The Official Release

Change is in the air, or maybe it's just in my air! Huge changes! After two years of being the president of the women's organization for the church in my area, I was released. I can't even begin to explain the lessons I learned, how close I was brought to my Savior, and how I struggled and rose higher and grew. I loved serving the growing number of Relief Society ladies (ages 18-31)and will deeply miss it--right now there are 114 of us. I loved being a part of their lives and receiving that constant inspiration to know who was in need. I have gained such a stronger affirmation that God listens and guides and knows how we can help each other in His stead. It all works so beautifully when we all take action and are a part of each others lives! I love it! I am so blessed.

anyone know subconscious sign language?

Heavy. Persistent. Familiar. That's the tugging going on inside me. What is it trying to tell me? It's growing stronger. I feel like my subconscious me is waving her arms over her head and leaping through the air in hopes of catching my attention. She has, but now I don't know what she's signaling. Ever feel that way? Usually when I feel this to a smaller degree, it's a reminder to do something. Call so-and-so. Put your water bottle in your bag. Or it means unfinished business, like I didn't completely resolve a problem or figure something out. This is much bigger. I need to go inward. Much farther than ever before. I see better with my eyes closed and my heart and mind open. Part of me is buried. I think. Part of me has been suffocating for a while and is desperate for air. I think I'm tugging at myself to allow me back into my life.

I love that I have more time now to actually write my feelings in here! Writing is like opening the flood gates, and I don't always take the time to do that like I used to. Something else I miss is how I used to draw pictures for every entry in my journal. I want that part of my life back too. Art does amazing things for me.

Today's Lesson Learned: Surround yourself with people who inspire and uplift you. Negative talk is counterproductive.

unemployment skyrockets to 598,000 in january

Here's a link to an article I just read in the New York Times. Technically I don't count in these numbers since I was laid off in February, but it's just something to think about. Wow. So many lives changed. Yesterday I got two freelance jobs!! Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. Everything will work out. I actually did a little dance of joy yesterday morning, so that really shows things are looking brighter. :)

Okay so the link guy isn't showing up on this entry. Here it is, but now you'll have to manually copy/paste.

http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

it's okay to be different

For the past three Tuesdays, I've been heading south to Bountiful for an institute class on the family—marriage to be more specific. Last week was incredibly deep. So deep I wanted to share it with everyone so that I could keep saying the words out loud and thinking them through all over again. I called Carrie on my way home and then taught my parents when I walked in the door. At one point in my lecture, my dad said, "I'd never thought of it that way before." There you have it. The man can be taught! I felt extremely knowledgeable in that moment. The teacher that night was Wendy Nelson, Elder Nelson cute spunky wife. Most of her thoughts come from her book, which was under her maiden name Watson.

Here are some of the things we discussed in our class. Tell me your thoughts too!

-"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He wants to devour our self-esteem, our free time, our families, our marriages, our priesthood—things he will never have. He wants us to be selfish. He's good at catching us off guard and making us forget he's the one planting those discouraging thoughts in our heads.
-"As the forces around us increase in intensity, whatever spiritual strength was once sufficient will not be enough!" (Elder Eyring, Ensign, October 1999, p. 9) Doesn't this just make you want to reprioritize your life and better arm yourself?? I love the energy this statement builds. You can't risk being unprepared. We've got to keep being more and more pure and more and more in tune with the Spirit because we live in a deteriorating world.
-There's no strength in giving in.
-The difference between worldly sex and marital intimacy is that sex when married is a soulful and spiritual experience—your bodies AND souls are involved, and when experiencing true intimacy it should bring you not only closer to your spouse but to God. It doesn't degrade. It's symbolic of how united your life is in all aspects—service, work, blessing your extended family. It's not recreational. It's a sacrament. Why would we settle for merely a sexual experience when we can wait for marriage to have true God-ordained intimacy. (As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that pretty much all of you who read my blog are married, so this should be interesting.)
-"Nothing has done more damage to the family than denying we're the offspring of God, only advanced animals, compelled to yield to every carnal urge." (Elder Packer)
-You cannot completely give yourself until marriage. Of course there'll be momentary pleasure. Our bodies are wired that way. If we do wait, it'll be more meaningful with more joy.
-Pornography is a plague of biblical proportion.
-Virtual reality is here to replace virtuous living.
-Sister Nelson is a marriage and family therapist, so she's seen the affects of pornography on families. She made about six slides with two columns each to compare how the world views sex and how God views sex. I tried to write as fast as I could, but I didn't get everything. Here's a little of what I did get.

