Physical and Spiritual Restoration

Since my goal for this year continues to be about restoring, I wanted to share a little progress in two areas of my life that have been receiving significant restoration as of late.
My day starts at 4:45--that's a.m.--when Mike's alarm goes off. We've both committed to getting things done in the mornings before the kiddos are up, and it's really been paying off. That's not to say I don't have to literally drag my body out of it's cozy cocoon every morning, but I no longer have to decide whether or not to actually get up. For that, I am happy. I'm also grateful to have a husband who's not only supportive but is joining me in my efforts, even if he does make popcorn nearly every night.

My early morning routine has a two-fold purpose.

1) Spiritual Restoration. Mike leaves just after waking up to go workout, so after he leaves I start my morning with a prayer, my scriptures, my journal, and my Yoplait Light with Kellogg's Bran Buds (13 g of fiber per 1/3 C. serving!), just so I have a little protein before my turn at the gym. Since I started blogging, I thought I had no need for my journal anymore, but I've discovered a new use. As I read, I write down the impressions and thoughts I get. What's interesting about this new approach is that even after I've closed my book, my mind remains wide open. I've actually thought about taking a pencil and paper with me to the gym as my mind continues to ponder things (faster than I can keep up) even as the sweat seeps through my t-shirt and my muscles are ablaze, but I'm pretty sure that even if my sweaty hands could keep hold of my pencil, the writing would be completely illegible from the constant up & down of the elliptical. So that's out. But I'm really grateful to have taken advantage of the quiet stillness of the mornings that allows me to study without interruption, giving me the opportunity for receiving inspiration, revelation, and reflection once again.

2) Physical Restoration. After I've concluded my studying, I tie on my sneakers and trade places with Mike. By this time, it's 6 am and while I'm at the gym, Mike gets the girls settled in for their breakfast, then heads to our room to study. I'm quite certain his study time isn't as quiet as mine, but he insists on being at the gym first so he can move from station to station without waiting on the little old men who come to lift at 6 and have nothing else to do with their morning than hang out, chatting between sets. (If I didn't know any better I'd think they were having Relief Society.)
Providing no one else has beat me to the punch, I jump on my favorite elliptical with the moving handlebars, so I really feel like I get a whole body workout. I do this for 30 minutes and usually do some kind of interval program--either 2 min. low intensity/2 min. high intensity, or there's also a 4 minute interval option. I usually burn around 400 calories if the juice in my mp3 player hasn't run out, otherwise it's hard to keep up a really good pace and I find myself slowing down too much to burn that high.

Since I workout 6 days/week, after my cardio I do 30 minutes of strength training where I rotate between upper body, lower body, and core, so I hit each twice a week, and do 2-3 sets of 15 for each exercise.

Upper body--Dumbbell curls, overhead triceps extention, lateral raises, shoulder press, shrugs, bent over lateral raises (back), and incline bench press w/dumbbells (since I have no spotter).

Lower body--Quad extensions, hamstring curls, leg press (though I've been informed that I must stop these immediately--again, thank you, knees), calf extensions, and skater squats (squats with a side leg-lift).

Core--Dumbbell side bends, dumbbell crunches (on back, legs straight up, holding weight with straight arms & lifting towards feet), crunches with twist, seated twist with dumbbell (figure 8 motion, side to side across body while slightly reclined), lying straight leg raises (on back, arms to the sides, hands slightly under my tush to support my lower back, then straight legs extended up 90* and back down), swimming (on front, legs and hands extended, then slightly arch back to move straight arms & legs up & down), back extensions (on front, hands behind head & lift), and modified plank (on forearms & toes with body straight--holding for 30-60 seconds).

Along with my calorie output as I workout at the gym, I'm also taking care to pay attention to my calorie input, which is frankly something I have never really cared much about. I like food. No, I LOVE food. And I've become pretty good at cooking that food that I love so much--which is a contributor to my high of 217 lbs. I've realized, though, that I can't continue to eat as I have and lose the weight I need, regardless of how many hours I spend at the gym. And let's face it, I don't have my 3-sport high school athlete metabolism anymore, so over the last 4 weeks, I've been very diligent about the following things on a daily basis:

64+ oz. of water
5+ servings of whole fruits and veggies
Eating about every 3 hours
30+ g of fiber
100g of protein
No added sugar and VERY limited salt
1200-1400 calories

I know the calories seem pretty low, but I started with a BMI of 32, which put me embarrassingly in the obese range. Since my "ideal weight" is something like 127, if I were to actually get back to that size (which I maintain is completely unreasonable), I will have lost about 76 lbs. So, my reasoning (logical or not) for cutting my calories so low is that a) I NEED to get as much pressure off my knees as I can, as quickly as I can, b) it's more unhealthy to be obese than it is to not get quite enough calories, and c) I'm in it to win a couple hundred bucks, so I'm taking drastic measures!

