Slow Down

Found this video on lds.org today and I absolutely love it. Take some time to watch it and then slow down for what matters most.

Mom and I

I found this picture today while going through some folders. I think that this is one of my favorite pictures of me and mom. We look so happy and that is a REAL smile on Mom's face. This picture was taken almost a year ago in Weiser while we were at the festival. I remember Mom and I laughing so hard as she pointed out people she used to know or guys she'd dated. One of my favorite things to do with my mom is giggle. And when we get really giggly it's all downhill from there! We have the greatest time together!

And I can't get over how much I love this picture. This picture is us. Me and my Mommy. Whom I LOVE! I love her and I love us!

Miracle

Working in the NICU has really opened my eyes to how amazing the miracle of life is. It is a amazing to me that a baby can be born full term and have the ability to breathe one her own, regulate her heart beat and body temperature, and eat on her own without cues. But then there is the baby who came too early and can't do any of that. And he's hooked up to monitors that beep every five seconds and the gavage tube that runs through his nose and feeds him because he hasn't quite mastered the idea of sucking. And the baby is so little that I'm honestly afraid I will break her when I hold her. The twin boys who sleep in the same crib all cuddled up to each other and it's the cutest thing ever. The baby girl who was so close to going home but then stopped breathing for a while so now the parents have to wait another week before they can try and take her home.

The parents. The moms and dads who come in on their breaks or the moms who are there all day. The parents who on the outside look like they are fine but you know deep down they are probably freaking out. They feed and hold their babies as much as they can. The parents who can only hold their baby for an hour or so because too much stimulation distresses them. The mom who is really needy and questions everything the doctors do and can sometimes really frustrate the nurses and doctors but then you find out that this is her fourth premature baby and the other three didn't survive. And you realize that she just wants to take a baby home. Then there is the exciting day when the baby is taking all his food orally and he passes his car seat test and his parents room in and get to take him home. Oh the excitement of the parents and nurses when, after so many weeks of leaving without a baby, Mom and Dad put their baby in his car seat and walk out the doors of the NICU.

Then there is the baby who is born premature most likely because of her mother's drug and alcohol use while pregnant. And now she is 15 months old and visited by the occupational therapist twice a week. She doesn't crawl let alone walk yet and is fed through a tube in her stomach and its a struggle to get her to eat solid foods. The frustration I feel with this young mom who may be trying her best but it doesn't look like it. How I want to yell "Stop texting and talking on your cell phone!!!" while we discuss and teach her out to help her baby learn to eat and crawl and walk. And this baby is so adorable and just want her to have a good life. And I begin to realize how much you really can't control or change someone.

These little babies who struggle for life. Struggle to live. These parents who sit by their cribs and speak words of encouragement and hold and feed them when they can. They amaze me. And now when I hold a baby born at full term and she's not hooked up to monitors and she's BIG I appreciate it so much more. So to those little babies I say keep going. You'll get there, someday you'll be big and it will be a miracle.

The past month...

I graduated! More photos to come hopefully!

I played with Katelynn

Went to Voodoo Donuts in Portland for the first time

Sam and I took Marisa to Multnomah Falls. She got the whole Pacific Northwest experience as we hiked to the top in the rain :)

Sam and I hid in a cave...

My Best Friend Janelle got married!!!!!!

She married an AWESOME man!

And I got to spend some time with my family! It was great to be home for a couple weeks! I didn't want to return to Rexburg!

Now I am doing my internship at EIRMC and absolutely loving it! My supervisor is great and the little babies in the NICU are sooo cute!

More fun information to come!

Internship

My internship is now finalized! I will begin on May 2nd!! So what will I be doing, you ask? Well, let me tell you! I will be working at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) in the pediatric therapy unit. My supervisor specializes in neo-natal/early intervention. I will be shadowing him and sometimes working alongside him with the babies helping out where I can. I will also be working with two other therapists in the pediatric unit who work with some of the older children. I am so excited!!! And I am so grateful that it has all come together! I was having a hard time believing it was really true until yesterday when all my paperwork was finished and I finally got to meet my supervisor. I kept expecting it to fall through and not work out! Oh ye of little faith! Everything is coming together and I'm super excited! I can't wait to begin!

Graduation

I graduate in 9 days.

NINE

Can you believe it?

