Battling thoughts

I continue to be amazed at how quickly my mind goes to dark places in the midst of trying times.  This morning, I had hoped to sleep in, but found myself mentally awake at 6:30 with my mind wandering already.  I've been fighting off a cold and fever blisters all week and while the fever blisters are almost healed, I think the full day of skiing yesterday didn't do wonders for my cold.

Anyway, I got up this morning and realized I didn't have any coffee filters so I managed to scrounge up a packet of Starbucks Via for my morning coffee fix.  Ahhh!  Getting that cup of coffee and sitting down to just do some thinking and praying was good.

Feeling fearful and discouraged a bit about life and battling fatigue and a cold just really took a toll on me this morning mentally.  As an analyst by occupation, I get paid to think about things, but it's the out of office thinking that really gets me into trouble most of the time in life.  Seemed like any past experience of failure, fear, and/or doubt keeps coming to mind this morning in the midst of my weakened physical state.

Having time to sit and be still before the Lord seemed good, but very hard to do as I had a lot of difficulty getting my mind turned off.  I don't often dwell too much on the battle for my mind, but this morning the battle seemed very real and very present as I fought between praying and laying my struggles and fears and doubts down before the Lord against the onslaught of lies and questions that kept coming to mind.

Nothing seems to be resolved yet, but I find that even typing some of this out is therapeutic for me as I continue to think and pray on things and attempt to find silence before the Lord to ask Him for guidance and direction of His will for/in my life.

Incline goal

So, this past weekend was really nice in terms of the weather and I'd been wanting to hit the incline again since I'd not been on it in awhile.  Was curious to see what my time would be in light of getting more exercise and working out some in the gym.

The short of it all is that my original goal was about 45 minutes and I hit it this time!  Pretty pumped about that and seeing the improvement.  Don't think I managed my heart rate all that well, but my legs seemed strong enough and my lungs held up to make the climb without stopping.  Makes a decent difference to be able to go all the way up without stopping.  So, I need to time it out from the street at the very bottom and set a new goal.  I don't know how people make it up in under 30 minutes, but if I can decrease my time another 5 minutes, I'd be pretty happy!

Day of Change

Presidents Day is not something that I typically stop and take note of since it usually is just another day of work.  This year, however, I got to sleep in (kind of) and am taking the day leisurely.  Not because I've taken a vacation day, but because I've moved on to a new job starting tomorrow and am not working at all today!

Yes, after a few years of thinking about change in my working world, today marks the reality of memorializing that change.  My title will not change all that much, but the job and industry will be marked by something completely new...so new that I'm surprised to even have received an offer.  I feel like this new job came about so unexpectedly and so of God that it would almost be silly to not step into it.  It was a difficult decision to make the change, but I am excited for the next step and whatever it may be and for how ever long it may be, I want to be open to serving God in whatever capacity He has planned for me.

A little history behind how the job came about was that I was taking part in a small group at my church.  We were "launching" into a small group and one of the ladies opted to back out of the group before we even started due to other things going on in life that were a bit consuming.  I expressed interest in keeping in touch professionally as she is a recruiter for the Colorado Springs Utilities and she was the one to give me the heads up on the job posting and allowed me the chance to use her name as a reference for the posting.  They called me about setting up an interview while I was on vacation down in FL.  I missed the call and when I was listening to the msg, all I could think of was that I forgot to pay my utility bill.  I came in for my interview shortly before Christmas and expected to have a second round of interviews after the holidays, if they were interested in me.  Honestly, I felt that if they had any other candidates with any semblance of industry experience, my chances were hosed as I'd probably be on the bottom of the pile.  When I heard back from them in mid-January, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they were interested in foregoing second interviews and wanted to proceed with making me an offer!  Wow!  

So, in short, the pay and benefits are better, my earning potential will be better, I think there will be less stress, less late nights and less long weekends!  Those are the major upsides to the job.  With how smoothly the process went and just even the fact I received an offer just made me think this was the right opportunity to jump ship from my current reality.  It's a shift toward non-profit that I've been looking for for awhile and while I don't know how long I'll be with them, I want to be faithful to be listening for God's leading and guidance in my life as to the next steps.

2012

2012.  Man!  Can't believe it's here already.  Rumor has it the world is going to end this year so I guess I'd better make it a year to remember! (Note: sarcasm regarding the end of the world prognostication; I don't know when the world is going to end, but whenever it does end, I want to have lived my life fully).  So, with that, here's some of my hopes for 2012:

1)Weight loss - Not super obsessed with it yet, but I'd be happy to lose 10 more lbs.

2)Exercise - My goal is to summit Pikes Peak (14,110') this year and maybe hit Elbert (14,440') with my dad!

