Sharon Gardella

       I chose my mom as the most influential person in my life. I have looked up to here my whole life and have always been inspired by her! She is the strongest person i know. She has had a very ruff life growing up. She was born and raised in Italy and lived in Germany as well until about the age of thirteen when she finally came to the united states. Her father was in the army so she grew up as an army brat that was moved around A LOT! When she move to the United States she hated it! Her teachers that she had did not understand nor care that she did not know English and she had a very hard time in school. Her and her parents did not always get along and she ended up moving out of the house at age sixteen and lived in multiple different places. Despite everything she has been through she remained strong and always made everything and every situation work for her. She is a single mother to me and my brother. She has struggled to give us what we needed and wanted but she definitely did it. She has provided the best life for me and my brother no matter how hard it may have been and i admire her so much. I have always been a big mommas girl! I never had my "father" in my life so i clung to my mother completely. She is my mother but she is also my best friend. She is the only person in my life who has stuck by my side through thick and thin and never gave up on me! She is my life saver and i love her more than i love life itself. She is my everything. Moving so far away from her has been a big change because back when i lived at home i spent littlerly everyday with her. Any free time i had i was with her. She is my back bone, i don't know what id do without her love and support. I'm so thankful that i was privileged enough to have her as my mother and to be raised by such a strong woman. When i have kids someday i truly hope i can be at least half the mother she was to me and my brother!

Sarah Gardella

        When my mom was pregnant with me she did what ever mother does and starts to search for baby names. She bought book and looked online. I was her first and only girl so she was excited to finally be able to pick out a little girl name. She did have a baby before me which is my brother Sean. He is three years older than me, so when she was pregnant with me he was three. The name that my mom had originally picked for me was going to be Layloni which is a Hawaiian name. She had a best friend who was Hawaiian and they had come up with that name together. She was dead set on that name until my brother came home from preschool one day and started rubbing her belly saying "Sarah". My mom would sit there and tell him no, sissy's name is going to be Layloni not Sarah. But my brother was very adimit about my name being Sarah. She had no idea where he came up with this name because at preschool he had no friends there named Sarah. Actually there was no one in the preschool at that time with the name Sarah at all. So she was very confused with where a three year old had picked up that name out of nowhere. But after a couple of weeks with arguing with a three year old about a name she gave up and decided that she would let my brother name me Sarah. So that is how i received my name as Sarah and not Layloni.

I Feel

        I feel that if you try to always stay positive about things, then the out come will majority of the time be positive as well. When you have a bad situation going on i feel the best thing you can do for yourself and the people around you is to try to always stay happy and positive, no matter how hard that might be! Whether you are positive or negative the out come will happen how it is meant to happen. So the best thing you can do is to just look at the bright side of it. If you cant find the bright side just look harder because no matter the situation there will always be a bright side. I am the type of person who believes that if you tell the universe something positive then the out come has a higher chance of being positive. It will not always happen how you want it too but there is at least a good chance of it. Also there is no point in being super negative about something that you truly cant change. This might be cheesy but life is way too short to spend time being anything but completely happy. This mean even if things are not going your way at that edzact moment in time. Whatever happens happens for a reason and it will only make you grow as an individual. So in my opinion it is best to always just remain happy and look at the brighter side of things. I hate when people take a situation that may not be the best at that time and create a big piety party for them selves. Yes i understand that in life things will not always go your way but guess what, its not only you! There are many people who may be in that situation or an even worse one. So just move on and tell the universe as much as you can that a positive outcome will happen. My mother always raised me to never be negative! And my whole life being super positive about bad situations have always worked out in my favor. That is why i am strong believer in this.

