Ireland Iceland? What's going on?

Well as some of you may be aware, I was supposed to be going to Ireland this week. I've been planning this trip for the last nine months with some close friends of mine, Ireland enthusiasts, you might call them. The plan was to leave Friday the 16th and return home the 26th.

On the 14th I got a call from one of these friends, Brent, telling me the errupting volcano in Iceland had interrupted airtraffic in all of Europe and that our flight might be canceled. You can imagine how closely we followed the news after this. Friday morning, the flight wasn't canceled so we decided to try. We boarded the plane in Salt Lake, made it all the way to JFK airport and waited for six hours to baord our plane. One hour before we were supposed to board, the flight was cancelled. Ouch.

It wasn't so bad, we spent the night in New York and came home the next day. We still haven't made up our minds as for if we are going to reschedule the trip or just request a refund. (Which I must say I thought was pretty generous of the airlines to offer us both.) I have to admit, while I'm not happy about it, it isn't this bitter pill of dissapointment like I thought it would be. My mom suggested that maybe I am just growing up and learning to cope with disaspointment. I paused when she said this and replied, "... Naw, that couldn't be it!" ;-)

Well Ireland, hopefully you and I will meet again soon!

Adversity

I came across this message today from Aimee Mullens and found it to be an amazing perspective on adversity. The crux of her message is this,

"Implicit in this phrase, of “over-coming adversity”, is the idea that success or happiness is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience. As if my successes in life have come about from an ability to side step or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics or what other people perceive as my disability. But in fact we are changed, we are marked, of course, by a challenge. Whether physically, emotionally, or both. I am going to suggest this is a good thing. Adversity isn’t an obstacle we need to get around in order to resume living our life, it is part of our life. I tend to think of it like my shadow. Sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there’s very little, but it is always with me. Certainly, I am not trying to diminish the impact, the weight of a person’s struggle. There is adversity and challenge in life. And it is all very real and relative to every single person. But the question isn’t whether or not you are going to meet adversity, but how you are going to meet it. So our responsibility is not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them to meet it well."

Feel free to check it out here:
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2010/03/08/ted.aimee.mullins.ted

A perfect day!

Today was my birthday. In the past I have tried to keep quiet and be on modest about it, but this year I really felt like celebrating. The plan was to make the two and half hour drive up to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho with a small group of friends, but when people started canceling, I started to wonder what the day was going to be like. The morning started out with a phone from the last friend who said he couldn't make it. I have to confess, I was a bit bummed; and not at all excited about starting out this day.

Now maybe this is lesson about life, I suppose it isn't much of a stretch, but all I had to do was get out of bed and face the day. I walked out to my front room, where my roommates had decorated and gotten me flowers and birthday breakfast donuts (this was on top of the cookies baked yesterday). What a beautiful way to be greeted in the morning! I told them that the Lava Hot Springs were off and my one roommate, Lynette, could sense I was bummed. So she announced that we were going to go for a walk. She is so great, we start walking down the street and she starts picking up litter and throwing it in the garbage. What a great example. As we neared the end of our walk, I got a phone call from my dear friends, Sorina and Marian, in Romania. I was so excited to talk to them. They were such good friends and took such great care of me while I was there. It was wonderful to hear the voices.

Once we ended the call, my sister came by and picked me up to go for hour long massages at the UCMT (Utah College of Massage Therapy). It is always nice to spend time with my sister and it has been especially wonderful lately as I haven't seen very much of her lately but I got to see her yesterday, today, and will see her tomorrow. Plus, we got massages. :)
I got home from that and jumped in the shower. By the time I got out my good friend, Rob, came and took me out to lunch. We went to Red lobster, I had the shrimp and lobster linguine and it was delicious!

I got back home and jumped online, trying to figure out what I was going to do tonight and found an event at a high class hotel in Salt Lake City. "An evening of Jazz and Music", which turned out to be a five course meals of chocolate deserts. For anyone that knows me, they will know these are two of my great loves. I could not have designed a more perfect evening. I ended going with my dear friend, Melissa and a group of other including her brother and sister, Sterling and Cicely. It was so awesome to just sit in the beautiful lobby of this high class hotel and taste those chocolate delicacies. Everyone seemed to really just enjoy themselves and the conversation we had with each other. Another bonus of the evening was receiving a phone call from my brother who is currently in Korea with the Airforce.

All in all it was an absolutely perfect day. I think any time I start to feel down and like maybe I don't have very many good friends, I just have to remember days like today and remember how lucky and blessed I am to have a great deal of wonderful people who love me. How lucky am I? Thank you all for such a fantastically perfect day!

The wierdos I live with

I love my new roommates,,, even if they are a little wierd.

And their wierd boyfriends..

Seriously, I live with beautiful and awesome girls!

My New Diggs

So it has been a couple weeks since I've written anything about me, but its past time. The big announcement,,, drum roll please,,, I moved into a new apartment. I've been living with my sister for the last six months, which has been great. I've really enjoyed being there, it has provided lots of opportunities to spend time with my sister and nephews and new brother in law. However, they moved into a new home, congratulations them, and decided not to take along the extra baggage. ;)

I happened across an apartment complex that I am extremely excited to live in. First and foremost, I realized just recently I have been living in a "temporary status" for the past four or five years. I haven't been living anywhere where I've really settled in and made it my home. Even when I was in Romania, I knew I wasn't going to be there forever and so even though I lived there for two years, it still felt like I was living out of a suitcase. The first thing major benefit I've really enjoyed is hosting people.

Last week I had a couple of co-workers over and we made a cake together.

I also live closer to friends, such as Marcie and Dave

I've also made new friends, and I'm having lots of fun meeting tons of new people. Sam, one such new friends, and I went for a drive up Millcreek Canyon and oh the spendors we enjoyed.

However, the thing I am most excited about in my new place is my awesome new roommates. They are absolutely darling girls and we are already a tight knit group. I'm incredibly grateful I found such awesome friends I get to live with.

Shana, and her boyfriend Dave,
And I have yet to get a picture of Lynette, but this pretty much encapsulates all that is Lynette:

Look familiar?

One of the many delicious treats I used to enjoy in Romania was "cozonac"; poundcake. This is extremely popular around Easter. Today I happened to open my webbrowser to MSN what what should I see on today's recipe's but... this!
YEAH!!! This stuff is fantastic! You can find the recipe here:

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/nutella-swirl-pound-cake-recipe

Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

I'll say it; I'm a fan of Obama. I think he is a great man with great aspirations. I truly believe that he could have a tremendously positive affect on the world, not just the US, but the world. I think his beginnings as a community planner in the inner city of Chicago is a great place to be coming from when you are trying to make decisions that affect everyone. I read his biography. I earnestly believe he is a good and honorable man. That being said, I have to admit, learning that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace this morning was a bit of a surprise. He's been in office less than a year.

The flip side of this I believe is that it is an indication of just how well thought of he is internationally. I was not in the United States for most of Obama's campaign and therefore didn't get to see how things were unfolding. However, being overseas did give me the opportunity to see how receptive the rest of the world is to him. As a result, right from the beginning I thought Obama would be good for the US in repairing relationships with other countries. I think the fact that he has been nominated is a great indication that the rest of the world is open to what the US can achieve.

Way to go Mr. President. We're behind you!