My first bike ride

For a long time I have admired my friend Lisa for her ability to ride a bike. Yes, I know how to ride a bike but the extent of my bike riding was around the block every once in a while. Over the past two years, I have been able to support her as she rode in the Little Red Riding Hood bike ride in Cache County. I found myself saying that there was no way that I would ever be able to do what she does.

Well, with that is the back of my mind, I started talking with another friend about the race. Michelle is a math coach along with me and she had signed up for the race was was really encouraging me to do so as well. I let time slip and didn't get signed up but that didn't stop Michelle from finding me a registration to purchase.


My longest ride prior to the race was 24 miles and that was four days prior. On June 5, 2010, I participated in the LRRH ride and rode 33 miles with Michelle. It was a beautiful day and wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I loved it.

Lisa and her sister, Laurie, rode a tandum bike and did 58 miles. We spent some time together that day. I rode up and back with them.


I am proud of myself for riding in this ride. It is something that I know I will do again in the future and next time I will go a little further!

Home Repair Frustrations...

Okay, this post is a venting post. My last post about this was posted at the end of March and I am still not finished with getting my kitchen back together. The cabinets took a week or so and were put in over Spring Break. The guy who was fixing the holes in the sheet rock came a week and a half after the cabinet man. I was stood up by the painters and the flooring people (twice). The painters came and were finished in about 20 minutes. I am still waiting for the flooring people to come.

My blood boils when I think about how ridiculous all of this is. There is no way that any of this should have taken this long. I guess that I should have been a squeakier wheel throughout the entire process. Maybe I just needed to enlist the help of a male to make phone calls (any takers...because I know so many of you are reading this blog!) and get things done. I am not impressed nor remotely pleased with how this has been handled. HOPEFULLY, the floor with be fixed and this entire mess will be behind me soon!

A new color...

Over Spring Break...yes I am very slow in posting this...I completed a little home improvement project in my bedroom. For a while I have wanted to paint a couple of the walls a different color and even had the color picked out for about 2 months. I was waiting for a break from school to be able to get it done. My mom came down a day to help and Lisa and Avery also joined in on the fun. Anyway, we cranked it out in a day and here is the finished project!

Women's Conference

I was able to attend Women's Conference this year with my mother and my friend Lisa. We headed to Provo early Thursday (April 29) morning and were in the Marriott Center by about 8:15 a.m. The first session started at 9:00. After the general morning session, in which Sister Julie Beck was the speaker, there were three break-out sessions. We were back in the Marriott Center for the general afternoon session that started at 3:45 p.m. We repeated the same process on Friday.

I took it upon myself to get the hotel and boy did I ever choose a winner. I booked through Travesty, I mean Travelocity and the name of the hotel on-line was not even close to the name in real life. In fact, the name on the business card I picked up was colored over with a sharpie marker. What are they hiding that they don't want people to know about? The room was big and we were there for only one night...Lots of memories and laughter will come from thinking of this 4-star rodent motel.

Women's Conference is a great place to be to gain strength from other righteous women of the church. It is a little like General Conference for women by women. All of the sessions are wonderful which makes you feel bad that you are not able to get to them all. You come away from there feeling a little more empowered to be a better person, to try a little harder as a wife, mother, sister, friend and neighbor. You regain the eternal perspective that may not be in the forefront of your mind.

Thanks mom and Lisa for a wonderful Women's Conference. I hope to be able to go again next year!

Grandma Jan Gets Pretties!!!

While we were sitting in the Friday morning session of Women's Conference, my mother leaned over and told me that she wanted to get her ears pierced. She has had them done before but has not worn earrings for a very long time. When we finished our day, we headed to the South Town Mall to get the deed done. She was so brave! She didn't even make a sound. I never really asked her if she was nervous to get them done...I hope she likes being about to wear earrings again!!

Screws, Water, and Repairs...Oh My!!!

On Thursday evening, I noticed that there was some discoloring of the foot kick on my cabinets. This is the small piece of wood between the bottom cabinet and the floor. The discoloring went from my fridge to where the cabinets bend in the corner. As I looked closer, I could tell that this discoloring was actually water. I looked as best as I could near the fridge to see if there happened to be a leak in the fridge. I ended up pulling the fridge out and finding a huge puddle of water under the fridge and much more water damage than I had expected.

I cleaned up the mess and turned the water off to the fridge thinking that the fridge was the problem. I went to a movie with Dallin and when I came home I had another puddle of water. I then knew that it was more that a problem with the fridge. I noticed that by pulling out the fridge, I had put a couple of holes in my kitchen floor. This about put me over the edge. I tried to control my frustration and tears...turned off the water in the house...and went to bed.

The following day, I contacted the people who built my house and they came out to find the problem. After two hours and cutting holes in the wall, they determined that the sheet-rockers had nicked the drainage pipe with screws...three to be exact. The holes were just enough to let small amounts of water leak...and over time...cause larger problems.

This picture shows the holes cut in the wall trying to find the leak. You can see the water that has started to soak into the cabinets.

This picture shows the water damage to the floor board from behind the fridge. The dark brown color is the water that had soaked into the board.

This is a picture of the drain pipe that was damaged. This is actually the new pipe. They replaced a piece about the size of what you see in the picture.

It is now Monday and I am waiting on phone calls from people to come and fix the mess that this water has caused. I hope to be back to new by the end of the week.

Memories

Yesterday was the 20th anniversay of dad's death. I hadn't really thought about it much throughout the day until I attended Avery's baptism. I sat a few rows behind Avery and Mark and watched them throughout the talks. Watching Avery's excitement and how she was interacting with her dad made me think about my baptism day and what my interaction with my dad was like. I don't remember a lot about my baptism...but I couldn't help but picture my dad and I being much like Mark and Avery!

This week has been a little rough at times but it has been good to be reminded of my dad and all that he means to me.