2 More to Check Off the List

So I just finished the second of two home improvement projects I have yet to post about. And by just, I mean like 10 minutes ago. What started as simply re caulking the tub before Doug and Meagan arrive for Thanksgiving turned into a slightly larger project. Oh ya, Re tiling the floors. I love the way this turned out!!! So much better than the old linoleum. Before you think I am totally crazy, this is just the sticky tiles. I was able to complete the project in about 2 hours, spending a majority of the time around the toilet and in the door frame. I know, shocker. Anyhow, here it is. I have enough of this to complete my other two bathrooms and I am pretty sure that will be my first new years project :)

Project number 2 I finished about 2 weeks ago. I worked on the family room painting for about a week and a half which is the longest it has ever taken me to paint a room. This was for several reasons. 1 - Priming and then painting paneling stinks. 2 - I needed Jacob to move the entertainment center which meant I couldn't do it at 4 am when I finished the paneling. 3 - The wall behind the computer desk needed a lot of tender loving care. It used to have a built in which we tore out promptly after moving in. I am glad you can't see to closely in the picture. I did my best but I am no professional mudder. Anyhow, I have to give a shout out to my Mom for helping me pick the colors. I love them!!! Especially the rich creamy brown for the feature wall.

My Newest Love

Back in April I bought a new Bernina sewing machine. It is not the fanciest machine, in fact, it is pretty close to the bottom of the line when it comes to Bernina's, but it is miles ahead of my old sewing machine. I could go on and on about how great this new machine is. There are so many things to love about it, but my absolute favorite thing about it - I can free motion quilt with it!!!!

I started making quilts about 5 years ago and I instantly fell in love with it. I can honestly say I have lost track of how many I have made. I love piecing tops together but once the piecing was done there was always the task of having to tie it together. That isn't as fun for me. I started with just normal tieing, then I tried to spruce it up with some buttons, and then I got daring and started doing some straight stitching with my old machine, but all in all, it was never quite the finish look I was hoping for. I mean, they look cute and all, just not as cute as the ones you see in the magazines that are all quilted and adorable.

Well that is all in the past now!! I love, love, love, free motion quilting. I don't think I will ever tie another quilt. It is so much fun to quilt them with my machine. I also feel pretty lucky because it seems that I have caught on to rather quick as the projects I have finished are looking better and better with not so much practice. I have even started to branch out and attempt to make flowers and vines in my stitching, and it looked pretty good if I don't say myself.

So here is a shout out to anyone that I have tied a quilt for, if you would like it quilted, send it back. I would be happy to quilt it up. I know, I know, you are all going to say that you love them just the way they are, but I know that I love the quilted look like a million times better and if you want it, its yours :)

Here are my free motion projects so far. There will be more to come in the near future as I have a few more projects in the works.

Picture Update

So once again I find myself getting behind on all the things I want to blog about and have to resort to a picture update. I will try to keep the details to a minimum to avoid an enormously long post (again).

The Primary Program was a few weeks ago. This was the kids before church. Spencer's part was quite large and had quite a few large words in it as well. He was the first child to speak and said his entire part from memorization. He did so well and Jacob and I were both really proud of him. Jessi followed and unfortunately did not have such a great experience. She started saying her part and got 4 words into it when she realized that she had started with the second line of her part. That's when the tears started flowing. She managed to get through it with the help of the Primary President and got a lot of Ohh's from the congregation.

Kami learned to crawl forward in the last week. She is pretty happy about it. So is mommy and daddy. We were all getting pretty frustrated with going backwards.

Jacob had his last night of call at the old hospital. The family joined him for a few hours to celebrate. He is pretty excited to never have to sleep at that hospital again and is looking forward to the nice new sleep rooms at the new hospital. Well, as much as anyone can look forward to spending 36 hours straight at a hospital.

We have a rather large tree in our front yard and a rather large tree in the back yard to match. As you can see, there was a lot of raking to be done this year. We tried to turn it into a family fun

activity, which wasn't completely unsuccessful.

We threw all of the leaves into our garden pad. Followed by the kids.

Then the real fun began. Hours of it!!

We were truly blessed to have Grandma and Grandpa Corry here for a few days at the end of October. I didn't take near enough pictures but Jacob did manage to get his long awaited picture of the Utes Bowl Game tribute at the College Football Hall of Fame.

After the Hall of Fame we headed over to the Studebaker Museum. Then it was a quick dinner and before you knew it it was time to get ready for Trick or Treating. (This picture was from the night of our trick or trunk actually, so Nader's costume will be different in the final picture. He traded with a neighbor and both of them were pretty happy about the trade)

Trick or Treating was awesome!! I think I need to have grandparents during every major holiday. The kids loved that they could each go at their own pace because they each had an adult to stay with them. I got Kami, easiest job ever!! They trick-or treated the entire 2 hours and yes, we still are working through this candy mound.

Thanks again Mom and Dad for coming to visit!!! It was so much fun to have you here and we are looking forward to seeing you again soon.

