Amber Smith, June- Complete an Olympic Length Triathlon

Completely this goal is definitely bucket-list worthy!  I've done two sprint distance tri's, both with Nora.  When I got my road bike earlier this year, I told myself this was the year to challenge myself and bump it up to an Olympic triathlon- double the distance of everything.  
Here are the event details:
1 mile open water swim
25 mile bike ride (with what the race described as "challenging climbs")
6.5 mile run

I'll admit- I chickened out in May at registration for the Daybreak Tri and only signed up for the sprint distance.  I had plenty of excuses for why I wasn't ready for the distance in June- the furthest I'd trained on my biked was only 26 miles, I hadn't run more than 4 mores since October, I hadn't done enough block training (one sport followed immediately by another), I didn't have a wet suit for the longer swim, etc.  Luckily my husband and a good friend kept telling me I could do it.  I also realized I'd regret it on race day if I didn't give it a try.

So I decided if I could change my registration, I'd go for the Olympic!  Things kept falling into place- I contacted the race director and all I had to do to change my distance was tell them at packet pick-up the night before the race.  I was planning to rent a wet suit for the longer distance/ time in the water, and I found a used wet-suit to buy for less then the cost of renting one for the day!  And my husband was very supportive of the last-minute extra training sessions, taking care of the kids and even biking the course with me the week of the race.

I felt great the morning of the race.  I love triathlons because I get to start with my favorite thing- swimming!  I felt amazing on the swim and all warmed up for the bike.  I felt fast on the bike and everything seemed to be going so well.  When I got to the transition area after the bike, I thought I could make it through the run without taking my second energy gu.  Big mistake!  Only 1 mile into the run I started to feel sluggish and hungry!  I really regretted not getting the gu.  But I didn't give up!  I pushed myself to keep running even if it was slower than the pace I wanted.  I couldn't let my family see me walking!  I crossed the finish line running and felt so happy I had completed this distance.

And the results:
Time- 2 hr 55 min
5th place in my age group
12th overall
2nd fastest women's swim time!  (I'm proud of this one!)

Amber Smith- May- Plant a Garden, Train for a Triathlon

With the exception of cherry tomatoes, I've only been able to grow vegetables accidentally.  One year, I had one measly zucchini plant survive only because it was being watered by the neighbor's sprinklers!  The next year, a plant mysteriously started growing in our front flower beds.  We hadn't planted something there, but it didn't look like a weed, so we decided to let it grow to see what it was.  Turns out it was a pumpkin plant!   The previous Halloween, we'd had a jack-o-lantern on the porch "throwing up" it's own seeds.  Some of the seeds must have gotten swept into the flower bed and mother nature worked her magic!  The plant produced a couple of small pumpkins, not big or orange enough for us to use.

  

                                (The chubby two year behind the plant is now a tall, skinny 8 year old!)

So when we moved to our new house with pre-made garden beds ideally located on the south side of our yard, I knew this was the year to finally have a garden.  We started by weeding and tilling the soil, and waited till after Mother's day to buy and plant the veggies.  

I wanted to keep the garden small in case it failed, and in case it succeeded.  I planted zucchini from seeds, and bought starts for cucumber, squash, tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro (my hubby loves salsa and I'd love to make it all from my garden!)  I used the "Square-Foot Gardening" method to space the plants, and to learn how much water each plant needed every day.

Two of my helpers getting the garden ready.

After everything was planted:

The zucchini started popping up at the end of May and is still growing!  And all of the other plants are surviving!  My husband and I plan to add a drip line "sometime".  In the meantime, caring for the garden has become a family project, with the kids OFFERING to water the garden as a chore!  I've loved watching the plants grow, and I love spending time outside with my kids taking care of the garden.

I was also training for a triathlon in May.  Triathlon training is fun (I think) because I get to train in three sports, and don't spend so much time on one sport that I get sick of it.  In order to be ready for the tri, I trained 4 days a week and also did block training, like swim-then-bike, bike-then-run, or swim-then-run.  The triathlon was June 7th, and next month I'll report on how it went!

Amber Smith, March- Read a Non-Fiction Book

My entire life, I've had a love for reading.  I have fond memories of my mom reading to me as a kid, and have many favorite books I read myself as a child.  All through high school and college, I enjoyed reading my textbooks (nerd alert!) and still found time to read novels.  I love all kinds of books, especially the classics.  My love of Jane Austen's books inspired my study abroad in Great Britain my sophomore year, with special visits to Bath and country manor houses.  I also love reading to my kids, and have read to them almost every night of their lives since they were born.

