if you were a kate, who would you be?

i am...just an ordinary girl.
i want...to know Jesus more!
i wish....i could to go africa like this weekend. yes please.
i hate/strongly dislike...really hot weather, unless im in an ocean or pool.
i miss...old friends :(
i fear...not living each day to its fullest
i feel...worried about someone.
i hear...priscilla ahn "dream" - i love it!
i smell...wierd hotel room smell.
i crave....the beach and traveling.
i search...the bible for answers.
i wonder...what my life will become.
i regret....regreting.
i love...my nephews!!
i care...about africa and social justice stuff.
i ache...knowing about africa and social justice stuff.
i always...forget stuff at hotels.
i am not...very competitive.
i believe...that everything happens for a reason.
i dance...even though i probably look silly.
i sing...all the time and sometimes loud.
i cry...more so lately. oh and at any movie that is the slighest bit sad.
i dont always...show up on time. shoot.
i fight...for my right to par-ty!
i write...im my journal A LOT and i make lots of list.
i never...turn down ice cream. yum!
i need...to be humbled daily
i am happy...period.

iamsoblessed!

i always meet the nicest people on planes

deadhead to pasco. that was my job today. deadhead means that you are just a passenger on the plane, but you are getting paid for it. and pasco is somewhere in washington. it is a time where it is actually ok to sleep on the job. and i was fixing to do just that. cuz i have actually become a pretty talented plane sleeper. you know, limited head bobbing, mouth closed. just sit straight up and sleep. i have been in some pretty terrible situations in the past that have greatly improved this skill. for example - 13 hour flight, middle seat next to a sick person who is coughing the whole time and a very large woman on the other side. and i think a kid was behind me as well. it was ridiculous. and at one point i woke up with my head on the large woman's shoulder. haha. oh well. it is so awkward being in such close quarters with strangers. and it is funny how so many of them dont even acknowledge each other. its like we are afraid of who knows what. all we know is we are stuck in our seat for duration of the flight. The gentlemen who sat next to me today in 4B was a talker. he was nice and we started out talking about fuel prices. bor-ing. then we started talking about families and just life. it is weird to me that i can have a good conversation with a 50 year old dad traveling from texas for work. i guess its the simple commonalities of being human. i always have passengers coming into my selfish life, teaching me things. gosh darn it. things that i could not learn from the people i actually know. sometimes you need a nameless perfect stranger. and god is just funny like that. so thanks to the guy from san antonio who taught me about being a father, marriage is hard but good, and patience. thanks to the happy guy who was born with out legs who skateboarded to his seat and taught me that limitations are relative. thanks to the 80 year old who had just lost her husband of 49 years 11 months and three weeks. she reminded me that love can be real. lasting. and possible. everyone who comes on these planes has a story.
they might be coming home from iraq and meeting their one year old daughter for the first time. or moving homes. or going to disney land. or a funeral.
everyone is on their little journey, trying to get somewhere.

but for however many hours. of their busy day of their very important little lives. they are stuck on this plane. and i am in charge. mwah ha ha.

home for now

sometimes i feel like my life is this journey with meaningless destinations. and everywhere i go serves as this temporary setting for the next however many hours of my life. even the people you work with are temporary. in and out of your life. when im home i strive to make somethings in my life consistant...the church i go to or the friends i really care about or the places i run. change is great, but sometimes i just want to be somewhere that feels fimiliar or work with someone i already know.

i went to the infamous westminister mall last week, which used to be the coolest place to shop, but now it is so ghetto. yet we find ourselves still going there. top 5 reasons why: always get a good parking spot. you dont have to look good because you know you wont see anyone you know. always a good going out of business sale. and its close. ok, so there are only 4 good reasons. i had not been to the food court area in probabaly 10 years. but i still have these vivid memories. i would get this oversized slice of pizza everytime. me and my mom and sister would go to that mall a lot. and now it is empty. everything is closed. i felt a little sad. everything from my childhood is different or gone. my house, the bowling alley. and now the food court at the mall.


Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

-garden state

volcano

what I give to you
Is just what i'm going through
This is nothing new
No no just another phase of finding what I really need
Is what makes me bleed
like a new disease

-damien rice

typical

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 3

today was a typical morning. ate some breakfast burrito, drank coffee, hung out with my dear friend laura. try ridiculously hard to make my baby nephew smile. i know he can, but he just stares at me, straight faced. ha.
it is not until about 2 that i find it necessary to put on less comfortable clothes. the door bell rings and i am slow to answer expecting one of the fifteen neighborhood kids. it is a gosh darn solicitor holding coupon books. hoping he didnt wake up the babies i glance at our very cute and kind "no soliciting" sign and say hello. i had to listen. ten minutes later, i think of any and every excuse.

"oh yes. um, i already have that."
"oh but you can give it as a gift." he says.

"ill think about it, and check out your website (good one, i thought)"
"its now or never, they are going fast." he says.

finally he left me alone when i told him i was very poor with no money. i mean come on! this guys was so pushy. and $30 for coupons. who even buys coupons? ok maybe i have once.

five minutes later my nephew and his friend run inside. then 3 more kids. but these kids look less happy than the first two. i tell them they need to play outside, but one interupts, "dante is being mean" and the little girl next to him says, "yeah, he's not following god's rules."

right. i see.