I Think

       I think that people in America should learn to start eating healthier and working out. There are too many people in this country that do not realize that there health is not the best what so ever! What happened to people? Back in the day it was rare to see a girl or boy who was over weight. The normal average human was in shape and on the skinnier side. Now-a-days though people just don't care. I think that now it is truly rare to see a man or woman who is skinny or in shape. The normal size now is over weight and unhealthy. I think i know what the cause of this it though, all the fast food in America. People are too lazy to go home at night or in the morning and cook a meal. They know it is way easier to just jump in the car and go down the street to the local McDonald's or Burger king and grab food there. When back in the day everyone made dinner and breakfast. I don't know if its just because people don't understand how bad for you it is or if they just choose to ignore that whole factor because its easier. Well what they don't understand is that it wont be easier for them when there over weight and super unhealthy facing a bunch of different health issues. America needs to go back to what it used to be. Parents need to take the time to make healthy food at home and at-least try to teach their children healthy habits! If parents would start this from birth through their child's life the world might have a chance to go back to what it was before, but parents are lazy majority of the time and truly don't understand what they are doing to their children by teaching them these bad habits. On the other side of that though not all parents are the cause. Some parents try to install healthy habits into their children and their children just choose not to listen and follow what everyone else is doing. I feel that working out and fitness should become the norm!

I Believe

     I believe that if you are of age and able to financially support yourself then you should! I don't understand how people can be in their twenties and still living at home not on their own. My brother is a perfect example of this. He just turned twenty-two and he has been working at home depot for almost four years now but he still lives at home with my mom. Yes i understand that California is a very expensive place to live and i would not have been able to support myself there but he is fully capable of being able to support himself there. He chooses not too. He has many options that he just doesn't take advantage of! I am eighteen years old and moved a couples states away and am completely supporting myself with no help. That just proves that he has many options but he just isn't utilizing them! He isn't the only one though that does that. Personally i love my mom to death she is my best friend and my number one supporter in life but when i turned eighteen and graduated high school i was ready to move out and start my own life. I was ready for my own independence and responsibility! At the time i had no idea if i could actually do it but i am doing fine and happier than ever! I just don't understand how people can feel content living with their parents their whole life and not have that independence because independence is probably one of the best feelings. Knowing that you are in control of your own life feels great! I would never be able to move back in with my mom after being on my own. I know that people are probably scared of the unknown but you are never going to accomplish anything in life if you are scared. You will not go anywhere. You have to look at it as yes i might fail but at least i did try, and if you make it and you don't fail then that just shows you how truly strong you are!

Baby Shoe

       This time the prompt i got to write about was a baby shoe. When i think about baby shoes it makes me think about babies and how much i truly love babies and children! My career path and passion in life is to work with infants. I am going to go to nursing school to get my bachelors of science in nursing and will one day be working on the labor and delivery floor. When i was a little girl, i was the little girl who always carried a baby doll around and pretended it was real. I have loved everything about babies since i was probably one myself. I started baby sitting at the age of thirteen back home in California. As i got older my love for babies grew! I always told my mom how i wanted to do something that involved working with babies when i grew up. Now when i was little and walking around saying this i had no idea that there was actually a career path i could follow that truly involved being with and around babies all day. When i got older, i want to say around age eight, i would tell my mom that i wanted to be a day care person. Then as i got older i learned i could work in the hospital with little babies so i turned that dream into i want to work in a hospital. At that age i had no idea what an RN was or the labor and delivery floor really was either. But when i got to age thirteen or so i knew full out what i wanted to be when i was older! That was to be a RN on the labor and delivery floor. My junior year of high school i was only planning on getting my RN but that changed fast when i found out its only about a year more of school to get my Bachelors. So i decided at the end of my junior year of high school that i was going to get my Bachelors and then when i graduated nursing school i would work on the Labor and Delivery floor. Then if when i get into my late thirties or so change my mind and want to work in the NICU then i would only have to go back to school to get my masters and then i would be able to easily transfer into the NICU. No matter what nothing will stop be from working on the labor and delivery floor. It truly is my only passion in life and i will make that dream come true, no matter what!! I'm determined!

