you win scale.

Dear Cheap $20 Walmart bathroom scale,

I have come to you so many times begging for your approval, your compliments, your graces and your powers to give me hope and comfort, I have sought identity from you hoping to find the beautiful slim girl you showed to me 3 years ago. I have come to you through the ups and down looking for direction, but alas, you continue to fail me.

So I concede defeat. You win, you cheap $20 Walmart bathroom scale. If I were less of a woman I would be calling you a cheap whore right about now, but we both know that is not true. You were a worthy competitor, and to be fair, you were kinder to me than your cousins at the doctors office. You have stood your ground through many diets, "cycles", holidays, hours logged on the treadmill, elliptical, countless amounts of sit-ups and push-ups. But I give up, you win, you win, you win.

I'd like to say you won the battle not the war, but I am somewhat of a pacifist and I no longer wish to engage in either.

Maybe at some future date when my jeans concede victory to me, (and they are easier to concur if I do not wash them) we will meet again. But until then, congratulations on a monumental victory.

Contemptuously yours,

Hill

I'm torn

*********Warning this post is way too long, Holly, don't feel obligated to read it***********

This is a short story made long.

Lately, as many of my friends know, I have been on this honesty kick. I am not trying to be more honest with others, (I do way to much of that) I am trying to be more honest with myself. For example, I will have chicken, brown rice, and peas and carrots for dinner. I'll pick around the chicken, eating it the very last, and then I'll eat the peas and again picking around the cooked carrots eating them the very last. Why can't I just be honest with myself and admit that

I DON'T LIKE CHICKEN OR COOKED CARROTS!

Why do I go through this song and dance about how it is good for me, my body needs protein, yada yada yada. I don't like it, I'm NOT EATING IT! This honesty thing all started from 3 failed diets, 1. weight watchers, 2. the abs diet and 3. the 2000 calorie diet (you have to eat over 2000 calories a day, sounds simple, but try it, it was torture for me) So my loving and caring Dad, obviously noting my crippling depression over my weight, gave me this book called "I can Make You Thin" It has 4 rules

1. EAT when you are hungry
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should eat.
3. Eat consciencely and enjoy every mouthful.
4. STOP when you are full.

That is it. Sounds simple enough, and it is, it is so much simpler than the afore mentioned diets. But it has caused me to think so much more and be so much more honest with myself about food. For example, on Thursday night I really wanted some kind of peanut butter, so I thought I better have dinner so I can have a little chocolate and peanut butter, well you know what forget it! (Rule number 2) I skipped dinner and took the peanut butter jar and poured chocolate chips in it and ate them with a big spoon. How do you like me now. Truth be told, I have been doing this "diet" for 3 weeks and I have not lost or gained 1 pound, but I no longer have to force myself to eat and I have lost a lot of the anxiety about food that I have.

Anyways, back to my original dilemma. Because of this honesty thing, I thought I should be completely honest about the things I do like and tell people I like them. So on Friday night while I was in my office listening to an NPR pod cast, I chose an interview with an author of the book "A Happy Marriage" The interview was remarkable, amazing, I almost cried. So, I decided to write the author a letter telling him how much I enjoyed his interview and the content of his book. Well, he wrote me back! telling me thank you for the letter, it was very nice, things like that. So Saturday morning I went to the Library to check out another book by him. The book is 704 PAGES! I started it on Saturday and it is excellent. Here is where my dilemma lies. I know the book is scary, I know that it is crazy scary and if you don't know me that well, I'll just tell you I can't even watch prime time tv dramas. They give me really bad dreams. So I am torn about what to do. Do I read the book, but only to invest 350 pages and then have to put it down and be scared for several days until I can get the images out of my mind, or do I just skip it all together. (but the author wrote me an email)

Anyways, short story very very long, I know my sister Holly will never read this post. But I had to put it out there. I am trying to be more honest and I am so happy someone was honest with me back. By the way, the book is at the top of this post.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

On Saturday night after our traditional Slurpee and Trader Joe's stops we decided to take the kids back to school shopping. It actually went pretty well. I can't tell if their shirts are cool or not, but I was torn. I don't really want them wearing "character" shirts to school, like Transformers, Batman, Wolverine, guys like that. They are actually kind of violent, most of the movies are pg-13 and Max goes to a very strict Christian pre-school. Nonetheless, the only other categories were sports and skulls. (What's up with skulls? Did I miss something cool in skateboarding? Where is this theme coming from) When we got home I had them try on their clothes and they kind of got in to it. All part of my master plan. -Get them excited about school, because I am freakin ecstatic!

Max in orange. I even found him a new pair of Sketchers, for only $18.

This was my favorite shirt. I wish I had gotten one for Max too.

