The Gift of a Mentor

The definition of a mentor is: an experienced and trusted advisor.

I have been blessed with many mentors in my life.  The first mentor I received was at the age of 3 years old.  At this tender age, I began playing the violin under the instruction of Jeanne Grover a Suzuki violin teacher.  She taught me many things in regards to music and the violin.  However, under her kind and loving instruction I also learned many life lessons that would carry me throughout the hard years of growing up.  These lessons were:

1.      I am capable of doing hard things.  For those of you who don’t play an instrument, you should know that playing any instrument uses both sides of your brain simultaneously.  You focus on a plethora of concepts all at once:  the mathematics and mechanics of the music; the form of your body while playing; the notes and tone; coordinating these skills with all the other musicians around you; and lastly the musicality.  There is a reason musicians often get good grades in school.

2.      Finish what you start.  There is no sense in starting something you won’t finish. This conditions you to fail. 

3.      Honesty.  An honest person is a trustworthy person. Be honest with yourself and others.  If I didn’t practice, and then I lied saying I did, Jeanne knew.  I learned early on that honesty got me a lot further than lying.  Also, lying didn’t protect me, it inhibited my progress!

4.      Talent.  Talent is not something that you are born with; it is something that you learn or are taught.  You can be good at anything, but you have to have the desire and the determination to then follow through with it.  This philosophy that every child (or person) can learn a new skill was developed by Schnichi Suzuki himself.

5.      The taste of success. After hours of hard practice and concentrated effort, performing the violin in front of hundreds of people is one of the most exhilarating, terrifying, and amazingly rewarding experiences for a musician.  However, it only comes after the work has already been done. 

my beloved mentor: Jeanne Grover

Since Jeanne, I have had many mentors in the field of music and I am grateful to every last one of them for how they have changed my life. The gift of a mentor is priceless, they are the wise and the loving.  

Mentors do not grow on trees, and they cannot be bought, unlike many financial institutions might have you think.  It is a rare thing to find a person who will unselfishly devote their time to your education and not ask you to sell your soul in return.  Last year, I was blessed to find two new mentors: Brent and Holly Anderson. I am so very grateful to them for everything they have taught me in regards to building businesses, thinking positively, and recognizing opportunities.  They are different from any music mentor that I’ve had regarding the goals we have set.  However, the things they have taught me are very similar:

     

      1. I am capable of doing hard things.  Building a business can be extremely hard, physically and mentally.  However, knowing that your future is in your hands is well worth the effort.

   

       2.. Finish what you start.  If you continually back out of the things you have started, you will never succeed. You will end up regretting your decision repeatedly, wishing that your circumstances would change and unable to change your circumstances yourself. 

3. Honesty.  Honesty is the basis for any good business, interaction, and relationship. If you are dishonest, those around you will know.  Without honesty you cannot succeed.

4. Talent. Talent is developed, not inborn! The general mindset of an entrepreneur is one of positivity, opportunity, and accomplishment.  They are trained to see the nuggets of gold hidden around them, and they know how to turn those small nuggets into large bricks.  They are the optimists who see the best in all things and know they will be successful.  There is a reason that entrepreneurs often don’t need to get good grades. They have learned the talent of success.

5.      Taste of success.  Having a dream is the best way to taste your success.  Dream and visualize what you are working toward and imagine what it will be like when you reach that goal.  After the work is done your success will taste all the sweeter.

Each of my mentors has helped me obtain different goals, but the things they teach are so similar.  They may use these teachings in different concepts, but they are the same nonetheless.  My mentors have provided me with a full and rich life.  They are those people who I will always look up to.  I have listed a few of their names below.  I hope they will read this and know how grateful I am to them.

Listed in chronological order:

Jeanne Grover, Barbara Scowcroft, Dara Morales, Linda Morrison, Ted Ashton, Alma Moraza, President and Sister Watkins, Sue Neimoyer, Brent and Holly Anderson.

Thank You.

Loyal to Your Word!

How many times do we say we will do something and actually follow through with our promises?  Being loyal to your word is one of the most important skills you could possibly develop.  If you are loyal to the words that leave your mouth, then other people can trust you. 

I, like many, have had struggles with this, saying I will do something and then forgetting about it or finding something better to do. I try to fulfill my word, but sometimes I just take my own sweet time to do it. This has been one of my biggest hindrances to my success, and it will be yours too if you don’t change it.

