Opposing Forces

Recently I have been thinking a lot about how to balance out optimism and disappointment. I would consider myself a fairly optimistic person who tends to expect the best from myself and everyone around me. It takes repetitive offenses to really make me expect the worst from someone. But I've also noticed that I tend to stumble across disappointment frequently when people don't live up to my expectations or ideals. How do I balance out being optimistic about people and opportunities without then having the disappointment when things don't turn out? I don't feel like I should automatically have lower expectations. Maybe I need a better way to deal with disappointment. Food for my thoughts at least.

Good news

Over the last 2 weeks I've helped interview a couple of therapists to work with me. And finally I found out on Friday that one of them has taken the job. She starts in 2 weeks!! I'm super excited to not be seeing 35-37 hours worth of kids every week now. The kids will probably be excited too because now I'll have more time to actually plan for my sessions. Everyone wins.

New Year

The first couple of weeks of 2011 have not been wonderful to say the least.
-Flu
-Other OT quit so double my workload
-Terrible neck pain for 5 days
-Foot pain for a week and counting
But luckily I've been able to manage. I'm trying to be positive about work and changing my mindset about things. It's helped a lot. I did get a great holiday weekend in San Diego and Orange County with my parents and Laura. It was wonderful to just sit by the pool and soak up the sun. 70s and 80s in January is why it would be hard to leave LA. A day off of work and plenty of sunshine will make any week better. While my triathlon training is going to be postponed due to injury I'm going to make it to one this year. A couple of new therapists have been interviewed so hopefully work will slow down soon. And with any luck my flu shot will actually keep me from getting sick again. Bring it on 2011, it's gotta get better from here.

Catch up

I feel like I'm usually playing catch up on my blog. Somehow I just never manage to write things as they happen and then it slips my mind. But it's been an eventful last 6 weeks or so. I guess you'll get the quick version. We had our annual Greenfield Christmas party the first weekend in December. It was a success as always. We made hundreds of sugar cookies and had people decorating them in the kitchen and then we had a Christmas ornament making table in the living room.


Shana decorating her cookies.

All the Greenfield Girls

Sara couldn't stay away and decided to come back for the party. She ended up staying 20 days instead of 4. I guess we're pretty persuasive.

Our real Christmas tree. Love the smell.

Hundreds of cookies. Yes we had leftovers.

We had a ward activity down on Balboa Island at a beach house down there. It was lots of fun to look at the lights and walk around while peaking into everyone's houses because the USC vs. UCLA game was on.

It was Southern California freezing so we were all bundled up.

I got to go home for 10 days for Christmas. One of the perks of working at a school. We had great weather for the first 4 days (no rain) and then it still wasn't bad the rest of the time. We even got a little bit of snow. We made our usual gingerbread houses and went Christmas caroling. I also got to go to dinner with some old friends from high school. It was great to see them.