Susan Boyle - How Great Thou Art (I Dreamed a Dream) 2009

I have heard about Susan Boyle, but never heard her sing. The Motab channel on Pandora played this. This particular version of How great you art brought me to tears.

So, for a while I have been eating whatever I wanted, drinking tons of soda, and too busy away from home to cook any meals for the last couple months; meaning we ordered out a lot. Still at my heaviest weight, I was putting off caring to lose weight until this moving stuff is over - I mean at least I was staying the same weight and not gaining. However, I decided to do a couple of little things before then. I have been too busy to go to the gym at night so I woke up early and went to the gym twice last week AND I stopped drinking soda, and you know what? Ten days later, I have gained 7 pounds. SEVEN POUNDS!! I have never hated looking at myself in the mirror as much as I did tonight. I don't even recognize myself. I'm going to go to bed and feel miserable now.

Me and Maddy went to Tenille's wedding last night. All of us were planning on going, but Dave had some work issues to work out and couldn't. It was nice just the two of us though. Maddy had a great time and was able to play with some of the cousin's kids. I sat at the table with Eliza (my cousin), some of Andre's kids, and Jake and Sadie. It was nice to chat with them and everybody else. Maddy came with me before the wedding to find an actual dress that fit me and so I got her a dress and new shoes as well. She was so funny showing them off to everybody. While watching people go through the line and greet the bride and groom, I saw an older couple I'm pretty sure was from Spring. I did some investigative work and flipped through the sign in book. The only names that looked familiar were Tom and Loraine Sutton, but I'm not sure. The Orem house continued to be our big project all last month. We tore down the carport, got new carpet, put up new blinds, put in some new light fixtures and closet doors, and painted the whole house pretty much. It doesn't seem like there are many people even looking at it, so my big thing when I went to the temple a couple of days ago was to ask what I could do to help it sell. I got some needed calmness and guidance while I was there. One feeling I got was that I needed to ask the Lord. So often with anything, I feel like things will happen on the Lords time and the only thing left for me to do is just have faith that it will. While I'm sure that's a true principal, I think I need to ask the Lord for some things instead of just rolling with the punches all the time. I'll also be fasting tomorrow. That never hurts. I have started packing things that we never use. I can't wait to move. So very excited! One more month!

Last night I came home pretty late after painting more at the Orem house. I normally set out breakfast, water bottles, and clean underwear on the table for the kids, but was just too tired to do it. I got up this morning when I heard Will and had to explain why I hadn't remembered to put the stuff out. So, tonight I, once again, had to go paint for a few hours and got back after 9. I looked on the table and saw his and Maddy's water bottles with pop tarts next to them and a pair of clean underwear. I guessed Will had done it and Dave confirmed and told me Will did it so "mommy doesn't have to worry about it". He is such a sweetie. Most of the painting is done except for some white trim in some areas and the one room that is purple. I should finish all that tomorrow and then we are having the carpet replaced next week. After everything is said and done, the house should look pretty nice. We also put new blinds up and closet doors in. The only thing really left to do is replace the carport, but I am having a very difficult time finding a contractor who wants to do a small job like that. I have left several messages and had zero call backs. Then one guy said,"I guess we could do that." and never called back. The only people left to do jobs like this are the people who post their skills in the classifieds and none of them have any reviews. I just don't know what to do now.

a few recent pics

So, Joshua is mobile. He rolls all over and scoots forwards. I'm hoping the crawling holds off, but we'll see. The sad pic of Will and the gingerbread house was when he was about to throw it away. It was a couple of months old and dusty and breaking-and every time Hannah would come over she'd try to eat it. lol Things are going well. The van is finally in the shop and we have a bright red mini van as a rental. ha.

This week has been so busy, I don't even know where to start. I'm just glad it's over and our house is finally listed! I've read the most traffic comes through the first 2-3 weeks of listing, so I really hope we get some interest in it soon. We've don't a lot of work on it and it's pretty clean. I haven't read the whole book of eat to live, but would like to try it at some point since everyone keeps telling me how awesome it is. I want to wait until we're in our next house though; it's not fun to prepare anything in this "kitchen" and our fridge has hardly any space. In the meantime, I've gone back to weight watchers. No meetings, just on my own, so that should get me started on the downward spiral I hope. I love my meat, so the eat to live thing kinda makes me raise an eyebrow. I tend to agree with Dave that meat is good for you, and I don't really feel like a meal is complete without some kind of meat protein. I am willing to give it up temporarily though to see big results, but I could never commit to that sort of a lifestyle change. I guess I'll just wait and see how I feel on it though. I did go a month without meat and dairy and felt pretty good, but was happy to go back to meat. Me and the kids were watching this discovery thing about Australia's deadliest animals. It was a little scary for Maddy. She covered her ears the whole time and told me she didn't want to watch it, but she didn't want to leave. lol Will was entranced. He did tell me we are never going to Australia though. haha. Afterward, I showed the kids a map of the world and hoped to put Maddy at ease by showing how far away we were from Australia. Never mind that we have our own deadly animals... After that, Will was just looking at the map and in an amused tone said, "Hey look at that. There's a state called Turkey. hahahahaha." Major laughing went on after that. They also thought Chile was funny. I love my goofy kids.