All the pictures I ever said I'd post... I think!

Firstly, some accomplishments I'm proud of this past week:

-I made soup from scratch... even the noodles.  It was delicious.
-I finally made a dessert in our new house.  Brownies (Anton's favorite), but not from scratch.  I did use sunflower oil in it though, and it tasted so yummy!
-I wrote a seven page paper and made a power point presentation to go with it in a matter of hours.
-I have A's in all of my classes.
-I was voted the VP for the Child and Family Advocacy Society (which is a totally legit society that receives funding and does super awesome stuff).
       -speaking of which, my group face-timed with the author of this article today: http://unitedfamilies.org/default.asp?contentID=437 whose article was a response/warning to this proposed curriculum: http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/books/2010_ItsAllOne.asp at a UN council (they're trying to get every country in the world to adopt this horrible, evil curriculum) which you can also find a link to in the first article.  The author if the first article is a super smart lady, educated at Harvard, and is part of United Families International.

Anyway, it's a good semester.  And here are the pictures I promised... some of them are sideways, but I can't make them rotate--they're already the right rotation on my computer, so I don't why they uploaded like this.

 Ice cream made with nitrogen.

Park City.  Super expensive place/

The ferry that took us to our trail in the Tetons.

Super strong Husband.

Jenny Lake

Inspiration Peak

Silly chipmunk

Cute puppies at the shelter!

This one's my favorite.

Our baby chicks!

But we had to give them away ; (

He's so sweet!

A picture I found after Anton took the boys ground squirrel hunting with him.

Anton braided my hair and put a flower in it.  : )

Stray dog that wandered into our house right after we moved in.

She was extremely skittish.

And never made a single sound.

Baby kitty I rescued from the nature park.

She cuddled with Anton after I gave her a bath!

We had to give her to the shelter.

Anton's mom in Greece for a company thing where she works.

Her name is Nina.  She loves me.

Ready to Get Crackin'

Well, another semester begins.  I've been doing homework ever since I was five years old.  I guess I can't get enough of it because I plan on getting a Masters degree, too.  Hopefully I'll still feel like it was all worth it at the end.

Progress on the house is being made.  As well as unmade.  The washer we got a month ago (for free) just broke.  It's very old and I'm pretty sure they don't make them this small anymore, which is a shame because the house is also old and made to fit small, old appliances. Oh well, the dryer still works.  I may be trying my hands at one of those old-school wash board things... like what Sebastian got a scrub-down on, in The Little Mermaid.

Anyway, I got a bunch of pictures finally put onto the computer!  First I was waiting for the pictures, then I was waiting for a chord for the computer... and now I'm waiting for the computer.  The pictures are all ready to be uploaded as soon as I get to that darn computer.  : )

Jana seems excited about school.  I remember my first semester.  I was pretty excited.  And then after a couple weeks I was pretty disappointed.  I was expecting to be going on fun dates every week... but no one asked me out.  Except Anton.  He was the only one who actually payed any attention to me.  So I married him.  And THEN boys started asking me out.  Stupid.  Anyway, I told Jana she needs to give a guy three dates before she can make any sound decisions about him (except in some special cases, in which three dates are not necessary... especially since she's taking some music classes... not that there's anything wrong with music classes--music is great.  And people who major in music are usually great; I know several whom I love!  But I have to say that of all the majors that attract strange people, music tends to attract the most...)

Well, thanks to Anton's raise, we're finally getting some bills paid.  Slowly.  It's his third raise since he started working for the school.  I tell ya, this man is going places.  He's smart and hard-working, and everyone can see it.  He told me that immigrants can do so well in America because where we Americans see work that isn't worth the trouble, they see opportunity.
Seems legit to me.  America's all about fast and easy.  Sometimes fast and easy is a good thing, but it shouldn't apply to everything.  Makes people lazy and selfish.  And hinders progress.  Anyway... things are good.  Oh!  Our friends who have a few kids... they have this baby (he's like 2), and they taught him to say, "Anton, where's your baby?"  and "Anton, where's my friend?" (because his name is Nikolai, which is on our list of names)  with his tiny baby voice--it's the cutest thing, ever!  Makes me laugh every time.