Yeah...me neither.

I picked up my cap and gown today.

I'm drowning in it...but hey no one looks good in those anyways, right?

I have a tassel that says 2011.

I will be a college graduate 4 years after graduating high school.

I have 2 tickets sitting on my desk for my mom and dad.

They will be here in a week and one day.

I'M SO EXCITED!

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Just let me bask in this...

before reminding me that the real world is coming

I don't feel like hyperventilating today.

I graduate in 9 days.

Today is a good day.

Festival of Colors

This is right after everyone begins throwing color. It was every where! Those in the middle had face masks so they could breathe. We stayed on the outskirts of the group because it was our first time.

This weekend Marisa, Baylee, and I headed down to Utah to celebrate the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork. The Festival of Colors is the celebration of a Hindu holiday called Holi. It is a celebration of the beginning of Spring. There is a Hindu Temple in Spanish Fork and every year they celebrate Holi. It got it's common name, Festival of Colors, because part of the ritual is to throw powdered colors at everyone. Actually in India they t

hrow colored water. It was so fun! We had such a blast and I can't believe I haven't gone in the past!

Throwing colored powder at each other was really fun. We also enjoyed throwing it at random strangers. The people who arrived all clean were walking targets! The atmosphere was great! Most of the people were college students and probably not even Hindu.

I'm so glad that we got the opportunity to go and I hope that I will have the opportunity to go again.

What I've Been Up To...

• Classes and Homework...obviously!
• Racking up the points in bowling class! Ok, not really but I am improving. I scored over 100 twice in a row! YAY!
• Read 3 Jane Austen Novels and I'm in the middle of my fourth for my Jane Austen class
• Crossword Puzzles, Baylee gets the daily newspaper and it comes with a crossword. I'm not very good but someday I will be able to fill one out without looking up the answers online!
• Meeting with my counselor to get my internship at EIRMC underway
• Getting my blood drawn and a TB test for my internship
• Getting to know the girls in my relief society and making new friends!
• Partying with my roommates
• freaking out about my life
• watching my roommates plan a wedding and everyday the idea of getting married by Elvis in a little chapel is looking better and better ;)
• Missing my family
• reading through my student orientation and safety manual for my internship
• hanging out at the library on a Saturday! And other days of the week
• Rejoicing that it's been a mild winter
• preparing relief society lessons
• Attending a Relief Society conference and leadership meeting with Julie B. Beck. Who is now my HERO and I hugged her.

Basically I've been pretty busy!!! But it's good. I can't believe that I'm graduating soon and I still can't believe I got an internship at EIRMC. It is really so amazing! The other day I was listening to one of my new favorite songs called "Sweet Serendipity" by Lee Dewyze (which is on my playlist..). And the song is sooo my life right now!!! The chorus is:

And I'm doing just fine
I'm always landing on my feet,
In the nick of time,
And by the skin of my teeth
I ain't gonna stress
Cause' the worst ain't happened yet
Something's watching over me like
Sweet Serendipity

Now I do realize that things aren't happening in my life due to serendipity. And I am indeed grateful for that! There is a line later in the song that says "I don't want to hold on I want the strength to let go" And that line applies so much to my life right now. I am working on letting go of my need to know EXACTLY what is going to happen in my life. It's not very easy, but then when is life ever going to be easy? So I may be busy but I LOVE life!!! I'm pretty sure the best part of my life is about to begin!

This is SUPER cute!!!

LOVE IT!

Sometimes life just works out

Life is just crazy! One moment you don't know what you're doing or going to do and then the next it's all clear! I absolutely love it! I love life! You are probably thinking "what has got into you? Your last post was depressing!" Yes...it was. But today is a good day and everything is beginning to fall into place.

Yesterday I called Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center(EIRMC) to see about being able to do my internship there in the pediatric center. It isn't a normal internship for a child development major but it would be perfect for my qualifications as a child life specialist. So I called and left a message at the Education Department. Today the head of the department called me (at a time when I was supposed to be in class but it was cancelled...FATE!) She had talked with the pediatric therapist and he was perfectly willing to work out an internship with me. AHHHHHHH! Well, that was easy! Almost too easy, I'm kinda freaking out. I will soon receive a packet in the mail with all the information I need and then I can go from there. I can't believe how smoothly it's going, I guess that means it's right, right? I am so excited! And with that pretty much figured out everything else seems so easy now. I was not expecting it to just work out like that and I'm waiting for something to happen. But for now I am just basking in the news!! I am on the right track and doing what I'm supposed to. Wow. What a great feeling!

