Rants, Recipes, and Running

Here we go again! Another post filled with information about myself--that may bore you? However, I am lacking creativity to write--and these are fun! 1. What are you going to be for Halloween? A wife. I, like my sister Lisa ( ), not big on the Halloween costume thing. Oh man--I could write a whole blog about Halloween costumes. 2. Have you ever been on television? Yes. Senior year in high school. I was on this Academic team and we had a "face-off" with another school. It's really embarrassing. 3. Do you have a toilet paper preference? I don't. Which is interesting. Because I am really anal-retentive, so one would think I care about this. However, I really don't. My husband does, though--and the toilet paper must come OVER. So sometimes I mess with him and switch it--and he changes it back. It's a war in our house. 4. When you’re pregnant, will you find out the sex of the baby? (Or if you’ve already had babies, did you find out the sex?) Why or why not? Nope! ...

This evening....Grandma Valeria entered my home and spoke to me I believe. Now, I don't do the whole "ghosts/resurrection from the dead/visiting from the spirts" kick. I think it's kind of lame, to be honest. But I do believe that people whom we have lost speak to us in various methods. And this occurred in my home this evening. Now let me give a little background info before proceeding with this story! There is a term in our family we use called "The Val Curse" or "Woah...Val alert!" This alert is the fact that my Grandmother cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned some more. She was the queen of Chlorox and a beautiful, spotless, clean home. She also cooked food of Godliness. She was basically Super-Woman. My dear mother, Marlys, definitely received these traits. In fact, nearly everyone in our family received a little Val. A trait to be proud of. I unfortunately was very young when my Grandmother Valeria passed--so just live out memories ...

Once again, I am stealing another survey from my sister Lisa's blog! My week has not been the greatest. School has me wanting to pull every hair out of my head. In fact, it's Thursday and the fact that I'm not bald yet is amazing. Things are starting to perk up, however. I am pretty much done with this 8 week session. So am on "vacation" until Monday. So am reallly looking forward to destressing by doing so extensive deep cleaning around the house. SO excited!! So here we go: 1. What's your favorite late night talk show? I like Jay Leno now. I used to not, because seriously (as conceited as this may sound)--the shape of his head and appearance kind of annoyed me. I like watching it because it's on at like 9:00 now. So I am actually awake for it! (I got to bed at like...10:00-10:30 often). However, I love Conan. His weird quirks make me smile. 2. If you got an all expense paid week-long trip for two, where would you go and who would you take? I would take m...

Okay..I really wish I didn't have an exam and presentation today. Because if I would've had time to blog about this around 10:00 this morning upon my return from the gym--this would have be far more angry and vent-ful. Do you guys have membership at a gym? Have you ever seen pure, disgusting, sweaty meatheads at a gym? Have you ever wanted to drop a 100 lb weight on someone's toe at the gym? In high school...I really didn't like jocks. The jocks in my high school were idiots. A-holes. Gross. Annoying. Going no where. Stuck in little North Dakota for life. But "Oh, how the girl's loved them." Not me. They made me sick to my stomach. Now, one would think men would out-grow that jock-ish, gross, testosterone-hyped phase of life. No. They just hang out at their local gym/fitness club all day. ALLLL DAY. Thankfully, it has been cooling off lately--and I have been getting more serious about running. And Ryan and I have set up an "at home gym" with weig...

I absolutely love surveys. They're so fun! Here's another one! 1. If you won the lottery, what would be your one random, off-the-wall purchase? Same answer as my sister, Lisa. A Steinway Baby Grand Piano. 2. What is popular now that you just don’t get? Strange sunglasses, and girls in Arizona that wear Ugg boots...in October...when it's in the 90's (I have seen this 2 times in the past week on the U of A campus. I don't get it...) 3. What would your last meal, you know, if you were ever about to be executed and you got to choose that sort of thing? I would start with a bowl of shrimp cocktail. With a yummy, spicy cocktail sauce. I would also have edamame Dinner would be sushi roll after sushi roll after sushi roll. With TONS of wasabi. I would drink a glass of Cabernet with dinner. Probably 2. Desert would be a giant slice of my Mom's chocolate pie. Pretty simple, but so delicious. 4. When is it okay to start listening to Christmas music? Well, to the public: Th...

Sunday I did the "Tucson Get Moving 10 Miler". It was the first long distance race I have done in awhile. Definitely the longest since the 26.2 marathon I did 2 years ago in October! I signed up for this race about 3 weeks ago!--so was a little nervous I wouldn't be ready...but I trained hard. It has been nice and cool (in the 80's) here in the desert lately. However, it decided to be miserable and hot that morning. Race start was 8:00am--and it was definitely 80 by that point. Yuck--I hate running in the heat. Overall, the race was a really fun time! My average pace was 8:38/mile. 8 seconds slower than my top goal--but...I'm okay with it! Ryan was the sweetest husband in the world--and came to the race with me, supported me, cheered me on, hugged my nasty/sweaty-self at the end of the race, and even snapped some pictures! This sure made me want to do another marathon :)

As we all know and are reminded of daily, is that the average American is in horrendous debt. According to some references, "The average American owes $9000 of credit card debt." Hearing this horrible statics seems quite shocking that a country that is considered so secure and well-off would have such serious issues in money management. However........ It is quite clear and obvious this would occur. I am currently working on a research project that is about "Educating parents on how to teach money management and responsibility to their children". I chose this subject thinking, "Wow! This will be a really neat subject to teach parents! It will be so interesting and fun. There will be endless resources I am sure!" Now that I have come to "research time"....this is such pathetic, seriously, limited results of research!! There is ENDLESS research on nearly every aspect of child-rearing: Drugs, alcohol, teen-pregnancy, childhood obesity, nutrition, bu...