spontaneity or stupidity?

I just registered for a 5k in April and a 10k in May.  

They're both supposed to be pretty.

That should help, right?

My mission made me.

This is a comment that I believe I heard from one my institute teachers many years ago.  I was just getting ready for my mission so the thought stuck with me.  The mission was enigma to me because I had heard variations on that comment so many times.  I knew it was important. I knew it was a big deal.  I knew it would change a lot of things in my life, but I had no idea exactly HOW it would work.  I have since learned that you can't really explain it.  I worked hard for 18 months.  I came home exhausted and then it was over.  New callings came. New employment came.  I learned to apply the things I learned on the mission to the life that I was currently living, but I don't know that I felt exactly "made". I was just me, perhaps a little better, but still hopelessly flawed.
Flash forward 7 years. Here I am.  Still me. Still hopelessly flawed.  Still trying to learn/perfect things that I learned on the mission and in life since then.  Did I mention still flawed? Yup. Still flawed.  Now encountering an entirely new part of the world as I know it.  Special Needs Mutual.  The calling that I rave about to anyone that listens.  The calling that must have been inspired because the uninspired would have been mad to put me there.  The calling that has not just made me, but saved me.
I walked into the calling and the only things that people could really tell me about it were: 1) it's so much fun! (who's not up for fun?!?); and 2) there is so much love in the calling. I knew how to love.  I'm part of an amazing family that has shown me so much love.  I served a mission. I've been a Relief Society president.  I've got this under control, right?
Nope. Not a chance.  If anything, I've learned exactly how little I knew before.  I have the awesome blessing to learn from and love those who are truly chosen in the Lord's eyes. As I was set apart by a member of the stake presidency, he reminded me that these kids were the leaders in the war in heaven.  They are being protected from the world by their conditions and their broken shells of bodies.  I can learn much from them, their examples, and their Christ-like love.  And oh boy, have I.  We had a visiting ward come in last week and bring us an activity for mutual. As we cleaned everything up and sent our kids home, we found two Beehives (12 year old girls) that looked like they had been crying.  One of the other leaders asked them if they were okay.  Their response was that the kids spirits were so strong, it was beautiful.  I couldn't have said it better.  They were only there for an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.  I get to see these kids every week.-see their smiles, look into their eyes, and know that there is more in that body than we can see with our worldly eyes.  These kids have taught me to love. They give the best hugs!!! They have pulled me out side of myself and made me aware of the world around me. The have given me the opportunity to love and serve them, and in doing so have given me the blessings that my Heavenly Father has been waiting to give me when I was ready to receive them.  For that I will always be grateful...

flashback to childhood.

I've been having a hard time blogging the past few months.  I just haven't felt like I've had anything remotely interesting or profound to say. I opened blogger tonight to find 3 unfinished drafts of posts that are now all out of date. I guess I'm feeling inspired because of the new year because I have recently had a rush of genius ideas.
Last night I had a flashback to my childhood. I was amused to say the least. I was checking out at the grocery store as a mother with 3 kids was checking out in the aisle next to mine. As I walked out of the store, I followed the older two (boy about 5 and girl about 3) around the corner to the ice freezers. By the time I got there the little girl had climbed half way into the freezer and brother was trying to pull her out.  Did I mention that it was maybe 5 degrees outside? I guess it's not often that we climb into freezers to get warm. Did this happen in my childhood? No. But the kids reminded me or my brother and I.

Holland

It's 10 DAYS until Halloween. A lot of years, I've mentally skipped that and moved on to the 65 days until Christmas, but this year is different.  The past couple of years have been different.  More exciting than Halloween and Christmas has been fall.  32 days until Thanksgiving! The weather is cooling down.  The leaves are turning colors-not just in the mountains, but in my back yard. Fall food is in season. Right now I am so grateful for the blessings that I have.  As of this point I maintain that I may or may not have the best calling in the church. I am so grateful for the kids that I have the opportunity to work with.  Today we had sacrament meeting with one of the visiting wards that came and did an activity with us last week.  One of the mothers of one of our special needs kids spoke and shared a story that somehow applied.  She said she found it in Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul under disabilities. (Her daughter has cerebral palsy.) The story is called
Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley.

Having a child is like planning a vacation to Italy. You purchase your guide books, study conversational Italian, and make plans for all the sights you will see. It will be glorious. After months of preparation you pack your bags and hop on your plane. Eight hours later the plane lands and the stewardess says, "Welcome to Holland."
Holland?! I planned for Italy. I signed up for Italy!
There has been a change in plans. You landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that you aren't in a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, ridden with famine and disease. It's just different.
So you must go out and buy new guidebooks, learn a new language, and get to know different people than you were originally planning.  After a while you notice that it's not a bad place. It's just different. It's slower paced and less flashy, but it has windmills. It has tulips. It even has Rembrandts.  It is hard to give up Italy. It has been a dream, a goal, for so long. People will continue to talk about it for as long as they go and come. You will change. You will learn to love Holland for everything that it is instead.

