Updates

• I start a new job in a little over a week at SirsiDynix. They make the library database software that we used at the Harold B. Lee Library. I'll be a technical writer there, and will get to write their help manuals. It doesn't sound like much, but I'm super duper excited about it!
  
  
• The band I'm in, Milo, has been rocking it up lately. We had a show on the Saturday before Halloween, which was awesome despite my being sick. Most recently, we played in the battle of the bands at Muse Music last Tuesday, which was also totally awesome. There was a great energy there and we had a blast playing our music. If you haven't already, you should like us on facebook. (There's a link to take you to our facebook page-on the word Milo-but for some reason I can't get the color to change to be noticeable.)
  
  
• I started a new diet, and I've already lost 7 pounds in a little over two weeks. I'm hoping to be down 10 pounds by the end of the third week. You can read a little bit more about it in my health journey blog (link's right over there ----->). My goal for this diet is to have lost 40 pounds by my birthday at the beginning of March, and I'm thinking it's totally do-able. I only have 33 left to go!
  
  
• We have the Davis's coming down for Thanksgiving tomorrow. It's going to be a blast having everyone here. Although, I'm a little wary to cook a whole Thanksgiving meal in my uber-tiny kitchen. We'll see how that goes.
  
  
• Derby's been sick with a sinus infection for the last two months. We've taken him to the vet and he's been prescribed antibiotics, but it just doesn't seem to go away. I wish it would, because I really want to have him fixed so he'll stop being a stinker and peeing all over everything, but we need to wait for this to clear up before we can do that.

Happy Birthday Nicoley!

My baby sister turns 20 today! Weird... Sometimes I still think of her as being a little 8-year-old, mostly because I tried to mother her when we were younger. I'm only about 3 and 1/2 years older than her, but for some reason that makes me feel a lot older and responsible for her.

Growing up, it was just the two of us, and boy, could we fight. I was not a nice sister. I attribute this to two things. First, our radically different personalities, and second, the lack of another sibling to go to or to also fight with. Two was just not a good number in our house.

I'm happy to say that now Nicoley and I are the best of friends. She's the one I want to talk to when I'm bored. She's the one I want to hang out with when I have free time. She's the one that I can talk to about pretty much anything. Not living together has been great for us and our relationship. It's funny because when we have to be in close proximity to each other for extended periods of time again, we fall right back into our old habits. We took a three-day trip this last summer to go back home for my cousin's wedding, just the two of us, and we had a blast for the first two and a half days of it but after a full day of driving, a busy wedding day, and another full day of driving, we were mad as hell at each other. We spent the last almost five hours of the drive in absolute silence. It was weird.

Anyway, happy birthday Nicoley. You are the best sister in the world, and I love you so much. I'm so glad that we're friends now and that you laugh with me over the stupidest stuff. We really do need big neon signs on our foreheads to proclaim to the world that we're not crazy, just sisters.

Geographic Tongue

Some of you may know this about me, but I'm betting most do not. I have a condition known as geographic tongue. It sounds weird and guess what! It is! Basically the taste buds on my tongue don't grow correctly and they slough off and do all sorts of crazy weird things that make my tongue look like it has its own personal geography. Apparently this only affects about 2% of the world population. Aren't I special...

My case of it really isn't that bad. I have a funny looking tongue that mildly hurts most of the time, but it's not too bothersome. Out of curiosity, I was doing a little research on it the other day and I guess most of the people who have it are really irritated by it. I guess I've just learned to live with it. It's particularly painful after eating really citrus-y foods, and when I was younger I thought that everyone's mouth hurt that way after eating Sour Patch. I was wrong.

I will say that it's kinda cool to look at. If you ever want to see my crazy-looking tongue, just ask. I think people's reactions to it are really funny.

(I was going to put a picture up, but then decided against it. I wouldn't want to gross anyone out.)

Oh what do you do in the Autumn time?

I love the fall. I love the crisp cool air and the clear skies. I love the stormy days. I love the bright colors and the crunchy leaves. I love getting out my scarves and hats. I don't really love wearing real shoes, but I can get over it.

Last weekend, Cory and I went to a corn maze with my sister and Brianna and Michael Chambers. It was way fun. We went to the big corporate one out at Thanksgiving Point because I had a coupon. They charged extra for nearly everything, but the stuff we wanted to do was free so it worked out in the end. We went through a ton of mazes and got lost and went on a hay ride and watched a pig race and pumpkins being shot out of a cannon. There were way too many people there, but it was absolutely worth it.

Pictures!

It was a pretty good day.

I really should be over this by now

But I'm not.

