How great it is to love something!

I love my job at UCO. I love to get up the morning that I have class. I love that I have learned that preparing lectures, powerpoints and discussion questions is useless for me. Instead, the class always seems to take on a life of its own and we get discussing and talking about the subject matter and the time flies by. I guess I'm lucky because most of my students are adults, graduate students or at least seniors so they are a bit more mature. I love that the students love my class. There is something great about other people liking something that I do. Sometimes we all end up staying after class and discussing what we discussed in class. This week we had case studies that were researched over the last week and we discussed them. It was fascinating. Here were our topics:

Martha Stewart (stocks, leadership style, phoenix who always rises)
Elliot Spitzer
The spaceshuttle columbia disaster (where did it go wrong? Did you know that they knew there was a problem days before they started reentry...)
Darfur
Immigration and the notorious fence

Boy did we ever raise the roof as emotions and viewpoints came out. Yet everyone stayed so respectful of everyone's opinions.

I love that I love my job. (P.S. I love that I am done for the summer and can spend it with my kids at Pelican Bay. I love it when I'm the only dad there during the day and I run to my kids and whisper, "do you see any other dads? nope, neither do I, see how much I love you" Priceless! I am going to have to remind them of this when they are older and bring up some of my not so great parenting moments.)

Tonight in class one of the students asked me why I was so happy and said she needed to call me up everday so she could be happy too. We started talking about things that make us happy and I couldn't stop so here is some of my list.

I love that I can be out in the sun and warm my cold bones from the winter. I love that I get to spend more time with Gale. More things that I love ; running when it is really hot and listening to a great church talk, italian ice, eating ice cream or anything sweet around 10 pm at night, waking up to a nice sunny day, laughing, watching my kids, giving my kids too much love, reading books (I love books and could spend my days sitting in Barnes and Noble drinking a starbucks venti double chocolate chip shake). I love convertibles, I love laughing with Gale, my walks with Gale, that first moment when you climb into bed and lay down and your body relaxes and you don't want to fall asleep you are so happy, I love cold drinks, I love to see my girls get along and share, I love a clean car, I love to have a light burden and forgive people who bug the living crud out of me, I love to watch people, I love to laugh when my kids do funny things, I love boba tea, I love really funny people, I love it when hardships pass, I love to see some people come into my life and others to go, I love naps, I love it when we have treats third hour of church, I love it when we have snacks during sacrament meeting, I love to watch people change and be better than they were yesterday, I love to get a massage, I love to get together with my brother and laugh my head off, I love that I finally feel like I fit in my skin, I love Pelican Bay, I love the beach, I love to surf (as bad at it as I am) I love to try new things, I love to smell Gale and my girls, I love to think of the future and all the great things that are going to happen. I love to be around good friends who you can be yourself with, I love ping pong, I love chocolate covered almonds, I love to have cash in my wallet, I love how quiet the house is at night, I love to play tennis, I love to dream big about great things, I love to talk with my kids about their big dreams, I love it when my kids don't drive me crazy. I love girls camp and the peace it brings for a couple of days until I miss them. I love surprising people, I love to bike, I love to get slurpees (orange-pineapple is my current favorite) Okay, that's enough could keep going forever.

Can I work out with you?

Life can be so great. When you are at the right place at just the right moment and you see something happen or experience something, and you say to yourself. I am so glad that I'm alive and can experience a moment like this.

Gale and I had one of those the other day on our walk. As we were walking we could hear someone screaming in front of us, not a scared scream, but one that you get when you realize that your child just spilled paint on the carpet, or left the light in the car on and now the battery is dead and you have to be some where in 2 minutes--that type of scream.

We were so excited to see what was going on we picked up our pace and stopped talking so we could hear what was occuring. (Gale can be a bit nosey) As we got closer we could see a man screaming at two women to pick up the pace and quit being lazy and to move faster. Now the women were quite large and I could tell their bodies wanted to move faster, but just wouldn't let them. The excitement of the moment and the intensity of this guy screaming at them to move increased as we got closer. We didn't want to pass them as it would be a bit awkward for us to pass the screaming man and the can't breathe and still trying to move women. We kept on closing in on them and as we were just coming upon them the man screamed out, "Get moving...you haven't seen skinny since 1991!!!" I couldn't help it, but I burst out laughing. Not the kind of laugh that you can hide, but the kind of laugh that I bend over because I can't move and I'm waking the neighbors and their dead relatives kind of laugh. I couldn't help it, so to try and cover it up and I smiled real big and said...You look like you are having so much fun and listening to you is so motivating....can I work out with you? As soon as I said that Gale looked at me with the "What are you saying" type of look and the women looked at me with a "Are you crazy...because this guy is crazy!! Run for your life...." and at that we got out of there.

To watch our escape was in itself quite funny. You can't really walk away to fast unless you move your arms really big like those walking ladies who wear a visor or a braided sweat band around their head and a fanny pack with necessary walking supplies. Including the hand weights that are necessary for a great workout/walk. Yea--that would be us.