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.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

to the love of my life.....


HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY!!!! i love you so much and i can't wait to celebrate many more of your birthdays together!!!

how bored am i

at the prompting of another friend's blog, i made up a quiz for you all to take. it's about me, so we will soon see how well you all know me. have fun. maybe i'll make another one sometime. for now, i was bored and couldn't think of a ton of hard questions. we'll see what happens. happy quiz taking!!!



the quiz is here. there's no turning back now.

make me whole

i don't know who wrote this song, but it is basically the cry of my heart at this point in my life.

Lord, restore us, and revive us
take Your servant
make me whole

with lives so broken
hearts unspoken
take Your servant
make me whole

sweet surrender, take me under
Your strong tower
and make me whole

Sweet surrender, take me under
Your strong tower
and make me whole

Lord, remove us, and refine us
take Your child and
make me whole

empty-handed, all-dependant
take Your child and make me whole

sweet surrender, take me under
Your strong tower
and make me whole

Sweet surrender, take me under
Your strong tower
and make me whole

make me whole, Jesus make me whole
make me whole, Lord make me whole

decompressing

so i'm back from the women's retreat. it is so good to be back in texas, and back in the city. i love nature, don't get me wrong, but i am totally a city girl. i would much rather live in the city than in the country. i learned a lot this weekend, though, and God totatlly has something huge in store for my life. i'm going to share a bit of what he revealed to me, and ask for you all to pray for me as i go on this long, hard road ahead of me.

i've been carrying around a lot of hurt. i haven't necessarily realized i was holding it all in(i knew i was holding some in), but God made that so clear to me saturday afternoon after our third session of the day.

i have been hurting since elementary school. that's when it all started. i was never a popular kid, and, in my mind, i've never been really much to look at. kids picked on me in early elementary school, even kids i was friends with at church. kids on the street picked on me, it just felt like everybody in the world was picking on me. and it wasn't the kind of picking you do with your friends, where everyone laughs about it. no, this was malicious, out to hurt the other person, picking and making fun of.

this continued into middle school, when all the "friends" i'd made in elementary school suddenly wouldn't talk to me anymore. the way i describe it, they all became "too cool" for me. the friends i had at school, i never really felt like i connected with them. now, i know everyone goes through an awkward phase around middle school, but it seemed to hit me really hard. i was skinny, flat as a board, with braces, acne and really big glasses (some may say it was the style, but style or not, even today kids' sized sunglasses can be too big for my face. just imagine how big they were on my face back then). it was also during middle school that my mom got sick. so here i was, an awkward middle-schooler, still hurting from elementary school, who not only has to deal with being hurt by her peers, but also has to deal with a different kind of hurt that comes from having one of your parents battling a fatal illness.

throughout this time, i kept most of the pain bottled up inside. every now and then, at a youth retreat or just hanging out at the youth office(where i basically lived through out middle and high school), that bottle would spill over and out. but i would usually put a cork in that bottle relatively quickly and grab a new one to catch what other hurt was to come.

then came high school. even more awkward. sure, i'd ditched the glasses for contacts and my teeth had shifted to where they should so the metal was removed from my teeth, but kids still remembered me as the girl to pick on and make fun of. let me just say right now that words are so incredibly powerful, both in a positive way and negative. it was also during my freshman year in high school that my mother's health took a nose dive and about a month from the end of the school year she went home to be with the Lord. so here comes more pain. more hurt. a different kind than i'd ever felt before. and more and more bottles to catch and store everything.

i'm realizing now that i haven't truly dealt with my mother's death. i thought i had. but i was 15. i didn't know what i was supposed to do. i didn't know that i should get some kind of counseling. all i knew was that i didn't want to finish out high school being known as the girl whose mother died.

don't get me wrong, i have some really good, genuine friends. and i have such a wonderful and loving husband, who is just so perfect for me that it blows me away to think about it. but most of my friends don't know this about me. my husband didn't even fully know until i called him this weekend and told him about it. and all this hurt is why that even when my friends and family joke with me, where it's meant to make me laugh, it just kills me inside. it absolutely kills me.

God showed me this weekend that i have been hurting for almost my entire life, somewhere around 15 to 20 years of hurt. and it's not just been kids at school. family has hurt me, probably without even realizing it. and that's a very hard thing for me to say because i know some of them will read this, and they might be hurt by this, but that is not my intention at all. God's showing me i need to be honest with myself, and admitting who has hurt me is just one tiny step.

i'm so scared to start this long healing process. i've been living like this for so long that i have no idea what i'm supposed to do. i don't know where to start, who to talk to, what therapy i need. and i'm scared of what my life is going to feel like afterwards, the whole "not living in a state of hurt". i also know the path to healing is not a pleasant one; that healing hurts. i'm so scared right now. but i know this is what God is asking of me. and that's why i'm starting. it's not going to be easy, and it may take years. but i know that His way is the best way, and that His way is the only way.

off to OK

well, i'm off to Oklahoma(yes, where the wind, does in fact, come sweeping down the plain). why am i going there, you may ask? our church is having a women's retreat and i'm going on it. yes, this means that my beloved husband will have to brave a weekend on his own for the first time since we got hitched. i'm sure he'll do just fine.

it should be a good weekend. i'll probably have stuff to post about when i return. and if not, i'll still post something. well, i'm off to OK!!!