When will we learn?

This morning on my way to work I saw a woman driving down the road putting on her make-up. I'm not taking about applying a little chap-stick at a stop light, she was full-on rubbing on her foundation and driving at the same time. Several weeks ago I saw a lady putting on mascara while she was driving and I can't even begin to name all the people I see texting and driving every single day. To me texting, putting on make-up, drinking or doing any other number of stupid things and driving is like smoking. There is so much data showing how bad it is for you, yet people still do it! Every time John texts while I am in the car with him I tell him texting and driving is worse than driving drunk but he never believes me. He would never drink and then drive and would kill me if I even thought about it but doesn't think twice about sending a few texts. They have done studies!! At the University of Utah they took volunteer students got them drunk and had them drive through a simulated street, then they did the same thing with sober people that were texting. Those texting had more accidents, slower response times and worse driving skills overall.

On facebook this morning I posted about the woman driving and said I hoped she crashed. I didn't have room to say, "I hope she crashed but not into someone else and not bad enough that she was badly injured but just bad enough to learn her lesson." Many of you may think this makes me a horrible person to wish ill on someone else but I have no sympathy for people who knowingly do stupid things. 

When are we going to figure out that distracted driving kills people?!! 

My little sister, Morgan, was in a car accident last week. She rear-ended a truck, she was fine but her car was not. When we were at my mom's house this past weekend I asked her (out of ear shot of Mom and Dad of course) "Morge, be honest were you texting when you crashed?" This was the conversation that ensued. 

"No, I wasn't, I don't text and drive." 

"Since when?" 

"Since when do you think I text and drive?" 

"I have seen you do it when I was in the car with you!!" 

"I don't text and drive, not since two 19 year-old boys from Rich got killed texting and driving." 

I was quite for a moment and then responded. 

"I am sorry it took those boys dying for you to learn your lesson but I am glad you did." 

Again that may sound selfish but its true. I truly am sad that someone else's family members died but I am grateful that it wasn't my sister and that she has hopefully learned how dangerous distracted driving really can be. 

I will admit I have texted while driving in the past, I would be lying if I said I didn't, but I don't do it anymore. If I am talking on the phone and traffic or weather gets to bad for me to talk and drive I hang up. 

The thing that baffles me most about people doing all these things is it is not just you the decision is impacting. More often than not those injured or killed in drunk driving accidents are the ones that weren't drinking, the innocent bystanders. By making the choice to drive distracted you are choosing to not only play Russian roulette with your own life but with the lives of everyone else on the road with you, which to me is just plain unacceptable. 

The Body is Amazing

The more I learn about the body and the complicated things it does just while I sit here and type this blog the more it amazes me. I have been working with a personal trainer for the past 3 months, following a pretty specific meal plan (I will not call it a diet) and working out regularly. I have a few more months paid for but I have been concerned about what is going to happen when I no longer have to report what I ate to my trainer every night and have no one but myself to be accountable too. Well today my body took some of that worry away.
We had a pot luck lunch at work today and while there have been days I have eaten "off plan" foods today was the first day in several weeks that I have eaten an entire meal of foods that I haven't eaten in a while, including white rolls, broccoli salad, hamburger dip, tortilla chips, carmel popcorn and some cookies. Less than an hour later my body is not pleased. My stomach hurts and feel all gross. I do not like this feeling, I don't like feeling super full and like I ate a bunch of stuff that is not good for me. I guess this is nature's way of keeping me accountable because I feel like as long as I can avoid this feeling, even after I have no trainer to report too, I can stick to my new healthy lifestyle and keep the weight I have lost off for good!!
It amazes me that in 3 short months the body can adapt to a totally new diet and learn to dislike other certain unhealthy foods. I have also been told that if you give your body the nutrients it needs it will no longer crave things like salty and sweet snacks, I am still waiting for this to happen. Salty snacks are not a problem for me just the sweet ones and I am convinced that no matter what I give my body I will still crave yummy treats. But back to the body being smart. My body has "learned" the right amount of food I should eat, I put learned in quotes because I suppose it has always known how much and what I should be eating I just wasn't listening too it. That means that although I weigh most of my food now I won't have to do this forever, because I have learned what is enough and know exactly how much fuel my body needs to function.
I now have hope that I won't have to follow a "diet" for the rest of my life!! If I continue to learn and listen to the cues my incredibly smart body (this is not being conceited, your body is smart too) is giving me everything else will take care of itself.

