HERCULES LIVES!!!

It may have seemed that Hercules was a non-exister! Well I'm Hercules and am here to proclaim my love for She-Ra the best wife one could ever have. I love to do all I do with She-Ra. We love to spend time together and there is nothing we would rather do than be together. My world revolves around She-Ra and she makes me happy! Good times can always be guaranteed as we are together. There are many things we love to do together like, raft the snake, ride ATV's, spend time with Family, camp, and cruise in Honda cars or old trucks. I'll let you decide who likes what car! I love you She-Ra, I hope your having a good Day!!!!

ten reasons to train for half-marathon

Yesterday I was e-mailing back and forth with one of my brothers. (My "favorite brother that is just older than me", as he likes to call himself!) He is trying to decide if he wants to run the half-marathon. I really want him to do it! So far, there are 6 in my family who are training. He would make 7. I say "the more the merrier" on race day! In hopes of inspiring him, I e-mailed him my "6 reasons I am training for the half-marathon". (I wrote these reasons down a couple weeks ago so that I could think about them during those times I am running and really wanting to stop. Those reasons are supposed to get me through my long and hard runs.)

Last night I went to the track to run for 40-minutes. That seems like nothing now that I have run 6 miles, right? NOPE! It was a really hard run. I kept going over my "reasons I am training for the half" in my mind and I added a few more to my list. So, in hopes of maybe inspiring some of you who, for some crazy reason, want to run a half-marathon, or a marathon, or even just a 10K ... here are my reasons - in no particular order:

1. FUN! (Most of the time I DO love to run. I love it even more when I am done with the run. But really, how FUN will it be on race day? My family will be running with me ... or, um, AHEAD of me. More family will be cheering for us along the race and at the end. S will be there to cheer me on! We have all of the festivities before and after the race. How FUN will that be??? SO fun!!)
2. GET IN SHAPE. (I haven't been very good at exercising for a while now. At all. But since I have started training for the half, I have worked out 6 times a week. Most weeks, anyway. It feels so good! I don't think I have lost any weight but I sure do feel a lot better.)
3. BUILD ENDURANCE. (I give up on things pretty easily sometimes. I always want to give up during my long runs but then I tell myself that I have to build my endurance and keep going.)
4. ACCOMPLISHMENT. (I think it's a huge accomplishment to finish a half-marathon so I wanted to add that to my resume!)
5. BECAUSE I CAN RUN. (Some people can't. I want to do it and enjoy it while I CAN! Someday I might not be able to and I don't want to look back in my life and regret not using my legs when I could. Hopefully I'm not foreseeing something in my future, hu?!)
6. BRAGGING RIGHTS! (It will be totally cool to be able to brag and say that I ran a half-marathon. AND that 6 other members of my family ran with me!)
7. NEW RACE SHIRT. (The last race shirt I got was in 2001 for the West Valley City 5K. I have a few others from before my mission. I wear them all with pride, but they are totally grungy and old and yucky. It's time for a new one!)
8. MEDAL. (The finishers of both the half-marathon and the marathon will all receive a finisher medallion. So cool!!)
9. BUILD MY MENTAL ... WHATEVER. (I don't know what word to use. But I want to work on my mental ... something. It is ALL mental for me. If I tell myself I can't do it - I will stop within the next 5 steps. So, it is a mental battle for me the WHOLE run! I want to overcome the negative thoughts and win mentally! I tell myself "positive affirmations" the whole time. "I am strong and tough and I WILL finish this run." Haha! I might not be strong and tough but I keep telling myself that I am!!!!)
10. FIT INTO MY OLD PANTS. (I have 5 pairs of pants that are stacked in the top of my closet that are a little too snug. I haven't been able to give them away because I keep hoping I will be able to fit into them again. I don't know if I've had any progress. I'm too afraid to try them on ...)

