Birthday Wishes

It has been well over a month since my actual birthday and I have had the best intentions of posting about what an amazing time I had but I guess it has had to wait until now. the thing about my birthday is that I don't hate it but I also don't like planning it for myself, it has always just felt like something someone else should do for you. Don't ask me why I think that, I can't tell you where that line of thought comes from. So now that I am older I just kind of go with the flow when it comes to my birthday. I might plan small things but no big parties, at least not until I am turning 30... only a couple years away *sigh*

This year turned out to be the best, somethings just came together and somethings I planned but overall it turned out pretty great and in the end what more could I really ask for. It turned out to be a weekend event type thing without me even trying, I had to work late that Friday night but still wanted to go out after work even if just for a little while. On the way out of work I found a $5 bill just hanging out on the ground. I feel like that was a good sign of things to come. I spent a couple of hours after that with friends at a local bar, drinking some cherry coke and listening to awesome karaoke. But I couldn't stay too late because the next day I had to be up early.

That Saturday was the day before my birthday, this year it happen to coincide with the San Francisco Color Run, also known as the happiest 5K on the planet. My friend and I got up early, especially for a Saturday and drove to San Francisco where we really did have a great time run/walking our first 5K. After we were tired but she wanted to take me to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner, neither of us had ever been there but it was great. We were sunburnt and tired, the robotic snake was ridiculous, and we got stare after stare from people because we were a pink color, but let's face it I would of stared as well. It was great!

Finally on Sunday, the real day of my birth, I went to church and then hung out with family. Well sort of my adopted family, that is what we are calling it anyways. We had pot roast for dinner, watched a movie, opened some presents, had some cake, and played Skip-Bo. All in all it was really a great day, I even enjoyed that my Dad used his Facebook to wish my an additional happy birthday. He is learning the ways of technology, I am so proud!

How does it feel to be another year older? Sometimes I wonder what the heck I am doing with my life. How did I get here and where am I going? But then I realize how very blessed I am, I may not have everything in the world that I expected to have at this age when I was younger, but I have a lot of things that I never could of dreamed of having at this age when I was 20. My own apartment and my little Guido, great friends and family, two jobs and a church calling, my health and the ability to do activities that I enjoy. I may not have everything I expected to have at this age, but I have come to realize that there are so many things in this life that I will obtain, I would just be spoiled if I got it all at once, and I wouldn't appreciate the things I do have nearly as much.

Gardener for Life

I have always loved gardening! Even before I could really walk I was doing it, and best of all it was something that I got to do with my Grandfather when he was still alive. I remember the fruits and vegetables that we used to grow and eat were so delicious and though it was hard work, there was more than enough food for our grandparents, my family, my aunt and uncle's family and then some. We shared with whomever would want to eat, literally, the fruits of our labor.

Me, Grandpa and Grandma

These days things are a little different, Grandpa has been gone almost two years and I live farther away from my immediate family in an apartment with no lawn or really any ground to plow and sow my fields. But with the help of the internet, Pinterest, my friends and my knowledge from my Grandfather, I am working yet again on a little garden of my own. I have become very obsessed with the idea of being able to at least provide myself and my friends with a minimum of fresh fruits and vegetables this year.

Growing everything out of containers and raised planters, if I get that ambitious. But for know I am starting with some aloe vera, tomato and zucchini that I picked up at the store this last weekend. If all goes well I am hoping soon to add some strawberries and blackberries which I will be growing out of a wooden pallet of all things. It will be amazing if I manage to get it all together and working. But even if I don't quite get it right this time I can try again next year and learn from my mistakes this time. And if I do get it right, then more berry scones to go around.

My little garden beginnings - Day 1

Puzzle Pieces

Puzzles can be metaphors for many things, but they work really well for the analogy of small pieces making up a bigger picture. With each small piece you can't necessarily tell what the overall image is going to be, it takes a couple of pieces together to start to form the begins of the picture. Sometimes a section to the right of the puzzle forms and then a section in the bottom corner. Slowly things come together.