If you find that people don’t take you seriously, or that your opinion seriously lacks credibility among your peers and family, the problem is NOT that they are “narrow minded” or “misunderstanding.” The problem is that you are simply not trustworthy. If you have never given people a reason to respect you, you cannot expect them to give that respect freely to you. You can only become the person of credibility you desire to be when you become loyal to your word. Always remember that your words reflect who you are!  If you use curse words regularly as adjectives, you may portray yourself as slightly uneducated and lacking in wit. If you make empty promises, you will portray yourself as a neglectful and careless person.  If you lie, you will be known as a liar. 

Like anything else, becoming loyal to your word is a conscious choice that you will have to make.  Once you make that choice you will have to follow this mental process in order to make your word valid:

      

Think before you speak!  If what you are about to say is false, rude, an empty promise, or a lie…well for Pete’s sake, don’t say it! Your words reflect who you are!  What do you want to say about yourself when you open your mouth?

  Make a decision!  If someone is asking you for a favor, ask yourself if you can accomplish what they are asking. Are you willing to perform the task they need performed? Decide if what you are about to say is something that you can physically and mentally accomplish.

Don't give me that look....make a decision!

      

SPEAK!  Once you have made your decision, let your voice be heard.  Let the vocalization of this promise be the seal upon your decision.

SPEAK!

   Follow through!  You have spoken, so now it is time to follow through with that promise. Do what you need to do in order to accomplish the task.

Alma:  My best friend, never afraid to do anything she set her mind to.

   

  Don’t go back on your word!  If you fail to perform the task, do not try to change around what you agreed to do in the beginning.  People aren’t stupid. They know when you are trying to relocate the blame.  Take responsibility for your failure, apologize, and make a goal to do better the next time.

My Sister Amy, one of the most trustworthy amazing women I know.

Honesty is the best policy, but being honest encompasses much more than just not telling lies. It encompasses every promise and every word that leaves your mouth.  It encompasses all actions and interactions that you have.  Be HONEST to yourself and to others. In this you will find your success.

“The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.”

                                                                                                            -Zig Ziglar

Suck Out The Poison And SOAR!

Consider your mind.  Our generation is willing to spend thousands of dollars on just educating our minds!  But even after we have spent all that money, attended all those classes, and suffered through all the stress of obtaining an education, how efficiently do we use our minds?  We have this vast database of information, but every day we discredit everything that it processes.  We even lose confidence in our own minds to such an extent that we reduce ourselves to being nothing more than an existence of matter.  Humans are extraordinary; we have the ability to use our minds for the greater good, which is why we call it “Humanity.”  We are souls capable of choosing our future, with minds that will shape that future into a tangible reality.  However, we have chosen to pollute our minds with every-day common smut, creating an environment that inhibits the progress of the mind. In this toxic environment we are losing our humanity.

We live in a world that thrives on negativity.  It bombards us every day; from the moment we wake up, it creeps into our thoughts and our interactions, leaving us little light by which to see the good that surrounds us. Why do we let negativity take control of us in such a way?  Negativity is a powerful thing, but it is also an easy thing.  You see, negativity carries with it no expectations.  If there are no expectations, then we are more easily appeased and we can remain in our state of unchanging complacency.  It is admittedly easier to live without hope and expectations than to see ourselves not reaching our potential and falling short of our dreams.

Negativity is defined as: “thinking about the bad qualities of someone or something: thinking that a bad result will happen: not hopeful or optimistic.”

                                                                           (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

I have had my own love/hate affair with negativity. Through coping with the deaths of very close family members to my own experience with severe postpartum depression, I conditioned myself to think the worst in all cases.  You see, if I were to think the worst, then when the worst happened I was not surprised or let down.  I let myself become hardened and unwilling to see the good, and my attitude towards life reflected my thoughts of despair and grief.

I can recall many experiences with a roommate that I had. I will call her Chanelle. Chanelle had the biggest, brightest smile I had ever seen and the giant, positive personality to go with it.  She was a dancer and would wake up at five in the morning to practice ballet in the living room.  Her seemingly perfect exterior and her unfailing smile led a “realist” like me to pursue one goal:  bring her down. I wanted her to learn that the world was an awful place.  Needless to say, at first we did not get along. She simply avoided me while I toiled in my attempts to hurl the woes of the world in her direction. I am happy now to say that I failed in my pursuits, and to this day, she with her unfailing smile, is still one of the loveliest people I have ever met.  She has also become a very successful woman, and I can only attribute this to her positive “can do” attitude. She never let her mind become polluted with the negativity that I was trying to instill in it.

