I bought some happiness

Whoever said money can't buy happiness never fell in love with my new Honda Pilot!!

But, first, let's pay some due respect to my little Jetta, most affectionately known to others as "The Crayola".

The Crayola was so named because of it's CONSTANT smell of crayons. When new people got in my car, I would inevitably say "crayons" before they could even ask, "what's that smell?". And then the follow up question was always "did you leave some crayons in here during the summer?". The answer, no. Jetta owners will agree that Jettas just smell like crayons. Apparently, in 2001 the upholstery glue used in Jettas smell like, none other than, melted wax when the car gets hot. Well, I live in the land of ALWAYS hot and so my car ALWAYS smelled like crayons. And it was bad, people. I even had a friend comment when I walked into her house, "wow, you smell like your car." Awesome. I'm the weird girl at institute who smells like crayons. No wonder I'm not getting married...

Anyway, The Crayola served me well. She had 107K miles on her-- miles that took me (and sometimes friends) back and forth to California and Utah SEVERAL times. Just this past summer, I loving weighed her down with 2500 more miles as I visited every member of my family in Utah and California. The Crayola was manual with a peppy V6 engine. She was, surprisingly, REALLY fun to drive (and only got 20 mpg because of it...).

So why did I get rid of such a loyal car? The Crayola was dying. Well, maybe not so much if you're someone who has a man (husband) in your life, or even some family nearby. But I do not have such luxuries and The Crayola was starting to demand some more attention in her older years. I just couldn't justify putting anymore money into a car that was at at "crap shoot" point in its life. Plus, the paint was looking like this:


I can't even remember the last time I actually washed my car because it always looked like a piece no matter what I did, so I just stopped trying to make it look nice.

With the most recent visit to my loyal and honest mechanics at Noe Imports, they said to me, "I thought you said you were going to sell this car? It's time for you to make it someone else's problem." And so I did. I don't know who will inherit The Crayola and her problems. But we have gone our separate ways... and it was easy, because I have a new, unnamed love.

Good bye, my sweet little Crayola. The past 6 years have been wonderful!

Alright, so let's talk about my new Pilot (and by new, I mean new to me... the 2010 models are way too big and out of my price range...).

I've wanted a Pilot for about a year now. In fact, I've been saving all year to buy one at the end of 2010, so this was an inevitable purchase in my mind. I've spent a lot of time looking at them online and yesterday I had my first free Saturday in months and really wanted to go out and drive some I had seen online. My friend Jeremy kindly responded to my request to have some male influence with me, for what I thought was going to be an hour or so at a Honda dealership just trying some Pilots on. (Good thing I got him back in time to watch the BYU game. I think he would have broken off our friendship if he missed the game because of me!)

But then, I found my Pilot. I had no intentions of actually buying a car that day. But I had some expectations of what I wanted in my new car and this Pilot was meeting ALL of my requirements! I took her for a spin and Jeremy and I were both floored by how amazing this car was! It's a 2006, which is a year or two older than I expected, BUT (get this) it only had 22, 300 miles on it!!!! See for yourself:

And the interior is immaculate!

So, whoever owned this car pretty much never drove it because it looks, feels and, yes, smells brand new! (Finally a car that will let me choose my air freshener scent!). And then came the price... they started out at only $21,988. Do some research... for a Pilot that age with that many miles, in that great of condition AND with the 4WD package... $21,988 is a steal. And I stole it for even less: after taxes, registration, fees etc (which is like 2K) and them taking my crappy Jetta off my hands, $21,000 out the door! (Oh, and Jeremy got them to throw in brand new floor mats, although the mats were already pretty clean.)

But, of course, I'm in this car for the long haul, and remember, I still don't have a husband and/or family to help me take care of car issues, so I added on the extended warranty and security system package for another $13/month (I know they fudged the numbers by bringing down my interest rate on that one, but I don't care...). So for the next 4 years, the only thing I have to pay for to maintain my car are oil changes and filling her up with gas. EVERYTHING ELSE is 100% covered by Honda, including rental cars when I need it, roadside assitance and trip something or other where they'll put me up in a hotel if my car breaks down while I'm away from home and I need a place to stay while they fix it! And since the car has such dang low mileage, I'm planning on having it for a good 10 years, so this added protection was totally worth it to me. There is a dollar sign on my peace of mind...

