Live Right Now.

Yeah, just be yourself.
It doesn't matter if it's good enough
For someone else.



Is everyone excited for tomorrow? What's tomorrow? WHAT?
Didn't you know...it's September 1st...the start of Tina's 30 Days of Self Love.


I hope you'll consider joining in!
Here's a teaser for the first week ~

Wed: Confidence and believing in yourself
Thur: Gifts of our bodies
Fri: Trusting our bodies
Sat: Intrinsic beauty
Sun: Love in our lives


Can you believe I have followed through on the Out of the Box challenge for 9 straight days now? If I wasn't keeping track of it on here, I definitely would have skipped a day or three, but I guess I can't stop now :-)

Pilates, people, Pilates. On. A. Ball.
That's all I got.

Waaaaaay Out Of My Comfort Zone

I have to start with the silliness that abounds. As the boy plays on the iTouch and the dog lets her tongue take a nap...

...the husband and the girl decide to make their own Biore Pore Cleaning Strips  ...

I don't know if I should share this secret recipe, but here goes...milk and gelatin (or apparently lime jello if you're in a pinch).

Today's 30 Day Challenge Workout was way way way far out of my comfort zone. What got me started was a post I read this morning by Katie over at HEALTH FOR THE WHOLE SELF about body metaphors.
She says "I thought my body was a measurement of my success in life; I used my weight to determine my worth, and assumed others were doing the same.
But a metaphor is only worthwhile to the extent that it is helpful and true, and the measuring stick illustration is neither of those. So I traded it in for a better one. 
These days I think of my body as my home. I don’t want to get too attached to my home because I know it is only temporary, and what’s inside is what really matters. But I still want to take care of it because, well, I have to live there! A home that’s messy and malfunctioning brings with it extra stress and headaches, which takes time and energy away from all the wonderful stuff life has to offer. But a home that is clean and operating efficiently becomes a place you want to go to, a place where you feel comfortable.
I want my home – my body – to be a happy and healthy environment, but at the same time I’m not placing more emphasis on it than it deserves. That’s a metaphor I can live by."

I loved the way she expressed this, but I took it in a much broader view to use the metaphor of home not only in terms of my body, but in many other aspects of my life. If you could see my home, you might get an idea of how things might look in other areas and why I'm not succeeding at lots of different things in the way that I want to.

So getting back to that WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE workout for today... Housecleaning! No, I'm not kidding. I looked it up and it burns between 75-125 calories per 30 minutes. Now, halfway through I switched from green tea to white wine, so the calorie burn might have been on the lower end ;-)
but regardless, I got it started! My poor house is freaking out at all that's involved - I know, I know... poor house of mine, it's new to me, too...but we'll get through it together.

I have an interesting blog/life idea but I feel like I need to get my "house" in order (so to speak) so I've undertaken the huge project of the Fall Clean. I know some people do a Spring Cleaning and others seem to clean most every day or week (imagine that!), but this house is a disaster. For instance, today I found a retirement summary from Vanguard in my living room table drawer. It was dated 2006!! Then I found the instructions for my refrigerator under my desk in my office covered with dust bunnies. I have monthly statements from the gas company from 2002 filling up my file cabinet. No wonder I can't seem to get to where I'm trying to get - I've got too much STUFF filling up my space. Too much invalid, unnecessary, junky stuff filling spaces that I need cleared out for breathing room! oh...and a little dirt and grime to take care of, too.

I think I need a Biore strip for my chakra...'cause it's definitely feeling clogged.

Do you have some purging to do to get your life back in balance? What would you need to do to give yourself some room for growth and change?

Kiara Tackles The Trails #19 - Falls Creek Falls

I've had a fantastic last 12 hours or so. Church last night was fun and hilarious. So funny that I had tears streaming down my very scrunched up face while I was laughing so hard I wasn't even making any noise combined with my body convulsed in those weird laugh jerks where you're trying to stop, but just can't. Now THAT, my friends, is good church :-)
Our guest pastor last night was Mike Meeks. I make sure to always be at church when he's there and when he's not...well, I listen to every single one of his sermons while I work. Here's the link to this great church in San Diego:
http://www.eastlakechurch.com/messages/
Just click on "click here to listen on line" and it takes you to the recent sermons.