Cynicism, worry, paranoia, anger, self-consciousness, and depression are all byproducts of the continued allowance of negativity in our minds.  As I have already expressed, I am no stranger to these emotions.  It was ultimately depression which left me with the desire to change my thoughts.  My depression left me in such a state that I was a burden on my family and a danger to myself.  I had to change, or I would lose everything I held dear.  It was not easy; depression is a very real disease. It was as if I was at the bottom of a muddy pit, clawing my way to the surface with nothing to hold onto but sheer will of heart, this alone was the only thing keeping me from falling to my death.

It has been a long road getting to where I am, and even now, I have a long way to go. But here is what I learned along the way:

Positivity is much more powerful than its alternative! This is true because there are so many amazing things to accomplish in life!  It is not easy to be positive, because unlike its counterpart, positivity carries extensive expectations. However, these expectations are what will ultimately change us. Positive thinking led Harriet Tubman to free a thousand slaves.  It led Thomas Edison to a successful end in his desire to harness electricity. Mother Teresa received a Nobel Peace Prize through her ability to help others and bring positivity into their lives. Positive thinking is how Elon Musk will eventually colonize Mars. And finally, positive thinking is what will lead all of us to personal success. This habit will cause our minds to soar, and our generation will become the most successful, the most vibrant, and the most loving generation of all time. 

Changing how you think is incredibly difficult, especially if, like me, you have had years of doing the opposite.  My suggestion is to start with your body. Eat well and exercise, because if your body feels sick so will your mind.  After this, find a goal that you want to focus on, something that you sincerely desire to accomplish.  Challenge yourself for 30 days to concentrate on obtaining that goal. Every time negative thoughts come into your mind, you will need to consciously replace them immediately with something worthwhile.  Most importantly, believe that you will obtain your goal! If you don’t believe that it can happen, then there is no sense in working towards it. You must honestly believe that you can obtain your desire!  During this time, it is also important not to speak ill of others.  Make it a priority to be conscious of those around you. EVERYONE is going through something hard, so don’t let yourself be another reason for them to think negatively. Essentially what I am saying is: pay it forward; create good karma.  Everything you give will be returned to you in many ways.  

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.”

                                                                                          -Mahatma Gandhi

Further Reading:

1. Harriet Tubman, http://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430

2. Mother Teresa, http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160.

3. Thomas Edison, http://www.thomasedison.com/.

Citations:

4. “Negativity.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/negativity.

5. Howell, Elizabeth. “SpaceX's Elon Musk to Reveal Mars Colonization Ideas This Year.” Space. Web 20 Apr. 2015. <http://www.space.com/28215-elon-musk-spacex-mars-colony-idea.html>.

Why you are currently unsuccessful.

The Late Earl Nightingale described success as: “The progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” Meaning, as long as you are continuously working towards your worthwhile goals you are a success.  The minute you decide that reaching your goals is improbable or impossible, you give up, you fail.

If you are like me, then there is a point in your life where you stopped dreaming.  This point is where you decided that what you really wanted out of life was unobtainable. Whether it be wealth, recognition, solid familiar ties, maybe even freedom. The list extends forever of what you might want out of life.  However, someone, somewhere, told you that you were a dreamer, and that you should be a realist. In fact, you probably heard phrases similar to this many times, right before you gave up your dream.

 Take a minute to reflect back to what your dream was, can you remember?  Now, think about what you have settled for.  Did you give up your dream for a low paying (safe) job?  Did you get a degree in something you didn’t even like because people told you, you wouldn’t be successful in what you wanted to study? Maybe you are at a point in your life where it is painful to get out of bed in the morning because you are telling yourself it is not worth it. If this is the case, STOP IT, Halt these thoughts in their tracks!  

