St. George Marathon

Well, we just got home from St. George and the marathon and the third time is a charm! Cory did better than even he predicted and he qualified for Boston. This is him on the last street before reaching the finish line. It was a perfect day - the weather was cool (which he likes) and there was hardly any wind. It just seemed like it all came together for him. Years of training and preparing and he achieved his goal. He needed 3:20 for his age and he ran it in 3:11. You can't really tell, but he is wearing a white shirt with the Texas flag on the front.


I put this one in because I knew he would like to see that nice muscle definition there on his shoulder! This is after he passed us in the stands but right before the finish line. I wish we could have gotten more and better pictures (and I have tried in the last three years) but it is so exciting watching it all and then when you spot him coming you are trying to get it - and still focus on him - and he is moving and well, it's hard. If someone thinks they can do better than they should come and help Diane and I out - cause we never seem to get what we are looking for.


After the race these two teenagers were texting anyone and everyone. It was all very exciting!


He doesn't even really look tired does he? I would just like to say how proud I am of Cory - he did something amazing! What percentage of people ever run a marathon? Of those people, what percentage ever qualify to run the Boston marathon?

21 Years Today!

Today is Cory's and my 21 year anniversary. It has been fun, sad, hard, joyous, delightful, bitter, exhausting and exhilarating and probably every other adjective that has ever been uttered.
21 years of ups and downs and ebbs and flows and good and bad - like everyone else. I feel blessed that I still love Cory - that I still feel like I can tell him anything and that he still excites me. He is my one and only. (And doesn't he look yummy in this picture!)

2 Tag-ariffic!

Why is it easier for me to think of ideas for tags than it is to think of something to blog about?? There just aren't enough tags going around anymore. Sometimes when I am running, my mind wanders. So yesterday I thought of some tags that I want to start. Be a good sport and play along, especially you (Becky) that haven't blogged in ages!

2 Secrets:
I still have Cam's crib - for the longest time I kept it in hopes that I would have another kid. When I turned 40 and realized that it might not be the best idea anymore, I kept it because I knew if I got rid of it sure enough I would end up pregnant!

Sometimes all I eat in a day is 3 or 4 doughnuts - which is very embarrassing to admit. I love doughnuts!

2 Regrets:
Everyday I regret my food choices!

I regret that I am not a great long distance friend. I don't usually call or write or anything.

2 Things you spend money on and probably shouldn't:
Pedicures - I say it is my reward for doing the yard.

Cat stuff - Cory gets on me about buying my cat toys.

2 Things you don't like about your body:
My colon, I guess you could call it "sluggish".

My bad eyes! Not the look of them necessarily but the fact that I can't see very well and have to wear ugly glasses.

2 Bad Habits:
I have this one tooth that stuff gets stuck in all the time - so I have a habit of picking it, sometimes in public to get the crap out. It is either that or have my toungue fall off from messing with it till it's gone.

Pulling down my bra in the back. I have just started realizing what this must look like when I do it.

2 Fears:
Obviously the death of my child - how would I ever get over losing my one and only child. There would be no one left to live for.

Charles Manson - I picked up that book (Helter Skelter) when I was like 11 and read it when I shouldn't have and ever since I am terrified of him. Whenever he comes up for parole I get freaked out!

2 Spiritual gifts:
My spiritual gifts are not any that have actual names - maybe they are just made up by me to make myself feel better...hmmm. I would say I have a way of making people feel comfortable or like they want to open up to me.

I am honest - this can be refreshing for some and maybe annoying for others.

2 Pet peeves:
Passive aggressive people - I don't want to have to wonder if you are trying to insult me, just come right out and insult me!

Littering - I just will never understand the laziness!
(I actually have many more of these when you have the time.)

2 Least favorite chores:
Cleaning the shower.
Cleaning up vomit.

2 Favorite pastimes:
Eating and Reading.

2 Events that changed your life:
Joining the Church
Having Cam

2 People you Tag
(I have to pick more because I am starting it.)
BECKY!!!
Shaury
Liz
Angela (a very inconsistent blogger)
Sharon
Layne (also off the radar recently)