My due date for my lost pregnancy was November 3rd. I know so many people that will be delivering right around that time. I can count six just off the top of my head and I'm pretty sure there are more. If you're one of these people I really am happy for you, really and truly. It's just hard to see my friends growing bellies and knowing there's a fresh new baby inside of them waiting to see the world. And knowing that should also be me.

It's hard. It's been about six months since I miscarried and we haven't been able to get pregnant since. Plus, now it's looking like we'll have to postpone the baby making so I can get a job while Cory finishes school. That's a hard realization to face when all I want to do is be a mother.

I'm sorry for being a whiner. It's just how I feel...most of the time. I'm getting better at controlling these emotions but they're always there, lingering under the surface. I don't know why I felt the need to share this with the blogging world again, but I did and I am.

I talked to my mom this morning about this. When I talk to my mom I always regress just a little bit and I complained about how it just isn't fair. She wisely told me that of course it isn't fair. We understood that before we came here. We knew life would be hard and that things wouldn't always work out the way we want them too, but we chose this anyway. Deep down I know this. I know that life is meant to be full of trials and that we are supposed to grow from them. I just wish this trial wasn't mine. I know I'm strong enough to handle it and that I'll learn something from it (and if I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I've known most of my life I was going to struggle with this), but I still don't want it.

Whew, okay. I'm done. Please forgive me. Happy things next time, I promise.

Labor Dabor

I miss Homestar Runner. Anybody else?

Labor Day was fun!

We took Nicoley, Brice, and Nicole's boyfriend Travis and went berry picking!

I love blackberries and the farm we went to had tons of them. It was great because the bushes didn't have any thorns and we got to go diving into them to find the really big ones that everyone else had left behind.

I now have ten pounds of berries hanging out in my fridge and freezer!

Here's some pictures!

That afternoon Cory and I went shopping to buy me a pair of slacks I could wear to an interview I have today. Wish me luck!

Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Championship

This last Saturday we went to the Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Championship. Cory got free tickets from his boss so we drove up to Midway that afternoon and watched border collies herd sheep. It was...interesting. I actually really enjoyed it. We bought some overpriced food and watched a documentary being filmed and got some sweet swag. We ran into Cory's roommate from his first semester here. It was fun to catch up with him a bit.

Pictures!

 There was a water jumping competition too.

Rockin' the free visors

See, we do have fun.

Side note: We went to the library that morning and while we were there I ripped a hole in the capris I was wearing. They were kinda sagging and didn't have enough give in them when I went to squat down to look at a lower shelf. Instead of going all the way home I borrowed a pair of jeans from Nicoley (she lives a couple blocks from the Provo library now) to wear to Midway. Of course, being Utah, it was super hot and I decided to roll them up. Thus the stupid looking rolled-up jeans. I don't think I've ever ripped my pants before. It was a different experience

Sunburn

This Saturday was super fun. Nicole and I ran the Wasatch Wellness 5k and didn't do too bad. It was fun having her with me and I'm really proud of her for doing it. It's something she'd never done before and I think she enjoyed the experience.

 

We got discounted tickets to Seven Peaks for running in the race so we spent the afternoon there getting ridiculously sunburned. It pretty much hurts to move. So much for my trying really hard to not burn anymore. I swear one of these days I actually will get skin cancer.

 It was a really fun and rewarding weekend. 

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I think I might have burned myself out with that last post. We'll see how things go from here on out.

Feel free to not read this one

Two in one day, whew. I'll get back on track soon, I just had something jarring happen to me today and I wanted to post this and start this goal today rather than on Wednesday. This was scheduled to go up on Wednesday so some of it might sound weird.

Today's topic might make a few of you uncomfortable and I just want you to be fully warned before reading on. It's not something I'm uncomfortable talking about, if it were I wouldn't be writing this, but I don't want you to get yourself into something that you'll wish you hadn't started. Today's post will be personal and it will be about my weight. This will also be a lot longer than I usually like my posts to be.

If I gain one more pound I will be officially obese for my height. That's a disturbing thought. I've never been tiny and I've always known that I would have issues with my weight, but it's never been this real before. Please don't try to give me the "you look great" spiel because I know I don't and I know that I haven't for a long time.

I'm going to blame part of it on my genes. Both of my parents have struggled with their weight and most of my extended family has as well. I've been very impressed with several of my relatives, though, who have really tried hard to be healthy despite the genetic disadvantages. Both of my parents are excellent examples. My mom has lost over 80 pounds and is probably the smallest she's been in a long time. She looks great and feels great. My dad has lost 100 pounds and it makes me happy that he's getting healthier and will be around a lot longer than he would have been. I'm glad that my parents are healthy and happy and that they have tried so hard to get to where they are now.

