ho ho ho 2008

Here are some pics from my Christmas Vacay in MI

Ick....

I have the privledge of talking to kids, for my job.

kids who have been hurt either, physically or sexually.

I help out with criminal investigations.

Today I talked to a kid that we had to stop talking because he couldn't stop crying. . .

On days like this I wish that the ______. you fill in the blank

( i wish there were a word strong enough to convey their evilness)

I wish "they" could see how much they hurt and torment these precious angels.

They are just innocent kids.

They didn't ask for you to hurt or touch them.

I wish I could shove it in their faces, their utter selfishness.

I wish I could stop this type of pain, that somehow by putting my hands over their wounds that it would stop the pain.

But I know I can't, I know that this type of pain lasts for the rest of their life.

It affects every area of your life.

I just wish that God could use me, to heal His little darlins.

Tonight I pray for one person to stop before they abuse someone, for whatever reason.

That they stop......

Good Idea

My friend Tim, came up with this great idea,

Check in out.

I am going to take part.

Won't you?

Sadness....

I have had quite a few conversations lately with people who are in the midst of a lot of just really hard things/circumstances going on in their life. These conversations take place at work, home, out and about with friends and also with plain strangers.

They all mostly revolve around relationships. Relationships with loved ones, the kind of relationships that have the ability to bring you great joy or utter torment and they can turn your soul inside out. The relationships that can bring moments of elate and the moments where you just can't stand it anymore and want to throw in the towel.

These relationships can be with friends, lovers, siblings, parents, children, or anyone that you consider to be close to you.

So when do you throw in the towel? So when do you say enough is enough?

These kind of conversations where I have felt people's pain and listened to their heart ache is over the relationships with lovers. I have seen loss of hope or almost on the horizon of giving up. The main component that I see missing is one simple, yet very complex thing.....

God.

A relationship that is intimate with Him.

I am not judging or criticizing anyone, but it is true.

I am reading the shack right now, and there was a passge in the section I read last night in which the character depicting God was saying, "when you are in good communication with me, you are not just the best form of yourself and who I created you to be, but rather you are receiving all the blessings I want to give to you."

It is true for my life too. I am the best person and the most happy and healthy when I am spending more time at His feet. Being still and quiet and humble.

So today, if you are facing a hardship or just a hard relationship. Get to a quiet place and ask God for whatever it is you need. Be still and listen. ( I know this is hard, it is certainly hard for me to ever be quiet, let alone listen :o)) But it is so worth it.

To you.....

Happy Thanksgiving!!

from the Turkey chick

(fyi i know I have a small obsession with ducks, but most of them, including this on are given to me:o)

So I don't know where you are or who you are celebrating your Turkey day with,

But be thankful...

for something.

I have so much to be thankful for, Thank the Lord.

So, what are you thankful for?

My Christmas Tree....

Above, is a picture of my Christmas tree, that I thought I'd share....

since neither my roomie or I will be here for Christmas, we thought we would still be festive and decorate the hibiscus plant.
Kinda ghetto, yeah.

But let's be honest....I am the real thing :o)

Tonight...

I am going to see COLD PLAY

I am so stinking excited.

More to come....

My Weekend

So this weekend some friends and I went up to Denver for an Ingrid Michaelson concert.

And all I have to say is she is my favorite!! I wish I could just sit on a bench with her and hold her hand.
I have a small hetero crush on her. She is just such a fun person. I mean, I know whatever she is famous, but still I think she is genuinely a nice person. I feel like a middle school girl who would be at a boy band concert, cause I just can't help but to scream :o) yeah I maybe a bit lamo, but honestly you could've asked anyone there we all love her. Her music is just so wonderful and fun to sing along with. So there now you know about my secret obsession :o)

We got there not as soon as we would've liked and it was a small venue, so we were up in the balcony and we were like crap this kinda sucks. So we were standing next to the sound people and all of a sudden this big kinda semi scary guy comes up to me and says hey if you meet me over on the other side I can totally put you in our VIP section. I was like umm yes I will be there in a second.

So we boot scooted our booties over to the other side and he let us in under the rope and we totally got to sit in the VIP section that was awesome! That made the concert even more enjoyable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Saturday night my friend Rachel and I tried out the singles ministry at my church...

ha ha ha, was all I have to say.

I mean we walk in and you already could have cut the awkwardness with a knife.

I mean bless these people's hearts, but honestly how many socially awkward people could we gather into one room :o)

I mean for once in my life, the men out numbered the women in the room. This was odd for me. There were some sincerely neat people, but for the most part this ministry totally fit the "singles" ministry stereotype.

There was one odd man who kept on starring at me, I was trying not to look from the corner of my eye. But you can only do so much when they won't stop starring at you.

So needless to say I know I am single, but gosh I think I am cute and have a fun personality. Is it too much to ask that I find someone who is similar to that who loves Jesus?

Is that too much to ask?

