I Love Surprises!

I LOVE surprises! (For the most part). Take last night for example. I got off work really late and it was a bad day at work yesterday so I was not in a good mood when I got off work. Well, anyway, my brother needed my car today so he dropped me off at my house since I'm off work today. When I got home, I walked in the door and there, talking to my roommate is Jason! Now for those who don't know who Jason is, he is one of my very, very good friends. He lives in Washington D.C. so I don't get to see him all that often. He's here because he has to do an investigation in Wichita (he's FBI). So we spent all night talking. And this morning I got up at 4am to do my regular excersize routine. Since I didn't feel like going to the gym this morning I just ran a few miles since its so nice outside and the bike trail and river are right by the house. Well Jason came along since he runs a few miles every day. I totally showed him up and he was out of breath way before I was even thinking of being out of breath! I was pretty excited. See he's Army trained and has to stay in shape since he works the homiced unit at the FBI so it takes a lot for him to get tired so I was on top of the world. He was impressed but doesn't think I'll be able to do it again tomorrow... I'll show him!
I am so happy he's here. I can't wait until he gets back; I'm going to take him to Hillsboro tonight to meet some of my friends before I tell my brothers that he is here. He and my brothers get along great so whenever he's here I wait a few days to tell the that he's here because I never get to see him when my brothers find out, they always monopolize his time. Oh well, at least they don't hate him and is always threatening him like some of my other past boyfriends.
Like I said at the begining, I LOVE surprises and it has made my day pretty good. So I hope your day is great and I'll catch ya on the flip side;-p

Nobody Seems to Get It

You know, I try to be patient and I keep on trying but no matter how long I wait and no matter what I do I still can't get a job. I have been trying to get a nanny job for a year now. And nothing. I have had a few hopefuls but as of late no one seems to want me. Its not as though I don't have experience. I have had lots of experience. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm trying too hard or maybe not enough but whatever it is I want this waiting process to be over and me to have a good job! A job that doesn't stress me out so much and I can stop going to bed crying at night because my life is so stressfull and nobody seems to get it. Don't get me wrong, being here with my brothers is great and I get to see my nieces and nephews all the time but man, I just keep thinking this wasn't what was supposed to happen.
I know people get tired of my complaining, even I'm getting tired of my complaining, but what am I supposed to do that I haven't already done?
I have been to every business around here looking for a job so its not just nanny jobs I'm looking for. I'll take anything at this point. I know I haven't had that much experience in the job market and employers look at my nanny experience and they go, "Oh you've never had a job before", and so they pass over me. I mean come on! Child care is just about every job out there. There's cooking, cleaning, organization, chauffering, there's child care itself, there's time managment, record keeping, doctoring, you name it and I've done it. So why can't people see that? I'm starting to think that this world is very biased. If you have job experience in the "real world" then you can have a job but if your resume incldes nanny or child care then you haven't worked at all.
I don't get it and I probably never will but I guess I have to keep on going and keep on trying.

Changes

Okay, so some of you may or may not know but since October I have been a red head. Yes, I dyed my hair red. I let my friend who is a student at the Sidney hair salon school here in Kansas dye and ct my hair hair because no one else would let her come near them. Now I loved being a red head and Nicole did an awesome job. However, I have been missing my blonde hair so she dyed it back to blonde for me. Either this week or next new I'm going to have it cut. I don't know whether it will be drastic or not but I want something to show off the new me. I haven't felt or looked this good in ages and I hope that this is a step towards being a new me. A me that I can be proud of and not be too shy to let anyone in. A me that can get a new job that doesn't stress me out. A me that I will love and not hide.

An Update

All right its been a few weeks since I've posted and I just thought that i might share some of what's been going on. Since the whole diagnosis I have undergone some major changes in my life. I have cut all processed sugars (even the less than 2% in certain items). This has taken a small toll in my wallet but if its going to help me then I'll keep it up. I have continued to excersize for an hour and do another hour of yoga every morning. This has helped me to lose a lot of weight (no complaints on that part). I have gotten past my plataue of a certain size. I have never been able to get smaller than a size 16 jean size. I have gone past that all the way down to a size 12 and I am super excited about that! I have stalled a little bit but that just tells me I need to change up my routine a little.
I have had trouble still trying to get stress out of my life. A lot of it is my boss causing me to not be able to yell at him for blaming stuff that he got in trouble for on me, but that's a whole 'nother story. I have been working a lot of over-time lately because our assistant manager is on maternatiy leave and the manager is out for surgery which means I'm the only other cook left and so I get a lot of hours. Its good for my pay check but bad for my stress levels. Just a couple more weeks of that though.
The one thing that keeps me going is knowing that the second weekend in April is pretty big for me. I get to go home for the weekend and I am sooooooooo excited for that. I miss everyone back home! Yes its true. I'm going to be leaving here the 9th after I get off work and then drive up to Iowa with my brother (long story on that part), and I will be there for the 10th, 11th, and come back here the 12th. So if you want to see me then you should totally let me know!
I better go, life goes on and I have a job interview in the morning before I head off to my current job (fingers crossed I get this one). So you guys have fun, enjoy life and what it has to offer.
I'll catch ya on the Flip side;-)

