busy

I've been trying to get on the computer to blog all week but I just can't seem to find the time.  Ahhh!!
I have so much to say and write about all these thoughts are getting jumbled in my head.  But for now I need to go pack and get ready for a busy labor day weekend that involves driving to St. George.
Happy Labor day all!!  This blog is going to be a bigger priority next week, I promise.

Legs

I hate my legs... I really do.

My legs and I have never really gotten along all that well.

I was blessed with really thick, dark hair.  Which is great for my head, eyebrows and eyelashes. However it has caused much pain and suffering for my legs, and grief for me.

Currently I am suffering from nasty in-grown hairs right below my knees, and

some sort of allergic reaction all over.

While in high school I NEVER wore shorts or Capri's because I was so

embarrassed about the sad condition my legs were in.

(Personally I think Capri's are ugly, they seem old lady to me.  I still wear them out of comfort and that is just personal opinion, not everyone looks old lady in them and if you like them just ignore this comment and think mean things about be behind my back :)  )

Here is a collage of what my nasty legs looked like this morning.

I'd love to get laser hair removal.

If anyone has ANY tips for me please share, this has seriously been an on going struggle for me since about 14 years old.

I can remember wearing only jeans in high school.  Other than dance classes I can't think of a time from ages 14-20 that I ever wore shorts, then I just stopped caring how bad it looked.

Now that I'm older I just pretend they look fine, the above picture was taken 8 hours after shaving with out using any lotions or oils. 

I do shave with a sensitive skin shave gel and an expensive 5 blade razor, because any cheap, less blade type literally hacks my legs.

I have horror stories of shaving and going up my leg and getting skin caught in the razor and having giant gouges on my legs and finding skin in my razor.

Too much info?  Well I need help.

Seriously, I have tired so many tips and I am still having the same struggle.

All my beauty magazines have failed me much like waxing has

(I always seem to be allergic to something in the wax that causes more red bumps and requires calamine lotion which then makes me wear pants yet again making the waxing completely pointless, UGH!!)

Tips? please share.



A moment of silence please

Today I'd like to take a moment of silence and mourning for my life as we know it...
See today, we are getting cable.
I'm not thrilled about it.
I already spend t.v. time watching kid shows and when Scott is home it's some sort of sport or game show.
Now we will have ESPN and more kid show options.  I may never see my guys again.
We're getting a killer deal on cable by switching, they offered us a college student discount that includes our land phone line, high speed Internet, and... cable all for the same price we were paying for just Internet and phone. 
So, the deal is done and we are a cable family.
Words of encouragement please....

two's

Yesterday was a rough day.  I don't want to say bad because nothing bad happened, it was just a rough day. 
Rivers is entering his "terrible two's" which seems to mean stubborn power struggle with a 21 month old who likes to pick his nose.
It sucks!
Yesterday took the cake.  I had a pretty good plan for my day and I hate when things get off schedule.  It started when Rivers wouldn't eat his breakfast.  That soon escalated into his first major tantrum. From there it got messy with lots of tears, snot and the ugly shaky cry that happens.  He also banged his head pretty hard against the table.  He wouldn't take a nap, and combined with his stubbornness about not eating breakfast I was done.  I left him to "cry it out" in the safety of his crib with a sippy cup of juice.  He eventually fell asleep. 
After naps my plan was this.
Costco, Lunch, Smith's, Park, dinner, Mutual, bedtime.  My mutual sitter is in Lake Powell so Rivers was going to go to Scouts with Scott, Keeping him up late, but sometimes that's just how we roll.
Well while preparing to go to Costco, I realized Scott had my debit card with our food money on it, he was at the library looking for a scout book and realized he didn't have his library card and needed me to bring it to him, which I needed my card from him so we decided to go to the store together.  In my haste to get to Scott I forgot my coupons, so while I shopped with Rivers Scott ran home to get them.  While that was happening the mean (not really) people at Smith's have decided to move around the whole store and I couldn't find anything, and Rivers was SHOUTING the whole time through to store, very loudly. 
Now that I was at least a good hour off schedule and  stressed I decided now was a good time to go to Costco.  What is wrong with me?  Luckily they had a few samples for Rivers since he missed lunch (mother of the year!) and he continued to shout through out Costco too.  I finally got home with a yelling one year old, starving parents and a disaster of a house with an hour for dinner before baths and mutual.  So we had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner, what a time saver.
Now is the best part of the day.  We got a call the Scott's younger brother Kyle (finally) got his mission call!!!
Scott and I both shortened our Mutual activities and headed to Sojo to be there when Kyle opened his call!
I love missionaries, and missionary work.  I have been so excited for Kyle to get his call.
He's going to Moscow Russia by-the-way and leaves January 2!!!!!!
I was grateful for two thing's yesterday, Mutual because I love my calling, and Mission calls because I do.
The Lord is great people, I ended my day on a happy note by eating otter pops remembering how great it was being a missionary.
Much better than a temper tantrum.