Yeah katie won't be going back there :o)

Hope your weekend was as filled with as much fun and awkwardness as mine was:o)

Lonely

Tonight i sit.

~~~~~~

people in

pairs;

triplets;

together: creating

me: alone

waiting;

or procrastinating

it’s hard to tell

when

you’re

lost

somewhere

between

the

wilderness

and the city

is where i rest

yet unrest

has uprooted

this loneliness

this

strong

desire

to know

and be known

to love

and be loved

-This poem was written by someone else, but reflects my soul.

Penny....

My dog needed a hair cut so I thought to myself I can buy some clippers and do that myself....that was a bad thought to have :o)

So I bought myself some clippers. Penny had a hair cut in the bath tub with the assistance of rachel and Penny shook the whole time.

My sister this weekend gave a quite ironic and funny cartoon to represent penny, the idea was from Finding nemo when the sharks are having their opening of their version of an AA meeting and one fish raises his hand and under this fin is a shaking/scared little fish with his eyes bulging out of its head. This picture kept on popping into my head :o)

She then got a bath.

So in conclusion penny got a hair cut by katie, the next time by a professional and those clippers are getting returned.

:o) joy.

I'm a big girl now???

So I got on a plane yesterday and came to the twin cities in good ole MN.

As I was looking out the window watching my rockies disappear I thought to myself why am I leaving here?

So I can become a forensic interviewer, duh?

I can say that I have never gotten off a plane where someone was not there to greet me or give me a ride to wherever I was going. This was a whole new experience for little ole me.

So I get off the plane, get my luggage and muster up all the boldness I can find within my 5'4" body of mine and head down the escalator to taxis. I get down only to have to go back up another escalator and thought this is stupid, why did I come down just to go back up.

So I walk out the door and decide who looks nicer and am about to go there where a nice woman asked, "ma'am, do you need a taxi?"...... me, "yes" her, "lane #3"

So I walk over the nice man puts my luggage in the trunk and I tell him I need to go here and we go. That's it. We are off and it was SO easy! Now if you know me, you know I am not a big fan of driving. I would much rather be the passenger where I can look at my surroundings. I recently went to Ouray with friends and they were teasing me because all I kept saying was, "that is so pretty, or this is gorgeous."

True. I love being outside and just looking around, I have always been that way. So it was much to my enjoyment that I could just sit in the back, look out the window, breeze in my face and take in my new surroundings.

I felt like Miss Daisy :o)

So I get settled in (in a sweet hotel to boot, by the way) and thought I would take a walk cause I like exploring and I need to feed my belly. Let me first describe my hotel area. I am in a very nice hotel but it seems to be in an odd spot. This area of town seems run down and the city is attempting gentrification, i think? Across the parking lot is a warehouse which seems to be remodeled into condos maybe, and then there is a global market in the first floor.

I walk down one street, turn and the street gets darker and darker and shadier and shadier and I think hmmm katie, maybe tonight is not the best night to venture out by yourself....

So katie turns around, but still no food. The only place that was open, where I felt safe was KFC across the street from my hotel. So KFC it was. I filled my belly with good ole Kernel Sanders' biscuits.

However this was an interesting experience for me because I felt like the minority here, it switches the tables up and that is always good. Scary but good.

More to come about my food dining experience of tonight.

Early Halloween

So I may have bought a lady bug costume for my dog!

She really loved me when I put it on her too ;o)

I laughed so hard when I put it on her too.

Gotta love it!

My brain rambling as I type

(I like the smell of bleach, almost as much as I like the smell of rain. )

Today was the first day in a long time I just got to lay in bed and read
without any interruptions.

It was cold and gloomy outside and my heart was warm and fuzzy inside.

It was glorious to curl up under a blanket when it was cold outside and fall asleep
and take a nap during the day.

I am reading Eat. Love. Pray. right now and here are a few random excerpts that caught my heart today:

OK this is a long one, but worth it, so just keep reading-----)

There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith" because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't.

If faith were rational, it wouldn't be-by definition faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see of prove or touch.

Faith is walking face-first and full speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity, it would just be... a prudent insurance policy.

I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence or proof and assurances.

I just want God.

I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

- Elizabeth Gilbert.

*I couldn't agree more with her. I think as Christians we get so caught up in the politics and the black and whiteness of it all, and who did what wrong.

This is not God's heart, I believe.

I was conversing with a few friends in the last few days and both women are single and love the Lord and were trying out new churches.

*One went and the church was serving communion and the minster said, will the male head of the household please come up and receive communion for your wife and children (ouch she thought this is not where I am welcome)

*the other was trying out a new church and was trying to attend a sunday school class and she asked the person in front where it was and she told her, so she got into the room a little early and sat down. no big deal right?

Well the woman leading the class said, o honey where is your husband?
She turned red from embarrassment and said I don't have one.

and walked out.

I don't think it is Jesus's heart to have people feeling left out and not included or feel bad because they don't have this or that. I think we as people who love the Lord as missing the mark on loving those who don't know Jesus.

Because the people they know who do love Jesus ask where is your husband?

*At group this week we were watching a nooma by rob bell and in the background was this symphony who were playing this lovely melody and rob was describing how Jesus speaks to people is through a beautiful melodic song.

A song that moves you and you connect with deep down in your soul.