3)Travel - Take a trip somewhere new for my birthday.  Obtain Premier/Elite status with United/Continental again.

4)Community/Serving - Mission trip.  I'm currently planning toward a short term trip this summer to Russia with my church.

5)Vocation - think through more specifically what I want to be when I grow up.  I had a recent job interview last month (which overall is a good thing), but not sure it's really what I want to do (which overall is somewhat counter-productive if I get an offer and accept).

6)Dating - I think I need to get back on this horse.  However, in the spirit of not rushing into it, how about at least 1 date this year?

7)Community/Relationships - I'm still on the fence a little with regard to my small group, but they're good people and I think overall, I want to have a heart that's more directed to investigating peoples' lives more.

That's it for now.  Stay tuned!  2012!  Bring it!  C'mon!

2011 Recap

Well, I was looking back on my 2011 post (which incidently happens to be 1 year ago to the day) to see how the year ended up in regards to those endeavors.  I don't know that I exactly achieved each of them, but here's a rundown result of each one.

1) 37x37 - well 37 lbs didn't happen by age 37, but the year was marked by considerable diet and exercise changes resulting in some weight loss.  Overall, from my high (or low point depending on how I look at it), I managed to drop somewhere in the vicinity of 25-30lbs from that point.

2) Lasik - Did it and couldn't be happier!  If I had to make the choice over again, I'd choose it in a heartbeat!  I love not having to wear glasses or mess with contacts!  Highly recommend it!

3) Debt Reduction - well, I guess the biggest thing I can say about this is that I met all my obligations each month, and did manage to build in the one extra mortgage payment (against the principal) over the course of the year.  I did eliminate all my revolving credit debt so hopefully I'm in a better position to make a decent dent into my car and small home equity loan.

4) Financial Giving - I wasn't able to take on a new child sponsorship in 2011, but we'll see about 2012.  I always have more opportunities to give than I feel I can stretch myself to.  I suppose that's typically the case, but there are a couple of opportunities that I'd like to branch out to this year.

5) Music lessons - Didn't happen.  Not much else to say there.

6) MBA - Didn't happen.  Again, not much else to say except I apparently am not all that motivated to go back to school.

7) Incline - Well, my hope was to get down to 45 minutes.  The problem is I haven't climbed it in quite awhile.  I opted for hiking nearby Waldo Canyon instead as it seemed less crowded.  I need to try the incline again and see where my time is at.  I'd be pleased if I was closer to the 50 minute mark.

8) Family time - I missed out on some of the prime summer month time due to being in Kuwait, but was happy that my dad and I made it out fishing on Black Friday .  Christmas was good and it was good to be able to spend it with the whole family.

9) Travel - I was pretty happy to have made it out to Orlando for my birthday.  It definitely made me want to try and hit somewhere new for my next birthday!

10) Building relationships - I made a start here by getting into a small group at church.  So far, the group is still together and it's not been too bad.  It still seems a little difficult at times for me to connect with those individuals, but I feel like I've seen more success here than previous small group attempts.

So, all in all, I think a fairly positive year.  It was a year of some positive changes for which I'm very thankful for.  I need to post some 2012 hopes next which, I suspect, will probably closely resemble the 2011 list and where I left off.  So, here goes...

Cocoa Beach

While I was out in Orlando earlier this month, one of the things that I thought might be fun to do was go to a nearby beach.  Since my friend, Elizabeth was going to be working at least one of the weekdays that I was there, this seemed like something fun and leisurely that I could go look around myself.

As this day happened to be the day after my birthday, I was pretty wiped from Epcot the day before so I slept in that morning and finally got on the road around noon.  The two closest beaches were Cocoa and Daytona.  I opted for Cocoa Beach since it seemed a little shorter and more direct (and Cape Canaveral was nearby).

Before leaving, I had searched the web to try and find some info out about beaches or places to go while down there.  The two spots that I landed on were a public park next to the Hilton (I think) and a Jetty Park that was near Port Canaveral.  I suppose I should've planned for a trip to Ron Jon's surf shop, but didn't make it in there.  It was pretty easy to find my way over there as it was a straight shot out of Orlando.  Great drive and not too crowded.  People drive fast on that road as well.  By the time I got "out" of Orlando, it probably was only like 40 minutes to get there.  Nice!  Unbeknownst to me, that day turned out to be a really cold day back in the Springs so it made me feel even better to have the opportunity to enjoy some warmth and sunshine for another day before stepping in to winter back home!

I was really just looking for a coffee shop near the beach in order to do a little work and/or reading since my foot was not going to allow for walking on the sandy beaches in light of the removal of the mole and the healing process taking place there (side thought: the biopsy on the mole was "normal").  Anyway, coffee shops along the beach really don't exist there and come to think of it, I can't imagine a lot of people wanting to drink hot cups of coffee near the beach.  So, after checking out the public park, I tried to find my way over to Jetty Park, which is where all my pictures were taken.

