valentines day

I know this is a little belated, but...my Valentines Day was the best ever.  Basically. 

However, for the full effect of what I experienced on this day, I need to back up even further than Valentines Day.  A few weekends ago, Matt, Ashley, Josh, and I traveled to Casa Grande to hang out and do some exploring.  (I don't really recommend it as an exciting tourist spot; the stench of Casa Grande reminded me a lot of my 4-H days at the Yuma County Fair. Plus it's not really a terribly exiciting town anyway, although we did have a good time!)  While in Casa Grande, we stopped of at the local Target to pick up some snacks for the movies (yes I realize this isn't strictly legal, but it is much cheaper!).  With the intention of killing some time before our movie started, we meandered around Target for quite some time.  My meandering stopped altogether, however, when I saw a picture frame that I absolutely fell in love with.  I just couldn't walk away from it.  A picture frame doesn't really sound like it should be that exciting, but this thing was beautiful!  Matt saw how much I loved it, and I'm sure noticed the far-off look in my eye throughout the rest of the evening as I kept picturing the frame in my head.  But I knew I shouldn't spend the money, so I kept trying to forget about it.

Fast forward two weeks to Valentines Day.

In the morning, while Matt was at basketball, I "heart attacked" his room.  I felt like a ninja because of my incredible stealthiness.  (Disclaimer: There were no intense acts of violence during my ninja mission.)

That night, Matt made Ashley, Josh, and me chicken and brocoli alfredo and garlic bread.  It was amazing.  And sweet.  And romantic.  Right before we all ate together, Matt pulled me into his room and gave me his Valentines gift.  It was all I could do not to cry when I unwrapped the beautiful frame I had loved so much at Target.  Matt is so good to me!!!  (All the time....not just when he buys me one of the the most beautiful frames ever.:)

Here's one of Ashley and Josh.  YAY! :)

molly mormon?

During the past semester, I have been informed several times by my roommates that because I have been LDS my whole life, I should know everything there is to know about being a "Mormon girl." In their minds, this constitutes an extensive knowledge of cooking, baking, sewing, cross-stitching, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, cleaning, and, of course, the Gospel. Much to their shock and dismay, however, my cooking is only fair (as is my baking), I hate sewing, the last time I cross-stitched was when I was a Beehive, I can't knit, Ashley makes fun of my crocheting, I've never scrapbooked, and...well...I do clean. I'll give them that one. On the other hand, Ashley and Madison (both of whom are converts) do a great job cooking and baking, they both sew, cross-stitch, knit, crochet, scrapbook, clean, and I'm sure know a great deal more about the Gospel than I do.

One of my favorite examples is during the summer when Ashley randomly decided that she wanted a cute, modest dress and couldn't find exactly what she wanted in the stores....and decided to sew one....having never attempted sewing before. The dress turned out fabulously. It blew me away. The last time I tried sewing was when I was a Mia Maid and decided to make sewing a skirt one of my Personal Progress goals. Let's just say...I never realized how many anger issues I had until I started working on this skirt and my mom probably ended up finishing it.

Madison got a beautiful new set of scriptures recently and with them decided that she also wanted a scripture case. Instead of simply buying one, however, she bought a case, a cross-stitching pattern, and some thread. She was going to cross-stitch the temple into her scripture case! I guess that is supposed to be a very Mormon girl thing to do (apparently I missed the memo somewhere along the line). Then, much to my bewilderment, Ashley decided to join her on this quest! Meanwhile, I sat on my bed playing on my computer (probably on Facebook ha) while they figured out how to cross-stitch. I giggled to myself in great amusement when they asked for my input on cross-stitching. I tried to help (I really did) but to no avail. I'm...not very good at cross-stitching.

In conclusion, I still need to read the Holy Temple book that Madison lent me, my mom sews all my church dresses, and I got a brand new set of scriptures for Christmas with a bright pink case (that I will definitely not be cross-stitching anything into). I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints....but I should probably work on some of my "Mormon girl" skills. Haha. I'm going to start my first scrapbook soon...and I'll definitely know who to ask for help.

'tis the season

It has been such a long time since I've written anything! My excuses are valid, however, and they have very little to do with the impending finals. They have everything to do with spending every spare minute I have with my awesome boyfriend Matt and my other friends! I admit, I have not been focusing as much on school this semester on the whole, but with this admission comes the realization of how truly happy I am. And luckily, it looks as though I will do just fine in my classes anyway. (I have been working a little bit in between my fun.) What a truly blessed girl I am!

Some (not that interesting) updates:

-I only have two more finals left!!!

-I get to go home next Wednesday to see mi familia en Prescott--with Matt!!!

-Next Friday I get to go to California to see my grandma and my aunt...and Matt is coming to that, too!!!

-Christmas is coming soon!!!!!!!!! We get to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ!!!!

-I get to go camping after Christmas with my family!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!! I LOVE going camping with the Fam.

-AND Madison might come to Prescott to visit me during break!

-Then I get to come back to Tempe and work for awhile before school, and spend more time with Matt!!

-Then, after all that goodness, my grandma and my aunt are coming to Prescott in January!!!!!!

Seem too good to be true? Good thing it isn't. Boy I love Christmas time and being able to spend so much time with friends and family. Hopefully I'll be able to spread my cheer. I don't think it will be too hard--I can barely contain my happiness as it is! Yay Christmas!!!!!!!! :)

i need YOU!

