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Absent

I am here. I am alive. Life has once again gotten busy. Remember my last post with all those good things to do this summer:
lose weight
quilt
scrap booking
save money

Ya well, WHERE THE HECK DID SUMMER GO?!?!?!?

It is now July. Really?! Who in the world said that summer was allowed to go by so quickly and didn't ask me about it first?? Well who ever it was, I am angry with them.

Lose weight: well I have actually lost about 8 pounds total. It should be so much more. Starting tomorrow I am going to make it so much more. I only have a few weeks before I go on my vacation that will include a lot of time in a bathing suit and being on camera. I will lose that weight! (Stupid ice cream :P)

Quilt: Well I have about half the t-shirts cut out. This project will have to wait another year probably before I get to start on it again. I think my time is up for this summer on that project. It's ok though. It has been fun and I have actually learned a lot.

Scrap booking: I did about 4 pages. I will continue that throughout the year.

Save money: Unfortunately this has not been the best thing. We have had a lot of expenses come up that we weren't really factoring into our original equation. By the end of this month though, we should have a pretty good amount saved though. And school we starting again, which means time to hit the books and I will no longer know what the inside of a store looks like which will in turn make it so we don't spend as much.

In regards to saving money, I have a few things I want to try this summer that I think will cut down on our

spending by a lot! First, I think our biggest problem is not planning out our meals for the month.

I am in no way, shape or form, a very good cook and because of that I don't like to cook and even further

than that, I don't plan the meals out. So on average we go to the store one a week. This is not good for our pocket book, especially since we don't buy things with physical cash, we use a debit card and we don't 

really budget for the things that we need to buy. 

Plan: I am going to plan bi-weekly meals. (according to the reading I have done, you should start small...) So plan meals for two weeks, go shopping for those meals that you plan for (include breakfast and lunch too) and then I am going to come home and make all the meals. I am going to make freezer meals and that way, I can get all of my unwanted, disliking cooking done in one day and be done for next two weeks. Surprisingly I am actually pretty exciting about this. It will be nice to have some good organization and structure to our crazy lives. This will also cut down on our caloric intake, our fast food intake, and our desire to snack. I am also going to try to make our own bread. James and I really like sandwiches on good bread and because the store bought bread costs a lot, this usually tends to be more of a luxury food than something that could be eaten daily. So I am going to start making my own bread and freezing it. 

Guys...I think I am going domestic?! This is kind of a scary thought! :) 

Ok. That's my thought processing of tonight. I am excited about trying to be a better wife and make our lives better :) 

Until next time! 

Expressions of love!

One thing that I think grandma and grandpa have shown me the importance of love. Love has had such a great impact on my life and not just to stay close to the ones you love but to show as much love as possible.
This is what gave me the idea for this hug: http://lds.org/pages/expressions?lang=eng
So grandma and grandpa- I LOVE you and I am so grateful for the love that you have shown me.
Love always – Jenessa and James

Hello Glendale

We are officially all moved into our new apartment in Glendale. We have been to our new ward, driven around a little bit, felt the heat of Phoenix (got a nasty sunburn), and I think we have concluded that we like it here! I don't think we really doubted that we would enjoy ourselves but our current feelings are that we wouldn't mind if we lived here. --especially living in a nice, big apartment that are currently living in.

James really likes his internship. I really like being at home with no job. I am still in school- I currently have 3 classes and I will start a fourth one here in a couple weeks. But I am also getting caught up on the things that have been on my to do list for the past 3 years:

**T-shirt quilt
**Wedding Scrap book
**Blogging
**Working out like hard core!

Quilt

So far so good. I have like a million shirts! And this is probably going to take me a little while to actually finish but I am really excited for the end result. I have a good start going, I haven't started actually sewing yet and I am pretty sure that's going to the be the hardest part for me....so we'll see how that goes. 

ScrapBook

I haven't actually been a huge scrapbooker in the past, all I have really ever done is James' Love Day book (a book that I update every year for Valentine's day with pictures and letters saying how much and why I have fallen more in love with him each year....I think it's pretty cute :) ) 

So since this is new for me, I am going to do my best to actually finish it. I have a good start- I have our engagements page done and a I have a page all about my dress cuz, I really liked my dress. I will probably have to do that with my cake too cuz I liked my cake almost more than my dress! 

Blogging

I really enjoy keeping a journal and I want this blog to be something that my kids can go back and read through and really get a good picture about how our life is and the things that we enjoy/don't enjoy and the stuff we do. Anyway, the goal is to take more pictures and keep a better update on things. 

Work Out Hard Core

I started P90X! Holy Hard!!!! It was intense but I finished and then I threw up. Literally. It was gross. But it also felt good to work so hard. And now my legs are mad a me but I am still happy! And it's a feeling that I want to keep up-- legs not throw up.

