Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Rising Sun


Blogging has been on my mind lately. Over the past couple of months I have had the urge to start blogging again, but have been fighting my own procrastination tendencies. In the years past when I began my blog site, my intent and reason for starting it was mostly to show my vacations, the things I've seen and places I've been to.  I saw it as a way to document a trip and be able to share with family and friends.  But lately, different feeling and events have inspired me to want to start a blog in order to just journal and say what’s on my mind. As I’m starting to get older (yikes almost 30), I realize there are so many moments to be thankful for.  Moments worth remembering, moments to learn from and moments to be inspired by.  These moments shouldn’t just come and go, passing by quickly without reflection. I love the quote “Life is all about the journey, not the destination”. All too often we get caught up in the destination of life, looking at the end result of what we have made for ourselves or what we have, when what we should be focusing on is all the little details along the way that have helped to shape who we are.

Everything is as it should be.

For the past year I have worked at a hospital, doing registration for patients in the emergency room. I work part time because I go to school full time, but my hours at work for the past year has been weekends in the afternoon. Working weekends has a bonus and also a downfall. Weekends are great if you’re a student because then you are available during the week for classes and homework, but bad if you have a family you want to be home with.  I have found it to be tough because it causes me to miss events with family, friends, and spending time with my wonderful boyfriend Noah. He works Monday through Friday so on the days he has off, I had to work instead of getting to spend time with him. It often put me in depressing mood when I was not been able to attend family dinners, parties with friends, birthday, etc. So finally, after a year, I decided I needed a change. I started to realize how important these “life events/moments” were to me. Though work is important and something I need to do, my family is my life and nothing is more important than getting to spend quality time with them. So I received the opportunity recently to get a transfer at my work to a brand new facility that has just opened, where I have changed my hours to work nights. I know, yuck right? It really isn’t that bad. Especially with lots of coffee in hand! I get off of work at 6:30am, which currently is the exact time that the sun starts to rise. I have had several mornings on my drive home that has totally inspired me to start blogging because my feelings of happiness and joy for my life are so overwhelming that I want to share with the world. With the morning air cool and refreshing, I will roll down my windows, crank up my Christian music and worship God while I watch the beautiful sun rise up over the mountain in the distance, shining pink, yellow and gold rays of light over the earth. In this moment of beauty I find myself thanking God for a brand new day. On my drive I look around and watch the world wake up. The birds are singing and flying gracefully in the air, people are going for a morning job, farmers are attending to their crops and I can’t help but smile. God is an amazing and without him none of this would exist. My heart starts filling up with the love that I know the Lord has for me. Then when I arrive home, it only gets better. I am blessed to have a beautiful home, and as I walk into the house, I get the joy of saying a quick hello to my two kitties whom I love with a little pet before heading to the bedroom to get ready for some sleep. As soon as I walk into the bedroom, I pause to watch my handsome, wonderful man fast asleep in our bed. Boy am I lucky woman. A huge smile crosses my face and once again my heart is filled with love and begins to overflow. The love I have for this man is often times overwhelming. This man has made me a better woman and made me happier than I ever dreamed possible. I quickly rush into the bathroom, get ready for bed in record time so that I can crawl into bed and snuggle up to his warm body, giving him a sweet kiss and falling asleep next to the man who makes my life complete. Truly, life is full of so many joys. We need to stop rushing around and be reminded of God’s amazing love for us and thejourney of life he has gifted to us.