Classic Max

I even got myself a new NIKE jacket. I kind of love it. It was a 50 dollar jacket that I got for 16. Like I said, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Sad Eyes

I have been having a hard time with Auri lately. Mostly because she has no words to tell me what she needs or wants, so much of my day is spent trying to interpret "eh". But today we got to spend the day at the fountains and it was fun to see Auri on her own a little. And because I have been having such a difficult time with her, I thought I'd make a list of things that I like most about her.

1. She tries to make me laugh

2. Her love and adoration for Max

3. She loves books

4. She will go to anyone

5. She loves to dance

6. She sleeps in

7. Her sad eyes

I promise I will be a much happier Mom when school starts up again.

Hanging out with Maggie and Will

Jim

They don't have their cable hooked up yet,

so this is what we watched the whole time I was there.

View from their living room.

Sometimes when I think back to when I was in collage, all I can think about it studying and tests. I still get a happy feeling on Sunday night knowing that I can read what I want and relax rather than study for a Monday morning exam or edit a paper. But visiting Will this weekend made me miss college a little bit. Will and Maggie live a block north of the temple in an apartment that overlooks the valley and the capitol building. They are relatively care free, have a really good time with friends and seem so relaxed about life. It made me miss being 25.

max is 4

Happy Birthday MAX

At least I can pick out a hair color

I got my hair done at a salon this weekend. I am going to a wedding on Wednesday and I wanted to look extra pretty. I usually go to this hole in the wall where the ladies barely speak English and the decor is somewhat lacking, but it's cheap and fast. This weekend, however, I couldn't take any more chances with color. Because I made a huge mistake picking the paint color of my house, I was a little more careful with my hair color. I like the way it turned out.

House Color

This is my new house color. I think I got a little arrogant. I have been painting the rooms in my house for years now and I have only made one mistake in picking out color, that was Max's room. I painted it green and the next day it looked a little pea green, which I couldn't stand to I re-did it 2 days later. Well, I think I made a huge mistake with this one, and the sad thing is I can't correct it.

I went to Sherwin Williams to pick out 4 paint shades of blue, I even painted huge chunks of it on the front of my house and the back. But when the painters finished, packed up and left, I wanted to cry! It is way too bright!!! It stands out like a sore thumb in our neighborhood. Most of the houses around me are brown, yellow, a weird shade of mauve, or various shades of off white. I feel like I have offended the neighbors with my bold statement and I feel like I just got too cocky with paint color. Tell me your honest opinion. Is it too bright.

BEFORE

AFTER

A close up

I kind of hate it, what should I do.

This is what we did today

This is one of those summer days where we have no place to go and nothing to do. I asked the kids if they wanted to go to Boarders because I have a 40% off coupon, but Max just said "Mom, can't we just stay home today?" So this is what we did today.

This is Max at 7:30 in the morning in my room.

I mean, how else are you going to start the day out?


I bought a clock at Walmart, (the store that I have a passionate love hate relationship with). The clock was only $3.00, then I decided to rearrange the pictures in my dining room. I can't tell if it looks really cool or completely dorky. Hanging pictures is not my forte, but it entertained me for about 2o minutes. It is now 11am and I have nothing else to do today. We might take advantage of that boarders coupon after all. Auri recently tore up her copy of Pinkalicious, maybe we'll replace it today.

If you have any advise on how to hang the pictures better, I'd love to hear it.

Hillary's Clone

Can you guess which one is me? I'll l give you a hint, it is the one that looks exactly like Auriel.

From left my cousins Jared, Shannon, Kevin, my brother Leland, my Grandpa Anderson holding me, my sister Holly, my cousin Karleen holding my cousin Sarah. I love these people, I love my Gram for taking this photo and I love my parents for keeping it.

This past week in the 109 degree weather my a/c went out so my parents graciously let us come stay at their house. While I was up there and not worrying about cleaning every bedroom, doing laundry and basically jut having a mini vacation, I went through several old photo albums and I found one that my grandmother kept of my grandfathers death. It had letters of condolences, a 17 page journal written on scratch paper about his hospitalization, the talk that was given at the funeral and a letter from my Grandfathers brother Kirk Anderson. The book is priceless and I will begrudgingly give it back to my parents when I have finished copying all the photos I want. But more importantly it made me think about keeping records for my kids. I have done an adequate job at this with baby books and photo albums, but it made me want to write more. I want to write about experiences, funny things that people said, characteristics that my family members have and things like that. I write Auri a letter about every 6 months and I like going back and reading the old ones. I write to her what toys she liked, what foods she liked, what made her laugh (it is usually Max), I told her how we choose her name, how her dad and I met, what the weather was like when she was born and when we brought her home. I hope she will appreciate these letters, but more importantly I hope her kids will appreciate them. It's good to read about our ancestors. We learn a lot about ourselves. My grandmother liked keeping records, so do I. I feel like I inherited the "Spirit of Elijah" from her. I wonder who she got it from.

In short I am really happy my grandmother kept this record and it has inspired me to do more.