11 weeks young

kawelo is 11 weeks old now and it seems like it's just flown! since he's our last baby, we're really trying to savor his babyness and time is slipping by way too fast. at his 2 month appointment he was already 13 pounds, and we think he's been our smallest baby! he loves to watch kalei and koa run around and he coos and quivers like he just can't wait to get out there and tear it up with them. koa calls him "beddo," since he can't say his v's or l's, and is generally good with him (although he will poke him awake if he gets bored while shopping - little stinker). kalei loves "baby kawelo" and remembers him in her prayers every night. he's definitely a blessing and the perfect caboose to our family train. -bess

Doing a Yahoo search on yourself

So with all of the extra time I have now before classes start and things get really crazy, I decided on a whim to do a Yahoo search on myself (I guess some people "Google" themselves, but I am partial to the Yahoo search so that's what I went with). In addition to the department webpage (which I had to lobby for a year to be added to) and all of the old research stuff that is out there, I was surprised to see that I was listed in the WKU Libraries blog. Although I am glad that our upcoming journal is being advertised, I guess you never really know what is floating out there on the internet about you ... kind of frightening when you think about it. -James-

fix it or forget it?

i've always been late. i was born 2 weeks late, and it's been downhill from there. my senior year of high school, my dad taught seminary in our living room and i would walk in late - still in my pj's. i was only on time for my wedding because i woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. my parents are very polite about it, but will tell me it takes 20 minutes to get to their chapel when, in reality, it only takes 10 in the hopes that i will get to church on time when we visit. i think i'm supposed to be embarassed by my perpetual lateness and make a resolution to do something about it, but i have way too many things already on the "to be fixed" plate to add something that just seems to be a part of me. i'm afraid to pray for help on this because i don't want Heavenly Father to send me some kind of awful experience to teach me to be on time. i mean, life itself is already enough of a refiner's fire without me asking Him to turn up the heat. i do want to eventually be a punctual person, but first i want to be a patient person, a charitable person, a humble person, a budgeted person.... :)

great expectations

perhaps jumping right into calorie counting was a bit lofty in the goal setting department. apparently i am unable to go cold turkey on sugar at this time. there are two, sometimes three, times during the day when i get munchy: late morning, mid-afternoon, and late evening. i prowl the kitchen looking for just the right snack, and rarely does celery hit the spot. however, i am working on making healthy-ish calorie substitutions. for example, instead of ice cream, i'll pick an ice pop. still technically empty calories, but less of them, right? that's a step in the right direction! :) and it's a frozen liquid, so it's almost like having a cup of kool-aid, and that kinda meets part of the eight daily glasses of water recommendation! i'm telling you, i'm this close to a healthy diet... or an honorary degree in rationalization. :)

choice & accountability

okay, so this is the first day of calorie counting. even though i have thoroughly enjoyed indulging every chocolate cake/cookie dough/m&m/ice cream craving i've had for the past year, the time has come to break myself of this extremely delicious habit. i must admit i'll miss it. the children won't because i hardly ever ate anything scrumptious in front of them - i didn't want to share. i'm hoping the benefits of weight loss will overshadow the sadness and, perhaps, crankiness of sugar deprivation. i've heard it takes 21 days to break a habit. 21 days = 504 hours. wish me luck! 4 hours down, only 500 to go. :)

lost in the details

today i had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting. my topic was "primary organization and its current role in the church." as usual, the topic ended up being more for my benefit than anyone else's. :) the story of how the primary was organized was really interesting. who knew primary didn't get organized until almost 50 years after the church was official?! not me. but reading about the amazing woman that got the ball rolling to get primary established and finding talks from prophets and primary presidents about how vitally important primary is and how much Heavenly Father is depending on us to rear up a righteous generation was so inspiring to me! preparing for this talk helped me see primary again. it helped me focus beyond the mechanics and really look at the children today and see them for who they are preparing to become: seminary students, missionaries, institute students, primary teachers, bishops, mothers, and fathers. kawelo needed to be fed during senior primary's singing time and it was wonderful to sit and listen to the children sing. some sang out of tune or abnormally loud, but i couldn't help but think that no sound must be sweeter to our Heavenly Father than children singing that they're "trying to be like Jesus." i love that Heavenly Father looks over our fumbling mortality and sees what's in our hearts. i love that today, listening to the children, was more inspiring than even mo-tab could've been. (cue whitney houston's "i believe the children are our future...") :)

Getting Better with Age?

So Barry Bonds broke the all-time home run record this week. It has not been without controversy, as some have suggested that he has used performance enhancing substances (steroids), and there have been pictures posted at the beginning of his career and now:

I'm not sure if he is guilty or not, but I don't mind that he has the record. Records are made to be broken, and someday his name will be replaced. As far as I know, he has never tested positive for any banned substance ... of course athletes with millions of dollars may be able to keep one or two (or many) steps ahead of the testing agencies. With that said, I'd like to enter my own evidence ... and you can judge whether or not I am also guilty of using performance enhancing substances:

Despite the quality of the more recent photograph (Kalei is a budding photographer who loves to take pictures), I think that you can see the definate change in my body that has taken place over just a few years... OK, I admit to ingesting performance enhancing substances ... if by "performance enhancing" you mean that I am actually slower and can't jump as high as I once could, and by "substances" you mean cookies, ice cream, and pizza. I would just like to think of it as getting better with age. Hey, if Barry Bonds can do it, so can I.