A Lazy Week

You know how people say they are having a lazy day, well I am having a lazy week. Unfortunately that does not mean that I am being lazy it just means I wish I could be lazy. I have no motivation to do anything and I have lots of things to do!! Yesterday I managed to make myself go workout, I don't know if I will be so successful today. Just a few of the things I need to do this week: get supplies for Ragnar, including running clothes, run 4 and 7 miles, go get a marriage license, clean my apartment so John's grandma isn't horrified when she gets here next week, go grocery shopping and finish picking music for the wedding. There are more things but my brain is tired and I can't think of them. By themselves none of those things would be a big deal but when I list them all together I get overwhelmed and just want to take a nap, which would definitely not be a good use of my time. For just this one week I need one extra hour a day, okay maybe the next two weeks then after that I will be fine! I know there are people out there that have way more to do than I do but since I went to Altamont the past two weekends and I get zero accomplished when I go there I feel like I have a lot to do and as you can see I feel like complaining about it. I have now changed my phone screen saver and desktop backgrounds to beach scenes to remind myself that in a few short weeks I can do nothing but lay on the beach for 4 days if I want.

Take a Deep Breath

Over the past several weeks I have found myself stressing about various things in relation to the ragnar and the wedding and most of them are things I can't control, like how fast my teammates are running and how many people are going to come to the wedding. As RSVP's have been coming in it is pretty clear that we are going to have a pretty small wedding, which I should be excited about because that means it is cheaper! But I have also been kind of sad because I was hoping lots of people would want to come and celebrate with us (selfish and silly I know) BUT!! I realized today none of that matters, it doesn't matter if their are 10 people at our wedding or 210 people because those who are there are exactly the people we want to be there and want to share our special day with. Not to mention the wedding ceremony isn't for everyone else, it is simply for John and I and I should be focusing on enjoying that not on how many people will be in the crowd. As the list of things to do before the wedding gets longer and longer, I just have to remember to take a deep breath, breath in and out and know that everything will be okay. Since I am huge control freak this is easier said than done but like John said yesterday about some tiny detail I was stressing about, "It will be fine, everything will work out how it is supposed to." For the next 3 weeks this will be my mantra, "Everything will be okay, just breathe."

2,000

As of 10:24 a.m. on Thursday May, 24th my blog has exactly 2,000 views!!! This is exciting news people. Well, maybe not exciting to you but exciting to me. It is irrelevant that those views probably came from the same 10 people viewing my blog over and over (and yes I did disable my own pages views so I am not counted)! This just motivates me to blog even more because I know that people are actually reading what I am writing, which is always awesome validation! So, if you are reading this it is possible you are 2,001st visitor of my blog, congratulations!

Whose idea was this?

When I originally agreed to run Ragnar I was well aware that it was less than a week before my wedding but I wasn't really concerned abot it. I thought 4 1/2 days would be plenty of time to recover and be ready for the big but the closer the race and the wedding get the more worried I become. What if I get hurt or sick or have big giant blisters and I can't wear my cute wedding shoes? What if I get a nasty sunburn and have big nasty blisters on my back? What if I am so sore I still can't walk normally down the aisle? These are my thoughts and I am terrified. More likely than not (at least I hope so) I will be a little sore but will be fully recovered for walking, dancing and whatever else I need to be ready for on my wedding day. But there are always those what ifs in the back of my head! More than anything it has become very stressful trying to get ready for 2 events at once! Between training for the race, doing wedding stuff and work I feel like I have no time to myself. The beach in Mexico is looking sooo good right now.

Lesson Learned , Twice

Sometimes you have to do the same stupid thing more than once before you learn your lesson that it is probably not the smartest thing to do. Case in point: I take a multivitamin and fish oil capsules every morning (per my personal trainer), once several weeks ago I took them on an empty stomach because I was in a hurry to leave for work and hadn't eat my breakfast yet, less than five minutes later before I could get out the door and to my car I threw up. I decided then that taking pills, any pills, but these ones in particular on an empty stomach was not a good idea. Yet this morning I did the same thing. I was in a hurry, I woke up late and didn't want to bother putting the pills in a plastic bag to take with me to take later so I just took them. Again, almost instantly I was throwing up. But this time something even worse happened. So I threw up, rinsed my mouth with mouth wash and was out the door again but as I got to the car I noticed a gross taste in my mouth and smell in my nose (sometimes I throw up out my nose, gross I know but true) it took me a few minutes to realize it was the fish oil!! It was seriously the grossest thing ever! I almost threw up again just because of the gross fishy taste that was in my mouth. It is still lingering more than an hour later. The moral of the story is NEVER take fish oil on an empty stomach and definitely don't do it twice.