As a 30 year old, never married, single in the LDS community sometimes I feel like I've been shipped to Holland especially when the kids I grew up with are on their second, even third trips to Italy.  This calling has helped me to notice that Holland really is amazing. These kids are my Rembrandts. I am so blessed. I think I'm going to learn Dutch. Or at least how to make stroopwafels.

why I am awesome; or, why my parents think my life is better than television

As is typical with a growing practice, work is getting busy. Some days I would go so far as to say crazy busy.  One of the girls has recently had surgery and while she's recovering my schedule has changed a little bit. Because we're all helping cover for her, there hasn't really been anyone to cover for me while I spend a lot of time on the phone with insurance companies. All this leads up to me working today. I like my Fridays off, but I don't mind working Fridays every once in a while because it's SUPER quiet and I can be more productive when there's no one around. Flash forward to today. I'm at work.  I arrive just after the good doctor goes in with his last patient. I let the girl at the desk know that I'm in my office upstairs and to not set the alarm when she leaves. I can set it when I leave.  She tells me that she's leaving soon so I volunteer to text the doctor and let him know that I'm here so he doesn't set the alarm on me and we don't interrupt his visit.  He doesn't like it when we interrupt. It destroys his biofeedback. Nicely done.  Way to be a thinker.
So I go upstairs and start working. I'm on the phone with an insurance company when all of a sudden I notice a shrill beeping coming up the stairs from the back door. Grrrrrrrr. He did NOT get the memo. This means I have 60 seconds to sprint across the top floor of the office, down all 21 stairs, around the corner, down the hall, and deactivate the alarm before the the alarms goes off and the city police and fire department are on their merry way to rescue me from the emergency.  So I sprinted. Across the top floor, down all 21 stairs (highly grateful for fire code that requires handles on both sides of the staircase and conversely terrified by the fact that my feet are not used to the new flip flops on them), around the corner and deactivated the alarm with 23 seconds remaining. Awesome. As much as I'd like to spend quality time with the fire department...crisis averted.
10 minutes later I got a phone call from the doctor. "HEY! Are you there? I just left the office and set the alarm! Are you okay?" I got it Doc. No worries. "I just got your text! I'm at Home Depot. I'm sorry." It's okay. I am that good.

Voices Inside My Head

I had a conversation with my roommate this morning. We were discussing the voices (or lack thereof) inside our heads.  She just bought a new pair of shoes and apparently had a conversation with me (discussing pros and cons and actual necessity) in her head before she did so. I'm flattered? We discussed the fact that she frequently hears me, her parents, her boss, and a few others when she is stressed, busy, excited, or just needs someone to be excited with her.  I may have laughed at her a little.  She asked me about the voices inside my head. I told her that I don't really have any.  She told me that I was weird because I don't hear voices. "Everybody has voices!"   I decided that there are phrases that I hear, but I have adopted the actual voice that projects them in my mind.  I guess that is why I like quotes so much. Here are some of the most prominent:

• "Make it a good day!"

Mom told us this every morning as we walked out the door to school. It has helped a lot. So many times my attitude has changed drastically as I have tried to MAKE it a good day.  Sometimes my attitude is the only thing I CAN change in a situation. 

• "What good can possibly come from a day that begins with waking up in the morning?"

Dad's counter quip to Mom's morning advice. Believe it or not, I'm a night owl. I tell my patients that I'm a morning person by necessity, not choice. 

• "Wise people learn from experience.  Super-wise people learn from other's experience. Super-super-wise people learn from the Lord to begin with."

Squeeg (the brother) spoke in stake conference when he was 15-16ish.  I was in calculus at the time and amused myself by taking derivatives and integrals of random equations. I snapped out of it long enough to hear him make that statement. I try to apply that statement as much as possible. It makes me feel: 1) educated, and 2) ahead of the game. If I learn it from others, I don't have to go through the pain of learning it by myself.

• "It's Thankful Thursday! What are you thankful for?"

One of the girls that I used to visit teach used to send me Thankful Thursday texts with lists of things that she was thankful for.  It's amazing how having time scheduled for gratitude can change perception and reality in my mind.  I like Thankful Thursdays.

I hope you all appreciate the voices in your head. Make them a positive rather than a negative. 

must. blog.

I've reached that point again. I feel like someone else should be updating this thing. It has been over a month. I'm an exciting person. I have things I could be talking about. Right? Right. About that...
-I went to New York. I checked something off my bucket list. I went to Guilford Lake. As spell check is telling me that Guilford is spelled wrong, I'm guessing the rest of you are looking at that and wondering where on earth this place is.  It's a small lake upstate in New York. My uncle's family has a cottage on the lake. They built it somewhere around 1920. They've been going there every summer ever since. I've always had an open invitation to come visit, but let's be honest.  How often do I spend time in upstate New York?  My cousin got married there so I booked a flight and had one of the best weekends of my summer. I spent a little time in the city-went to the Manhattan LDS Temple and saw Jim Parsons in HARVEY, but the bulk of it was at Guilford. I will go back someday.
-I have the BEST. CALLING. EVER. I work in special needs mutual. It's a new thing. I'm still not quite sure that I know exactly what I'm doing, but I am having a good time.  I'm looking forward to working with the other leaders and the kids are FANTASTIC. I'm sure you'll hear more about that later.
-I love good food. I don't think I can really express how much I love good food. I'm always on the lookout for something tasty. Roommate and I made some delightful fish tacos the other day. That also took us to a Latin market. I've forgotten exactly how much I love all things Latin. I should go back. Soon.
-I LOVE HARVEST TIME!!! Yesterday after church I picked 8 cucumbers, 6 tomatoes, and a green pepper. Today's lunch was a quesadilla filled with cream cheese and jalapeno peppers, topped with fresh tomatoes. I have no words.
-Apparently I am incapable of NOT talking about food so I guess it's okay for me to mention that we picked plums today. And made jam. Roommate may have cried when she dropped our last jar from last year. We are now replenishing the supply. I feel good about that. It's yummy stuff. Just don't ask about the sugar content. Ignorance is bliss.
-The nephews are always good for a chuckle.  The highlight of the 4-year-old's 4th birthday was getting to use scissors for the first time. The 2-year-old (who thinks he is 3) thinks they should name their new baby sister Sally Djibouti.
I think I have a recurring goal. Every 3 months or so, I decide I need to blog more. I'd like to think I could, but as of this point, I'm making no promises.