January 12

Well...Happy New Year!!!  I am happy to report that all is just groovy in Tucson, AZ today.  Despite a FREAKISHLY cold cold front, life is good.  And by cold, I mean our lows are going to be 17 degrees for the next THREE nights!!!  CRAZINESS I tell ya!  I don't know if I've ever seen it get so cold here. The days aren't terribly bad, hitting the low 50's each afternoon.  But the nights...boogery cold I tell ya! I had to break down and finally turn on the heat last night!  First time all year!  Oh well.  That's why we have it, right?

What's up with us?  Well...I've been working on my not so trim figure.  Again.  I rejoined weight watchers.  At my first weigh in I had actually GAINED one pound.  Had not lost an ounce. Way to kick it all off, right?  I was disappointed but not deterred and have stuck to the course hoping for a better outcome come Monday's weigh in.  I am learning a lot in the process.  My diet is a HUGE contributor to my fatness.  No doubt about it.  I am working on making better choices.  At this point in the game it's still requiring a LOT of thought of research, but I know it will get easier as I go.  Every day I gain more insight into good vs. not so excellent choices.  I am not miserable.  So that is a good sign!  I've joined Koko Fit Club here, which does scientifically based automated personal training.  I'm liking the program and have had a 17% strength increase since I started.  I know this because it tests me every so often.  As a result of my Koko adventure, I have to say, my arms are looking FANTASTIC!  I have some super fantastic bicep action shaping up!  I love it!

Stay tuned...I'm gearing up my "guns" for MAJOR improvement!

At Koko there is a nasty little machine that registers your eBMI.  The "e" apparently stands for "enhanced", but I have decided it stands for "evil".  That machine makes me angry!  I have not had the greatest of news on the old eBMI machine...but I am working on it and hope that one day the machine and I can be friends.  But today was NOT that day!  In addition to joining Koko, I also joined the shiny, new Planet Fitness that just opened up here in Oro Valley.  They are running GREAT new membership deals.  The equipment is all brand new and shiny, there is tons of it, AND they have my most favorite machine in the world, the Arc Trainer.  LOVE, love, love that machine!  It's kind of a cross between a stairstepper and an elliptical combined.  I don't love an elliptical because it always tweaks my knee and leaves me limping for days after a workout...but the arc trainer moves differently and everything comes off feeling great!  I got the "premium" black card membership, because that's what $20 will buy you when you come in as one of the firsts...so I also have full access to the hydromassage tables, the massage chairs, the tanning booths (not that I will ever use those) and some snazzy collagen light booth?  No idea what that is all about...but I aim to find out.  AND the best part of the membership is that I can bring a guest whenever I want to!  So Chris and I can work out together on the weekends!  AND it's literally within walking distance of my house.  I am pumped about this new gym.  It works great with my Koko membership across the street because it's so totally different!  So I will be doing all my strength training at Koko and my cardio workouts and ab work and massaging at Planet Fitness.

What else have we been up to?  Well, school is back in session.  But before we all jumped back into that routine, we DID have a few days in January just to enjoy life.  Clara and I spent a day with friends going downtown to paint Ben's Bells.  Ben's Bells is a bit of a memorial project started in memory of a little boy named Ben.  Volunteers come and spend time painting different parts of the clay bells.

This is Clara and her BFF Claire painting pieces.  They aren't too pretty when they are finished.  Kind of pale and pastel like.  You paint them with all the many coats, then decorate them however you like, then you leave them to dry and they are fired .  When they are all done, THIS is what they look like!  

SO bright and beautiful!  These are just one type of "bead".  They come in all shapes and sizes...and obviously...colors!  Other volunteers help to assemble the beads into "bells".  They string them together and attach a small copper bell at the bottom.  SO pretty!

THIS is what a finished bell looks like.  By the time you see this, there have been, on average, 10 different volunteers involved with the making, painting, and assembling of the bell.  