Alright, there are 10 reasons to train for a half-marathon!!! I'm sure there are more reasons but that's enough for now. Let's see if these reasons get me through my 7 miles tomorrow!!!!

happy valentine's day

I love Valentine's Day! It's such a fun day for everyone to celebrate their love! It doesn't matter if their "love" is their spouse, boy/girlfriend, parents, children, grandchildren ... whatever! It's just a great excuse for all of us to say "I love you" and then put the blame on the holiday for being all cheesy and lovey! I don't need an excuse to be cheesy and lovey to Hercules! I can do that every day! Last night when I got home from work I got his gift out and put it on the bed along with the wrapping paper and ribbons. I was going to wrap his gift and have it all ready before he got home from school, so that I could give it to him TODAY. Well, at 6:15 pm, my visiting teachers came. Then right after that another friend from the ward came over. We chatted for almost 2 hours! (She came with me to do my laundry - so at least we were productive.) Then Hercules called me to say he got out of school early so I told him I would pick him up. (We are a one-car-family now so I like to pick him up whenever I can!) Anyway, it had been a long day so we were talking non-stop and filling each other in on our day the whole ride home. We came inside and were talking in the bedroom. Hercules turned to walk out of the room at the exact same time that I noticed HIS GIFTS WERE STILL LAYING ON THE BED ... UNWRAPPED!!!!!!! I screamed!!! AAAAHHHH!!! Hercules looked at me and said "I'm so sorry! I was just going to tell you that I saw everything!" I then decided to just give him his gifts right then. Before I could even hand them to him, he was walking over to the corner of the room and lifting up the pillows and getting out my unwrapped gifts! We were both laughing and I couldn't believe it happened! So, we started our valentine's day early. It was actually really fun that way!

Happy Valentine's day to everyone!!!! Spread the love, baby!!! :)

and the "best husband ever" award goes to ...

I have been training for the half-marathon for a little over a month. When I first announced this to Hercules, I was barely running ONE mile. That was hard enough for me! Seriously. It was so hard to run even just one mile. I kind of laughed at myself for even thinking about running a half-marathon. Hercules has been so supportive the whole time! From the very beginning he has been telling me I can do it. When I asked him if he thought I had enough time to train for it, he said "Yes!" When I ran 3 miles (without walking) a few weeks ago, he was there to congratulate me! Two Saturdays ago I ran 5 miles (again, without any walking). I was so excited to tell Hercules! He told me he knew I would run the full 5 miles. Just this last Friday I went out for a 6-mile run. I really wanted to do it without stopping but was feeling a little doubtful. I had been feeling sick all morning so I was worried that I wouldn't have the strength to run the full 6 miles. As I was walking out the door, I was telling Hercules to wish me luck and that I was wondering if I would be able to do it. So, out I went to tackle the SIX!!! One hour and 14 minutes later, I FINALLY finished the 6 miles!!! I DID IT!!! I ran ALL six miles!!! When I got home, Hercules was already at school so I had to wait to tell him the great news. I did all of my stretches and then I noticed a note from Hercules that he had taped to the mirror. I loved it so much that I took a picture! He KNEW I would finish the run (even with all of my complaining before)!!! If I were a gambler, I would have bet against myself that day. But not Hercules! How sweet is that??? He is the BEST HUSBAND EVER!!!

thursday and hp7

Today is a GREAT day! Why, you ask? Because it's Thursday. That means tomorrow is Friday and then it's the WEEKEND, baby! (Hercules turns the big 26 on Sunday so we are heading to Salt Lake to celebrate! Happy Birthday to him!!!!!) Another reason it is such a great day today is because the 7th Harry Potter book was finally announced. YAY! "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be released on July 21, 2007. I can hardly wait! My side of the family has our annual family vacation the last week of July. You can guess that those of us who haven't finished the 7th HP book will definitely be reading it during our vacation.

I still haven't told Hercules that we have a blog. Maybe I'll just e-mail the link to him! (I love you, honey!!!) I'm guessing I will be the one who posts to the blog most of the time anyway. This is way more my kind of thing than it is his. Sorry to everyone because you'll hear from me a lot more than Hercules. He is way more funny than me so I'll try to get him to post every once in a while!