Vulnerable

Share with others how important they are to you.
Relationships are built on mutual appreciation, and there is no better way to show that appreciation than to tell someone how much you care.

Researchers at the University of Houston have studied the question of why we don't tell people how important they are to us. One area they studied was reaction to sad events like funerals.
One subject, Bill, lost a close family member recently. Some of Bill's friends sent sympathy cards, some sent flowers, some sent notes, some told him they were there for him. And some did nothing.
Why did some of his friends not say anything?
Perhaps they thought that telling others we care means being vulnerable. For these people, relationships may be more of a competition than a celebration, and competitions are premised on strength, power, and position.
Researchers caution that we don't win AT relationships, we win by HAVING relationships.

Research on unemployed adults has found that the length of unemployment was less important to a person's self-esteem than the amount of social support received from parents, family members, and friends.
[from the book The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David Niven]

Something to think about. How vulnerable are you?

Smile :)
Sarah "the vulnerable" Bickerstaff

Trek up the Tower

http://www.trekupthetower.org/

February 23, 2008.

Team: The Stairwells.
Me and my Dad climbing to the top of First National Bank. I hope to beat him. ;) I'm super excited to do the race, and I might eventually start trying to 'train' for it.


Climbing,
Sarah

The Good.

I was conversing with my ole college friend Mike Friedman last night -- who I must say is one heck of a cyclist. We were talking about "good" people, and I mentioned that in college I seemed to be around so many of them. Very good friends, very kind, go out of their way for you, very awesome people. I miss that. Don't get me wrong ... I LOVE my friends here in Omaha, but sometimes I expose myself to people who aren't good for ME. They aren't bad people by any means ... just not good for me. I'm probably not making any sense because I'm being so vague, but it's like person #1 can be an awesome person FOR person #2 but not necessarily FOR person #3. Doesn't make them a bad person and for the record I'm talking in very general terms.

Our conversation just made me ponder for a bit about who we expose our lives to and why we do it. Which jumped my mind to something completely different (which is how my mind normally processes) to the idea that some people will share their whole life story to someone just for the sake of telling it but not having any meaning to it. While others might tell their story because they are secretively begging for advice, and still others because they know a friend might need to hear something about their life that may make the friend's life make more sense -- advice you might say ... or confiding.

My mind is usually all over the place. Most likely because I like to over analyze things, but that's just me. Over analyzing has kept me out of trouble for most of my life so I can't complain too much about it.

So anyway, after talking to Mike it just made me miss cycling -- mainly Penn State cycling road trips and best of all... competing in the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC). It's hard to understand how the things you do now will affect you later in life, but I can definitely say the ECCC helped me in ways I still don't even realize.

It gave me a PASSION for something that made me believe in myself. Made me want to wake up each morning and strive to deliver that passion. Spring of 2004 especially gave me so much self-confidence that made my life so much better. I miss that. It's not that I can't have that now ... I just have to pick out something. I'm never gonna get back the 8 hour long road trips to Boston for a 3 race weekend or the commoradorie (sp?) from teammates that will be there for you no matter what. I guess those are the "good" people I was sort of describing before. People who you want to have around you all of the time because there's a 50/50 shared life bond between ya.

Often times I'll have the urge to really get back into cycling and get my pro license back but then I realize there are big road blocks preventing me to do so -- biggest of all is my failing hip. What a bugger that thing has been for the past 2 years!! Then there's also the dedication that takes place. It's hard to dedicate yourself to something when you feel like you need to dedicate yourself to a couple other things as well.

On that note, though, I feel like I've been getting super strong going to the YMCA's spin classes twice a week + a couple other easy trainer rides. I'm excited to see how it pays off in a couple of months. I'm pretty sure there's a cycling race around here in Nebraska at the end of April. I wanna get back to kicking butt. :) -- which would be much easier if there were some mountains around here... dang how I miss climbing!

