My Version... Wha Happa?

Ok, so I've been giving a lot of thought to this whole, "what happened in Alaska?" thing. As for details, it's all just a blur, but here's the brief overview...
I went up there to make a positive impact on the people around me. I saw a change in the kids that go to camp, and I wanted to be a part of helping them maintain that throughout the year. I went up there as a part of a ministry that was the brainchild of one of my best friends, Amy. She was the dreamer and visionary I was the planner and more detail-oriented one. It should have worked out super well. But, as two people, we had our differences. And somehow, rather than work through those differences, we let ourselves become bigger than we are. It became a sort of me vs. her thing. We each kinda expected people to take sides, loosing sight of the fact that we're on the same side. (not "we were" on the same side, but "we are"...) We focused more on the ways that our views differed than on what we wanted to see get done. Rather than focusing on the positive change in the Kingdom of God that made her so passionate and that I got fired up to be a part of, we focused on ourselves and we scrutinized everything that was wrong with the friendship. In a nutshell, we lost sight of what mattered. Rather than loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:37), we fought. We did not keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2). We let ourselves become bigger than the God that we were (and still are) called to serve. We did not bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you had against one another. And we definitely did not forgive as the Lord forgave us (Col 3:13). It's sad that things are in the place they are right now. I was about to say it's sad that it ended up this way, but the end is not yet here. I don't know what things will look like in a day or a week, let alone a year or longer, but the end is not yet upon us. God is still very active in Haines and in whatever the heck happened between me and Amy. He continues to bring healing to me, and I can only hope and pray that he is doing the same for Amy.
Although I haven't talked to her, so I can't say for sure, I am almost positive that Amy and I still want to see the same things happen in Haines. We want to see kids be affected by a week at camp away from their problems. We want to see those kids have a support system in place for when they get back from camp. We want to see Rainbow Glacier Camp grow and expand. I hope someday we can.
That's the best that I can articulate it now. Maybe in another few months I will have a different take on things or be able to say it more concisely, but for now, that's all I got. I'm excited to see how God continues to work in me.

My Puppy... Tikka

Did I mention we got a puppy? I pretend that she's mine, but she's really my parents'. This pic is the day after we got her (two weeks ago). Note that she is far too small to make it up the one normal sized step...

My Niece, Calla

My favorite niece. She was born on Sunday, and this picture was taken on Monday, so she's real fresh.

My Nephew, Owen

Here's a pic of one of the two cutest kids I've seen... He's is just over 9 months old.

My Amazing Weekend...

I got to hang out with my brother, sis-in-law and nephew, and then my other bro and sis-in law had a baby girl last night!! So rad!!

Things will be good when...

Life is... good. I'm stoked for where things are going, but lately I feel like I've been looking forward too much and not living in the moment enough. Sometimes I feel like I've checked out and I'm just coasting until June when I can head to the Dominican. But I have been living that way for a long time. I constantly have these goals that I say, "life will be good when..." Right now, my thought is "life will be good when I can head down to the DR." But I'm tired of just waiting and coasting. By doing that I miss out on a lot of satisfaction that could be found along the way. So, I'm going to work on living in the moment and not focusing on the past or future. Not a small order, but I've gotta give it a shot.

Check one off the list...

On my list of things to do in my lifetime, seeing the Northern Lights was pretty dang high up there... But on luckily enough there was a solar storm about a week ago, and as a result, the lights were out Wednesday night. SO BEAUTIFUL!
I think it was really good for me to go to Haines. Right now I'm hanging out at the waffle house in Juneau, which is a must on any layover in Juneau that is longer than 4 hours. This fits the bill nicely. I like waffles. I'll be sure to write more on my experience in Haines later.

Maxwell House North!!!

It's so good to be back in Haines. I love it here. It makes me even more sad that I had to leave, but I still know that I made the right choice in leaving and, more importantly, in staying gone. Things have been really good since being back. Sure, there have been some awkward conversations and interactions, but overall, it's been totally normal. I haven't seen some people, which I think is a slight attempt on their part to not make a scene, which is fine by me. I've done just about everything here that I wanted to do, which has been really good, and I've gotten to reconnect with a lot of people and get a lot of closure, which is pretty much what I came here to do. If I get a better internet connection, I'll post some crazy cool pics (this one is painfully slow).

