Lactic acid burns me up

True doctrine. Seriously. Let me elaborate. In an effort to become more "cardiovascularly advantaged" my sister Amber and I have been going to the gym more regularly and even invested in a personal trainer. Looking back on it we feel like we may have been somewhat conned into it, but not all is lost because it is actually quite beneficial. One thing we've learned from the experience is that when a personal trainer is working you out, you CANNOT and I repeat CANNOT take yourself too seriously. In fact my mantra is "pride stays at the door." Let's face it, you are clearly not your most flattering when you're sweating and flalling about. But then again who really cares??? (Actually, that's not a very good question to place here since secretly we all really do care...but you get my drift.) Calories are being burned and in the long run you're the better for it, so it's definitely worth the increase in embarassing moments. Believe me. I've had my fair share of them. :)

Last week amber and I had a workout where our PT (my sweet abrev for personal trainer) focused on upper body and arms. I was secretly relieved because I figured it would be an easier workout. WRONG. We were both in significant discomfort (that is basically an understatement) and the lactic acid I'd accumulated after working out made my arms feel like they were on fire....literally....for 4 days. Finally relief came yesterday and I was able to resume full function of my arms. (i.e. actually wash my hair with relative ease and scratching my nose). I learned that you use your triceps for a lot more than you think you do. And THAT is true doctrine.

As a side note: I've been using that phrase quite a lot lately ("true doctrine.")...definitely one of the sayings I brought home from my mission. Not too many non-LDS people actually know what it means (which is most people around here). Ocassionally in class it will slip out. I had to laugh when a girl in my class looked at me and said, "true doctrine" in reference to a comment the professor made in class. Did she even know what/where that originated from?! World domination is just around the corner. Well, in my small sphere that is...

My new obsession

I'm on spring break this week. Sad to say I don't have any earth-shattering fun plans other than to hopefully secure a summer job for myself. But then again, that's not really "fun" so technically I don't have any plans. In an effort to update my blog, however, I thought I would share something I really really love. Welcome to the world of digital scrapbooking....

I've never loved the idea of old fashioned scrapbooking because the thought of sitting down and cutting, pasting, and working on tedious little details sort of stresses me out. I DO however love to organize pictures in a clean, stream-lined way. In high school I was the photo-editor for the yearbook my senior year. I think that's when I started to love to work with digital pictures and create things. Now they have all of these free programs that let you make digital photo books. My sister-in-law Lisa made a wedding book on blurb.com and it turned out amazing! I love how something so personal can look so professional. When I got home from my mission I decided I wanted to make a book of all my mission pictures, and digital scrapbooking sounded like the perfect route! Plus, I couldn't imagine doing everything by hand the old fashioned way. I have literally thousands of mission pictures and I think I not only saved time and money, but also a lot of stress and hair pulling. I'm almost done with my book and it's 200 pages long! I'm so excited and can't wait for it to be finished.:)

When my dear sweet nephew Jack was born my mom asked me to print off some of the pictures from the day he was born. I thought it would be way cuter to just make a quick little photo book instead! Here are some pictures of the book, called "Baby Jack." Lisa and Jim, we made one for you too!

Some of the websites you can use to make photo books are:

blurb.com (my favorite...thanks to Lisa for finding it!!!)

photobucket.com

shutterfly.com