decisions | The Angel Forever

Category Archives decisions

Where is the adult-parent line?

Posted on March 19, 2009 8:12 am by TheAngelForever

As a parent, I understand what my responsibilities are for my children. I also realize that as an adult, when around other children, it is my "job" to keep safety a priority. If another child is doing something that is not safe, I feel that I can step in and ask them to stop. If the child selects not to do it, that is where my boundaries end. I would never think of threatening them with a consequence, I would get their parent and explain the situation for them to take care of.

Sunday afternoon at my nephews party we had an experience where another adult at the party over stepped the adult-parent line. TechyDad did an amazing blog post about this experience when it was very fresh in his mind. You can read that here.

To this day I am still floored with the behavior of the other person at the party. Please note that there were only four children at this family party, my two boys and our two nephews. This woman’s children are adults and she is NO relative of ours.

What would you have done in this situation? I was too busy picking my mouth up from the floor to reply properly. How would you help to prep your child IF you go back into a potential environment like this again?

As sad as it is that my boys may not be close to their two cousins, it makes me even more determined to make sure that we continue to be close to my brother and his family.

Categories:
decisions family jl looking back vent

Web woes and workouts

Posted on March 12, 2009 8:44 am by TheAngelForever

You may, or may not have noticed that my blog was down for twenty hours Tuesday into Wednesday. It was a very frustrating time for JL, myself and even more so the hosting company for our websites. We just switched our websites to a new hosting location a few weeks ago. After years with one place, the service had declined significantly and the down time kept increasing.

We were floored when this happened so soon after switching. The difference here was the new hosting company was on top of everything. They were in constant communication with JL and the other people that had their websites on this server. In the end, the down time was huge. However, the customer service thus far has been incredible.

Things are still not 100% fixed. Comments are being moderated that had not in the past. In addition to that, the e-mail notifications of comments are not working at all. This means that I have to go to the control panel of my blog to retrieve comments and reply back to people. I am slowly catching up with this.

On a brighter note, I am still working out every day. Since I started I only took Sunday off. Tuesday while upset about the down website, I did some research online for more Leslie Sansone DVDs. I went to Best Buys website and found that they were on sale. It was great that I could also track down whether or not the local store had the DVD that I wanted in question. When I saw that they had several in stock I packed JSL up and we went to the mall.

When I arrived there nothing was labeled with sale prices. I grabbed two of the DVDs that were interesting to me and went to the register. Both of the DVDs scanned for $6.49 each! Needless to say I now own two new Leslie Sansone workouts.

The workout that I was most interested in was the 5 Mile Slim Down. It had glowing reviews online. Fitness Magazine also voted this DVD as one the best for 2009. I had wanted this from the start , but could not find it locally before this. I immediately picked it up.

Yesterday JSL asked me to "keek" = kick. He saw the DVD and wanted to walk and kick with me. So I put it on. I did about an hour which got me through mile 1, 2 and 3. All I can say is WOW! The third mile really worked out the legs with lunges and other more challenging moves, but I loved it. Oh my goodness, did I just say that?! What I really liked about this DVD was it was Leslie Sansone alone. She talked you through the workout and was not chatting it up with other people. It was a nice change from the other DVDs that I have tried.

The other DVD that they had was another 5 mile workout. Thanks to the price it was a great time to buy it. Since I have been using them and would like variation it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I have not tried this one yet, but it looks great. I will update more when I have actually worked out with it.

Seriously, where is the real me?! Or is this the real me? Maybe what I needed was to find the right workout that made me feel like I could do it. Leslie Sansone makes me confident about doing the workout. After I am done I feel energized and wonder when I will have time to do it again. This is new to me. I am the girl that used to cringe and hate PE in school. Now I look forward to sweating because I know that it means I am getting a good workout. Sure, I hope that it will help me to drop some pounds. However, more important is that with the assistance of the Leslie Sansone Walk at Home DVDs I am getting my heart and the rest of my body back into shape. This will help me to be a better wife, mother and person in general. A perk is I am also going to be ready for the walking at Disney World in a few months.

P.S. – Please note that the review of the Leslie Sansone DVDs is not being sponsored by anyone. This is a product that I found on my own (with some research), paid for the DVDs myself and highly recommend.

Categories:
decisions exercise fun me moments milestone

Aerobic walking fun

Posted on March 6, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Last weekend, I made a sort of confessional on my blog. In the post I need to move it move it, I admitted that I need to add exercise into my life. The WiiFit was not my thing and had to find something. Sunday night, while getting the little guy to settle, I turned on Exercise on Demand. I watched the start of several things and put them into my brain. After JSL was asleep, JL and I tried the DVD that I took out of the library. Problem: the wrong DVD was in the case.

