ENGAGED!!!

Hello Friend! I got engaged on Christmas Eve to the love of my life, Lucien Dean Hertert III! He took us to the spot where we met and got right down to business, on bended knee no less. I said YES, of course! We have been together for 3 years and 4 months, the timing was perfect. Being the technological master that he is, he created a new blog for us. While I have not been ever so faithful with the upkeep of this blog for my readers, I foresee even greater difficulty with keeping up two blogs. I may post here if I have something really important to say that doesn't involve the wedding plans. I expect that my time to do such exposition will be at a premium and any of you desiring to keep up with my most recent thoughts and activities will want to check in at that site. www.lukeandkatie.com Easy to remember and straight-forward for you, fair reader. It should prove to be an entertaining read. My fiance is quite a hilarious man. So check in there from time to time to get the latest and greatest news about the wedding and the events in our lives as we go through this particular American rite-of-passage. Thanks and God Bless! Katie

yeah

So here I sit with a single velvet Thinsulate (c) glove on my desk. Today there was also a fire truck, Tonka of course, not the full-sized kind (what, are you crazy?) I also have the usual stacks of papers, unclaimed notebooks found in the conference room I monitor. These stacks of papers tell about what the trends will be in fashion for Christmas next year. Wouldn't you like to know? You can't, sorry, signed a confidentiality agreement. I also have a $480 sweater on my desk. Yes, just one sweater that cost that price, pre-tax. If you grew up like I did you probably think it would have to be the greatest sweater in all the world to fetch such a price. It's pretty. It's tiny. It may weigh several ounces, but that would be due to the wood buttons and bead work the actual material BARELY makes it a sweater. So I sit here at my desk and blink and wonder how this became my life. How I got this job at this time. How I manage to shrug and avert my eyes when an old friend or acquaintance asks if I like it while I sheepishly mutter, "Yeah, I never thought I would, but I do." The truth is there are days that are exciting when we're in the news or they're showing some fabulous new sweaters. Some days I am the hero for sending a fax or finding a number. I'm in a position where knowledge is power and I have come to know quite a lot. I am still humbled constantly when I have no idea about something that I ought to know after a year here. I still have these moments with my boss where he rolls his eyes or sighs or tells me forcefully that he knows what that is, but what's THAT. My stomach sinks in those moments and I know I turn red because I feel my ears getting hot. I have learned that I am stronger than I thought I was and more sensitive than I want to be. Why I can't I be sensitive when I'm in an interpersonal setting where grace and truth need to be delicately balanced, but not at the office? I continually think of the sage words of John Lennon, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." This is that life.

wonderfull weekend

I just adore going home anywhere near a holiday. I had the best time catching up with old friends and reconnecting with Northeastern Ohio. It is not a glamourous place, that's for sure. It just has this easy sensibility. There is not a ton to do, so you sit and talk. We watched football games, theater movies and even some mindless cable at certain points, but I would have been completely fine just talking to the many people I saw. I will only remember that this was the weekend that I saw Harry Potter and Chicken Little because I have it recorded here. It will not stand out to me that this year Ohio State beat Michigan in a last 5 minutes, breath-holdingly exciting game. I will remember that I got to help my Grandpa get to church as he becomes less and less self-propelled. I will remember going to the big Malone group Thanksgiving to catch up with a whole gang of people I used to associate myself with on a fairly regular basis. That was amazing. I had a ball. I will remember glow bowling with friends and family. I just adore the people that live there. Too many good people in Ohio. It's worth the weather.

So, a friend sent me this today and I think we all ought to take a moment and stare in wonder.

Wonder* Wonder* WONDER!*

I think it might just get better the longer you look at it. It is so fabulous to dress your children up as their favorite character for Halloween. It works even better when they are naturally graced with the perfect hair. As a girl who has built many a Halloween costume entirely around the qualities provided by my hair, I salute the mother or father with the foresight to dress their offspring in these costumes. Or maybe the young lads actually begged to be festooned with mustache and moonboots. No matter what, I just get a huge kick out of this...