Part of the reason I wanted to go to Jetty was because I'd heard that one could see manatees and sea turtles possibly, as well as maybe a cruise ship and the launch site over at Cape Canaveral (would've been really cool if I could've seen a NASA launch!).  So, I finally managed to find the Park and was kind of bummed to find out that rather than the $5 entrance fee, I was going to have to pay $10 since I wasn't a local resident.  Well, I figured I was there so I might as well make the most of it.  I paid my fee and drove in.  Looking back, I wished I'd had some fishing gear as that cost would've covered fishing off the pier as well.  I was primarily interested in the pier since it didn't require walking through a lot of sand.  I'm still kicking myself for not waiting on that procedure until after vacation (live and learn).

So, here's a panoramic shot of the pier on the left and some of the rocks.  You can see I got there fairly late in the afternoon as the sun was getting lower.

Another panoramic shot of the pier.

The wind was up that day so it was really creating some small waves against the shoreline.  Enjoyed seeing that!

There was actually a couple of cruise ships while I was there.  One came in and this one below was leaving.  This boat seemed smaller than others I feel like I've seen, but it was still pretty stinkin big!

This is my one shot of Cape Canaveral.  The white thin in the middle way off in the distance is where they do the launches (I think).  Not too much activty on this day.

Since this was a fishing pier, there didn't seem to be any shortage of feathery friends looking for an easy meal or some leftover scraps.  This particular guy seemed pretty tame.  You can tell I've not been around water or the ocean all that much as I got pretty entertained just seeing them, but I thought it was pretty cool to watch them take off and skim the surface if they saw a fish.

So, how many pelicans can you find in this picture? :)

This picture struck me as funny.  AllI could think of was "which of these is not like the others"?

Off the pier walkway, they had this nice little bridge over to a beach and some of the sand dunes out there.  Seemed like something straight out of a movie to me!

I ended up enjoying some short time reading and working through some of the discussion questions in my small group booklet.  I didn't get to spend as much time as I would've liked due to my late start and the sun starting to set, but in the end, I still achieved what I hoped for which was some nice quiet relaxing time at the beach!  Once the sun starting to disappear, I packed up and headed back to Orlando to meet up with Elizabeth for some evening festivities.

Birthday at Epcot!

 

So, for my birthday this year, I decided to branch out a little bit on my celebration by going to FL to visit my friend, Elizabeth (aka Libby).  She is on staff with CRU (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ) and does Graphic Design for them.  It so happens that the CRU national headquarters is located in Orlando.  Since I've never been to Disney World, I thought this might be the perfect time and opportunity to go.  Having a birthday around that time frame just made it all the more compelling to visit Disney!

I have some friends at work who are Disney fanatics!  They graciously provided me a book of information which I perused ahead of time to try and maximize my day there.  A side-note to all of this is that I decided to have a mole removed right before I left on my trip.  The problem was that it was located on the bottom of my foot.  Note to self: next time a mole needs to be removed, opt to wait until after vacation!  A long day walking around Epcot was not kind to my foot or my leg for having to compensate for the discomfort by walking a little differently (and slightly limping).

Elizabeth met me bright and early at my hotel and we took the shuttle over to the Magic Kingdom, as that was the first shuttle out.  We'd heard that the first week in December was a good time to go as it fell into the "Least Crowded" category and riding the monorail from Magic Kingdom over to Epcot seemed to prove that.  I was very surprised at the minimum amount of cars that I saw (not to mention people).  Here's a picture of the ticket booths (as you can see, there weren't a whole lot of crowds):

Of course, I did find out that the park was not officially open until 9am (something I failed to read in the book) and we had arrived around 8:30.  So, we grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to wait until they opened the front gates!  Once inside, we stopped a took a quick picture in front of the giant golf ball.  Here's my adventurous companion ready to take on a long day at Epcot:

 

We had read that it was best to hightail over to the Soarin' ride.  This was an IMAX type ride that took you up and made you feel like you were kind of hang-gliding over the California coast.  They had a breeze blowing at you, and a big giant screen below you showing all sorts of footage (from an aerial perspective).  The surprising thing was that in the midst of the ride you got to smell a couple of scenes (1 being a pine smell as you were "flying" over the Redwoods and the other being an citrusy smell or maybe it was grapes as you were "flying" over Napa wine country).  Very cool!

