Surprise, Surprise

Last week I received some exciting news. Utah Valley Magazine is a great, high-end magazine distributed locally. I was just flipping through the February issue and was very surprised to find that the magazine named my company in the top 3 "Best Products Made in Utah Valley". I was so excited, I asked the magazine to send me a PDF of everything so I could send it to my friends. Click here to view the article in a PDF... Very exciting!

An update on my smelly endeavors - Urban Botanic is now in 17 states and we're growing day by day. It is such a JOY to build this company and come to work each day with a great support system and the most wonderful fragrance designing Scent Consultants around the nation who are excited about our products and creating a business for themselves!

For those of you that missed it, I was also on TV last fall. It's pretty mortifying - what will I wear? What if I mess up? What if you can see beads of sweat running down my face? What if I accidentally snort while laughing? OMG WHAT.IF.I.FART.ON.TELEVISION? Then what???!?




So, it turned out okay. I didn't make a complete fool of myself, but it's still complete torture to watch. I cringe at my voice and my laugh... but I guess wouldn't we all - it's the self-critic thing. The bright side? I consider it practice for being on the Oprah show.

Pushing for $6300

It's Thursday again and I just had my weigh in for the week. I am now 242.3 lbs. That's 5.3 lbs less than last Thursday and another 2.13% body weight.

I promised I'd tell you what I am doing to lose weight. There are two things. One is my diet and exercise regime and the other is my motivation source. And here they are:

Diet
I'm doing a program called Isagenix and it's the easiest diet I've ever followed (and I've followed pretty much all of them). It's easier than Weight Watchers, South Beach, etc. My mindset has changed, so I know that's some of it, but what I love about it is that it is completely automated for me. I don't have to THINK about food which is a great thing because as soon as I start thinking about food, I start drooling over cheese and chocolate - although not together... hmmm maybe something to try as a reward sometime.

Motivation
I'm in a group of local people competing to lose weight. We all put in money each week which goes into a bank account set up for the group. Each week is a mini-contest on its own because the "Biggest Loser" for the given week, doesn't have to pay anything for the next week in the contest. 2nd place only pays a small fraction, 3rd place a bigger fraction, 4th place gets a small discount, and everyone else pays full price. There's enough people in the competition that the end winning pot includes $6300 cash for the one with the most percentage of weight loss. For me, because I'm bigger, this will be a challenge because if I lose 10 lbs and someone small loses 10 lbs, their 10 lbs kicks butt all over my 10 lbs. Last week with 4.9 lbs and 1.63% loss, I was in 16th place - still 15 from the bottom! ROUGH COMPETITION! Results don't come out until tomorrow morning but I did better this week than last and I have a feeling this is going to be a "tortoise and the hair" race. I may not be losing 14 lbs per week like our current winner (what on earth is she doing!?) but she'll slow down and I'm NOT backing out!

Wish me luck for next week.

Beginning Weight: 252.0
Current Weight: 242.6
Next Weeks Goal: 236.6lbs

Back In The Saddle

Ok I know rule #3 for blogging is to never make excuses about why you haven't been posting... So I won't! I was going to wait until my one year anniversary of slackerdom, which I believe would be May 17th but SURPRISE! My three readers get an early treat!

I have always hated New Year's resolutions. My New Year's resolution is usually to avoid the peer pressure of making a New Year's resolution. Simply because it's usually just a set up for failure and I believe if you want to improve upon yourself, you shouldn't wait until the new year. Do it now. Same with starting diets on Mondays. "Well, it's Thursday now, so I'm going to go ahead and order the onion rings because my diet doesn't start for 3 more days." We do it all the time.

This year, I'm taking a different approach. I do have some resolutions, but I'm trying not to associate them with the new year because of how that pattern goes. One is to stop swearing and the other is to lose weight. Both are out of control.

