Challenge myself

I have been reading this blog lately. It's been intriguing and while I'm not up to par with Gabe and Brittany, I have been toying with the idea of trying to go the less processed food route. So this blog has a 10 day challenge, adapted from this families 100 day challenge of eating no processed foods. I think I'm going to to try the 10 day challenge. Here are the rules to eat by:

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/real-food-defined-a-k-a-the-rules/

What brings this on you ask? Well, I've been ridiculously busy this week and last week. So much so, that I get home late, can't get up the energy to make a good meal for myself at 9:30 at night and so resort to the wonderful brownies that my roommate made along with ice cream that the other bought, topped of with whipped cream and chocolate syrup....twice. Yes, I have devolved into bad eating habits. So, I needed a wake up call and a challenge to myself to do better. This requires me to have good foods stocked up and ready to go, and not resort to late night sugar binges to satisfy my hunger and laziness. So...I have a weekend away starting Friday night. I'm going to start my 10 day challenge next week, on Tuesday. I need to go shopping Monday night for my 10 days worth of food. I'm going to take a look at the menu offered on the website and choose some things I want to make and do and hopefully see some good results, at least being able to get back on the wagon of making regular meals again!

Racing to Catch Up...

I am so behind on my blog. I apologize for all of that. I feel like I've been racing to catch up to an ever faster moving life. I'm single, really how crazy busy can it get!! Don't worry, for all of you out there who legitimately have busy family lives, I'm not taking anything away from that, but a single girl can have a busy life as well....

Since my last posting, I've been able to continue to train for another race, fly to Utah for Celia's graduation, drive up to Kiel and Melissa's for their daughter Rhyan's blessing, fly up to the Bay Area for the race and time with family, and then back. And somewhere in all that, try to be a Relief Society President to 130 women and the families of the ward, find time to fit in the many friends that I love to be around, date someone-then stop dating someone, start watching BYU football again as the season opens up, try to get back into a social scene to hopefully date another, take time to go to an All Girls Weekend before a best friend gets married, and we have now made it to the end of September. (Sorry for the laundry list, but sometimes it helps me to do that so I can see that I'm actually accomplishing some things. Looking at the blur of days tends to make one feel like you never actually get things done). And through all that, working 40 hours a week kind of gets in the way (what?).

So yes, Celia graduated from BYU!!! She has now entered that wonderful part of life called indecision and make-it-up-as-you-go. I was able to go up, see my parents who came out for it, Brigitte and Tyler and their kids and my friend Allison, her husband Kyle and their baby and right before flying out, I met up with another friend in Salt Lake and we toured the Conference Center, since I'd never been inside.

The next weekend, a couple from my former singles ward got married, so Saturday was wedding day!

The beginning of September brought about my 32nd birthday (actually, I am starting to just invert the numbers, so 23 folks!). The birthday weekend I went to Extraordinary Desserts here in San Diego with some girl friends. Love that place, everything is so prettily decorated that you almost don't want to eat it, but you know the inside is going to taste every bit as wonderful as the outside looks, so you have to! That next Sunday, I went up to my brothers house where I met, for the 2nd time, my newest niece Rhyan Patrice Christensen. She was blessed that Sunday and I got to see all my family who came into town for it. What was also great was that labor was the next day so I got to stay over night with my family all up there. We hung out, celebrated the September birthdays (there were about 9 of them), played with the nieces and nephews, went to the hotel, talked till late, got up early, breakfast-ed, talked and then headed back to San Diego. Fun times were had.

That next weekend, my friends threw me a birthday party. I wanted a crepe party, so my wonderful friends learned how to make savory and sweet crepes and any topping you could think of was there. Chicken, veggies, treats, whipped goodness and other wonderful things were there. My friends know how to do things so great!! Couldn't be happier with them!

The following weekend, September 16th and 17th, 8 girl friends and I went up to the Bay Area to run the Napa Valley Ragnar Relay. Just like my race in April that I posted about, this was a 12 team run, starting on the San Francisco Marina, over the Golden Gate Bridge, through Marin, Sausalito, San Anselmo, all those small towns and then up into the Napa wine country. We wound through vineyards, farms and beautiful valleys. It was an awesome run. We picked up 4 girls that we didn't know from up there (one was a friend of one of my friends) and we ran from there! I got to visit my parents, Brittany, Gabe and Sydney, Grandma K, Clayton Valley 1st ward and my roommate got to come with me for all of this as one of our drivers. Fun times, more bling to add to my race collection (only 3 medals now:), hurt hips, heel and possible bone spur, but super great times!

Last weekend, I hosted a BYU football party at my house. It was fun, we did home made pizza. I finally caught up with my entire presidency on Saturday for a presidency meeting and planning. This coming weekend is the girls weekend out in Indio. My friend who is getting married in October in Utah, is marrying a guy who has a timeshare out there and he is being really wonderful by letting his fiance and all her friends crash the place. So fun times. On Sunday, I will head back towards the coast to meet up with my Aunt Kathy, Uncle Tim, their kids Rushell and Kris, their families, my cousin Amy and her family, Shelly and her family, Kiel and his family...oh, that's the end of the list:)

Somewhere in there, we had the great So Cal Blackout, Relief Society activities, ward temple nights, friends birthdays, bachelorette party, missionary discussions, meetings, work, emotional roller coasters, visiting teaching, emergency preparedness, etc....It's been a busy little while lately! You'd think there would be a calm time soon...but quickly we are moving into my favorite time of year, fall, then holiday's then the new year. And then we'll sit back and wonder where all the time went, but at least I can look back and measure that yes, I did get some things accomplished.