I Am Not Stressed!!!

I I tried to find a different picture- oh well- Mom and Sage

I actually wrote this last year, but for some reason it got saved as a draft instead of being posted.  So here it is.  Just as applicable this year as last.

This is one of my family's favorite sayings.  We love it.  I am not stressed!!  Where did this come from?  Its not from a movie, or a book, its from my mom.  This is the story as I remember it (my siblings may remember differently).  It was Christmas time and Mom was busy with Christmas stuff just like we all are at this time of year.  I believe it was the year Mom decided to make a loaf of her famous homemade wheat bread for basically everyone in the ward.  Only Mom would have thought about conquering that all by herself.  If I remember right Greg walked in and saw her surrounded by loaves of bread.  Things were a mess and Mom was obviously frazzled.  Greg stated the obvious, "Mom, you look stressed."  Mom immediately said, "I am not stressed!!"  This was hilarious because it was so obviously not true.  Thus the phrase, "I am not stressed" that we now say at moments that have the most stress possible.  It always brings a little smile amidst whatever craziness is happening in the moment.

I love Christmas.  I try really hard not to make it a super stressful season.  But I've decided that the season in and of itself creates stress.  The pressure of trying to make Christmas memories, help your kids feel the Christmas spirit, remind them what Christmas is really about, get the perfect Christmas tree, and a million other things.  Somehow we're supposed do all of this with a smile on our face, Christmas music playing in the background, sweet smiling kids, and a fire in the fireplace.  Its no wonder why I feel stressed.  My desire to make the Christmas season memorable and enjoyable automatically creates stress.  So what's the solution?  Throw your hands in the air and forget trying to make Christmas so perfectly enjoyable?  I don't think so.  I think I need to remember that part of the fun memories that come from the holidays are the imperfect moments.  Let's face it, most of the stories my family loves telling involve imperfect moments.  That's what makes us smile and laugh in the years to come.

The past few years we've had the tradition of cutting down a Christmas tree.  This has been a great tradition, but it definitely hasn't been perfect.  This year Jake wondered why we should cut down a Christmas tree when it always involves stress and never turns out the way we want it to.  I informed him that the funny stories are what make the tradition great.  Where's the fun in having everything perfectly perfect?

So this year when you're running around shouting, "I am not stressed!!" remember that this is what its all about.  The memories of the crazy things we did to make our kids happy.  The memories of the Charlie Brown Christmas trees.  The memories of trying to make 100 loaves of bread.  Its all about the memories.

So yell "I am not stressed" as loud as you can, then make a fist and let it go.  Because this is what traditions are made of...

Non-Thanksgiving

the only picture I took - guess I was having too much fun...

We had our first annual (I hope) sibling non-Thanksgiving party.  It was so great.  All of the family in Utah (Dad, April, and Greg) brought their troops to our house last night for some partying.  Good times were had by all (I think).  We treated everyone to a true redneck party.  We showed them the barn, our trailer, sat around the fire pit, and took the kids for rides on the tractor.  This is what you do for fun in a small town.  Comments were made about how quiet it is here.  And that is why we're here and will never leave (well, that and lots of other great reasons).

Then we ate.  A lot.  Because that's what Spjutes do.  We decided to make all of our Mom favorites.  We had (be ready to drool) chicken rolls, stinky ham, mashed potatoes, crunchy salad, corn, meatloaf, and jello on lettuce leaves.  It was so great.  Just like old times.  My mom was the queen of comfort food.  My kids say I should cook like that all the time.  It was so fun to just hang out, laugh about crazy things we did in the past, and make new memories.  Hopefully we can do this more often:)

Better Late Than Never

Yes, its almost Thanksgiving and I'm finally putting up Hallween pics.  A little late I realize.  Oh well.  I thought about putting nothing, but decided I'd better document the event.  So here's one picture.  Zack was an angry bird, Kate was Tinker Bell, and Sage was spider girl.  Good times were had by all and the candy has been gone for a while...

Oreo!

We have another new member of the family.  This time its not a machine, but an animal.  A cat to be exact.  I'm not an animal person, yet this is the third animal we've had since we've been married.  Don't be too shocked though.  This is an outside only cat.  It has a bed and food in the garage and can come and go as it pleases.  We had mice last year.  In our house.  Not ok.  So I'm hoping to establish an outer perimeter that the mice can't get through.  Hopefully Oreo will be a great mouser.  If some mice do get past him, we'll just throw him in the crawl space and let them go at it.  Oreo is a super cute kitten right now.  Let's face it, even as a non-animal person, I think most animals are really cute as babies.  The problem is that they get big.  Then they're not so cute.  We shall see how this works.  Let's just say that I'd rather take care of a cat than empty mouse traps.  Yuck and double yuck.

Disneyland Surprise!!

Zack went back with me at night and got to meet Lightning and Mater

Huntington Beach

Disneyland is awesome during October

Sage loved seeing all the princesses

We love Monsters!

Cars Land was awesome

Our kids finally made it to Disneyland.  They're no longer poor, deprived children.  The best thing about our trip is that it wasn't planned.  Our fall break was last week, so we loaded up the kids and headed to St George for the weekend.  Or so we thought.  On Thursday morning Jake said,"lets go to Disneyland".  I immediately came up with a million reasons why we couldn't do that without planning. But then I came to my senses and realized we were past due for an adventure.  We were able to get a hotel room, so off we went.