Old post...that didn't get posted

I wrote this a while ago and just didn't post it because I was waiting to get the pictures that are supposed to go with it.  But that still hasn't happened.  So, here it is anyway. Minus the pictures.  Which will come eventually.

Okay!  Got the house!  We move in THIS weekend... and we haven't even started packing yet... heh.
My list of things to do all at the same time:
Pack, clean old house, move, clean new house, unpack, find furniture, work on midterm and final (yep, at the same time), try not to kill husband (because it's a special time of month and everything seems to be his fault right now...), and don't flake out on the youth I'm supposed to be serving/leading.

The more I think about how much of a downsize it is, the more depressed I get (I cannot even begin to describe how much I have LOVED having my own walk-in closet).  But then I just think about all my favorite things about having our own house (from my last post) and then it evens out.

Also, we went hiking in the Tetons last weekend.  It was so fun!  We got a boat ride across the Jenny Lake (such clear, beautiful water!) and then we hiked about 4 miles around and then had a cookout at Jackson Lake.  Breathtakingly beautiful views!  It was kind of a last minute thing, and Anton and I didn't really feel like going at first, but we are so glad we did!  Now we're planning many more hiking and camping trips.

Anton's favorite part of the whole experience was the chipmunk.  When we got to Inspiration Peak, we sat down and had a snack as we enjoyed the lovely view.  As we were just about to leave, a little chipmunk came up and we could tell he was checking out our food.  So I put a peach newton in my hand and held it out... and the chipmunk came right up to me and took it out of my hand!  It was so cute!  We kept feeding him for another 10 minutes, until he got full.  Anton was happy about it because he got to pet the chipmunk while it was eating out of my hand (and his).  I'm sure the only reason we could do that is because he's mooched off of other tourists before us.  But it was fun.  I want a tiny pet, now!

Anyway, here are some pictures!

Focus on the Positive

Well, this semester is closer to being over than beginning... which I am grateful for.

If I had known how unorganized BYU-I's Child Labs would be, I would have found a way around it... or changed my major or something.  Blekh.  It's a two credit class with at least eight credits worth of work behind it, which, in addition to all my other classes, is way too much for me.
The worst part is that my teacher hates me.  As does my supervisor.  They give me bad grades for things they just made up.  Seriously.

Honestly, this class should be about the children and how we can make this the best experience possible for them.  But instead it's about how long the lesson plan looks (because the longer it is, the better a teacher you are, obviously...) and capitalizing words that actually shouldn't be capitalized.

Nothing has ever been this stressful for me before--dating (or the lack thereof), high school, college, being engaged to someone my family opposed, even the first year of my marriage (which was pretty rough because we were not speaking the same language...).

Luckily, I happen to be taking Personal Health and Wellness (my favorite class), which focuses on five areas of wellness (physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and social), and I'm working on coping with the stress in a healthy way (one of the reasons women live longer than men).  One thing I do is meditate every morning.  It might sound silly, but it's been very helpful.

Anyway, I'm planing on doing my internship over the seven week break, and then I'll just have some classes in the Fall and I should be done!  Yay!

Anton and I are trying to buy a house again.  We're hopeful it will work this time.

My favorite parts about having our own house:  I will no longer have to stress out about smelling other people's food through the walls, listening to them talk through the walls, or worrying about their hearing me through the walls.

When construction is that cheap, we all live together.  The walls are fake.  Pretend.  Nonexistent.  I'm a pretty considerate person, I like to think.  But I'd rather have a choice in the matter of who I live with...
It hasn't happened yet.  But I will not give up!  I will continue to be hopeful in believing that someday, hopefully soon, Anton and I will have our very own house!

It may not sound like it, after reading this, but I really am focusing on the positive, here.  There are much, much worse things I could be saying (I know because I thought them).

Don't Pick a Fight with your Brain

I feel so enlightened by what I'm learning, I just have to share it.  This is from the classes I've started for recreation therapy.

That calculation for the Maximum Heart Rate that I mentioned to Annie is this: 220 minus your age.  Multiply that by .6 and then multiply the 220 - age by .9.  That is your aerobic training zone--when fat is most efficiently used as fuel.
For example, mine is 220 - 22 = 198;  198 x .6 = 118.8;  198 x .9 = 178.2.  So my MHR is between 118 and 178.  That's what my heart rate should be when I exercise.