I'm going to blame the second part of my current state on the fact that I am a lazy bum. I try to exercise regularly but it's so easy for me to make up excuses. "I was up really late last night," or "I have too many other things to get done today," or "I'm on my period," or "It's too hot outside to go running." I like the way I feel when I exercise but that's not always the best motivation for me. I've always been one for immediate gratification and sleeping in usually makes me happier more quickly than going for a run does.

And the third source of blame? I like to eat. A lot. I love the way food tastes and the way it feels in my mouth. I've never been happy with the way that I look but I always knew that I would never have issues with under eating because of the way I feel about food. I love different tastes and textures and trying new foods and recipes. My love of food gets a little weird sometimes though. Very often, I can't not eat something that I think looks good and sometimes it's so bad that I start eyeing the largest piece or desiring the last morsel. This is a terribly unhealthy habit and I know it's buried somewhere in my psychosis because I can feel weird parts of my brain firing and my blood pressure rising when I feel a particular need to eat something. I know, it's strange. I wish I could explain it better. And I really don't understand it, deep down I know that one bite will taste the same as the next or that I'll have other opportunities to sample this particular food, but for whatever reason I have to have the most and I have to have it now. I have a really strange relationship with food.

I can't control the genes part but I can control the other two. Those parts of me need to change. I'm all about loving my body and not comparing myself to others but it's hard to see someone who looks really cute in an outfit I like and know that I would never be able to wear it. And it's hard to think that people might be judging me because of my weight. And it's hard to always be "the fat friend" with all the tiny people around me. I want to be happy and I am often not. So, here's my goal and my promise to you. I am going to get in shape. I am going to regulate what I eat and I am going to exercise. I am going to lose weight and feel good about myself. I know that I'll never be a size 2 and I honestly don't want to be, but I want to be happy and I want to feel like I can wear clothes from the stores I like and I want to like the way I look and I want my husband to think I'm even more beautiful and sexy than he already does.

Okay, here's the hard part for me. It's something I don't do very often, and only the fact that I know I don't have very many readers is making me able to do this (I'm going to pretend that nobody pays attention to facebook and assume I only have 18 readers). I'm going to tell you how much I weigh. A few days ago I weighed myself at 191 pounds. For me that's a BMI of 29.9. Oh wow, that's a lot. I have put on 10 pounds since I graduated from BYU and it shows and I can feel it. I would really love to weigh what I did my senior year of high school. I tried really hard at the beginning of that school year and dropped 20 pounds to about 150. I was still "the fat friend" but at least I wasn't overweight anymore. And now, for a 23 year old woman, I'm going to say that's not a bad weight and it will put me in the normal range for my height. Plus, it will probably help to fix my infertility, at least I hope so. 150 pounds is my goal and my promise to you. I'm not going to set a definite time limit because I don't have any realistic idea of how long this will take, and if I do end up getting pregnant this will no longer be my goal, but I will lose 40 pounds, preferably within the next 6 months. That's roughly 1 1/2 pounds a week. I don't care if you're interested or not, but to keep me motivated I'm going to be making regular updates of my progress and about what I learn along the way.

Please don't take this to be a rant about how I want to be different than I am or how I wish I looked like the Victoria's Secret models or anything like that. Yes, I have body image issues, as I'm sure many do, but I try to be accepting of myself, even if I don't always succeed. This is more about the understanding that I am getting older and I'm not going to be able to always eat whatever I want with minimal consequences. The weight loss part is about getting healthy and then staying healthy. I don't want to be super skinny, and with my bone structure I can guarantee I never will, but I want to feel good about myself and I want to be healthy. To me, that's what this is about.

I started a new blog for this journey where I'll be making progress updates. If you want to read about it you can go to http://learningtolovekristen.blogspot.com/.

Garbage Sales!

So, I missed my Friday post didn't I? I have a legitimate excuse. My parents were in town for the weekend and we were spending lots of time with them and I just never got around to writing anything. I try to have my posts prepared at least a few days in advance but I never did get anything for last Friday. Well, I guess there was a little bit of a reprieve for you to enjoy, but I'm back now. You know you missed me.

And...time for another weekend update. Cory and I went garage sale-ing with my aunt and cousin on Saturday. When my mom and I would do this she always called it going to garbage sales. That's really what it is if you think about it. Someone else's garbage that they're trying to pawn off on you for a quick buck.

It was great fun. We got lots of stuff for minimal cash money.
We bought:
a pet igloo for Derby,
two baby gates to keep Derby confined to certain parts of the house,
a set of stainless steel mixing bowls,
a liquid measuring cup,
a spatula holder thingy,
a set of nice colored pencils
a set of stainless steel tupperware dishes,
a sweet-looking skirt,
some free bracelets,
electric curlers,
cute wall decoration things,
cute calendar blocks,
a sciency book for Cory,
and way too many movies.

