My First Day!

The first day of school was fun! I had two classes, Pharm/Physio and Assessment later in the evening. I can tell that this is going to be an experience of a lifetime for me. The faculty is so helping and I love being around them, I mean they are all nurses and I think my brain is wired from my accident to really feel safe and comfortable around nurses :)

The campus is honestly beautiful! To the cathedral to the Lone Mountain buillding that sits a top the hill of the campus. It has saints at every corner in the halls of the building and there are crosses in each room. My Pharm/Physio room has the most spectaculare view of the Golden Gate Bridge - AH, breathtaking!!

I got most of my books yesterday (I called the bank to take out a second on our home in Walnut Creek! ;) ) and then got my ID card for the hospital clinics and campus! So cute!! Now, I am organizing all my class material and reviewing the syllabi.

This semester is going to go quick, the entire program is! It's going to be a lot of work.. there are honestly only two grades in Grad school, an A or a B.. anything else you are asked to retake the class, and if you have to take a class twice... they drop you from the program. Talk about instilling the fear of God in you!

I'm just happy and thankful that everything worked out the way it has! I feel SO incredible blessed to be able to take this journey and to have such an endeering Husband who supports me so.

It's Official... MY FIRST DAY!

It is 8:45 and I just wanted to capture the first day excitement that I am feeling! I honestly cannot believe that this is it, I'm HERE! I have worked so hard directly and indirectly over the past three years to get here, and I am here. I visualized thi day three years ago when I was watching the movie the secret - but it out to the universe and now I am here. A million thanks to the love of my life for helping and supporting me emotionally to believe in myself, for without him I would not be here.

I know that there will be a lot of hard work and challenges over the coming months and years and each semester will pose different challenges both mentally and academically, but I am so excited! Oh my GOSH... I am going to be a RN!

Alright, I am off... wish me luck ;)

It's A GIRL!!

Kelly gave birth today at 12:54pm! It's a girl! She is beatiful and Mommy and Baby are doing great! It's so exciting to see the Sekera's become a family! God bless them and their newest little one, Madilyn Samantha Sekera!

New Year Resolutions

I was "booging" (throwing useless stuff out) our house and ran across the journal I use to write in after my car accident. Besides the craziness that was that time, I randomly wrote in it a year ago today... January 12th, 2009. Here is what I wrote (I copied it from Maria Shriver)

1. I pledge to "show up as me" in my life, not as an imitation of anyone else.

2. I pledge to avoid using the word "just" to describe myself. For example, I will won't say "Im just a CPA or I'm just working at PricewaterhouseCoopers or I just live here."

3. I pledge to give myself 10 minutes a day of silence and stillness everyday to get in touch with my heart and hear my own voice.

4. I pledge to use my voice to connect my dreams to my actions.

5. I pledge to use my voice to empower myself and others.

6. I pledge to serve my community at least once a year in a way that will benefit other people.

7. I pledge to ask myself "Who Am I? What do I believe in? What am I grateful for? What do I want my life to stand for?"

8. I pledge to write down my mission statement.

9. I pledge to live my own legacy.

10. And I pledge to pass it on.

Most Important - It's not what you DO in life ... it's who you are.

So those 10 things were what Maria Schriver's book said - a sort of New Years Resolution. Looking back over the past year, there have been a TON of changes in not only my life, but our life (Brett and I) and hopefully my friends. This year I am going to continue to make sure I let my friends and family know how important they are to me. I know I've checked a lot of things off last years New Years Resolutions list, and I am excited to see where I go in 2010 and continue to challenge myself to become a better person.

Here were some of my New Year Resolutions for 2009:
1. Sign up for School
2. Refocus on health
3. Spiritual practice
4. Support Brett as he does me (x10)
5. Sit with myself 20 minutes a day
6. Learn something new
7. Help my Mom
8. Love
9. Give joy & happiness to others
10. Be
11. Take off the armour that was put on me as a child
12. Live an authentic life (my favorite one)
13. Tell my story
14. Help other people
15. My community
16. Live life as myself

In addition to the ones above (some of which I have successfully placed an imaginary checkmark next to, these are my 2010 Resolutions:

1. Become a Triathlete
2. Have a morning/evening routine to enhance the organization of my home
3. Eat Healthy
4. Love my Husband intimately
5. Understand my place in the world as fully as possible.
6. Enhance gratitude and appreciation for living in America
7. Write a book.
8. Be valedictorian
9. Become an Registered Nurse.
10. Habitat for Humanity volunteer overseas
11. Wake up early & like it

Two weeks EXACTLY, and counting...

Today is 2 weeks from my start date for the Nursing program at USF! WOW!