In a movie we watched in class today, I learned that the moment you start a diet, you begin a battle with your brain (which explains why Fast Sunday is always so difficult, because when I have not made a conscious decision to fast, I can go quite a long time without food).  Anyway, he (the narrator) said that there is no limit to how much fat a person's body can store (obviously), the cells simply keep growing to accommodate for more storage, and fat is the only thing your body will do this with.  Our bodies love fat so much that when anything extra (like protein or carbs) is ingested, your body just turns it into fat.
Anyway, say you stick to your guns and don't eat as much, especially not as much fattening foods.  Well, you don't start losing fat right away.  Your liver has special reserves of glucose, accompanied by water.  Glucose only gives you half the energy fat does, but your body takes it gladly because it doesn't have to get rid of the fat it so desperately loves.  Since glucose is accompanied by so much water, you pee a lot---which also explains why I get that symptom before starting my period, because PMS makes me lose my appetite, I eat less, and my body starts using up the glucose stores. That was a nice revelation.
Well, it seems like you're loosing a lot of weight, because sugar water weighs a lot.  And then your liver runs out of sugar-water...
So, when you stop ingesting as much as your body is used to, your stomach tells your brain that it's not getting filled (because it's used to being stretched further) and then your brain tells you that you're experiencing a crisis: starvation...even when you're not truly starving, you still feel like you are--and that you need to fix it. No more glucose, just pure starvation.
Unfortunately, it takes about a month to lose the amount of weight in fat that you lose in sugar water in like four days.  IF you keep it up.  IF you can mentally withstand the very real feeling of physically being starved... to death (even though you won't really die).

BUT there is hope.  Physical exercise is the only thing that forces your body to use up it's fat reserves without your body feeling like it's slowly dying.  AND the better shape you're in, the more fat your body uses up.  The more muscle a person has, the more calories that person burns... twenty-four hours a day.

I love how much I learn!  This stuff is so much more interesting than my boring life.

You don't own me...

This was a post I started like a week ago:

The song, "You don't Own Me," by Leslie Gore is stuck in my head right now.  That's why I named the post that.

Wow, it has been one heck of a week.  I get up at 5:30 and go to bed as soon as I get home.  I haven't cooked... since school started.  Poor Anton.  I have to make food, though, because I'm gone all day and I need nutrients... preferably eagle eggs.  Just kidding.  Nacho reference.  Not kidding about the need for sustenance.

I had a fitness test for one of my classes... and I suck.  I knew I could have run it faster, but I was so tired, and I really didn't want to.  So now I really do work out every morning at 6:00 A.M. (but I have to get up at 5:30 because apparently it takes me half-an-hour to get ready to work out... weirdo).
This morning, no one was there.  I saw one old guy in the gym.  Six in the morning on a Saturday, and suddenly all the cool kids who usually work out turn into hobos... there's only one day of rest.
They're not actually homeless bums, I just like the word, hobo.

So, one of my classes is that I have to work in the preschool lab... and be a preschool teacher... I had no idea how difficult this would be.  The supervisors keep pushing us to be creative, but I am the opposite of creative.  The kids are cute, though.  I do a LOT of research because I have to be an "expert" on everything I teach.  Crazy, how much I'm learning that I never knew.
My next lesson for the li'l munchkins is going to be on ladybugs, because they have shown some interest in the spotted insect.  Ladybugs are vicious killing machines.  They begin killing and eating other bugs the second they hatch.  They'll bite you too.  But they won't fly if the temperature is under 55 degrees, Fahrenheit.

I love Saturdays!  I get so much done, and I have so much free time... half of which I spend doing homework.

That was the end of what I had written.  Unfortunately, the part where I haven't cooked a single thing since school started... is still true.  Three weeks now.  Yikes!

I enjoyed visiting the family, though.  And I realized how much I miss the mountains, and rivers, and trees, and GREEN.  I just want to smell that fresh air every time I go outside--Instead of stupid hamburger grease and exhaust.  Blekh!

I like to leave my windows and door open for the circulating air (except when the wind picks up and carried those gross smells from the fast food places over... which is pretty often), and all I hear is car, after car, after car, after car, and people screaming.  I think I'm slightly more stuck-up than I guessed.  I don't want neighbors.  Ever again.