Just For Kicks

   This is kind of just a random entry. I have been slacking on the blog so I am going to do my best to catch up on all that and more.
   So first off, let's see I went to my first professional conference. The Infant Toddler Mental Health Coalition was held in Chandler, AZ and had a very prestigious infant development specialist as the key note speaker. Our professors are ga ga for this guy and his wife's work, so it was fun to meet and listen to the person whose books we are reading and whose attachment theory we are being trained in. The conference itself was pretty interesting. I attended two breakout sessions on identifying traumatic abuse and the adult attachment findings. Overall, I enjoyed getting to meet people in the field that I am going into and being able to see what things are on the top of the agenda regarding infant and toddler intervention, and all of the possibilities that hold for me in my chosen career. I have never been surrounded by people who have the same particular interest in the things that I have deemed so important in my life, so it was fun to share my passion with others who hold the same passions.
       School is going pretty well. I started my internship finally, a few weeks ago and am working at a child developmental lab. For the majority of my time, I am just doing child care, but I was also assigned to help observe and collect data, as well as participate in therapies for a young preschooler who has language delays in both English and his native language. I am excited about this new aspect of my internship. I was resentful at first that I had to settle for working in child care again as my intership, after all I had left Fort Collins, to move here and gain more knowledge about infants and toddlers, yet I was again working with preschoolers in a child care center, which I could have been doing in Fort Collins without ever having to move. But now that I have a specific child to focus on and collect data on, especially one with language delays, the process of going to work is now more purposeful. I am still hoping to do an internship next semester working with infants though, and hopefully teenage mothers and fathers. I am praying that a position will open up for me and that I will be able to do both.
     Socially things are picking up. A friend of mine that I met at a failed attempt to join a Bible study, is now my new "let's try something new" buddy. She is up for anything which is great. We went rock climbing a few weeks ago, and have agreed to try something new together at least two weekends out of the month. We also tried this brewery that serves Arizona Peach Ale...it is fabulous! I also went to Ballet Under the Stars this weekend with my neighbor. The great thing about Arizona is the weather is very consistent. If this was Colorado, we would have had to prepare for rain, snow and whatever else, but here you just know, it's going to be nice. They planned this whole free evening of watching ballet on blankets in the park. So we got classy and bought fancy cheeses to watch ballet.

     Everytime I watch a ballet it makes me miss training, not so much ballet, but just putting in hours on top of hours at the studio and doing the one thing that you are so passionate about. I don't regret not continuing dancing, I think the time I spent not pursuing dancing and doing other things (volleyball, swimming and such) has made me the more rounded individual that I am with tons of memories and great friends. However, as I was watching I started realizing that I am a professional of very little things, but I have experienced a lot. Not a bad thing, I just tend to try a lot of things, but I don't go on to pursue becoming a professional, or expert of one or a few things. I don't regret not pursuing dance at all, I know that my passion lies elsewhere, but oh how life would be different.
     Other news, I will be returning to my beloved Fort Collins in two weekends!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited to be surrounded by the people I love and miss, and I will get to see my sister and parents which means...added Bonus! There is just something about knowing I get to go back and see the faces that know me and love me, and that we already have a foundation based on love and living life together that just gets my blood a pumpin'!  That stupid theme song from Cheers  literally brings tears to my eyes everytime it comes on..ok not really, but I can totally relate..."I want to be where everybody knows my name."
   My attitude about being here has improved a lot though. The bus no longer scares me, I am more comfortable trying things and going here and there by myself. God is providing and I know he's got my back... (in the words of my dad). One cool God provides moment...parking at ASU not only is a pain but is also expensive, however on days that I work more than 5 hours I prefer to drive to campus. So there is this parking  lot that a church allows students to park in for $5 all day, which is a steal here, but it is pretty much always full by the time I get there. So I decided that I was just going to ask God for a parking space the night before in my prayers and fully trust that he would provide. The next day I got to the lot and pulled in, fully trusting that God had a spot just for me... the guy that mans the lot and collects money came up to my car and I had my $5 bill in my hand ready to hand it over for my God picked space. However, instead of saying, "yes right this way," he said,"I'm full, no parking." Wait, what? God picked my spot out I just know it! So disheartened I put my car in gear and prepared to turn around, but......right that moment the brake lights on the car in the space right in front of me lit up and....a spot!!!!!! I rolled my window down again and yelled,    "SIR? SIR? Can I have that spot?" Surprised, he follwed my gaze and saw the empty spot. Pointing the way I follwed the man to my God picked spot, gave thanks to my Father and paid my money! God provides....I should also mention that catty corner to the space I had taken was an empty spot, but whatever, I digress :)
      Here are a few fun pictures that Madeline took this summer in the blaring heat...