At the commencement of my university career, the graduation speaker, in his address expressed his solemn hope, that we would all be able to find jobs.  Let me give some context, I pursued a Liberal Arts degree in Music. I can very well predict what went through your head as you read that.  You probably thought something to the effect of, “What a worthless Degree!”  Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. This is what I heard every time I told someone what I was studying. And for some time, I actually believed what they were saying. However, those thoughts are a direct result of what the world has taught us to think.  I now use my degree every day of my life.  I even own a budding business that I created around my degree. 

An unsuccessful person who receives a degree in Business will still be unsuccessful in their career regardless of the degree.  A successful person who receives a degree in Visual Arts, will still be successful regardless of the degree.  The degree does not matter! What matters is if you decide to be a successful person.

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”  If you are not happy where you are, choose where you want to be.  Focus on that goal, and don’t let the opinion of others become your obstacle. Others will only try to stop you because they have forsaken their dreams, and in their failure they don’t want to be alone. Don’t let anything break your concentration!  Find your dream and then decide to live it!  And don’t be discouraged if it takes a long time to come, the best things in life are worth working towards! And when you reach your goal it will make your personal victory all the sweeter to taste!

I wish to explain that there is a difference between having a failure and being a failure.  A failure attempted in the right direction is a success.  Think of J.K. Rowling, The author was rejected 12 times before she succeeded in publishing Harry Potter. She once stated that, “Rock Bottom became the solid foundation upon which I built by life.” Small failures will result in a large success, if only you attempt again.  When you reduce your dream to being a mere whimsical idea, and discredit the power it holds, that is when you truly give up. 

 When pursuing a dream, never us the word ‘Try,’ to try implies that failure is possible. When you say you will DO something, it implies a successful resolution to the task at hand. Also, say what you are going to do aloud, this will solidify the ideal in your mind, and immediately your brain will begin putting your dream into action.

Below I have the original recording of Earl Nightingale when he first presented this idea.  I promise if you listen to it and you apply what he says your life will change for the better.

Decide to be a successful person, once you make that decision, the hardest part is done.

References:

1.      Nightingale, E. (2006). The strangest secret. United States: BN Pub.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSiPbuotH4c  accessed: 4/1/2015

2.      Rowling, J.K. (2012) http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/ accessed: 4/1/2015

What is your legitimate excuse?

I feel my life needs to take a different turn.  In my previous post I adressed bloggers who write only about pessimistic things.  Rather than dwell on their writings I am going to take a new direction with this blog.  Instead of acknowleding all of the ridiculous things that I see and hear on the internet and in daily life, I now choose to share all of the things that I have seen make people successful and lead happy lives.

A few weeks ago I attended a seminar for Business Development.  The speaker was fantastic and I took a lot away from what he shared.  However, there was one quote that cause my mind to stir and my heart to thump in a mild panic as I realized my own guilt in what his statement adressed.

"Every person is one legitimate excuse away from living (his/her) dreams."

                                                                                         -Justin Jacobs

The genius behind this quote is that he acknowledged that everyone has legitimate problems.  After all, the same wind beats upon all of our heads.  If we have problems, then we certainly can know that our neighbor has problems as well. We will never be free from trials or issues! However, it will be how we choose to react to the problem which will ultimately determine the outcome of our lives. 

Saying that I have knock knees and that running causes me knee problems is a legitimate excuse, but this excuse will not make me stronger. Saying that I can't play at a professional level as a violinist because I don't have the time to practice is a legitimate excuse. However, this excuse will never let me excel in my career.   Also, saying these excuses only reaffirms that they are real in my mind. Saying the excuse out loud only makes the barrier stronger.

What is your insurmountable excuse, and why do you let it rule you?  This is what I have asked myself repeatedly over the past few weeks.  Will I be defined by my excuse, or what I told myself I could accomplish?

I choose to be defined by what I can accomplish,  I will set my own goals and I will reach them, even if it takes me my whole life.  What is the alternative? I give up, and I never know what I could have become.

Now, I want to give a shout out to an amazing person: Valerie Inertie, I don't think she let herself bow to her excuses in order to accomplish this amazing dance.

Your insurmountable excuse is the only thing keeping you from your success. If you are unhappy, figure out what your excuse is, laugh at it, and then you become the person who tells yourself that you can. Do not rely on others permission to become someone amazing.

