ZUMBA - The Rest of the Story

If you read my last post then this post will make sense.

This is Zumba - The Rest of the Story.

After having blistered my feet during an energetic Zumba workout on Monday I was informed today that an article was in the Springville paper about that workout. The class was mentioned on the first page. The story was on page A8. And yes, there was a colored picture of the class on the page. Guess what? I was in the center of the picture. Funny thing was - I was in motion with arms outstretched and everyone else was doing something else. I guess they couldn't keep up with the teacher as well as I could. RIGHT!?! WHATEVER!

Anyway they caught me in my moment of shame.

ZUMBA

Getting along just fine here in Springville. Our sleep is a scarce commodity - but who needs it anyway?

I just wanted you all to know that ZUMBA is not for wimps! Lindsey took me along with 2 other ladies to a ZUMBA workout last night. Due to the fact that I didn't have any appropriate shoes I tried it barefooted and got a couple of blisters. Then I put my shoes and finished the workout. But I was getting a great workout! Sweat pouring down and 2 bottles of water gulped. Not bad. But don't ask me to go again on Wednesday - I think I'll sit that one out.

Fun Video

Some people are going to be waiting all day tomorrow.

Here is a video to pass the time.

It is a fun video - if I do say so myself.

Oh Boy!

Oh Boy! What a day it was yesterday! It was a busy day. It was a hot day. I had loads of work to do. I had a presidency meeting to prepare for. And I ran lots of errands too.


But the Oh Boy! Yeah, that came when I received a phone call from Doug. "Have you talked to Isaac?" "No. Why?" "Well he got into a car accident."


Oh Boy! All these years of having young teenage drivers and we were with the same car insurance people. They kept raising our rates as we added drivers. Finally on September 1st we changed to another insurance company. They gave us some nice low rates. Shoot! I don't know how long the low rates will last now. Oh Boy!


"Well, he said it wasn't his fault." (That's what they all say.) "He said the other guy was getting a citation for failure to yield and they couldn't determine if the guy had a current insurance policy or not." (Great - just our luck.) "But the car is drivable and no one was hurt." (Somehow that didn't make that sick feeling in my stomach go away - AT ALL.)



We bought the Crown Victoria brand spanking new. I babied that thing for 8 years or so. If the kids needed a car that one was only given up on the rarest of occasions. I vacuumed regulary. I kept it washed and clean. When the car was fairly new I remember almost having a heart attack when Joel, Sophie's son, was coloring on the door panel with an ink pen. Another time Sophie needed a ride and came into the car with a bowl of some stinky spicy soup. What happened? She spilled it on the floor - luckily. Another near heart attack. In more recent years it has started showing its age. That seems to coincide with the kids getting more and more drive time in the Crown Vic. You can make your own conclusion but I'm convinced. Anyway, after 10 years with our beloved Crown Victoria, it has a VERY BIG OOPSIE. Oh Boy!


Luckily the above picture is NOT what our car looks like today. We were very lucky that the air bags did not deploy. We have an ugly dent that runs down both driver side doors and into the back wheel panel. Don't know what will happen as far a repair and insurance goes. I guess we'll keep you posted.

Oh Boy!

Bountiful Baskets

I have some friends who get a Bountiful Basket regularly. Actually my new Visiting Teaching partner is a site manager every other week. So I have been meaning to sign up and try it on the week she is the big boss. How it works is that they have designated delivery spots and you sign up for the one closest to you. Then they take the numbers of people ordering and the $$$ they gather and buy stuff fresh from the produce guys. And the contents is just like a "box of chocolates" - you never know what you are going to get. So guess what? I finally did it. I put an order in.

On Tuesday I went online and made myself an account and signed up for a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables. I would have to pick it up on Saturday at 7:15 am. The cost is $15 (plus tax and new member fee). But I have talked to my friends and they say it is well worth it and the produce is fresher and everything.