About 4.5 years ago I had some sort of endocrine FREAK OUT and in a couple of months time gained almost 100 lbs. It happened so fast I didn't even realize it. It was like one day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and went... "whoa, I'm fat!" I went from a size 10 to a size 20 but I didn't have time to buy any of the sizes in between because it really happened that fast. There are still imbalances in my body from the FREAK OUT, but things have in general worked themselves out. Now it's time to get this weight off. The only problem is, I've been faking myself out with negative thoughts like, "My body can't lose weight because I've been diagnosed with PCOS and dis-metabolic syndrome, and Syndrome X" Yes there really is a "Syndrome X". If you Google it, you'd think I couldn't lose weight either, but it's time for me to STOP letting the negative things doctors have been telling me all along affect my mindset. These negative thoughts I've had the last 5 years have been a toxic and enormous contributor to my maintaining this unhealthy state. I really have tried healthy ways of losing weight. But all the while, in the back of my head, I've wondered if they will work because of my Syndrome X. That shred of doubt is what failed me.

So time to poke a little hole in my mitote and start a new agreement with myself: I can lose weight. I have the same miracle human body as everyone else.

I'll tell you later about my weight loss plan, but for now, every Thursday at 11:30am is weigh-in time. Last Thursday my starting weight was 252. Today it is 247.9. That's 4.1 lbs in one week, people.

PS - Mitote is a "dream" or a haze we all have that makes up our perception of the world around us. Read about it in "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. I love this book.

About Me

I am Kenna, married to Steve, mommy to Carter. I work full time at the fragrance company I started. My son comes to work with me most days, and as soon as we get home each night, life turns into laundry, dishes, dinner, and diapers. I rarely have time to get it all done before I crawl in bed to spend my last few waking minutes remembering that I am also an artist, musician, graphic designer, crafter, internet junkie, writer, and movie buff. Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to actually do them.

My favorite thing to do is laugh with my husband and cuddle my son. I blog for many reasons: a creative outlet, to wrap my mind around my thoughts, to remember the little things, to preserve my muses, and of course, to read your comments... so please leave them!

If you think you're my family member or friend, and want access to the "my family" section of this blog, email me at kennalyn1 at gmail dot com and I'll send you an email with the password.

Following are my other online contributions:
Urban Botanic
DesignCandy.net
Homemade-Spa
Domestication In Progress

Elle's Guitar Recital

Friday night I went to my 10 year old sister, Elle's guitar recital. It was so cool to see her on the stage strumming away! It's weird to me that I was just about her age when I started guitar lessons - and that she's now learning some of the songs that I learned during my lessons! Pretty soon we'll writing songs together :)

Here's a cute video of her on stage with her guitar. The loud voice you hear is her teacher, who needed to sing that loud to be a crutch for the students. But check out those mad skillz! Those base runs! That's my little sister!

How to Annoy Me

Stand right in front of me in line at Old Navy. When it's your turn to go up to the only working register, spend 18.5 minutes explaining to the sales person that you were shopping in the store on Saturday, and while reaching for a pair of cargo pants high on the wall, you fell and you'd like to speak to someone straightaway about receiving some sort of settlement from Old Navy.

Or if that's not your style, you could also try being the sales person at Old Navy and not clueing into the fact that the lady talking to you already wants to sue you so it's probably a lost cause to scramble to find the right information to give her. She'll never become a faithful shopper again. Don't even pay attention to the fact that there's a huge line of dedicated shoppers waiting for your service.

How to charm me:

Stand right behind me in line and after 15 minutes call out "Do you mind if I check out real quick while you're figuring out that it's your lawyer you need to talk to, and not the sales clerk?" I almost - ALMOST - asked for her email so we could be friends. Virtual BFFs.

The Davis Brand

Back when bodily functions were a regular topic of discussion on the playground, farts were said to have a specific "brand", that brand being your family's namesake. For instance, everyone in the Thompson family has the same brand of farts. They all smell the same. So I'd like to pose a question. Do family brandings come about because of genetics - same makeup of bodily acids and other digestive fluids... or is it simply because those in a family unit generally eat the same foods? Before getting married I was sure it was because families eat the same food, which is different from their neighbors food. However, now that Steve and I have been eating the same foods (at least for dinner) for the last four years, I'm convinced it's genetics mainly, with perhaps foods as a very small factor. Why? I have never mustered a Gordon fart and still consider myself completely incapable.