A Diagnosis

I have a small heart defect caused by repressing too much stress over a long period of time. I found out on Wednesday. While this is treatable I still have to be very careful. I have to find an outlet so I don't cause any more problems to my heart and I may have to have surgery on it within a couple of years if it doesn't improve.
While this may be dangerous I'm still going to try and get a positive out of this. I have to change some of my work, social, and personal habits. The doctor told me that since I have been excersizing for an hour five times a week this time it wasn't really bad but it could have been worse. So I'm going to keep up my excersize routine but adde other things too it rather. Before I was doing 30 minutes of cardio and then I would do some abdominal excersizes and weight training for 30 minutes followed by 15 minutes of more cardio. Now I'm going to keep the abdominal and weight training and 30 minutes of cardio but I'm adding another 30 minutes of yoga. This will help me to clear my mind and relax and get ready for the day (this is all done at 4 am monday through friday). On Saturdays and Sundays I will be doing 30 minutes to an hour of yoga. I am also going to be walking more; but at a desirable pace to stop and enjoy nature. I'm going to get out my bike and since the new bike path is ready I have a nice visit with nature while going on it.
Its not just my excersize routine thats changing its my eating habits too. My doctor said that I needed to hold a little bit of the proccessed sugar and so I decided to quit all proccessed sugars. Its hard but I want to be able to fulfill my dreams and plans you know. Since I'm a vegetarian I have to make sure that I'm getting all the protein and other nutrients that I need on a daily basis. My work habits are going to be hardest to change because I need to keep up my hours so that I can pay all my bills but I have to either switch jobs or switch departments where I work because the Chinese Kitchen is just wrecking havic on me more than anything else. I still baby sit all my nieces and nephews because that isn't stressfull to me; quite the opposite really. I feel more relalxed whenever I babysit actually.
I have to change the way I think of thigs too. I like to do and then think but now I need to think before I do somethings, like if I want to go sky diving. I can do it but I have to make sure it won't be at a stressfull time like there's a major family thing happening (yes I love sky diving, I have gone several times).
While I'm making these changes I know I'll have trouble but I know that I will have Heavenly Father there to help me and I know I have the support of my family and my friends.

All I Ask

Hey guys.
So for a few weeks now, as some of you already might know, I've been really sick and haven't known what is wrong with me. I've been rushed to the ER twice last week alone. I've gone to the doctor almost every single day last week and I've been poked and prodded by so many needles that my arms, hands and feet are permanently brusied, so they seem anyway. However in all that they still don't know whats wrong with me. I have been given medicine for the symptoms but they cause the other symptoms to get worse and new ones arrive. I'm not contagious so I do work but its really hard to. Last week I passed out at work and that was one of the times that I was rushed to the ER. On Friday, I went to a specialist. An oncologist. Tomorrow I'm supposed to get the results back. I'm really scared. I don't know what to expect and I don't know what I'm going to do should something really serious happen.
So all I ask is that, when you say your prayers, would you spare one line for me? I'm really scared and could use all the prayers that I can right now.
Thank you in advance.
-Elizabeth

Interesting Conversation

Sometimes I am just amazed at what people will tell me when I serve them at work. I work in the Chinese deli at Dillon's. Sometimes people will tell me about their day, others will complain to me about their kids or something they can't find in the store. During some of these times I wish I had a video camera to capture these moments.
Take for example today. It was really REALLY slow today. I believe that we had a total of 50 people all day. There were a couple people who just really cracked me up. The first customer that I served today was was the funniest that I have met in a long time. She was really busy and her phone kept on ringing but she kept trying to have a serious conversation with me about the horrible weather and how the dense fog is such a bad thing for the environment and the how its messing up her cat's digestive cycle. It was hilarious!
Another person I talked to today was a regular of ours. He's deaf and I've learned some basics of sign language and I tend to mess up some of the signs sesame chicken and anything that has chicken in it. I don't know I just mess up signing "chicken". It comes out meaning something totally different. Like today it came out "cleaning". I don't know where that came from it just happened. All I know is that this guy just totally busted up laughing and I felt foolish. Ah well we figured it out in the end. We had a good laugh about it though.
However, I really wish that I had a video camera on Thursday night. It was winding down after the dinner rush and this one older gentleman came in in a motorized wheelchair and he had on a breathing tank and he was in a talkative mood. After I finished serving him and rang him up he started talking to me about college and what I was planning on doing with my life. I told him about my filmming and how I loved making documentaries. I told him that I'd like to do a documentary on the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else and how this affects the women who serve while they're there and after. Well anyway, he thought that was a great idea nd he started talking about his time when he was stationed in Germany in WWII. I learned so much from him in a span of about 30 minutes and I know that if I could talk to him longer I would get a lot of good stories out of him and learn so much about the stuff that we didn't see in the press. It was amazing. He told me of some of the families that he helped and the people who served with him. He told me in particular about this one family. They didn;t speak a word of english but they were so greatful to him and the unit that all they could do was cry and hug them. In 1984 he recieved a letter from the youngest child in the family. He had grown up and he had moved to America. He was living in New York and he had found this man who saved his family and he wanted to thank him. Last year he came to visit this gentleman. This was awesome to me. I got to talk to a real hero. A man who sacrificed 5 years to help these families in Germany and Austria. He gave up 5 years of seeing his family. He gave up seeing his first daughter born and the first few years of her life. This man is a true hero. I would love to talk to him again and I can't wait for him to come in again so I can talk to him some more.
I learn so much from some of these people and other people I just want to laugh at. Although there are days when I just want to yell at some of these people and tell them to grow up!. Oh well, people are people and everyone is different. I guess we just have to put up with everyone else because they put up with us right? Before I close I just have to ask of you parents and guardians this, "Please don't allow your kids to put their hands and faces on the glass case because it is horrible to clean up. Also please don't put your hands on top of it either, I have to clean that and I can't totally reach the top with out a step stool." Anyway, I look forward to Wednesday and the new people to make me laugh and the new lessons to learn, and the interesting people to meet.
I'll catch ya on the flip side!-p