:)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Arrived in Venice

We got off the boat in Venice yesterday morning and began our adventure in Venice! And boy has it been an adventure, haha. We thought finding our hotel would be easy ..... So we walked around thinking we would stumble across it. Well, about an hour later and after asking a couple locals, we finally found it. We didn't realize how easy it is to get lost amoung the many tiny streets. But sure enough we found ourselves lost again later, and in the rain! We had a long walk of exploring and found ourselves dripping wet when got back to the hotel again. After a nice rest and getting warm again, we found a nice restaurant for dinner and enjoyed a long meal :). We learned you must have lots of patients in Venice!
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Friday, May 14, 2010

Last Day on the Boat

So today is our last day on the boat. We are heading back to Venice! Its been a relaxing day of sleeping in, laying out in the sun, a game of chess (on an over sized board and pieces, eating lots of food and now taking in a show. Its been a great trip!!!!
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Santorini, Greece

Stop number 3 on our cruise was Santorini. It looked pretty cool. Its a mountain with a bunch of houses and building at the very top. And we were in for a bit of a surprise on how to get up the mountain once we got there. Option one was take a cable car ride up - problem was there was an enormous line, next option was take donkey ride up a winding road, or three ... Walk up the winding road with steps! Guess what we choose? Walk up it! It was actually the quickest way. We noticed the donkeys were being stubborn for other riders, so we were glad we didn't do that one. The walk actually wasn't too bad. It was just really hot so that was the only sucky part! So once we got up there and got our barings straight, we snagged a taxi and went to the wine museum. It was underground museum that taught you about how they used to make wine a long long time ago. And also showed you old wine presses. It was cool but the manicans looked kinda creepy, haha. Then we went up stairs to the tasting room and tasted 3 different wines. It was nice because it was close to the end of there day so it wasn't busy at all. After that we headed back to the central part of town, bought some souvenirs and had a seat at an outdoor restaurant so we could watch the sun set. It was a beautiful view. Then we prepped ourselves for the walk back down the mountain. We originally wanted to go see some ancient ruins in the area but our dock times on the island were kinda strange 4:00pm to 11:00pm. So they were already closed. Oh well, guess we will have to go back to Santorini sometime! :)
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Mykonos, Greece

Wednesday we stopped in Mykonos. We kept it a pretty relaxing day and just walked around. We went to check out the windmills which was pretty neat. Along the water there was several outdoor restaurants so we sat at one of them and just took in the beautiful scenery. We had a great view of the ocean and of the windmills. I believe Mykonos is the smallest of the islands we stopped at, so there wasn't a lot of things to do. But we were ok with that. It was still beautiful and the water was the bluest water I've ever seen!
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Iraklion, Crete

Last stop on our cruise, Iraklion. This was the only stop that we choose to do a shore excursion through the boat. We did a Pottery and Vineyard tour. It was nice for our last stop to not have to worry or figure out what we wanted to do. And by doing this excursion, we got to go a little bit outside the town and see the beautiful rolling hills. Every inch of the hills are filled with olive trees and grape vines!!!.
When we got to the Pottery, we got to look around the owners workshop and we also got to watch him at work. He made two pots and boy does he make them fast! It was pretty amazing watching a blob of clay turn into a piece of art. Then from there they drove us to a winery where we watched an informational video and then got to taste some wines! And of course, being the clumsy girl that I am, I ended up spilling some red wine on myself!!!! Bummer!!!! Can't take me anywhere, haha. Once we were done there, we headed back to the boat. We didn't have a long time to spend on the island so the excursion was perfect- they got us back to the boat right on time! And now .... A day at sea to get us back to Venice!
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Our stop in Split, Croatia

Day 2 we stopped in Split. It was a beautiful sunny day! We got to enjoy a relaxing walk thru Diocletian's Palace. It is full of lots of shops but the architect was really beautiful.. We are still a little preoccupied with phone calls trying to figure out where our luggage it. We still don't have it. We might get it tomorrow-who knows. Good thing is I have a very smart wonderful boyfriend that bought travelers insurance, so we were at least able to buy some clothes and things we needed. After our little shopping spree, we got ready, made a reservation at a nice restaurant on the boat and headed to the casino to burn time until dinner time. Well little did we know, there was a time change at some point in the evening and completely missed dinner! We have had some interesting little snags but we are still enjoying ourselves and loving our time together. So now we are off to bed for some rest so we can be ready to see Corfu tomorrow!
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