Not Much Up

Hey there! Not much to say I guess but I felt like I should say something...um, my car is making some very weird noises. It has been for awhile and today they have multiplied a lot...I think it has something to do with my breaks. Whatever it is it's very unhealthy sounding.

I finally got some mentees with TNT. I was supposed to just get any new people, well then something fell through with one of the other mentors so I just got all of her mentees. I'm excited though. We went to a TNT fundraiser the other night-- me, Ivan, Johnathan & our neighbors Katie & Jeff. (Also our bowling team) I really need to get some pics up of these people so you all can put a face with a name. Anyway, it was a poker fundraiser, Jeff won. He's like a poker fiend or something.

The weather this last few days has been amazing. Only the low 90's, which actually feels cool. Kinda like fall weather really. It's amazing I guess how fast your body adjusts to the heat. The other day I was going to take the dogs to the park but I wondered if it was too hot out, Ivan said "It's only 101" I was like oh, well let's go then...at home we'd have died!

Speaking of Ivan, he's involved in a new business venture with his mom. It's something called "Your Travel Business." Basically if you buy your plane tickets, book hotels, anything like that, through his website he makes money off it, and the prices are pretty much the same as Travelocity. So keep that in mind if you're ever booking in the future. The website is www.ytb.com/nicholsi

Alrighty, well I guess that's all. Talk to you later

Charlie's Hairdo

So I took Charlie to get her hair cut and they told me on her first time they won't do anything major because they just want to break her in, they just cleaned up her face, tummy, and booty for her first time. So here's a pic in case anyone was wondering what her face actually looked like :)

Doesn't the one look like Charlie is telling Lucy something funny and Lucy's cracking up or surprised??! She's like "Oh my God!"

Charlie's first trip to the dog park...

Charlie made her first trip to the dog park Saturday. Unfortunately only Charlie, Lucy & I were there :( It was exciting because she got to run but not meet any other dogs.

So we went back tonight and there were tons of dogs! At first she just sat under my feet so I got up & walked around and she followed me everywhere and eventually ran around. Whenever she would see Lucy she'd run for her but most of the time Lucy was too busy playing with other dogs. This was one of the first times she's really been around other dogs besides Lucy. Overall she did really well. I was worried she'd snap but I think she's come out of her shell quite a bit being around Lucy.

She goes to get her first haircut tomorrow! I'll post pictures, I'm thinking it will be funny.

TNT I'm back!

I decided to join Team In Training for another wonderful season. This time I'm back as a mentor. So I will have a small group of teammates as my mentees and I will basically help them through the process-- if they have questions, giving them advice, helping/encouraging with fundraising etc. I'm excited to be back as a mentor because it makes me be more accountable and I'll be way more involved with the team. There's some paperwork and requirements for mentors, which is a little more work than I ever knew they did, but at the same time it's manageable, and worth it I think. One of my teammates from last year is a mentor now and she loves it. It's a little intimidating too because it's a new team to me as well...so they might do things a little differently, and I don't know anyone either so it will push a bit to step up and get to know people and take somewhat of a leadership role. Their season has already started so I'm coming into late and will start my training on Saturday! I didn't expect that already but the race is in January so it's time. I'm thinking this time I'm only going to to the half marathon. I will do a full sometime again in my life, but I'm not ready, plus, I'm joining late so I don't want to set the bar too high. I'd rather be a good mentor and enjoy myself.

With all that said, being a mentor I don't have the required fundraising, but I am still going to try and raise some money, maybe $500 because it still is a wonderful cause, and I can share that money with my mentees, as we all know, raising $2200 is HARD! But it can be done! So I won't have any mentees right away, which is nice so I can get to know their team first, but we will be doing a big recruiting event in a couple of weeks and basically whoever comes in off of that will be mine! Scary! Exciting!

Hmm...oustide of that, boot camp is getting better each day. It kinda stinks that I won't have Saturday's to sleep in now because that is when TNT practice is, but I will survive, I did it last year and this season is even shorter.

Well I'll get going...I'll probably hassle for donations in the near future, but not nearly as much as I did last year! haha

GO TEAM!

