How to start your day

Read this and let it really sink in...then choose how to start your day tomorrow...

Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a
good mood and always has something positive to say. When
someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I
were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad
day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the
positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to
Michael and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive
person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself,
'Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a
good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to
be in a good mood.

"Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim
or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

"Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to
accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of
life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it isn't that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," Michael said. Life is all about choices. When you
cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose
how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect
your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. "The
bottom line is: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Michael said. Soon thereafter, I left the tower industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a
serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications
tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care,
Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his
back.

I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked
him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins.
Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone
through his mind as the accident took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was the well being of my soon-to-be-
born daughter," Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Michael continued, "The paramedics were great.They kept
telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me
into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors
and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse
shouting questions at me," said Michael. "She asked if I was
allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses
stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep
breath and yelled, 'Gravity.' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead'."

Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

17 more days!!!!

17 more days until Becker is here!!! Then only one more week of work! AWESOME!!!

These last couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful. Just heading to the gym, work and that’s about it! My stipend has dwindled to about nothing, so even if I wanted to go out to eat or a movie, I don't have the £££££ for it! Luckily we get paid this Friday!

Also on Friday I will be in Turkey!! Only a 3 day work week this week because on Thursday morning I am heading to Turkey with 3 other Mountbattens. We are going to be sightseeing in Istanbul and I'm really excited for it! Always wanted to check Turkey out and it will also add another country to my list!! One country closer to 26! What is also nice about this trip is that we are heading back home late on Saturday night rather than Sunday. In this way I will have one day to recover. Normally we get home late Sunday night and then I have to go straight to work on Monday. It’s a little tiring to start out the work week with little sleep, so I'm looking forward to my day of rest.

Aside from only having 17 days until Becker gets here, I also only have 14 days left of work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SCORE!!!!!!!!! I have been relatively busy at work, but there are still days where I don't have much work to do at all, so I have been taking advantage of my free time. For our final project in Thialand we have to write a 35 page paper and give a final presentation defending that paper. Seeing as how I have lots free time at work, I have been using that time to write my paper. I have about 21 pages written (about 60% done!)! In this way I will be able to relax more while in Thailand and Becker won't have to spend the whole time alone while I stress about papers, presentations, group projects, reading and tests. Now I'll probably still stress a bit about all of this, but the stress level will be reduced because by the time I leave London I plan on having about 90% of my final paper written.

Anyways, congrats to Nicole and Jen Hall for doing the Polar Plunge. Crazy!

Pictures

I've finally put some pictures online.

http://sarahkeepingitmoving.shutterfly.com

There will be more to come!

Score!!!

I just saved $700!!!!!!!!!

I bought flights from London -> Africa -> Bangkok from Orbitz.com about 3 months ago for Becker and myself. Today I got an email that said that signifcant changes were made to my itinerary and to call a number. Turns out one of our flights changed to 4 hour later, which meant that we would be arriving 45 minutes after our connection flight. Now that obviously doesn't work! Orbitz was unable to find us another flight that would work with our connection, we got a refund. I then went to expedia.com and found the flights for $700 less! How awesome! Now we have more money to spend on traveling around Asia! Woohoo!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey everyone!

Happy early Valentine's Day!! Wish everyone love and happiness!

I'm trying to think about what's happened since I wrote last!! Lets see . . .

We had our last weekend of class and I actually enjoyed it. It was our Personal Development unit and we talked about thinking happy thoughts and being happy with life. This actually went along with the movie that Tanya and I watched the Thursday night before the weekend of class. We watched The Secret which is all about self-fulfilling prophecies. Think positive and good things will happen to you. I had been so unhappy and angry that I really needed a change. The movie helped me find ways to adjust my happiness level. First thing at work on Friday morning, I created a "Vision Board" with pictures of things that make me happy and things that I want in my future (such as a wedding in the Dominican Republic with a pretty dress, a nice house with about 5 acres, a job that I enjoy - preferably at Cargill, etc). The Vision Board brightened up my day and it continues to. I have added to it since then, and its amazing how much lighter I feel now that I am thinking happy thoughts rather than the thoughts that were bringing me down.

