The Hardest Earned $30 of My Life!!!

The following post deals with gross subject matter not suitable for the faint of heart.  It contains scenes of needle pricking/moving, fainting, and vomiting. Reader discretion is advised... you have been warned.

This is what the plasma set up
looks like...

    Donating Plasma: even just reading those two words I'm sure you have already heard someone's horror story about it.  But you know what? For every sickening and gut-wrenching tale out there, there are a dozen people who have no problem doing it.  In fact they can make pretty good money doing it.  If you could go twice a week, you could easily earn about $300 a month for sitting for two hours watching a movie. This was my master plan.  It would pay more than my current job and I would consider myself pretty apt at movie watching.  
    Even the needles don't bother me.  In my physiology class we prick ourselves all the time to draw blood and I have no problems with that, in fact, I volunteer to be the guinea pig all the time.  My dreams were big and I had all sorts of ideas on how I'd spend my extra money... but that wasn't until....     

You don't stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.

My Dad and I at the finish
of the St. George marathon

It was one year ago that I ran my first marathon. Now, explaining how it was to run a marathon to someone who has never run one, is like trying to explain color to a blind person... you just can't quite ever give it justice.
Training for the marathon is truly the hardest part. The shortest training schedules are four months long and require about an average of an hour of your day devoted to just running. That's all fine and dandy during the summer, but as soon as you start school or a full time job, it soon becomes a hindrance when you barely have time to feed yourself, needless to say

Footprints in the Sand

Footprints

One night I had a dream-- I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord and across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints, one belonged to me and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of my life flashed before me, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that many times along the path of my life, there was only one set of footprints.

Go the Distance

Team Hoyt

Go the Distance
Lyrics by Michael Bolton

I have often dreamed of a far off place

Where a hero's welcome, would be waiting for me

Where the crowds will cheer, when they see my face

And a voice keeps saying, this is where I'm meant to be

I'll be there someday, I can go the distance

I will find my way, if I can be strong

Must Not Quit

Must Not Quit

by Julia Jane Sutton

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

Ithaka

Ithaka

by Constantine P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement

IF...

 

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

Oh, The Places You'll Go

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
by the incomparable Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

Good Timber

by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Invictus Vs. The Soul's Captain

Invictus

by William E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may

for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Man in the glass

When you get what you want in your struggles for self

And the world makes you king for a day,

Just go to a mirror and look at yourself

And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife

Whose judgment upon you must pass,

The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people might think you're a straight-shooting chum

And call you a wonderful guy.

This is Your Life... Are You Who You Want To Be?

It seems all our lives we fantasize about being people we aren't. When I was little, I would dream for hours that I was an Animorph (animal morpher). I would hold my cat trying to absorb her DNA and later in bed, I would focus for hours trying to morph into my pet cat. Growing up, things changed but my desires only evolved. I wanted to be just like Meredith, she was beautiful, she wore all the right clothes, she did her hair perfect every morning, and even had a purse to match each outfit. Try as I might, I didn't have the patience or time to be that fashionable and I ended up as the cool new kid with braces and her hair pulled back in french braids (as seen in pic... not so cool). You think you get over it the older and (hopefully) more mature you get, but again, it just evolves. Now, I'm a wife to a wonderful husband, but I'm still not what I ever pictured I would be. In my mind, when I was going to be a wife I had a picture in my mind of a taller, slimmer and more glamorous version of myself. When I got