We proceeded to check out a few of the other rides in that area.  There were some pretty cool ones, like a Test Drive track (seemed the most roller coaster-ish) and there was a flight simulator ride that put you in space shuttle of sorts with a mission to mars.  They had two lines (one for easier intensity and another for heavier intensity) and I tried the easier line first.  After I conquered that, I went for the heavier one and surprisingly enough, I felt pretty woozy coming out of that one!  I don't recommend it for those who easily get nauseous!

Since the global area in the back of Epcot didn't open up until 11, we did much of the front stuff early on in the morning.  However, by the time lunch rolled around, we were ready to go find something tasty from one of the countries.  Turns out we ended up at Morocco and had a nice little plate of some Mediterranean sliders which were delicious!

After a nice lunch break, we proceeded to check out the different countries they had there.  I was wondering whether citizens from any of the countries on exhibit felt their country was adequately or correctly portrayed.  Just a random side thought...

Anyway, I didn't think to take as many pictures as I probably should've, but here's what I've got.

Germany.  Reminded me of going over on STINT my 3rd year and having a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt.  The teams went into town and we stopped in at a plaza that seemed to mirror this little scene at Epcot.  Elizabeth recalled the same.

 Italy.  A favorite of mine (mostly just because I really like all things Italian!

Morocco.  Not a place I've been, but it did remind me a lot of when I lived in Jordan.

Japan was pretty cool.  They had these drummers that played these big drums and from a distance it sounds a little redundant since all you can really experience is the deep base sound.  However, when you watch the show, it's actually pretty cool and entertaining (at least I thought so).  Wish I'd taken a picture of them.  One of the other things they had there was a little pearl exhibit.  So, one could pick out an oyster and they would pop it open and see how big of a pearl was inside.  They also had people making pearl jewelry right there as well.

I did get a picture of the beautiful koi pond they had.  Seemed clear to me that the koi must get fed from tourists, or at least this guy thought I was going to drop something in.

One of the more cool shows in the World Showcase were these Chinese acrobats.  Now, I'm pretty sure they're strong, but I was pretty impressed with some of the acrobatics they exhibited (especially these Bobsey Twins).  Made me think I needed to start working out a bit more...

Towards the end of the day, we started thinking birthday dinner and what ended up sounding good to me was Italian or Japanese.  Since it was dinnertime, every place was going to have a bit of a wait so we proceeded to put our name in at the Japanese place.  We were told it would be 50 minutes (well, honestly, we weren't really sure if she said 15 or 50) and given one of those light-em-up type signals that flash and vibrate when your name is up.  So, we proceeded to go sit down and wait.  I'm sure it didn't matter by this time whether I was sitting or standing as my foot was throbbing pretty good regardless...it sucks getting old).  Much to our surpise and delight, the wait ended up only being about 15 minutes and we gladly came and got to our table.  We ate at one of those places where they cook the meal in front of you.  Reminded me of a birthday dinner I had in Lubbock at Shogun Japanese Steakhouse.  So good!  All the waitstaff was really nice and they all seemed so authentic, especially with names like Mariko and Suhiko (or something to that effect).  It was a little non-Japanese when our chef turned out to be named Ken.  I guess there's a famous Japanese actor named Ken Watanabe...anyway, here's Ken in action!

 I received a birthday cake.  Didn't really know it, but there were actually two other birthdays at our table.  The people we sat next to were very nice (from upstate NY) and it was fun to share some conversation with them.

I guess I've left out probably a number of things. 

- We took a little boat ride inside of the Mexico exhibit.  If you go in the summertime, that little ride is a great place to be indoors and fairly cool on a hot, humid, crowd filled summer day.  My recommendation is just to not go in the summer; that first week in December is like perfect (at least for Epcot, not sure how crowded it was at the Magic Kingdom).

- We sat in on this little history of America show that was pretty neat.  There was an acapella group singing Christmas carols at the US exhibit.

- There was a pretty cool little history of the world ride inside of the golf ball.

- There was a educational show about energy by Ellen Degeneres and it featured a ride through this setup that had dinosaurs.  There was a little child seated in front of me and he didn't take too well to that.  If I'd been his age, I'd have probably freaked out as well.  Those dinosaurs were pretty real looking!

- For dessert, Elizabeth bought me some gelato at the Italy exhibit!

- We watched fireworks at the end of the night.  It was a pretty impressive show.  It put most 4th of July shows I've seen to shame.  Disney sure does know how to do it right!

- I wore this Happy Birthday pin on my shirt all day.  Most every Disney employee (Cast Member) wished me a Happy Birthday...that was fun.  I even had other park-goers wish me a Happy Birthday...that was even more entertaining.

- The longest line we stood in was the monorail line at the end of the night to get back over to the Magic Kingdom to catch our shuttle bus back to the hotel.

It was a great and memorable way to celebrate my birthday.  Thanks E, for making the journey with me and being my companion for the day.  Good night, Epcot!