Yay for life!!!

Family Relations

I updated my Family Relations blog today. We talked about some really great things today that I think are applicable to everyone and I found interesting so I hope you do too! Please read here!

Sorry...this one might be kinda depressing

So do you ever feel that your life is just coming too fast and you aren't ready for it to start? Well then can I PLEASE join your club? Most days I just want to stay in my bed and not come out. I want to be excited about what's coming. I really do. I spend the majority of my days prepping and telling myself that it's going to be awesome. It's only what I've been working toward the past four years! So how come I'm not excited? I wish I had a pause button. Or can I just ask for a time out while I re-evaluate my life? Or you know what would be even better? A couple years ago for Mother's Weekend on the Saturday they had a workshop thing with different speakers. One speaker we went to talked about life and submitting our will to the Lord's. She said, wouldn't it be convenient if we got an e-mail that said what career to pursue, where we will work, who we will marry, and how we'll meet that person, and then how our life will work out? YES! I thought, and still do. Yes, that would be fabulous! So an e-mail or a letter in the mail would be absolutely fabulous.

I have had my life completely planned out since I arrived at college. I chose my major and I didn't stray from it and I will graduate in 9 semesters. I've always known exactly what to do and how I was going to do it. Now I'm clueless and I hate it. I hate not knowing what's going to happen. I would now like to plan the next four years...but that's not allowed. Why am I so confused right now? Oh yeah...it's life! I forgot for a second, okay maybe the past 2 weeks, that LIFE is happening to me. Got it.

Is this depressing? Are you all thinking, Hannah! GET A GRIP! Alright, alright. I will get a grip and stop. So guess what I'm going to do? Meditation. Yep, I am going to begin meditating every day. I have wanted to start meditating since I read Eat, Pray, Love and now for my World Religions class we have to do a personal project about a religion and I decided to learn about meditation and meditate. I'm so excited! I think that will definitely help me to relax. I will replace the almost daily cry fests with meditation. I will trade the puffy eyes and headaches for relaxation. It's going to be difficult though, because I can't turn off my mind. It is constantly going! Which is why I need to learn to control it and make it be quiet!! I started tonight and it definitely made me feel better. So yay!! Here's to meditation, Zumba, and the people close to me who will help me survive and come out on top this semester!

Thanks for listening.

Yes...I am still here...barely

2010 ended and 2011 began with me laying deathly ill(perhaps that's an exaggeration...) on the couch wondering if I'd ever be able to, not only swallow again, but keep whatever I swallowed down. Not the most exciting new year ever and now those sick lazy days of playing wii and napping on the couch are over! This semester will be a BUSY one, the first week alone almost killed me. I think that I finally have everything organized, church and school wise (except visiting teaching assignments...I really need to get on top of that). But busy is good...at least for right now it is. I'm only taking 14 credits and I've got some fun classes in there!

• Psych 365 Emotion and Motivation
• Psych 310 Culture and Gender
• Fam 160 Family Relations
• World Religions
• English 370-Jane Austen
• Beginning Bowling

Exciting eh? I think so! The Psych classes definitely have the potential for kicking my butt! But they are both interesting topics and I love the teachers so the hard work is worth it(ask me if I feel the same in a few weeks) And the last three classes are just for FUN! I haven't taken a "fun"class my entire college experience. They don't have anything to do with my major or minor. (for Family Relations I am required to keep a blog about the things I learn. On my blog list is a new blog "Family Relationships" PLEASE read! I will be sharing insights from class, it should be good) It's fate that they bring back, after 5 years, a class dedicated solely to Jane Austen my last semester. I LOVE that class! And bowling is just AWESOME.

HOLY COW....it's my LAST semester taking classes! Weird, I have been going to school for as long as I remember and come April I'll have to put all that knowledge to the test. How do I feel about that? Terrified, excited, relieved, anxious, sad, happy, pumped, ready....wait am I ready??? I don't know! This is going to be a crazy semester. Lots to do and tons of decisions.

BRING IT ON!