Who Needs "f" Anyways?

A ew weeks ago, Adam dropped the computer. We thought or sure it was done or. At irst it wouldn't turn on at all, then it came around and turned on, but couldn't get past the opening "windows" logo display. But ater a little coercing, she came back on. The laptop works great now, like nothing ever happened...almost. Strangely, the only thing eected by the all is the letter " ". I have to push it REALLY hard to get it to work. Surprisingly, that letter is not used that oten. Thank goodness right? Remember to count your (26) blessings each time you sit down at your computer...that is unless your Rachael, and missing entire buttons because some little people have sticky ingers:)

Memorial Day Weekend

Michigan finally brought us warm weather. This winter seemed especially long and cold with lots of snow. Because it's been so cold, the lake is barely warm enough to swim in. That didn't stop us from having a good time. We just had to wear wet suits in the water. My brave little nieces need to invest in a wet suit, because I need tubing partners. Tubing with the guys is not very much fun; they like to pick each other up and throw each other from tube to tube or just right in the water. You don't even get 30 seconds on the tube before you have to stop and pick someone up. Unfortunately my brother-in-law and cousin-in-law don't exclude me from the "fun" for fear of making me mad. I got drug probably 30 seconds with David hanging on to my lie jacket, dragging in the water; I just kept hanging on, I didn't want to be defeated, but when Adam had to let go, I had to too, I think he was helping hold some of the weight. They also like to pick up one of the tubes and flip it or pass it over the tube they are on, so sometimes we will be tubing sandwich style. The middle is heavy and you feel like your going to suffocate, the top tube is unstable, wobbly and far from the water. Finally, I made the guys get out so that Sarah and Gary's girlfriend could get a ride and I could have a ride that I knew I wouldn't get thrown off of. Sarah was the only one who didn't have a wet suit to put on, because someone else wore hers and she didn't want to put it on wet, so we were just going to try not to fall off. Have you ever seen a tube get sucked under the water because you took off too slow, or you were too far forward on the tube? That's exactly what happened to Sarah, right after giving the guys strict instructions to slow down if we looked like we were going to fall off. She was pretty cold, in fact she might still be cold from it today. Having a wet suit makes all the difference. It fills up with water and that trapped water gets bath water warm, even when you hop on the tube, you feel like a whale with a layer of warm insulation sloshing around you. Poor little Leah had boaters fatigue by the end of the day. She was such a good girl!

Grandma Lois, Sarah and Leah

Nilza, watching the baby so she doesn't roll off the couch. Notice she is wearing a lot of layers... This was probably the warmest day in Michigan this year, but Nilza is from Mexico, I think it's going to take awhile for her to adjust.

It looks like she is smiling at me, but to be honest, David was standing behind me in the kitchen with a bottle. She is a very happy baby, but for some reason she scowls a lot. Whenever I talk to her she looks at me like I'm crazy. My mother-in-law says she does that to strangers when they are out shopping. She always feels bad because they will say "oh she's adorable" and then Leah will give them the "don't talk to me" look. It's really funny, I don't know where she learned that.

Leah loves Walter, and surprisingly Walter doesn't seem to mind her. While they were playing on the ground, Leah got little spurts of energy, like babies do, and would start kicking her legs, pretty much in Walter's face. He didn't get up and move or show any sign of annoyance.

Leah and Walter again, hanging out.

I Think It's Time

It might be that time again to clean the mess in the basement. I have been so busy with pottery projects that I haven't hardly done anything else. My hobby definitely takes a toll on the basement. Here are a few pictures of what I have made recently. I also wanted to include a few pictures of the basement mess, but I don't know that I should share that with the world! It's serious business down there. I want to make pottery for all my friends and family that want something, you just have to drop me a hint and a color scheme. I have 2 projects brewing right now, but I can't talk about them until they are finished and the events are complete. I have a few sisters and sisters-in-law and mother, and mother-in-law who owe me a few pieces for my ETSY store to give it a variety of taste. You know who you are, I haven't forgotten your mentions of good intentions.

Tagged...??

I think when I get tagged, that means I'm supposed to reply with a blog entry... I'm supposed to mention 6 quirky things about myself....this is super easy; because like I mentioned on Lori's blog, we are very much alike when it comes to this kind of thing. My answers are pretty much the same as hers, the first ones anyways.
1) Please don't ever smack, chew loudly with your mouth open, snap your gum, or get close to me when your eating even if you aren't making a sound, I'll still hear you!
2) I HATE whistling and humming. Mom, you are bad at this, but you take it a step further by humming the same 3 notes, or the same line of a song over and over. (but I still love you!)
3) I don't like to clean, I'm a slob. I appreciate a phone call warning if you're stopping by.
4) Animals and really old men make my heart melt, especially pigs.
5) I get pulled over for speeding a LOT. Twice by the same cop within 2 weeks. I have high insurance.
6)I love tree houses; I hope that my kids some day ask ME to help them build and not their father, because I'm already designing it whenever I see a tree or a pile of wood at Lowe's.