When I got home, KATY had sent me this awesome button for my mission statement (which you can read in the comments section of her What's Your Mission Statement post).

Followed that up with an awesome night of sleep and then Ki and I headed out for our first mama/dog hike in a good long while. Falls Creek Falls is a sweet little hike in Washington.

The only thing that would have made it better was if the sun was shining down on the falls, but it was still gorgeous.

I knew it was a long drive for such a short hike and had tentative plans to hit another trail on the way home, but my ankles and feet made it clear that I needed to get off of them, so we headed home and I pulled out a library book I got last week "The Runner's Yoga Book"

by Jean Couch and for today's challenge, I did 30 minutes of Foundation stretches for feet, knees, and lower legs:
Fingers and Toes Entwined
Foot Extensions x3
Squat Series Pose I: Diamond Pose
Squat Series Pose II: Kneeling Foot Stretch
Squat Series Pose III: Bent-Knee Foot Balance
Squat Series Pose IV: Squat Pose
Hero Pose
Doorknob Stretch for Achilles and Calves
Achilles Tendon and Calf Stretch

My legs definitely feel better. I want to commit to doing this two times through each morning this week while the coffee pot gets going. I think I can do 20 second holds on each stretch and be able to get 2 times through in about 16 or 17 minutes. I'll let you know how I do.

Hoops

Torturing the dog for Helen...

This morning started bright and early with Mai's Soccer Jamboree. She had a blast!

We came home for a little break and then headed down to the school for our Challenge for today - Hoops! The kids used the kid "hoop" and I played in the big girl area.
I got a great workout. I read an interview with an NBA star recently (can't remember who, tho) and they talked about shooting from a certain spot and when he hit 10 (or 20?) in a row, he moved back to a different spot and on and on until he completed the whole thing with no misses. When he missed one he had to go back to the very start, so I imagine he spent a LOT of time working that net! I tried this for a while using some marks that were down on the floor. Jack made sure I didn't cross the line.

I also would just run from one basket to the next - shooting from far away, rebounding and then shooting again close up before running to the next basket. Finally I got tired and just stood in one spot while making the kids rebound for me :-)
I could shoot hoops every day! Love it!

Play Ball !!

On this lovely Friday we had a play date scheduled with some friends, so we headed up to Mt. Talbert again. Jack had an ankle injury apparently caused by sitting on his butt playing computer games. Don't ask...I have no idea how that happened, but it sure swelled up good, so he was out of the picture.

I DID remember to print out some REI Adventure Journals for the kids this time. Check them out the next time you take your kids on a hike or outdoor adventure.
http://www.rei.com/pdf/kidsPassport/pta_journal_09.pdf
http://www.rei.com/pdf/kidsPassport/2010_kids_adventure_journal.pdf

Mai and I took it easy today for the Out of the Box Challenge and got out the ball and gloves to play catch for half an hour. We had a lot of fun. She's getting really good at both catching and throwing so I hope she reconsiders and plays ball again next Spring. Our friend said Mai is the girliest tomboy she's ever met. I agree. What a perfectly wonderful combination they are on her!!

I'm off to watch Into The Wild.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more...
- Lord Byron

Two Left Hips

 
At the library last week, I saw this DVD and just knew it was going to be perfect for my 30 Day Challenge. If the cover didn't spell it right out:  "Moves for the Agility Impaired", then the introduction clearly let me know that this DVD was for me - "For those of you with two left hips", she says.
Yes, my darlings...welcome to my world.

