Easter... better late than never...

Greetings long lost bloggy friends! To appease Mr. Jon Pray and Tamsen Wright... here are some late Easter pictures with the necessary commentary.

Easter was great! Super relaxing! Saturday night mom and I end went to my church, Bridgeway's Easter service and Sunday morning we (and my sweet friend Aundria) had breakfast with Andrew, Amy and Noah then went to their church, Metro Calvary for an Easter service! After that Aundria and I had a great community nap time and ended up at Olive Garden with my mom and Grama for dinner... you know... where normal people eat Easter dinner. I'm pretty sure tradition is out the window til I have kids...


Of course... a family portrait :) How fab does Amy look?!

Frame worthy... that's for sure.


we're related. (maybe this commentary isn't all that necesary)


Here's the good stuff... sweet Noah snacking on the "treats" found on his Easter eggs

Easter had come up a few times in conversation with my girls... it spurred a sweet conversation over togo's about why we celebrate Easter and the subsequent conversation was about how cool Jesus is because He's the only one that can come back to life after He died! ... but then I had to explain how really... other people have come back to life... like the little girl, as Lazarus but didn't really come back to life on their own... Jesus made them come back... so really Jesus still is the only one who has the power over death. Brooke seemed a little disappointed that Jesus wasn't the only person that came back to life after He died but it was a necessary conversation none the less that they will hopefully remember :) ANY point being... the girls had NEVER dyed Easter eggs! What a shame... something had to be done. After a short trip to the grocery store and with paint shirts on... the dying games began. And of course... we bought the sparkle pack, complete with glitter paint to finish the eggs off!

a reluctant update

it's sad but true, I quit the cleanse.
I don't remember much about the night I decided to quit. Blame it on the lack of caloric support, perhaps I was distracted by my stomach yelling at me for drowning it in something its designed to reject. Maybe it was the 45 minute of self-induced torture that reminded me all too much of the bacterial infection we all suffered in Africa.
Here's how it went down...
After stopping by moms to pick up the salt I returned home and made the killer concoction. When I explain it to people now I realize I sound like an idiot and they repeat to me the ingredients like maybe I had made a mistake. 32 oz? You chug 32 oz after not eating all day? And you mix in salt? Just salt? 2 teaspoons of SALT?! Yes... yes you do, I reply. Supposedly quickly (but in my case after 2 excrushiating hours of abdominal pain) your body says "WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO TO ME?!" and rejects the wonderful "salt water flush". It rejects it... along with everything else it can take with it. Insert flushing of toxins here. "The master cleanse, rid your body of harmful toxins" sounds much more appealing.
My appologies to Mark, whom I cursed on the phone after attempting to sleep off the abdominal pain. I think I remember him saying, "don't be ashamed if you have to quit, Amanda" and "you chugged 32 oz of salt water 2 hours ago and NOTHING has happened?!?!?!" ... quickly... and I mean quickly there after it began working. all too well. Secondly I'd like to appologize to my dear sweet roommate who heard the toilet flush far too many times in 45 minutes, I'm sure she would have liked to sleep peacfully but for some reason I thought ridding my bowels of TOXINS was a better idea. I think I yelled at Mark (again, sorry Mark) "I'm NOT doing this again!" "I can not eat but I am NOT putting myself in this much pain for this long EVERY NIGHT FOR 8 MORE DAYS!" Then I realized with the salt water flush a non-option the "flushing" part of the cleanse would be left to the tea. The all too unreliable tea. I spend WAY too much time in car to be drinking a tea at least twice a day that sometimes will attack it's victim right away... but sometimes not for hours.
I like to think that my ugly fight with the African bacteria in Malawi did enough cleansing for me. If not,
I am and will forever more be... Amanda Raelynn Piercy, a toxin carrier.
It's a symbiotic relationship really. They get a nice, cozy, warm place to live and I get to maintain my sanity and not hate my life.

On a lighter note, I got into a car accident Wednesday driving home from work. I'm tired of talking about it so here's the short of it: Driving home from work, new Folsom bridge, minding my own bussiness, BAM *insert creepy daunting noise coming from my car here*, "I think I just got into a car accident. Oh crap. Oh crap". I was the front car (didn't rear end anyone else) in a four car "pile up". All is as well as can be expected. I'm fine. Slight neck pain, headache, tense muscles, the usual. Rumor is it was cause by a sudden lane change. Obviously, not my fault, thankfully. Anyway... here were are. My insurance lady, Alexis, has been great. As has my ex-claim adjuster sister-in-law-extrordinaire Amy. I'm driving moms car and hopefully soon a rental while we wait for the police report to finish settling the whole thing (according to my CHP boss it can take Folsom PD like a month. Yay.) It's possible my cars totalled. Yay. I'll keep my precious blog stalkers up to do. Fear Not.
The Lord is good to meeeeeee *singing* and so I thank the LORD... for giving me the things I need the sun the rain and the apple seed... The LORD is good to me... (pardon the musical interlude.
Until I hear about my car, or I decide to torture my body again...

i want to die.

i just did the salt water flush... something ill have to do daily if Im going to continue and I want to die. Not literally but I feel sooooo sick to my stomach. Even if I can handle the not eating and surviving on 400 calories a day while still feeding my girls all day... theres no way I can do this every day. I feel miserable... and so far its not all that productive.
bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.
maybe mark will inspire me. and maybe ill eat breakfast in the morning.

will power? yes please.

