"O Canada"

I know we are all getting geared up for the 4th of July, but before that, on the 1st, my adorable husband and I will be celebrating Canada Day with our dear friends from Canada! I am so excited. Last year my mother-in-law and I made a fruit pizza in the design of the Canada flag. Essentially, it was a big sugar cookie covered with a yummy icing and lots of strawberries to make the maple leaf. This year, I am trying a new sugar cookie recipe covered in a fondant. Wait, don't ignore this yet, this is a different fondant that is actually yummy! The party is tomorrow night so tonight I started the icing since it's best refrigerated overnight (and also keeps in the refrigerator for several weeks!). P.S. to my mommy friends out there, my way cool friend that gave me this recipe said that she makes this for her kiddos to use as play dough and then munch on! How fun is that?

Here is what I learned, in pictures.
Tip number one: make sure the surface you are working on isn't just your plain counter. I used my glass cutting board. Your surface is going to get sticky, messy, and be a pain to clean. It's easiest if you can pick up the surface and wash it...

Notice the Crisco in the corner, you are going to need it!

This recipe will ask you to heat up a ton of marshmallows for thirty seconds at a time and stir. This is what mine looked like by the first minute:

Tip number two: Seriously, seriously grease your working surface. Seriously.

Tip number two: Red food coloring makes things mostly pink. What? The Canada flag doesn't have a pink maple leaf on it? I choose not to acknowledge that.

Tip number three: Remove all your rings. You are going to get really messy. Really. You might as well get over it before you get started. Icky.

This little ball of pizza dough like, play dough stretchy but not stringy, warm goodness took about 8 minutes of kneading:

Tip number four: leave time for clean up.

If you are interested in this recipe, let me know and I will send it to you! I also promise to update you with the finished product tomorrow. Like I said, this is a great fondant to cover sugar cookies since both this mix and the cookie dough are best refrigerated over night first. Here's a preview of what's to come though:

Happy Thursday!

House Projects...Again

It’s time to start making little updates on our house. I got in a great streak there for a bit and got all the curtain rods, curtains, and lamps updated. And then I even went on to paint the spare room. Now it’s time to get back at it.

In the next few weeks I want to paint our bedroom, and maybe get David’s office in working order. But one detail that I think will be a fun and quick update is replacing the knobs in our kitchen. After this, if my husband is up for it, I want to replace the floor in there too, but one step at a time.

I absolutely love Anthropologie and Restoration Hardware for knobs. However, we have 28 to buy. I don’t think my husband is going to go for $10-$15 per knob for this house. So instead I am having fun picking out potentials and then finding comparable (read “reasonable” instead of Are you out of your mind??) knobs at places like Lowe’s.

Right now our kitchen has a white, laminate floor and light cabinets and white knobs with little blue flowers on them (don’t gag, I think they were in style at some point, maybe). I’m thinking that some dark brown or bronze knobs would be a quick little way to update the kitchen since we aren’t thinking about replacing the cabinets (which I would love to do) or the floor right now.

Here are some that I love:

Restoration Hardware: $10 each versus....

Lowe's: $4 each.

And I also really like the ones with some design:

Okay I'm a little obsessed with these Restoration Hardware ones for $9 each. But I really do love the Lowe's version I found too...

How cute are these? And are you ready.....these are about $3 each! These might be winners to me!

So I will take some before and after pictures and let ya know how it goes!



Redeployment…ever been there?

Although I have known this was coming for weeks now, I received official proof and confirmation that my position here at work no longer exists. It’s been a very weird day for me. I knew that this was a huge possibility, and almost a certainty, and for some reason, until it was officially announced and I had to begin drafting emails to the people I have met through this did it really hit me.

It doesn’t help that I didn’t get much sleep last night, but I have been very emotional about this and about the idea of leaving my team. I love my company and everyone has been amazing! Seriously, I am so blessed to have met these people. I have no doubts about finding an amazing position within the company, but it’s just time to take a minute and mourn the termination of our contract.

I have grown so much in these past eight months. I have been given opportunities I would have never even thought to hope for, and I have done things I wouldn’t have been able to tell you with a straight face I was capable of doing. I feel so blessed by the experiences and I can’t wait to see what will come next.

