Me, going down a black slope for the first time!

Preparations for skiing

Stay Tuned

Sunday night was a momentous occasion at the ski slopes...I went down my first black slope! Blacks are the highest level of difficulty for skiing. Also, instead of doing the elementary "wedge" turn, I all of the sudden started doing parallel turns. It was like something clicked with me and it started happening spontaneously! We'll be going skiing tonight and we're gonna bring our new little video camera that we got from Bobbie Campbell and take footage of us skiing the black slopes. I have a feeling though that we're really gonna have to bundle up because as of now, the base temperature at Bogus is 13 degrees....BRRRR!!! Just ridiculous. After we take the video footage tonight, I'll post it here so ya'll can see what it's like up there at the ski slopes so stay tuned. :)

What a shock!!

http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/idaho/stories/NW_012509IDN-robbery-suspects-SW.1fa3567.html

Click on this link and read the article. The boy with the dreds (longer looking hair) is a student that I remember from subbing last Fall (2007) in an English class that I despised by the end of my week's subbing for that particular teacher. The only reason I really remember him is because of his unusual name and he went by Sir only. This is the very first time that I've ever seen/heard of a student of mine in trouble with the law (especially for armed robbery). Geez. What a wake up call! :0/ This student was pretty polite to me whenever I was in that class but I do recall a time when he asked me to go to the computer lab to type an assignment that was due that day and then he never showed up again. That was the last I heard/saw of him again until today. How unfortunate.

So tired!

It was an extremely long day today for class. We went until about 3pm and believe me, it felt like we had gone til 6 instead! She started wrapping up class at about 2:30 and then of course, she had to ask the infamous question, "Does anybody have any comments about today's lesson and the film we saw and what would you say you could bring out of today's lesson?" Wrong question, lady. There were only a few people who answered but one of them spoke twice because I think she liked hearing herself talk. Most of what she said was repetitious and not really relevant. Anyway, I was ready to get out of that class at like 12, so it just made my day seem really long and now I'm about to pass out from having a heavy brain. The good thing about these 2 weekend classes this semester? They're both gonna be done by spring break (the last full week of March) but that also means we have to squeeze a lot of work into that small amount of time. That means, if I don't do much writing between now and then on this blog, it probably means I all of the sudden got sucked into the black hole of reading article after article and working on project papers...Either that, or I'll be writing a lot in here due to procrastination...we'll just have to see how it goes, right?

Decisions, decisions

Well, folks...it's that time again. I'm brainstorming on colors for my next paint projects: finishing our bedroom/bathroom (that I've never started), the living room and possibly the kitchen. As Kyle was looking in Lowes for some kind of thingamajigger, I went to the paint section to look at the different colors. For our bedroom, I want a brighter color because the room is just too dark--we don't get a lot of sun in there until the late afternoon. I'm wanting a kind of tropical theme with the palm trees and I just want it to seem brighter and like a retreat to Jamaica or something. I don't want the walls too bright though. I'm leaning towards the lighter golden colors so that it looks good with greens from the curtains and the pillows that I found at Pier 1. For the master bath, I'd like to have it either the same color as the bedroom or the complimenting green but green can get tricky--it can either look like pea soup or baby poop, so I'm still unsure about that one. I was trying to find paint color samples to post on here so that ya'll could see but I was unsuccessful. :( Oh well. For the living room, we're also wanting to lighten it up and make the colors more neutral so that when it does come time to sell in the far, far future, it won't be hard to please people with colors but will also still go with my earthy tones that I like. The one color sample I'm looking at is called Toasted Almond. It looks about the right kind of brightness. The kitchen might be easier to just paint it the same as the living room since there really is no real room division between the living room and the kitchen. I don't want to pick another color for the kitchen/eating area if they're gonna clash but the color that I might choose is Vanilla Brandy (again, I know these names don't really mean anything but maybe it'll give you an idea about the colors I want to use). Anyway, I'm probably gonna start this project in the late Spring or whenever I get bored enough to do it, whichever comes first. :)


ps. I had to do this tropical background to lift me out of the Winter blues. It's been cloudy here ever since we got back from cloudy GA. We have what is called an inversion, where a thick blanket of clouds settle down on the valley at a certain altitude and then above the cloud line, it's perfectly clear. For example, once you cross the boundary of clouds in the mountains and reach Bogus Basin ski resort, it's blue sky and sun. AND it's warmer up there too. The other day at the ski resort, it was almost 50 degrees, while down here it was 30!!!! How weird is that??? Needless to say, that's why I'm wanting to lighten up the house and can't wait til Spring!

Tired of being punished but not gonna quit!

I'm tired of being punished at the scale for having an impulse indulgence of a snickers bar! I'm not saying this because I want to quit watching my weight altogether but it still irks me that when I have a moment's weakness after skiing down a few slopes and purchase a candy bar and eat the whole thing, the next morning I stand on the scale and it seems as though it cost me 5 pounds!! What the heck??? I know a lot of people have this same problem but it seems like it doesn't phase them at all. Why, when I'm consciously trying to watch but at the same time allow myself the occasional goodies, do I have to watch the scale go up instead of down after all the hard work that I do 95%-98% of the time? You see that the percentage isn't right at 100 because I do have to give in occasionally for myself to stick with the plan as long as I fit it in but most of the time, I'm careful to avoid all the wrong things at restaurants and at home (i.e. creamy soups, too much salad dressing, breaded entrees, etc...). IT'S SIMPLY NOT FAIR!! It's times like these where I wonder why do I even care? Well, I've come too far to quit now but it's just a sobering thought to know that if I ever quit watching in the future, that I'll just go right back to where I was and it would be even harder to watch without that constant support group that I have every weekend. I would have to work so much harder to keep the weight off without the tools and the constant reminder that I have to weigh in to keep myself honest (since being a lifetime member, I don't have to weigh in every meeting--just once a month at least) but I keep tracking my food intake and weighing in as I did when I first began because I do want to lose about 10 more pounds or so. Why do the last 10 or so pounds have to be the hardest then?

