What's for Lunch

With the downturn in the economy, not to mention the extra few lbs I've put on since the wedding, the past couple of months I've given up eating out for lunch when I'm working. Instead, I have my daily peanut butter and honey sandwich with a side of organic greens while sitting in the office. This week I splurged and bought this

Organic, raw honey with hint of pomegranate. YUM.

I also splurged and bought the Easter version of this
But don't tell anyone. :)

Feeling My Age

I'm loving the Spring weather. Rick and I took advantage last night and did our first official bike ride this season. It wasn't too hard core, pretty mild actually. Just out past the airport and back.
It was so nice to be riding again. The trip was pretty uneventful, except my shoe broke and I couldn't clip in most of the way back. I guess that is what the first ride is for, figuring out what needs to be fixed/adjusted for the season. We'll get everything in order and ready for Dustin's birthday ride on Friday (come on weather hold out for us!)

The previous evening Rick and I did a short run on the track at the rec center while the boys were in a class (Le Parkour- I'll have to blog about that later. It's really cool). So we were already a bit sore when we started the bike ride. Maybe it helped to have that little bit of break-in to Spring training, but I am so sore today. It's like I'm feeling every day of my 40 years. Rick and I were laughing walking down the stairs at the condo last night. We were all contorted trying to find the best way to take each stair with the least amount of pain.

It's supposed to rain today. I'm hoping it's just a day of bad weather then back to the sunshine. We were thinking we'd like to take mountain bikes to the bird refuge this weekend. Good times.

Advice

Hey my friends. I need advice on two items.

1) I'm wanting to get rid of chemicals at my house. Any suggestions on natural cleaning products. I'm thinking vinegar/water solution is the answer to a lot. I've read that it may not be good for tile/grout and granite. Suggestions? Also, any ideas for laundry and dish washing?

2) We are heading to Florida for a family vacation next month. We will be staying in Orlando. I know all of you are travel experts and can advise me wisely. Is two days enough for Disney? We are assuming it won't be too crowded mid-May. Has anyone toured Kennedy space center? I think there is a shuttle launch while we are there. Any good suggestion of a good spot to see it? Does anyone know about SCUBA diving in the area? I'm thinking we will have to drive down to West Palm Beach to find decent dive sites. What else is good to see/do? I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Things that Make Me Happy

I was thinking about this post yesterday and was going to start by saying how happy Springtime makes me. However, today it's snowing. I want to go home and curl up in bed with a good book. This past week, I've noticed the budding, popcorn-popping trees and all the Spring flowers blooming. It makes me a little giddy. (It also makes me wish I'd stayed in better shape throughout the winter to make early-season biking a bit more enjoyable.) Get ready for the official Springtime poetry post. Send me your favorites to put in the running.

My other source of happiness lately is the temple. Rick and I finally made it to a session. We have tried so many times to go and various things have got in the way. It is such a nice emotional release for me when I'm there. All stress melts away, and I realize everything is in Heavenly Father's hands. I have felt notably lighter since going. Then yesterday I received an email from friends serving a mission in Cambodia. It was a report on a Hong Kong temple trip they took last week with members from their little town in Cambodia. I wish I could paste the whole thing here, but it's quite long. These families have never left their area and it was fun reading how they were amazed at escalators, plane rides, ice makers, etc. Obviously, the best part was reading how they loved being in the temple and cried at the end of serving for four days because they would most likely never return. I was also touched by how the Chinese saints in Hong Kong welcomed them and donated money and clothing for their families. Overall, what inspired me was feeling connected with people all over the world through finding joy in the temple.

Happiness has been on my mind lately. My life is definitely more complicated than it has been in a long time, but I am consciously happy. I really love my life and everyone it in.

Work Work Work

Here's a surprising thing about my new insta-family. When you go from a household of one to a household of four, there is so much more to do around the house. It's like the workload increases by.... four. Crazy, huh?

It is very apparent in the amount of laundry. Did you know four people use four times as many towels as one person? This is big news for most of you, isn't it? I'm also amazed at how many dishes there are to do. I could almost run the dishwasher every day instead of once a week like I'm used to.

We had a fantastic cleaning weekend. I wish I took photos of Zane and Isaac's room before and after. They were troopers; we all worked for over two hours. I think they were both pleased with the result. They've agreed to a weekly maintenance plan.

We also finished cleaning out the food storage/laundry room. This was a two week project. There was food (fruit?) that Rick's mother had bottled years ago. One of the bottles broke and the "liquid" inside stayed in the shape of a bottle. Whatever fruit and juice that was once in there had become one gelatinous mass. ick. Then there were the dead mice. Four to be exact. All at varying levels of decomposition. I won't even tell you about the mouse scat everywhere. There were also huge containers of wheat; we opened one of them and couldn't see the wheat for all the weevils. Now, all the infested wheat, bottled goo, mice carcasses, scat, and everything else are all gone. The room has been sprayed with Lysol from top to bottom. I'm going to give it one more scrub-down next weekend, and then I'll feel OK about moving some of our storage items in. Whew!!