Now don't hold anything against me for being honest. I'm going to go out on a limb and tag people who I suspect won't respond. This should be easy, only a handful of people read my blog. Do I have to pick six? That will never happen.

Lindsay
Cathy
Francie
Julie
Mom

Ever Been Intimidated Before?

Sorry the quality of the picture is so bad, but I had to share it with you. This Great Dane is unreal. I thought Walter was unusually tall, but this dog makes Walter look like a little puppy. Walter weighs 80lbs, this dog was 170lbs. That's what I want to get next time we get a dog, other than a little cream or black toy poodle. Last week when I got home from the grocery store, there was a little black poodle puppy, maybe 5lbs max, running full speed down the center of the street. It came right to me when I called it. Her name tag said "Bella" and had a phone number, I hesitated for a moment, wondering if anyone would miss the precious little puppy...probably so. I called, no answer, so I started walking towards the direction she came from. A few minutes later a lady in a car stopped and said she was looking for what I was carrying. :( I wanted to keep her. She was soo cute.

Another Accidental Exercise

With this new diet challenge I have going with my mom and sisters, I have to keep up with my exercising. Lately my ankles have been hurting really bad when I run. I have an old exercise bike in the basement I can use to help relieve some of the stress, but that's really boring. I decided to give swimming a shot. So I put my wet suit and boots on and hopped in the lake. It was really creepy. I haven't been in the lake since last summer and I didn't have a brave husband with me to jump in first. I have only seen a few brave soles on the lake yet this year, and they were skiing, pretty sure they weren't planning on falling in. I took Walter with me; he loves to bite at splashing water, so I was kicking water at him, he lost his balance and fell in. Walter can't swim that well, and it's still a little cold not to be in a wet suit, dog or not. Walter of coarse panicked. It was too deep for me to touch the bottom, the dock is in three pieces and drifting loosely in the water because the ice broke the hinges off, and there was no way I was going to swim him to the edge of the lake; that was too far, and there is a barrier wall, so it could have been deep there too. The accidental exercise took place while I struggled to tread water, hang on with one hand to a high, hard to reach dock while pushing Walter's butt with the other hand. Him and I were hanging on OK, but our bottom halves were floating under the dock, it was very tricky getting him out of the water, and he had to practically walk on my face, but we managed OK. He should be embarrassed to admit he has lab in him! He probably couldn't swim to save his kitty's life. He falls in all the time in the summer because he loves to jump onto his tube, but there is always someone on the dock to pull him out. When I finally got him out of the water and pulled myself onto the dock, my heart was racing SO fast, I felt like I had sprinted a mile. Maybe I'll wait for Adam to be home next time I get in the water.

This is Walter from last summer in his life jacket, it's a lot easier to pull him out of the water when he falls in with the nifty littly handle you see on the back. Money well spent.
Just so that no one thinks I'm crazy, I had a boyant wet suit on and an intertube; and my neighbors on either side of me were both out on their docks, so I wasn't swimming alone, I just had to get Walter out of the water alone.

I Accidentally Ran Six Miles

My mom, my sisters Rachael, Francie, Lori and myself have made a bet with each other that could end up costing me a hundred bucks. Whoever looses the most weight in percentage by the 4th of July gets a hundred bucks from each of us. Adam must have a lot of faith in me, he keeps asking me what I'm going to do with all that money. Apparently he doesn't know me that well; granted we've only been married less than a year (I don't diet/exercise very consistently). Thankfully though, my lack of direction forced me to run longer than anticipated. I've lived here almost a year and I got lost less than 6 miles from my house. I knew the general direction that home was, but I couldn't find a street that would take me there. Every time I ran down a street, it dead ended or looped around. For you big athletes, six miles might not seem like a lot, but it is when you've only jogged up to 3 miles at a time, a couple of times a week, for only a few weeks in the past couple of years.
Along with my lack of directions, I'm math challenged. I had to try the numbers several ways and then confirm with Adam the correct way to calculate weight loss percentage. Here's what we came up with: [1-(new wt/old wt.)].
I'm not sure what my chances are, but now I'm curious, so I'm done here for now so that I can spend some time with Excel to figure that out. Hope everyone is doing good, because that is ultimately the goal; the money just makes it easier to get there.
Here's how I'm keeping track of everything: www.sparkpeople.com
If you check it out, make sure you block them in your email address, they like to send frequent reminders.