A Picture Says it All

WooHOO Wednesday!

Today was a bit different in the parade of days.

Three years ago I met a friend at chapel, Charly. Charly moved away. Shortly after Charly moved away Sherri began to attend PWOC. Sherri and Charly are great friends. Lilly and Regan (respective daughters) are great friends. Today they did one of their infamous daughter swaps. Both take off driving and stop in 1 1/2 - 2 hours.......and meet. I was invited to go along. It was fun to see Charly again. Lilly is now home with Charly and Regan for a bit of time.

It was fun to visit with Sherri....and hear more about various assignments we may want to wish for.....Sherri liked Holloman and Colorado Springs.....and I got to see Sherri's home - it's gorgeous....and meet her youngest, Daniel. He's a cutie and quite a talker too.

I got home in time to enjoy a rousing storm, take Jamin to work, fix dinner and get children to bed.

Mike and Jared are out running.....so I updated....and I have photos to share.

You know, Kristine (Dorothy, Debbie in N NY...), if I lived in a scenic area like YOU DO - I would have snapped some photos...but it's pretty much FLAT around here....and no mountains. Ask Linda. ::snort:: So this will have to be a boring photoless entry.

TUESDAY REAL UPDATE - For friends and family who want to know the details....

I went to the gym.

We did school.

This was the deadline for ordering produce this week. I've restructured the co-op and so we have many new members this week. I was fielding calls and collecting monies all day long.

Had a good talk with a friend.

Last night was our last night of PWOC Bible study for this year. I am praying about a study during the summer aimed at students.....but that's a prayer at this point.

We said goodbye to Harley - which always makes me sad. We have lots of students who come through for a short period of time and then go back to their base..and so she's leaving us.

Josiah began touring apartments and getting quotes. He plans to move out in July.

I took Jamin to get registered for the "residual" ACT - his score will determine his enrollment in dual credit classes at the university.

Friend Debbie brought my meds to me at PWOC after Mike contacted her about the fact that I was out. I'm cared for. I had ordered a refill but never made it up to pick them up. ::Snort:: No, I've not had labs again and don't know that I will for a few months.

That's all we did.

Spend $ to Save $ and TIME

This principle holds true in many ares of our budget.

I run two co-ops so that members (and myself) can buy in bulk and reap the savings that comes from higher volume purchasing.I buy natural/organic food in bulk from United Natural Foods. I have learned to spend 50% of my budget on my monthly co-op order. One month I may buy 50#'s of oats, the next month splurge on a case of cereal - but over the long haul we save big bucks. Our produce co-op allows us to buy produce by cases and again - we reap the savings.

I have a local friend who is a caterer/personal chef. She buys a few things from the restauarnt supplier and offers them to us at cheap prices. SO.....here you go..... I buy my chicken this way....

You can buy this boneless, skinless HUGE, whole chicken breast in 10# increments of $1.49 a lb. This is my 40 lbs.

What do you do with all that chicken? My family can easily handle 10lbs for dinner. BUT this time I didn't have freezer room for 4 10 lb cubes of frozen chicken. I STILL haven't gotten back to full mega cooking....HOWEVER....after THAWING all this chicken, I hauled out the stock pot and nesco roaster.


I now have THIS in my freezer....ready for Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Divan, Chicken Enchiladas, Chicken Salads, .....this saves me a lot of TIME to have the meat ready to use.


For more of my WFMW posts click here (there ain't many yet). To view hundreds of this week's tips from others go here.

MANIC MONDAY

Big Rocks of the day:

I got up early and worked on organizing thoughts for Tuesday's Bible Study.

I went to the gym....45 min on the bike and I finished Escape by Carolyn Jessop. 20 min to do lower body workout.

We did school.

I printed out what I thought was our final order form for our United Order. ::snort:: I began to make individual invoices for each person - yikes!

We went to speech. I took my laptop and planned to continue working on invoices but couldn't get online. I worked on organizing my thoughts some more for Bible Study.

We came home and I sat down to work on invoices, got a call that the truck would be in in 20 minutes (a few hours early).

We met the United truck, nice new driver, drove home and I continued to work on invoices...but the totals weren't matching......Mike came home and he and the boys started working on splits and sorting.....Heather showed up and figured out all the math for me - hey a BOOKKEEPER! See how smart it was for me to make her my IT support? ::Snort::

We had dinner at 9:00.

Bought the tickets for Mike and the older 3 young men to go see Narnia at midnight. I'll take the younger ones the next afternoon. I'd be no good for produce co-op if I went to a movie that begins at midnigh (and um....I'd snore through the movie anyway at that time!).

