weekend

I hate how fast the weekends go by. And it's not like we did a ton of stuff, we mostly just sat around. But it still went by way too fast. Friday night we made a big dinner of meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes, yummy. We watched some Friends and just kind of relaxed. We did run over to my mom's quick so she could give Darren the low-down on fixing the fire for the next two weeks while she and Blair are in Hawaii, lucky duckies. Also ran up to Godfrey's and bought stuff to make cheesecake...mmmm...Oh, all day Friday I never even realized it was Friday the 13th...kind of weird since I was at work and writing the date down on stuff. I didn't notice until this morning but I guess nothing bad happened so oh well.

Valentine's Day we got up and made a big breakfast of blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, and bacon and kind of just hung around all morning and baked our cheesecake. We packed up some pop, chips, and hotdogs and went snowshoeing out behind our place since it borders the foothills. We had a little fire and roasted hotdogs. I haven't had hotdogs over the campfire since last summer, so it was fun. I did get a little cold while we were just sitting there, though. Darren made another batch of jerky when we got back and I took a warm shower and read my book. For Valentine's Day dinner we stayed in and had chicken kiev, rice, salad, and peas with our cheesecake for dessert. We drank a whole bottle of champagne and I never felt a thing until I just about fell asleep standing up. It just conked me right out. We finished up that cheesecake yesterday...good thing it was only a half recipe.

Yesterday we were lazy again and stayed home from church. We pretty much sat on the couch. My brother came over around lunch time and I did his laundry for him since Mom is gone. Darren went ice fishing with his boss in the afternoon and I relaxed and then did a new workout video, which I actually kind of liked. I got on the scale afterwards and it was not good (darn all that cheesecake!) so I'll be hitting the workout and slimfast pretty hard the next couple of days. Ugh. I'm bad at losing weight...

We don't have any plans for tonight. I put a roast in the crockpot this morning so at least I don't have to worry about dinner. I do really need to exercise when I get home from work. I've just been so tired lately. Not sure what's wrong with me. Sometimes I go through weird phases where I sleep a lot and then others where I don't sleep at all. I'm just like that.

Death

This is going to be kind of a sad, reflective post...

It all started as I was reading a friend's blog today. She was writing about losing one of her good friends a while back to a long battle with cancer. There was a link to her friend's blog, so I went there and read some of the last posts before she died. It was hard. I didn't even know her, but my close friend did, and I felt for her. It's scary knowing of someone so young dying of cancer. It makes it so much more real, so much more a threat. This brave young woman fought for a year and a half before she passed away and as I was thinking about that I realized how difficult that must have been for her family. To watch her suffer and slowly die. But then I thought, "at least they got a chance to say goodbye." It might sound morbid, but I went on to think about which would be the preferable way to die. Slowly, with lots of room for 'last times' and goodbyes, or suddenly, with no final 'I love yous'. And I couldn't decide.

My father died suddenly. One minute I believed him living and the next I was informed he had been dead for hours. And I felt a million things all at once, yet nothing at the same time. There were no goodbyes or I love yous, and there were no last times...only the ones I would look back on later and cherish as my last moments with him, unaware of the future. I think the shock of losing a loved one so suddenly makes for a longer grieving process. With slow deaths you have time to prepare, and in the end it always seems more like...relief--that they are finally in a place of no pain, that the long anxious waiting is over, that closure has been found and life will continue--than it does an overwhelming sorrow. There's no shock--that has already come and gone with whatever diagnosis led to this end. There's only quiet sorrow and the God-given overwhelming urge to continue life...to continue living.

It's times like these I do not know how I could survive without God. How do unbelievers weather the storm of life and death without relying on Him? To have no hope, no joy, and no future would be beyond my imagination. Even in death we as Christians know we have won. 1 Corinthians 15 is especially encouraging to me.

"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

(1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

If I had to choose between the two, I couldn't. Death is a horrible, yet necessary part of life, and we all must come to it eventually. To die suddenly is perhaps better for the dead, yet more difficult for the living, and to die a long painful death is difficult for both, yet offers final opportunities otherwise not found. In the end, it must be left to God. All we, all I, can do is trust Him.

laundry 101

Today's lesson: Do not wash ACUs with towels.

Darren had drill last weekend and his ACUs have been sitting on the floor since then so yesterday I finally decided to clean out the million pockets and wash them. He had me wash them before drill (not sure if they were dirty or what the deal was) and when I asked then if I could wash them with other things he said I probably shouldn't. So I listened...the first time.

