Father's Day

"Of all of the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to deity, He has asked us to address Him as Father."

     I just love the above quote, because God is just that, he is our Father, and it's important to remember Him too on this Father's Day! He is a prime example of perfect love, caring and understanding that a father should be. If there is one thing that I know for certain, it is that God loves us all, His children, and that His whole purpose and plan revolve around helping us get back to Him and become just like Him. How neat. 

     I am so grateful for the men in my life and for the roles that they play and qualities they possess. My dad has been a great example to me of what a man should be - strong, caring, a good provider and a leader in our home growing up. My grandpas are good, honest men who have worked hard their whole loves and love their children and grandchildren. 

     Since I have been married I have been able to appreciate the role that men play even more as my husband and I have learned to work together as husband and wife and as I have seen how he has stepped up to the plate and been the kind, caring, sweet, concerned and hard working man that he is. Showing a desire to care for and provide for our future family.

     Men don't get enough recognition. I'm sorry, but they really don't. In today's world the popular idea is that women don't need men. I mean really? Like we don't need them at all? What a silly thought that is to me. I love my dad, I love my husband, I love my brothers and uncles and guy friends that I have had and I honestly couldn't imagine life without them. I am in full support of being an independent, successful, confident woman, but to eliminate the important role that men can play in your life completely and say that you don't 'need' them is saddening to me. 

    So Happy Father's Day out there to all the wonderful men in my life! Thank you for being the tough, honest, kind, rock-solid, hard working individuals that you are. 

Forget Me Not

Today my family and I decided to venture out of the city for a while and go for a hike in American Fork Canyon. I love being up that high in the mountains because when you look at the sky you seriously feel like you could reach your hand right up and touch the clouds. Every summer I used to ride horses all over this canyon with my grandpa, but since he's gotten rid of all of them I haven't been up there as much. I really have missed that fresh mountain air smell, and of course the wild flowers and and really just escaping from the busy world that we live in.

I came across these lovely things along the trail. They're Forget-Me-Nots. Such dainty, pretty little flowers!

On another note Nathan and I signed ourselves up for the Freedom Run 10K coming up on the 4th of July which I am pretty excited about. I love having races to look forward to because they really motivate me to get up off my butt and do my workouts each day. Since I've been married and been really poor I feel like running has been a great hobby for me because it's basically free! As opposed to all the other hobbies I love... ha. 

Nathan and I have been married for a year and a half! I cannot even believe it. Time sure does go by fast, doesn't it.

Comparison is a Thief

Soooo I got a smartphone about six months ago, and I never realized how it could be a simultaneously wonderful and terrible invention. 

Truly it is the best thing ever to be able to obtain any bit of information you could possibly want at all times. What a wonderful convenience that is. However, to have access to facebook/instagram/pinterest at all times is maybe not so awesome.

I found myself getting on social media like seriously every spare second I had in my day, and what it did to me was sickening. I begin to become so consumed with comparing my own life to the picture-perfect, edited lives of others on the web, and to be frank, it made me feel depressed.

Soon none of my clothes were good enough. My apartment wasn't good enough. My hair, body and face weren't good enough. Nothing was good enough for me.

They say comparison is the thief of joy, and I couldn't agree more. I adore the above quote because I believe it is important to remember that we are all at different stages and times of our lives and we simply cannot compare who we are and where we are to someone else. It's quite unfair to ourselves. We're all different and that's the end of the line. The only comparing we should be doing is how we were yesterday versus today. Are we making improvements on what choices we made the day before? Are we correcting our mistakes? Are we trying to be our best self?

That's it. That's all.

So I had to set boundaries for myself about getting on social media, because hey, looking at other people's lives all day and wishing I was in their situation is bad news and it can become a poisonous habit.

A Love/Hate Relationship

I know you are all highly interested in my running endeavors so I'm going to share a little story with you.

Do you remember Junior High School? Well I do. They had something called the 'fun' run, which to say the least was anything but what it professed to be. I can think of several, far more suitable names for it, but we won't get into that. Anyway, the 'fun' run was basically where they wrangled all of us awkward, pubescent, seventh grade girls into the gym and made us run around it like four times and we had to time ourselves and we also had to wear these dreadful gym clothes. Which honestly I don't think I washed once (ew?). The whole experience was just awful if you can imagine.