eternal (not erotic)
helps put off the natural man
under the influence of the Spirit
involves spirit-enhanced passions
soulful union is the goal (not sexual goal)
sanctifying experience
generates love (doesn't kill it)
enlightens and enlivens (doesn't darken)
honors men and women
strengthens relationships
body's a great prize of mortal life (not a play thing)
brings wisdom and love
partaken of (not participated in)
a process (not a product)
supports, heals, and hallows lives
rejoiced in (not joked about)
brings spouses' spirits to life
doesn't offend the Spirit
embedded in truth
union of souls
increases ability to keep commandments and covenants
foundation of endless worlds (not an industry)

The feelings and impressions that stayed with me were that I was born to be a queen. My Heavenly Father has set up His plan so that I can have all that He has if I remain faithful. And why would I settle for anything less? I have every reason to want a man who is worthy and who honors his priesthood and honors me. That night listening to Sister Nelson enlivened me and gave me the spark to keep going. My feet were starting to drag. I was getting drained. But her words gave me purpose again and reminded me what I am fighting for.

Necklace

Now that I don't have a job, I am doing all those things I've been meaning to do, like take pictures of my necklace I blogged about a month ago. Pictures are now attached to the entry on trashion. Enjoy and be inspired!

PS: It's only 11:30 and I've done so much. Family prayers are when Nick leaves for school, so that got me out of bed at 7:30 a.m. Then I started laundry while I ate breakfast and even took all the sheets off my bed to wash (which is a big deal because I detest putting them back on for some reason). Then I took everything out of my closet--well, everything that weighs less than 10 pounds--so that I could vacuum. In case you're wondering, I have a big closet. Then I wrapped up all my Christmas decorations in bubble wrap and boxed them up, took the trash out and pulled the big can to the curb, got dressed, put make-up on, took Izzy on a long walk, folded mom's whites, made a smoothie, played with Izzy, and then got on the computer to connect with all of you guys. Future plans: dust room, read the scriptures, take recyclables to the dump's recycling site, take my give-away pile to DI, take a nap, edit Dad's Baseball Box manuscript, finish painting my map hangers, and go to my amazingly deep religion class tonight. I can't wait!

Good-bye Barn

Today was my last day as an employee of Gibbs Smith, Publisher. (It's officially called Gibbs Smith now, but I always have to add "publisher" anyway to explain what the company is.) I didn't survive the second round of layoffs. The whole three years I've lived in the Layton-Kaysville area, I've been an editor at the Barn, so it will be interesting to discover a new life and a new me. I don't know where I'll go (if anywhere just yet) or what I'll do. For now I'll look for freelance editing jobs until I know exactly where I need to be.

This morning was pretty emotional, not only leaving my job but leaving friends and memories. I still feel twinges of those emotions when I think about not going back to work there. But I also feel a strange freedom I don't remember feeling in a very long time. There was so much responsibility and multi-tasking going on to juggle my 17 authors and all the other people involved in the making of their books, and now that is gone. When I left this morning, there were dozens of things I wanted to tell Madge, as if I were leaving my babies with a sitter. But the books are no longer in my hands. Someone else will figure out how to organize the table of contents and where to put the new avocado photo. And everyone will continue "to enrich and inspire humankind."

Suzanne did tell me one thing that gives me solace. She said that when she and Christopher presented the names to Gibbs of those who they were letting go, when Gibbs heard my name he said, "We can't lay Katie off. She's gold." I did matter and I do matter. They just had to lay off fourteen people, and I happened to be one of them. Two editors (me and a woman named Leslie) were let go from our department.

When I finally left the Barn, after taking four loads of books, baskets, and more books to my car and saying good-bye to everyone, Gilbert stood staring at me from the field, baahing as if he knew I was leaving for good. It made me cry harder. Good-bye, Gilbert.

Dancing la bachata with Juan

Ever wanted to go Latin dancing but not done it for fear of getting stuck dancing the salsa with a creepy middle-aged Latin who's missing his two front teeth and likes to shimmy? If so, you know exactly where I'm coming from. So since I've been home from Mexico (3 years) I haven't set foot in a Latin dance club . . . until last weekend. I went on a blind date with Juan Saavedra, a friend of my cousin Tonya's. Juan is an amazing dancer and I had lots of fun even though, seriously, one of my first thoughts was, "Can I marry someone named Juan???" You know you'd have done it too. Most of the people I told suggested that I could call him John. Problem solved.:) But in all honesty, I could handle it. It was just funny.