Love Love!

I'm a Professional?

   I am almost at my one month mark of being in Arizona. School has started and things are beginning to feel comfortable, not homey, but comfortable. Little successes thus far...
1. I can successfully navigate from my house to Phoenix, Glendale, Target, Starbucks and back without getting lost or having to use my GPS....!!!! Yay, believe me, instant stress reliever.
2. I am in the running for two jobs...both of which I am excited about, just waiting for the confirmation about whether or not I "officially" have the job. I will inform you more about that as I become more informed.
3. I drove to Henderson, Nevada this weekend all by myself and made it there and back!!!
4. School has started and I have made it to all of my classes on time via the bus! As crazy as it sounds, riding the bus was my biggest fear about starting grad school period. How funny, I am sure plenty of 5-year olds boarded the bus with great excitement and I was terrified. I woke up in a panic numerous nights after dreaming I missed the bus, or rode all the way to Vegas on one, or I left my shoe on it. Seriously, I was freaking out. Lol, now I actually enjoy riding the bus. Waiting for it to come is the worse part because by the time the bus comes, I am dripping sweat and look like I have to run a mile just to get to the bus stop. The bus stop is directly in front of my apartment complex. :)

   So there you have it, God has been so great and has provided so many blessings, which I didn't doubt he would but it is fun to be able to look back on them all now. School is pretty relaxed. I am in a program with 12, that's right 12 other Ppeople. We are a baker's dozen of Infant mental health practitioners. The program is run by a husband and wife team who are just plain adorable. We have Bob on Tuesdays for our infant development class, and then Wednesday we have both Barb and Bob for three hours for our observation and reflection seminar and then Barb for our assessment class Wednesday evenings. My cohort is all females and I am one of the youngest people in the program. Most are married with kids, jobs and tons of life experience, but we all fit together pretty well. It's a weird feeling right now because on campus I feel so much older than everyone else, but when I am in classes I feel like the baby.
    The program itself is quite interesting. This semester is focusing on learning how to observe and reflect about our feelings...that's right, FEELINGS. We were assigned to find a family that has an infant under the age of two and twice a month observe the parent-child interaction and environment and then journal about how it makes us feel. I don't think I have used the term "I feel" since junior year of college in my honors seminars. My amazing God-sister and her husband agreed to be my observation family, hence the driving to Nevada this weekend, and I have loved getting to watch the interactions between them and their son. It's interesting to take the role of observer and yet to be considered a professional in the field. I feel like I am learning new things all the time and then other people look to me for answers and help. It's kind of cool to be able to offer up articles and theories and personal experiences to families. I am looking forward to getting to move forward and put more of what I am learning into practice and hopefully influencing others for the better.
     I am also getting excited to become a parent myself, not that that is in the near future to my knowledge, but reading and observing the parent-child relationship and the Uuniqueness that comes along with that makes me excited to experience that in my own life. I am curious to see how I respond and what hopes and goals and challenges God presents me in the blessing of children. More so, I am excited to know what my spouse will Ooffer and how we will balance/ challenge each other in the efforts to raise our own family.
    The more I learn, the more I hunger for knowledge. I am so confident that this is where God wants me just because I crave being in a position to learn and do more in the infant-family practice field. I am not sure what the rest of this year will offer, and I am sure this first semester is just a nice way to transition us into the crazy semesters that are to follow, but I think I am up to the challenge. After all, I am a professional now ;)

I am going to close with this picture of the crazy dust storms down here. I myself haven't been caught directly in one, but this is from my back patio. God is so beautifully mighty!

80% mental

First off, I wanted to post pictures from my apartment... there's only the living room and dining room and kitchen that I am finished with and ready to show off. Love it!!!!!

Ok, well other than that not much has changed regarding my situation, but I am hoping my attitude has. Last night I was doing my devotions and I came upon a startling relization. Actually the Holy Spirit opened my eyes and revealed my character to me in a not so pleasent way. I realized that I have allowed my attitude about this move to infect my soul. I have allowed Satan to weasel his way into my heart and mind and to spread lies about who I am and who I am called to become. I allowed the lies of lonliness, unworthiness, fear and self pity to consume my thoughts and attitude. That is not who I am! You and I both know that and yet, because I am not in my comfort zone, I completely fell off of my faith and my foundation.

