"Man, my life has changed!"

I read an article this morning online about President Bush giving a motivational speech in Texas and he said he was recently walking his dog and carrying a bag on his hand for scooping up what the dog might leave behind and he realized, "Man my life has changed!" I too have been thinking about how my life has changed over the last few months. It really has changed dramatically in almost every way. Let me try and explain how much and in what ways my life has changed -- improved rather -- from the time Michelle and I lived in Syracuse, NY just a few months ago.

The first aspect is the time I wake up every day. In Syracuse, I had a relatively easy schedule only going to grad school classes. I only had class two days or three days a week almost the entire year; and since I had no job that meant that I stayed up really late and slept in ridiculosuly late most days. Boy oh boy have things changed in terms of what time I wake up! Michelle and I wake up at around 6:15 am each day. That is what time we need to get up to be able to get to get ready, eat breakfast, and travel to the respective school we teach at by 8:00. On Saturdays I usually wake up early to go running, sometimes even earlier than on weekdays. Our church starts at 8:00 am on Sunday so really I don't sleep in past 7 ever. I guess I am, by force, a morning person now. It actually feels great! Getting up early helps me make the most out of every day and be the most productive as I have ever been since my mission probably.

My exercise and eating habbits have also changed dramatically. In syracuse, I reached the most unhealthy and overweight point that I had ever been in my life. Its not rocket science why I got or why anyone else in the world ever gains weight: overeating and lack of exercise. I could go into more detail, but basically for those two simple reasons I put on a lot of weight. I will say one thing about my eating habbits in Syracuse though, just because it is so pathetic it is hillarious. My eating habbits were so bad that around Christmas my diet consisted of home made Christmas cookies and tater tots. 'Nuff said about that! A few months ago though, motivated by the fact that I was going to be the best man at my best friend's wedding, I started to eat right and exercise regularly. This has helped me lose 40 pounds (while gaining muscle so perhaps I have lost even more than 40 pounds of fat) and I think I am in the best shape of my life. I eat tons of fruit and vegetables now and I feel so much better. Michelle can wrap her arms around me easier now too :) I am training for long-distance races and lifting weights a couple days a week so I am really just on a completely different level now than a few months ago when we lived in NY.

My overall schedule and level of business has gone up as well. I work full-time and then take public transportation home (but Michelle picks me up from the Metro so its not too bad taking the metro home) so weekdays are just really busy, plain and simple. I have extra meetings, trainings, and lots of miscellanious little things like phone calls to make for work as well. I am also taking two grad school classes so I have class at American University one night a week and an online class that has assignments due one day a week. I also have professional development trainings one weekend a month. I have to find the time to run and train for my race as well. Our ward is incredible and there are always fun things going on. Add to all this the fact that you could live in DC forever and still not see and do everything that there is to do and see (even though our goal is to see and do everything, lol), there is never not anything exciting to do here. Add church responsibilities to the equation and weekends get pretty busy too.

Hopefulyl in describing how much things have changed I have been able to convey that everything that has changed has been a change for the better and one that has made me happier. We thought and prayed very hard about whether or not we should embark on this adventure to move to DC and do TFA because we knew it would be challenging so it is very humbling and gratifying to know that by doing what we felt was right and following our instincts things have worked out so well! I feel better about myself and I can tell I am so much more productive than I was before. Its kind of the old "the busier you are the more you do" type of thing. I can only imagine how much busier it could be with kids! One of these days Michelle will have to write about how busy she is because her schedule is much more hectic and stresful than mine! She teaches first grade and the planning she has to do for her class is just a totally different creature than what I have to do for teaching Spanish.