R&R

Hey All,

I have been home this past week for a little R&R and let me tell you it has been amazing! Once again, Laura, being the saint that she is, picked me up at the Bismarck airport on Thursday night. The ND weather decided to be fickle (as always) and decided to rain/sleet all night, but I made it home safely to a yummy home cooked meal. Most of my time at home has been spent writing reports, getting re-organized, and repacking for the change in seasons, but I did enjoy watching the Sioux/Gopher hockey game with the rents this weekend. Once again, the Sioux dominated those silly Gophers! We won 4-0 Friday then tied on Saturday. I am so excited for hockey season! The team is looking good, even though they are pretty young. I feel a national championship coming on...well I hope anyway!! Tomorrow night I will be driving back to Bismarck and staying with Laura and Gerald. My flight leaves at 7:40 AM on Tuesday morning, so thank goodness I have amazing family members who always have an open bed for me!

My last visit was from October 6-11 at the University of Delaware, which was absolutely great! The girls were SO nice and welcoming. I am excited to go back in the middle of November! After Delaware, I flew to Indianapolis for mid-semester meeting. It was so good to see all of the ELCs and hear their stories of life on the road. We had a great time catching up, giggling, and swapping sorority tales :)! I am so lucky to have such amazing co-workers/friends! I know often the rebuttal to not joining a sorority is that people "don't want to buy their friends." Well let me tell you, I surely did not pay enough for my sorority sisters, we once figured out that it was $5.50 per sister! Ha ha! Soooo worth it! Anyway, I had made a comment to the other ELCs during training that we were so lucky, we get paid to be friends! Which is amazing! Ha ha!

On Tuesday I head to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA from Oct. 20th to the 24th! I'm pretty excited! If you have ever read the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, you would be excited to go to CM too! If you haven't read "The Last Lecture," you should! It's a quick read and gives you a great new perspective on life, which I am all about these days! Another great book is "The Secret." It will make you think a little differently about life.

One thing that I am learning from this job is that I am alone a lot, which I really enjoy. This seems completely ridiculous, since I was always the person who loved to be in big crowds and hanging with tons of people! I have learned to love being by myself. I have learned so much about what I am capable of and what I have to work on and that I have so much more to learn! It's great. So, my hope to you this week is that you get at least 10 minutes to be completely and totally by yourself and just chill. It makes such a huge difference!

I hope you all have an excellent Monday! I will be packing and tying up loose ends at home before I hit the road for Bismarck tomorrow night, then it's PA on Tuesday!

Keep in touch! Give me a call sometime or send me a text, it's always good to hear from the people you love out on the road!