Jon Acuff Liked My Shirt.

Ok ok ok. If you follow me on twitter, or you're my friend on facebook, you know I am a total fan girl of Jon Acuff's. His books are awesome. His blogs are great. He's a funny dude. He is all about closing the gap from your day job to your dream job. He is all about making your life awesome and not just average.

Well, he has a "5club"...where a bunch of dream chasers get up before morning radio show hosts everywhere, and gather, connect, and learn.

Today was my first 5club meeting, and I was so excited that I didn't even feel tired! (Ok, maybe the gas station coffee helped, too.) 

Today's lesson was learning how to fight for your dream. What to do when you get push back. I won't go into detail, because if you really want to know more you should ask me, or go buy all of Jon's books and read his blog. Like now. But here are a few lessons that I personally need to remember:

• Don't win fights that don't matter
• Fight with facts
• Don't fight haters

What I love is how he breaks up how to achieve your dreams into tiny little digestible morsels. You never feel overwhelmed.

Did I mention this guy is hilarious? I literally laughed out loud several times while reading his books. 

I found these particular quotes particularly amusing this morning. Was it because I was running on 4 hours of sleep? Well, maaaaaaaybe...but still. These were serious LOL moments!

"We have an agenda. That's pretty fancy. A lot of people don't have those." -at the start of the meeting

"When ending fights I just thought you had to apologize a lot, and I don't know, say 'Jesus' or something."

"We didn't have a 'don't steal from church' envelope. I looked." -talking about a business deal gone terribly wrong

"The book was coming out around 4/20. They thought a green cover would be kind of....earthy. Like Earth Day....and maybe a lot of pot." -talking about small fights when it came to his book

He is really the first motivational-type of speaker who has kept my attention. I didn't read his book and then forget about him. I didn't follow him on twitter and then think "OMG he posts too much stupid crap." I bought more books. I read his tweets. I read every blog post. He is engaging and entertaining.

He also has the same type of humor as Brett. They even say "orange" the same way!

He encouraged us to brag on ourselves. If we chose to, we could tell everyone something awesome that happened. I shared my success with my first conference. I had so many people come up afterwards and say "congrats!" It was great to be encouraged by others, and to encourage others, as well.

Of course there was another huge win. He asked a question, I gave my answer, and after I did, he said, "I love your shirt by the way!" 

All of the happy!!

I think this is the only time anyone has ever liked anything from JC Penney. 

Anyway, it was a great couple of hours. I got to listen to Jon, talk with Jon, and meet some interesting people who are just like me in a totally different way.

If you are interested in the 5club, ask me about it! 

As always, thanks for reading! I'm going to go take a nap for lunch! :)

First Conference: Done. And done Awesomely.

This was written right after I had completed my very first conference about a week and a half ago.
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I'm sitting here at the hotel bar, eating dinner, and drinking some diet Pepsi and a cocktail. (Don't worry, anyone from work who might read this, the cocktail is on my dime!)

I just finished up my very first conference here at my new (ish) job. From start to finish, this baby was mine. I got the speakers, chose the topics (well, for the most part) and made copies and put together all 110 freaking notebooks. (Not an easy, quick or fun chore, for sure). Oh, plus, I deal with no one but attorneys.........so there's that. 

The hardest part was that it was in Birmingham, AL and trying to plan a conference for completely different state, not knowing anyone, is really hard. 

But you know what?

It was great.

All of my speakers showed up and were on time. Most of the attendees were pleased. (You can't please everyone. Some people are just miserable.) and there were no "hitches" that weren't easily taken care of. 

But this morning? I was a nervous bag of bones. To give you an idea, here are some questions that went through my head last night and today:

Will I hear my alarm?

Will all my attendees show up?

Will I have a crap ton of walk-ins?

WILL ALL MY SPEAKERS SHOW UP, OH GAWD WILL AL MY SPEAKERS SHOW UP?

Will any speakers be late?