I felt like I needed to share this with you because I’ve been dancing around it for weeks. But here’s the thing, I have been anxious and worried about it all, but more than that, I have been excited. I have an amazing group of leaders looking out for me, an amazing group of friends praying for me, amazing family members in my cheering section, and an amazing husband who loves me no matter what my career is.

So if anyone else out there is going through or has gone through this, I understand the worry and excitement that comes with it, and I hope that maybe you can make sure the excitement part wins. Someone once told me, I think before my first demo, that chemically our anxious feelings are the same as our excited feelings. So if we can just understand that maybe we aren’t so anxious, that maybe we are excited.

My Monday Addiction

I don't think this is actually a recognized blog world title, but I had to share my latest addiction. And no!, it's not anything about Harry Potter.

It's these little treats. Yum! I have been loving the Cookie N' Cream flavor. But I have also tried the strawberry and really love that too. David is more of a cookies n cream type of guy.

Happy Monday

When David asks God who can reside in His house, He answers him:
 
 2 The one whose walk is blameless,
   who does what is righteous,
   who speaks the truth from their heart;
3 whose tongue utters no slander,
   who does no wrong to a neighbor,
   and casts no slur on others;
4 who despises a vile person
   but honors those who fear the LORD;
who keeps an oath even when it hurts,
   and does not change their mind;
5 who lends money to the poor without interest;
   who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
 
If we are going to think about our goals, and think about should I or should I not make this major life change, or this major life change, isn’t this a great place to start? Our minister mentioned this Psalm (Psalm 15) in church yesterday and it has stuck with me. I am going to try to read this each morning and each night this week and thank God for my life.
 
The sermon yesterday was about being creative in our gratitude to God. Maybe we can step away from repeating the same prayer every morning and night, thanking Him for our blessings in a memorized, monotonous tone, and instead, really show him how thankful we are by giving back to Him. We can show God our gratitude by being His disciples, and we can be His disciples by doing the things he says are good. We can try to always do the righteous thing, to tell the truth, to not gossip, to not hate, to keep our promises, and to give to those less fortunate than ourselves. Just a thought for a rainy Monday.
 
Have a great day!

"There You Are Peter"

Is there anything better than a Sunday night with your adorable hubby? I think not. That is, until you add in a pizza buffet and a great old movie. We are watching Hook and I can't get over how cute it is. I seriously cried twice (or maybe three times...) I love it!


Granny Wendy: So... your adventures are over.
Peter Banning: Oh, no. To live... to live would be an awfully big adventure.

You Don't Have to be The Best At Golf

Last night the rain cleared up in time for a perfect golf lesson. The Pro brought chardonnay and the driving range was sunny with a slight breeze. I was ready to learn to golf.

Since there were only four of us, the Pro really had the opportunity to spend one on one time “fixing” our slices, whiffs, and frustrations. As he stood behind me, I went through the mental checklist I had created with his previous instructions:

ü  Get in a comfortable athletic position, and look at the ball

ü  Set the ball up in my stance between the buttons on my shirt and the logo

ü  Shoulders slightly back

ü  Visualize my backswing and follow-through, letting my chest lead and body naturally follow

ü  Think about calm breathing technics

ü  And swing

The ball left, but it didn’t go far, and surprise, surprise, it headed to the right. Right into the trees. The pro walked up to me and said “you are doing everything right. That was a great swing and you have improved immensely.” I just stared at him. Sensing my confusion (and maybe noticing my glare that said “are you blind?”) he went on to say, “You did everything exactly correct except for one thing: you aren’t having any fun.” I started to explain to him, mental checklist ready, that he was wrong and here were all the reasons why I could prove I was having fun.

He gave me a similar look as a yoga instructor once gave me before calmly and very zen-likely explaining to me that yoga might not be for me…but that’s another story.

He let me rant, he let me review my checklist above, and then he smiled and walked away and said “add Relax to your list and then swing.”

