Whew

I can't remember the last time I posted. It's been a whirlwind weekend! I've finally started to exercise again. After doing aerobics since I was 12 (no kidding) I've decided to focus on walking. The reason is that I am a huge fan of Michael Thurmond from Extreme Makeover because he truly changes the shape of people. He is the fitness and diet guru. He says that walking, running or bicycling for 60 minutes a day on a flat surface is the best way to burn fat. Other types of exercise like aerobics and stair steppers and elliptical machines burn sugar. I am definitely more interested in burning fat these days so I purchased a portable CD player and tape player and have checked out audio books from the library. It makes the time go by really fast. I'm already looking forward to my next walk this evening. I am "reading" Janet Evanovich's 9th book (these are the Stephanie Plum series for those of you who read her books).

Speaking of the library, every time I go there I think my heart rate increases. I just love the library. My sister (Nicki) and I would go there in the summer time when we were tweens and teens and check out 70 books at a time. I am not kidding. And we would read them all in the 2 - 3 weeks that we had them checked out. I'm a fast reader but Nicki reads even faster than me. I would like to have a read-off between Nicki and Tracy W. Tracy reads huge books in 24 - 48 hours. A bit OCD ;-) but so I am so I can relate. I try to read during all meals but Brian doesn't let me during dinner. Men... they just want to talk all the time.

Before I get into the weekend, I talked to Yvonne on Friday. Yvonne sits across the hall from me at work. I talked to her on Friday. She had a meeting in Oregon for work and was staying in a hotel with the other people from Chandler who were going to the same meeting. Well, one of the people, a 38 year old mother of two young children, was supposed to ride with Yvonne to work that morning but never showed up and didn't answer her door. She was found dead her room. I didn't know this woman but the news was really hard to hear because I think about those two kids and the husband who are now going to have to live their lives without their mother and wife. And she is only two years older than me... not that age had anything to do with it because she wasn't sick... it was one of those unexpected tragedies. It just made me appreciate my time with my kids and husband more this weekend. And definitely makes me want to spend less time working and more with my kids. You never know when your time may be cut short.

We met up with Liz and Inigo and their two kids (close to Jack and Ty's ages) at the AZ Science Center to go to the special Seasame Street Body exhibit. This was probably the best time I've had with Jack ever at an outing like this. He just loved it there and there were a bunch of things for a toddler to do. He was so good. He even waited patiently in line to see Elmo and when it was our turn, he gave Elmo a huge hug. I can't wait to take Jack again.

Our dinner plans for the evening were canceled, so Brian and I split up. He went to Costco and I went to Scottsdale Fashion Square. I hadn't been there in a long time and I was amazed at the changes. There were some very nice, upscale new stores. Like the Chandler Mall, they had their share of Goth people. To me, it doesn't seem like Goths would care to be seen in a mall of all things but maybe those are the Goths of the 2000's. While Brian and Jack were eating their slices of Costco pizza, I was sitting in La Madeleine's eating Chicken Friand and a ceasar salad.

Our morning plans were also postponed which turned out to be a blessing. I had scheduled a 2 PM appointment to get Ty and Jack's photos taken. The place, called Portrait Innovations, said that Brian and I should get our photos taken as well. I couldn't believe the amount of time spent on selecting clothes for the boys and for myself and the time spent making myself look decent. I mean, including the shower it was probably only 30 minutes but that's a long time in a house with two little kids and compared to the normal 5 minute shower (if I'm lucky) and no time on makeup or blow drying hair. I really liked the photo place. They took tons of photos and didn't use the tripod type camera so the photographer was moving around. Jack lost his patience (actually, he was probably starving) while we were selecting photos and I was breastfeeding a squirming Ty and the person helping us didn't bat an eye. I guess they deal with that stuff on a daily basis. We wetn to eat and the photos were done in 20 minutes!