Maybe I am a morning person

I have always thought that because I don't like getting up early I am not a morning person but sometimes I wonder if this is really true. Today for example I got up at 6:00 a.m. because I had to be at work early but I am in a better mood this morning than I am most mornings when I sleep an hour or two longer than I did today. This has happened before but I always just considered it a fluke. It is a curious thing really because I am the girl that sets my alarm for the latest possible time even if it means I have to rush to get ready or put my hair in a bun, again. But today I got up had plenty of time to get ready before I needed to leave at 7, listened to some music on my way to work and here I am in an excellent mood and I a feel less tired than usual (but that may have something to do with the rather large coffee I just drank). Maybe this is a new era in the world of Paige, an era in which it is possible to set my alarm early enough to workout before work and actually getting up and doing it rather than turning off my alarm and setting it for an hour and a half later. Well, maybe that is wishful thinking but at least for now I can "Good Morning" and actually mean it. It is a GOOD morning.

Ragnar Roller-coaster

I feel like training for and emotionally preparing for the Ragnar has been such a roller-coaster. I did so so well training for the first few months, I was motivated, I was ready to go and then I the wall. I didn't want to run and then I hurt my knee and couldn't run and now I am back to not wanting to run. I think emotionally it has been even worse. One minute I am excited and then the next minute I am dreading it. I get mentally prepared for how hard it is going to be and tell myself I can do it and then I go on a run and think, "Who are you kidding?" There is still 4 1/2 weeks until this thing!! I am going to be mentally exhausted by the time it gets here! It doesn't help that I am also in the final planning stages of the wedding and trying really hard to stay on my diet and exercise plan when all I really want to do is eat a pint of ice cream every single day. I ran outside for the first in a long time on Saturday and it sucked and I sucked but it really made me wonder if my stupid knee can even hold up to running 3 runs in 36 hours, one of them being 7 miles all downhill. So then I get all worried about things like I do and wonder if I can make it and who will take my spot if I can't. But then I think about not running and how disappointed my mom and sisters will be and how bad it would suck to just drive the van while they all run!! See roller-coaster, I drive myself crazy sometimes.

I am not normal

I am not normal, there I said it. I like organizing things, calculating things and figuring out problems. I spent a good part of my day reorganizing my pintrest recipe board into categories just because I felt like it. I took my big giant recipe board and organized it down into 4 smaller more manageable boards. I also spent a good chuck of the day doing math to figure out how fast our Ragnar team is going to finish the race in and how long it will take each runner to run all of their legs. That is 36 legs and times I figured out, plus starting times for each of those legs. I don't just have one or two folders for documents on my computer or in my email I have several. At work for example, I have Health Stories, BYU Stories, UVU Stories, General Assignment Stories and Campus Notes and then a finished stories folder under all of those Headings. I get stressed when I open my inbox and there are 20 things just sitting there! I like things to be organized and in there place. I am for sure one of those people for who the saying, "Everything has a place," is true. I wouldn't let John help me put the groceries away yesterday because he might put things in the wrong place! It sounds silly but this is how I do things. So now you know, I am just not normal.

The Adventures of Willy

My adorable Pug dog Willy is one of the best things in my life. I love how excited he gets when I come home from work and how he likes to snuggle on the couch! He does some crazy things though. A week or so a go I was walking him and we encountered two other pugs, I was hoping he would be excited and want to play with them but really he was such a little scaredy cat! He kept hiding behind my legs and scratching at my legs just begging for me to pick him up. He has also recently decided its a fun idea to pee on the steps of our apartment building rather than on the grass. The funniest thing I have ever seen him do happened last night. I was sleeping but kept feeling this shaking on the bed, I thought maybe it was John just thrashing about and was about to yell at him, when I realized the pillow next to me was moving. Willy had someone managed to crawl inside the pillow case and couldn't get back out. I have no idea how he managed to get in there. He can't even get under the covers by himself because he has no nose and can't lift up the blanket but somehow he squeezed all 25 pounds of himself into the pillow and then was stuck because he couldn't turn around and wasn't smart enough to back out. I picked up the pillow to dump him out but that just scared him, it was so funny to feel him wriggling inside the pillow case. When I got him out he snuggled up to me, "Like thanks mom I was totally stuck in there." Such a silly little dog.