he commented how Jesus's heart was to love people to bring them in, when the pharisees caught a woman committing adultery and dragged her through the town and placed her in front of Jesus's feet for condemnation, ready to stone her as was the law.

Jesus (who was seriously such a radical and sweet guy) bent down and started to write in the ground with his finger, He said " If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, "

Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground, at this those who heard him began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was with with the woman still standing there.

( as being the woman at this point I would expect to get it from Jesus, the holy prophet, the one who was doing miracles)

But He responds.

I do not condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin.

He nailed it and I am sure this woman walked away feeling free.

This is how we need to respond to people in our world, I wish we did more often.

That beautiful melodic song (as described in the nooma) as being moving and full of emotion and connectness is how God speaks to everyone. The song is full of I love you, you are precious, I created you to be exactly who you are, sit with me and let's talk.

Not judgement and condemnation.

So I have a dog :o)

It is true, I have a dog.

Her name is penny.

She used to be my sister's, but she had a baby so she doesn't have the ability to take care of a new born baby and a dog.

So I volunteered to take her.

It has been about four days now, and she is still a nervous little nellie.

I am hoping to be able to turn her into a hiking dog.

We'll see how that goes :o)

So far she just shakes a lot because there

are a lot of things that are new and make her nervous

She kinda smells, like last night I was laying in my bed and all I could smell was her

Soooo......

I had to kick her out of my bed.

She gives the best sad, pathetic looks.

With all this, I love her.

She is my dog :o)

Would Jesus go Green

Last night I went to a community forum on Jesus and how Evangelical Christains might feel about Jesus Going Green?

One of my friends blogged about the experience and felt the same way I did.

Read here

So tonight during seminar two hopefully the speaker will be easier to follow,

however if not, the beer at the end of the night with friends might

be the highlight ;o)

Sunday drives

Can be quite splendid. My drive this Sunday lead me to my favorite restaurant for breakfast food in the whole world...THE HUNGRY BEAR....hmmm

Then up to Rampart Reservoir, above is Pikes Peak from the backside

Rachel and the Reservoir

It was such a wonderful day cause it was cold and the clouds were rolling in and almost hiding Pikes Peak, but still warm.

On the way down we decided to take the long way down and were amazed with this amazing sight.

It was neat to view the mountains from the other side. I have usually only hiked on the opposite side by the canon. These views were incredible

There is always more I could share, but have realized that being outside truly makes me much more peaceful.

It was a nice break from my fast paced world.

this weekend

This weekend I went to an Aaron Stumpel concert up in Ft. Collin's on Friday night and it was just marvelous. For those of you who have not checked out Enter the Worship Circle or Aaron Strumpel's music, I highly recommend it.

After getting home late on Friday night I got up early and went to the women's retreat at church on Saturday which was really nice. After that I decided to go on a hike since it is one of my all time favorite past times.

So I packed myself up and headed off.

Here are a few pics from my hike on Saturday on seven bridges.

Water fall behind me.

Then on my way down, guess what i saw???

A BEAR!!!!

This brown bear was just chilling and going for a hike just like I was, but I was little shocked cause I have never seen one that close.

He was definetly not too bothered by the fact that I was taking pictures of him.

One other happy fact about my weekend, well I don't know about happy but you be the judge...

So I am hiking on my merry way on the path and it is getting pretty narrow and all of a sudden I look up and see a couple making out. I mean I am not talking about a little cute kiss on the cheek, no full fledge making out.

I was shocked and didn't know what to do, I thought they would hear me. So I decided to kick a rock and surely that would get their attention.

Katie kicks rock.
Couple makes out even more.

Great I thought to myself now what, I can't turn around cause that would be even more awkward, and I can't go around them, so I thought my best option would just be to keep on walking. Maybe they wouldn't even notice me walking around them, since they weren't exactly winning most observant couple of the year award.

So I walked and they didn't notice me until I was like a foot away and they awkwardly said sorry, I said sorry too cause I felt like I was watching them in their bedroom :o(

I am all for love, don't get me wrong but there are better places to make out then the skinny part of a trail.

Lesson for the day: if you have to make out in the woods do it where it is secluded not in the wide open spaces. It makes people feel awkward :o)

And I guess I should start stomping when I hike :o)

my heart

This girl you see below is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

Our friendship started when she was just a baby in 8th grade and I was her young life leader.

It has grown into her being one of my closest friends. Everytime I come home to MI, her and I always spend time together. Usually our time is spent getting coffee at Beaners, talking, or driving in the infamous yellow mustang singing out lungs out to some really great song we are venture off to another memory. Probably to the beach or to the great park that overlooks downtown.
We have even seen camels with sagging humps on their backs cause they are sad...

quite a sight I must say. ;o)

For my birthday this year, I was blessed with her creating this painting below, for me.

Jeremiah 17;7-8 is painted on the limbs of the tree

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit."

Which I love that she chose that verse for me.

It has been a gift to know Jess, and watch her as a girl who was so full of life and light and know her in a time where she was learning and growing and now seeing her analyze life and become the fabulous woman that she is.

We have shared some amazingly fun silly times together where you are laughing so hard that you almost pee your pants. To also times where we are both crying from the hard circumstances that life dishes out.

She is a jewel, and I love her.