June 2 marks our one year anniversary - Omnibus 106 Ecuador!!!!

A year ago we left our families, homes, friends, pets, and comforts of the US to embark on the hardest and most rewarding of our journeys. We are giving up two years of our life to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers in Ecuador - in places where we are needed, sometimes wanted, and overall welcomed. When we left everything behind we had to create a new family from a group of strangers, rebuild our support system from scratch. Our Omnibus, our fellow volunteers from 106, are now our family, our support system, and some have become our best friends. We understand each other better than anyone else could.  Some days we are faced with homesickness, frustration, and some times depression, but other days we are faced with the most rewarding of feelings - love.  This love comes in many different forms - your students surrounding you with hugs because they have missed you, your English teacher excited to talk to you about improving their English, and another volunteer showing their support for you by giving you a swag prep-talk. All of that has happened to me and I am grateful for all of these amazing experiences.

Omnibus 106 Ecuador - TEFL, Health, Youth and Families programs. 2011 - 2013

So without further ranting, Congratulations Omnibus 106! - with a better perspective of our Peace Corps life and a year gone by we are still strong, still here, and still in good spirits.  

On to other news: 

"90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change it, if we change our formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that we can then affect reality. "

Katie and I have decided to start our 21 days of Happiness.  So the 21 days of happiness concept suggests that you can rewire the brain to think positive, be come more productive, and work harder by doing the following steps below for the next 21 days. By doing this you are training your brain to look for the positive in the world. 

So for the next 21 days we are going to: 

1. Write three things we are grateful for each day.
2. Send one letter of thanks, gratitude, or appreciation to someone a day.
3. Journaling about one positive thing every 24 hours.
4. Meditate everyday.
5. Exercise everyday.

Yes folks we are really doing this, we are not unhappy we just want test this concept. What better way to test then by doing it! 

And here are my three things I am grateful for:

1. I am grateful that Katie made granola, that is all I eat for breakfast these days. With fruit off course.

2. I am grateful for spell check, I could never have survived college, grad school, and Peace Corps without it. 

3. I am sooo grateful for leftovers. This chicken curry is to die for. So delicious. yummy in my tummy!

And I have decided to do the 30 day challenge as well.  I know another TED talk link, but man do I love learning new things and tedtalks are amazing. Anyway, so the 30 day challenge suggests that 30 days is the right amount of time to add or substract a new habit from your life. Don't go around doing big challenges do something small like- adding a new technological skill set in the next 30 days. That is what I will be doing. I will be learning how Linux works and how to navigate/do shit on Linux.  

So wish me luck. 

<3 <3 <3