After yesterday's Hula Hooping attempt, I was less than inspired to do this hip swinging video today. The only thing that really got me to do it was that last little bullet point

• Workout the Wimp Way

Well, after enjoying a little too much grape nectar last night, a wimpy workout was exactly what I was looking for.
I was not disappointed.

I stopped at 30 minutes, so I'm still in the learning stages and have yet to put any of the moves back to back, so maybe it actually is a pretty good workout once you get all the parts moving together, but for today it was perfectly non-strenuous...
...and it really was fun. I can totally see myself taking a real class somewhere...somewhere dark.
I think that if I had been dressed in more flowy, skimpy and jangly clothes, I would have been able to pull from my inner sex kitten better, but as it was, I just tried to relate and feel her words...juicy, sexy, sensual...as my reflection in the tv screen screamed out I. Am. A. Robot.

I give this workout an A+ for fun and I really am looking forward to completing the video and taking my moves to a real classroom!

The Flying Donut...

...The Dancing Dingus, Belly-go-round, The Swingerina, Uncle Midriff, The Hipser, Daddy-O, The Shazzammeter, The Wacky Circumference, The Hoopsucker...

you know...The Hula Hoop!

Yes! Day 3 of the Challenge has been accomplished. After yesterday's manly man tire flipping workout, today we got out the hula hoops. I thought it would be a lot more fun than it was. With Li'l Miss Hula Hooping Princess herself right next to me, I felt like a complete failure.

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

I doubt I ever made it over a minute and a half without losing my hoop. Finally I put it around my neck and just tried to keep my abs tight...I kept it going pretty good that way until Mai made me start doing squats with the hula hoop swinging round and round my head.

I finally found my hula niche and kicked Mai's baby butt at it, too. I'm not sure what trick I was doing - just get it going around one ankle and then hop over it every time it comes around. I'm going to call it the Julie's Skip It :-)

I wasn't too sore from the tractor tire fun yesterday, so I headed to the gym today to do legs and a little cardio. Steve really liked that workout, though, so I see more tire flipping in our future. I also had a great idea to run a little neighborhood bootcamp in the common area next Spring if I can get permission from the neighborhood association. We'd have to be pretty darn quiet, though, if we did early morning. I think it sounds like a fun neighbor bonding experience, don't you?

Me And My Shaaaadow...

...Strolling Down The Avenue...

After a good walk with Ki, we all headed up to our Common Area for Day 2 of my Out Of The Box Challenge. At the neighborhood BBQ the other day, Steve spotted two big tractor tires hidden at the entrance of Coyote Forest. We were able to pull one of them out into the grassy area today and GO TO IT!

Hernia, anyone?

What does this thing weigh? 500 pounds?

Got puke?

I give this workout a D...for Dangerous.
Dangerous to the children when they want to help lift it and you almost crush them under it.
Dangerous to the parents when the children get a hold of the bat...

Check out her face!

We couldn't find a sledgehammer...so we just grabbed a bat and let 'er rip..

I have to tell you that that only 20 minutes of this 30 minute activity were spent in actual exercise. The last 10 minutes found me laying on my back being hand fed freshly picked blackberries by Mai...

I made it to the gym for a quick 20 minutes of elliptical intervals before discovering in the pool that I definitely pulled something with the tire flips. Once I lengthened out all the way, I could feel the strain. I took it easy and only swam for 20 minutes.

Just back from Mai's soccer practice and I feel better, so maybe it's nothing.

Pink Cobra

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Oh brother, what a grumpfest I had today. It started out good. Great night of sleep, a little quiet time before the kids woke up, cuddling in bed with the kids when they did finally get up, a little bit o' work and that's when I started getting grumpy. My computer bit the dust last week and Steve so kindly built me a new one over the weekend, but nothing is where I need it to be, programs aren't installed and instead of taking the time to get everything in order, I just plowed in to work and kept bumping into roadblocks. Tears later, I finally gave up and took myself out to the backyard for some mindless murder mystery reading in the warmth of the sun.