I cannot believe that I am actually doing this. I was just tending to my home, my wifely duties, you know ... and I am listening to my Pandora, and the Pussycat Dolls song came on ... "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it..." Well I got it, and it reminded me both to be appreciate of what is happening to me in my life at the present moment at hand and of Becky singing the song to her son Wyatt (she literally just gmail chatted me as I wrote that - weird!).

I am feeling very theroetical right now (it's usually right after my monthly visitor) and if you pay attention to your cycle you might notice it too... like today I was in the grocery store looking at valentine's day cards and they were all making me cry. HA! Maybe that isn't therorical but crazy... As Ryan Scott would say - transistion....

"Transition", lately there has sort of been a theme in my life. A lot of what is happening to me is very difficult to process, from our trip to China/Thailand to being accepted to the first nursing school I applied to, it's just a lot of things are all "stimulating" me at once, and it's really been difficult to process.

So ironically enough, that makes the concept of time seem both fast and slow at the same time. Like on our trip to China/Thailand, we were gone for three weeks, but it didn't feel like three weeks - not shorter, not longer, but it just went by like sand in a hour glass - I really felt "time" for the first time as out of control. I wanted the sunshine to shine longer or a bad boat ride to go faster (but those two things can't happen at the same time). My point is that I have two weeks left of "nothing to do" and I am going to try to appreciate my life and myself, my friends and my family for truly who and what they are, staying true to myself and stay in the present moment. It's just funny sometimes to think of who you've been, who you are now and who you hope to be in the future and reconcille all of those three pieces at once. Then to compare those pieces to the time that has passed and the time that is left and get an answer - I think the answer is staying in the present moment and appreciate life's blessings as they come, for better or worse.

You said you wanted to get "fur-shnickered"... I think Aaron found "Fur-shnickerville"

We spent a day/evening up in Napa with Aaron and his girlfriend, wine tasting/dinner and Bocci Ball and Aaron wanted to get Fur-shnickered with us. Not only did Aaron get Fur-shnickered, but he pronounced himself the Major of Fur-snickerville.

Sleepy heads

So the night after B and I slept for 15 hours, we didn't sleep at all the night of Jan 1. We layed in bed for 7 hours together tossing and turning, until we said screw it and just got up. We didn't get tired again until our way home from Napa, it was horrible. We just woke up now today.

Here are two more funny photos from our trip, you vote who wears it best...

Home from abroad!!

It's hard to believe we landed yesterday in SFO at 8:00am. Our total travel time was roughly 24 hours and we were unable to sleep on either flight home. Boo! We woke at up 2 am Bangkok on December 31. Bangkok is 15 hours ahead of SF making it 11:00am on Dec 30th here in SF. We flew from Bangkok to Tokyo, Japan (a 7 hour flight) and had a 3 hour layover there, then flew from Tokyo to SFO (10 hour flight). All in all, it ended up being appx 22-24 hours travel time with no sleep! Needless to say we were beyond exhausted. We took a nap right when we got home before picking up our cute little one from Grandma and Grandpa's.

When we woke up, we headed over to B's parents to visit and have a second X-Mas. Matt and Kelly stopped by around 11pm to visit and ring in the New Year with us and Dick Clark. Then headed to bed and slept from 1:00am to 4:45pm! We woke up and it was dark outside! Brett and I thought that his clock was wrong, so he ran out to Kathy and asked her, and we still can't believe it. Our sleep cycle has yet to catch up to our travel cycle and it will probably be a few days until it does. Actually looking back at it now, it doesn't seem to ridiculous that we slept for 15 hours considering we missed an entire nights sleep, it will be interesting to see what happens tonight since we've only been up for 6 hours and its 11pm.

Tomorrow we're headed to Napa to ring in the New year with Aaron Plotkin and his girlfriend. From China/Thailand to Napa Valley California... Brett and I have decided after seeing the craziness that is China and Thailand that we probably live in the best place (region) on earth for the following reasons: (1) Our food has USDA standards, (2)our dollar has value, (3) our people may not have standardized health care like other parts of the world, but (4)we're also not sleeping in shanties on the side of the street, next to rat infested garbage piles that sit next to our makeshift market where we sell fly infested noodles. The list goes on but most importantly, the roads are "safe" (I think I can validly say that as the scariest car ride of my life is no longer my car accident but our car ride out to The Great Wall of China, more specifically back from the Great Wall where our driver was going 160 km (100mph), falling asleep and driving in two lanes, sometimes along the shoulder of the road to pass cars during his wake cycles). Honestly!

I am going to post some photos (sorry they're are kinda a few). We took about 1700 photos, so I will need to sift through them and make a top 100 list or something so I don't bore people to death. Overall, we had a an amazingly great time and are happy and thankful to be home safe and sound.

Happy New Year!