some pictures that make me smile from today

YESHHHHH

Kristen made fancy dinner :)

After over an hour at Joanne's, found a fabric I liked enough... :P (the dime is to show proportion on the dots.) This will be a Sock Hop dress, hopefully...!

Kathryne

Christmas Eve, and what Christmas is all about

Today, I...
-finished Christmas shopping
-continued Christmas making
-began Christmas wrapping
-sang O Holy Night for Christmas Eve service... after a week of laryngitis/cold... and didn't fall on my face!
-saw David's haircut and almost fell on my face :P
-talked to Christine! briefly, but whatever.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!



Kathryne

Quiet day :)

The Good: skipped school and got a bunch of college work (and the work I would have missed in today's half day!) done. AND now I am sitting in Barnes & Noble with a yummy Gingerbread latte and funny music playing over the speakers.

The Bad: I hate when you run into someone in a public place... someone who, say, you knew in elementary/middle school and are friends with/regularly stalk on Facebook... but you haven't seen them in person for so long that
a) you aren't sure it's really them,
b) it would be awkward to talk to them, and/or
c) you have no idea what you would say were you to talk to them.
So you say nothing and stand there and try not to look at them or let them see you. This has happened to me several times recently, and it's just weird.
The Random: created my first ever instructional video for the harmony to Be Unto Your Name! awesome fun. Feel no need to watch it, seriously, unless you happen to be in a choir doing the same arrangement.

Also, it makes me laugh when stores advertise not only their store hours but also their website hours :P

Kathryne

PS-

more pictures from last weekend! out of all, I like this one.

QSG etc

:D

I am here with CHRISTINE!

We have done many fun things this evening.

Like making devious plans for tomorrow, which may or may not involve going to Rita's in 1860s clothing complete with hoop skirts.

Or, like making surprising observations about tomorrow, which may or may not involve the fact that it will be the 1 year anniversary of the first time we ever actually talked to each other.

Or, like making other interesting things, which may or may not involve yet another blog and/or a certain doofus.

Or, like making silly reading errors, which may or may not involve thinking a friend said "the chances of us breaking up get higher when we're dating."

Or, like making even more nefarious plans, which may or may not involve guilt-tripping a certain owner of a certain beloved car who may want to sell said certain beloved car... into not selling said certain beloved car.

BPAC :)

Kathryne & Christine

memories

Went on a Pink Jeep Tour today :) 'twas fun.

I wore my "Pray As You Go" tshirt from the DC mission trip last July. I read all the things people signed on the back. Everyone was very sweet.

Daniel's comment in particular made me giggle...
"Someday I will have longer hair than you."

It tempted me to get my hair cut while I'm down here. But I shan't. I want to grow it to my waist first!


Kathryne

I WAS going to wait, but...

I'm too happy NOT to post!

Here's how it is:

this is my ONE HUNDREDTH POST!

(*ooooohhhh...aaaaahhhhh....nowaayyyy*)

seriously though, I didn't know if I was going to stick with it for this long. But here I am!

goal for 2010: have 375 posts (total) by 2011.

So, I would encourage all of the other Optimism Initiative participants (sounds so high-flown, right?) to stick with it.

Don't let it be a "fad" thing, because I don't know about you, but fads have never been my thing. I've had this blog since July, and only in the past 3 days 4 more people now have their very own Initiative. Take that Initiative. Run with it. Take chances, and do the hard stuff. Find something to smile about even when all you want to do is bury your head in your pillow and hibernate 'til you're 30.

The other thing that's making me happy (besides the awesome time with Christine) is that I have my Africa presentation at youth group tonight!! I am sooo, so very psyched and stoked and all bundled up into a big ball of HAPPY!

and my name is in the bulletin!!! how cool is that?!?

The other other thing that is making me smile, is just love.

Today I've felt so loved.

and appreciated.

and respected.

and it's awesome.

Some days you feel like nobody likes you, blah, blah, but then the smallest kindness can kick you right back to Ground Happy.

people are great =)

...mostly =P

Kathryne

I <3 Ideas!!!

So, I do love starting new things.

Aside from starting the official "Katie's Book of Awesome People" last night, I found a really great idea online that wasn't mine!

I would encourage EVERYONE to go check out Operation Beautiful.

To participate, go [here].

You don't have to be confident yourself to do this. You don't even have to be female.

But make somebody's day (or a lot of somebodies!) and do this =)

Kathryne

Africa Buddieeez =P

I adore her.

Love her to death.

And when you can spend that long talking to someone about nothing and everything at the same time, you know you have a friend.

