Hello Costa Rica!

Image by Salvatore Vuono
Costa Rica, my friend, I love you! God bless 80 degree days filled with humidity. I know that sounds weird, but toss in a little trade winds and I’m in paradise – or better yet Costa Rica! New Orleans, don’t be jealous. I still love you too!

Though after the five and half hour red-eye flight and the annoying guy who got up to pee 6 (yes 6!) times and still insisted on having a window seat, I required some much needed ZZZs . FYI – I never got the expression red-eye till now because that is definitely how you look after one of those flights. Thank god for super early check-ins and really friendly front desk people who tolerate exhausted Americans trying to speak Spanish, but are too tired to form actual sentences in my first language.

After several hours sleep I woke up refreshed and ready to explore the city that was bustling just below my window. That’s when I realized that in our sleep deprived state earlier we hadn’t been given any instructions for the next leg of our adventure. While I’m fine with winging things most of the time, The Man definitely is not, so we’d arranged a travel package that would take us from one stop to the next and several tours at the various locations.  Not an ideal situation.

After several attempts to reach someone at our travel companies local office who knew what was going on (it was lunch and siesta hour and the poor girl who answered the phone didn’t speak that great of English and my Spanish isn’t good enough for that conversation) we had a time to meet the guide tomorrow and still half of the first day to catch some of the local sites in San Jose.

So here is to 10 days filled with nature, culture and adventure!

Life isn’t about finding yourself, It’s about creating yourself!

You ever hear people say “I’m finding myself”? Well, I absolutely hate that saying. It’s ridiculous and makes no sense. How can you find yourself? It’s not as if you were somewhere then whoops turned around and you’re gone. You didn’t misplace yourself somewhere. No one is going to hand you a map or plug the coordinates into your GPS and presto! There you are. It’s you! The one you’ve spent all this time looking for.

In life we don’t find ourselves, we create ourselves!

We have never been here before and we will never be here, in this moment in time again. With every choice, every action, every thought - we create. We Hope. We dream. We embrace. We cry. We fall. We love. We lose. We explore. We live. 

Our life and the people we become are our creation.

I believe I’m still creating myself. The self I want to be. The better me. The more involved me. The more humble, more compassionate, more dedicated, more inspired me.  Every day I continue to work toward creating the me I want to be. 

It's not about being content with who you are, but continuing to strive to achieve a better you. Everyone of us is beautiful in our own right. We do not need to find ourselves, for we are already here. We already know who we are. The question is, "Is this the best person I can be?" I resoundingly say NO!

Because of this I will never stop creating. Never stop evolving. And most importantly never stop learning. I learn, I live and I create. 

May you always appreciate the you, you are and you, you are creating. Who will the you, you create be?

A head full of useless facts & absurd skills

Sometimes I wish I could delete all the useless information that has accumulated in my brain over the last 26. Out with the old and in with some stuff that may actually be useful!

Most importantly I would delete the ability to say the ABC’s backwards. There was some very stupid myth in the 90s that cops would make you say the ABC’s backwards if you were pulled over. At the ripe of 11 I decided that I better learn how to do that. I was terrified of being hauled off to jail on suspicion of a DUI when I was only speeding all because I couldn’t say them backwards. The things kids will believe.

Fifteen years later it is more of an inconvenience than anything. I do now have it on good authority that cops will not ask you say your ABC’s backwards for any reason. It’s apparently not a common thing people can do. Plus it screws me up when I’m trying to figure out what letter comes after which. I actually have to stop and think (okay, yes and sing a little) is it N-O-P-Q or Q-P-O-N?

Amazingly being able to recite every state in the US alphabetically still comes in handy! I’m keeping that one. Thank you 5th grade! Everybody sing it - Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas….

So with a head full of useless facts what is a girl to do? Looks like I'll just have to stick to rocking at trivia games.

If you could purge your brain of useless knowledge what would you delete?

The Almost Vacation -But Not Quite Here Yet- Blues

It’s official. I’m finally going to get another stamp in my passport! The St. Lucia stamp was starting to get lonely, so what else could I do but give it a little company? The bad thing about scheduling a vacation is that the waiting period suddenly becomes so much longer. May 28th why, oh why, can’t you just get here?

If you know me then you know that when I get an idea in my head or a notion to do something I do it. I don’t sit and talk about how I would love to do this, or it would be so fun to do that, or I’ve always wanted to try… I take charge, pull the lever and send myself in there guns blazing. I’m proud of the dedication and determination I have to embrace every opportunity and challenge. Without it I would never have rode waves of the coast of Hawaii, jumped out of an airplane on a beautiful October morning, or had the courage to explore school again and a change in career.

Yes, I admit that sometimes things can go awry. Otherwise I would never have had the pleasure of cruising through airports in a wheelchair on the way back from New Orleans. But to me it was completely worth it. When else would I have randomly stumbled onto a pirate’s convention and spent the weekend hanging with swashbucklers?