I still continue to read, but since I graduated from college I've pretty much read only novels and occasionally biographies or parenting books.  I've tried and failed reading most self-help books because they just leave me feeling guilty and dissatisfied with my life or overwhelmed with all the things I should be doing but I'm not!
I'm sure there are many informative and interesting non-fiction books out there, so for March I set the goal to finish two books other than novels.  I chose Daughters in My Kingdom, one of the books for Relief Society, and Drive, a corporate motivational book my husband read for work and keep pressuring me to read.


I started with Daughters in My Kingdom, and once I started I was as hooked as reading a good novel!  I had planned to read it on Sundays, but found myself looking forward to reading it and picking it up all the time during the week.  It's an absolutely amazing book!  It isn't a chronological history, but more a grand scope of the work of Relief Society coupled with personal accounts on a small scale.  Reading this increased my appreciation for Relief Society.  I feel privileged and blessed to belong to such an inspiring organization, the largest women's organization in the world.  I felt strengthened in my role as a woman, wife and mother, and felt like I was doing a good thing, an important work.  Some of my favorite quotes:

"When we qualify ourselves by our worthiness, when we strive with faith nothing wavering to fulfill the duties appointed to us, when we seek the inspiration of the Almighty in the performance of our responsibilities, we can achieve the miraculous."  Thomas S. Monson

"We believe in and are counting on your goodness and your strength, your propensity for virtue and valor, your kindness and courage, your strength and resilience.  We believe in your mission as women of God.  We believe that the Church simply will not accomplish what it must without your faith and faithfulness, your innate tendency to put the well-being of other ahead of your own, and your spiritual strength and tenacity.  And we believe that God's plan is for you to become queens and to receive the highest blessing any woman can receive in time or eternity."  M. Russell Ballard

Now for Drive, I have to admit I failed to finish the book!  It's an interesting premise that we're actually not motivated by outside rewards like money, but intrinsically motivated by completing jobs and tasks.  But I had a hard time getting into it because it's not really applicable to my life right now.  Maybe it would have been a better read if I was managing a corporation of adult employees rather than a household of (lazy and crazy) children.

(I still read for entertainment, and finished Divergent and Insurgent, and started another Mary Russell/ Sherlock Homes book from the series Nora introduced me.)

Amber Smith, February- Stick to a diet plan

I have never attempted to diet.  Ever.  My whole life.  Not because I've never needed to, simply because I've never had the will power to do it.  I've always been really active in sports, races and competitions and justified eating whatever I wanted because "I ran/ swam/ biked/ snowboarded today.  Or yesterday.  Or I will again tomorrow."  But then I hit the big 3-0 (actually it started when I turned 31) and exercising alone wasn't enough to keep me without some lovely love-handles.

So for February I decided to do something about it (yes, I picked the shortest month on purpose!).   I didn't want to do something extreme or expensive, or something I couldn't maintain, so I set the goal to make some manageable changes.

The Plan
     - Drink more water, at least 64 oz a day, more on the days I workout
     - No more late- night desserts in front of the tv after the kids go to bed
     - Smaller, more frequent meals
     - More protein, more veggies, less empty carbs
I combined a meal plan from my sister-in-law's bikini competition trainer, and from the trainer who teaches circuit training at my church.

Having a meal plan helped me to know what I would eat for all my meals in time to buy it at the grocery store, instead of eating whatever was fast or convenient.  This was especially helpful for lunches so I didn't end up eating the kids' mac-n-cheese!   And I started paying attention to nutrient values, fat and calories.  Not all dressings are created equal, and eating a salad slathered in ranch is not necessarily a healthy alternative!

A definite challenge for this goal was that my husband is 6'3" with about 4% body fat, loves to eat, doesn't eat all that healthy, loses weight just by thinking about running, and wants an accomplice.  It took a lot of will power to not indulge in what he was eating!  I found that it was easier for me to completely avoid a "bad" food like chips, popcorn, fries, or cookies rather than try to stop myself from eating too much of it once I'd started.  I gave myself a free day a week, usually date night so I could enjoy going to a restaurant with my hubby!

The Results:
     - I lost weight. . . . in my boobs!  Hahahaha!  The one place I don't mind a little extra curve!
     - I also lost almost an inch in my waist, around those love-handles!
     - I found a lot of new vegetables that I actually enjoy eating.
     - I stuck to it for a whole month!  And I avoided the starvation- ravenous overeating cycle I've fallen victim to in the past.  It's an eating plan I will definitely be able to continue for longer, maybe even permanently.
     - I feel great!  I feel empowered about my eating and body image.  And I've also had extra energy.

Thank you Projects Connect for giving me the motivation and accountability to follow through with this!