I am the daughter of the King. I am a princess in the high Ccourts of Zion and I am acting like the war has been fought and I have lost. Yet, I know that God has not given me a spirit of timidy, but a spirit of power and of love (2 Timothy 1:7). I am not acting like that though. I am allowing my fears, my being uncomfortable to dictate my actions and attitudes. So, I resolved to let go. I Rresolved to stand up and stare Satan directly in the eyes and tell him to get behind me. My God is bigger, he is more powerful and he knows the plans he has for me! I will rest in His promises and no longer allow Satan to be the one who tells me what I will and will not do.

Truth be told, I am ready to put this past week behind me and start over. I will look at this as an adventure and I will no longer be afriad to do things on my own. Sabrina hit me with this nugget of truth today.... "You are allowing yourself to believe that you are a person who has to do things with other people, but what if you believed you were a person who can do things on their own, who can try new things and doesn't have to have someone else as a crutch." It is so true.
When I was a senior in high school I was on the diving team. I had never actually been on the diving team before and the only time I really took any instruction in diving before that was a one week diving camp at the Air Force Academy. But I decided that was what I was going to do and so I did it, on my own. The first lesson I learned from Coach RoseE was that diving is about 80% mental and 20% skill. I thought she was crazy...I mean seriously you are telling me that a reverse double pike dive has 20%  of skill involved in it...Ha I have been on that board and there is a lot more to that then 20% skill. But than I learned how to do the inward dive. You stand backwards on the end of the board, jump and touch your toes all while facing the board, the closer to the board the better. Yep, you actually see the board on your way down. And I quickly realized that 80% mental is darn right. On the days that I walked onto the board excited to dive and loving the inward, I nailed it. On days when I was unfocused, stressed out, or allowed my nerves to get the best of me, I flopped...literally belly flopped, back flopped, side flopped, I flopped.
I had a dream last night about being at the pool on a diving board.... 80% mental....here we go!

A week in the Desert!

  Today marks the first full Wweek of living in Tempe and in my apartment! Yay, I made it a week.  To be honest, this has not been an easy process. I can’t say that I believed this move was going to be easy, but I really didn’t think it would be this difficult either. I have a huge new respect for kids whose parents are in the military. Moving is hard, but even harder is being the new kid in town. Feelings of loneliness creep in and even though I know that I just got here, feelings of anxiousness constantly wash over me.  I am ready to start school, ready to have things to be accountable for, and people to invest in. Those of you who know me know that I crave busyness. I love having a long list of things to accomplish and places to go. This week of not having much to do is testing me.  I realize that this time is probably a gift from God. Time to read an entire book all day if I want to, which by the way I am reading “The Art of Racing” by Garth Stein and it is awesome, time to mindlessly watch T.V. or go to the movies, or explore Arizona, but the realistic side of me always jumps in. I get caught up in thinking, “I could have been doing job interviews this whole week, or training for work, or even putting in 40 hours.” I am trying to be better at being alone without being lonely, more on that later but here are some highlights from the week.

1.       Finally having my own apartment, which I can decorate my way.  The furniture matches and it stays clean…LOVE IT! Pictures to come. Each room has a color scheme or theme.

2.       My advisor finally got back to me about when classes start, orientation and internship placement options. I had sent her e-mails starting in May asking for more details about my graduate program and what was required. I got very few responses and even fewer questions answered. Then I started panicking because a few grad students I had met were talking about program orientations. I started freaking out… I hadn’t heard about any orientations for my program. Another e-mail sent. Finally a week before classes started I got an e-mail… no worries, I have orientation next Wednesday.

3.       I went to the Phoenix Zoo with a friend and her boyfriend. So hot… we conquered two hours of the zoo in 100 degree weather!!! Yes an accomplishment. The zoo is awesome but we probably won’t be returning until Christmas. The zoo is only open 7am-2pm. That’s how hot it gets here. And even at 7am it’s in the high 80’s.

4.       I LOOVE A/C. I love my truck that blasts A/C. I love misters in shopping centers!!!

5.       The girl who lives above me, we’ll call her Sabrina, has a dog as well and is a grad student. We hung out and are forcing the pups to be friends. So far, so good. Her dog, we’ll call him Sergio, is hilarious and he and Ditto get along pretty well. This is good because after living with three other dogs all summer, he keeps giving me pitiful puppy eyes and making me feel guilty about the move.

6.       Went to a church on Sunday in Chandler and they are doing a flash mob on Saturday to promote their new series!!! Being in a flash mob is on my bucket list, I may participate Saturday…if so, more to come!

All in all, this has been a challenging week. But God never fails!!! He has been so sweet to me and has provided little surprises each day to keep me motivated and pursuing Zion.