To: the pessimist

Living in a world that feeds off of hysteria and pessimism, I often find myself thinking about what kind of life I myself would like to lead. If the world is really as bad as everyone says it is, how on earth am I ever going to find peace in it?  A while back I read a blog, this blog was designed to put down everyone and everything that the writer deemed to be 'unworthy'.  Imagine that, this person has created an entire blog just to tell the world how much they hate it.  This particular blogger appointed themselves to be the 'judge of everything,' and sat upon a throne criticizing and demeaning every person who had ever shown forth an optimistic or positive opinion.

While I am sad for this person, knowing that one day (when and if they grow up) they will feel absolutely humiliated  for saying such stupid things online; I do understand why this person has become that way.

We have allowed pessimism to rule our lives for too long.  We have put our emotions into the media, and we let them dictate everything we should be feeling.  Ebola is running rampant, HIDE! GET GAS MASKS! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE, AND IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT! The government is taking over our lives, DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH ANYONE FROM THE OPPOSITE POLITICAL PARTY!  This church (even though I'm not associated with it in any way) said something that I don't agree with: TORCH ALL THE BELIEVERS!  Honestly, where have we let ourselves go?  Didn't we used to fight for a reason?  wasn't there a common dream between all people to find a greater good?  The media has done an excellent job at destroying the voice of the people.  Rather than banning together to make good things happen, we quarrel amongst ourselves.  We have given up fighting together, and now we fight each other. What a stunning tactic, we as a society have been lulled into a state of damning complacency; there will be no fight from us now, we just accept what the world will put upon us.

We have stopped dreaming and we now remain stagnant; our world is falling apart because we have nothing to look forward to each day. We have settled into poverty and debt, and we just accept that life must be that way, and we don't even try to change it now.

I remember a poster on my high school history teachers wall, this poster stated: "If you don't like something, Change it. If you can't change it, Change yourself."  This poster stuck with me, even through my own dark times. I always knew that if there was something about my situation I absolutely hated, then it was ME who had the power to change it. Whether I changed the circumstances, or my attitude toward the situation, it was in MY POWER.  Have I always abided by this rule? No, but I have always known of its veracity.

I can't change what anyone else does with their lives, but I can change what I do with mine.  If I want to make a million dollars, well, I'm going to do it.  If I want to travel the world, I will find a way to do it.  I can only do what I tell myself I can do. I'm a Petersen for Petes sake, and when someone tells us we can't do something we often do it just to prove them wrong.  Mostly, we listen to the people who tell us we can, not the people who tell us we can't. Our task is not impossible, we are good enough to accomplish the task!

I am grateful for the family and friends I have who tell me that I can,  a support system who taught me to do hard things and never give up!

To that self appointed blogger I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am sorry that you have given up.  I am sorry that you are letting the world run your life instead of acting for yourself.  I do not know at what point you gave up your free agency to act for yourself, but I hope one day you will find it again.    I hope one day, the world will let optimism and hope rule their decisions instead of hate and fear.

Be grateful, and learn to love again,  it's your life....do something with it.

The Hell of Bell's and then a Baby

While my last blog was very inspirational, I feel I must come clean.  I have not weathered this disease of Bell's Palsy with any amount of grace.  In fact the longer my face remained motionless the more bitter I became.  It has been almost 5 months since my face became paralyzed and only now am I starting to regain muscle movement.  In this post I would like to share the two sides of myself as I traveled through this new world of being a mother and all the interesting turns my life has taken.

10 days late! My baby, although weighing in at good solid 6 pounds at my 32 week visit was in fact 10 days overdue. Born March 25, 2014 Mr. Maxwell Conrad York!  He's pretty much the best baby anyone could ever ask for.  However,  he did not make it easy on his mom.  I went into the hospital Sunday night to be induced as I was clearly never going to have the baby on my own.  After 24 hours of medications, pitosin, contractions, epidurals, oxygen masks and my water being broken by the doctor I still had not dilated past 3cm.  As you can imagine I was beginning to believe that I would in fact be pregnant forever, or I would die there in the delivery room. But luckily for modern medication they have significantly reduced the number of women who die during childbirth each year. Finally around 29.5 hours of being in labor I was finally fully dilated, I could get this baby out.  A half hour later we said hello to the cutest newborn I have ever seen, He was probably so cute because he completely skipped the scrawny newborn stage, born at 3:30 a.m. and weighing in at 9lbs 2oz  I had given birth to a child that was actually several weeks old already, therefore he skipped the weird alien looking phase.