I went to talk to my psychology advising counselor today after my first class was cancelled, and she informed me that I have twelve elective classes that I have to take. She told me that this meant one of two things: that I could either make this a minor or probably turn it into a double-major. The problem is...I have absolutely no idea what I would want to major/minor in. I definitely do not want to do anything history related, as I am taking HST 101 right now and feel as if I am barely hanging on for dear life.

Any ideas?

it's the small things in life

Random moment from today that made me laugh (that probably won't be funny to anyone but me, ha):

Jerod forgot his lunch again today, so I went with him (as I normally do when this occurs) to the MU to buy a lunch. In addition to buying his pizza and breaksticks, Jerod also got a very large drink. I was about to walk out of the MU after Jerod had payed for his food, but he called me back and insisted that he needed a lid and a straw for his drink. Deciding to be helpful, I grabbed the first lid I saw and tried to put it on the top of the drink; however, the lid I had so helpfully grabbed was much too small for his very large drink and so it just dropped inside of the cup and floated atop the lemonade. I stood there confused for a moment before I realized what was going on, and then I reached inside his cup to grab the lid. For some reason, though, I couldn't get a grip on it, so I ended up just pushing it around inside his lemonade for awhile. Eventually, I looked up at Jerod to see him staring at me in amazement at my stupidity. HAHA. Then I couldn't stop laughing for the next twenty minutes, while Jerod still just shook his head in amazement. Ha! Another very happy moment in the life of Katie.

laughter is the best medicine

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you wonder if someone is just going to pop out of no where and yell, "You're on candid camera!" or something else along those lines? Well, this has definitely been one of those weeks for me. I wish I could remember all of the strange happenings of this week, but unfortunately, I only remember a couple of them.

My absolute favorite moment (which turned into many, many moments) was when I went outside my apartment to talk on the phone. Before I left, I called out to my roommates, "Don't lock me out!" Haha. Yep. I think I jinxed myself right there. While I was on the phone, my roommates texted me and told me they were going for a run. After I got back from my phone conversation, I walked up the stairs, turned the door handle, and...you guessed it! The door was locked. The very first two words that popped into my brain: "Oh dang." I'm pretty sure those were the only two words that stayed in my head for about two minutes before I started to giggle. My roommates were on a two hour run, it was really late at night, I was locked out of my own apartment, and I had to pee really badly...and my only reaction for the next two hours was to giggle uncontrollably to myself. I'm strange like that. It made me think of Elder Wirthlin's talk from the Saturday afternoon session of general conference where he counseled us to just laugh when things go wrong. Well, I think I definitely took his counsel to heart. Haha. Good times...with myself. Ha.

Another favorite moment from this week happened that very night after my roomies finally got home from their run. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and Ashley and Madison were sitting in my room talking and drinking chocolate milk. Madi said something about how listening to Secondhand Serenade sometimes made her wish she had a boyfriend to which Ashley promptly responded, "You can borrow Josh for awhile if you want!" I shook my head as Madison snorted at that suggestion. Ashley gave us the most hurt look I've ever seen cross anyone's face. Madison and I started laughing at exactly the same time--the only difference being that Madi had chocolate milk in her mouth and I did not. Milk sprayed across the room and landed on Ashley's clothes, face, desk, and computer. I had the best view since the milk was backlit by Ashley's light. I started laughing even harder, but my favorite moment was when Ashley's first reaction was to reach down, pull Madi's sweaty sock from off her foot, and start to clean up all the sprayed milk with it. HAHA. Oh man. That was such a happy moment in the life of Katie.

faith and fear

Wow. I feel so confused right now. Actually, confused doesn't even begin to describe it. Perhaps terrified is a better word. I have had a pretty defined idea of what I wanted to do with my life and my education for several years now. And now...I'm just not sure. I began questioning all of my plans today.

I have always been pretty sure that I wanted to be a counselor. I've never been sure specifically what kind of counselor I wanted to be, and I figured that was okay since I'm not very far into my upper-level psych classes and would have time to figure it out. But in general, I've always gone back and forth between marriage and family therapy or something to do with adoptions.

But today at the institute dollar lunch, I had a conversation with Brother Wright that absolutely terrified me. Brother Wright, in addition to being the institute director, is also a marriage and family therapist--a fact I did not know until today. I was immediately interested and began peppering him with questions (he was doing the same to me so I figured it was okay). One of the things he told me that shook me to the core was that he hates doing marriage and family therapy. He hates it. And when he told me why it completely made sense. He started talking about the things they don't teach you in school--the on-the-job-training type of stuff. He told me his first client was a transvestite who was married but didn't want to fix anything about his life. He talked about sex addicts and physical and emotional abusers. Obviously I knew all that stuff existed and that I would have to deal with it, but I didn't realize that I would need to be dealing with it on a daily basis.

Honestly, I'm just not sure I have what it takes. I'm scared that I would be bringing that stuff home with me every night. I'm scared that I'll become hard and de-sensitized to the things of the world. Basically...I'm just scared.

I also talked to him about my desire to work with adoptions. He told me a good idea for that would be to continue what I was doing right now and get a bachelors in psychology and then a masters in social work. I feel like that's probably what I'll do. Even then, I'm scared that I'll be bringing home all that baggage every day.

Regardless of how scared I am right now, however....I still feel pretty sure that I'm supposed to do counseling of some kind. Maybe I'm just going to have to make sure that it's something I'll be able to handle--that I won't be an emotional wreck every day for the rest of my life. I'm far too sensitive for that. I guess the biggest thing is that I'll have to pray about this. I'm sure nothing will help more than that. Faith. I need to have faith.