But truthfully, I feel better than I have in a really long while, and I'm pretty certain that if it were just the physical changes alone, I wouldn't feel nearly as well. My morning study has given me not only perspective during the day, but the daily spiritual guidance I desperately need as I try to accomplish a very long list of to-do's, and to-be's. I love that I've opened up a conversation with my girls about what it means to be healthy and unhealthy, and I love that I've been able to include my girls in my Saturday morning workouts. Today was Maggie's turn and she went the ENTIRE three-mile loop with me around our neighborhood--which has some significant hills. When we walked triumphantly through the door, I said, "I'm so proud of you for going the whole way, Mag!" To which she relpied, "I'm proud of me too, Mom!"

I still have a long way to go on my path to restoration, but at least now I'm not just standing on the path...I'm running.

Halloween! Halloween! Lots of Fun on Halloween!

If any of you remember last year's Halloween post, you'll know how much I was looking forward to trunk-or-treat again. THANKFULLY, there was only a slight resemblance to the mayhem of Halloween '08. Kids were fairly well behaved and although I was trying to do the work of three people (Mike had to work a viewing), I managed to get my kids around to all the trunks, hand out candy, and take care of a cold fussy baby, all on my own! Ok, so I had a little help with walking the kids around to the trunks, but I really felt like I was Lynda Carter, hiding my secret Wonder Woman identity. A couple of turns in the parking lot and my costume would've been revealed! What a great trick--I'll have to keep that in mind for next year...

Hannah Montana, Rachael Ray, Miss Smarty Pants

& Tutu-wearing Gangsta Bunny (I really have no idea where she got this pose from...)

My girls and their Super Heroes! Batman, Spider-Man & Superman!

Not quite sure how the Bride & Puppy fit in.

Bridget as "Bunny"

Katie as "Rachael Ray"

Brooke as "Miss Smarty Pants"

Maggie as "Hannah Montana"

Zach as "Batman"

Wes as "Spider-Man"

Ben as "Superman"

Meredith--Trying to relive the happiest day of her life in MY wedding dress. I think Tyler was a little embarrassed by the photo shoot going on in his front yard...
If that's not creepy, I don't know what is. Happy Halloween!

Lesson Learned from an Unexpected Source

Last weekend was our yearly broadcast of Stake Conference. It was given from Utah State University to all of Northern Utah & I'm assuming parts of Idaho and Wyoming as well. We've only had one other broadcast, and that seemed to be mostly talks about someone else's relatives coming across the plains. Not really enough to keep this ADHD stricken girl attentive. It made me not generally a fan of the broadcast ones, and let's face it--once the lights go down in the chapel, it triggers my sleep response. Its one redeeming grace is the fact that our Stake Center is not big enough to house everyone, so they show the meeting in two sessions. This removes any guilt I may have for not making my kids sit through 2 hours of sacrament meeting. Mike goes to one session and I go to the other. It really is brilliant...at least until the kids are old enough to not be a complete disruption. In fact, because Maggie was baptized a couple of months ago, I thought she was ready to come to conference with me, so we packed up our scriptures, our notebooks and pens an headed out.
I think the last time I took a notebook and pen to a meeting was in college. There really is no point, now that I have kids. Unless I grew a third arm for writing, and a second head that could pay attention to something other than flying crayons and elbows. I asked Maggie to bring her notebook along as well because I knew she couldn't be still and pay attention the whole time either. She let me read some of what she had written earlier--things like: I *heart* Hannah Montana. Jana is my best friend. And some story about being a fairy. Gotta love that girl of mine.
I had forgotten how much more I get out of meetings when I'm writing. Some of the things I wrote down were:

• "Going to the temple will peel off the selfish shell." I have not made a valiant enough effort to get to the temple. I've used my children as an excuse, and I've used the Mortuary as an excuse for not having enough time to go. I had the distinct impression as I was listening to Elder Rasband's talk that I've proven I can get up early to work out, so I also need to get up early to go to the temple. Mike and I have two weekends a month that we are not on-call, so we can trade off going to the 5 or 6 am session on those Saturday mornings. Imagine how I felt when I shared this impression with Mike and was told he had thought the exact same thing. Guess you know where one of us will be Saturday.

