Emulating Love

So I have recently become a little obsessed with reading blogs. I was talking to my mom about a month ago about how I wanted to start one myself. So why the heck not! I am not quite sure what it will really look like, but I think it will be a miss match of me! Think.. faith, family, CHIROPRACTIC, sports (from CO and OC), working out, and anything else that seems appealing to me at any given moment! I am definitely open to suggestions though. 


The inspiration for the name of my blog is the fact that I am a California girl (born and raised in CA until I was 12), with a Colorado spirit (lived there for 10 years), living once again in the OC (Orange County for those of you who don't know) to pursue my life long dream of becoming a chiropractor. Its been quite the adventure so far, and with 8 more terms to go (yes, over 2 and a half years), I know the ride will be fun, hard, exciting, rewarding, exhausting, memorable and irreplaceable! 


Over Valentines Day week, my school brought in this awesome speaker. Her name is Dr. Martha Nessler. She was hilarious! But more than that, her message has stuck with me ever since! She talked about a lot of different ideas, ways of thinking and was extremely inspiring. One thing she really hammered into us was to emulate love. That really stuck with me. Over the next few weeks I really tried to think about how I do just that in my life, and how I could improve. 

em·u·late/ˈemyəˌlāt/VerbMatch or surpass, typically by imitation.

When I read this, I thought Wow, the one person I can think of who loved like none other is Christ. My next thought was Crap, how do I do that? There is no way I could even compare!!! (obviously) This idea of emulating love hasn't left my mind since that day 2 and a half months ago. Although I can't say I have the perfect plan of doing this, nor do I implement this plan always (but I am striving, right?!), I have found that for me its being positive, smiling constantly, and encouraging the people around me. I always try and think, Hmmm, am I bringing the people around me up, or are they thinking "Oh, Sam just showed up.. bummer." I am going for option numero uno, of course. I think we could all learn from this emulating love idea. I hope this has encouraged you to maybe flash that person on the street a little grin. In my opinion, smiles are contagious!! 

This is one of my favorite photos from a trip to Uganda that I took over 4 years ago. (has it really been that long!) These girls were walking home and literally had the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. With so little to smile about (at least in American minds) these girls brought joy to me, not to mention they looked awesome in their pretty pink dresses! PURE JOY

Love & Smiles

sammi d

PS- I think this smiling is the Colorado in me... People smile more here! So I am bringing it back to the OC, hence the name of my blog