Mai reminded me that we were going to work out together so we got out all our dumbbells and balls and got it going. After that, she decided Jack needed some sun and to get his muscles moving so we decided to go for a hike. A friend has several times mentioned a nearby nature park that I've never bothered to try to find, so that was our destination:

I can't believe we've never been there before - it's awesome! It's only about 5 miles from home - right by our gym. I'll definitely be back for some runs. There are about 4 miles of trails that hook up together. Dogs not allowed (poo).

The kids started getting a little squirrely...

  ...so we headed out to look for birds and snakes and whatever else we might find...

I can't believe how close we were to this huge woodpecker and every single one of my pictures turned out blurry :-(

Mai decided to put her itty bitty braid down a snake hole(?) and see if she could entice the snake to come out...

We spent about an hour and ten minutes hiking and then headed home to find Steve waiting for us to go to the park to throw the Pink Cobra around. YES! Day one of the Challenge has been completed with a great frisbee workout.

I give this Out of the Box Workout a big thumbs up! Once Mai got involved there was a little more standing around, but the fun factor made up for taking things a little slower. 30 minutes was all I could handle because I was famished from the hike. Tune in tomorrow when we'll be sharing our Flips and Sledgehammers. Can you guess what we're doing for Day Two?

First of 30

The kids and I made another road trip yesterday for a birthday party. The kids had a blast at the wave pool and the party that followed. I was not feeling good at all and kind of grumpy, but I'm so glad we went!

I feel like the tallest man in the world, Mama!

Look at those beautiful eyes!

Am I not the cutest softest baby ever?

I'm still under the weather today. Just a little summer cold, I guess...
Nothing to stop me from Day 1 of the 30 day challenge. I still don't know how I'm going to "step out of the box" today, though. I'll be back later to let you know what I get to check off my list and how it went. Helen has joined me...any other takers?

As I woke up this morning and started to fumble around with the coffee maker with my eyes still glued half shut, I told God to "hold on...wait until my mind is clear...I'll talk with you in a while, k?", I was guided to my bookshelf to open and read August 23rd out of my Utmost For His Highest journal (which I read VERY sporadically) and this is what it said:

"When thou prayest, enter into they closet, and...pray to they Father which is in secret." Matthew 6:6


Jesus did not say - Dream about thy Father in secret, but pray to thy Father in secret. Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and have shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray; we cannot get our minds into working order, and the first thng that conflicts is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is the overcoming of mental wool-gathering. We have to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful prayer.


We must have a selected place for prayer and then when we get there the plague of flies begins - This must be done, and that. "Shut thy door." A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately on emotions and remember God. God is in secret, and He sees us from the secret place; He does not see us as other people see us, or as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of Him than of anything else. Your Father, Jesus says, is in secret and nowhere else. Enter the secret place, and right in the center of the common round you find God there all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.


aha.

Neighbors...can 't live with 'em...

...can't find a neighborhood without 'em.

What the heck is going on around here? Earlier in the week we came home to find a business card from The Humane Society asking us to contact them if we had any information about someone shooting our neighbor's cat with a pellet gun. Yesterday I came home to see signs nailed up all over offering a $1000 reward to the capture of whoever slashed the neighbor's tires... with the name of another neighbor being maligned on the reward signs. Police were called.

Through all this, we managed to have our neighborhood BBQ today with no hiccups....but afterwards I decided to take a nap...the neighbors dog was up all night barking (grrr...) so I needed a little make-up sleep. Shortly after my head hit the pillow, I was awakened by...
THE DANG DOG! Bark, bark, barkety bark. Fed up and grumpy, I confirmed with other neighbors that I wasn't the only one going a little cukoo from all the barking and I headed down to leave a note on their door. Hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt. I tried to keep it light and friendly...signed anonymously as Sleepless in ...
We'll see how tonight goes. If I didn't feel so sorry for myself, I would feel sorry for the poor dog. He's obiously unhappy about something. WHY oh WHY does the barking bother me, but not the people in that house? Can they not hear it?