I Know

        I know that no matter what i am going through my mom will always be there for me! She is the woman who brought me into this world and from day one has been the only person who has actually stood by my side through thick and thin. She is my mother and my best friend all wrapped into one. I honestly don't know what i would do if i didn't have her. She is the person who keeps me going when i feel i cant, the one who always keeps my the positive happy person i am. I would have to say me moving very far away from her was probably the hardest thing she has had to deal with in terms of me and her but she knows i only did it to better myself. She supports me emotionally regardless. I am the person i am today because of her and i would never change anything. I am thankful i was raised by someone like her. She has been through the worst things you could ever imagine and she is still living and strong, she doesn't let anything get her down. And she raised me to be like that as well. She is the strongest person i know and i look up to her so much. If I'm half the parent she was too me i will feel successful in my life and parenting. If i had the choice to pick any parent in this world i would still always pick her over any other person. Even though we have had ups and downs she is still my everything. She raised me and my brother as a single mother and that just proves how truly strong she is. She has done everything in her power to give us anything we could have ever wanted and to make sure we were always happy. I love her more than life its self and it has been hard being away from her but i know its for the best. When i lived at home i spent all my free time with her, doing things with her, and helping her in any way i could. Whether that was around the house, outside or just going out and doing something. So moving here was a big change for me and her but i know that it has only had our relationship grow and become so much stronger. I love her to the moon and back, I always will!!

Naked Chocolate

       When i reached into the mystery box i pulled out a pink and brown checkered box that says  "Naked Chocolate" on the top. Obviously it is a box of chocolate. The first though that came to mind when i pulled this out was that i am allergic to chocolate. I for the longest time had no idea that i was allergic. I found out i was allergic to chocolate when i was around ten years old. I would eat chocolate so much when i was younger and i would always break out with hives all over my body. Eventually they just never went away! Little did i know that it was because i was eating chocolate so much. One day my mom was talking to wade (my "father") on the phone and she had mentioned to him something about how i was breaking out with hives all over my body a lot and how they would not go away and then he felt the need to let her know that he was allergic to chocolate. He waited about nine or ten years before he felt the need to say something about that! It made both me and my mom so mad. So after she found this news out she took me to the doctor to have me tested for it and it turns out that i really was allergic to chocolate and that is why i had hives almost none stop! So after i found that out at the age of ten, i stopped eating chocolate completely. I haven't had chocolate in almost nine years and i have not had the hives show back up at all. That just proves they were truly caused my the chocolate. People often ask me if i miss chocolate or a typical response when someone finds out that i am allergic to chocolate is "aw I'm so sorry for you". Well I'm definitely not sorry for me! I don't miss chocolate at all and i haven't though about it in almost nine years. When you go without something for so long you just stop caring after a certain point. That is exactly what happened with me and chocolate. After a year without it i stopped caring and just don't ever think about it. There are other candies that i enjoy eating that do not have chocolate in them.

Stress

        I don't believe that stress is bad for you, I feel it is healthy to have stress in your life. Stress can keep you at level with reality. People who don't experience much stress for one wont know how to deal with it when they do experience it and i feel that they wouldn't be as level headed as someone who has. I definitely experience stress in my life but i don't experience it every single day. I want to say about every one to two weeks something will end up stressing me out. Since I'm used to it though i know how best to deal with it. Things that can stress me out easily would be work, sometimes school depending and if my mom is stressed out it end up feeling stressed out too. I don't know why I feel stressed when she is stressed but i do. I feel work is probably what stresses me out the most though as of this point in my life. I have a manager that can definitely stress you out when the restaurant is busy! Not only that but when she stresses me out then it causes me to mess up in terms of how i seat people and with double seating our servers. To be honest though i like being stressed out every now and again because then it causes me to appreciate my life when everything is going completely smoothly. So i feel that stress is good and everyone should definitely experience it at least every once and a while to remind them to appreciate when things are going good.