Although we had our last weekend of class, we are still not officially done with the London MBA portion. We have one final 2,000-3,000 word paper to write. Its 1/3 on our personal development throughout our year in London, 1/3 on where we currently are and 1/3 on our future. Shouldn't be too bad. Just a bunch of B.S.!

This weekend Tanya is going home to New York for Valentine's day to see her boyfriend Mike. Saturday I'm going to a travel clinic to get my travel vaccinations, then Aaron and I are doing something around London (maybe going to the top of tower bridge or a museum, we'll figure it out eventually!), then I am going out for a Valentine's day dinner with Teresa and Carmen at Brick Lane (the street with a ton of Indian restaurants). Sunday I think I'm just going to go to the gym and do the aerobics class and then the circuit training class. The circuit training class is about 60 minutes of pure hell! But you feel wonderful afterwards! Its very similar to the functional training that I use to do during the off-season in college. Tanya also found somewhere for us to go in Bangkok for some tough workouts. Its boot camp style and only $171 for 3 months of unlimited classes. That's crazy. Most boot camp type classes at the gyms back home are closer to $400-600 a month. Definitely getting a deal!! The boot camp info is at the link below in case you're interested! www.fitcorpasia.com

Getting excited to be done with London!

Less than 4 weeks until mom, dad, Sandy, Kathy and Becker are here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quiero una bottela de vino?

This weekend was ridiculous. I should have just stayed home!

Saturday morning Tanya, Teresa and I woke up at 4:30am so that we could catch our flight to Barcelona. We landed in a very rainy/foggy Barcelona. Perfect London weather! We left London to get away from weather like that. After checking in to our hostel, we went and got some lunch. After lunch was a nap, then dinner, then bed!

Sunday morning we woke up at 4am to Teresa turning on the light and searching for her iPod. It was no where to be seen. We were in a private room; however, the private room did not have a lock on the main door. There were lockers for each of us; however because it was really loud, we all went to bed plugged into our iPods. Apparently someone came in during the night, unplugged Teresa's iPod and took it. I was on the top bunk so mine wasn't taken and Tanya had her iPod next to the wall rather than on the outside. Luckily the iPod was the only thing that was taken. Our wallets and passports were safe. I have stayed in too many hostels to count and this is the first time that anything has ever been taken. Its not a good feeling.

The rest of Saturday was spent on a Hop on Hop off bus tour of Barcelona. We braved the cold and rainy weather and sat on the top of the bus. We were not the happiest throughout the day, but we saw quite a bit and stayed relatively warm.

Our flight home went without any hitches until we arrived in the air above Stansted airport. For those of you who didn't see it on the news, London was hit with the worst snow storm that they've had in 18 years. Stansted closed and therefore our flight had to be diverted to Birmingham (a city north of London, like landing in St. Cloud rather than Minneapolis). After landing we sat on the plane for about 2 1/2 hours waiting to see if we could get flown back to Stansted. But Stansted never opened up again, so we were all directed off the plane, through customs and on to buses. It was not a pretty sight to see everyone running and pushing to get on the buses!! Most of the planes meant for the London airports landed in Birmingham instead, so there were lots of angry and tired people! After our 3 hour bus ride to Stansted (in a really cold bus!), we hopped on the Stansted express which took us to Liverpool Street Station. We arrived there around 7:45am and there were no buses running and a very long line for cabs. Because of this we walked the 25/30 minutes back to our apartment. It was amazing getting back to my apartment and to my bed. I didn't end up going into work, not only because I was up all night trying to get back to London, but also because the buses and tubes were not running and I was not going to walk the 6 miles to work in the cold and snow! Not worth it!

London ended up getting about 6 inches of snow. Which was enough to completely shut down the city! They don't have the plows and such that we have in Minnesota!

So I'm back at work today hoping for another snow day!!!!!!!!!!