We got to California Thursday afternoon and immediately headed to the beach.  It was too cold to swim, but we had lots of fun running around.  I was also able to eat the best mexican food ever.  So good.  Huntington Beach, called Fred's.  I highly recommend it.

Friday and Saturday were spent having great fun at Disneyland and California Adventure.  So great.  Zack loved all of the roller coasters.  Well, really he loved all the rides.  He's my ride buddy since Jake gets super sick on everything.  Zack even went on the Tower of Terror with me.  Although he refused to go on it twice due to possible "bad dreams".  Kate loved the tea cups - Grandma Lu would be proud.  Sage loved everything.  She was tall enough to go on most every ride but the big roller coasters.  That made her mad.  So we made a special trip to Toon Town just so she could go on a roller coaster.  Kate and Sage freaked out in the Bug's Life movie.  They were scared to death.  Pretty funny.  We all loved the cars race ride.  So great.  When we got out Sage said, "I had butterflies and snakes in my tummy.  The snakes are gone but I still have butterflies".  Awesome.  The Haunted Mansion was amazing with all of the Nightmare Before Christmas decorations.  We managed to go on Splash Mountain twice.  The first time Sage was crying after the big hill because she slid way down in her seat.  Poor girl.

Anyway, good times were had by everyone.  We were back home by Sunday evening.  We Jorgensons pack a lot of fun in a short amount of time.  In hind sight, the lack of anxiety and stress due to the last second trip was kind of awesome.  I highly recommend it.

Family Pictures!!

I finally got family pictures done.  Finally.  We've never done for reals family pictures.  How embarrassing I know.  I've always been super nervous about what we would wear and how we would look.  I'm so not good at that kind of thing.  But I decided it was time to go for it.  Now that they're over, I'm glad we did it.  Jake's cousin took the pictures.  I think he did a great job and he has really great prices, so let me know if you want his contact info.  Anyway, here are some of them for your enjoyment...

One Last Marathon

loving the downhill in the canyon

beautiful course right?

the finish line - I look like I want to die because I did

mile 18 - look how happy I am - feeling great - little did I know...

Ok, its probably not the last marathon ever.  But I, Laura, solemnly swear that I will not do a marathon in 2014.  So there.  One year off of marathons.  It will be good for me because I am officially burnt out.

You might remember that I trained super hard for the Ogden Marathon in May.  And it didn't go so well.  Not well at all.  I was super bummed after that race, so of course I decided to sign up for another marathon.  Yes, I was high on drugs.  Why did no one stop me?  Ok, probably because I'm kind of stubborn.  Anyway, because of the two marathons I feel like I've been training for a marathon for 9 months.  Oh wait, I have.  Needless to say, I was more than ready to be done with this marathon.  But I still trained hard because I wanted to have a good race.  I was hoping for a PR, but my main goal was just to keep going and not stop when I hit the wall.  I say when because the wall always comes.  Always.  I am, however, starting to realize that sometimes the wall is thin drywall and sometimes its a four foot thick concrete wall.  Those concrete walls kick my trash every time.

Anyway, I did the Big Cottonwood Marathon last week.  Loved the race.  We started at Guardsman Pass right above my house (that's right, no buses to the start line = awesomeness).  We ran down Big Cottonwood Canyon, wound through Holladay, and finished at Cottonwood High.  It was a beautiful course.  19 miles of pure downhill.  That's a lot of downhill.  So I trained on lots of downhill.  Or so I thought.  My quads started hurting at mile 14.  Just in case you're wondering, its not a good sign when your legs start hurting during a race.  This means lots and lots of pain later.  So I was cruising along on the downhill.  Faster than I would normally go, but believe me, tons of people took off way faster than me.  I wanted to take advantage of the downhill, but I also knew it might hurt me later in the race.  And it did.  We came out of the canyon and I hit mile 18 and 19 and felt great.  I mean great.  I thought I was for sure going to qualify for Boston, get a PR, everything.  And then at mile 20 I took a step, and ran right into a four foot thick concrete wall.  It hurt.  It hurt bad.  And I died the last 6 miles.  And now I am so mad at myself for dying the last 6 miles.  I thought I had prepared mentally (Jake would disagree with this).  I had music, quotes, everything I could think of to keep me going when I hit the wall.  And then I hit the wall and it all went out the window.  It makes me so mad.  MAD!!  WHY!!!  Why didn't I push through it?  It was only 6 miles.  45-50 minutes of running.  I should have been able to push through, and I didn't.  I don't know how to describe it if you haven't done a marathon or something like it.  When you hit the wall, even one mile seems like an eternity.  Its so painful.  But its also a mental game.  And I know that.  Your body can keep going if your mind can just override all of the pain signals its sending.  I thought I was prepared to do that, but apparently I wasn't.

I finished in 3:59.  I know that's not an awful time.  But I could have, and should have, finished faster.  The agony.  This time though, I'm at least smart enough to not turn around and sign up for another marathon.  I need a break and I know it.  But I really wish I was taking a break after a great race.  Oh well.  Its a learning experience right?  I learn something from every race I do.  This time I learned that I need to train my mental strength as much as I train physically.  The end.

PS - there are lots of pics because they gave us free race pics so I might as well use them right?