It's OVER!!!

As of Thursday, December 18th at 1:00pm I was officially done with my second to last semester of work in the Graduate Program. I wrapped up finals, with fingers crossed hoping for the best of the best in grades, and I am finally free.

I say "free" loosely because there is this HUGE Master's Project I need to keep working on, but for this moment I'm enjyoing the sense of bliss and enjoyment that feeling free brings.

So HOORAY for me, in finishing the semester and coming even closer to the completion of my Master's Degree.

A Thankful Heart

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. While I sit at our dining room table, and think about what will need to be done tomorrow to prepare for this annual day devoted to giving thanks, I thought about the multitude of things that I have to be thankful for.

For most anyone, this is not a new concept, and generally Thanksgiving brings on thoughts of sentimental awareness of all the things in our lives we take for granted the other 364 days of the year. I started thinking about what it may take to have a thankful heart and a thankful spirit every day of the year. Often, I think it is easier to reach for anger, blame, frustration, annoyance, irritation, or ego-boosting, rather than be humble and have humility for the many things we have in our lives. I confess, that I am often the person that reaches for anger, or frustration, rather than taking the time to calm myself and feel something more genuine or Spirit-like in those moments. This year, with all the things that are going on in the world, and in my little corner of the universe I was one again struck by my fallible nature, and how I would rather give myself grace than someone else. How terrible is it, that as humans our first instinct is to provide for ourselves first and tout our own hardships and the things we have been able to overcome, but criticize and judge someone else's struggle and wonder why they aren't doing it faster or better?

I think my goal for this year, and the years to come, will be to start offering grace more freely, and giving thanks every day for all the things that I have, and that I may have. I realize what a challenge lies ahead of me, but how rich will my reward be, when I can say I've tried, and succeeded in showing others love, grace, compassion, caring, gentleness, and that I've been able to humble myself and offer thanks for the blessings I have received.

This year, I am thankful for many things. My family, for one. We have been richly blessed this year, with two special new faces and spirits, but also for the family I am building now, in this moment. The foundation blocks that we are laying together will be the support that our family will rest the burdens of it's furture generations on. I am thankful for my family's enduring spirit of kindness and support, and their sense of humor.

I am thankful for my dog, Apollo, even as he lays on the carpet and grunts in his sleep, I am thankful for his devoted spirit and his love of life and the simple way he inspires me to care more deeply for something other than myself.

I am thankful for the homes that I have. The shelter that they provide for my spirit and my heart, and the encouragement and welcome I feel whenever I walk through the door. I am thankful for the memories I have of my homes, in Chico, and in Rancho Cucamonga, because it is the memories that we cherish and nurture. It's also where many funny things have happened that have provided many fun stories to share! :)

I am thankful for Scott. He is so many things, things he's not even aware that he does, but he is everything for me. I am thankful that I have someone, at least on this earth, who is willing to be my everything.

And lastly, I am thankful for TURKEY! How can you have a thankful heart, without sharing it over some delicious turkey this year!! I will miss my sister Larissa fighting her son Kace for the turkey leg, but I think it will be wonderful holiday and I'm thankful for the blessings of the food that we will have this year, and how it always feels like the holidays when turkey is cooking.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

Another reason why I love Chico

(Chico State Campus, View of Kendall Hall & Time Capsule Square)

There were several reasons why I decided to attend Chico State way back when I was deciding what to do with my life as an 18 year old high school graduate. I had scouted schools in Texas and Northern California, ultimately I was accepted to two Northern California schools, St. Mary's in Moraga, and Chico State. Here I faced a tough decision, because I was in LOVE with St. Mary's campus and school programs and proximity to San Francisco, but the 30K a year really put a damper on my plans for the future. Thus, I found myself attending Chico State in the Fall after graduation, with grand plans to complete my Bachelor's in Psychology in 4 years.

(Bidwell Park)

Growing up in Southern California for the better part of my life, I had somewhat forgotten what the change of seasons can be like and how spectacular the experience can be. In Alaska, all four seasons are wonderful, with so many colors and life just exploring in the Spring and Summer, but the winter provides some of the most spectacular views of nature and wildlife. When we moved to Southern California, I was treated to a different change of seasons. As we like to say, "Southern California has 4 seasons, 2 summers and 2 winters." Meaning that sometimes summer stretches into October, but sometimes around Christmas it can be as warm as 80 degrees. The leaves decide one day to fall off the trees and the Santa Ana's usually signal the change of seasons in the fall and in the spring. Suffice to say, I was looking forward to my first Northern California autumn, and boy was I in for a treat.