Some other "amazing" details to my car buying story... My new Pilot had just been traded in the day before. They hadn't even put a sticker on the window with price and details. In fact, they messed up on their starting out price of $21,988... that was way too low for a car this great. So if I didn't buy it, they were going to advertise it for $3,000 more. And, even though I had told Jeremy that I didn't have a color preference, my Pilot is my favorite color of Pilot: metallic blue! Then, it turns out my finance guy was a BYU track star in the 1970's. And my salesman asked where I taught and it turns out that his whole family went to Mesa High and I actually had his little sister Jocelyn for 2 years in a row and she is seriously one of my all time favorite students!! Oh, AND... they let me put my down payment on my Southwest Visa!!! (which I of course will pay off immediately...) But, POINTS POINTS POINTS! I wish my mortgage company would let me do that...

This whole situation is like when I bought my house: when the timing is right, it's right and some purchases really are just meant to be. My house was meant to be my house for so many reasons. This Pilot was meant to be my car! I could feel when I test drove it. A day earlier and it wouldn't have even been there. A few hours later and someone else would have snatched it up. But she's all mine and she's peacefully resting in the garage next to her new friend, Wendy's Corolla.

Another Life Goal... Check!

Remember my post about being a Body Attack instructor?

Well, it's official... I passed!
I'm a certified Body Attack instructor! :)

So what does that mean? Two things:

1) I can teach a class in a time slot of my own (if one ever opens up, that is...)

BUT, most importantly...

2) I set a goal and achieved it.

Boo-yah.

Just One Last Time...

Steven really wanted to get up to the Mogollon Rim just one last time before the summer really rolled in and there would be no hope for cool weather in the state of Arizona for a few months. So we took off this Saturday with no real plans, just a destination (anywhere cooler than the valley) and a goal (enjoy the cooler weather wherever we go).

Our adventure started in Payson, AZ where I suggested we stop by the visitor's center and see what was going on in the area. They had a whole list of small town stuff going on that weekend, so we turned our trip into a smorgasbord of small town fun!

First stop? The Arizona State High School Rodeo Championships!!!

I didn't even know such a thing existed! Of course, there were no "big city" schools involved, so that was a pretty small venue and our stop lasted maybe 5 minutes. All we saw was barrel racing... and it was cowgirls, not cowboys, so it didn't hold my interest very long.

But hey, at least we could say we've been to a state championship rodeo!

Next Stop? Strawberry, AZ for none other than a... yep, strawberry festival!

We stayed a little bit longer here because we parked far away from the main event and then walked through all the little booths at the festival.

There honestly wasn't as much strawberry paraphernalia as I would have hoped for at festival dedicated to one of my favorite fruits. BUT they did have funnel cakes and Steven had never had one before. So I treated him to one.

I think he's now a fan. Who wouldn't be??
And that was Strawberry, AZ.

Ok, next stop? The Tonto Natural Bridge.

I've been here before, at least twice. But Steven never had and I thought he might enjoy it. He totally did! It's basically a bridge made by mother nature that you can hike under and around. If you want more of a scientific explanation, click on the link above.

So after we took that cute picture of us, this gust of wind picked up and blew a bunch of crap into my eyes. At first it didn't seem like a big deal... I thought, I'll just close my eyes and they'll do their job to throw the buggers out. But that wasn't quite working and I was pretty annoyed. So we (no wait, I) tried flushing it out with (I'm sure) some very clean river water.

Of course Steven was close by to document... But I think all that did was successfully wipe the make-up off of one eyeball. A good look for anyone, I'm sure.


So, I won't say anymore about the eyeball until the very end of this post (so skip ahead if you can't handle the suspense...) but I'll just say that it was an absolute annoyance ALL DAY LONG. I don't know what the crap blew into my eyeball, but they were not friends and I felt the brunt of it!

Ok, after the hike, we had a little picnic lunch in the picnic area. Now, bless Steven's heart, he wanted to totally take care of this day, so he packed us a picnic lunch. So, we had dry ham sandwiches (he forgot mayo and mustard) with massacred thick tomatoe slices (he forgot a knife... well, a sharp one. He had a butter knife).

Nice effort, but next time... involve the woman. She feeds you well for a reason...

Moving on... next stop? The Mogollon Rim, our original destination.

So all we did here was look at some really pretty views whilst sitting on the edge of the Arizona universe. Oh, and I froze my tail off! The wind was wicked cold and, well, I'm a wimp!