Anyways ... that's my ramble for the day.
Hug,
Sarah

Squirrels at Penn State

I think it's the little things that you miss most at times.
Even if these lil creatures threw acorns at me from the trees all throughout my life in Atherton Hall, they'll still forever make me smile. I swear they think they're human.

Squirrel on Leg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZUQBQ75IkY&feature=related

Squirrel Loving Cheez-its
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXByuTvlIY0&feature=related

3 more months until I get to hug a squirrel again. hehe :)

Sarah

Still on my mind... forever.

Photo: Me and my Grandma fishing ... circa 1986.
I've been missing my Grandma a lot lately and thinking a lot about her. Thank goodness I have Samuel. It's just been hard thinking that I'll never have a chance to give her a hug and tell her I love her.

I haven't written in a week as I haven't had too many positive things to talk about. Well, I guess some :) but work has been crazy, my hip has been killing me, and I'm still curious as to what was/is wrong with my stomach.

Always pray,

Sarah

3am

I love it how God seems to have a special way of surrounding you with people that will make you smile when you need it most. :)

Cheers to 3am visits.

New Desperate Housewives tonight... yay! ... hopefully going over to Jen's to see her and of course E.J. :)

Smiling again,
Sarah :)

Pros and Cons

Things I Love about Omaha:
- my job
- my coworkers
- my awesome apartment
- living downtown
- walking to work
- getting every dvd from the library
- people watching downtown
- being 1 mile from the YMCA

Things I Don't Like about Omaha:
- all my super fun friends are engaged or married or have kids
- everyone already has their life settled
- living by myself
- 1000 miles away from all of my college friends
- i try too hard to make friends and end up screwing things up
- there are no mountains to climb on my bike
- the weekends because everyone seems to go away
- how hard it is to find people my own age since i'm not in college any more
- how i always miss people

Rough weekend.
The End.
Trying to smile...
Sarah

2008 - smiles and hernias

The past week has been amazing in so many ways and so I hate it when I let one little thing creep in and let the happiness drift away. I'm a big thinker in "tomorrow is a new day" which is nice because each day I get to wake up and try to correct what went wrong or try things from a different perspective... but anyways ... can't go into detail about that one.

New Year's Eve was one of the most fun ever. I came back to Omaha and barely caught the downtown fireworks which were pretty amazing! Even though the windchill was sub-zero. :) Then I met up with Jen and some friends. We played some games which put a lot of laughing in my system. I was debating whether or not I should come back for NYE, but I'm glad I did. Then I had a surprise visitor from downtown at 3am... it was a pretty humorous time and made 2008 start off pretty well. Ha.

I had been having some stomach problems for about a week, though, and finally mustard up the nerve to go to the doctor on Thursday. I feel absolutely fine except throughout the day my pain in my left side of my abs just gets worse. The docs couldn't figure it out and I took a bunch of tests -- blood, urinalysis, etc -- to try to get a glimpse of what was going on, but all of those came out normal.

So today I had to go in for an ultrasound at the hospital so they could look at my insides. Unfortunately the person doing the ultrasound isn't authorized to tell me anything in regards to what she fines. After the ultrasound I was finally able to relieve myself --- thank goodness! (They make you drink 48oz of water and not use the bathroom for 2 hours before so all your insides are extended ... and of course my bladder has to be the size of a peanut. lol) Anyways, they make sure the pictures they took from the ultrasound get sent to the radiologist and the radiologist will send the results off to my doctor who will finally contact me with any news. A lot of people are thinking it's a hernia because I feel fine but I have a lot of pain (which comes and goes depending on when I've eaten and what I'm doing). But then again I'm in an exstrenuous amount of pain, either. However, I'm glad to say that I don't think it's anything too serious as they probably wouldn't have done something immediately about it. I'll just be happy when I have the results and can maybe put a name to what has been bugging me for over a week now.

Well, I guess it's time for some shut-eye. I had wanted to hang out with some friends tonight but half of them had plans and half I couldn't get ahold of. Oh well, at least I'll get to bed at a decent time.

Saying my prayers,
Sarah