soooo last night the tea worked a little magic but not much. and i'll admit... this morning i had a bite of cinnomin roll FRESH MIGHT I ADD! I got to work and there was freshly baked goodness floating around. I did it because a. i was hungry but b. i hadnt made the lemonade yet and it wasnt going to be for like 3 more hours that id get to have some and i hadnt technically started the cleanse yet. Buuuut it was a good reminder of my lack of will power so hopefully ill be more inspired to make it happen.
Im almost done with two servings of the lemonade and will put very little cayan pepper in my serving for dinner (its important to have it in... does something like breaks up mucus but its a little too much sometimes). The hardest part will be doing this while Im working. I make the girls food all the time so not only do I see it but I smell it, cook it, and clean it up. baaaaaaah.
Mark (my cleanser friend) says I need to do the salt water... yuck. Ill stop by moms tonight, she had the right salt and make that happen. He says I'll see "results" in just a few minutes. Scary. It's like revliving the bacterial infections in Africa... on purpose. weird.
My girls have been good today, actually really obediant, thank the Lord. I think eventually I'll tell them because I'm tending to get snippy around food. Like no... I don't want to spend 10 minutes in the pantry discussing your snack options (because I want to shove every one of them in my mouth).
Over all, a good lesson in self control and will power. I'm not sure I'll last to 10 days I planned. I'm not sure I really need to go that long but we'll see. I'm taking it one day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time.
Im actually excited about doing the salt water. I wanna see results! For some reason it seems grossly encouraging!
Phew...

a blog not for the faint of heart...

hello to my few and far between blog buddies!
For the next 10 days I will be blogging about my experiences doing the master cleanse. It's a juice fast designed to detoxify your body. It's gross. I've read lots of people's blogs about their cleanse experiences and they inspire me to do it! Maybe mine will inspire you to detox... maybe it will just gross you out (sorry). So here's your warning... my blogs for the next 10 days or so (if I make it) will be about hunger and bodily functions :)
I going to call my good friend Mark for some inspiration, he's done in a few times and then Im off to pick up my moms electric juicer thing and then the grocery store!
I'll blog more about the specifics of all of this but it's already 7... I still need to hit up moms and the store AND drink my first round "smooth move", my laxitive tea. woo woo! and then have time to let it work before bed ;)
Feel free to comment! I can use the encouragment... I only lasted a day last time I tried it!
*UPDATE*
Im home. Sipping my Smooth Move tea. It's not gross but not yummy. Maybe I'll grow to like it. At Raleys they had a chocolate smooth move tea. Probably not ideal but I thought it might be worth a try- I might be desperate for a treat soon! They had everything I needed but the maple syrup- I'll have to pick it up tomorrow at the Nugget while my girls are at school.
I'm starting with my tea tonight. I'll drink it every evening and hopefully not need to do the sea salt guzzles in the mornings. Once my girls are in school I have a few hours to myself in the mornings, that's when I'll make my lemonade for the day. I'll squeeze about 10 lemons a day if I can stomach as much lemonade as I'm supposed to every day (60-100 oz). Anyone have a lemon tree?! This is going to be like $10 a day in lemons haha.
There are supposed to be lots of benifits from this cleanse... here are some of the ones I'm looking forward to...
*a cleansed system (free of toxins and build up thats supposedly stuck in our innards thanks to our fab processed diets)
*clearer, brighter skin
*increased energy
*feeling better (they say you didn't even realize you didn't feel that great to begin with)
*sometimes you can lose a few pounds, but not my motivating factor (sometimes visably, sometimes of crap from your innards)
Day 4 will be my hardest day... check back for updates!

San Diaaagoooo!

Im in San Diego! Horray! Last night was so fun! Tyrone and Andy and I went to the SDSU basketball and then hopped on over to the Blarney Stone where we ran into none other than my fabulous friend Mark Sayovitz!! YES! Wonderful! We had a great time and I even got to visit with Bryan, my old roommate Sarah's brother! He's in town with his roommate Alex for the Campus Crusade conference. Today Im getting hair did and meeting everyone at Cass Street for some cheap blue moon (who are we kidding, Im having a roy rodgers) and shuffle board! Im excited for shopping with Sarah (what better place than San Diego to stock up on bathing suits, flip flops and sun dresses) for HAWAII (my nanny fam is taking me to hawaii for with pro bowl in Feb) and for New Years! Brittni gets back in town wednesday and I cant wait! I miss her like craaaazy! And Im STOKED for Kelly and Camerons wedding on Saturday (the real reason Im even in SD this week)
I know you're all thrilled with this update- if I would have thought of it I would have uploaded some of the pictures weve taken in the last few days while I was waiting for Andy to pick me up... to little too late :) the three of you would read my blog will just have to wait. Sorry.

Merry Tahoe!

My fabulous nanny fam is too good to me and brought me along a little Tahoe trip last weekend! We went up with their family friends the Shipleys. Their girls are the same age as my girls and go to the same schools. I spend lots of time with Jen and Randy at pick up and drop offs at school. They're a lot of fun and super nice! We had a wonderful time in Heavenly village at the Marriot. It was BEAUTIFUL! Saturday was perfect weather and the girls went to ski and snowboard school and everyone went skiing. Sunday was a little gloomier but we had a wonderful morning snow tubing! Each busy day ended with a chilly run to the spa. There's nothing more relaxing than sitting in a hot spa watching people ice skate in the snow.

I got a new camera from the Barkleys for Christmas so watch out for lots more posts! I hope you guys have a fabulously Merry Christmas!

I'll be in San Diego next week! YAY!

Here are some tubing shots!
This is me and the Shipley girls on a tube train! woo woo!

A Barkley (my nanny fam) family photo
Elizabeth (nanny fam mom) and Delaney. A classic Laney pose.Here are the girls! Kaitlyn, Brooke, Sarah and Delaney pre tubing

My "bosses"