The only reason we keep a VCR is for the cheap movies we can pick up at garage sales, ok well that's a lie, I guess we do have to run our cable through it. But, we're not picky. We don't need blue ray in order to enjoy a good movie. And we got some killers:
Oliver and Company
The Little Mermaid
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Fantasia
My Fair Lady
Mary Martin's Peter Pan
A Christmas Story
What A Girl Wants
Superman
Much Ado About Nothing
Pete's Dragon

We sure did get a lot of kids movies, didn't we?

One of these days when we decide we don't need all these movies, or we replace our VHS versions with the DVD version, or whatever, some lucky schmuck is gonna hit the mother load at our garage sale. We have soooooo many movies. If you ever feel the need to watch something obscure please feel free to ask. We probably have it. That is if you have the ability to watch our old school technologies.

mish-mash

Today's post is going to be a mish-mash of information and thoughts and (especially) requests for feedback.

1. In regards to my post last Friday, I would like to say that I am proud of Cory and am glad that he has something he is so passionate about. My mom told me recently that I sounded kinda bratty in that post and I just wanted to make you aware that most of what I said was meant to be taken as a joke. Yes, I don't love animals and I'm not really looking forward to taking care of so many, but I like that Cory has such a strong interest and if supporting him in it means I have to clean up animal poop, so be it.

2. On a related note, Cory keeps asking me if having a bunny has changed my mind about pets in general. It doesn't really. I'm still not very comfortable around animals but I'm working on it.

3. I really like the way my blog looks now. I know I jumped around a bit with the design. Sorry about that. But, now I want to know what you think. Is it clean and inviting? Do you like the colors? Is it easy to read? I especially want to know the answer to that last question. If it's hard to read, whether it's the font or the color of the text, etc., I want to know. I don't want you to not read my blog because it gives you a headache :)

4. I've been thinking a little bit about how now that I'm posting more, most of my life is readily available to you without me having to tell you what's going on. I promise I still have other things to talk about. I was with a friend the other day, and I kinda got the impression that she doesn't read this because she kept asking me about things that I had written about. I felt kinda silly talking about things that I thought she had already read and it made me think that maybe I shouldn't be posting as much as I have been. I really enjoy blogging now especially since I've figured out how to make it work for me, but if it's going to make my real life boring maybe I should cut back. What do you think? It's nice for me to have somewhere to express myself now that I spend a lot of time at home alone but I don't want you to feel like I'm overloading you with my life and thoughts. I want this to be something you enjoy reading and I am open to suggestions.

That's about it for today. Please be honest in your feedback.

Meet Derby, the cutest rabbit ever

Remember Friday, when I said I would like a fluffy bunny?

Well we went out and bought one. Yep, we now have a cute 9 week old mini rex rabbit. We call him Derby but his full name is General Derby McBunbun-Davis, and yes, I did name him. He is super cute and we love him bunches. And he seems to be pretty happy with us so far.

We let him have his run of the house (basically) but make sure to spray him with vinegar water when he starts digging in the carpet or peeing in the corners. He's still pretty young and we haven't had too many accidents so far. We're hoping to get him trained well enough that he'll know he's only allowed to go in his cage. He is so sweet and honestly, I don't mind cleaning up after his messes.

Here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

He makes me happy and now I have someone to play with while Cory is away at school and work all day.

What a Zoo

If Cory ever gets around to posting his "about" page you'll learn that he loves animals, probably more than he loves me (although if you know him I'm sure you found out from him personally). I on the other hand couldn't care less about animals. They smell bad and they make a mess and they are pretty stupid. Okay that's a little harsh, but the more Cory gushes about everything to do with the animal kingdom the more I feel like I have to be the complete opposite.

I especially don't like dogs and all Cory can talk about is getting a dog and naming our dogs and what he's going to do with a dog and what kind of dog he wants. It drives me bonkers.

Here's a picture of his current favorite. It's a bull terrier.

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Get a load of that football head.

And then he talks about all the weird pets we're going to have. 

Like a capybara, the world's largest rodent. 

Cuddly, right?

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Or the guanacos we'll have to teach our kids responsibility.

 (If you ask me they're kinda creepy)

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When he's really dreaming big he thinks we're going to get pygmy hippos and miniature zebu and brahman cattle.

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Needless to say, our house will be a zoo, and not in the figurative sense where we have lots of kids and lots of things going on. I mean literally a zoo with crazy weird animals running around. And guess who's going to have to take care of the zoo while the one who wanted it is at work. That's right, me.

We already own a pair of sugar gliders (his 24th birthday present) and a betta fish (which Cory got for free from his evolutionary biology class). We're well on our way to a house full of beasts.

If you want my opinion I'd be happy with a fluffy bunny.