THE DREADED SAG

It has always been difficult for me to lose OR gain weight. With exception to brief periods of time when I've made significant "effort" in either direction, I've been roughly the same size since 7th grade. It's party a curse, and partly a blessing. As a Junior Higher I was always one of the fat kids, but as time has passed, the natural progression of age has caught up with my peers, and I'm increasingly more average. I've come to accept my body's love for maintaining homeostasis, haha. Ultimately, I've decided that if my body really likes a certain weight THAT much, then that's where God must have intended me to be. Mostly, I

've embraced my slight chub, and (with exception to reasonable issues I have with my arms) have found an odd affection for my chunkier bits.

When Donald deploys, however, things change. I always lose weight, and without significant effort on my own part. When Donald was deployed 2 years ago, I dropped over 20 pounds. I actually went to the doctor about it, because it was so uncharacteristic of me, lol.

I just... eat less when he's not around. Food isn't as much fun without a cute husband to share it with, I guess.

It's important to note that the weight loss is ALWAYS temporary. When hubby comes back to town and wants Enchiladas made with cream cheese every few days, my hiney grows back.

So what's the bad part about me losing weight?

SAGGY-BUTT-JEANS

I can hardly justify buying a new wardrobe for temporary weight loss, especially when I tend to only like more expensive jeans. (I'd like to pause here to note how ironic this is. I am cheap. DIRT CHEAP. I do NOT throw down money on clothing... with the only exception being JEANS. And, naturally, the only item of clothing that REALLY won't fit a

fter dropping weight is - you guess it: JEANS. Go figure)

This time around I'm down by about 14 pounds. Nothing crazy, but just enough to cause the sag. I have a couple pairs of jeans (bought last deployment) that fit good, but my recent favorites are bagging and sagging.

So, I'll enjoy being skinny-ish (for me, haha), and my saggy-butted-pants will remain as such, at least through the end of this summer, lol.

Back in the Saddle

The past week has been all sorts of busy, but in a good way!

I was asked the Sunday before last to speak in sacrament meeting the following Sunday (which was this last Sunday, in case you weren't tracking). So in addition to subbing in the Sunbeams class(3 year olds, for all my beloved non-Mormons out there), I had my hands full preparing for Sunday. The subject was on how we can create Zion by being pure in heart. A fabulous topic, if you ask me. Researching the subject was really uplifting and inspiring.
I was up WAY too late Saturday, preparing. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I would have prepared better earlier in the week AND if I wasn't so busy Saturday afternoon.
After working Saturday morning (which I don't normally do), the rest of my daylight hours were spent completing my garden bed, and filling it with soil.

Unfortunately, the only pictures I have are ones taken with my Blackberry. I still haven't figured out how to operate Donald's new-fangled camera properly, and since my Katrina-proof camera (an Olympus Stylus - totally indestructible) is missing its' power cord, my phone's camera is what I've been relying on.

I finished screwing the two layers(built a few weeks ago) together with support pieces:


Next, I laid down a some week-blocker and put down a layer of big rocks, gathered from my yard (I needed to get rid of them somehow!). They weren't ALL the big rocks, but they were at least the BIGGEST ones I could gather before I started to go insane and then gave up. Trust me, folks... picking up rocks is torture.



Then... mom and I filled it up with dirt! Woot woot! Props to my mom, by the way. Without her fabulous truck and the use of her time and physical labor, I would have never completed this job in the time that I did.





In other news, school started back up again this week for me. I'm actually going to full time this quarter, but since one of my classes is online and another is a hybrid, I only have to drive up to school once a week. So far, so good. I'm absolutely loving it.

The only bad update to share is that I have some sort of rodent(s) living in my garage. I haven't seen it(them), but their "leavings" are everywhere. GAG! Critters? In my brand new house? I DON'T THINK SO, GUYS! It's bad enough that I've already found three spiders. I need to hang a "GROSS LITTLE CRITTERS NOT WELCOME" sign outside my front door, and then maybe they'll get the message.

Anyway, I've found it VERY difficult to find humane and EFFECTIVE forms of extermination. Poison? No way. I don't want to be sniffing around to find a stinky little dead mouse/rat-corpse after its long and painful death. Glue trays? I'd cry if one got caught. The same goes for those little traps that just catch them inside and then keep them there until they starve to death. They may be gross little vermin, but I DO have a soul.
Standard snap-down traps? Scary, but hopefully effective... because that's what I got.
I'm no bleeding-heart, but I still don't like to see any creature suffer. Even spiders, which I abhor above all of God's creations, I kill swiftly and as pain-free as possible.


Moving along...

Well, I was given an assignment in the ward. Nothing too time consuming, it appears. The Graham Stake is putting on a fine arts expo-thingy in June. I'll be the representative for our ward, which essentially just means that I go to the meetings, take notes, and pass on the information to our ward.

The Bishop also said he had a calling for me. Oh snap... everyone pray hard that it's something wicked cool, okay?


Um... what else...
Oh yeah, D.O.G., our 11-month-old Newfoundland puppy, almost outweighs me. He's less than 10 pounds behind me. I'll soon be able to say that I own a dog who weighs more than me. Don't ask me why, but that's always been my dream. I adore large beasts, which makes me like a female Hagrid. Just smaller and far better looking, I guess.

That's all for now, folks!