My Secret

People ask me how I have time to read so much. I guess I will share my secret(s). First of all, I am a super fast reader. I don't have the best retention - especially if I thought the book was just okay, but I do tend to plow through books pretty rapidly. I am also very proud to say that I don't watch TV anymore. I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV in my room. It was probably 5 months ago! I was wasting too much time and then not having time for the things I needed to accomplish - so I stopped cold turkey. It has made a big difference. I don't even watch the news anymore! Alright, Cam did get me hooked on Big Brother half way through the season - but that is over now and I am back on track! But my biggest secret to getting through so many books is that I listen to books on tape in my car. I always have one in - I don't listen to the radio anymore at all. I reserve them at the library and make sure that I always have one to listen to. I drive to work and back every day - and other errands listening to books. You would be surprised at how much time you spend in the car! When Cam and I used to spend so much time in the car going to baseball stuff - we always enjoyed listening to various books. (Jim Dale, who reads the Harry Potter series on tape is one of the best readers ever! But then, I am a sucker for an English accent.) When I drove here from LA - I listened to several books. Sometimes they are so good I bring them in the house with me and listen while I iron or get ready in the morning. But normally I leave them just for the car. There are some books, I would say classics for sure that were meant to be read aloud - like Dickens for example. Anyway, my secret is that. I always have at least two books going - one on tape and one in book form.

Haircut

Last Tuesday I got my haircut at a new place. (If I liked it more I would have posted a picture, it's just okay.) When I went in a lady led me up to another woman sitting at her stall. They whispered some words to each other and then the woman sitting down stood up and whispered to me that her name was "Mary" and how do you do, blah blah. I said, as I was sitting my purse down and getting situated in the chair "what happened to your voice?". She pointed to her neck and whispered that she had a tracheotomy. THEN I noticed the little scarf thingy that covered the apparatus. I felt like the moron that I am - while I said before thinking about it, "Oh, I thought you had laryngitis!" She whispered "I wish!". She was nice about it - it might happen all the time, but I was disturbed by my gaffe! But then I thought to myself. . . why would that have come to my mind? I haven't ever known anyone who had a tracheotomy - my only contact has been that old commercial that they used to show about not smoking. I don't get out much! Plus her scarf thingy was really cute and trendy and very discreet. (Alright, there was a little bit of a darth vader sound when she took a breath, but I didn't notice it right off.)

P.S. I really never could hear or understand very much when she talked to me while cutting my hair - I pretty much just kept nodding and smiling - Cory said I should have told her I had a hearing problem (instead of nodding and smiling) because I could have ended up with some really bad hair.

Labor Day

Got up this morning at 7:18 - wasted an hour on the computer - ran 4 miles. When I got home I drank some water and went out to work in the yard. (I vainly avoided showing the brown patch that is in my front yard in this picture).

Cam came out and joined me when he woke up - he mowed the back yard. (I do the front and side). People always seem to think I am crazy when I say that I love yard work. I do - it has such a satisfying feeling of accomplishment in the end. And I do enjoy a pretty yard.
Cam put out the flag - and I made him pose all sweaty for a picture by it.

Then I went to the blood center and gave blood. I started giving blood in the Army (cause they used to give half a day off if you donated). I soon realized that I don't mind it. I don't feel weak or faint like some people and my veins seem very cooperative. This is something that I can do (when some can't) to help people and so I do it. I have O+ blood - which is a universal donor - so the blood center is always calling me to donate, right when my 6 weeks is up.

Now, I am home and waiting for Cam to get some homework done and then we will go down the street to El Rincon for dinner and come home to watch "17 Again". What a wonderful Labor Day! (except that Cory had to work)

(I know - I still haven't changed the date on my camera, we may just have to live with it like it is!)

Zebra Crinkles

2 Cups sugar
1/2 Cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
4 oz baking chocolate, melted and cooled
4 eggs
2 Cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Cup powdered sugar
6 dozen Hershey Hugs, unwrapped

Mix sugar, oil, vanilla and cooled chocolate. Stir in eggs. Stir in dry ingredients and refrigerate at least 3 hours.

Heat oven to 350 - Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into powdered sugar - roll in sugar to coat completely. Shape into balls. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched. Immediately press 1 Hug candy into center of each cookie. Cool on wire rack.

I made these cookies last week for Cory's work. They are a little too much trouble for me. Why the melted chocolate and not just use the dry unsweetened chocolate? Why the refrigeration for 3 hours? Then the rolling and all that. I know there are easier recipes for those crinkle cookies than this one. I wanted to make them because I like the way they look and I like the candy in the middle. I'm thinking they would be really pretty on those Christmas goodie plates that I like to make. They were absolutely delicious by the way. I just need an easier recipe for the cookie. Another thing, I made mine kind of big (because I was lazy about all the rolling and coating) but they need to be smaller so that the cookie just fits around the candy - like bite size!