So I had an amazing night with Juan last Saturday and caught the dancing bug, so I decided to invite some friends to go again this weekend (yesterday). I even called up Juan to see if he'd want to go. He said he was already planning on going with his friend Ryan but that he'd see me there. Cool. That made me feel better because I really wanted to dance with him again, and I didn't know what to expect from the other men at the club. My friend Carrie Romney didn't either, even more so than me, so I really had to do some convincing but she came!!

The first hour I danced with Raul (who kept swinging my hands voilently back and forth), Juan (shimmying Juan who looked 45 years old), Carlos (not bad, but too suave, telling me I had pretty eyes), and someone else whose name I don't remember. Then Juan Saavedra texted to say he was there and where was I. So I tried to leave the upstairs salsa room twice to head to the big room downstairs to meet up with Juan. Half an hour later I got downstairs. You'd think I'd know how to say no by now.

Juan was there with Ryan, as expected, but he'd also brought the infamous Larissa. He'd mentioned her quite a few times on our date, telling me what an amazing dancer she was. The second and third times he talked about her, I wanted to say, "Well, then why don't you marry her?" She too served a mission in Venezuela (Maracaibo though). I didn't know she was coming, which was fine, but it definitely created some awkardness when we had to share Juan. Ryan doesn't dance. He just came to scout out a girl he knew always goes to this club. I don't know what Juan told Larissa about me or about inviting her to come, but when I first found them, Juan asked me to dance. Larissa walked by and said she was going upstairs with Ryan, and Juan seemed concerned and said, "No, wait. Just a sec." She said, "No, no. It's okay." I wasn't sure what was going on. If I hadn't danced with Juan last night, I don't think the sum of my other dances would've been enough to make my night worthwhile. So since I danced with Juan to only 3 songs because I had to share him, it was still worth it.

When my cousin Tonya heard what happened, she called Juan a jerk. She thinks that Juan brought Larissa on purpose to show me he's not interested in me. I don't know if I completely believe that because it makes me sad and I thought he was a better guy than that, but we'll see. Too bad Juan is cute and fun and an amazing dancer and funny. I guess if he really is a jerk, or just a guy who doesn't know how to be up front and honest, it's better I find out now. So much for my new passion for Latin dancing!

Back to Blogging

I've had a few hold-ups the past couple months, but I am back to blogging! Over the past couple weeks crazy-funny things have been happening, and I keep saying, "I should totally blog this," or "This is hilarious—it's going on the blog!" But as you may have noticed, not much has been posted. Let's see how I do now. I miss hearing from you guys, so I gotta get my act together!

Trashion—Eco-friendly Jewelry

The other day I came across a site called Etsy, which promotes upcycling by selling trashion (etsy.com). Basically, someone with creative gusto turns something ready for the bin into something uniquely stylish and cool. I love it! I found out about this through my wonderfully amazing Dinner at Your Door authors, who graciously gave me a necklace made by an eco-friendly artist named Millie Hilgert (misscourageous.com), who is based out of Boise. Because I love my necklace so much, I am going to post a picture of it to go along with this post, but I'm too lazy to do it right now. (Done! Pictures now below.)



Isn't this inspiring? I can definitely see many of you creating all kinds of beautiful works of jewelry art like this! Get busy. Life is too short for only dreaming. (I hope that lit the fire under you.)

PS: Some of you may have noticed that I posted a similar entry on my Egypt blog. I'm torn. I don't know if I should keep both blogs up and running, and keep the Egypt one as a more fun informational blog that the whole world can see and this blog a more personal blog of Katie's deepest-darkest secrets. What do you guys think? Would you still look at both of them?

Silent Night

My blog is officially back up and running! It's been way too long, and I know you all have been missing me. Unless you had your fill of my Egypt blog!:)This is my adorable 15-month-old niece, Emma, at our family Christmas party on Saturday night. She's changed so much since I saw her a month and a half ago! I'm going to post most of the other Lindsay Christmas party pictures on Facebook so that more people have access to them and can say whatever silly comments they want to. Merry Christmas!!