I hit some great shots last night, and I hit some horrible ones. And at the end of the night he gathered the four of us together, refilled our wine glasses, and told us that despite what our husbands would say or despite what our golfing partners would tell us, we really didn’t have to be the best at golf. He said that our opponent is first the course, then ourselves. That if we can go out, see the course, take some great shots and have fun, that we beat the course no matter what par was. And that then, once we mastered that, we will have also beat ourselves.

It was a little “after school specialy” and maybe it was the wine, but it really hit home for me. Maybe I don’t have to be the best at golf. Maybe the course’s par doesn’t have to be my par. Maybe after three lessons I need to let it go that there is a woman in my class that is a little bit better than me. Maybe I could let golf be just for fun and just for relaxing. I’m not sure if I can do this yet, but I think I have to start by letting go of my checklist. Or at the very least, add “Relax” to this checklist…and maybe to all my lists.

Hogwarts Detox

Okay, I know I have gone on and on for way too long about my Harry Potter obsession. I know this because two days ago my adorable husband and I celebrated our 4 month anniversary. And on our honeymoon I started reading Harry Potter. That means, over the past four months, I have read over 2900 pages of nonsense (don’t beat me up for saying that, you know I love them, but come on, they are nonsense) and I am only 100 pages in to book 7.

Now, I am all for reading some nonsense here and there. But how embarrassing when someone, say a potential employer, asks what I’m reading. “Well, Mr. CIO, I do read Healthcare IT News when it comes out each month. And then, after I read that five page magazine, I read 700 pages of Harry Potter before the next issue comes out.” I am thinking that’s not an appropriate answer. Especially because I have his three recommended books stacked on my nightstand, glaring at me and making jokes about not advancing my change management or statistics skills.

Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep. I have a lot going on that I could blame this on , but I’m most afraid that a huge part of this was due to the fact that Harry Potter Year 7 is freakin’ scary! I’m serious. I would start to doze off and then abruptly open my eyes…I’m thinking it’s not due to Atul Gawande’s views on changing surgery through the use of checklists and more so to the fact that inferi and dementors keep creeping into my thoughts. I have just crossed the line to paaaa thetic!

So, if you have stuck with me these last few months as I have rambled on and on about Harry Potter, I promise to now reward you. In order to thank you for your time and your occasional glance back at my posts to see if I had branched out at all (only to find that I hadn’t), I now promise you this: No more Potter Posts….EVER.

That’s right. I don’t care what great insight or new obsession book 7 brings. I don’t care that movie 7, part 2 comes out July 15^th. ….I mean sometime in July or this summer, no big deal. I will not make another post about Potter.

So here we go. Potter Detox, day one.

What on earth are you all reading out there if it’s not Potter? Because I love my job, and I can’t wait to read the recommended books I have borrowed. However, I definitely need a guilty pleasure if I’m going cold turkey on Hogwarts. Thoughts?

Mackenzie-Childs Enamel Ware

My mother in law found the cutest little treasure - Mackenzi Childs. We are both in love with this stuff now. We decided it might just have to be our signature gifts to people for showers, weddings, Christmas, Birthdays, anything.

My favorite pieces are in the enamel ware collection. I think these would last forever. Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

The colander

One of the cookie jars

Enamel planters

And I think Bo might be needing a new bowl for Christmas this year!

School Supplies

I'm not going to buy a school bag until I am officially accepted into the program, but that doesn't mean I can't still look, right?

I love school supplies. I can't wait to get new notebooks and pens, and most importantly, a new bag!

I have three picked out that I really like:

So I guess we will just have to wait and see! I think I'm supposed to hear from the school this week.

Kimi Girl!

I have this frame at home that says, “Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never ever the same.”

I had nine bridesmaids in my wedding. I have four sisters counting my beautiful sister-in-law and five friends that feel like sisters. I can’t tell you how these nine "sisters" have affected my life in the most positive of ways. They keep me honest, they call me out when I’m making bad choices, they support me when I make decisions they wouldn’t have recommended, they are there for me when work is not the best, they love David, they crack me up, they are the most fun of anyone, and they are up for anything. And we have been friends through the most random of life’s stages. How very blessed am I?

