.


But the idea is still really cool.  I like Mad and Joni's faux envelope better.  It's a struggle to get clean lines with the thick tip, and even harder to get thicker downstrokes without using a ton of the medium.


This evening we met Jon's sister, Tara, and her husband, Dustin up at Midway for the Ice Castles.  It is SO COOL to be up there at night when they are all lit up.


The girls had a great time wandering, and thankfully everyone was warm enough, and no one got hurt!


The lights all change colors intermittently, and there are tons of cool little benches and ledges to take pictures on.


Also many alcoves to hide in!


It was horribly backlit, but they had fashioned an ice throne.  It was pretty amazing in its intricacy.  I wish I could have gotten a better picture of it.


We had a great evening as a family!  I'm so glad we came up!

Thursday, January 19, 2017

I discovered, through the fabulous encyclopedia that is the internet, that you can literally use a nib and holder to calligraphy the resist onto paper!  You have to thin it out with just a bit of water, but then it works wonderfully, just like ink.  Even the tiniest little hairline upstrokes of resist medium keep the watercolor off, so I'm imagining some pretty cool applications for my shop!

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Time for some dental work.  I hate this so much, but it must be done.  And then hopefully nothing for another 6 months!!


I saw a really cool new calligraphy technique I have been wanting to try, so I got some of the stuff I needed to try it.  This is a resist medium that you lay down on the paper, let it dry, then paint over it with watercolor.  After the watercolor is completely dry, the resist rubs off, leaving white paper in whatever form you put the resist on!
 


I did a cute little thing for Valentine's.  I'm not sure I like the thick tip on the tube of resist...I'm used to tiny little nibs.  But it is still a cool idea and I will be looking into more ways to incorporate it.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

SWEET little Mimi had the job of loading the dishwasher.  I was pretty hesitant to have her do this job, but it was a classic case of me not giving the girls the space to do what they can do.  She did such a great job getting the dishes rinsed and put into the dishwasher.  I am so glad to see them working!  And I'm so glad that we have instituted this job chart.


Leiden had a balloon from something...I honestly don't remember where it came from, but she wanted to change her voice with the helium, so I let her try.  It was really funny!

Monday, January 16, 2017

Building the Aquarium Stand




With the aquarium sitting on the kitchen table, we needed to prepare the stand for the aquarium.  We started with the rough outline of an unfinished kitchen cupboard, and Jon made some modifications that will allow the filtration bin to fit inside of it, and for it to be strong enough to hold a filled 10 gallon aquarium.  This was exciting because Jon got to buy some new tools to compete the job!


Gluing and drilling and screwing...


Vice gripping...


all in the freezing cold of the garage in January.


He did an incredible job, and the bin fits!  We will get on painting the stand next!