Day In, Day Out

It very much seems that I have settled into a routine here. I work 40 hoursish a week, I hang out with people in the evenings, and I try to live up the weekend a little before Monday hits again. Things aren't bad though. It feels good to have settled in a little. Sure, I wish that it wasn't here in Seattle that I was settled, but the settled feeling is good none-the-less. Work is alright. I'm learning a lot, which is good. I still don't want to have a desk job for the rest of my life, but for now it's fine. I am glad that it's just for a finite amount of time. Right now I'm trying to convince my boss that most of what I do in the office can be done from elsewhere... that way I can work for him still after I get back from the DR, wherever that may be (which is still ideally Alaska). I really don't have much to report.... Although I have been Craigslist shopping a lot lately, so maybe I'll have some fun news on something that I buy... that'd be cool. Until next time, over and out.

The DR for reals this time...

Alright, so I'm going to the Dominican Republic for summer. I leave June 20 and get back sometime around August 15. I'm pretty stoked. I'm going to the same place that I've been three times before, and I get to hang out with some really cool peeps, a few of whom I know and am pretty stoked to chill with for the summer.
I get to go see my sponsored kid, who I met before, but I don't think that she knows who I am, so I'm pretty excited to meet her again.
I'm pretty sure that it'll be really good for me to spend the summer somewhere I love, especially since I won't be able to spend the summer in the other place I love. It will be good to not just be distracted, but to be fully immersed in serving God in another culture. I love the DR.
On a somewhat side note, I'm going to try to sell some pics to raise some of the money that I need for the trip. The pics are mostly somewhere on my blog, but I've got some other good ones too. So if you want a really good looking picture, just let me know.
YAY FOR THE DR!!!

Dominican Republic, Here I Come!!!

Just found out toady that I'm officially going to the DR for the summer... I'm pretty stoked, and will expand on that thought later...

Just Because...

Sure, I don't really have much of anything to report on... I didn't get a haircut, I'm not recently back from Australia, I'm not going anywhere cool sometime soon, and although my job could be a lot worse, I'm not a fan of the 9-5.
But that's not to say that things aren't good. Life has been good lately. I have been celebrating Wednesdays. I have been doing my best to enjoy the weekend.
This weekend was pretty rad. Yesterday Chaco and I drove around the mountainsish. You may ask yourself "Self, what the heck does Kate mean by 'the mountainsish?'" Well, we drove to Granite Falls, where we were going to hike, but there was too much snow and too many people, so we just drove around. We managed to see both ends of a looped road that was closed in the middle for the season, we saw a crazy beautiful scene by a river, we chatted with some fly fishermen, and we drove through Darrington just for the heck of it. The weather was beautiful.
So, for now I'm living a fairly predictable existence (which drives me crazy), with a weekend jaunt or two, but that will pass, so bring it on.

A couple pics

So, I was going through my pics, and I figured I'd put these up there. I took them as an eagle was flying at me and landing. It was pretty rad.

Why am I here?

So, I decided that today I was going to take the day and just spend some QT with the Jeez. Lately I have been reading this book called "Changes that Heal." Cheesy title, yes, but it's still a good book. Today what I read was about taking responsibility for myself. I have been blaming the way things have gone recently for me on anyone but me. "Other people have been telling me to stay away from Haines." "Other people have told me what I should do." But I have a choice in it. I don't necessarily have to listen to what they are telling me.
So what I'm doing now, I'm doing for me. I'm living in Seattle because if I was in Haines I would be too tempted to get close to relationships that tell me what I should be doing. I'm living with my parents, not because I can't make it on my own, but because I will likely never have as good of a chance to save up money like this. I'm working at a job that I don't love because I am trying to make it a happier place to be and because I'm learning a lot about myself by being there... for example, I have no desire to have a desk job. I'm going to do something out there this summer because it wouldn't be good for me to be in Haines and because I can. I want to make the most of this time of my life when nothing is holding me back. So I'm gonna take a roadtrip to the Ben and Jerry's factory. I'm gonna go see Graceland and the world's biggest ball of yarn. I'm going to soak my feet in the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Lakes, and a variety of bodies of water between all those.
For the next couple months, my life will have a bit of a routine to it. Work 35-40 hours a week, chill on the weekends, hang out with friends. But after that, your guess is as good as mine. Why the heck not?
I'm gonna steal the words of Jewel's new song... For a while "I'm gonna love myself / More than anyone else / Believe in me / Even if someone can't see / The stronger woman in me / I'm gonna be my own best friend / Stick with me till the end / Won't lose myself again / never, no / Cause theres a stronger woman / a stronger woman in me"
And for the record, some day I'm going to borrow lyrics from songs that Annie Parsons writes. Cuz someday, they're going to be all over the radio.

Random decision

I decided that I'm either going to the Caribbean for the summer, or I'm going to buy a Vespa and drive across the country. I'm pretty stoked about it. How cool would that be? I'd be like Harry and Lloyd...