Truth from a textbook

"Clinicians have control only over their own thoughts, feelings, and actions, and realize that various aspects of culture such as common history, beliefs/values, customs, material culture, learning style, language, social interaction style, social organization, and so on may influence the cycle of activities in a therapeutic relationship."

Dear Introduction to Auditory Rehabilitation: A contemporary Issues Approach textbook,

I just stole that quote right off chapter 3. Today I upset some people by doing what I felt like I wanted and possibly needed to do for myself. If you replace clinicians with the word people and take out the word therapeutic, it's pretty applicable to all relationships in life.

The only thing I have complete control over is myself. I can do my best to have a positive attitude, follow through on responsibilities, and fix my mistakes when I come up short. I can't control how others choose to react to that. Like the quote said, there's pretty much an endless number of factors that determine how people will react to any situation and the people I upset have the right to be upset. I'm not proud of myself for falling short. I hate admitting that I can't do everything I want to and it's even harder to admit when I need help. It's hard. But in the end, I've got to do my best and keep learning from my mistakes.

Thank you textbook.

Stress Filled Good Times

School is rough sometimes. Period. I've wanted to up and quit so many times this semester it's ridiculous! I know I'm not the only person who feels like this. In fact, yesterday I was venting with my visiting teachers who happen to be stressed up to their eyeballs too and one of them said, "If I wasn't so close to graduating I'd drop out right now." My feelings exactly after this week. No worries, I'm not going to drop out, but I'm so tired already this semester. Christmas break couldn't come soon enough! I'll stop with my complaining and start looking at how blessed I am to even get to go to school right now. And I'm grateful for a weekend filled with family time and hearing uplifting words spoken at General Conference. We have had some fun the past couple weeks though. This handsome man turned the big 23!

Look at him blow out those candles:) What a champ!

My sister Shae had her birthday to on the 19th and my sister in law Emily had a birthday on the 20th! Happy birthday sistas! It was a great week of birthday partyin'!

I hate stress, but I do love getting to appreciate little things more like watching an episode of the Cosby Show with my love after a long day, walking around a gorgeous green campus, looking forward to two weekends in a row spent with family (thanks to conference and Shae bae bae getting hitched!), etc.

Right now I'm going to finish a shift at work and then do an oh-so-necessary deep cleaning of the Beckert Casa since I finally have time to do it justice! Yay for clean! But first, words of wisdom....

I think this quote is fantastic:)

Toodle Loo!