Will everyone complain?
Will the room get too warm?
Will the room get too cold?
Will someone else from the meeting down the hall try to sneak in our buffet line??

But, again, everything went better than I could have imagined.

I got tons of compliments from both the speakers and attendees. And it made me feel good! It gave me the confidence boost I needed to be able to get through the rest of the conferences this year.

I am actually looking forward to putting more of these together! Hopefully they will all go just as well, and I won't need to use anymore weird breathing techniques to calm me down!!

As always, thanks for reading!

 

The Story of How I Got Kicked in the Face and the Series of Unfortunate Events that Transpired Thereafter

Despite the ridiculously long subject line, the story is really quite simple.

I was dancing, and I got kicked in the face.

For those of you that are my Facebook friends, you have watched the saga unravel and develop. There have been ups and downs and a few weird plot twists.

At first, right after "the incident", I thought I just had mascara or an eyelash in my eye. I thought "it's ok, i'll go to sleep and when I wake up, it will be gone."

I was so very wrong. I woke up, still convinced that everything was ok and there was no need for me to enter any kind of medical facility.

My darling boyfriend, Brett, who has a little bit of experience with corneal abrasions, thought differently.

He convinced me to go to a walk-in clinic (It was a Sunday.) When we got to the walk in, they told me I needed to go to the ER.

I'm thinking "ain't no way I'm paying $250 to go to the ER for them to just give me some eye drops and send me on my way."

So I did what any normal 26 year old girl would do and I called my mom. I am crazy lucky that my mom works for an eye doctor. She called the on-call optometrist, then she and my dad met me and Brett at the doctor's office. It was a whole big family affair.

What the eye doctor told me was exactly what Brett told me, except about a zillion times worse. (I'm not being dramatic.)

Basically, i had the worst corneal abrasion in the history of corneal abrasions. (Ok, maybe I'm being a little dramatic)

However, at one point, my doctor was researching tissue grafting. In my eye.

I was frustrated. I was in pain. And I was required to put ointment on a q-tip and shove it in my eye every night. (For the record, I have to do that until at least the end of June, too.)

What would have taken a "normal" person (read: someone who isn't diabetic) just 2 or 3 days to recover, it took me much much longer. I couldn't work that whole week. THE WHOLE WEEK. I couldn't see or concentrate or even stay off medication long enough to even answer a quick email.

Even when I returned to work, I still wasn't 100%...I probably wasn't even 75%, but I couldn't afford anymore time off.

Are you ready for the plot twist?

After 3 weeks (yeah...3 weeks...) my eye finally starts to feel better. My vision isn't completely restored, but its close enough, and I am feeling GOOD!

So one morning I hop out of bed as my alarm goes off (ok that never ever happens) and I rub the sleepy out of my eyes. Except the sleepy doesn't come out of one of them. 

I know what you're thinking. It's the injured eye! Its playing tricks on me!

You are wrong.

my "good eye" is now having the EXACT same symptoms as the injured eye was. So, after a few days of denial, I make another eye appointment. 

My eye doctor (who is completely amazing, by the way) told me it could be one of two things. 
1. My eye injury (one I had 19 years ago) could be acting up. (Now, of all times, really!)
2. My eye is having "sympathy pains." YEAH, ITS A REAL THING.

So basically, my eye is doing the exact same thing my injured eye was doing after the corneal abrasion occurred. (cloudy vision, pain, burning, watery, etc.)

I had to repeat the same treatment in my "good eye" as my injured eye.

Currently it's been 1 month and 1 day since "the incident"...I am virtually symptom free, although I still have the occasional flare-up, where I wake up in the middle of the night, and my eye feels like its going to explode, and then I freak out. But it never lasts more than about 45 minutes and then life is good.

I am still putting drops and ointments in my eye daily, and will have to continue that until my follow up appointment at the end of June.

As a person who likes to find the silver lining in crappy situations, here are the sparkles I found:
1. I wasn't wearing my glasses (which is odd) and I could have had glass being pulled out of my eye.
2. I got to sleep A LOT.
3. I know more about the cornea than anyone who isn't an eye doctor.
4. My friends and family gave me warm fuzzy feelings of love with their outpouring of love and support!