One of these women, my Kimi Girl, has to be one of my soul mates (yes, I have quite a few). This beautiful woman is one of the strongest women I know. Here’s a quick recap of the last couple of months: the day after my wedding, in which KG was a seven month pregnant bridesmaid, she moved with her husband to Alabama – she did this alone because he had to leave earlier and she wouldn’t miss my wedding....

.....and then she settled in her home, prepared baby L’s room, and had one of the longest births of any woman (I will let her share her story, it's not mine to tell). And then, her husband had to leave her alone with their beautiful two day old baby for three weeks because of seer school. Can you imagine? Yep, this is the sort of thing KG does. She makes it work. And needless to say, I miss her more than anything.

Me with Kimi's first daughter, Ebony Boo

Anyway, I know I lose track of where I’m going with things, but this is all to tell you that KG, her sweet husband, and their tiny baby L are here to visit!!! So tonight we are all getting together and celebrating how much we love these people. We have so much to catch up on and so much to talk about. I have to absorb as much of sweet KG while I can! I could not be more excited!

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday with the people you love the most! I hope this is one of the weekends that you spend with the people who leave footprints on your heart.

Kimi Girl and me trying to teach ourselves to rollerblade (in my sister's house, sorry Sister #1).

HP Year 6

Thursdays are quickly becoming my favorite nights. Last Thursday I had a complete relaxation evening, and last night I did the same thing. David and I grabbed a pizza, watched some Friends DVDs, did laundry, and just lounged. I read a bunch of Potter, Year 6 too. Oh boy, I love these books. I can’t get over it! I just about had a panic attack when I read that movie 7, part 2 (and final, so sad), comes out in less than a month and I haven’t gotten that far yet! I will probably cheat and see it before I read it as I have done with the book 6, but I don’t know if I am morally okay with that.

As you all know (assuming you are as big of dorks as I am), book/movie 6 is uhhhhmazing! And sorry about the spoiler alert, but I think I’m the last person in the world to read these anyway; I am on the part with the explanation of horcruxes and soul splitting – deep, I know.

I love all of the talk in this section about the greatest weapon being love, about how people can walk around with split souls, but are they really living?, and just about choosing the right path. Okay, and the last dork comment for the day, I stopped reading last night at one of my favorite parts – Harry was telling Ron and Hermione that he was leaving to go with Dumbledore in search of one of the horcruxes, and he refused to take the lucky potion, but instead left it with them – ordering them to drink it and to give Ginny some too. Oh man. Isn’t that how we all feel when we might be in danger and are instead worried about our loved ones. We can stand to put ourselves in danger but cannot live with thinking about our loved ones in danger.

Okay, I promise, I’m done (for now) blabbing on about Harry and his friends.

Galatians 6:9

Today I had the opportunity to sit in a room with a community of excellent women. Today was the YWCA’s Women of Excellence lunch. There were 1,023 attendees – a record! This was my first time attending this lunch, and I just looked around, wide eyed, admiring the wonderful women that I aspire to be more like. I loved hearing from the 93 year old Cool Crest owner. If you are from St. Joe you understand how touching it was to hear her speak, and if you aren’t from here, you should check out this adorable miniature golf course that all of us grew up with. With each winner recognized, I was more and more impressed with our wonderful community.

As I sat looking around, admiring all of the wonderful women in our community, I could not not notice how many more wonderful, inspiring, excellent women that I knew that were not even there today. Not one of my amazing sisters, nor my brilliant mom, not my beautiful best friends, and not my encouraging team lead. I was filled with joy thinking about being a part of this community and thinking of all the wonderful leaders I know.

Another excellent woman I know puts bible verses on her Facebook page each morning to start the day. I love reading them. Today’s verse was Galatians 6:9.

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

I feel so blessed to have spent a day thinking about doing good and the people that are out there practicing this idea. Have a Happy Thursday. (And if you nothing to do, I hope to see you at Parties on the Parkway or the Mustangs game tonight!).

M-W-S-U, Go Griffs! Go Griffs!

I just now, this minute, completed my application for Grad School! Cross your fingers for me because I just applied to the Master of Applied Arts in Written Communication graduate degree program at, none other than my alma mater, Missouri Western State University!