Kids are bathed and in bed.

Little Rocks: I breathed and consciously relaxed except for about 10 min of sheer panic when the invoices weren't matching the order form totals. ::snort::

The library called and I have the new John Grisham book in my possesion.

Josiah met with his advisor in the business department and has registered for the fall semester. He earned a 3.5 this year - not bad when he's worked 40 - 50 hours a week. I can't believe he worked 48 hours during finals week and pulled A's and a B. He gets THAT from his father. I was more the class clown. ::snort::

Weekly Fitness Goals (click button for more info)

Weekly Goal - 240 Minutes (40 minutes most days)
Total Weekly Minutes - 285 minutes
Annual Goal - 11,700 minutes
Minutes to Date - 4, 452 minutes

Kathy had asked for comments on my meeting wth the personal trainer. I'll do that here. LOL

First, I should have done this years ago. If you are military, every base has this available for FREE to you through the HAWC. I should have availed myself of this service. I didn't because men intimidate me.....but I should have done it anyway.

At the gym I joined you get a free evaluation with a personal trainer when you join and then I think every so often if you want....not sure. Debbie was great. I told her about my wrists and my knee. I told her I want to tone up and LOSE weight but that my metabolism is slow, slow, slow. I keep a food journal. I'm eating 1200 calories a day. I CANNOT safely go lower than that - and so working out has to be a big part of the key here.

I spent this week implementing the workout that the personal trainer at the gym mapped out for me. She thought 3 - 5 times a week of cardio (20 minute min) would suffice. I KNOW from my past experience and my low thyroid induced metabolism that I simply MUST have more cardio than that to kick the metabolism into gear. I have been doing 60 min most days....she was surprised and gave me suggestions to make those minutes HARDER. I will still do 60 minutes of cardio on days when I don't do weights and aim for 45 minutes on days when I'm doing weights. For Cardio she showed me a new machine - the ARC trainer. It's got a cross country skiing motion (think 21st century nordictrac). She said that I could do the Ellipitcal but I'm finding the ARC just as good a workout without fear of knee injury. Yeah, my knee aches after weeks of videos or working out. She told me to stay way from the treadmill. Since Mike doesn't read long entries I can say here that I've been trying to work up to being able to go running with him by Father's Day. I've been jogging on the treadmill but she says that jogging is not good with my knee. Not sure if I will give up my goal....but I have noted since changing my routine my knee doesn't creek or ache. The main thing she changed here is that every 2 minutes I increase the incline and resistance on any machine I'm on. That keeps my body guessing, overall I'm burning more calories, and I'm working harder. The first day on the ARC I survived 20 mintues.

Yes, I knew I needed to add weights but they ALWAYS ended up hurting my wrists. I had this problem at Curves, as well, and so skipped the machines that used wrist power. Debbie, the trainer (as opposed to the dietician or the friend) told me to stay off the free weights. I do nautilus and other exercises for lower body, and she gave me cybex machines for upper body. She said the Nautilus, hydraulic, air machines still allow you to tweak your wrist...but the machines she put me on immobilze my wrist. She took me to each machine and wrote down what seat number was right for me etc. She set weight goals, and I'm to work up to 2 sets of 20 reps on each station. I'll get there...then increase the weight. My thoughts so far - I FEEL THE BURN! ::snort:: I have that achey tired muscle where I'm supposed to now and not in my knee or wrists. I'm to do the weight routine 2 - 3 times a week. I'm doing the ab stuff every day because I NEED it - badly.

Monday - 65 Minutes (bike)

Tuesday - 90 Minutes (30 min ARC, 20 min bike, 40 min weights)

Wed - 55 Minutes (20 min ARC, 30 min bike, 5 min abs)

Thursday - 85 minutes Community Health Club (45 ARC, 40 min weights)

Friday - 45 minutes (bike)

To read accounts from more participants - click here. To join us, click the icon above.....

A Tribute to Pastor's Wives on Mother's Day



Yes, I showed this to Mike first. We laughed. Mike tries to be good about this. Today, in the first service he started to say something and stopped himself and said, "De'Etta has this little clip about pastor's wives so I want to be sure all know that this is NOT De'Ettas list" and then he shared that funny list about things you learn from children. It was hilarious. When someone commented that they bet things are fun at our house and that they loved the list, I KNEW I had to post this clip today. ::snort::

Thanks, Trish, for sending it to me originally. Now - off to the last service of the day. With a big smile on my face.

Mom, YOU can come stay until July AND bring your dogs. ::snort::