So on Saturday morning I took my cardboard box to pick up my stack of produce. As luck would have it, the truck making the deliveries was late (the lift gate fell off!). So we waited and waited and waited. While we waited we watched the volunteers scurry around and distribute the goods into waiting baskets. When they were done they got to share in the left-overs that would not evenly distribute to all the waiting baskets. Hey, maybe I'll volunteer sometime. Anyway, eventually there was a long line of people and their "baskets" snaking down through the school parking lot just waiting.

Once they finally got to the business of giving us our goods the line when very quickly. I signed in and was directed to a basket transfer volunteer. That person helped me to put my stuff into my box and out of their basket.

I'm sure you are dying to know what I got for my $15.

Here is the list:

6 healthy full ears of corn

6 apples

6 big bananas (6 must be the magic number this week)

large bag of green grapes

3 huge zucchini

1 large head of cabbage

1 leaf lettuce - might be romaine

1 honeydew melon

4 nectarines

2 plums

1 8 oz. package of Baby Bella Mushrooms

So what do you think? Was it a good deal or not? Shanna - I want your input.

Either way I put the cabbage to good use and made some delicious egg rolls last night for dinner. They were a huge hit! Now the big question is whether I will get a Bountiful Basket again or not. Only time will tell.

Labor Day

OK so it took me a week but I will mention Labor Day. We enjoyed it with Mom. We picked up Kristina and headed for Mesa - with tools.


We started to attach the cabinet handles that Becky and Mom found while digging around in a dark and dingy store. They were nice and we were making good progress. We only really made one - Oopsie. Drilled the wrong side of the cabinet door - that door definitely opens the wrong way! Oh well - a little wood putty and it will be like new. Sorry mom.


The real post for this Labor Day in Mesa was about the movie. We went to watch "Get Low". It was a pretty good movie. We went expecting the theatre to be empty-ish. But when we were buying the tickets the lady said the theatre was pretty full and we better hurry in and get some seats. It was true - we didn't even find 6 seats together. We found 4 seats together on the very top row. But Isaac and Kristina had to sit all alone right near the front - I'm sure that broke their hearts!


The movie was pretty good and the credits were rolling up. We were heading out. As we started down the stairs and then turned the corner to continue down the ramp to the doors my shoe was feeling strange. When we got to the doors I took off my shoe to see the problem was - A WAD OF GUM STUCK TO THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOE. I hate that! I really hate that!

My kids were embarassed that I was walking with shoe in hand. And when I got to the refreshment counter I got a napkin and got most of the gum off. It looked like someone had tried to wrap it in the gum wrapper but it didn't fit and had squished out and adhered to my shoe anyway.


But that was when the interesting stuff started. As I complained about the rudeness of someone dropping gum on the ground one of my sons made mention that he had just wrapped his gum in the wrapper and dropped it on the floor of the theatre. WHAT!?! How dare he. But he was sort of laughing and defending himself by saying he wrapped it in the wrapper.


So the end of the story is that I had stepped on his freshly wrapped gum, it was stuck on my shoe, and it was all his fault. Which son do you think did this dasterdly deed? If you were paying attention to the story you'll know for sure. Bombard this son of mine with lots of mean emails and give him the "skank eye" and anything else you can think of. He deserves a little punishment. Thanks!


Anyway, that is what I remember about Labor Day - gum my own son dropped on the floor of the theatre stuck to my shoe.

Go Fit

I am trying to find an exercise outlet for at least 5 days a week.

Monday I go go GCC for a cardio-body sculpt class.

Tuesday is always tennis.

Wednesday is usually tennis with an occasional day off.

On my off days I will go to GCC again.

Thursday I will go to GCC as well - for a fun multi-step class.

Friday - that is my problem. Nothing lined up yet.

I think I told you about my bike riding adventure not long ago. Remember 20 mph? Anyway I liked that and plan on doing that sometimes. But I needed something else. So yesterday I got a 10 pound Go Fit kettlebell. It had an accompanying DVD that shows the moves and a possible routine. So with Doug gone to a scout outing, Scott visiting the east valley for a little social interaction, and Isaac yelling his lungs out at the Washington High football game I had the house to myself. And with that solitude I put the DVD in and tried to learn and follow.