At that moment in my life I don't think I really liked running that much, in fact I hated it, and I certainly never looked forward to any 'fun' runs.

Thus it was for years. Never enjoyed running. Forced myself to do it on occasion because it was good for me, but hated myself the whole time. You get the picture.

My dear sweet mother, who is a marathon runner would always encourage me run and try to entice me into following her life path, but I resisted. Then one day when I was like eighteen she signed me up for a 10K, and I was just kind of like... alright, I'll do it. So I did that, and it was cool, but I told my mom I was never going to run anything more than a 10K.

So then I ran that same 10K again, and then again. After the third time of running the exact same 10K I have to say that running had become more of a habit for me, and my walls were beginning to come down. Running was not quite as terrible as I had originally thought, plus I was reaping some pretty cool health benefits from it, so my heart was melting a bit.

Then my mom approached me several months ago with an offer that I could never refuse, and honestly it was cruel of her to offer it to me in the first place, because she knew I couldn't refuse it.

She said she would take me on a trip to Disneyland, but only if I signed up for the Disneyland Half Marathon with her.

Obviously a Disneyland fanatic such as myself is not going to turn down a trip to Disneyland, no matter what sort of commitment I had to fulfill. Even if I had vowed my whole life I would never run a half marathon, I guess for Disneyland I will eat my words.

So here I am now. Running a half marathon.

I am a success story.

I hated running. Now I love it, and I love watching my body get stronger and more healthy the more I do it.

So seriously, if you hate running/exercising right now, I promise you can overcome it. Having something to work towards made all the difference for me. Whether that is a race, or a goal weight, or rock solid abs, set goals and work towards them. Compete with yourself. It can be fun.

I'm going to share my training program with y'all whether you're interested or not.

Cousin Time

My fabulous Aunties from Kansas are here in town to visit for the week, and so we had some fun family time today. Here are just a few of my many wonderful cousins. I suppose taking pictures on my grandma's deck stairs has become a tradition, because here is another almost identical picture from like, ten years ago.

You are stuck with your family forever, so it's a pretty darn good thing I happen to like them all so much.

I Don't Even Know

+I have been absolutely loving the sunshine lately. I always get excited about the year's first sunburn. I would say tan, but I seem to lack that ability, so alas, sunburn it is.

+My awesome, crazy aunties from Kansas are coming to visit next week and I can't wait! Also Shelby, my best friend gets home from her mission on August 22nd, which I am anxiously awaiting.

+I beat Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 today, that may be a mildly nerdy confession. I hardly ever play video games, so the fact that I actually beat one is a feat indeed.

+The above picture is of my hubby and I last week when we were out shooting our guns. He is the handsomest human being.

+Does anyone else out there watch 'Once Upon A Time'? As long as I can remember anything produced by ABC has always been unbearably cheesy, but feel-goody, much like all the Hallmark Christmas movies. Once Upon a Time certainly fits the cheesy, feel-goody mold, but for that reason I am just eating it up. Sometimes I watch like ten episodes in one day. I try to assure myself that's healthy. 

+Whelp, that's all I have in my brain today for y'all.

A Bit of an Update

For the past few weeks I was stuck in a time-sucking vacuum where I, well, had no time to do anything of the recreational variety and unfortunately blogging is recreational for me, so yeah. Let me update you on what has happened to me recently that's worth noting.

I graduated from my CNA course. Which was awesome, but also kind of terrible. The class was the reason I had no life for about three straight weeks, but it was well worth it. My classmates were great and hilarious which made the whole experience slightly less painful. 

These two lovely ladies came over to my house for a much needed girl's night. Because what better combo is there on a Saturday night than pizza and estrogen?

The hubby and I escaped this weekend to Park City and we got to stay at this way cool resort that had a pool with a waterfall. We listened to John Denver on our drive there, and might I just say that John Denver is the perfect soundtrack for that particular drive - or really for any drive.

And to top everything off I've begun my half marathon training which both excites and frightens me. Hopefully I am able to sufficiently prepare myself. It has always been a fear of mine to be the last person to cross the finish line at a race. I have this irrational fear that I'll get to the end and they'll be taking down the finish line and everyone will have already gone and left and it'll just be me... the loser at the back of the pack. Not that there's anything wrong with coming in dead last, I just don't want to it to be me, ya know?