happy giving of the thanks day

happy giving of the thanks day! or the day of giving thanks! or the day giving thanks of! or the thanks day of giving! or...well, i think you all get it by now!

well my husband is hard at work giving people their much-needed thanksgiving brew of coffee, and i'm at home, swamped in boxes. we are moving next week. *sniff, sniff*

it's sad to see all your things put in boxes. it's even sadder when you know most of those things are just going to sit in boxes for a long time. we are moving in with Josh's parents, my in-laws. it's sad. this is(was) our first apartment together. it's sad to say goodbye.

why are we bunkin' with the folks, you ask? and i answer: we don't have enough money to afford an apartment right now, at least not one we feel safe in. we don't make enough money to pass credit checks when applying for a lease. what about affordable housing? well, we would pass their credit checks, but still wouldn't be able to afford the cost of rent and utilities. and so we move in with the folks. but space is limited, so most of our stuff is going in storage.

there are some things i'm going to miss. like a lot of my movies, our dining table and chairs, my mixer(that thing makes the best cupcakes ever!!), all of my rubber duckies on display in the bathroom, and our nice, big walk-in closet. but i remind myself, these are just things.

but they're my(our) things!

having some of these things makes me feel like i'm actually married and that my husband and i are our own family. i know that we are without these things, but i can't explain it. these were things given to us to celebrate our marriage, the first big things that we purchased together, and now they are being boxed up and stored.

things won't stay. jobs, possessions, people. they all go away. they can all be taken away without any notice. but i know my God has a reason for the circumstances we are in. there's a purpose behind us moving in with the folks. though we would like to be able to support ourselves, current situations just aren't providing that. but God has provided us a place to stay.

i have so much to be thankful for. all thanks be to Him.

"for I know the plans I have for you,"says the Lord."they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."
jeremiah 29:11

"and this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus."
philippians 4:19

goblet o' fire

so my husband and i went and saw the new harry potter movie last night. it was very good. after seeing all of the movies so far, it makes me want to read the books. maybe if i get started now i'll be able to finish the fifth book before the fifth movie comes out.

i used to love reading. when we would go up to the public library i would leave with an armful of books. i remember getting a lot of notices about books being overdue because i would either check out too many at once, or would get lost in a couple and read them over and over again. now i'm not a huge reader. i think senior english and then college ruined it for me.

in my senior english class we didn't get to choose from a list of books. instead we all read the same books together. it wasn't so much that we had to read the same book, it's that the quizzes/tests we took after we'd had a reading assignment were so into little details. i couldn't remember what color the vase was on the table rebecca set her glasses on in chapter seven. there was a vase? i could remember a summary of what happened and keep most of the important parts in mind.

junior english was different. we had a list of books we could choose from. we didn't have quizzes on what we read. instead we had assignments; writing assignments. analyze one paragraph from your book. any paragraph, any chapter, any book, as long as the book was on the list. write how your life is similar/different from that of the main character. write what you learned about life from this book. death? family? relationships? what were all these things like in this book?
so instead of picking my brain to see if i remembered a tiny detail (which would prove i did my homework), i got to tell about what i read. i went deeper into what is written on those pages. that made it kinda fun for being schoolwork.

then came college. so many different books to read for just one class, the multiply that times five. not many of those books were very fun to read. i only like technical reading when it;s about something i'm interested in. like music, italy, or audio/video production stuff (but even then it can be a bore). in college, it's almost as if your professors think you're only in one class for the entire semester. and that just doesn't make all the reading you have to do any fun.

now that i've been out of college for about a year and a half, i'm starting to get back into leisure reading. i still get bored with it sometimes, and my mind wanders off because it's hard for me to focus on the words, but i think i might actually enjoy reading the harry potter books. i mean, the movies were good, why shouldn't the books be?

bored once again

i have nothing better to do on my breaks.

Your Birthdate: March 23

You're not good at any one thing, and that's the problem. You're good at so much - you never know what to do. Change is in your blood, and you don't stick to much for long. You are destined for a life of travel and fun. Your strength: Your likeability Your weakness: You never feel satisfied Your power color: Bright yellow Your power symbol: Asterisk Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

hmmm...

my sister sent me this. I wonder what would happen if i changed just one answer. hmmm.....

Your Life is Like

Being John Malkovich

What John Cusack movie are you?

absolutely fantastic

overheard on the radio:

"ashley simpson said in an interview recently that when she gets married, she doesn't want to marry a singer. so, basically, she wants to marry someone just like her."

running around with underwear outside my pants...

this is all i have to say.