 I absolutely love MWSU. When I was an undergraduate student there I was involved in any and everything they would let me in to! I love the beautiful campus, the degree programs, the wonderful teachers and advisors, and now, hopefully, I will love the master's program as well! Wish me luck, and I will keep you updated!

A Great Summer Weekend

This weekend was, once again, busy, busy, busy, but so wonderful! We met our friends for dinner Friday night, I helped with my parent’s garage sale Saturday morning after a run while David golfed, took Sister #1 to lunch Saturday to celebrate her Birthday, went to a beautiful wedding Saturday night, and then celebrated Sister #1’s Birthday, her husband’s Birthday, the nephews’ birthdays, and Sister #1’s 9^th anniversary with a huge bash at my parent’s house on Sunday! Phew…crazy but so wonderful!

The bash was all water themed with a slip n slide, multiple pools, water balloons, and tons of friends and family. I made these shark cupcakes! Bo helped, as you can see.

It was all so wonderful, but by last night at about 8, I was happy to be sitting on my deck with my cute husband and dog, reading Harry year 6.

Hope you all have a great Monday!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

In the past two (three, four??) weeks a lot has happened with my position at work – I’m not even quite sure where to start. I think I have to start with a funny story from today. If you live in Northwest Missouri you know that the rain has been a concern. (And if you don’t live here and this is news to you, please say a little prayer for everyone who is concerned about the flooding.) David helped load sandbags all day yesterday, and everyone is preparing for an emergency. Well today the rain affected me, but thank goodness, only in a comical way – the other ways are serious.

This morning I was invited to a one-on-one meeting with the CIO/CMIO of the Hospital. Yeah, so, all of you who know me know how exciting and upsetting this is to a poor, anxious soul like me. So, I got up extra early after preparing for our meeting for the past few nights (read past three weeks). I ate a small breakfast, took plenty of time to get ready, and then headed out a half hour early. It started to sprinkle as I turned onto the hospital’s campus. And by the time I parked, 500 feet from the hospital’s front door, it was storming. I’m talkin’ hail, sideways rain, emergency situation type rain!

Now, don’t start with me on being prepared. I had my umbrella and plenty of time to spare. So I just sat there and waited. Reviewed my notes, brushed my hair, finished my ice water, and waited. To no avail. It just rained harder and harder until it was ten minutes from the time I was supposed to meet the man that is the kind of man you do not keep waiting.

So, like any other calm, level-headed professional (note the sarcasm), I thought I was either going to throw up, cry, or run faster than I have ever run before to get to that meeting. I decided I should just run. So umbrella in hand, nice pressed pants rolled up to my knees, black shiny heals ready, I ran for the door.

Oh my gosh – there was no way you could even tell I had carried an umbrella. I got to the front door and rushed to the bathroom to see that my pants were soaked, I mean dripping wet, up to my thighs, and the arm of my very nicely ironed (and WHITE) button up was soaked to my shoulders. My hair does not do well in humidity either. Did I mention that this was ten minutes before my meeting and our bathrooms do not have hand dryers but paper towels instead?

I decided I could either leave or walk in at this point. Of course, I decided to walk in.

And when I did, our CIO/CMIO (who, did I mention used to work as a NASA surgeon? Yeah, he’s very smart and very professional and probably has never walked into a meeting soaked and shaky.) just burst out laughing. I’m not kidding. I walked in thinking I might start crying and he just cracked up. He couldn’t even get words together. I can only imagine he has bought the security tape of me running through the parking lot and is going to show it at the next department meeting. I might be sick that day.

You would think that this might make for a horrible beginning to the meeting. You would be wrong. This was the best meeting! He said he had expected me to call and not show up, and he was impressed that I was there. It broke the tension for sure. The meeting was very relaxed and comfortable, despite the fact that I was sitting in rain soaked clothes in front of a very important man in his very nice and important office.

So this post is to thank Dr. CIO for laughing with me, for encouraging me, for not kicking me out the minute you saw me, and for letting me sit in your very nice chair, in your very nice office, and meet with you. I think this meeting will be one that shapes my career and that I remember for a long time to come.