Add caption

They are just so neat!  Once the bells are all assembled, still MORE volunteers take them and on one day a month, hang them out in the community.  Then, people find them and get to take them home.  There is a little note attached to each bell explaining what they have found.  It is a super special thing to find one!  I hope I get to find one one day!  I love that our community does this and that people are so excited and invested in it.  Just one more thing to LOVE about the desert!!!

We celebrated the New Year with our favoritest friends here, the Emch family and our spectacular pediatrician too!  It was such a fun night, full of games and good eats!

Clara and Claire sporting a LOT of party attire!  They look like party birds!

Max and Ben looking especially festive...and once again, thwarting any attempt to get a good, smiling picture of them!

All the grown ups!  Cheers!

Of course...there's more!  In addition to partying it up with friends and volunteering our fabulous art skills to the Ben's Bells projects, we have also been volunteering for a cause that has really captured my heart and attention.  We have been volunteering at least one Sunday morning a month to a program called Workship.  It is a program serving the homeless of Tucson, run 100% by volunteers that accepts NO MONEY whatsoever.  Everything they do, give, offer, etc. is provided by volunteers.  They preach the word of God, provide a hot meal while they are there, a sack lunch to take with them, some clothing is always available to anyone in need, and they also have a medical triage area, as well as offering dog food for those with pets.  On the second Sunday of each month they have a veterinarian who volunteers services to check their pets for them and a nurse practitioner who checks those with medical issues and prescribes medication where needed.  There are families who volunteer to pick up the copay amounts for their antibiotics when they are prescribed.  It is...without a doubt, a really, really neat thing to be a part of.  And I think it's super important for our kids.  Oro Valley is more than a little bit of a sheltered Utopia compared to the rest of the world.  It's important to me that my kids know that not everyone is as fortunate as we are.  That not everyone will go home to a warm bed at night, has a stocked pantry to raid anytime, has luxuries like a toothbrush or deodorant.  They may not get a shower for a week or a month, and the only clothes they own are the ones on their back.  It's important that they see the whole world is NOT like the neighborhood they live in.  They have been able to see the hurting, the hungry, the weary, the drug ravaged and the hardships of being mentally ill on the street.  Most importantly, they have had a chance to serve others...to focus on someone besides themselves for at least one morning a month.    Here are some pics from our latest Workship visit.  Each visit is quite different.  We never know what we will be doing because they never know what a week will deliver to them.  Food wise, supply wise, etc.

This is Chris cutting up lemons.  There were LOTS and LOTS of lemons this day!

And this is Clara working on the sandwich brigade.  They make at least 150 sandwiches to go in a sack lunch that includes a sandwich, a banana, an orange, some fruit snacks and a juice box.

Ben was also helping with the lemons.  He was the juicer!

Who knew my boys could be so handy in the kitchen?  Max cut the lemons in half and cut the ends off and Ben squeezed the heck out of them!  They got THREE pitchers FULL of solid lemon juice and barely put a dent in the pile of lemons!

Once the lemons were juiced, the boys moved on to slicing donated loaves of bread from a local bakery to give to folks.  

Volunteering here is Clara's FAVORITE thing to do EVER!

Ben helps to stack the tables at the end of the day.

He's such a helpful cutie!

Max and Ben get to visit with the folks as they go through the bread line. 

Clara talked this man into taking a whole bag of bread with him, which was no small feat.  Many of these people cannot even eat bread because their teeth are so bad and the bread is too hard for them.  I'm grateful for her heart of service!

It's such a neat program.  We are all counting down the weekends until we next serve.  I leave feeling so blessed to have crossed paths with these people.  As I type this I am thinking of them tonight.  It is extremely cold here tonight.  I wonder how they are managing to keep warm.  If they are okay.  If they have managed to tuck themselves into someplace sheltered.  I also leave deeply, deeply grateful for all that our own family has been blessed with.

And finally...here are a couple of super cute shots of Clara and Chris roasting marshmallows in our back yard!

And now you know what our family has been up to during these first twelve days of January!  Hope your new year is off to as great a start as ours is!  Life is GOOD in the desert!!!!