We turned to Exercise on Demand and decided to try Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shed since I had been reading a lot about it. We ran into a few problems. First, we did not have enough space. Second, thanks to the lack of space, I encountered a jumping jack related injury from getting hit by my loving hubby. Third – damn Jillian makes you work hard! Talk about burning and hurting. I liked it in general, but until I have a bigger space it does not work well.

The next day I was sore. I knew that this was a good thing. It meant that I was working my muscles. I started to do more research on exercise videos to try. I kept coming back to the same person. That person was Leslie Sansone and her walking videos. Tuesday, when NHL got home from school, I put the Family Walking video on and gave it a try. Wow! The boys and I had a great time and 22 minutes later I had an amazing workout.

Wednesday morning the little guy and I set out to try another one of Leslie Sansone’s workouts. This time it was the Walk & Tone 2 mile routine. This was about 32 minutes and after I felt amazing. I was energized and wanted more. It actually made me obsessed with getting a DVD of my own. In the afternoon, I went out and purchased the only Leslie Sansone DVD that I could find.

Last night, JL and I tried it out. We did the one mile routine. That made 3 miles and about 46 minutes of exercise for me yesterday. The shocking part, I wanted more!

Early Thursday morning, the little guy and I were ready to "walk" with Leslie. I put on the new DVD and got ready to do 2 miles. I really liked it a lot and could feel it working, especially during the second mile. I felt like I could do more, but a certain toddler had other thoughts.

So my question this week is:

Have you ever done a Leslie Sansone workout? If you have, is there one (or more) that you would recommend? Any other suggestions would also be greatly appreciated.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #38

Categories:
Aloha Friday decisions me moments Product review

New car and snow

Posted on March 3, 2009 9:49 am by TheAngelForever

When we woke up yesterday morning we knew it was going to be an exciting day. We were going to trade in the old 1998 Toyota Corolla for a new car. Of course, a few things stood in our way. The car dealer needed the release on the lien, other papers had to be brought in, the loan had to be acquired and a few other items. With the economy the way it is, and having been identity theft victims, we were a little nervous. The snow outside was just going to make things even more "interesting" in the scheme of things.

After JSL woke up from his nap, we went over to the dealer and brought the paperwork. I waited around while they looked it over. At that point they had me sign a paper that we were indeed going to purchase the car. As I was looking it over, I noticed that the money for the trade was missing. Ooops! That was fixed in seconds and I signed the proper forms. When I left they said they would call JL at work with figures on interest rates and loan offers.

JSL and I went to my parent’s house. My cousin M and her hubby B were in visiting from the other coast (more on their visit later). They had never met JSL before, so we went to spend time with them. Just before I went to pick up NHL from school I called JL at work. He said there was a little snaffu with the loan process. Apparently the security measures that we had put on our credit were working a little too well. He had to talk to the bank to finalize a few things. By the time I was at school getting NHL, we had a loan secured with a nice interest rate.

Of course, the snow did not really let up most of the day. We did not get a lot of it, but there was a lot of blowing and drifting snow. It certainly added to the anxiety of getting the old car in for a trade and picking up the new one. My family watched the boys and we left for the car dealer to pick up the new car. This was just before 5:00.

After a comedy of errors that included me leaving the title at my parents house (thanks Dad for bringing it to me), forgetting the check book, and the car getting stuck on ice when we tried to pull out of the lot, we finally got back for dinner just before 7:00.

Oh, before I forget here are photos of our new "baby" from this morning:

We are the proud new owners of a 2009 Nissan Sentra. Thanks to the size and amazing trunk space, we will be able to use this car for mini trips to save on gas that my minivan guzzles. So yesterday we continued to do our share to help the economy and put ourselves into debt again. Not having a car loan for a few short months was nice, but this was a needed acquisition.

Categories:
car decisions family shopping weather

Goodbye to a long time car

Posted on March 2, 2009 9:17 am by TheAngelForever

Our 1998 Toyota Corolla has a lot of memories that go with the 104,000+ miles. This is the car that JL had when we met. The trusty little car is the one that would make the treks to meet me at the outlets, or come here when we were still dating. The car is pretty much the last big item that we own from before getting married, almost eight years ago.

This morning, JL and NHL ventured off to kindergarten and work in the Corolla for what will likely be the last time. As they made their way to the snow coated car I went outside to take some photos. Yes, I am being sentimental.

As ~~terrifying~~ exciting as it is to be getting a new car, it is like saying goodbye to an old friend. NHL would always go into the Corolla with JL on their way to daycare back in the day. It has also been the main mode of transportation to kindergarten each morning. Thanks to this, I felt it was fitting to have a photo of the big guy with the car that transported some of my precious cargo each day.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to share photos of the boys making their way to school in our new car. What can you say, we are just doing our part to help and stimulate the economy.