So that's my summer to do list and I fully intend to keep going and keep you updated :)

Until next time <3

Summer 2012~ Another diet journal

Day 1
May 16

Well long time no see! Since school decides to take over my life completely I have completely neglected the blogging world. This is a very sad thing because 1) I miss the "journal" aspect of this game 2) it is going to take a TON of time to catch up. But that's ok. I think I will actually have time this summer to catch up.

First things first. We are alive and well and living in Tucson still. BUT not for long! We are moving to Phoenix in T-minus 8 days. How many boxes to I have left? That would be a BIG FAT ZERO haha. I think I may have won the crown for procrastination.
James got an internship with Performance Software for Systems Engineering and we gladly accepted the offer. But we had a choice this summer! He got a call from NASA, Performance Software, a traffic company in San Diego, and a second interview with Microsoft (he obviously didn't get that one). We took PS because it just felt like the right thing for us to do. The others would have been great opportunities but this one just seemed to fit just right. I could go on about this for quite some time but I will save that for another day.
So we are excited and it is going to be a very fun change for the summer!

Secondly- also for another more detailed post another day, but to make it short, I am the camp director for our ward's Girls Camp. SO excited but totally and completely a new world for me. I will post pictures and all that fun stuff another time.

Lastly- I am going to get back into shape this summer! Hence the post title. You will have the honor of hearing all about my food woes and the things that I eat on a daily basis haha. Not that you care much, but I am doing this because I feel like I may just be a little more accountable about what I am doing if I have all of cyber space to face.
So here is day 1.
Today I currently weigh 170 lbs. (did I really just post that?!) ((like I said, accountable for my actions right?)
Here  is what I can eat today:
1200 calories
165 carbs
40 fats
45 protein

I am using http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ as a tool to track what I eat and how many calories and such I have left. Again another accountability tool.

The goals of this diet:
Obviously lose weight.
Be in shape
---->I want to be able to run in these: http://thecolorrun.com/arizona/ ; http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/mightymudmania; http://5kfoamfest.com/index.php ( I won't make this one this year, maybe next, but doesn't it sound fun?!)
Fit into my clothes again
Have a healthy life style to......have a baby :)
------->no not preggo yet, but I want to be and doc says I can't until I get skinny again to get my hormones back in balance and make this body perfect for caring a future Mertzling.

So that's my story. Here's to a new summer and for a school year over. One left to go and one hot skinny bod to go with it :)

Enter_School

 

I can’t believe that summer is over! Friday was the last day of my fun job that I have loved for so long and where I have made some awesome friends. I have started at a new job now and it’s been quite the change in atmosphere- I gotta say there is a difference in professionalism when you’re in a place where there aren’t the highest of values leading the crew.

We are finally pretty settled into our new place. I like it a little bit better now that I have things on the way that say {my home} and it smells a little better now too- hopefully the smokey smell doesn’t come back any time soon.

It’s still hot and I’ll get out- sometimes I wonder if it’s really healthy to live in this heat…but then I think of the alternative and the cold that comes with it and I quickly become thankful for the sun that shines 99.7% of the time.

I have some thoughts and goals for this school year though that I think will help me have a better experience:

-Read my scriptures everyday, or at least listen to them in the car

-Eat a healthy dinner that I have made time to prepare

-Work out at least three times a week, running has to be one of those days if not two

-Do my visiting teaching EVERY  MONTH!

-Have FHE every week, even it has to be on Sundays.

I have to make Christ my top priority and I have to do it every single day. I really need his help to make it through this tough semester and I know that I can do these things and that it will make a difference in the outcome of my daily activities.

Good luck this upcoming week! God bless and keep smiling no matter how hard things get. If you can’t find anything to smile about think of this:

my baby sister was falling asleep in the car tonight on the way home from dinner, she couldn’t keep her eyes open but apparently her hands and mouth still worked because she was still eating her pretzels while she slept.—oh to be young again! 

Family Sunday

Once a month my mom’s family gets together to celebrate birthdays for the month and to have a family dinner.

This month was pretty strange because it’s the first time we have really been altogether since my grandparents have gone on their mission. We met at my aunt’s school because it was pretty in the middle of everyone and we have a yummy dinner and then we did an activity.

My aunt Becky was the one in charge so she came up with a Halloween idea to send to my grandparents in South Africa. She printed pictures of all of the grandkids and we cut out their faces and then put them on a poster. Then each of the kids drew their Halloween costume around the picture of their face. It was pretty fun to see what everyone came up with.

**we are pretty hard core BYU fans in this family**

It’s so great to get together with family. We miss so much the family that we don’t get to see very often and grab any chance we can to all be together.

Enjoy the pics!