Alsoooo, I firmed up and publicized (well, am publicizING) my New Years' Resolution:

Live IN the present, FOR the future.

goals make me haapppyyy =)

Kathryne

WOOHOOO!!

New decade, awesome!

I stayed up until 6, uh, this morning. Sleepover at Christine's!! And happy birthday to her =)

I'm really sleep-deprived, but it's all good.

I launched my new blog today =) Check it out here, at http://kathrynes-reflections.blogspot.com/

...now off to do my resolutions!

Kathryne

Christmas is on its waaayyyy =)

Today I got out my blue ballpoint pen and made a list of what I'm getting everyone for Christmas... it isn't complete, yet, but it is on its way (kinda like Christmas!), and I already have gifts for ...5 people!

Christmas song of the day:

Hallelujah (Light has Come), by BarlowGirl

Kathryne

Coming Soon ...

So, today I finished the layout for... (dundundunduunnnn)... a NEW BLOG =)

Don't worry, not leaving you all, but I'm superly-incredibly thinking ahead this year to my New Year's resolutions. This won't be all too hard for me, but I've decided to take my devotional reflections from each night and make them into a blog, starting January 1 (1.1.10! how perfect!).

The basic principle of the thing is, each week, to take an attribute or title of God, and every day that week take a new verse relating to that and just... journal it. You do that with 52 attributes/names, 5 reflection verses and 2 application verses a week, and you've got a year's worth of stuff! I started this last July sometime, and it's AWESOME. And all the topics are in alphabetical order, of course =)

Kathryne

Coincidence? maybe.

This morning we had our first student government meeting of the year. Actually, more like our second-to-last of last year, but whatever. Anyhow, when we were bouncing ideas off of each other, my guidance councilor brought up... SWING. the dance. Yeahh, so we just might be able to sponsor swing lessons for the school this year. How COOL would that be??

As a second note, I found a song I want to do with Girls' Chorus this year... as the secondary pianist, I find myself doing that occasionally =) It's called "By Our Love" by Christy Nockels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5NPUWCzsU0). It's gorgeous, and not too complicated a piano part. Of course, I haven't taken a lesson since 4th grade, and I read chord charts, so it won't be exactly the same, but whatever.

Kathryne

Finally.

So, I procrastinate.

A lot.

I hate doing it,

And feel so much better when I don't,

But I do it anyways.

Well, to quote President Truman... "The buck stops here."

I will not blame anyone else for me not having written in my diary for over 2 weeks.

So today I sat down for about an hour (some of which was while watching TV) and caught myself up, for the most part.

   *insert smile here*

GOAL: don't do it again. (reaalll specific, I know.)

Kathryne

РУССКАЯ?

So, um, I'm teaching myself Russian.

Yes. Russian.

As in, whole new alphabet.

But I think that's cool, so... yeah. I'm doing it the same way I learned to write English: starting with the alphabet. Right now I'm 3 letters in, but it's really more like 12 because I'm teaching myself upper-and-lower-case in print and cursive. Because nobody writes in capital print all the time (except engineers and doctors).

I figure that once I get the alphabet down I can move on to actual words. Unfortunately, I've learned that my name isn't even a valid Russian word, since there is no "long a" sound for my nickname, Katie, and no "th" sound for Kathryne. sighh. I guess I'm misspelled in English AND Russian.

Kathryne

Once Upon a Time... the Beginning of the Optimism Initiative

Once upon a time, I was in a bad spot. It was cold, dreary weather and it had been for a long while. It was the middle of Lent, too, and I had given up the internet. I was not exactly depressed... maybe foggy would be a better word.

Anyways, one Friday night someone made a comment to me that, for some reason, just made me smile. I wrote it down in my journal and decided on a whim to record something, no matter how stupid, that made me smile, every day for the next 30 days.

I did, and I have to say my "experiment" was a success. I was much less "foggy" by the end. This wasn't just good for the people around me (since I stopped being so "glass-half-empty" and negative), but it's just more fun to be an optimist. I didn't continue it in my journal, because I wanted to use my journal for important stuff like whining and moping.

So here I am, a good 3 months later, starting up again... this time to share with y'all that are interested in the smiles of a high school girl with a misspelled name.

Kathryne

----------------------------------------------------

Today, my happy-moment was starting this blog. I promised myself WEEKS ago that I would, and meeting goals, even mundane ones, just makes me happy =)

Also, I ate two White Fudge Chunky Chips Ahoy cookies. Nothin like chocolate to uplift spirits, no?