New car

Well, new to us. 

It is a 99 Honda Civic that we bought from my sister who lives in Seattle.  It is different to be driving a car again after driving the minivan so long, but I am remembering how much I like driving cars instead of vans.  The 30+ mpg is nice also!

Hooray! He is finally free!

Pat attended the final hearing (via conference call) yesterday to terminate the conservatorship that governs his finances.  Simple put: The guardianship was over his physical affairs, the conservatorship was over his financial affairs.  We have been working on this since before we moved to Idaho almost a year ago. 

We are VERY pleased to report that Patrick's request was granted and in a few weeks, we will be managing the money left from his trust fund from the accident in 1993.  This means that we can get serious about house hunting very soon (huge sigh of relief).

Pat's conservator and his former therapist both attended the conference call and gave very glowing testimonies of the growth and progress they have seen in him since he started to take an interest in managing his own life in 2006.  He has come so far in every aspect of his life.  But nothing compared to the light in his eyes today.  He truly is his own man now, and you can tell he knows it. 

We were keeping everything very quiet because there are some members of Pat's family who are opposed to the steps he is taking to get back on his feet.  We were afraid that if we talked about things too much, that they might try to fight things.  It wouldn't have stopped things from going through, but would have delayed the process even more and made Pat very upset.  Thankfully, if they did cause any commotion, we didn't hear anything from it. 

So last night we got to celebrate Pat's independence by going to Flying Pie pizza with some of our family and my aunt and cousins who are visiting from South Carolina.  The pizza was SO good and we all ate so much that we almost couldn't walk.  After that we went swimming and had a great time. 

Yeah Pat, we are SO proud of you.  Words can't even express how much you have grown.

Real Estate School

I am so pleased to say that I made it through a very intense two weeks of Real Estate School.  As part of my job as Training Specialist at the Idaho Real Estate Commission, I get to work with all of the instructors in Idaho who provide instruction for real estate licensees.  So my boss asked me to attend our two week salesperson pre-license courses (the education anyone must take to get a real estate license in Idaho).  The classes are each a week long and are 45 hours of classroom instruction/field trips, etc.

It was very fun, but very challenging as a lot of new information was crammed into my brain very quickly.  A few of the really fun things we got to do was to actually go and measure a house with tape measures, etc. to determine the square footage.  It was a challenge.  :)  We also got to visit a title company and see all of the tract books dating back to the beginning of Idaho and see some very, very old land deeds.  A little scary, but very entertaining was the lecture from a home inspector.  I have learned more about mold, dry rot, etc. than anyone every wants to (very terrifying actually) and then heard a couple of poems as he was also a cowboy poet.  The really funny thing was that the home inspector happened to be my old bishop who prepared me to go on a mission. 

I realized through all of the work that the real estate licensees have to do and how detailed and complicated the process can be that I am extremely grateful to have the job that I do instead of being on the other end.  I am learning from the inside out how the home buying process works so I will be really prepared to buy my first house (Pat's second) very soon. 

April sightings

Since we haven't really had any April showers, we decided to post about a few of the fun(funny) things we have seen recently. 

Funny sighting number one - Hershey has been barking his head off the last few days in the morning and we could not figure out why.  I honestly thought he must have heard the toaster or my cereal being poured into the bowl and wanted some, but I finally figured it out.  One day last week, I happened to look out the window when he was barking like mad.  To my big surprise, there was a wild turkey in the neighbor's driveway.  I think he was either trying to warn it off of our property, inviting it to come play, or letting it know his plans to eat it.  Mystery solved.

Fun sighting number two - The very next morning as I was driving into the parking lot at work, I happened to notice the deer crossing sign.  And I thought to myself, I know we are close to the river, but surely the deer won't get this close to people and buildings.  And then I saw five mule deer in the parking lot.  I got to watch them for a few minutes before I went into work as they mowed the lawn and chomped on some weeds.

Funny sighting number three - Pat walking down the hall with his pants around his ankles.  This is a pretty common occurance and is really quite amazing because it shows how much more confident he is getting.