• "The degree we to which we keep the commandments is the degree to which we love the Lord." (quoted from a talk by Pres. Uchtdorf) I need to more closely examine the things in my life that would keep me from loving the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength. Most pressing on my mind is the command to "pray always" as I've NEVER been good at prayer. Meredith was telling me about a talk she heard--I apologize for not knowing the reference--where it was said that prayer cannot be sincere without sincere scripture study. I'm still struggling to find that daily study time, though we've been quite successful at family scripture study. I think this may be my missing link.

• "If others have come up easier, they have not learned so much."--John Tanner, on crossing the plains and losing everything. Not only does this help me keep my trials in perspective, but it really made me want to go read more about my progenitors. I guess I can pay attention to pioneer stories.

• "Optimism is THE virtue to be considered during tribulation." and "Hard times create a great place to raise latter-day families."
  

• "Be CONSISTENT: in family prayer, in scripture study and in alone time with each child." I love President Eyring. I think if we knew each other, we'd be great friends. Of any of the apostles, I feel like he just has love laced through every sentence he utters. We are very consistent in family prayer. We are becoming consistent in family scripture study. I need to be better about spending more individual time with Maggie, Brooke and Katie.

All of these are things I wanted to remember. Things that made an impression on me, and things that, if incorporated into my life, will make me a better person. I expect to find nuggets like this in the meetings I attend, when I look for them. What's an even greater blessing is when you find nuggets without searching. During Pres. Eyring's talk, I noticed Maggie busily scribbling away in her notebook. Her writings had entertained me so much before, that on the way home I asked what she'd been writing. She said, "Oh, just some things that I thought that I should do when I was listening to that talk."
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like, I should love others more and be nicer to my sisters."
I immediately thought of Elder Scott's talk from General Conference on acquiring spiritual guidance. I was able to help Maggie understand that the thoughts she had during Elder Eyring's talk was the Holy Ghost giving her inspiration. What an amazing experience to be able to teach my daughter about something so seemingly intangible to a lot of people, in such a tangible way. I hope she won't forget our conference experience together. I know I certainly never will.

Baby Love

I know, it's been a while, but in case you hadn't heard, I've been a little busy--in a good way.

I was a quite disappointed that my body didn't go into labor before my induction on the 16th, but once I got to the hospital and got my epidural, that was all forgotten! Dr. Boheen came in to break my water at 8 am and I was already dilated to a 5. Of course, that meant hurry up and send an entire bag of IV fluid rushing through my vein in 3.5 minutes so the epidural could come before the baby did! The epidural itself was the most uncomfortable one of the 6 I've had, but after it was in place, it was the BEST! No weird side pains or need to push the magic button. My legs weren't dead fish attached to my torso, and I could've walked almost immediately after it was removed. I don't know what Dr. Silver did differently than the other Anesthesiologists I've had, but--wow--what a difference it made!

Ok, so onto the exciting stuff. A short 3 hours after my water was broken, I delivered (in one contraction), Dixon Michael Stringham at 7 lbs. 9.5 oz. and 21 inches long.

Wouldn't you know, we forgot to pack the camera, so we missed those first few hours of his life, but Mike went home and picked it up, along with the girls so we got a few good ones later on that day.

Katie and Dixon

Bridget and Dixon

Brooke and Dixon

Maggie and Dixon

As you can imagine, the girls are more than enamored by their new little brother. It's like wasps to a hunk of meat on a picnic table. This poor guy--like it or not--has 4 extra mothers, and I'm sure that will never change.

So far, he's been a pretty good baby. I've only had to get up once or twice a night with him, and I've gotten REALLY good at nursing while sleeping. Heaven knows I've had enough practice! Yeah, I think we'll be keeping this little guy around for a while.