sunrise

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Wednesday night I crawled in bed, reached over and set my alarm clock for 5am.

Say what?  Are you crazy Katie?  That is really early.

Oh, not quite.  You see, that's about the time the sun gets up.

Thursday morning, 5am, my alarm clock beeps and I get out of bed.  I grab a sweatshirt, a blanket, my cell phone, and my pepper spray.  (A true testimonial to my city girl-ness right there.)  I realized the night before that my camera had suddenly gone missing on me.  And I couldn't very well go searching around in a house full of sleeping people.  Let's just say it was a very frustrating few moments when I fully understood I wouldn't be able to take any pictures.  *sigh*  So, I grab my lawn chair, creak open the back door, and settle myself on the deck.

I pull out my prayer journal and write...

The sky is a light blue color.  Except in the east.  It's orange in the east.  I can see it peaking through the fence.

The birds are very much awake.  I used to think they were a nuisance.  I was definitely wrong...

It's really peaceful out here so early...

Thank You for creating beauty...like a sunrise.  It really is a pity not more people get up to watch it.

This whole event was inspired by a book I read.  "Love, Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli.  Anybody ever read it?  Well, I think it's a fabulous book.  This teenage girl, Stargirl, was different.  In a good way, in my opinion.  She cherished moments; especially the small ones.  Like watching the sun come up.

Live today.  Not yesterday.  Not tomorrow.  Just today.  Inhabit your moments.  Don't rent them out to tomorrow.  Do you know what you're doing when you spend a moment wondering about how things are going to turn out...?

You're cheating yourself out of today.  Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you're stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain.  You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever.  It's now yesterday.  Some of those moments may have been wonderful things in store for you, but now you'll never know.

--Jerry Spinelli, "Love, Stargirl"

I've got something to say.

"You are heaven's Haley's Comet; we have one shot at seeing you shine.  You offer a gift to society that no one else brings.  If you don't bring it, it won't be brought."  --Max Lucado

Senior Banquet

Graduation

 Instead of picking one gown color, we decided to be a rainbow.

It happened.  I graduated.  I am officially a high school graduate and a college freshman.


My weekend was amazing.  If I tried to thank every person individually here and now I know for certain I'd leave somebody out... So, thank you to everyone who attended my graduation; you are the bomb.  Thank you to all the behind the scenes people that made this thing happen; everything was beautiful.  And one big thank you to my parents who put in so much hard work and dedication these last many years to giving me the best education possible.


What an incredible journey I've had up 'til now.  It's been so fun...and gone by so fast.


Am I ready for this growing up thing?  I think so.  God'll be with me.  I can do it.


The song below was kind of my theme song for graduation.  It says that if we're living and breathing, we have something to say.  That if our heart is beating, we have a message to share.  God's love is in us and speaks through us.  That is my hope for the coming years...that the Lord will shine through me.  


  


Philippians 2:13 & 15, "For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose. ...so that you may be blameless and pure children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars."


{Photo credit goes to my daddy.}

when you feel magic

The other night I up and decided, "You know.  I think I need some ice cream."  Zach and I hop in Waldo and take a DQ run.  Dairy Queen is all of two minutes from our front door.  This can be amazing...at times.  Until you realize that your pay check can very easily dwindle to nothing because you gave it all to Dairy Queen in exchange for blizzards.  But this particular night, I didn't care.  I just wanted some ice cream.  Some rich chocolatey goodness.

We swing through the drive through and I order my blizzard.  Medium Chocolate Xtreme.  The usual.  As we head back towards our house, I look over at Zach.  "I'm not ready to go home yet.  Wanna go someplace else?"  {Sidenote:  When I started driving, I made a discovery.  There are not very many places to hang out in my town.  I mean, you can only go to Books-A-Million so many times, folks.}  I decided I'd pull over in a small back road and just sit.  So I parked on the roadside and turned off Waldo except for the radio playing faintly in the background.  Zach opened the sunroof and I rolled down my window.  I ate my blizzard and just sat.

It was almost magical.  Scratch that...it was magical.  At least for me it was.  I felt like I was in a story book.  Peering through the sunroof at the clouds and the birds.  Feeling the slight breeze as I stuck my head out the window.  Beautiful.

at work

We've been shifting in fiction lately.  After doing a lot of weeding, we decided to get rid of several paperbacks on the second floor, which opened up two whole bookshelves at the very back.  So, why not give ourselves some more space throughout the rest of the shelves and move everything back.  I'm on the shifting team.  Each of us try to do about three hours a week.  I had the privilege to move Jane Austen.  This may seem very trivial, but I found it neat to be able to give her books a new resting space on the shelves.

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Every four hours an employee works, they get a fifteen minute break.  During one of my breaks not long ago I jogged up the stairs to the break room on the third floor.  The third floor is for employees only.  It makes me feel kinda special, that I can go up there.  Anyway, back to my break.  I gazed into the vending machine looking for something yummy to munch on.  Specifically, anything chocolate.  My eyes caught on some Reese's peanut butter sticks.  {Sidenote: Did you know they make them in sticks now?  Interesting.}  $1.00.  E6.  I slid my dollar in and punched in the buttons, but apparently my brain didn't do a very good job of communicating to my fingers.  I punched E5.  Oh no.  What was in E5?  I look down.  I was the new owner of.....beef sticks?  Ew.  Luckily I had an extra dollar to get my beloved Reese's sticks.  But what to do with the beef sticks?  Once again, ew.  I turned to one of the janitors who was cleaning the break room tables at the time.  "Charles, do you like these?  I accidentally pressed the wrong button."  He smiled, "Can't go wrong with beef sticks."  I handed them to him.  "You can have them."  He smiled again and said, "Thanks."  It was worth it then.  Even though my snack had ultimately cost me two whole dollars, I had made somebody happy with my beef sticks.  That was a great thing.

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Read any good books lately?  Right now I'm reading one that I read as a middle schooler.  It was on my reading list, and I ended up really enjoying it.  So much that I can recall bits and pieces of the story to this very day.  I decided, why not pick it up again?  It's called "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli.  Great book.

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Well, I'm coming to the end of this post and not sure how to bring it to a close.  I guess I'll just say, thank you.  Thank you dear readers for reading my idle chatter.

Yours,

Dear girls,

Dear Nelda,

I sure will miss working with you.  You've been such fun!  Be sure to wave at me through your office window.  And take care of yourself, ya hear.

See ya,

Lady

~~

Dear Mama,

Thanks for reading that book for me...even though you didn't like it much.  Haha!

Love you,

Your bookworm

~~

Dear Ems,

Remember how I told you I'd come up with a nickname for you someday?  Well, I think Ems has kinda stuck.  Haha!  Miss you!

Big hugs,

Your e-mail buddy

~~

Dear Ms. Booker,

I actually did kinda enjoy your algebra class.  But I am happy to have it behind me.  Thanks for being a great teacher!

Sincerely,

That girl who's not so good at math