(Bidwell Park)

Chico is a beautiful city. It is full of history, art and culture and is surrounded by some of the most beautiful wilderness and nature areas that I have ever seen. Bidwell park is absolutely gorgeous and full of interesting plants and trees. Chico State campus is absolutely gorgeous in the fall and the spring, when the leaves literally rain down from the trees creating the most unique of autumnal showers. The winters are rainy and cold, but once again in the spring we are treated to such an explosion of life that it renews the spirit and the heart seeing so many things blossom and grow.

I pulled all these photos off of the internet and it illustrates perfectly how absolutely gorgeous Chico is this time of year. It's one of the rare times of the year I don't miss the beach or Disneyland quite as much as I do when it's 115 degrees outside with 80% humidity. Although Scott and Larissa would say, "You think this is humid? Try living in the Midwest!"

Enjoy the photos and my own slice of autumnal heaven!

The Mystery Has Been Solved

The German Shorthair... Apollo...

You be the judge...

Apollo. Our dearly loved little pup, has been a mystery to us ever since we picked him up from the shelter.

He's about 9 months old now, and he's changed a lot since he's been growing up. We first believed that he was a Black Lab, with a possible mix. The vet then told us that he looked more Great Dane than Black Lab, which was no less reassuring.

Speculation then grew as a number of people began to identify Apollo as an English Pointer. This was slightly more relieving as we were not necessarily looking forward to having a big Great Dane mix lumbering around the house. Thus, we arrived at the conclusion that Apollo must be a Black Lab-English Pointer mix.

However, the plot thickened. While I was at the mall with some girlfriends, we passed the yearly holiday Christmas display and were soon "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" over all the cute puppy pictures of Pugs, Bull Dogs, Dachunds and other adorbale little guys. My eye then caught a calendar with a dog that looked surprisingly like Apollo. The breed? German Shorthaired Pointers!

I feel confident, after doing some online research, that we've stumbled across the breed that Apollo belongs to and we no longer have to worry about him exceeding some ginormous size dimesions! He's still adorable and lovable and keeps us entertained.

Living with Neighbors

As many of you know, Scott bought a house earlier this spring. We were very excited to be starting this next phase of our lives together, and it was a pretty momentous decision for us, but mostly for Scott. He was the one forking over all the cash and all that after all. We simply fell in love with the house and were very excited when we adopted our puppy Apollo in April on the heels of our engagement.

The neighborhood was one of the main reasons we fell in love with the house. Our home is in a quiet suburb of Chico, close to shopping, schools and my work. The streets are quiet and there are a lot of young families in the neighborhood and we were excited to be "moving up" in the world. It didn't take long for us to realize that some of the parents weren't as aware of their children, since they play in the street while cars drive by, but hey they aren't my kids. We also began to realize that our next door neighbor wasn't particularly fond of having neighbors herself. As young puppy parents, we were pretty diligent about when we would leave Apollo alone, especially at night. However, one evening, both Scott and I were out, we came home to find a lovely note from our neighbor, succinctly warning us that we'd better learn to take better care of our dog, since she doesn't want to have to go into our yard again to quiet him down. That was a bit of a rude awakening for both Scott and I, but we determined to take the high road, and be the better people, by apologizing to our friendly neighbor, but also installing some locks on our side gate. Needless to say, Scott and I smoothed over relations with this neighbor and so far things have been quite cordial from then on.

Recently, we had another neighbor move into the house next door that they've been trying to lease for sometime. We were pleased that the house was finally filled up, but recently we've had a lot of aggravation. They also have a small dog, we think he's relatively young, possibly the same age as Apollo, but he gets left outside all day long from 6 am to 6 pm in the rain, in the heat, and he cries and barks all day long. Apollo has been pretty upset about all of this and has increasingly been tearing up parts of the yard, because I think sometimes he feels bad for this poor puppy, but also because he doesn't like being barked at all day long. Needless to say, we're all a little taxed by having to deal with yet another set of mischeivious neighbors, but I don't like that they are semi-abusing their dog!!