The Great Escape

So, lately, we've been walking in the door from work to find that Dino has somehow let himself out of his room. There's no way he can jump the gate, it's 3 feet tall and he's 3 inches tall. We tried everything down to rigging the gate with poster board so he'd have no traction when trying to climb... only to find that he still somehow escaped, poster board untouched and in perfect condition.

Undoubtedly, Dino is acrobatically inclined, but still whines for help getting up and down from our 1.5 foot high couches. Is he really THAT smart? Climbing walls and jumping 3 feet in the air when we're not home and pretending he can't climb the curb in the driveway while we're there?

We finally caught him. So now, his punishment: I shall exploit his agile ways and he will be my trick monkey from now until the day he dies.

Click here to watch the video.

And you can't see it in the video, but when he landed, it was on all four feet, perfectly, and then he immediately bounced back up for the finish: on two legs with his front paws posed straight in the air.

Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Steve and I recently took a Scuba certification class. The rest of the class is certified as of a few weeks ago. But I am not. I went to the crater on the first day of the certification test to have one of the most traumatic experiences of my life thus far and needless to say, didn’t show up for the second day of certification.

Ask any experienced scuba diver and they will tell you the most important thing to master in scuba diving is buoyancy. More specifically neutral buoyancy, which, when achieved, will allow you to neither float nor sink in the water. If you are not neutrally buoyant, you can sink or float rather quickly without knowing it, which is bad because if you don’t know that you are changing depth, then you won’t adjust your mask, ears, etc to compensate, which could result in serious injury.

So back to our class (where we weren’t taught anything about buoyancy, other than reading a paragraph about it in the textbook… no application): Our first several dives were in the swimming pool. Easy. Then comes the final class certification at a crater/hot spring nearby. The first day of certification entails two dives: a 25 foot dive and a 40 foot dive. During the 25 foot dive, because I was told to use 18 lbs of weight while practicing at the pool, I sunk. Fast. Without knowing it, because on top of being a crater with limited visibility, it was also 10pm and I couldn’t tell up from down, or find the rest of the group. I in fact thought I was going toward the surface, when really I was sinking. Finally an instructor on the dive found me – this is after my common sense had switched off – I’m already screaming swearwords and sobbing into my regulator – oh and voluntarily taking my regulator out of my mouth only to continue breathing as if the water were air.

So my first dive was somewhere around 45 feet, while the rest of the group dove to 20 feet. I had so much weight on, the only way to get to the surface was by inflating my BC (buoyancy compensator - vest full of air) so full that it slipped up around my neck once I got to the surface. This is why I didn’t participate in the second dive. And I haven’t shown my face in class ever since. I’m not generally a quitter in situations like this, but I’m so pissed off at the instructors (who were recently fired because others had similar experiences) for not even checking my buoyancy or giving me a chance to adjust it once we were under water. In fact, they were yelling at me to hurry up and get in the water. What if I had, I don’t know, forgot to turn my air on in my rush to comply and get in the water asap?

The owner of the scuba shop has agreed to work one-on-one with me until I’m certified. That’s a nice gesture and all, but do I care about being certified now? Do I EVER see myself enjoying scuba? “Getting” scuba? Taking scuba trips? I am scuba-ruined. Should I give it another try one-on-one? Help me.

Blaze Me, Baby

I was recently reminded of the reason my parents named me McKenna, here. At one point, the top baby name on the list was Erin (which I feel is no match for my personality) until my parents saw the movie Somewhere In Time, where Jane Seymour played a character named Elise McKenna and I’ll let you finish the story in your own head. But that’s not so important as what my destiny would be, had I been given the Y chromosome. If I had been a boy, the plan was to bestow the name Blazer upon me. Every time I remember this interesting fact about me, I’m thrown into a deep quandary about my destiny, which sadly and quite obviously would have been the choice between a Chippendale dancer and an American Gladiator. Which would I choose? This is the quandary. So much is in a name.

So Long, Ace

I've really enjoyed some of my fellow bloggers' reviews on American Idol (you can see them here and here) but I haven't been one for writing a review myself until today. Because FINALLY America has pulled their heads out and realized that ACE is an awful performer and it's time to go home. I couldn't be more exhilirated. So long, farewell, au revoir, auf Wiedersehen!

Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest

I always love it when Oprah blows the lid off of hidden crises in America, especially when it’s not a political statement in disguise. She did a two-part special this week on the lack of education in our public school systems; a situation I believe is epidemic.

As of right this second, 735,828 kids have dropped out of school since January 1^st and the number goes up every minute. Our nation used to be ranked among the highest in most educational subjects and now we are in the high 20s in many subjects including math and science. It’s about expectations in the schooling system: there are none. We hear so much lip service from political leaders about the educational system so we think something is being done. It must just be kids these days. But it wasn’t too long ago that I was in high school and I’m telling you… the crappiest of kids – the ones who make you say “kids these days,” would rise to the occasion if more was expected of them.

Case in point: I was always among my teachers’ favorite students. But I was an awful student! I refused to do meaningless busy work for the grade, and if I felt the curriculum for the day was lame, I’d skip class and go to Barnes & Noble, my happy place (smell of coffee and books). What happened when I admittedly (to my teachers, even!) skipped class (sometimes 3 days per week)? Well I would confess lightheartedly and because of that, my teachers would laugh. THEY DIDN’T CARE! I held a 3.8 GPA all throughout high school and the only class I didn’t regularly skip was choir.

I learned about a charter school called KIPP. They’ve developed a totally non-conventional way of teaching kids. I watched and cried and wished there was a KIPP school in our area while my brother was going to school. My brother, who everyone said had severe learning disabilities but now I feel has NO learning disability. The real problem was the teaching system in his schools werejust created in 1956 and never since changed. His teachers didn’t truly care and the curriculum didn’t allow for higher methods of teaching. I have to think, no, I know, my brother’s life would be a lot different if he had gone to a school like KIPP.

To my 5^th grade teacher’s credit, although I couldn’t until yesterday recite the state capitols, or point out 15% of the states on the map, or tell you the first five presidents of the United States, I did somehow remember – and the memory came busting through out of no where; I mean I swear the memory didn’t exist, it was like my mind was creating it as it sang so loudly from my lips…that Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

Although, like the entire US education system, this acronym needs a serious re-vamp with all the planets they’re discovering lately. They named them “Santa”, “Easter Bunny”, and “Sedna”. I bet God is so displeased.

Go visit StandUp

Completely Unaware Of His Size - or Lack Thereof

Sorry, I’ve been gone a while. Life got a little crazy for a bit – Urban Botanic did a bridal expo – The Bridal Extravaganza. Then I took a trip to Grand Junction for Urban Botanic. Add to that a website re-vamp, tons more on my plate, and a new addition to the family:

Dino - The Tiny Warrior

We have been taking Dino around to meet his cousins. At each new house we enter he immediately starts shaking in my arms as if a big, bad, ugly monster were screaming in his face. This lasts about two minutes and when he finally settles I put him nose to nose with the dog he’s meeting. They sniff each others’ faces for about 30 seconds and then I put him on the floor so they can sniff each others’ butts.

Last night we took him to meet Gina & Eric's immaculately trained Dobermans, Zephyr and Liv. After the butt sniffing stage, Dino surprisingly decided he wanted to play with Liv. He would jump up, nip Liv’s nose, and then instantly retreat 20 steps the opposite direction as fast as he could run, certain that Liv would retaliate. Then when he realized he wasn’t being chased, he’d craaawl slowly on his stomach commando-style until he was a few inches from her feet and then hunker down, jump, nip, and retreat in one speedy, hilarious movement.

Now Googled

I try to Google myself all the time and can't seem to make myself show up as a result (at least on the first 99 pages of search results, with results per page set to 100).

...UNTIL TODAY!!! I haven't changed my website in 10 months. I haven't changed one image or one word of copy and there, today, there it is! And not only did Google find me, they like me best!

So everyone go. Go Google the keywords "Urban Botanic" and see for yourselves that I am the very first, number one, top, top, top, search result!

Now you're all thinking I'm excited for nothing because of course my own company will show up as a search result if I google the very name of the company. But really - 10 months of nothing and now this?

So when you google me, if you click on that first (TOP, TOP, TOP) link, you may find yourself disappointed that you're brought to a glorified business card we've been calling a website but come back in 4-6 weeks. We're working on a re-vamp that will Blow. Your. Mind.

SCUBA KENNA