A few pics of the wee ones from this weekend...

Mai had such a good time at the BBQ with our neighbor boy that she went over to his house and played for a good long time. Then he wanted to come to our house. First, he changed into his Sunday best and arrived at our front door for what appeared to be a "date". When the dog started sniffing his crotch and getting white husky fur all over his duds, he became quite agitated, but decided to stay anyways. Several minutes later he asked for a snack. I offered him goldfish, wheat thins, or fruit. He said "do you have anything organic?". I said, "no". He said "I think it's time for me to go."

Hehehe.
 I won't be surprised if there's no second date.

I'm excited for the 30 Day Challenge to start on Monday. I have lots of great ideas, but not lots of extra money lying around for some of them, so I totally see another 30 day challenge in my future...when I'm a little more flush. What I CAN tell you, is that sometime in the next 30 days I will be kayaking, rock wall climbing, roller derbying and getting my hula on. Aloha.

A Challenge - Want to Join?

I'm going to be doing a series of 30 day challenges and the first one starts on Monday August 23rd. I'm easing in with a simple challenge because school is starting and Tina's 30 Days of Self Reflection



is starting and I think my womens bible study should be starting soon, too! So this challenge will be a 30 days of stepping out of our box in terms of working out. I'm a creature of habit and if you tell me to work out, I will immediately think of going to the gym to lift weights or swim, a bike ride, a run or a hike. Each day for 30 days, I'm committing to at least 30 minutes of something out of my norm. I have a couple ideas already - kayaking, soccer, bleacher workout, roller derby class??...you get the gist.

I hope you'll join me and share your adventures daily on my blog or yours! I'll blog about it each day and will keep a list on my new page "Julie's 30 Day Out Of The Box Challenge" up top.

Fueled By Margarita

 

...Italian margarita, that is. I can't believe I haven't blogged since this weekend! I blame it on the girl cousins sleepover that occurred on Monday night.
I'm still recouperating.
Steve said he was going to kill someone...
...and I was going to let him.

I now know why God blessed us with just two children...He definitely knew our limit :-)


I just got back from a great lunch with a client. One of her staff (and she has an AWESOME staff) had a birthday today so we went to The Olive Garden to celebrate. This client is like a dream come true for us and I told her so. I don't have a lot of clients that give me a hug and a kiss and make me drink margaritas over lunch while we ask each other about our deepest darkest secrets and then giggle so loud we bring stares to our table, but aside from that, she's just one of those people who is such a pleasure to know in life. Send more my way!!


The kids are in swim lessons this week & next, my tendonitis is flared up so bad I can barely walk the dog, I haven't been to the gym in a week, and I just want to take a nap. I think it's time for these kidlets to get back to school so we are on some type of schedule again. I'm back in the saddle as of tonight ( I figure I can at least go for a swim, right?) and by saddle, I mean bike saddle. Yep, It's time to start thinking about some triathlon training. I can't run, so swimming and biking it will be...for now. With the 30 Day Self Reflection Challenge starting on 9/1, I think I'm going to try to blog daily at least in September, so I can keep up with the daily reflection and daily training and inspire myself to get in a daily routine at the gym again.

The Camp Out

There's one thing I can count on every year - our Annual Family Camp Out.
Michael and Nicole hosted it this year on their property and we had such a good time.
When we weren't checking on Mama pig to see if she was birthing her babies yet...

...Chickens were the name of the game...hold them, pet them...

...even keep them cool (I think this is considered animal endangerment in most states)

Grampy was in charge of the slip 'n slide and his go big or go home philosophy worked in our favor as fun was had by children of ALL ages :-)

I seriously have about 200 slip 'n slide pictures, but I won't do that to you. Here's a sweet pic of Jack and Grampy at the campfire, though...

While Michael did whip up some tasty margaritas, they were nothing compared to his floppies...

What a great weekend of old memories and new ones - it couldn't have been better!