getting my vampire on. again.

LATELY.. thanks to my month free of NETFLICKS.. I have been watching the twilight/one tree hill/soap opera hybrid teenage girl tv show Vampire Diaries. I was a skeptic, I'm not going to lie. BUT.. I think I have gone to the dark side. It is dramatic and and hilarious because EVERY single person casted is like fakely and obnoxiously pretty, but it is addicting. My sister and I were driving to Target and caught ourselves having a conversation about it. The story comes from a book that my cousins and sisters read together. They have been obsessed, and I have called them stupid. to their faces. Now, I am one of them. If you get net flicks, or are stuck in your house for a retarded amount of time.. it's worth it to watch it. Maybe.

COOL COOL BEANS

Polaroid pictures are THE BOMB right now, and I don't think that they will ever be anything less. If you are like me, then you most likely don't want to go through the trouble of buying expensive and hard-to-find film (slash the camera...) or scanning it. BUT ... I have the solution! You can download a program that turns regular pictures into a polaroid picture with an aged filter effect and the signature polaroid frame. Just go to THIS website.. and download it for FREE :) It is available for both windows and mac.

leading

read this from a blog

[“If the worship leader isn’t worshipping God then they’re not doing it right… vocals are secondary.”“Being a great vocalist can limit your ability to lead worship if you put songs in a range the congregation can’t follow.” “I feel like you can be a great worship leader even if you don’t have a great voice.” “Being able to lead people into the

presence of God is WAY more important than being a great vocalist.” “Simply, no! HOWEVUHHHH—you gotta carry some kind of note, right? I’d prefer leadership over vocals.” “Great voice doesn’t make you great leader. And you can be a great leader w/o a great voice (Willie Nelson)”

In my opinion, leadership is much more important than vocal ability. I think that it is important

for a worship

leader to be able to hear God and lead the congregation in the direction that God wants them to go. Worship leaders will be so much more effective if they focus on leading people according to God’s will first, and focus on vocal quality second"]

I need to lead beyond my own capabilities and weaknesses and talents. I feel like I learn something new and jump over a wall t

hat held me and my ministry back everyday. I feel like I will never stop screaming MORE OF YOU AND LESS OF ME because there is like an endless supply of me that is making everything be less than it could be. But, I read this encouragement this week that makes every thing worth it! This lets me know that God has plans for me, plans to lead me and guide me and make a difference through me. I just get to ride along in the passenger seat and be blown away!

.......................................................Anywho, going back to Boston this week for some cousin-havin-a-baby encouragement and to learn from a rockin worship ministry. I am ready for some more traveling! When I left "residential college life" and was blessed to be called to PHILLY!, I was so excited to be able to travel at every single opportunity that I could take, and so far I have gone to NewHampshire, Texas, -Im going to Boston next week, and to Guatemala two weeks later. Can it really get any better than that??! And, our band is doing SO OO GREAT! We are preparing for Easter and just getting more solid as a team. I just need to remember to use those hand signals and every other new implement that we have taken on that will take us to the next level. I feel like we (the worship leaders and I) all have such a HUGE vision, but are realistic and see where we are and what the next step is. The difficult part is learning how to lead all of my volunteers to the next step effectively and intentionally and get them to have the same vision and get them to reproduce themselves in our ministry in order to grow. SO, pretty much, all that I have gotten to nail so far has been unity and organization. But, (this is going to be bragging fosho. but not on me.. know that.) Let me just TELL YOU the coolest thing that I have been able to experience so far. We have recently had a man join our band that has been playing the guitar for a while. An old rocker dude. He came to play with us one day after years of a committed lady from my church fam witnessing to him and connecting with him and his wife. He came to practice, loved it and agreed to play with us sunday. He came that sunday and got saved during invitation. IT WAS AWESOME! The next week He brought his wife- she got saved and the next sunday immediately started volunteering with the sound techs. They joined our church and are bringing their family members on Easer. HOW EXCITING!! I can't believe that I am able to be apart of this! I am so thankful- and I am ALL IN!!!

