Embrace the Crazy!

I have a friend who even from hundreds of miles away can make me laugh. She and I became friends in college. We would never say we were best friends, but we were friends and good ones. I always knew if I needed a laugh she would be able to deliver.
Since we graduated college we lost touch. Then came Facebook - through this marvelous tool we have regained contact, well Facebook contact. It was through Facebook that I learned she blogged. I was thrilled another blogger and someone whose blog I knew would make me laugh.
Since I have started reading her blog I have found that crazy does not escape her... still. Then I got to thinking, why does crazy hit her and why does crazy not hit me? Then I realized crazy does make an appearance in my life, but I look at it and shrug it off. I don't find the funny in the crazy the way my friend does. In the funny and the crazy I had a life changing ah-ha moment.
Embrace the crazy. By embracing the crazy you will notice it more, laugh more, remember it and tell stories of the crazy. These are all things I vow to do from here on out. So don't be surprised if some future blog posts are about the crazy I encounter.

The power of a good book or books!

 For the last 6 or so days I have been wrapped up in another world. A world that could be someones reality, but isn't my reality. I was engrossed in an amazing book. I love when I find a book that bewitches me, sucks me into that world to the point where when I put it down it takes me a few minuets to return to my reality, to a point where when I am not entwined in that world I am thinking about it the characters and surroundings like they are real, to a point where I wonder about that world in my free time.
Don't get me wrong, I like my reality. I love living and enjoying the world around me, but sometimes it is nice to escape to another world. To relish in some one's problems, feel their joys and cry their tears. This is the reason we like television and enjoy movies, but there is just something about a good book. You are living some one's life, yet you can create the surroundings, you can image the people their flaws and their beauty, you have a little control over how things are. It is very rare that I find books that captivate me to the point where I lose sleep, want to skip work, turn off the television, avoid outside, just to read.
  I have recently read a couple, the Hunger Games trilogy was one. These books were great, suspenseful and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Though, once I was done with the third book; I was done. I felt I knew the characters well enough and didn't need to know any more. I still recommended these books to all and was sure to see the movie once it was released.
But no other book/books held me like Fifty Shades of Grey. These books were messed up, captivating, disturbing, romantic, warmhearted, scary, loving and the list goes on. Part of the time I didn't want to put them down, part of the time I felt alarmed that I was reading them, and the other part of the time I was wrapped up in that world. I read all three in a short amount of time, I missed workouts and sleep and yet couldn't put them down.
Now that I am finished I am happy that my "normal" life can resume, I am sad that those characters are out of my, but not out of my head. I find myself still wanting more, still wondering what happens to them.
I immediately looked up the author to see if she had written anything else... damn of course not, at least not yet.
I almost feel ruined for all other books, at least for a bit. I guess my reading stint will have to take a break for awhile, I guess that is okay, maybe I will accomplish some things other than reading 100 pages now.
Until the next book, next life changing event, next ah-ha moment.

All the luck in the world

So I spent the morning reading my friend Emily's blog. She is an amazing women I met when I started working at the American Cancer Society in the Great Lakes Division. I was immediately impressed with her in our work environment. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing and she did it very well. It never occurred to me that she would leave the American Cancer Society.

Leave she did, about a year after I met her. ACS was her first "official" job after college graduation, she new she needed to explore and find new things. Explore she did, she is now working to built new communities in Haiti and bridge gaps between the locals and other organizations that can help. Her time there seems to be amazing. She has made 6 (I think) total trip to Haiti, each one being about 4-6 weeks in length. All on a volunteer basis. This trip is different... she has been hired by church to help as an ambassador.

Her dedication to this cause and her willingness spent time away from her family and friends and give up "all the comforts of home" to help others is truly amazing to me. Every time I read her blog or speak with her when she comes home I am impressed, amazed and feel infinitely lucky to have gotten to know her, call her my friend and just plain have someone like her in my life. Her experiences and her blog never cease to ground me when I need. Just when I feel like I don't have something or want something I see pictures of kids and families who have nothing and this amazing person who gave up what she has to help them and I am humbled.

My transitions in life have introduced me to some incredible people from all different walks of life. I have been exposed to many different types of people, cultures, religions and I have enjoyed every second. I learned a lot about myself in the friends I have made and I believe that every one of them was introduced into my life for different reasons, to teach me different things and give different experiences.

It might be almost 1:00pm on a Sunday and I might have unwashed hair, be in my pj's and haven't moved out of my living room chair since I woke up, I might be having what everyone would consider a typical "lazy Sunday", but my brain has been anything but lazy. I have learned that although sometimes I don't think I do, I have a wonderful life, that although I sometimes want more, I have plenty, and that although I sometimes feel unlucky, I have all the luck in the world.  I am grateful for what I have, my friends, my family, my health, my house, my life!