Mission Slim-Possible 2013

Riverton City's Mission Slim-Possible 2013 started last week with a weigh-in and filling out the registration form.

I got on the scale and discovered I was exactly the weight I ended with from the contest last January!  At least I was able to keep off the pounds I lost, even if I was unsuccessful in losing any more.

Weigh-ins are every Wednesday and I decided that if I have a successful weigh-in, I get to take the kids to a play land.  Yesterday was the first weigh-in and I lost 2 pounds so we went to McDonald's. I know, that sounds bad, going to a fast food restaurant, but there was a play land for the kids and McDonald's puts up the calories on their menu so I got a regular cheeseburger, a parfait, and a water.  Not too many calories so it was good reward for all my hard work, plus the kids had a great time.  :)

The "biggest loser" in the contest gets a prize of $400, first place gets $200, fourth gets $100, fifth gets $75, and sixth place gets $25, the cost of registering.  So if I get sixth place, I get my money back!

The contest goes for 12 weeks.  Last time I lost 10 pounds, this time my goal is to lose at least twice that much.  My dream would be to lose all 40 pounds of the baby weight, but I would probably need P90X or the Insanity workouts to get serious pounds off.  Maybe I should check YouTube to see if someone has posted any workouts from one of them!

January 9 starting weigh-in: 152 lbs
January 16 weigh-in: 150 lbs

I took a "before" picture but it's so horrible that I'll only post it if I can successfully transform my body dramatically and I can post an "after" picture with it that is awesome.  ;)

Easter Egg Hunt at Butterfield Park

Toby's first time going to a public Easter Egg Hunt and he had a lot of fun!

He got a lot of candy but the big prize was the cotton candy.

He got to ride the dog on the animal train.

There was another candy hunt with easter grass and he really enjoyed finding the hidden candy!

And here is the kinda creepy, kinda scary easter bunny!  He didn't talk, move, or wave, it was creepy!

Mission Slim Possible Results-

 Before: 162lbs, January 16 2012

After: 150lbs, April 11, 2012

So 12 pounds in 12 weeks!  Very slow progress, but hey that's way better than to have lost nothing all this time!  Even though I'm not going to win any prizes, I don't care.  I consider this weight loss contest a success!  Also I lost an inch of fat around my waist and hips so that's amazing.

My next goal is to get down another ten pounds so I can ride a scooter again!  I can't wait!

Mission Slim Possible

Riverton City is doing a weight loss competition called Mission Slim Possible that starts next Wednesday and I am all signed up to do it!  I'm really excited and motivated to lose some weight, maybe win a prize!

It cost 25 dollars and we weigh in every Wednesday til April 11th.  I love watching the Biggest Loser and now I get to be in a competition to lose this pregnancy weight!

I've got a plan worked out to lose around 2 pounds a week, so about 24 pounds by the 11th.  That'll get me halfway to my goal of 50 pounds lost to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight!

(this was taken halloween 2010.  my costume was a biggest loser contestant)

2011 Reading Synopsis

As you probably know, every year I set reading goals.  This being the first of the year, I'll give a quick reporting of last year's final numbers.

Scriptures.  I set a goal to read the entire standard works last year.  Ilene and I also set a goal to read the Book of Mormon, together.  We met and exceeded both goals.  I also read the Book of Mormon in Spanish.  Total scripture chapters for me was 3,011 chapters, which totaled 5,371 pages.

Books.  I set a goal to read 24 books last year.  I also set a goal of 12,000 pages.  This goal was in addition to (not to include) the scripture books and pages.  I actually had a really good year this year with regard to books.  I finished 75 books this year, totaling 24,235 pages.  For specifics, the list of books and my ratings thereof can be found on the right column of this blog.  (I use a GoodReads.com tracking bar to track my latest 100 books, and below that I have the books listed with the date of completion and a total for each month.  I've done this since 2008, and you can see all the way back to then, if you're interested to know which books I'm reading and what I thought of each of them.)

Altogether, I read the equivalent of 86 books (with scriptures) and a total of 29,796 pages in 2011.  Care to join me this year?

Thanksgiving 2011

Fun with Maps

As you all know, I've been applying for jobs for a very long time now, with no real success. Today, I started wondering what a spatial distribution of my applications would look like. I've applied for over 300 jobs, and though I've kept location data on almost every job (some were not location specific, like online universities or certain lettered agency jobs), I had never really mapped it out, before.

So, for fun, this morning I sat down and made this map showing how many jobs I've applied to in each State of the Union and D.C.  Doing so also helped to maintain my GIS skills, and I even learned one interesting new GIS tool, which I used liberally in this map (using data frames to do insets and move elements around the layout). Click for a larger view.

 Enjoy!

Random Fall Photos-

Carving the Death Star

Toby, the spider monkey!

Abby girl

At the Pumpkin Festival

Six Jack O' Lanterns!

Sweet Kisses!

A smile!

The Last Time We Give Toby a Haircut!!

 Toby's hair was getting long so I decided it was time for a trim.  Unfortunately, Toby allowed me to trim (with scissors) one side then started screaming, kicking, and spitting so I couldn't finish.

 Greg got out the electric cutter and tried to finish the job.  Once again, Toby started throwing a huge fit and Greg was only able to cut chunks of hair in random spots.  Instead of looking like someone stopped in the middle of a haircut, now it looked like Toby himself got out the clippers!

 After MANY MANY hours, hair scattered across 3 floors of the house, many treats and punishments given, tempers lost by all involved, here is the final result.

He looks like a cancer patient starting chemo!  Everyone at my work had a good laugh at our lovely haircutting ability but Toby doesn't seem to mind it.  He's just glad that it's done and we are not going to be cutting his hair for a long, long time.

Circus Peanut Test

I saw a video of this test on YouTube so I decided I wanted to try it on Toby. 

This is a test to see if Toby can resist the candy until I come back and I will give him another one.

Toby loves Circus Peanuts so I did those instead of marshmallows.  I only did the test for about 1 minute instead of 5 minutes and maybe the outcome would have been different if I had gone on longer, but anyways here it is.