Obviously I was the luckiest lady in the world that night.  I still get a little teary when I drive past the hospital where he was born.  Tears of Joy and also tears of dread (for another reason).  You see, giving birth had somehow messed me up on the inside, and a few weeks after little Conrad was born I began to have severe chest pain.  I'll be quite honest I thought it was only really bad gas until the pain started getting worse to the point that it felt like someone was blowing up a steel balloon inside my rib cage. If I didn't think that I was dying while in labor I certainly thought I was now.  I shortly realized by the severity of the pain that I was having problems with gallstones (which is a common problem in my family).  This pain was 10 times worse than a labor contraction, who knew that was possible.  All this and my face still had not started to heal. Not only was I becoming bitter I was now in severe pain.  I would have Gallbladder attacks about 3-4 times a week, mainly at night. When I felt an attack coming on I usually tried not to wake Shane up, so I would head out to the couch and scream into a pillow until the pain subsided.  These attacks lasted about an hour a piece on average. 

I had never experienced anything like this in my life.  I had always been a really healthy girl. Never did I think that I could be so sick.  On top of a paralyzed face, Gallbladder infection, and giving birth, I also encountered bouts of Mastitis, and the flu, which between the two caused me not to be able to feed my own child. I also had fair amount of depression, the details of which I will not discuss on a blog. I can honestly say that I was brought so low that I could not see the light of day.  The only thing I had really keeping me around was the little smile of my Conrad.  And to top it all off, May 5th I went to my graduation from the University of Utah.  I had been waiting for this day for years, and not only was I really sick, but I would have to walk across the stage, smile, and take a picture with two people I didn't even know all while sporting a severely lopsided face that made me look like both Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde at the same time. I wanted to give up on everything! I hated life so much that I was making myself and my family suffer.

Finally one night I felt a gallbladder attack coming on.  I quickly asked Shane for a help. He gave me what is called a Priesthood Blessing in our faith. This blessing is basically a sacred prayer to God to administer to sick people. In the blessing he did not bless me with the ability to overcome this attack easily, rather he blessed the doctors that they would know what to do.  Since I did not plan on going to the hospital I thought he was just tired an incoherent. I then proceeded to the couch to begin my ritual of writhing in agony.Well that was at 4 a.m., by 8 a.m. the attack still had not relinquished its hell fury. I was by this time dehydrated and hyperventilating. So I told Shane that we were going to the hospital, we ran several red lights and I rushed to the E.R. window.  They immediately took me in, I can't tell you how much I loved morphine in that moment. 

They took me into surgery that day and removed my gallbladder (It is the best health decision I have ever made). Looking back on this, I still can't believe that I'm okay today. I have this desire to cry, but I don't want to re-live all of that horror.  It has been a long recovery process and I have not been okay all of the time.  But I now know that I am a person who can overcome things.  I am still pulling out this whole mess, my face is still healing and has made much better improvement as of late. I am taking better care of myself and making sure that I am eating healthy.  I have to, I can't afford the consequences, I can't do that to my family again.  

Enough about the myriad of pain I had, let me tell you about this amazing little person who has taken control of my heart. He is so good, when I would have bad days he could tell and he would be patient with me.  He growls back at me when I growl at him and he is a continuously happy baby. I am so lucky!  The only time he really becomes a monster is when he's hungry, and heck who isn't a monster when they are hungry!  He loves me and thinks I'm beautiful even though I can't fully smile, and he loves my signing voice, especially in the shower. He believes me to be the most talented Violinist in the whole world and he is by far the most handsome kid I have ever seen.  He loves bath time so much that sometimes I imagine one day he will be a great swimmer and will totally kick Micheal Phelps iron clad butt. But for now he will just dance in his little tub covered in bubbles. Later he can choose what he wants to be, but for now I'm going to wait till he wakes up from his nap and then attack him with kisses on his wonderful corpulent cheeks. 

Last I want to thank Shane,  he has saved my life over and over again these past few months.  I can safely say I would not be here without him.  Life is hard and sometimes it seems like there is no way out of the mess we find ourselves in.  But I would never choose to go back to who I was before.  I am not grateful for the trial itself, but I am grateful for what it has taught me, and I am grateful for the miracles that have helped me through it so far.