Let There Be Light

One thing that our house serious lacked when we moved in was lights. Other than a chandelier in the entry way, one in the "dining room", and a pretty ghetto fluorescent light in the kitchen our house completely lacked lighting in main rooms of our house. This pretty much meant we didn't use half of our house after the sun set. We inherited an Ikea lamp from the previous owners and bought a ten dollar one from Fred Meyers which lit our bedroom and living room. But whenever we had company over we had to move both lamps to the kitchen where our large table was and then move it back to the living room when we wanted to switch rooms. I never knew how much I appreciated flipping a switch and getting ample light in return!
Well luckily I married well and chose a commercial electrician for a father-in-law. It was always the goal that once we got a couple big paychecks on Cody's end that we would invest in sufficient lighting and Cody and his dad would install it.

oh and i got rid of all the SUPER dusty fake plants that covered half of this big beautiful window in our entry way

what's that? I can turn on and off the fan and light from my bed??

We found the best selection at Lowe's and after two days of the boys installing we now have lights!
Now we just need to get rid of our green kitchen...

I Did It

They all said (or at least thought) it couldn't be done but I DID IT!  For the month of May I, Jessica, went soda free! This is a huge deal because if there is one small thing I enjoy it is my soda pop (Dr. Pepper in particular).

Since the first of year I've had the resolution to get myself in better shape. I had cut down on my soda intake, watched how much we ate out and tried to integrate exercise into my weekly life more. Whenever I want to make a change to my habits or to my diet I hate the "I can't have ______" mentality. Whenever I've watched people with these self-imposed rules it seems like it stirs more rebelliousness in them than they already had and they end up giving up and just going back to their old habits. I've always felt that if I wanted something enough I would be able to obtain the self-disciple that I needed. But just to prove to myself and my family that I indeed could go without copious amounts of soda in my life I did it anyways. And you know what it sucked. Like a lot. My main struggle is that I can't find a good replacement drink. Water doesn't have flavor and with meals it always just leaves a watered down food taste in your mouth instead of a new flavor that washes it down. As my dad says and I'm right with him is we just love the bubbles. I love anything carbonated really. And I would love to drink more juice but it is SO DARN EXPENSIVE. And you know what people say also isn't as good for you as they say it is? Juice. Because most juice out there is mainly sugar anyways so if you want the good natural stuff good luck finding anything that costs less than $5 and is gone in a day or two. I don't really care for flavored water or Gatorade type drinks. And milk isn't an all-the-time drink mostly after a good home-cooked meal. I just feel like as far as beverages go you really can't win. So I decided to go with the best option that everyone says is good for you and that's water. At least if I'm not going to enjoy it that much I won't have added calories in my day right? That's what I figured.

So what actually started when I started working at Grocery Outlet and over the course of this last month my relationship with water has changed. I very much feel a difference in my mind and bottle when I drink water throughout my work day. And learning to live with just water with food I've learned to appreciate the taste (my one thing I'm a stickler on is that it at least needs to be cold). Something that came as a result of going soda-less is that soda always sounded good with more fast-food/salty/junk type food whereas when I drink water I tend to lean towards foods that are, at least in my mind, a bit healthier. It also helps that I have 1/2 an hour to eat/rest my brain and body on my lunch breaks so I don't really have time to indulge much. I never thought I could enjoy water with food. Cody and I always joked about making a book about what food goes best when paired with what soda because we've always thought it can add to your meal (kind of like how wine is paired with certain food). And really there's nothing better than washing down food with a cold Dr. Pepper (or insert your favorite fizzy beverage). You just can't get that from water. But alas I will admit I started to enjoy my water at meal time. It also helped knowing I wasn't bringing in 400+ calories in a meal through my drink. Bob Harper (from the Biggest Loser) wrote a book called The Skinny Rules and rule #2 is "Don't drink your calories." And it's true. Don't waste them on soda or other drinks when water can do the job of quenching a thirst and hydrating your body like no other liquid can.
The thing I wanted to get out of this experience was really to balance my intake of something that is not 100% best for my body so this was kind of a reset button for me. I'm not planning on reverting back to all the soda I want I'll drink. I'll be a better monitor of the amounts I allow into my body. And something I didn't think would happen but I'm glad it did is now water and me are pretty good friends. 

I'm sorry if this was long and preachy and (probably a bit silly to those who have always been against "evil soda") but I just wanted to document this small but meaningful achievement and let you know what I learned in the process. I'm proud that I did it, who know if I'll do it again and yes I did celebrate today with a Dr. Pepper when I got home from work.  

GenConApr13

This year my general conference experience was a bit different than years past. It was the first time in a long time that I haven't been able to dedicate all the time needed to watch the conferences when they aired. I'll have to make up Saturday's sessions because I worked all day that day but at least I got a full Sunday in. My best memories of conference will always be my years in Rexburg. The whole week (or two) building up to General Conference you'd have all your professors getting so psyched for it that you couldn't help but feel the same excitement. There would be the great Mecca from Rexburg to Salt Lake for those who got tickets so you felt like you had the town to yourself. But best of all was walking, mostly in the snow, up to the Taylor Chapel to watch each session with my best friend Chantelle. You knew the people that made it up to the Taylor Chapel, especially for the Saturday sessions, just wanted to put a little extra effort into their experience and I loved being surrounded by that spirit.  The Taylor Chapel became one of my favorite places in Rexburg.

This year was special just getting to spend it in my own home with my husband. 

Last year my super talented friend Joey Ferguson made graphics with quotes to go along with the talks as the session was airing that were so neat and became viral so fast that pretty soon LDS living posted about him on their facebook. This year he created more and it's given me something else to look forward to. I love getting to see what quote struck him and how he chose to interpret that in an inspiritional graphic. You can see them all at his etsy shop (where digital files of the print can be purchased):  http://www.etsy.com/listing/128718672/lds-general-conference-2013-poster-hold?ref=shop_home_active
But here's a couple that I loved best:

(this one was from Oct 2012 but i just love it so)