2012 Night of Champions NPC Body Building Competition, Spokane WA

Waking up way too early to drive way too far (with littles anyway!) on only 3 hours of sleep sounds like a disaster, but let me tell you - it was a GREAT time!! Even if I may not have agreed with the judges... in fact I strongly disagree with their decisions. I am pretty biased though so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Here is the photo:

 

In case you don't know. Brad is in the front, wearing the #1... and yet. He got third. THIRD. Not even second.  See the teeny, tiny boys behind him? Yeah. They both beat him. Really judges?!..  Interestingly enough the twiggy twins are both good ol' local boys from Spokane.

 

Can you say political win? 

 

The announcer shook his head and sighed when he saw the results.

 

After getting their awards, the top three get their photos taken and the official photographer said this to Brad "Hey big guy you stand here, then 2nd place here and 3rd place there".  When Brad walked over to the 3rd place position. The photographer said "No, no, no... we need you to stand front and center." When Brad told him he got third place, the photographer stopped and said "Huh. Uh ok, you're in the right place then."

There were other comments like:

"You should have walked off stage."

"I would have kicked the trophy at the judges"

... others I'm sure I wasn't privy to. I know I wanted to throw a few chairs, but Brad handled it like a champ. He was calm and cool about it, disappointed of course but he allowed himself to be sad and then got over it. He was back to his happy, dorky self in no time :) It was a really good trip and we all had a GREAT time supporting our very own rising star.

 

 

 

 

Expensive Addictions

It's expensive to have an addiction, we all know this. And in my opinion the only thing worse than blindly paying for your own addiction is knowingly paying for someone else's. Here's an example... hypothetical of course.

Say you are a smoker.

Maybe you smoke a pack a day.

Each pack costs you around $8 dollars

In one week you (as long as you stick to one pack a day) it will cost roughly $60.

Nearly $250 a month.... just for one little, incredibly unhealthy and disgustingly smelly addiction.

Good thing I don't have a really bad and expensive addiction, like drinking or smoking. Not sure how I'd be able to pay for that and all the other important necessities of life, like a mortgage or food.

Please excuse my crankiness I had to cut back on my caffeine, it was getting too expensive. :) lol

Sisters (...and Brothers)

Three Sisters

By: Francis I. Gillespie **edited a bit by me :)

        

We are three sisters

Three sisters are we

I love each of you,

And I know you love me

We’re not always together,

Life sometimes keeps us apart.

But we're never really separated

Because we’re in each others' heart.

The Lord has given me lots of happiness and glee

One of the best things, was making us sisters ... all three.

My sister rock!!! And... I'm so lucky because my brothers are amazing too!!

I can't imagine my life without any one of my siblings and I have been particularly thankful for each one of their roles in my life lately. We are all so grown up and our bonds are getting even stronger now that we are all older and I freaking love it. :)

I wanted to sit down and type out a list of all the ways they have helped me so I could truly be grateful and have a reminder of how amazing they are.

 ... but it's never ending. (Seriously, I tried...)

There isn't a kind act in the world one (or all!) of my siblings haven't helped me with. Everything from rescuing me from the side of the road (hanging out with me until the AAA guy shows up counts too), washing my dishes, pulling weeds in my yard (even if you pretend to be tanning), Babysitting my kids for hours on end or listening to me whine and cry. Bringing me dinner when I'm too sick to cook, running errands, picking up kids, dropping off kids, driving me to the hospital's emergency room over and over again, being the calm voice of reason, telling me a joke to make me laugh, stopping by to see how I am doing, texting me just because they love me, hating people just because I hate them, thinking of me when funny things happen ...

... see what I mean?!! It could go on and on forever, and not the normal kind of forever, the Sandlot kind of F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!...  and they do it all with a smile on their face.

They never made me feel like I was being a burden to them, because helping me was exactly what they wanted to do that day.

:)

Positive thinking ...

Some days I find it's hard to think positively, and I really don't like negativitiy or bad feelings/thoughts to linger so when I need a little bit of good energy in my day browse Pintrest.

 

I enjoy searching for happy quotes, zen habits, awe-inspiring 'I should write this on my mirror so I see it every day' mantras or just some good 'ol fashioned pee your pants funnies. Here are my favorites from today.

 

 

 

 

Now, back to my life. :)

I blame you leukopenia.

[So you don't have to google it lol. Leukopenia is the fancy medical term for a low white blood cell count.]

Not every day is a bad day, but today is one of my sicker days.Taking anti-nausea pills have become an almost daily thing. I have 3 different pills for nausea [and yes... they all were actually prescribed to me, :) haha] but sometimes they only take the edge off. And when added to the list of my normal everyday life complications, my "broken" back, the fact that it's summer time and all the kids are here. It blows.... BIG time.

It's 12:57 and I'm exhausted; I haven't been sleeping at all this week and tonight doesn't feel like an exception. Once again my mind won't stop racing [obsessing over anything and everything] and I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin. I have a fever but the only thing I want is hot tomato soup (I've had 2 cans today).

Now to be fair, there is a "solution" to my lack of sleep, if I take a handful of sleeping pills I can knock myself out. The following morning is miserable though [I'm already not a morning person], so it's a nightly decision based on how early I can corral the children and get them to sleep. Oh yeah, and any night my husband is home but he never is... in fact, in the last 10 days was home before 10pm one day, yep one day. So pretty much I am exhausted... all the time.

I can never catch up. My good days just aren't long enough to finish everything I need to get done and still do the things I want to do. It's like coming back to work after a vacation [at my old "working for the man" job] when you take a break or stop working for awhile it doesn't mean your work takes a break. Oh no, it just piles up... and piles up. It waits for you to come back. Then you end up working 60 hours the following week just to make up for the few extra days you had off. Only it didn't matter so much then. Now I have children and people who need me in addition to my other jobs I'm suppose to be getting done. My house is a disaster. You should see my desk. I'm so far behind in every area of my life and it makes my eye twitch. The feeling of hopelessness is pretty discouraging actually. I feel like it makes it even harder to start something knowing you still won't be caught up anyway.

Thankfully, Jabali and the older boys are going to be gone for the next three days, it will help. Why will it help? There is only a 10% chance one of the littles will destroy something or seriously injure one another, which is pretty nice on the 'ol nerves. Less Xanax = More Productivity. Then, after I get my life back on track-ish I am going to reward myself with a trip to my mom's (relaxing mountain getaway) house.

Looking forward to my chance to catch up and set up schedules and a trip to the mountains. In fact, can't decide which one is going to bring more relief. It'll probably be the mountains. Something about sitting in a hot tub, while listening to the river, breathing in fresh air and looking at the stars that just makes me wanna "ahhhhhh" :)

Christmas Pj's for the Hubs

Bahahahahaha!!!! I super love this. lol
Thanks Nikki! :)

.... hello, stranger. :)

It is has been awhile. A very long while.

I promise to write. I do.

Just.... later :)

I