We're still going to try and be friendly. Even though we wonder about the presence of adults and people that are actually responsible. We have vowed not to vandalize their home, no matter how tempting it may be and even though copious amounts of teepee are readily available.

Butterflies

Well, as some of you may be aware, the wedding date is slowly creeping towards us.

There are only 230 days left until the BIG day and as I look ahead on my calendar at all the things I've yet to do and get done, I find myself starting to get a little more than nervous. Some of you might think that's crazy, since it is 230 days away, and how could I possibly be nervous with the date so far away.

What I would say to those people is, "I have every right to be nervous! I'm getting married!" That's only like one of the biggest commitments you will ever share with another human being! In 230 days I will join my life with someone else's and no longer be just one, but always a part of two. Even though I look forward to that day with all the anticipation and excitement, I think it's normal to be nervous because that commitment is a serious one, and definitely is not something to be taken lightly.

We'll be starting pre-marital counseling soon, and I think having everything start falling into place is making me more and more nervous about the moment I will walk down the aisle as a bride and say "I do" to the most important man in my life.

Because I haven't blogged in awhile....

....and because I don't really want to study for the midterm I have tomorrow, I thought I'd write a blog.

Recently you guys have been able to see the many feats of our dog Apollo. We're always intrigued by what he's willing to do for a treat, and we're glad to share them with everyone.

I've been pretty busy myself these days between work, school, wedding planning, more school, trying to sleep and eat on a regular basis and still nurture myself and my relationship it's been a hectic few months.

While Scott and I were lucky to get most of the wedding details squared away before I went back to school, I find that the deadlines I had so carefully set back in July and August are slowly creeping up on me. Right now I'm in the middle of midterms, papers and projects and up to my eyeballs in the group process, I'm finding it a little hard to keep up with and find time for all those little details. Oh, and there's this gigantic Master's Project I'm supposed to be working on too. Yeah, totally need to get on the ball for that one.

I am however, blessed to have the amazing support of my family, especially my mom, and my best friend Jessica who are oh-so-wonderfully planning my bridal shower in Southern California. I am also amazed at the constant patience and support that Scott shows me in so many different ways as he also "suffers" through the trails of graduate school with me. Just this evening as I was working on my 3rd and hopefully final genogram, he looked over at me and said "You're doing another one? You've done like 3 since we've been together! I'm glad I'm not in school anymore." Yet he still puts up with me and all my conjecturing about Family Systems Theory, Families of Origin, and all those other theoretical, therapeutic and psychological things I'm learning and immersing myself in.

It's interesting to be involved in a program that encourages self-exploration, family history and research and patterns of behavior among many many many more things. But it is interesting to be given the opportunity to really take 2 years out of your life and study yourself. I think of the multitude of things I've learned and have yet to learn, the people I've had the opportunity to influence and who have also influenced me, and I can only think that I am truly blessed to be on the path that I'm on.

Just today in one of my classes we were talking about Tao Fa or Chinese watercourse way. It's a Cross-Cultural Counseling Class (what an alliteration!), and it talks about rivers being on a journey to the ocean, and that they change everything they touch. That in the course of the river flowing, everything it touches is changed and altered. As I pondered this concept, metaphor really, I thought of myself as the Earth and all the people in my life that are rivers. There is my mother, who is the strongest, deepest and widest river crossing my landscape. A silent, everpresent force that's been guiding me and shaping me. There's Joe, my dad, who's a little less deep, but just as constant, but with a few more rapids and turns. And then there's Scott, who enters about halfway down the landscape, and has carved the deepest pools, has travelled the most curves and is full of the waterfalls that fill my heart. Before I go on and on about different people in my life, I just don't have the room to list them all, I just want to add that water is such a significant metaphor for anyone really. Sometimes we have rain in our lives, storms that seem like they never will pass. Sometimes we have lazy turning rivers and streams that allows us to meander at our own pace, but we also have the water that fills us with Life, that causes our cup to runneth over and fill our hearts with joy.

I just thought that those were some beautiful thoughts and images that I had on this fine Monday evening, and wished to impart them all to you! Maybe I'll start a regular Monday blog with my thoughts from my cultural musings from class.