I also tried to take cute pictures of us, and this is what I got:

So I tried to punish him with this:

but the silly man liked it. Weirdo.
He cooperated later...

Also at the Rim, we drove out to Woodscross Lake and had a look around at all the beauty. Steven found his place to chill. Wherever that happens to be, a chill place is a good place to be.

On the way home (somewhere, I don't remember where...), we found this lovely sign:

So are the cabaret girls heffers? We didn't go in to find out. Sorry.

And that was our day. So, remember my eyeball problems? Yeah, by the time we got home, my eyeball had completely freaked out. I had Wendy take a picture of me in all my patheticness.

I actually went to a friend's birthday party looking like this! I put a pirate patch over my eye to begin with just to be funny, but even the patch irriatated it. After trying almost everything, we finally put an ice pack on my eye and it calmed it down and sealed it shut for me to fall asleep. The next day it didn't hurt and just looked like a lazy eye. I don't know what happened, but it's all better now!

So, as I sat down to write this blog, I wasn't quite sure what to title it. I decided on "Just One Last Time..." because I wanted to blog about mine and Steven's one last time on a good date. I promised that I would provide relationship updates for better or for worse. Steven and I are now officially broken up (as of July 8th). It's a break-up that has, unfortunately, been a long time in the making. I never know what to say about break-ups... I guess it doesn't really matter. In the end, things obviously weren't working. The end.

Whose Butt Looks Better...

... in MY jeans???

Booty A:

...OR...

Booty B:


Vote on the side bar.
Seriously. Do it.

(I know... it's sick that Steven can even fit in my jeans and he's a good 100lbs heavier than me! BUT in my defense he had a long shirt on covering half of his uncovered booty and the unzipped zipper he couldn't zip up. And, this was his doing... I didn't ask to feel insecure about my "size"...)

Filming Day!

Yesterday, I filmed my certification video to be a Body Attack instructor! It was me, on a stage, with a microphone strapped to my head (for all to hear the huffing and puffing), an unforgiving video camera, and eleven GREAT and supportive and forgiving friends (to be my guinea pig participants) for an intense 55-minute workout. I'm happy to report that all survived... including myself! My video will be converted to DVD this week, previewed by my gym fitness manager and, if she thinks it's good enough, I'll send it to Les Mills West Coast offices in San Francisco for the final stamp of approval. Once that happens, I will be an official Les Mills Body Attack instructor! It's been an intense 3 months preparing for this day... I just hope that it paid off and that I pass certification the first time around.

So, here's some pictures of me teaching... the girl taking the pictures wasn't too savvy with action shots, but there were some OK ones. It's kind of crazy to see me as the instructor... I'm sure watching my DVD will be even weirder. Anyway, the highlights:

Jogging on the spot, teaching an arm combo.

A little step-curl action

Jogging it out (my heels should be kicking my butt...)

Grapevine

Plyometric lunges
(these puppies HURT! Imagine popping in and out of 32 single lunges... and that's the finale after doing 3 other sets of 16. Yeah, my knees hate me after that. This picture must have been from the 1st set of 16 because my form still looks OK!)

Arr! Tricep push-ups (girl style, of course) to some Black Eyed Peas-- Boom Boom Pow. Probably my favorite track. I feel so buff when I'm done. And look at me... I'm still a weeny.

This is the running track where I get down on the floor with the participants and we focus on motivating each other as a group. I love this part of class too, especially a class full of people who I know are there to support me in my goals. I have great friends! :)

3-Step agility run

The Ice-Skater
(Amy Linford is going to love all these pictures... just don't tell her, k?)

My favorite track to teach: Kicks!!

Coming down from a tuck jump
(I really wish she would have caught the real jump. I'm curious to see how high I get...)

Knee lifts in the final cardio track.

And Body Attack Jacks!
These aren't you're typical high school jumping jacks. As you can see, my toes are pointed out, heels grounded and I'm slightly squatting. If I have anything in my bladder, it usually likes to dribble it's way out during this final 30 seconds of the cardio peak. But, I am happy to report that I did not pee at all while teaching... thank heavens!! :)

Alright, no more pictures. Besides, it's time for you to stop checking out my massive calves. Their bigger than my boyfriend's... and he likes to point that out. ;) I know... he's a sweet heart!