You see, one of my biggest goals is to truly see and do everything. Anything from cruising the canals of Venice in a gondola, and eating native nuts with the Pigmies, to fishing the anchovies run in South Africa and even seeing that damn 5 legged calf in Kansas. Yes, everything. The important thing is gaining the experience. Feeling something, learning something, exploring my understanding, expanding the mind and embracing another day that could have and would have just gone by.

As with anything, the key to reaching a goal is to make that first step. So, here I go again taking another step.  This time I will be stepping into Costa Rica where I will spend 10 days touring the canals in the rainforest, hiking up volcanoes, sea kayaking along the coast, and embracing the local culture from the Gulf side clear to the Pacific. Who knows, with a little luck I may even get the chance to put those surf lessons to good use again.

Now if only I can make it the 3 weeks till I take off for some vaca time.

Friendly Friday - An Ode to True Friends!

I received this email today and it truly does remind me of what friendship is like to me. Thanks to all of my rockstar friends! I love ya! Enjoy!

1. When you are sad, I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!

2. When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you..

3. When you smile, I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

4. When you're scared, we will high tail it out of here.

5. When you are worried, I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!

6.. When you are confused, I will use little words.

7. When you are sick, stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have....

8. When you fall, I'll pick you up and dust you off-- after I'm finished laughing my ass off and pointing at you!!

This is my oath.....I pledge it to the end.

'Why?' you may ask; -- because you are my FRIEND!

Side Note: Friendship is like peeing your pants, Everyone can see it, But only YOU Can feel the True warmth...

Damn You April - Damn You!

It’s official. I’m jinxed. Or April is jinxed. Or maybe it’s a little bit of both. Any which way you look at it, April and me, we apparently don’t get along. More specifically April has it out for me. At the very least it has it out for my knees.

I spent last Sunday giving the Skyla a few last runs before she returns to the basement for the long summer season. Springtime on the mountain is great. There is always a chance of a freak storm that will dust the resorts with upwards for 2 feet of snow. It’s the days Coloradans dream of. On the flip side the temp can also creep into the 50s and the runs begin to take the consistency of mashed potatoes. Then the following morning all that slushy greatness has frozen packing the runs with ice. That’s the down side and last Sunday it gave April the chance to come back and bite me in the ass again, or the knees.

About 4 hours into my farewell to winter day, the ice was turning back to gooey softness again and I was picking up speed with each run. Then fate stepped in and I managed to find the last patch of ice with my toe edge. Slam! Knees go down, both cracking against said ice patch. After rolling stopping my downward spiral down the mountain I proceed to rock back and forth for a good ten minutes grabbing my knees before proceeding cautiously down the remainder of the run. That was it. My day was done.

Several days later the left one is still sporting a nasty purple moon and the right has what I can only describe as a mini-tumor growing just beneath the cap. After little change and significant prodding by the man I’m finally going to the doctor to have them looked at.  

What I realized in the process of setting up said appointment is this isn’t the first time my knees and April have crossed paths and I’ve lost.  If you know me you know that my knees are practically my nemesis by themselves. Four times they’ve failed me and you guessed it, almost all of those have been in April. Who could forget the so called pirate incident in New Orleans exactly a year ago. ;) After all it’s not really a vacation unless someone comes back in a wheel chair. (Side note – Beware of the Hurricanes & Hand Grenades in the Big Easy)

This one goes to you April, but be warned – next year will be mine even if have ride in a damn little rascal scooters like an old person all month. In the meantime let’s call us square this year.  

FYI: The job title is Account Manager not Whipping Post

It’s one of those days. You know the one. The day where anything that can go wrong will. The day where tempers run hot and mouths seem to be running off at decibels that shatter ear drums. The day where you just want to clock out and say “See you world! Until tomorrow!” then curl up in an oversize chair with a glass of wine or even a strong martini and stare at the wall because that’s all your brain can take at this point. That’s my day.
 
I work in an environment that is filled to the brim with big egos, where each one is a little more pompous then the next. My day is filled conversing with legal minds and plastics’ artists. My time is spent talking to the heads of these practices who are often used to speaking down to everyone in their general vicinity. And the joy of being the representative and face of my organization for my client s is that when things go wrong I’m the one to feel the lash.

Sometimes that can be ridiculously hard. The urge to lay blame where it belongs dances around on my tongue though never quite escaping. I bite it back and swallow it down. I sit and allow the verbal mounds of complaints to lash out at me never breaking my calm, never pointing my finger at another, never making an excuse and always accepting the blame.

And when it’s through and I’m ready to wrap my fingers around the neck my teammate who didn’t think before doing something without my permission, I stalk down the hall to their office mumbling explicitives all the way. But before I can begin launching projectile missiles in the form of staplers and keyboards at my colleague, I reign in my temper. I politely let them know what the issue is. I don’t scream how I need this crap fixed in ten but right now damn it! I haggle, I bribe and I beg to get it done today.

Why? Because that is my job. Yes, I’m the project overseer, strategist and account manager. But I’m apparently also the fundamental hidden titles not listed in my job description – the listener, the peacekeeper and the whipping post.   I’m the one who maintains control of my emotions, never blinking no matter how bad it stings. That’s what makes me good at my job.