So that is the update!! I am hoping to keep up on posting but I make no promises :)

Enjoying the Ride

When I was young we would travel to Canada each year to visit my Mom's family. We started at 3 am and drove as far as we could. We didn't stop at landmarks, we stopped at the same gas stations each trip and you learned to "hold it" until we got there. These trips were all about the destination, Grandma and Grandpa's house, and not so much about the drive.

I have been thinking and am starting to see that in my personal life I might be all about the destination and not so much about the drive. And I am feeling like I might need a bit more balance.

Lately I have been told that I am an "Over Achiever" by quite a few people. I take this as a wonderful compliment as I wouldn't have it any other way. I have a very high expectation for myself as well as for my children, and lets face it, my husband too.

As I lay down each night I plan out in my mind what I will accomplish the next day. This normally includes some mixture of the following. Big things like home and sewing projects. Household things like sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets. Errand things like the all detested grocery shopping. And finally kid things like teaching them, feeding them, playing with them, and loving them. So normally my day is a juggling act, Whose isn't?

It is probably a little crazy that I try to shove all of this into my life. I function best when I have a million things to do. I love being able to mentally check of completed things and it drives me a bit nuts when I don't finish what I had planned for the day. (Probably my touch of OCD coming out there.) I just love getting things done and love it even more if I happened to "go the extra mile"!! It gives me a great sense of accomplishment and makes me feel good about myself.

With that being said, I have been coming to the realization that often in my drive to finish things and not leave something half done, I tend to get lost in the completing and forget to enjoy the doing. I think this tends to apply to every facet of my life. Now I am not saying that I now detest the person that I am, but I am saying that I want to try to learn to get as much joy out of doing my daily tasks as I do completing them. I remember in Conference last year one of the apostles spoke on having Joy in the Journey. So that is my goal for this next month. To try to focus more on just Enjoying the Ride.

Just Run

There are a lot of things I like to do (you already know of some of the things I don't like to do). One of those things is running. I ran cross country and track in high school, though I didn't enjoy it too much then. I love it now.

As any of you who have read here know I struggle with depression and anxiety from time to time. Recently it had gotten pretty draining on me. For the past 5-6 months Melissa and I have been batting around the idea of getting on antidepressants. I've been on meds before and they work great, but I'm not too keen on the side-effects. I'm not talking about the side-effects that perk everyone's interest more the manner in which I lose some of my spontaneity especially with the kids. The withdrawal symptoms when I got off weren't too pleasant either.

About two months ago one of the Psychology PhD students in the ward gave a lesson on depression in our combined priesthood/RS meeting in church. Among other things he talked about a study that compared Exercise to SSRI's (a class of antidepressant drugs). The results of the study showed that those patients who exercised had better outcomes than the SSRI group or the group that was getting exercise and an SSRI. I don't know how valid this study was. I don't know if it's worth anything at all, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Melissa and I kind of decided that we would give the exercise thing a try and if that didn't work I'd still be able to start meds before the snow flies (winter is not a pleasant season for me).

I've been running pretty consistently for about a month and a half now and it is wonderful. I tend to run in the evenings so that I don't have to carry my pager with me. Any emergency that ocurs when I'm not on call can wait for 45 minutes. I have run with my pager a few times (during the lunch hour or after a short surgery day) and two of those times I have had to return home early to answer a page. Verizon doesn't make runner friendly phones anymore, they all have to have stupid keyboards on them making them huge (this is the fault of you texters out there, you know who you are).

Melissa has been great letting me go out for a run each evening when I get home. After which I am refreshed and happy and I figure 2 good hours with the kids each night is a lot better than 3 stressful hours.

Yesterday one of my friends from high school (actually one of the one's that's pretty high on that list I talked about the other day) sent me an email about a 50 mile relay in December. He does this from time to time with marathons and I always say no, but I thought about it and then I went out for a 6 mile run. It was a great run. I came back and said I'd do it.

In all my running back in high school I never understood the runner's high. I do now. When I'm out running everything in the world is right. My cares seem to fade away and I can think clearly. It doesn't hurt that Notre Dame is just 2 miles from my front door. There may not be a better place to run that ND campus.

I have some exercise aspirations that I want to achieve. I've always wanted to do a triathlon, but truth be told I could probably do that tomorrow (they have some pretty short one's these days). I've never wanted to run a marathon, in fact I have been vehemently against them in the past, but now I think I may want to do one, maybe in 7 years or however long it takes me to draw out in the St. George Marathon. After that maybe I'll be looking to do a half ironman or maybe even a full someday.

I'm looking forward to December 5th. Thanks for the opportunity J.

"Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'" - Peter Maher, Irish-Canadian Olympian and sub-2:12 marathoner

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going." - George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

"We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves...The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable." -Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile

"Running long and hard is an ideal antidepressant, since it's hard to run and feel sorry for yourself at the same time. Also, there are those hours of clearheadedness that follow a long run." -Monte Davis