Hair cut!

I (yes I, Mystique Hulse Shepherd) with assistants from Scott Shepherd, gave Rivers his second hair cut.  It turned out cute, and saved me money.  Now Rivers walks around the house saying "hair all gone"  He looks so handsome.  Don't look too closely, this was my first hair cut  ever, well with scissors anyway

Let's be honest, he needed a hair cut....

Herriman Tri.



I'm so proud of my Scotty!  On Saturday he finished the Herriman Triathalon!  He's been training for some time now and he did great! Finishing in roughly 2 hours (give or take, I'm still confused on how they calculated transition times).  Scott really enjoys these things and I'm so happy for him.  The Herriman tri is really nice and calm, it's held in a very farm friendly community and I wouldn't mind living there if it would stop catching on fire so much.  I missed his swim (sad) but Rivers and I were able to get there for his bike/run transition.  He did awesome and I'm so so so proud of him



getting ready to run

Rivers LOVED cheering for the runners! He was also trying really hard to get on to the roped off place, finally he settled for just wearing the rope

 Scott's dad also ran the tri, and finished seriously one minute before Scott.  Here he is about to cross the finish line (Go Grandpa Go!!)

Look at this awesome live action shot, Go Scott Go!!

 

There he is crossing the finish line!!!

 Also back in June most of Scott's family ran the Utah Valley Marathon.  Well, Ok, Nathan ran the marathon part.  Christy, Matt and Mark ran the half marathon and Scott, Rivers, Jessica and I ran the 10K.  This was my first race and may very well be my last.  Sorry not my thing, but it was fun to be part of the awesomness that was the after race fun, and it was fun to do it with so much support!

Jessica, Nathan, Mark, Rivers, Me, Christy (who is cute preggers with Lively baby boy), and Matt



Gardening

So this post is about super awesome garden, but as I write this I'm eating otter pops.  They were not grown in my garden and have little to no nutritional value, but I'm going to try to get past that to tell you how awesome having a garden is. 
So many people don't know this, largely because I don't broadcast it, but I was a vegetarian for about 10 years.  I love fruits and veggies! I really do.  I also love candy, but we can discuss that later. 
Produce can be expensive, so this year Scott and I, along with my mom, decided to grow a "victory garden".
It's been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. 
We planted tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers, jalapenos, lettuce, carrots, black beans, and beets.  Early on in our garden the stupid birds can and ate the carrot, lettuce and beet seeds and sadly they didn't leave anything but one carrot. 

fresh picked!

and so yummy

just picked cucumbers, but not the first or the last!  We've had millions of them

My blog would not be complete without a picture of my child, and some tomato plants, they are taller than him.

Luckily, however, we still had lots of other plants that grew.  It has been fun watching and enjoying our garden and eating our harvests.  Our cucumber plants have gone crazy and some of the tomato plants are as tall as me!!
The tomatoes still aren't ready to be picked, we've only had a few cherry and grape tomatoes that have gotten ripe, but we will have 2308473633.9 tomatoes when the ripen.  Then I get to go on to the fun bottling and canning phase of gardening (sarcastic yay).
This garden is at my parents house, we also had a small garden here at our apartment that has reached it's peak and is over for the season.  In that garden we planted Peas, Carrots, Beets, and Onions and it only produced beets and peas that were pretty much amazing. 
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed gardening. I'm already planning for next year!!