I left the meeting with three hundred thoughts going through my mind and with three books, all with the instruction to read them and return them for more. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Here are the three books I will be reading for the next bit of time in case you want to read along. I won’t judge you if you don’t, but I will tell you they were recommended by a NASA surgeon – pretty cool, right?

Simply Speaking by David Greenberg

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

The Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick

Which do you think I will start with? I can’t wait to start a book that has the word Checklist in the title – I mean, come on, I love it already!

And when I looked up what exactly a manifesto is, I found this: A written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.

So here is my manifesto.. I will finish this recommended reading, absorb what he wants me to learn about public speaking and communication, checklists and processes, and statistics and reasoning. And I will return them to Dr. CIO in perfect condition with lots of gratitude and follow-up questions...on a sunny day.

One last comment. I have been wrapped up in my career goals these past few weeks, and I have started running more. And while I run and run, on repeat, I have been listening to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. Love it! I can’t get enough of this song. It’s really been pumping me up lately. One of my favorite lines is “throw your soul through every open door.” And actually that entire verse is a good one. Just a thought J

Now this has gone on too long, so you will just have to wait for more posts to get all the back stories of what is going on with me. It’s been an exciting (and pretty darn scary) time for my work self.

Thursday Nights

I have always loved Thursday nights because of Grey's Anatomy. And tonight I really needed a Grey's night. And lucky for me I have two to catch up on! So I threw a load of laundry in, made a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and am not going to think about today at work or tomorrow's meeting or anything. Except Grey's and comfy clothes.

Duh

“I thought about my goal, as goals always help to define content when something important has to be communicated.” Radical Loving Care

There is a horrifying story in my book about a murder that took place in a hospital. The President and CEO couldn’t figure out how he was going to address the public so quickly after the discovery. He said the above quote and it has stuck with me. He knew his goal was to be sensitive to all of the family and loved ones of the victim, to assure the patients and their families that they were still safe in the care of the hospital, and to address and calm the providers still having to work in the hospital in such a horrific time. He said this grounded him and helped define the content of his communication.

I have been applying this idea to different pieces of my life lately (very minor pieces in comparison). In dealing with a difficult conversation with a friend: What do I really want to accomplish in this communication? In dealing with difficult decisions at work: What do I want to communicate to my leadership?

I think it’s interesting that when I step back and think about what I want to accomplish through my conversations, I can express my thoughts more clearly and cause less hurt to myself and others. Duh? Yes, duh. But once again, I’m just sharing the very obvious lessons I’m learning as I’m dealing with becoming a grown up.

Pay It Forward

I have mentioned before that I follow the cutest blog, Shasta Anne at http://www.shastaanne.com/. Well lately she has been paying it forward by mentioning other blogs on her site (isn't she the sweetest!) and today she mentioned mine!! And through her, Casey at Classic With a Pop (http://classicwithapop.blogspot.com/) started following me! Thanks to Shasta for posting my blog and to Casey for checking it out!

Wonderful Weekend

We had a very full and wonderful weekend. We had an adorable house guest. We say adorable, Bo might argue. Although they are best friends and cousins, sometimes Spike (cutest name for this dog or what?!) wears out his welcome for poor sweet Bo. Sweet Spike never ever calms down, and Bo is slightly more mellow (and lovably lazy). Spike loves to chase Bo around the house and play. Bo loves this for about ten minutes, Spike for more like ten hours. We had so much fun, but every once in a while Bo needed a time out on the chair. Spike just stared until Bo was ready to play again.

So aside from loving on the two doggies all weekend, we also went to a festival at Krug Park, this beautiful park in St. Joe you should take some time to visit if you are here. One of my friends has gotten into concessions - her wording, not mine - and fries everything! I'm serious, we had fried twinkies, fried snickers, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and snow cones. YUM! I made myself sick before heading out to another great festival that same night. On Friday nights in the summer our downtown puts on free outdoor concerts! We met another couple and had drinks and listened to music and just had a wonderful time.

Saturday David and I went garage saling and then I met my wonderful friend and her daughter for lunch. My friend (check out her cute blog when you get a second: http://ashleymarie5587.blogspot.com/) and I went all through college together and even got our first jobs working for the same company on the very same team! She is one of my very favorite people in the world. Now we live about 40 minutes apart and work an hour and a half away from each other - so I cherish these lunch dates. And I adore her daughter and all her stories.