Pics

Here's a link to some new pictures of the dogs, one of me & Ivan at the Cardinals-Diamondbacks game last weekend, and of grilling out. The picture where Johnathan is blowing up that big ball, the stairs in the background are the stairs that go to our apt. Oh, and the ones of Charlie laying on the couch--she fell asleep that way, and stayed that way for a good hour before I took the picture!!

Enjoy!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5Y_c

I'm sore!!

I started boot camp on Monday...I am having mixed feelings about this. I need to do it. I haven't even moved really since the day the marathon was done...that was in March! And I've gained SO much weight. I need to do this! But because I haven't moved since March and have gained so much weight, boot camp is extremely difficult! I had to stop with about 5 minutes left on Monday because I thought I was going to hurl...or pass out. There are 2 other contributing factors I think, it's about 30 degrees or more warmer here than in CA at 5:30 in the morning. In Cali we'd be wearing gloves & hats and everything, here, it's already warm, not hot, but warm. Also, I think this woman has a lot more cardio in hers than lifting weights. Maybe that will change a bit but for now it's freakin' killing me. I sooo wanted to quit on Monday. I am a quitter you know :) But, my neighbor Katie is doing it with me so I can't. I know it will get better as I get more active, but all I kept thinking was man, I don't want to do this. This is not fun for me. Who knows, I may only do it this one month to kinda get me started. I don't know. I just know I really don't want to go back in the morning! I'm not as sore as I thought I would be, but I am. I'm walking kinda funny I think so I can't imagine running and doing more weight training with my legs feeling this way! UGGH! I was thinking, "man I don't want to be uncomfortable." Because really, that's what it gets down to when we're tired or sore or whatever, it's just a degree of uncomfortable. It stuck in my head because when we were at the starting line for the marathon our coach told us "I don't want anyone here thinking 'just as long as I'm comfortable I'll be ok'...it was funny because that's always what I was thinking when we did those long runs, I could get through it as long as I wasn't too uncomfortable...he wanted us to not think that because we should have been thinking about the chemo patients who are in pain and completely uncomfortable...he wanted us to feel everything just for one day. Anyway, I did! And for several days after. But I'm not curing cancer right now so dangit, I don't want to be uncomfortable!!!!

So Charlie escaped from the apartment this morning. Scary! My neighbor Jeff came over for a second and I was standing in the doorway holding Lucy, and Charlie kinda wandered out the door...no biggie...she got to the stairs and I swear she kinda looked back at us like...here I go! And away she went. Jeff took off faster than I've seen anyone move probably, chasing her, I threw Lucy down and took off barefoot...keep in mind this is like 7:30 in the morning. So Jeff goes one way yelling and I go the other way across some rocks (did I mention I was barefoot?) I was thinking she'd come around that side but she didn't, Jeff & I end up in the same place with no Charlie. So he goes another way and I go another calling for and she just runs out of the parking lot outta nowhere...well as soon as I head for her she turns, so I stopped and just called to her and she came to me. Can I tell you how scary this was?! She didn't have her collar on so if we didn't find her she'd have been gone for good. She was roaming the parking lot so I thought she was done for good already. When I picked her up she was super calm, I think she scared herself a bit too. Good. Brat.

I was going to try and come home the first weekend of October because we have a fall break here but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. Flight prices went up and so did the travel time. I'm not going to spend 8 hours in airports and switching planes if I'm only going to be there for a few days...so that sucks a bit. I'll keep you posted.

Life Is Good

So, life is good! It's amazing how happy I am here. I think it's a combination of things-- it's so nice to be around normal people, as a group they are probably the nicest people I have ever met, I'm really happy with our apartment and the complex as a whole, my job really couldn't be any better...

And I'm finally starting to volunteer instead of just talking about it or reading about it. Did anyone see Oprah last week when Bill Clinton was on there? (Quite possibly my 2 favorite people in the world.) Well, Bill just wrote a new book called "Giving." Of course I went and got about 2 hours after watching the show. In the book he talks about all these ways you can give--he breaks it down by chapter if you want to give money, give your time, give a skill. He tells about all these organizations that have been proven to be really great ones to give to or copycat. At the end of the book there are all the websites for the places so you can find them. What I really loved about the book is that he was just trying to say, no matter how little you can give, it WILL make a difference. That's something I have struggled with a little and has probably kept me from volunteering sooner, I have this 'go big or don't go at all' mentality and you can't always go big! It helped when I was raising money last year for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I really saw how even the littlest amount ended up helping me out so much. Those little amounts really do add up.

