Love this story

I copied this from one of my fav blogs Triathlon Goddess (click here.)
I love this story.

"The pros had finished the Chicago Triathlon two hours before and I was headed out of transition to go to pack and catch a redeye flight home that night. I was walking past the finish chute which, when the pros and early finishers came through, was packed with people screaming and cheering. Then here comes this woman, who is a little heavyset, coming around the corner. There is not a soul standing along the fence cheering. But as I am walking, I see her coming, and notice that she is looking at the clock. I turn around and it shows about 20-25 seconds to get under the four hour mark. So when she saw it, she just went into this all out sprint. I put my bike on the grass and I started yelling 'Go!' And then I started crying. That is actually my favorite moment of all in triathlon. I’ll never forget it. Her eyes locking into that clock and thinking: ‘I’m going to get in there. For me. I’m just about dead last. No one is watching me. No one cares. But I’m gonna do it for me.’ That's triathlon. And so that's a beautiful thing.”

2004 ITU World Champion Sheila Taormina on her favorite moment in the sport

-Get out and do something that inspires you today! :)

Essential Oils

This weekend, after a 4 mile run on Friday and a 4 mile walk on Saturday, I ended up with a huge blister on my toe. I think this is because in my effort to get cuter feet, I used my pumice stone on them and made them soft. Too soft for the rigors of running and my shoes rubbed my toes the wrong way.

Anyways - I had this huge blister on my big toe and it hurt. I'd heard both that blisters could be popped and that they shouldn't be popped.

I popped mine. I put a needle in alcohol then poked a little tiny hole in the blister - which I didn't feel at all. Then I squeezed out the water, put a drop of lavender essential oil on it and covered it with a beautiful Cinderella bandaid.

The next morning it didn't hurt AT ALL. It was completely gone.

Why have I ever suffered from a blister? And I vow to not ever suffer through it again....just get rid of it!

I love essential oils, but I don't know much about them. My extent of using them is this:
1- Putting a few drops of Peppermint oil on a tissue and letting Reese sleep with that on her pillow to help her relax and fall asleep. I also put a couple drops on the fabric of Josie's carseat on our last roadtrip to help settle her upset stomach.
2- Mixing 3 drops Tea Tree, 3 drops Lavender, and 1 drop Peppermint with about 2 tsp olive oil and making a massage oil to help with colds and sore muscles.
3- Mixing 2 drops Lavender with 1 tsp olive oil and rubbing Josie's legs to help with growing pains before bed.
4- I dabbed one drop of Tea Tree oil on a pimple and it went away within 2 days... :)

Little by little I'm learning more. And one of the bloggers I follow (What's Cooking Good Looking?, listed in my blog list on the right) had a guest post on another blog where she explained some other simple uses for essential oils. Click here to go there.... I quite often refer to it to see what I can mix up.

I bought my essential oils on my last trip to Utah. I haven't looked for them in Washington. They're probably available at Whole Foods or something else like that. If you know a great place to get them - let me know!

crazy kids

Just some silly stuff I want to remember:

When I was changing Josie's clothes she lifted her arm and looked at her shoulder. There was a deep wrinkle on her shoulder because of how it was positioned and she said, "look! a bum!"

I was watching Biggest Loser with Reese and when she saw the men weigh in she said, "oh, that would suck to be fat AND hairy."

Happy New Years!!!

I always think I'm going to get a ton of pictures - but at parties - I never end up getting them because I always wanna play with everyone!

The family came over to my house and we played rockband and bandhero for hours. We had 300 lbs of food, most of which did not get eaten and instead we talked about the Biggest Burton Loser contest.

We counted down the New Year and had confetti poppers all over the living room!

After my new years kiss with my hubby, I played a really cool Pride and Prejudice game with my sister. We played games until almost 2:00. When everyone left, Rich and I did a little cleaning and went to bed.

It was a great, fun, party!!!

Happy New Year!

Christmas

After having dull video tapes of slow moving Christmas mornings. Rich and I drastically reduced our Christmas Morning filming. Now - it moves so fast, like an unwrapping frenzy it's hard to know when to press record on the video camera. We got some video though - I haven't watched it yet. But here are a few pics from Christmas morning.

Here's the girls (in a picture that could badly use some photoshop help...) in their Christmas Eve pj's, just before bedtime.

Christmas Morning...Jo laid face down in the hall and cried. I think it was the craziness of the older girls' screaming at seeing what Santa left and the fact she didn't get much sleep, having to wake up early to get the goods. After a little coaxing she came into the room and saw her very own kitchen. She played with it and flatly refused to open any other presents.

Christmas morning isn't complete without something for Rich to build. Thanks Lisa for these awesome mechanical animals!

Christmas Eve

This year we had Christmas Eve and my Brother and Sis-in-law's house. It was so much fun! Here is Adrienne's beautiful tree.

I loved the party - and it was great to have it at her house because not only is it big enough to accommodate us - but she has a playroom with tons of toys so it keeps the kids busy and happy while I can run around and take pictures of myself with people :)

Adam is here, carving the awesome turkey he made in a rotisserie cooker. They also made some delicious ham. It was a great dinner.

This is me and Lisa, she's my sis-in-law and we love having her up for Christmas!!

Since this night - I've begun wearing my bronzer again. No need to look like Morticia!

The kids table

The older kids table

Waiting for the cousin gift exchange

Yo Gabba Gabba Boombox! Are you kidding??? This gift is perfect!

Until it gets 'borrowed' by a cousin - Josie did not want to let that boombox go!

Me and sweet little Lala. She wanted to be on camera so I had to take a picture of us.

Thanks Aj and Adam! It was so much fun!