Saturday night Dave had his Rotary Anniversary Dinner. It was at the Benton Club in town (the same place we had our rehearsal dinner!) and was Caribbean themed! We had the BEST time. My adorable husband won a surprise, peer elected award. It was so touching. I am always so incredibly proud to be his wife, and I am so happy for him when he is recognized for something that he has poured so much work and love into. He loves this foundation and believes in it. He is such an inspiration to me.



I know I have rambled on and on, but I haven't even touched on today! We had a beautiful morning together at church where Sister #1 gave the sermon! She talked about Psalm 73. She did a wonderful job and I look forward to re-reading the Psalm and thinking on it this week. We then celebrated her husband's, my brother-in-laws, 32nd Birthday with turkey burgers, fruit, veggies, and ice cream cake all prepared by Sister #1. It was a wonderful day celebrating family and a wonderful weekend celebrating summer!

Happy first week of June friends! I hope your week is as wonderful as mine has been!

Holy Moly It Is Hot

Clue number 1: If you think to yourself on the way home from work that it is too hot to lay at the pool, you probably shouldn't then say, Self, let's go for a five mile run. Because about two miles from your house you will be dry heaving. The irony here is that this two mile mark is right in front of the pool where I should have been relaxing with a cold drink and Harry Potter Year 6 (oh yeah friends, I finished five and will comment on it later).
Live and learn. And go to the pool.

This

I think I was trying to decide whether I should transfer colleges (for the billionth time) when Sister # 1, after hearing my reasoning both ways for the 79^th time sighed and compassionately (and probably a little bit annoyed) turned to me and said, “I think that you think you are going to make a decision and it’s going to be like opening a door and balloons flying out and confetti spraying and you will feel like, ‘YES! This was the RIGHT decision!’ or the opposite, you think you will open that door and there will be darkness and ‘duhn duhn duhn’ music saying ‘Wow, you really screwed that up!’ It’s not like that. You make a decision and it’s good and it’s bad and you make it work.” Okay, that’s not an exact quote, but that’s pretty much what she said. Sister #1, I apologize for quoting you incorrectly, but I think I’m close.

I think that I overthink everything. And I know you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking that is the most dramatic understatement yet. I remember sitting in a class in fourth grade and learning about metaphysical thinking…or, as our teacher described it, “thinking about your thinking.” This was the worst thing someone could teach me because since that day I haven’t stopped. I annoy myself (and probably a lot of people closest to me) with thinking about why I should or shouldn’t think something, do something, or change something. It’s exhausting.

Today was a pretty big day for me. A change happened to me. In one of my other blogs I talked about how sometimes things don’t just happen, but how you can make things happen for you, not just to you. Well, this was one of those things that kinda happened to me. I think the way I reacted was my part of making sure things happen for me. But more than anything, it made me realize again that we aren’t always in control of everything (duh, right?), but that we are in control of how we react to these situations.

I started thinking back over the past few months and year. I thought of every decision I had made or been in the process of making, and how it led up to this or didn’t lead up to this. And I was driving back from the dentist and thinking about what Sister #1 had said (and yes, thinking about my thinking), and no joke, the song “This” by Hootie started playing.

There’s a part of me that will always love Hootie. I know, his name is Darius Rucker but to me he will always be Hootie. Today I felt a huge connection. And now I am listening to this on repeat as I finish working for the day.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and all your decisions end with a door opening and confetti flying out at you. But for me, today, it might just be one of those times that I am thankful and happy with making a non-decision…with deciding that I don’t have to decide (and thinking about why I am thinking this way today) J

I don't really know how I got here
But I'm so glad that I did
And it's crazy to think that one little thing
Could have changed all of it
Maybe it didn't turn out like I planned
Maybe thats why I'm such, such a lucky man

For every stoplight I didn't make
Every chance I did or I didn't take
All the nights I went too far
All the girls that broke my heart
All the doors that I had to close
All the things I knew but I didn't know
Thank God for all I missed
Cause it led me here to this