Running

I have a newfound respect for my mother. My mom and I have both been trying, in our own ways, to lose a few pounds, and my mom is doing so well! I noticed she looked thinner and her clothes looked super baggy, and when I asked her what she's been doing, I was completely surprised.

My mom gets up at 4:00 am and runs, not walks, on the treadmill for 20 minutes. To some people, that might not seem like much, but to my knowledge, my mom has never really run much in her life. I know she's power walked, and maybe in the 80's she did aerobics, but I have never known my mom to be a runner. I figured if Mom can do it, I can do it, right? And this morning at 6:00, I jumped on the treadmill.

Five minutes in, and I'm doing okay. It's kind of boring though, staring at the white wall right in front of the treadmill. I crack the blind so I can look out onto their backyard.

Ten minutes in, and I'm seeing spots. I guess it's time to walk for a couple of minutes. After a two minute brisk walk, I start running again - I have to keep up with my mom! What does she do while she runs? I'm getting kind of bored.

Fifteen minutes in, and I'm hanging onto the handles while I run. That can't be good, right? Running while I'm hunched over and gasping for breath doesn't seem like a very effective workout. I stop to gulp 8 oz of water in about 10 seconds.

Twenty minutes in, and I made it! Well, kind of, if you don't count the two minutes I walked. It's definitely time for a cool down walk.

I am most definitely humbled. My mom can outrun me - go Mom! I guess I better step up my workouts if I'm ever going to keep up!

Traveling

I'm off to Utah for the next 10 days. I have a few fun things planned, so hopefully I'll get some interesting posts up here. If you're in Utah and want to see me, send me an email. If you're in Colorado, please call Andy to make sure he's not getting too lonely.

The Ahlstrom Family Band

A couple of weeks ago, Andy and I started a family band, with Andy on drums and me on bass guitar. Occasionally we rotate - I play drums, and he plays guitar. When someone else comes over, we take turns singing. All thanks to Rock Band.

When we first heard Rock Band was coming out, Andy decided he must have it. We started with multiple conversations around wants vs needs. "I need Rock Band," he'd tell me. "But we don't have the money for it," was always my reply. Before Andy left for India, we borrowed a friend's copy of Guitar Hero, complete with two guitars. I was hoping it would take care of the desire and the novelty would ultimately wear off. Boy was I wrong - it was all anyone wanted to do, and the thought of having drums just made the Rock Band obsession even stronger. All the kids and the youth in our ward wanted to come over and play. Even our adult friends wanted to play! I felt like I never got a break from being the Rock and Roll Ahlstroms.

Which is why I was so nervous when Rock Band started showing up in stores. I knew it was only a matter of time before we'd have guitars and drums going in our living room. Besides, I wanted to buy Wii Fit - it's only half the price of Rock Band, and we've both been dying to try it. (Confession: I want to try the hula hoop. Why I can't just go buy a real hula hoop is something I still haven't figured out.) But after searching and searching, we couldn't find any Wii Fits in the stores, and we gave up for the time being.

And then the coupons came in the mail: one for an additional $30 trade-in value for any game system, one for an additional 50% trade-in value on 5 games, and one for 10% off the purchase of a new game. I suggested we trade in some Wii games we don't use and see what we can get for them. Andy surprised me even further by suggesting we trade in the old Playstation and the remainder of his rated R movies to get some additional credit. Sacrifices abound! We were both surprised to find out that we had enough credit to buy Rock Band, an additional Wii game, and still have some credit leftover.

So we've been rocking out the past couple of weeks. I must confess, I never wanted to be a rock 'n roll star, but this pretty great. It's super fun to sit down and play the guitar, and bang it out on the drums. It's even more hilarious to get someone singing along to the B 52's, The Police, REM, or Metallica songs. Good times, and we got it pretty much for free.

If you're ever in the neighborhood and want to come play...the Ahlstrom Family Band is always accepting new members.

Pioneering

Because I just read In Defense of Food, I've been re-evaluating everything I choose to eat. It turns out, we are eating lot of food that isn't actually food. In his book, Michael Pollen claims that we are no longer eating "food," that is, the stuff we do eat is so nutrient-pumped and filled with additives and preservatives, that our great-grandparents wouldn't even recognize a lot of what we eat as food. So I went through our cupboards, pantry, and food storage, and found, among other things, many non-food items:

• Rice-A-Roni
• Chef Boyardee ravioli (not mine; leftover from when Andy had roommates)
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
• Ramen noodles
• Cup-O-Noodles
• Fruit By the Foot (leftover from when we made dessert sushi - looked cute, but there wasn't a food item at all in there)
• Green apple flavored candy corn (leftover from last Halloween)
• Lay's Stax chips
• Sodas galore: Coke, Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Apple Soda (yep, it's good!)

Granted, I don't always eat all of this non-food, since most of it is there for Andy, and the stuff I do eat, I don't eat all that often. But seeing it all sitting there, in my own cupboards got me thinking - what did my great-grandmother eat? Was she healthier than me? I'm not sure. I do know that the farther away from food I get, the worse my body feels. I get headaches, allergy symptoms, I'm bloated, I'm cranky, and just all-around yucky.