Sheesh! That is a tough workout. I was working hard and still couldn't keep up. But in my defense I didn't want to throw my back out or anything like that - so I purposely was being careful. But still, my heart was really pumping fast! In fact, I was just about done when I got a phone call from Scott. I was happy for the interruption. I was really breathing hard and sweating though. Anyway, this workout might be just what I was looking for. Further reports on the Go Fit Kettlebell workout will follow.

Relief

Last night when I came home from a meeting there was a breeze blowing and it wasn't hot. It was pleasant. I smiled a big smile and that was that. But this morning when I went out it was downright cool - 65 degrees. And the best part was that there was no stink in the air from the cattle lot just one mile away.

What did I do? I ran inside turned off the A/C units and started throwing open the windows. Then I secured our double fan unit in a basement window and started blowing the pleasant cool air in the house. I could see the inside thermometer slowly getting lower and lower. From 81 to 80 to 79 - well you get it. It felt great.


And here it is almost 8:00 and I just now turned the fan off and shut the windows. But a morning like this lets me know that we will soon be having some relief from our summer heat! How nice!

Denim Circle Quilt

During our fall vacation to some wonderful places in California we stayed at Doug's cousin's house near San Francisco. His cousin talked about a circle quilt that she had made. It got my mind thinking. I thought of all the denim (aka - old blue jeans) I have stashed away. Then I thought of making a denim circle quilt. The thought took hold and I just couldn't shake it.

So even though I have lots of flannel to stitch together and the edging to crochet, even though I started crocheting a baby blanket and it is only partially complelted, even though I had a detailed and time consuming particular project that I had to get done for a particular Christmas gift for some particular people, even though I had a crafty/sewing project to make for the grandkids, and heck I might even need to do things like some Relief Society stuff, clean the house, cook dinner, and the necessary and never ending laundry - I still came home and immediately started the new denim circle quilt.

First I decided on the size of the circles and I made a template. Don't ask me for my method - just trial and error. I dug my box of old jeans out and started tracing circles. Then I cut the circles out - did you know that denim is hard to cut? Especially when you cut through those daggone thick seams. I cut about a bazillion denim circles. Well let me be more exact - math time - ummmm 20 x 15 = 300 - yes 300 denim circles. Yeah, after that my hands ached! But I was not deterred.

Then I started pinning the 300 denim circles to some of the ugliest flannel you will ever see. I got a great deal on it at a store in Utah. But it works fine for this project. I pinned the circles onto the flannel and then stitched around the circle thus joining the 2 pieces of fabric. Last I trimmed the flannel. Then I had 300 double sided circles.

Well the project goes on and on by joining the circles using straight seams that became strips. Then another straight seam and you end up with panels. Fold the seams over and stitch each piece down. Zig zag stitch over each unfinished edge. Finally you end up with the finished denim circle quilt.

It ends up looking like a cathedral window pattern - the front having the small piece of colored flannel showing and the back having the curved stitch lines showing on the plain denim. It looks nice.

Three things I want to share about my denim circle quilt:

1. I can't belive I cut over 600 circles - oh my aching hands

2. I still have more denim

3. I ended up using 3 different pieces of flannel

4. The blanket is very heavy! It easily weighs over 10 pounds!

Bye Bye Isaac

This morning I did my regular check of Isaac's Mission Page and guess what.

He now has 5085 views.

Remember what that means?

Yep, bye bye Isaac.

It's been great but you definitely have to go now.

Shin Guards

We had the missionaries over for dinner the other night. And we had BBQ chicken and some pasta salads with banana cream pie for dessert. Very yummy!

Anyway in the middle of a fine dinner this Tom Foolery broke out:

Scott is into his second season of Fall Soccer and had ordered some special shin guards. He was expecting them to be delivered any day. He had called me several times checking to see if his package had arrived. But no luck.

We had pretty much finished eating dinner with the missionaries. We hadn't cut the pie yet and were still sitting around the table. Scott had disappeared down the hall to do - what was he doing anyway? Suddenly (used for added drama) there was a mysterious and hurried knock on the door. I knew immediately that the UPS man had made his delivery. I rushed to the door so I could yell, "Thank You" to the delivery man before he pulled away in his brown van. And, of course, it was Scott's package.