feeling naked

Do you know when you feel awkward and it makes you feel the opposite of awkward to announce the fact that you are feeling awkward? Like the declaration of the awkwardness negates everything? Well... I am no stranger to awkward, my people. I have been feeling EXTRA "this" lately. And, since there has been plenty of time for me to over analyze and thoroughly re-cap my current actions and mannerisms lately with the living in the 'rents basement no longer in college current sitch that I have walked into, I realized that are somewhere around 12 different levels of awkward. For instance... I'm coming across as a negative person awkward, or theres an obvious booger hanging from my nose and you keep on looking at it and I don't know what to do and am not thinking fast enough to fix this gross embarrassing situation awkward, or the "I feel like you are judging me" awkward, or I think I'm talking too close to your face and my breath might stink awkward, or .. your fly is down and we both know it awkward... but the worst is when you feel so uncomfortable that your teeth are involuntarily grinding and your toes are clenched awkward. I call this awkward the "I feel naked" awkward. You must first understand that I am not one of the people that feels like a million bucks when they are naked. EWW. I just feel pretty naked when Im naked.

Right now, I feel alittle naked. Just like... I don't know what I'm doing and I don't have a lot to do here. I don't think it extreme enough to be labelled as an "identity crisis" but it's close. SO... I made a list of goals to get myself out of the naked. or.. I guess I could call it my journey of clothing myself. [wow, thats pretty cheesy and lame but I am not taking it back.] This is my attempt to not allow myself to: settle, to fall into a rut, to feel discontent, to have a pity party for myself, to become a cat lady, or to eat myself to a donut and corn dog happiness. Here are some of the goals.

1. lose Xlbs. (none of your business)
2. become more confident/better at acoustic guitar.
3. find a job that i love
4. get out of debt
5. continue to seek out new band members for our worship ministry
6. exercise more frequently
7. start a fund to finally go to australia
8. be more relational with people in my church
9. write songs
10. grow my hair to my ribs cage
11. travel at any and every opportunity
12. start a "my age" small group
13. make a friend here... more than one hopefully.
14. constantly be reading a leadership book
15. listen to more podcasts
16. be teachable
17. learn new bands at all times
18. keep in contact with old friends

[insert a well known song about it being the start of something new-here.]

if anyone hasn't done so yet, let me be the random person of inspiration. <-- preface: its a new year. i have never had the joy of truly participating in the cultural tradition of actually making a "new years resolution". so, on new years eve... I went to THE barnes and noble and picked up a moleskin journal. BLANK PAGED-key. I wrote a list of 2012 goals. Some of them being ... to lose a certain amount of weight, to grow my hair out without getting bored and chopping it, to read my Bible more consistently, some worship team goals, and some others. Some goals may be to be more creative, to be more knowledgable about health and exercise, to join a group of some kind, to write a song, to pick up an instrument, to put a stop to a bad habit, to watch all of the movies that have never been watched. lets make this year one of efficiency... one that we will be proud of when we look back next year! ps.. how cliche is it that i am joining a gym in the first week of january? whatever. I am also between 2 tattoos. I either want one of these pinkish with black outline

roses on my ank/foot.. or i want a lower cased

"t" on the front face of my right shoulder. i don't have a picture of this.

good luck. make goals! if we don't make goals, we can't achieve goals. (how about that for a quote!) I am off to sign up for a gym membership complements of my new goals fund (that doesn't exist.. I just wanted to sound more organized to pretend like I am getting better at my "be more organized" goal.)

heres to a new year!