It can take a long time to get the whole puzzle of our lives together, in fact it pretty much takes an entire lifetime and maybe then some to get it all completed. But what I am fast learning is that each of us can take away some happiness even from the partial sections of the puzzle that are beginning to come together.

I think most recently I can apply this concept into my life through a health stand point. I am no doubt far from perfect in the eat healthy, work out everyday mind set, but today was one of those days that I notice a small section of my puzzle coming together. At work our offices get cleaned once every other week and I can usually monitor what week it is by how much my trash is full. For a while I was eating out a lot at lunch but for the last while I have been working on improving dislike of preparing meals to bring to work.

I have eaten out very little in the recent past and it definitely reflected the hard work that I have been putting into making that change in my life. When the janitor came in to clean my office this morning my trash was less than 3/4 full. Usually when I eat out more often it it compacted at least twice by my foot and still overflowing but not this time. A sound purchase in some snapware, doing more dishes at home and staying in some nights to cook food to last a couple of days has lead me to better health and a positive step towards saving the environment from my trash.

It may not be a big section of my puzzle it may not even be all that important but it is the small pieces that make up the larger puzzle, and rejoicing the small and simple things is what is going to help get us all through until we are able to see the bigger picture and how beautiful that is.

New Year, New Attitude

As I was listening to people bear their testimonies today in Sacrament meeting I realized how optimistic people become at the thought of beginning a new year. It is as if the change of the last digit on the calendar has actually changed everything in their lives. Everything that people want becomes attainable, or at least it seems that is the way people feel.

I don't really know that I am an exception to this idea, I too have seen a change in my attitude and my life as this year begins to move forward. I don't want things to be the same in all aspects of my life but I do recognize that I need to change somethings and I am working on them. And somehow because the year changed I am afforded the opportunity to make the changes that I so desperately want.

There are certain things that I can't control that still feel are out of my reach, but I am trying to focus on the short term goals that can hopefully make a difference in the way I am living. I guess that is why one of the concepts I really liked learning in church today was the idea that with many things in our life we may fail but we are blessed with the option to try and try again.

Although the effort can be a taxing ordeal and many times it becomes discouraging for the person repeating the attempt, I thought more about what a privilege it is to be able to try something over again until you get it right. A great example is such, I may stink sometimes at sitting down and typing out my thoughts on my blog, but at anytime I can make the attempt to get back on track. And the good news is that blogs are like children, if you think this one is going bad then you can always just make another and try again ;)

Climb Every Mountain

Or in this case stair.

Let's talk about StairMasters. It is the newest machine at the gym that I am attempting to work out on. And I do mean attempting in the loosest of terms. When I got on it for the first time last week I started to have an asthma attack. Between the pain from lack of oxygen and the fear I had of falling off the machine I quickly decided that I wouldn't be stepping on that death trap again anytime soon.

Seriously check out this machine

You can't tell me that this doesn't look completely scary. There is at least a foot and a half between the first step and the ground.

However I faced my fear today and got on the death machine again. I made it twice as long as last time without stopping which was a great achievement. But even more than just that, this machine made me sweat like no other machine I have been on in the gym. Not that the other machines don't give me a good workout but literally sweat dripping down my face, it was just so weird.

I liked it very much, it made me feel like I was actually accomplishing something at the gym and in such a short amount of time, which is nice because I have only been dedicating about 30 mins to the gym after work these days. And in all honestly that is a big improvement over the not going at all that was happening before now.

It is my personal goal to work out two important things this summer in the extra time I will have. One, to get a nice tan so I don't look like a ghost in the dark at night, and two, have a fantastic set of gluts. A little vain you may say and perhaps it is but I will be working on other things at the gym as well that will make my body a bit stronger and that is the ultimate goal. Nice gluts are just a side effect ;)