Things I learned on my Comic Con trip

A little vacation can go a long way.

I love coming back to my hotel room after maid service. (wish I could have that at home)

Good food & good friends go a long way toward making me very happy.

I am too grown up for Comic Con. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip. We had a great time but we also discovered that little things that seemed quirky last year (or we didn't even notice them) became irritating. I'm talking about the crowds, weird costumes, stuff like that. The trip last year was amazing and I'm glad we took this trip but I don't believe there will be another.

The often told jokes about nerds living in their parents' basements are totally true. And some of them even brought their moms!!!

I love staying near the ocean. It is so relaxing and beautiful.



I love orange marmalade on toast!

(I guess that is it for now. I'm sure I learned more and I'll post that as I think of it. Enjoy these pictures of my trip. I swear Janna was there but she was always the one taking the pictures. I'll put some pics up of her too)

Amanda is glad to be home.

Weight Milestone

So I hit a milestone today. I'm finally under a specific weight that I've been working towards for a long time. In fact I lost 4 pounds over the last week (so I'm like 2 pounds under the goal).

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for your positive comments in the past. I still have a long way to go but it has really gotten a lot easier lately and my hard work is really paying off.

Amanda is thinking about the nice weekend she had.

Service work can be fun!

As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I went over to help a sister in our stake who is blind. Her name is Marianne and she is 73 years old. I had such a neat time. She was a member of the Tabernacle Choir for 17 years. She holds two masters degrees from the U of U (speech pathology and music). She is also a certified medical transcriptionist and she owned her own business in that field for many years.

Now here's the kicker - especially for all of us who say we are too busy to go to the temple regularly. Marianne volunteers once a week as a temple organist. She also goes to the temple 3-4 per week to do endowments & initiatories. I was helping her throw out paperwork and we were going through a big binder of her temple submissions for the past 2 years. I was amazed at the sheer volume of her temple work.

Anyway, it was a really good experience. She is basically trying to go through old letters and paperwork (which is hard to do if you can't see). I'm going back again at the beginning of August.

Amanda is looking forward to her date tomorrow.

San Diego in one week!!!

I'm going on vacation in exactly one week with my roommates Jaime & Janna. At this time next week I'll be sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting to change planes and probably eating a little Ethel M chocolate. Not too much though - since I lost another 2.5 pounds since June 29th.

I can tell that I am ready for time away. Life has been really good lately but I have also had some silly stress moments (my roommates know what I'm referring to). I just need a little time away from regular life and out of Utah. What better way to de-stress than to stalk (I mean, observe) attractive & unattainable celebrities at Comic Con? I'll be like a cheetah or a velociraptor making my way across the convention floor with nothing but my trusty digital camera and the girlish glee I'll try to disguise.

I am so busy right now I seriously have something going on every single night this week. Not all bad, some of them are fun as you can see below.

Monday - my branch Olympics (our Relief Society was in charge)
Tuesday - 12:00AM Harry Potter (It was awesome and I managed to crawl out of bed on time for work this morning)
Wednesday - Enrichment (we are touring the gardens at the Conference Center)
Thursday - I volunteered to read to a blind sister in our stake
Friday - hanging out with my friend Amy (dinner at TGI Friday's - I've got a buy one get one free coupon). Man, I love coupons!
Saturday - The Fray concert at Usana Amphitheater

Good thing I only work 2 days next week, huh? We're bringing a laptop so I'll try to do a some blogging and Facebook updates "live from San Diego".

Amanda is anxious to begin her trip.

I used to be funny

I was looking back over some of my old blogs and since April I've mostly talked about losing weight, eating healthy, etc. I realized that I need to do more fun postings. So here are some funny, silly, and random things about me or things that I have noticed of late. Then please enjoy this funny little thing that a friend sent me.

My biggest irritation: People clipping their fingernails in church

Worst date moment: I think I was 18 or 19 and we were doing a big group date. I was set up with this really quiet guy and we just didn't hit it off that well. After a night of bowling, we all went back to a friend's house and then the guys took turns boxing each other (not my date though). It was just a weird evening. So when we were getting ready to leave, I turned to this poor guy and said "Thanks, it was fun." (The funny part is that I was giving him 2 thumbs up at the time I said that). I was just too young and dumb to think of anything else to do. Thus, the 2 Thumbs Up is considered my dating kiss of death.

Random habit: I talk to myself all the time. I'm not quite up to crazy cat lady status but I probably do it way more than your average person. In fact as I'm writing this blog, I'm talking to myself.

Amanda is not quite ready for the nut house.



(The caption says "When I grow up I want to be like Mommy!)

(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Smith

I won my category!

My work has being doing a "Biggest Loser" contest and I recently won/tied in my 10 lb category. I entered that category because I wasn't sure how much weight I could actually lose. We did our first weigh in on May 12th and from then to now I've lost nearly 16 pounds.

I'm not finished though!!! I want to lose a bunch more weight so the exercise and healthy eating program continues onward. I would to say thank you to everyone who has posted encouraging comments on both this blog and my Facebook account. Your support has really been helpful.

I recently did a little clothes shopping (kind of a necessity when the majority of your clothes are 2 sizes too big) and it was so much fun. I loved being able to completely bypass the plus size section in favor of cute and smaller stuff. The sad thing about plus size clothes (with the exception of Lane Bryant) is that designers seem to think that women who wear larger sizes want to wear horizontal stripes or hideous print blouses dotted with flowers. Hello! Fat people can be stylish too!!!

Amanda is getting off her soapbox now.