Pretty darn amazing sighting - Pat standing in front of his chair swinging his walker to and fro in the air.  I really can't do this one justice, but it is awesome.  We are thinking about having a picture of him holding his walker in the air over his head for next Christmas.  :)

Melissa got a job!

I start work as a Training Specialist for the Idaho Real Estate Commission on April 15th.  Yup, that's right, I'm branching out of the medical field!  I am really excited to try something new, but I know there will be a big learning curve.  Thankfully it is not housed with most of the other state offices at the Capitol Complex but it will be quite a long commute from Emmett. I am hoping to be able to join a vanpool to save some money and the headache of driving every day.  Because it is a government job, we will have state benefits and it does pay more than my last job, so I am also very happy about that.  I am not sure yet exactly what I will be doing as it is a new position which is always something that I really enjoy.  Pat is excited because I am excited, but I think he will be going through withdrawl for the first few weeks at least since I haven't worked for the last 9 months.  Wow, time surely flies.

Pat here, we are doing great.  Just trying to wait patiently until we can pick out our new house.  Hershey is doing great.  My walking is going good.  I am changing one of my medications, whenever I have to increase the dose, it throws me for a loop for a while, but it is all good in the long run.  Lately, I have been playing a lot of Monopoloy and every time I get Free Parking or a big payout, I stand up and lift my walker in the air.  Kind of like the endzone dance, but better.  My physical therapist keeps kicking my butt, but it is really helping, so I just try to endure it. Okay, that's it for now.

Thoughts for today

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." – Albert Einstein

"Try not to be a person of success, but rather a person of virtue." – Albert Einstein

"Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life." - Alvin Toffler

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." – Anne Frank

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." – Aristotle

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible." – Arthur C. Clarke

"Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action." – Benjamin Disraeli

"Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill." – Charles Swindoll

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall." – Confucius

"Don’t take yourself too seriously. And don’t be too serious about not taking yourself too seriously." – Howard Ogden

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha

"Time is the coin of life. Only you can determine how it will be spent." – Carl Sandburg

"Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes." – Charles Prestwich Scott

"To talk goodness is not good… only to do it is." – Chinese proverb

"Don’t put a limit on what can be accomplished." – Christopher Reeve

"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere. The pessimist sees only the red light. But the truly wise person is color blind." – Dr. Albert Schweitzer

"The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind." – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

"A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change." – Earl Nightingale

"Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us." – Earl Nightingale

"Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time." – Elbert Green Hubbard

"Funny is an attitude." – Flip Wilson

"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." – George Bernard Shaw

"Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash." – George S. Patton

"Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one." – Hans Selye

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow." – Helen Adams Keller

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them." – Henry David Thoreau

"When it’s time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived." -Henry David Thoreau

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." – Herm Albright

"It is not the position, but the disposition." – J. E. Dinger

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out." – John Wooden

"Words are plentiful; deeds are precious." – Lech Walesa

"Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." – Lou Holtz

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes but in having new eyes." – Marcel Proust

"The best way to cheer yourself up: Cheer everybody else up." – Mark Twain

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose– a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." – Mary Shelley

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." – Martin Luther King Jr.

“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” – Muhammad Ali

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." – Oscar Wilde

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." – Plato

"He who hesitates is lost." – Proverb

"Fortune favors the brave." – Publius Terence

"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The best way out is always through." – Robert Frost

"Always look at what you have left.Never look at what you have lost." – Robert H. Schuller

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." – Samuel Johnson

"The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be." - Socrates

"Optimism means expecting the best, but confidence means knowing how to handle the worst. Never make a move if you are merely optimistic." – The Zurich Axioms

"Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open." – Thomas Dewar

". . . Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." – Victor E. Frankl

"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need." – Voltaire

"Mental attitude is more important than mental capacity." – Walter Dill Scott

"It’s great to be great, but its greater to be human." – Will Rogers

"You cannot raise a man up by calling him down." – William Boetcker

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." – William James

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." – William James

"The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity." – Winston Churchill

"We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls." – Winston Churchill

"Kites rise highest against the wind; not with it." – Winston Churchill