Take the quiz: "Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? "

Ta mo bhriste tri thine
Ta mo bhriste tri thine - 'My trousers are on fire.'You're a few bricks short of a load, aren't you? You're probably not allowed to use sharp objects and you should be locked in a rubber room. With Rubber rats. Rubber rats? I hate rubber rats. They drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a rubber room. With rubber rats. Rubber rats? I hate rubber rats...

challenge

so i have my cpr for the professional rescuer challenge this afternoon. if i don't pass...well, honestly i don't know what will happen if i don't pass. i've passed every other time. i can't see necessarily losing my job, but maybe having to take the entire course again. anywho, i'm really not that nervous about it. the skills, i know i have those down. what concerns me is the written exam. yes, i've taken it several times (i have to renew my cpr every year), but sometimes some of the questions can be very confusing, sometimes ambiguous. and there's one question i almost always miss. it has to deal with the use of a bag-valve mask. we don't have those at work, so it's not something that we continually go over. i should be fine, though. and if all goes well, after today, if you are ever in a breathing/choking/no pulse emergency, i'm there to help. stay safe!


***** update: I PASSED!!!! *****
i am now certified to admister cpr to those in need! yea me!! and i only missed 1 question. just one! i'm so proud of myself!! is that ok?

favorite commercial

okay, so this has got to be one of my absolute favorite commercials. this whole series of commercials was fantastic, but this one takes the cake.

watch it here.

xanga for thought

i was on rachel's xanga site and i started looking at all the people who have subscriptions to her site. i clicked on the links to their xanga sites and was amazed to see how many people i recognized from houston and cfbc. i sometimes wish i had kept in better touch with some of these people. since i moved right before my senior year, while i made many trips to visit and did stuff in the summer with my old youth group, i still missed out on a very important year of friendships. i didn't get to find out where everyone was going to school, or come home on Christmas break and hang out. to see that they all still keep in touch to a certain degree is kind of bittersweet for me.

see, i'm glad they have been able to keep in touch with each other, but i just wish i had been able to keep in touch with them as well. it's weird; i was a leader in the youth group, then i move and it's like i became disconnected with most of them. not because we all had a big falling out or anything, it just happened.

while i know reconnecting with all of them is basically impossible, i would still like to get in touch with them. i made a xanga with a link to this site(since this is my primary weblog), so i have the ability to subscribe to their sites. i just hope they remember me.

google fun part 1

okay, so i got this off a friend's blog, who got it off another friend's blog. i'm sure this has been going from blog to blog for awhile now. but anyway, here it is.

go to google and type " 'your name' needs"

make sure you use the quotes. for example, mine would be "katie needs"

see what comes up for you and tell me about it. here's just a taste of what i found.


katie needs a wand. possibly because she is missing out on a certain part of life that requires the use of a wand
(so that's what i've been missing!!)

katie needs a swift kick in the butt
(can't argue with that one)

katie needs to nap more during the day
(amen!!)

katie needs haikus
(you know, i didn't know that's what i needed)

katie needs to hit Carl over the head with that cow bell of his
(sounds like carl needs it)

katie needs a real man, not someone who believes in aliens and acts as though those very aliens gave him an honorary degree in psychiatry!
(how true!!)

katie needs IV fluids
(dr pepper, just give it to me through the veins)

katie needs no deheading
(i actually would like to keep my head, though i don't know why this statement needed to be made in the first place)


have fun!!!

don't know what to say...

my heart is hurting for some very dear friends. see, something they have been wanting for a long time seemed like it was finally going to happen. but God has taken it away. you can read about it here or here

it hurts me because i don't know what to say. i don't really know what to do. all i know is that i want them to know if they need anything, ANYTHING, all they have to do is ask.

there's a song by a group Watermark called "Glory Baby". Christie and Nathan endured 2 miscarriages before God blessed them with sweet little Noah, and at least one more child. this song talks about that experience and how they were able to make it through this time in their life. even though i have not experienced that pain first hand, it brings comfort to me.

when my mother died, i had so many questions, so many emotions. i still do. i wrote a poem just a few days after the Lord took her home. amazingly enough, i submitted it to a contest, and while it didn't win, i did get it published. though i'm talking about my mother, it seems to go along with this circumstance as well. i may never know all the reasons why, and i know that i don't have to. but i sure would love to know.

a love without limits

i don't understand why,
why He had to take her away.
i didn't want to lose her.
how could He say He loves me and then hurt me?
i love you, He said.

she was so young.
i was so young.
i loved her too much to let her go.
i need her here with me.
you don't need her, He said.

He left me alone.
all alone.
i had nobody.
i needed somebody.
all you need is me, He said.

i didn't understand why,
why he hade to take her.
i didn't want to lose her.
but now i understand why He did.
because He loves me.

friends, i love you two so very, very much. i hurt for you and i'm praying for you. remember, i'm always here for you, no matter what you need.