blurr

I think.. there is a chance, that I have figured it out. 22 years of being wonderfully happy and loved and blessed, but slightly and confusingly blurred for some reason. Today, as I woke up at 4:30 AM with the inability to fall back into my imagination-dreamy unconscious state, everything went into focus. I realize.. or maybe I just finally payed attention to the subtitles or something... there is clarity to my situation. Before I verbalize my epiphany, let me preface by saying that I have done a lot. I have been given the world's most amazing family. God has painted a beautiful picture for my life so far. My parents love me and have always been so obedient to him, and therefore have been living lives of worship which has completely benefitted me in every way. Because of their obedience, I live in a world that has highlighted what is actually true. I was told as a little girl, and absolutely believe and know to be true today that Jesus created me, loves me, and is what gives me purpose. My sisters are my best friends. They are each individually so fantastic and fun and creative and are each great at their own things but also share a common denominator of being a certain kind of awesome that attracts all kinds of people... and boy, God has given the most perfect gifts of people in every place that He has moved us. I have been given a heart that loves people, and talents that are not of myself, nor have they been acquired ... but have been given and entrusted to. I had pretty good grades, never seriously screwed up in any of the areas that are screw up-able, but not because I am any better than any other person. I have listened to excellent advice and repeated it to others. I followed my childhood understanding and dream to be a Bible college girl. I have fallen in love with worship somewhere along the way. That's my story so far. Minus a few pretty defining moments such as missions trips, best friends, boys, (ya know..) stuff like that. All of my life I have been so blessed to have heard exactly what every person needs to hear. I knew all of it to be true, and lived my best accordingly, but I promise you that it has almost been like that was not enough because I have always felt like I needed to understand it all or define it in some way that would give my future or maybe even just me, Katie, clarity. Like, for instance... I thought that I had to become a certain standard to be able to acquire a boy interest that would then give me all of the necessary qualities such as; security, adventure, happiness, maturity, and (I'm pretty sure the underlying and big bold massive quality that the others can be categorized under: ...) contentment. Seriously, there have been uncountable conversations about who and what this person is, what he would be like, look like, what I would and wouldn't dare to "settle for", what would complement me the most and vice versa. I have subconsciously and consciously (if that is even possible) been waiting for the "blurry picture" to come into focus with that special boy someone to be in the center of the focused picture. I could literally carry on for paragraphs that would most likely sound extremely annoying or like something out of a christian girls seventeen magazine. If it wasn't the boy, then it was my ministry/calling/future that I thought would give me the clarity, and contentment that I was seeking. Surely, becoming something like all of the fellow God reflectors that I idolized and looked up to would give me the keys that I needed to focus the blurry picture that I so badly crave(d) to see. To be an Ed Trinkle, Brooke Fraser, Anthony Milas, Joel Houston, Karen Sawyer, Wesley Beacham kind of a golden person would be IT. I feel so silly right now. Well guess what. I get it. and it makes all of the current feelings of confusion, embarrassment, stress, mediocrity, insecurity, and discontentment fade away. Like points in a hungry day on weight watchers. ( I will probably regret that analogy later.) Here it is. I am focusing the blurred picture to Jesus. I am not going to worry about whether or not my 2 years in Boston made sense, I am not going to try to get to Hillsong to be able to be good enough to conjure true solid and God-glorifying worship (whatever that even means..) I am not going to wait around or worry about the qualities of the guy that I thought and think that I need, I am not going to worry about how long I am going to be living in my parents house, I am not going to worry about what is next in my life and what to do where to go who to connect with, I am not going to seek affirmation, I am not going to compare myself to anything other that the one who Created me, I am not going to feel a need for anything other than what I have in Jesus. Here is what is true about right now... I am His. Nothing else matters. I have said that many times, and have genuinely meant it-but right now I am going to mean and it and live it. To live life is such an awesome gift. I am going to live like it is the best gift that I have ever recieved. I am going to be STOKED! I am stoked. Even like... dieting. I am happy. (that is not a statement in the pursuit of convincing myself .. its real) I feel a weight lifted. Everyone, exhale with me. Now I'm going to go out and love the heck out of everyone and am going to be stoked to live this gift of life that was entrusted to me. I hate to leave on that thought and not expound on what is next, or what all of this means... but, to be honest- the clarity that was given and this focussed picture gives me the craving that I fought to keep and that has so many fake imitations (like the emotional fire that fades after church camp when decisions are genuine) and that is to just LOVE. I feel like I wanna go out and be the personified version of like a pixie stick, or something like that that makes everyone happy and want something more (Jesus). I want to get rid of the sin, and live unapologetically excited for Jesus. I love that I'm not going to compare anything that I am with anything that anyone else is anymore. I didn't even realize that I was doing it pretty much all of the time before. ... I realize that I should be quoting scripture here. Bummer that I am currently at a loss. Good thing one of my new years resolutions is to memorize more scripture. The next posts will reflect that. I apologize if everything that I said sounds like a big fat mess, or if there are more grammatical errors than should be possible with spell check, or if I sound like a flighty basket case, but nothing matters because I can see the picture. The blurr is gone.