Hello McCook Gazette readers and fellow bloggers! My name is Sara Mashek, and I'm excited to begin a weekly blog! I avidly read the gazette online, as I moved to Omaha from McCook two years ago after graduating from McCook Community College. I am now attending College of Saint Mary, in Omaha, studying occupational therapy. In addition to being a college student, I am married to Brian, formerly of McCook. We have a 10 month old son, Noah, who keeps us on our toes daily! I have always wanted to start a blog, and talk about all the other things I should be doing in my day, rather than blogging, however, I found a way to blog, as part of a class project!

This summer I began my graduate occupational therapy classes. I am set to be done with classes and begin fieldwork (clinical rotations) in January of 2009. Anyways, one summer class I am taking allows me to pick a topic of interest and study it. To be exact, I am to put in a total of 130 hours on this selected studies project. It is to be unique and somehow advance, if you will, the occupational therapy profession.

Originally I wanted to do something with adaptive cooking for those with special needs, but I couldn't quite come up with a unique idea. In brainstorming with classmates, the idea grew into reaching out to those in need of support and guidance loosing weight. I leaned towards reaching the younger population, because of how much publicity the new obesity epidemic has gained in kids. So the idea was to develop a curriculum to be used in schools as part of a health class. Yes, that was the plan. I risked getting docked a few points for originality, but overall, I felt like it was a solid topic; that was, until a classmate suggested I use a different format; a blog.

So that's how I came about to be a new blog writer. I choose the McCook Daily Gazette website because of my ties with McCook. I hope family and friends will follow the blog and chime in with their input often, because this blog is meant to be interactive! And remember, this is for a class assignment, so readers, help me out! Stay tuned for healthy recipes, exercise ideas, and unique challenges!