All this thinking about what my ancestors ate helped me decide that in honor of the upcoming Pioneer Day, I was going to try to eat like a pioneer. Well, not exactly like a pioneer, but kind of. I could definitely work on using more basic ingredients in my cooking, and try not to snack on so much junk food. So I pulled out my grandma's cookbook to see what she ate. Granted, she cooked during a time when processed food was just becoming popular, but a lot of her recipes didn't call for processed food at all.

The madness began on Saturday. First of all, it's expensive to eat food. Processed food is so much cheaper! But I decided my health was worth more than a few extra bucks, so I loaded up on fruits and veggies, and started with a homemade jam recipe. I made 12 jars of jam - mostly strawberry and some strawberry-blueberry. Then I made salmon with roasted vegetables for dinner (water only for our drinks - no soda). Andy sat down and said, "Hey! Everything we're eating is food!" How novel. We continued the madness on Sunday when I got up at 7:00 to make homemade blueberry muffins. After church I made my grandma's bread.

I think I chose the worst day to do so much cooking, because our house has been almost 100 degrees inside. I opened the front door last night and realized it was hotter inside than it was outside! Despite the heat, I did make a lot of food. Real food. And I have a great respect for those pioneers. Not only did they walk across the country pulling handcarts, but they prepared food every single meal of the day. No running to Taco Bell. No popping the Rice-A-Roni in the microwave. No opening the can of soup to warm up in three minutes.

I don't know that I'll cook like a pioneer every day, or that I'll entirely give up non-food, but I'm definitely going to make a better effort to prepare and eat real food. The payoff is much greater than the work I put into it.

Memories Post

Now that I'm getting caught up on blogging, I found this on AnJanette's blog. I'm a little curious to hear your memories!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. Enjoy!

A night with Joseph and Emma

The other night a small group of sisters (+ Joey) went to see Emma Smith: My Story. It was playing in Golden for just one week, and am I glad I was able to see it! I'm not usually a fan of the churchy movies; they can sometimes get cheesey and trite, but I have to say, I was touched by this one.
A few things I loved:

• I saw Joseph Smith as a man - someone who wasn't perfect, who struggled with his responsibilities, who had fun playing with children, who always tried to do what the Lord wanted him to do.
• I saw that Emma really went through such a wide range of trials in her lifetime. Anything that could have gone wrong in her life, did. She lost so many children, was forced to move and leave her life behind so many times, never saw her parents (who didn't support her choices), and supported her husband through times of severe trial. She had even more trials with her second husband. Sheesh.
• Having been to most of the church sites, it's so fun to see them in movies - see how things were back then. It's amazing to me how much technology has changed things in such a short period of time.

The thing I loved the most though, is the love story between Joseph and Emma. Their relationship was so loving, so sweet, so tender. And so fierce! Emma loved Joseph with everything she had, and I so loved seeing his respect for her opinions, her talents. They were such a great support and comfort to each other.

So....if you get a chance to see this movie, I say take it. Just be sure you bring lots of Kleenex! We all cried so hard I don't think there was any toilet paper left in the restroom after the movie!

How long has it been since you had a ticket?

Today I went to Chipotle to pick up lunch for Andy and the guys helping him finish our fence. When I turned into the parking lot, I noticed a cop was behind me, and he turned on his siren as soon as I came to a stop. I know I wasn't speeding - what on earth provoked him to pull me over?

After I rolled down my window and gave him my license, insurance, and registration, I noticed not just one, but two cops - one outside my driver's side window, and one outside the passenger side window. What? Now they're ganging up on me?

It turns out I crossed a double yellow line and turned into the parking lot in an "exit only" driveway. I seriously wasn't paying attention. I knew he wouldn't give me a ticket, but the entire experience was a little strange. One cop took my information and both cops went back to the car. 15 minutes - yes 15 minutes later - one of them came back. Here's basically how the exchange went:

Cop: "Alicia, when was the last time you had a ticket?" Um...I don't know? Shouldn't you know since you just looked at my driving record? Or were you just back there organizing your coupon book to look busy?

Me: "I honestly don't even remember, it was so long ago."

Cop: "Well, I won't give you a ticket. But I will give you my card. This shows you that I pulled you over on this date for this offense. Be careful, and don't turn in that driveway anymore. We've had a lot of accidents, which is why we're patrolling the area."

Me: "Okay, thanks, I'll be sure to turn in the right area next time."

The weird part - he gave me his card. Is that normal? Have any other cops given you their card? When I went into Chipotle, a customer in front of me made a comment about speeding. After I told him what happened, he said "It sounds like the cop was hitting on you." Okay, didn't think of that. And it's not like he wrote "call me" on the card - just a regular old card with the city logo, his name, phone number, and a handwritten description of my offense on the back. But how often does that happen, cops giving out their cards? Strange.