In the clear so far...

I had an appointment with the medical imaging office yesterday to check out my healing bruise and he said off the record, that my leg has no clot in it. The only thing that he saw was that the muscle where the kick mark is has a trauma mark in it. It's in the process of healing though. He said that higher up on my thigh where undamaged muscle is has smooth muscle tissue and when there's a trauma, it forms that black "hole" on the ultra sound. He said that if we had looked at it earlier when the bruise was fresh, the "hole" would've been bigger. So, overall, everything's fine as far as we know and I should have the final results sometime early in the week. :) I'm sure glad cats can't kick! :) hehehehe...

Sittin' in the airport

We've just made it to John Wayne Int'l airport in Orange County, CA and it's smaller than we thought it would be. I expected that it'd be pretty huge and that I'd see possibly a few rich and famous people but sadly, that's not the case. Probably most of the rich and famous people go to LAX in Los Angeles. Today has been a horrible day for my eating healthfully. At least my breakfast was healthy--oatmeal with blueberries and a splenda brown sugar blend. It's hard to eat decently when you're crossing several different time zones and end up eating 4 main meals--most of which are fast food because going to Wolfgang Puck and getting a salad costs almost as much as getting a whole combo meal including drink somewhere else! Oh well, back on the horse (haha!) as soon as we get home. I'm gonna have to do some major gym makeup-age! :)

I'm going to go get my leg checked out just for curiosity's sake on Thursday. I made an appointment at Micron's health clinic because it only costs $10--good deal, huh? I want to make for certain (or at least as certain as I can get) that my leg is okay and there's no potential danger for clots or whatever. I know it'll more than likely be okay but I wanna put my mind at ease. :)

It's hot here. We walked off the plane and it was almost a rude awakening to feel heat in January! It just don't feel right! It's nice though. I imagine that once I got used to this weather, it wouldn't feel so bad. It's nice to see the clear, blue skies and see sunshine for once in a couple of weeks. It'll probably be cloudy there in Idaho when we get back. :/

Well, guess I better go now. I've just about run out of things to say for now and in case you haven't figured this out, this is Jen writing although I think this site logged me in automatically as Kyle.

It hurt sooooo baaaaaaddd!!!!!!!!

I had something interesting happen to me today while visiting with Amanda---something I thought I would never experience in my lifetime. I went to the stables with Amanda to ride her horse because I had been wanting to forever. I did pretty good with some groundwork such as getting the horse used to me giving her commands and making her aware of me being next to her and so on. I got on Aspen and started riding and steering her...it was so much fun! We even got her to trot and do a little bit of cantoring (just short of running). It really is a workout to keep the horse going! I took the horse through an obstacle course and after that, we took her back to the barn and we were preparing to go on a trail ride. I was gonna ride another horse named Chief because he's a more stable and docile horse used for lessons. Aspen really doesn't like Chief and that's where the story begins...

Amanda got Chief all saddled up and gave me his ropes to lead him along and she and Aspen went out first. She told me to give her and Aspen some space before coming out and so I waited awhile til Chief and I left the barn. We were going towards the trail area and there were two people leaving out the gate to the stable yard. I kept following Amanda and Aspen and stopped at a certain point. Apparently, it was too close to Aspen because the next thing I knew, I was letting out this huge, blood-curdling yell/scream. Aspen had kicked me in the leg, just missing my knee cap!!!! I was in such shock and fear that I actually kinda couldn't believe what had happened! I stood there with my leg stinging and throbbing and just waiting for the pain to subside. Amanda stood there and kept asking me if I was okay and was I sure and I kept saying that I was okay and that we still could go on the ride but then the fear and worry came back into me and I said that maybe we shouldn't. I bent over to hide the tears that finally came to me and Amanda thought I was gonna puke but I didn't. I just didn't want to cry in front of the other people in the barnyard....Ugh...it hurt so bad but there are no hard feelings because I know it was just Aspen responding to that other horse and she saw that he was in her line of vision and then sensed something behind her and decided to act. I still want to ride her or another horse but I know that I need to be definitely more careful next time. This is definitely something that I thought could never happen to me ever. But if I could ever have a horse kick me, I'm glad it was Amanda's. I think it's better that Aspen did it to me than a random horse that way, I'm not scared of every horse that comes around and also I know the reason why she did it instead of thinking the horse did it for no reason.


I guess I've been inducted into the world of being kicked by a horse because according to everyone at the barn, everybody's had at least one instance of being kicked or thrown off the back of a horse...it happens to the best of us.

Happy New Year!

It's now 2009 and I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve/Day! Don't have much to say now because we're visiting and just relaxing so I'm sure we'll have more to talk about later. :)