Ok, first an After picture (snapped by my hubby right before church, quick!):

I don't have a Before picture because I was originally going to do this project in March, but decided to start it in February and get it over with!  You may not have been able to notice a difference any way, since it was just an inch, but I was just trying to stick with something for overall health.
Here's a link to some recipes from the trainer at my church.  She does a great circuit training on Monday mornings if you're in the West Jordan area and want to join me!
2befit.wix.com/healthy

Typical daily menu:
Breakfast
     - 1 full glass of water (8-12 oz) before eating
     - Small bowl of oatmeal or cheerios WITHOUT toast, glass of milk
     - Boiled egg 1-2 hours later
Lunches/ In Between Meals
     - 4-6 oz chicken or tuna
     - 1/2 cup green vegetables or fruit
     - 1 tortilla or 1 slice of bread
Other Snacks
     - Sting cheese
     - Nuts
     - Rolled up lunch meat
     - Peanut Butter on fruit
Dinner
    I'd usually just do a smaller portion of what I was fixing for my family.  I started adding more protein and veggies to fill up my plate instead of rice or pasta, etc.
After Dinner Snack
     - No dessert!
     - Small bowl of cold cereal


   

Amber Smith, January, Choose new flooring and have it installed by the time I host book club

Hello everyone!  My name is Amber Smith, and I met Nora by following her around West Jordan, Ut.  I moved into a house a year after she'd moved out of a house on the same street.  Luckily she still attended her old book club, and when I was invited to join we became friends!  Through book club I also met fellow Project Connectors Marisa Johnson, Robyn Noel and Dana Robb.  Nora and I also completed our first triathlon together, with Marisa Johnson.  And I know Donna Hawkins through numerous wonderful trips to "the cabin".

I'm blessed to have an amazing husband, Jake.  We've been married 10 years and 11 months.  We have three children, Dallin, who just turned 8 and was baptized last week, Abbie- 5, and Sadie- 2.  I love swimming, reading, running, snowboarding, waterskiing, being outdoors but not camping, traveling to new places, and laughing with my husband and kids.  I'm a stay-at-home mom, and also work about 7 hours a week as an advertising consultant for an online company.

As my overly long title states, my project for January was to choose new flooring.  For motivation, I gave myself the deadline of having it completed by the time I hosted book club, February 6th.  We moved to a new home in June 2013.  We loved the floor plan but wanted to make some decorating changes, especially to the carpet on the main level of the house.  It was cream, and matched the cream walls, cream tile, cream everything of the rest of the house.  By the time we'd lived here a few months, I hated the carpet!  It showed every footprint, every spill, including water or milk!  I've always loved the look of wood floors and decided that's what I wanted to put in my home.  Part of the plan (the most important part to me) was to pay for the floor without credit cards and without completely draining our savings account.  So we saved, spent less on Christmas, and hoped for a big work bonus for my husband.

To find wood flooring that we loved, my husband and I attended the home show.  That was a great idea!  We were able to talk to 6 or more companies, see the flooring displayed on a large scale, get pricing, and get educated on the pro's and con's of different woods.  We found a wood and a manufacturer we loved at the show!  The wood we chose is hand-scraped Acacia, or Malaysian Walnut.  It's a beautiful wood with lots of color variation and "character"- visible knots and patterns in the wood.  It was perfect to add some character to our home.  Choosing the floor was easier than I thought it would be.

Since we already knew the manufacturer, stain and style we wanted, I called some distributors from the manufacturer's website to get quotes.  I called a distributor in West Jordan just because they were close to my house, and it turned out they had the exact flooring I wanted on sale! (Fortune?  Inspiration?)

To save money and stay in budget, we chose to do the demolition of the old floor ourselves and have a professional install it. The demolition included removing the carpet, pad and tack strips, baseboards, and tile from the entry way and fireplace.  Not only did my husband spend his bonus on the new floor, he also did the bulk of the demolition!  He also replaced the baseboards himself.  I told him we can spend the money his labor saved us on a big fluffy rug for the family room!

The only downside of the whole process was that everything with the installation took longer than the flooring company estimated.  From delays in the delivery of the wood, snowy weather that delayed the wood acclimating in my house, to waiting for the installers to show up.  The floor installation was supposed to be completed in one day, Monday.  To make a long story short, the floor was completed at 5 pm Thursday, the night I was hosting book club!  Living in a construction zone with my house torn apart, filled with dust and overrun by workers was the worst part of this project.  But, it was completed by my deadline and has all the professional finishing touches (like butting right up to the tile without a transition, and the "picture-framing" around the tile).  And I'm absolutely in love with my new floors!

Amber Smith's Goals & Projects for 2014

January - Decide on a new hardwood floor and find someone to install it.