Belief

"I was wondering the other day, why it is that we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for: it only matters that they are cool... The thing I have to work on in myself is this issue of belief. Gandhi believed Jesus when He said to turn the other cheek. Gandhi brouhgt down the British Empire, deeply injured the caste system, and changed the world. Mother Teresa believed Jesus when He said everybody was priceless, even the ugly ones, the smelly ones, and Mother Teresa changed the world by showing them that a uman being can be selfless. Peter finally believed the gospel after he got yelled at by Paul. Peter and Paul changed the world by starting small churches in godless towns. Eminem believes hi is a better rapper than other rappers. Profound. Let's all follow Eminem." from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Donald pretty much sums it up more succinctly than I've ever been capable of, but here's how it relates to my world. I was messing around with My Space today and decided to update the stuff I'd left blank back in August when I first signed up. I started with "Searching...ever searching" as my header and congratulated myself on appearing deep. Then I did heroes and I put my parents and grandparents for their committed, honest lives. Then I went to the music segment. I placed a few of my top artists in there, the ones that get recognition. I was ecclectic with indie, rock and classic sensibilities. I threw my favorite worship music in there at the end to seem Spiritual. I sat back and thought about how my viewers would be able to assess me with my artistic and intelligent taste. I then came home and read the above section. Why should my appreciation for the music of Weezer tell anyone anything about me? Affiliating myself with certain bands and artists doesn't make me who I am. It may convey what you might happen to hear when riding in my car, but my essence lies in what I believe, how I act. THAT is the most important thing. And it's time to start living like it. Deliberately and actively living out exactly what I say I believe. Jesus is the center.

hardly Halloween

Expand. Contract. Breathe in and hold it. It has been a very surreal day, for a large number of reasons. I woke up to the bedroom I have still not gotten entirely used to since I re-arranged a couple weeks ago. It was earlier than I usually rise in order to make it to a doctor's appointment. I also woke up to 5 guests in my apartment... on a Monday morning. I made my peanut butter and jelly lunch before I did anything else. Then my friend Teresa, also an early riser apparently, got up and gave me one of the best hugs ever to greet me. She's a talented hugger. The Lovedrug guys, who I hosted for two days, are expert sleepers. They didn't even roll over to my alarm ringing through the apartment twice. Pros. I didn't wear a costume. I wore costumes all weekend, not today. I made my way to a new doctor. I hate going to a new doctor, the forms are mountainous, each one requiring your permission to do things to you that you do not want to have done. Today it was allergy testing. "Here we are going to poke things into you that will make you itch and tell you not to scratch. Not that it matters, though. We're putting them on your back, so you can't reach them to scratch them anyway." I just hope my insurance covers it, that will really be torture if I have to pay several hundred dollars for the priviledge. Work was numbing today. I don't know about this job. I mean, I never really knew, but I really don't know about this job. I sat and weighed pros and cons in my head as I updated contact lists and entered data. It could definitely be so much more boring than it is, often it can be fairly exciting. I guess I would just really have to be excited about the end result. That I just can't muster. "Lord Jesus, guide my steps, show me where and when to go..."

NEW

Hi I'm buying my first new car tonight. I am so nervous and excited I can barely type! I have chosen the most beautiful car in the world! It is a 2006 Honda CRV SE. I think it is spectacular and I will give everyone a ride in it if they want. Hooray! I've got to ride the excitement, because I know paying off the loan is not going to be nearly as much fun. It is beautiful and has lots of nice features, like power windows and cruise control. I am really living the high life now! Everything with the car should be completed by the end of the week, just in time to visit my brother in Athens, Ohio. I will really get to "stretch the legs" of my new car by traveling on to West Virginia with the whole family for a cabin weekend. It should be fun and now I'm not dreading the 4 to 5 hour drive, one way. It is the nicest thing I have ever owned.