Doug was instantly cutting open the plastic wrapping with his pocket knife. He freed the awaiting shin guards and put them on. That was more problematic than one would think because Doug was wearing long jeans-type pants and the typical "church socks". The socks just weren't up to the task. But the plan was in motion and could not be stopped.

OK, watch the video with your heads turned sideways and watch the action that took place.

Right about the end of the video the missionaries who had been sitting politely at the dinner table in the Living Room rushed around the corner to see Doug's GOOAAALLL!!!!!

The end of the story is that Doug's shins suffered no damage or injury whatsoever during the rugged soccer match that broke out.

And Scott's - also suffered no damage or injury.

What does that mean?

Maybe Scott doesn't really need the shin guards after all.

Oh well, shin guards are cool - refer to top picture.

Double

The very last egg in the Jumbo dozen that Isaac bought

also proved to be a double yolk.

That makes 4 out of 12 that were doubles.

The End

Speeding

I used to enjoy my sister's posts about her bike rides. She was always finding new adventures and interesting sights to see. And she always had her camera on hand to document her experiences. I am not as good as she was. But I did have a bicycle adventure the other day sans camera.

On Monday I took Doug's bike out for a little ride. I needed to get some exercise in and I thought I would try it out. I rode out of our community and headed south. When I was almost to Glendale Avenue I turned west and traveled through some parking lots (that way I stayed off the main streets). I crossed 91st Avenue at the light and then turned north. About 1/4 mile later I turned west again and that brought me to the parking lot of Cabella's. I drove around the entire outside contour of the parking lot. That was fun. I also went around the Cracker Barrel parking lot. Then I rode down a dead end road and came back just to extend my distance a little bit. By then I had been going for 15 or 20 minutes. I headed home. I pretty much reversed my route home.

When I got through the parking lots and onto 89th Avenue I was heading north toward Emil Rovey Parkway. On the road I noticed a traffic control device that would flash the speed of a car as it approached (this was in place because Raymond Kellis High School was just up the road). So even though I was almost done with my ride - I was up for getting my speed to register.

As I got closer it flashed 15 mph. I realized at this point that it would register my speed so I started pumping harder. Now it was at 16. OK, faster. 17 I was moving faster - but not fast enough. Keep speeding up - my legs were nearly blurs as I pedaled and pushed myself to go faster. At 18 mph I wanted to stop but not yet - still too slow. I must not be a wimp. Keep . . . going . . . must . . . . go . . . . faster ! Pant. Gasp. Cotton mouth. Sweat pouring. Energy waning. Hair flying. Eyes watering. About to give up - but going all out for one more second.

I DID IT!

I MADE IT!

I GOT TO 20 mph!

I was going so fast I could nearly coast all the way home - not really but the exaggeration sounds good.

I need to do that again sometime.

What a rush!

And I felt reassured that no matter how fast I pedal -

there is not even a remote possibility

that I will be speeding.

What a relief!

What I was doing during lunch

I thought I would answer Lindsey's question about what I was doing during lunch.

I was playing with dry ice.

I went to our favorite ice cream sandwich place called Excel. This place sells all the unique toys, candies, and ice creams that the ice cream men load in their musical ice cream trucks and sell to people all over the valley.

Doug was in charge of the joint mutual activity this month and he wanted ice cream sandwiches for treats. Now these ice cream sandwiches at Excel are super duper ones. They are super duper because they are very large - probably double the size of the ones you get in the regular grocery stores. They are super duper because they have the very large plain vanilla ice cream sandwiches PLUS they have very large neopolitan ones AND very large mississippi mud ones (our favorite hands down). And so I also bought some dry ice to keep the very large and super duper ice cream sandwiches frozen until the evening activity.

Back to playing with dry ice. There were 2 pieces of dry ice that survived the night in our ice chest. So I took them out and put them into a bowl and put some water in and played around. That is what I was doing during lunch.

Fun.