So there it is. The story of how I got kicked in the face. 

Swing dancing is fun. Its just that every 6 years or so, you might get kicked in the face.

Happy Lots-of-Anniversaries to Me!

Some of you guessed on my Facebook page what 2 very important personal anniversaries I had coming up today.Y'all had some great guesses! And between all of you, you eventually figured them out.

We'll start with the lighter, happier of the two. Five years ago today, I GRADUATED COLLEGE! I was the first person in my family to graduate college and I did it in 4 years, which is becoming increasingly difficult these days. I received my B.A. in Public Relations from Western Kentucky University.

"Rachel, what are those weird fuzzy things on your hands?!?!"

Well, friends, I was the University mascot, Big Red, for 3 years. And at graduation, all the Big Reds get to wear the mascot hands! As a matter of fact, at graduation, my name was announced as Rachel "Big Red" Bodine, which under any other circumstance, would be a complete insult.

Anyway, while it seems that everyone is graduating college, and even getting advanced degrees, I'm still proud of that particular accomplishment.

Ok, my next anniversary. The crappy one.

Eight years (and about 10,000 injections) ago today, my mom and I sat in my endocrinologist's office as he explained to me that I had type 1 diabetes. 

He explained everything it involved, and it was a lot. I think I handled it better than anyone would expect. After all, I was 18, and I was just diagnosed with a chronic disease that would completely change my life forever.

When the nurse was teaching me how to give myself injections, she told me to think of something happy as I pushed the needle in to my stomach.

I have a wonderfully hilarious friend with the most beautiful blonde hair you've ever seen. His name is Max, and he does the BEST Family Guy impressions.

Me and Max at a concert on campus our freshman year. We were such babies!

So, as I gave myself my first insulin injection, I pictured Max doing his Cleveland impression. And guess what? I didn't cry. 

I cried a little when my doctor diagnosed me. And I cried a little on the way home. I didn't cry the next day. And I didn't cry the day after that either! I was on a roll! I was handling it like a champ!

.....Until the next day. Me and my mom and sister went to the mall. And there, in the middle of the food court, in front of my family, other shoppers, and my chick-fil-a sandwich, I lost it. I completely lost all of my proverbial sh*t.

Maybe I hadn't processed everything that had happened. Maybe my "cool, calm and collected" tank was empty. Maybe I was saddened by the fact that insulin causes weight gain and I'd never be a size zero again. (Oh, the days of size zero....) Either way, it was not a good day.

Since then, my emotions have leveled out. I still have my days where I want to punch everything in the face, but I also have my days where I feel very hopeful about the future of T1D, and very thankful for the technology I am able to take advantage of today.

And, to avoid my PR degree going to waste, if you'd like to donate to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or see what kind of cool stuff the Middle TN chapter is doing, just click here. :)

So anyway. That's a lot of memories for one date to hold. I'm hoping that anything else that happens on a May 10th will be fun and exciting, like graduating, and not lame and stupid, like diabetes.

As always, thanks for reading! And I promise I'll blog about my kick in the face soon.

A blog about blogs.

Ok, I promise I will update soon.

I know you all are dying to know about the crazy twist of events ended up with me getting kicked in the face, and what ended up happening to my poor little eye.

I know its killing you not knowing about my warm fuzzy feelings that I got from doing the I Charleston Video.

I understand the torment of having zero information about my first swing dance performance.

I realize that not knowing how much I loved "Start" by Jon Acuff is sending you to bananas-town on a crazy train. (I will say this: Jon "liked" one of my photos on Instagram and I almost peed in my pants from excitement.)

And I can't fathom how much you want to know about my trip to Omaha and the events that transpired at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. (Just typing that sentence sends a rush of excitement through my body!)

However, you will have to wait just a little longer.

Hey, I have a bum eye.