Crazy Ride

I wish my blog was somehow connected to my life...then you could really get a sense of what is happening on my crazy ride called life.  I know that my situation is not unique; obviously, others are busy, too.  But, for the first time in my life, I feel a little bit out of control. That is, until I take moments like these to sit down and just...write (I have in fact been doing a lot of writing these days, but not this type).  First, I want to just regurgitate it all out there...this is what I've been up to the past few weeks:

developing program strategies, writing evaluation plans, looking at wedding dresses, apartment hunting, teaching class, grading papers, loving Casey, celebrating my golden birthday, car shopping, setting up a summer job, planning for summer trip to Norway, visiting waste water treatment facilities (ew), drinking coffee, researching Mongolia, discussing environmental health, working on wedding guest list, picking a wedding date, counseling a client for a health behavior change, making posters, blah blah blah, and sometimes...sleeping.

So I missed a few things, and sure, lots of you are like, "well, I do all those things, too."  I just want to say: I commend you.  It is crazy; but, I am thriving and loving it.  It also felt good to get it all out there.  Now, here are the top points, in more detail:

1) WEDDING! This has been the topic on my mind.  It creeps in while I should be working on other things.  It consumes my life basically.  But boy, do I love it! I have always been a tad obsessed with all things wedding.  And once I met Casey and we fell in love (yada, yada, yada!), I began to think that maybe, just maybe, a wedding was in my future.  I am thoroughly excited to spend forever with Mr. Tuschhoff.  And we have been in love with this process.  I will be even more in love when I can ogle over wedding books without feeling like I should be doing something different (i.e., working on schoolwork).  Casey is super excited for our Joseph wedding as well.  No date has been set-but keep September of 2012 open :)

2) Program Plan. In six short days, this process will be behind me...and ahead of me in that I will be planning health related programs potentially for the rest of my life!  But this class project has been a whirlwind of experiences, emotions, and trials.  Far too many to get into on this post.  But, next Tuesday, Kelly & I will be presenting our program plan, colloquium style, to our class. We believe we are setting the bar high.  After determining the quality of life issues, the health problem that relates to them, the behavioral and environmental factors that relate to the health problem, and the predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors that influence the behavioral and environmental factors (all via surveys, interviews, focus groups and research with the target population, their gatekeepers, and secondary data), we have developed a comprehensive program to combat the identified issues. Introducing "Walking on Sunshine," a multi part program incorporating a mentoring walking program, new workshops, social celebratory gatherings, incentives, and a social marketing campaign.  Whew.  It feels good to be so close, and really, we are quite proud of our hard work.  Fingers crossed, this program plan will carry over into my thesis experience in that I will be able to pilot test a portion of our planned program, and then evaluate it. 

3)  Golden birthday. I have been waiting for this day since one morning in my adolescent years when I heard Paul Harvey on the radio talking about "golden birthdays." It is the birthday when your age is the same as the date.  Thus, my golden birthday was April 23rd, as that was the day I turned 23.  Nevertheless, it was not all that it was cracked up to be-just another birthday! But it was still lovely.  My parents made the trek to Missoula.  We enjoyed copious amounts of delicious local foods, shopped, and my mother and I even peaked at wedding dresses (gasp!).  I missed Casey, but know that he made the right decision to stick close to home to spend more time with his sister who is in the Air Force in Italy (she was home on leave for just a little over a week). 

That's enough.  More details will come this summer as I hopefully have more time to free-write! And of course, wedding details will be shared as they come up!

(P.S. Just about 2 weeks until I am finished with my first year of graduate school!! CRAZY!)

Check!

I can already check two items off of my list of things to do before my 200th blog post.  Saturday of spring break I met my dear friend, Jessica, in Kennewick, WA for a night at Thompson Cellars Winery and Bed & Breakfast.  We had an amazing spa treatment, shopped, ate delicious food, and drank delicious wine. Lots of red wine, to be more specific.  So, check off, stay at a B&B, and drink more red wine. Although, I do hope to do these two things more over the next year or so.

Back to school work... I promise I will be a better blogger this summer.