Just want to update my readers about my recent workouts. I ran 4 miles in 38 minutes. The trick was to increase my speed 0.1 mph every 1/4 mile. Also I swam 800 free and 400 breaststroke in 30 mins. I swam 200 free and then 100 breaststroke; four times. The reason I switched to breaststroke is because using a kick board is boring and really slow. I am not good at breaststroke, but I am hoping to get better and it works your legs more than the other 3 major strokes.

These are the magazines I am planning on reading on a regular basis. Forbes (I get it from my in-laws), ESPN, and Outside. I like magazines that come once every two weeks like Forbes and ESPN. I have been getting Business Week, but I don’t get to read it as much as would like and it piles up. Forbes is a really good mag. I like Outside even though it comes every month (I get bored of a mag after 2 weeks), because it has fun exercise/activities like skiing and hiking. But also it has natural park/travel ideas. L doesn’t think I will do any of the activities it describes. It will give me ideas. ESPN is interesting. However, I only really like college football and college basketball. So a lot will be boring, but I am glad it only comes every 2 weeks.

There is a Bible Study at Mazda as well as a Bible Study at Ford’s Premium Auto Group. This week at PAG they played the first part of the movie; Invisible Children. It is a really sad situation. We should pray for the children of Sudan; that they do not get kidnapped and forced to kill people.

Last Saturday D and I took a childbirth class at the hospital, called the “Super Saturday” class. It lasted from 9-5 and is designed for those who cannot or do not want to take the class on a weeknight for three weeks. Since it would have been a challenge to get D to the classes after work, we opted for the all-day version. There were 11 couples total, and 8 couples were expecting girls! (2 couples were expecting boys, and 1 couple was leaving the gender a surprise). The class was a nice mixture of lecture, movies, and exercises. I was a bit apprehensive about the graphic “movies”, but they were ok. However, I did cheat by closing my eyes for parts, especially of the C-section. I was surprised that the breathing techniques were not that technical–they are more designed to make you concentrate on breathing instead of the pain. I feel a little more prepared, but thinking about the actual labor is still very daunting. Hopefully having D by my side will make it more bearable. One prospective dad 1/2 joked about wishing it could be like the good ol’ days where the dad just sat in the waiting room until the whole thing is over. I think having D being involved in the process will be a good thing for both D and me. I don’t expect D to cut the umbillical cord, though–ew!

It was a long day, but we made it through. One good thing about taking the Super Saturday class is that they provide breakfast and lunch! I liked the turkey sandwich on jalapeno cheese bread–D couldn’t even finish his. Hopefully the food they serve to the patients is just as tasty.

The Mazda CX-7 is a new crossover from Mazda. I am blessed that I work for Mazda and get to drive a new vehicle every year. This year I was planning to drive a Mazda 3, which is a great car, but I am really excited about this new crossover. It came in handy when I wanted to bring home the baby crib. It had plenty of room, and with 244 hp the CX-7 has some punch. I notice it gets a lot of looks on the highway.

Here are the aforementioned pictures of our new newphew, adopted from Taiwan by D’s brother and his wife. His name is Shaun and he’s almost six months old.

Flying in the air!

D’s getting practice 🙂

This past weekend D went up North to visit his family, including our new nephew! (Pictures to come). I didn’t feel comfortable flying in my condition so I stayed at home. It felt kind of weird not having my “other half” around, even for a couple of days. I slept in the middle of the bed instead of “my side”. I arrived at church a few minutes early, instead of 15 minutes early, as D usually insists that we do. I kind of had a lot of errands to run, so I wasn’t exactly bored, but I just felt a little empty inside–hard to explain. Now that I tend to take my time with D for granted, it’s hard to imagine how we made it through our long distance relationship in the past.

In my off-season I haven’t been working out very hard. However, I am working out. I have been alternating running and swimming. This alternating has worked out really well.

I have been running 4 miles on the treadmill with a 0.5 incline and the last 2 times I have been running it in under 40 minutes. This is my fastest 4 miles on the treadmill so I am happy about that; however I would like to get faster to help with my 2007 half-marathon pace.

Today I swam 200×4 freestyle and 200×1 with a kickboard. I swam the total 1,000 meters in under 27 minutes. I don’t really care about my time in swimming, but I would like to keep my heart rate up.

Also I have been improving my eating since I need to watch my cholesterol. I have eaten oatmeal almost every day for the past 1.5 weeks. Also I have eaten turkey tofu sandwich, turkey tofu spaghetti, chinese chicken salad, & healthy choice for dinner this week. For lunch it has been sandwiches; the best one being Lee’s Sandwiches (Chicken).

When L & I were trying to pick out names for our baby, we wanted to find a name in the Bible; preferably the Old Testament. The Old Testament is rich in history and has cool names i.e. e.g. Meshach, Shadrach & Abed-nego. Biblical girls names, I believe, are harder to find than boys. However we found a town in present day Israel whose name was Keilah.

Keilah was a town in the lowlands of the tribe of Judah which was made famous by its story in 1 Samuel 23. David (before he was King David) rescued Keilah from the attack of the Philistines. King David was of the tribe of Judah & eventually rules over all 12 tribes. The town is west of the Dead Sea.

When I type in Joy in biblegateway.com, there are 242 results. However, one verse pops into my mind when I think of the word joy. It is in Galatians 5:22-23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Yesterday we had a visitor on our balcony. Granted, a visiting cat doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary, but we were surprised since our condo is on the second floor. I guess he/she climbed up a nearby tree and took a flying leap. This same cat climbed our stairs a couple of weeks ago and dashed through our front door which D had momentarily left ajar.

I love this season weather-wise. We had a brief spat of rain on Friday night, perfect for reading in bed. Saturday the air was brisk and D and I watched college football. (I’m getting sucked in, I tell you. It’s much more interesting now that Cal is actually decent!) In the afternoon we hung out at Barnes & Noble in the Tustin Marketplace and met up with a group of people to celebrate E.Y.’s birthday at Buca. D was able to have his fave–chicken marsala.

Today at church I found out that my friend was in the hospital, going into labor. I’m excited for her and her husband, but at the same time it is kind of scary to think that will be us in a couple of months.

Last week I started a new part-time work schedule. I am also now working from home! With my new-found free time, I have been trying to get our place in order. There haven’t been any overnight miracles, but things are slowly getting organized. I also went to my first “MnM’s” (Mom’s group) meeting at WPC and the first topic was organization–how appropo!

I have also been able to cook a little bit more, although I still want to expand my weeknight repertoire. Today I tried to make banana chocolate chip muffins, but our oven kept on setting off the smoke alarm. I guess I need to clean our oven, as the muffins themselves were not burnt. Argh.

All of a sudden, I feel like there isn’t much time to get ready for the baby. When I was working full time, I was kind of putting it off until October, since I knew I would have more time then. Now that October is here, I can’t believe I only have a couple of months left to prepare. One good thing is that I’ve been able to do more reading on the whole parenting topic. There really are a lot of theories out there. Discernment will be key!

I ordered these wall decals for the baby’s room a while back, but they finally arrived in the mail today. They are pretty neat because they are removable so you can re-stick them if need be. The colors turned out a little brighter than they appeared on the website, but I think it looks cheerful. Hopefully baby likes them!