One of the organizations featured on the show & in the book was Kiva.org. Basically you can go on there and pick someone who needs a small loan to get their business going, once you donate you can watch their business grow. It's amazing how little some of these people need to really make a difference in their lives. So, last night I went to the website, and guess what? After being in the book and on Oprah, all the loans had been fulfilled!!! Kiva is now working to find more small businesses who need help. I can only imagine how much all the other organizations will benefit just from getting exposure. Pretty amazing.

So of course, I'm going to tell you to check out the book. That saying "Many hands makes light work" comes to mind. If everyone gave just a little it would a HUGE difference. I'm trying!!

Ok, enough about that. I'm also really excited because I found a masters program that I would love to go into. Yes, I just started my bachelor's but there is nothing wrong with thinking ahead. And, keep in mind, I change my mind pretty frequently...but anyway, there are 2 degrees I saw, international development or public service. I've been saying for about 6 months to year I guess that it's be awesome to get into international development or crisis relief-- meaning working with third world countries to help develop or working with people after a natural disaster or something like that. I just didn't know there were actual degrees for it, I just sat here always thinking, how the hell do you get into that stuff? So, my volunteering I'm starting and my trip to Africa will hopefully really help me see if that's what I really want to do, although I can't imagine why I wouldn't...we'll see :)

Other than that stuff not much going on. Busy with classes, although I just started a new class and it is MUCH better, not nearly the amount of work needed. We're in a bowling league with a couple neighbors and that is always something to look forward to. Pretty much every weekend we're grilling out and swimming with our neighbors and it's just fun. We have great neighbors :)

Ok well I will get going. Go buy the book, donate some time or money... :)

International Rescue Committee

I went for the orientation for the volunteer stuff I want to do. It's with a place called the "International Rescue Committee (IRC)." Basically they provide all kinds of relief to refugees, both abroad and by bringing people to the U.S. Learned some interesting facts: there are 14.5 million refugees in the world, and only about 1% of them will ever get resettled, and half of those are in the U.S!! That's a lot of people, living in bad conditions, and a lot of them coming to the U.S. Good for us right, but kinda makes you think, what the hell is the rest of the world doing? I guess that number is going down every year because it's getting so much harder to get into the U.S.

Anyway, this organization is exactly the kind of place I would love to work for someday after my degree is done. It'll be great for me to get that volunteer experience for the future, but also just because it's something I'm really interested in.

So, as a volunteer I will be paired with a family who has just been brought to the Phoenix area. IRC picks them up from the airport and provides them with a fully furnished apartment, clothes, all of that stuff for 6 months. They get them job training and help them get started and the expectation is that within 6 months of being here they should be self sufficient, and 86% of them are! That's probably better than some of our own citizens do. Anyway, my part as a volunteer is to be an "American Friend." I will meet with them once a week and help them with whatever they need help with-- learning English, finding the library, finding a park, teaching them about American culture, really whatever they need. It's a little scary to think about because normally these people don't know a word of English! She said in the orientation, that it's a lot of gesturing and everything with the people...so it could be pretty awkward at times. Although after my internship in Florida working with European families and after being with a lot of families in Southern California who don't speak English, I know it's possible to create a bond without language, what will be hard is teaching them how to do stuff! And keep in mind a lot of these people have been living in refugee camps for years and some don't even know what electricity is or a toilet!!??! So it could be really basic stuff they need to learn. I'm excited. I should be paired with my family within a month hopefully.

Aside from that, life is good. Work is keeping me really busy which I really enjoy. My schedule has worked out so that I can help with the Special Olympics on Fridays during the workday. The district I'm working for sets aside every Friday to take their special ed kids bowling and then at the end of the semester there is a competition and everything, so I'm excited to go with my kids for that.

Alrighty well we're having people over later so I'll get going.