Creche display

Here are some of the nativities on display this weekend at the Raleigh Stake Center. What a wonderful way to celebrate the season! We loved the variety and diversity of the display.

Food storage made simple...

Food storage can be baffling and overwhelming but I got this email with a link to this blog
http://www.everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/
that offers a solution to help make it a bit easier.
It's by Wendy DeWitt and here's her Top 10 Reasons Why People Don't Have A Year's Supply of Food (according to the email I received):
10. My neighbor has a 2-year supply (The problem is, actually 85% of the Church has zero food storage).
9. I've paid tithing for 25 years. The Church can give me a little food (Problem: the Church can only feed 4% of its people from the food it has stored).
8. I'm going to move in with my parents or my children (Problem: in many scenarios, people won't be able to travel anywhere once the disaster hits).
7. I have a year's supply and the bullets to go with it (Problem: people will do anything to feed their starving children. Do you want to become one of them who is using your gun to take food from others?) .
6. The boat and 4-wheelers are taking up all my space (Problem: you can't eat them).
5. Y2K ==> meaning, it's never going to happen just like Y2K never happened (Do you actually, really believe that now?).
4. The government's going to rush in and save us all (Just like they did after Hurricane Katrina). 3. I can't afford both food storage and scrapbooking.
2. I'm waiting for the cannery to sell frozen pizzas.
1. A year? I thought it was 72 hours!

Wendy's system has you choose 7 breakfasts that you like and 7 dinners, for one week, plus one loaf of bread a day. Then you figure out the ingredients that you would need for each of those and multiply the ingredients by 52 (for 52 weeks in the year). And then store those ingredients. The idea is that you eat breakfast at breakfast time, then eat dinner during the middle of the day when the sun is available to help you cook things, and then have some bread and extras for a light meal in the evenings.

merry Christmas to all

Our stake had a wonderful celebration of Christmas this weekend with over 300 creches on display. You can read more about it here: http://www.newsobserver.com/nrn/story/1318294.html
They had a children's room set up and this wonderful photo was taken of my girls and some friends. It was a great event and I will post more pictures!

The Boy Who Dared book review

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this with my girls (ages 11 and 10) and we all loved it. It was a good one for a discussion on bravery, government, war, human rights and more. I recommend it highly. It's about an LDS boy who lived in Germany during WWII and chose to act when he knew Hitler was evil instead of letting his fears rule him.

Here's what my oldest daughter said: "The story was told as "flashbacks" and really let you understand his emotions and why he did what he did. I liked how it gave you the background story behind his life."

It's based on a true story and we all gained a better understanding of the second World War and Hitler. It's perfect for young adult readers.


View all my reviews.

W & OD Trail in Virginia

I'm almost ready for my marathon. Only two weeks to go. This last weekend I ran/limped/walked 24 miles (I was only supposed to go 23 but I'll get to that part soon). The best part of the five and a half hours was the scenery. I was on the W & OD Trail in Virginia and it was beautiful! I saw orchards, scenic barns, llamas, cows, horses, rivers, over bridges, through tunnels and in ravines and up hills. I wish we had something like that near us! I couldn't get over how clean the path was also- they must have come through earlier and blew all the leaves off the trail because it was near pristine condition!

Next time we visit I intend to run it again but I will be better prepared for it. This time I didn't realize how hard I had pushed myself the day before (it was Black Friday and I had shopped 'til I dropped - while wearing high heeled boots all day). I also wasn't getting enough sleep since I lost my ear plugs and my dear husband snores- a lot & loudly.

Anyway, I got going and halfway through I was worn out and blamed it on dehydration. I got off the trail at mile 12 and got a bottle of water at a quaint grocery store in Paeonian Springs (I started in Ashburn, VA). That little detour added the extra mile in my run but I needed the water so badly it was worth it. I slowed down quite a bit after that. I should have had more than just the one bottle I was so dehydrated. My muscles started cramping and I got charlie horses in both my calves and I couldn't run through them. I had to stop and stretch and massage the pain away until I could bear to start running again. It was so bad it took me an extra hour to finish from what it should have taken me. I would have cried if I'd had any tears but I was so dehydrated I couldn't!

The other lesson was that I desparately needed new running shoes. I had known my shoes were getting too worn out but I didn't realize how bad they were until later that day when I could barely walk because my ankle and feet hurt so badly. I got new shoes later that day at the Nike Outlet and am trying to get them broken in before the race on Dec.13. I used my in-laws' hot tub and soaked in my own tub today too and my muscles aren't as sore now. My ankle doesn't hurt anymore either. This weekend is a short run- just 10k and then I will be taking it easy for the big day!

I like to enter contests online. It's free and doesn't take much time and occasionally I win! Tonight I found out I won a $100 Macy's gift card from http://hotmomsclub.com/ and that made me so excited! I can't wait to go shopping for Christmas at Macy's now!

A few months ago I won a contest from http://health.com/ and got a $50 iTunes gift card, a 6 month supply of Skinny Cow frozen desserts and a cool credit card sized pedometer. I'm using the iTunes card to get music for my marathon running and I love the Skinny Cow popsicles and ice cream sandwiches (mint is my favorite). The pedometer was so useful when I was in NYC- one day I walked 8 miles just sight seeing!

I also won a contest from Honey Bunches of Oats and got a coffee maker and year's supply of coffee (I gave those to a friend who drinks coffee). Thank goodness it came with a year's supply of the cereal too- which my oldest daughter loves.

My aunt has a website (http://purplefromtheheart.blogspot.com) and she has contests all the time. I've won some great socks (I'm wearing them now actually), a beautiful silver bracelet that I get compliments on all the time, a gift card to Kohls (I got a great jacket that I wore in NYC- scroll down to the photo of me next to the Sphinx in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see it), a gift card to Blockbuster and a yummy box of treats from the Popcorn Factory!

My grandpa loved to enter contests too and won lots of stuff through the years. I think about him when I enter some of these contests. Maybe one of these days I'll win a big contest with lots of money and prizes, but these smaller prizes are just as much fun too!

Last weekend I ran 20 Miles! I'm getting closer to my marathon (Dec. 13) so my runs are getting longer and longer! I have never run 20 miles before and it really was not bad. I searched the web for advice for first time marathoners and found lots of useful tips but my favorite was to name every mile. I run with Nike+ so my ipod tells me as I pass each mile. Each new mile I would dedicate to someone important to me and spend that mile praying for them. All my girls had a mile, so did my husband and all my family. It was great! I spent the four hours praying and growing closer to my Savior and those that I was praying for. I wasn't thinking of me or how I felt, but of others. I will do this from now on every time I run. A lot of running a marathon is a mental game and I think this is the way I will beat that part of the game. I don't want to quit the race on any of my girls' miles so they will be the last four. I'm doing this for them too, afterall. I want to show them that they can accomplish anything they put their mind to.