Yesterday I threw his ACUs in the washer and figured I could throw some other stuff in there with them. Hate to do a load of wash and not take advantage of it. So I threw in some jeans and some of his work clothes and some towels. Well, the velcro on the ACUs destroyed them. I mean, they're still usable, but I had to take out the scissors and cut off all the strings after the velcro shredded them. Lesson learned. Ugh.

week 1 weight loss

Well the first week went pretty well, which is fantastic! The un-fantastic part is that most of that weight was just fluctuation since I was pretty high when I started. Oh well. I still lost 2.7 pounds! I told Darren he had to help me by making sure I didn't pig out on chocolate and got up to work out in the morning. So last night (I totally forgot I told him that) I went to grab a piece of candy and he practically tackles me in the kitchen and won't let me eat it! I was mad at the time but now I'm glad. And then this morning the alarm went off and I didn't want to get up to work out and he shoved me over and ripped off the covers and turned on the light. Then when I still refused to get up he tickled me until I relented. Annoying. But effective. So he's like my personal trainer now, I guess. I have managed to work out several days in the past week. I did cardio this morning before work and when I get home I'm going to do some strength training for a little bit. Then I have to clean the house. Ugh.

Tri Care

So Darren and I decided to get on the military insurance called Tri Care, which is actually really good. It's $180 a month for both of us and covers prescriptions 100% and has a low deductible. Bummer he can only have it as long as he's in the Guard, but hopefully by the time he gets out I'll have a job with insurance.

Anyway, we got married on the 24th of January so we had until the 31st (a Saturday) to get our marriage certificate, enroll me in DEERS, and apply for the Tri Care to be covered for the month of February. They stressed that we MUST have the application in by the 1st. We got back from our honeymoon on Wednesday and spent Thursday (the 29th) driving down to Little Falls to enroll in DEERS. Got that all taken care of, no problem, and the woman who was helping us said she could take care of Tri Care for us too. So she went on her computer and did all the application online and all we had to do was sign it and fax or mail it. Darren specifically asked her if we still needed to have it in by the 1st and she went on about how since the applicated was dated before the 1st, it would be okay as long as they received payment before the 10th.

We got home late Thursday and on Friday sent the application in by fax. Darren called them on Monday and they never got it so we had to fax it again. Well now they're saying that since they didn't get the application until the 4th we aren't covered until March 1. SO ANNOYING. After we made so much effort to make sure everything got taken care of before Feb 1. Ugh...ticks me off. Oh well. Hopefully I don't get in any traumatic incidents until March 1, because we'll be paying out-of-pocket. Dang it. It's less the fact that we aren't covered and more the fact that they claim to never have received our fax. But that's how the military is sometimes...

losing weight

I gained three pounds over the holidays and I haven't been able to lose it yet. Ugh. We're going to Grand Cayman on March 25 which is 49 days from now (exactly 7 weeks) if I did my math right. I want to lose 8 pounds between now and then. The three I've been up since Christmas plus another five to get to my goal weight. I've never reached it, but I've been within four pounds.

I read an article in one of my Bride magazines a while back about how most woman gain a lot of weight after they get married and that is NOT going to be me! I've already lost 35 pounds; you'd think 8 would be easy. Granted, it took me almost two years to lose that much weight...I'm slow. That worries me a little bit about losing 8 pounds in seven weeks. I'm going to have to hit it hard, I guess. Well, really I weighed about three pounds less a week ago and I KNOW I didn't gain three pounds in a week, so some if it is just weight fluctuation anyway. So hopefully it'll be more like 6-ish pounds.

I'm hoping keeping track a little bit on here will help motivate me. I've done fairly well eating today so far although I didn't get up and work out this morning like I should have. Maybe tonight. Yesterday I did cardio so today is strength training which is nice because it's something I can do while watching TV. With cardio I have to watch my little workout video but I have the strength training one memorized for the most part so I should be able to do it while we watch Friends tonight.

MRS

I guess life doesn't stop once you get married. Mine sure hasn't. I can't believe how busy the past week and a half has been! The wedding day just flew by--it was so crazy. It's all kind of a big blur, which makes me a little sad. I want to do it again because it was so much fun and I feel like I missed so much. Of course, on that day the only thing I really wanted was for it to be over. I was TIRED by about 8 pm and ready to call it a night. Plus my dress was suffocating me inch by inch.

Darren and I got all settled in our place, but I still need to do some cleaning. At least the place doesn't look like a disaster anymore. It did for several days but it's liveable now. Yesterday I made our first "traditional" after-work dinner and it turned out great. We watched several episodes of Friends (we're going to watch all 10 seasons but we're only on the first) and just took it easy. It was nice. Tonight we're having chicken fajitas for supper; Darren's in charge of those. :)