Some Quick Takes about Me

I discovered a new podcast and then thought, “I haven’t actually written about me and my life on my blog in a while, these people must be clambering for an update.”

So here goes … quick takes style.

1. I discovered a brand new to me podcast and I’m half-way through the 3rd episode (it’s 7:27pm and I started at 5:30pm). It’s called A Single Serving Podcast by one of my favorite writers on the internet regarding single life.

Shani has such a delightful outlook on the single life and today’s favorite was about Being Single and Shame … stop shaming single women because their single – I know you aren’t doing it on purpose, but you’re doing it.

2. Even sharing about this with other single people is hard because they come back and say “well I don’t experience that.” It’s fine that you don’t experience it, but it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with me because I’m feeling it. It’s not something that I have to work through before I magically met a man and he decides I’m now worthy to get married.

3. I making a tomato pie for dinner from a recipe I found in a magazine, and it’s making me super happy. I think it even looks like the cover – except my top is all tomatoes and theirs includes onions on top – they’re there, I promise!

4. I haven’t done much reading at all this week because I’ve been binge watching Poldark. It’s A-MAZ-ING … I might have texted the friend who introduced me to the series “I AM SO MAD AT ROSS RIGHT NOW!!!” Even with that anger, I think you should all start watching! Ross, the main man, comes home to Britain from the American Revolution after being missing for 2 years to his girl 2 weeks away from marrying his cousin and his father is dead. Now we see how he adapts to the new life that he never expected.

5. My tomato pie is done and it’s a little ‘explosive’! But it still looks and smells amazing!

6. I think I’m going to paint the inside of my front door this pink/fuchsia color just because.

I’m not allowed to paint the outside, but there are no rules about the inside, so I’m just going to live it up.

7. I also might ask Lowe’s if they have a kitchen sink installation person who can come give me a new kitchen sink because my garbage disposal can get a little gross and the back of the sink is coming apart a little bit.

Seriously y’all, that’s a little gross … and it’s as ‘clean’ as it gets!

Well, that’s about it y’all. Off to watch the series 2 finale of Poldark and then read the book I’m still only 75 pages into called The Farm which is excellent, just not more exciting that Poldark. I tell you about it when I finish!

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7QT on Common Sense

If you know me in real life, then you know I can be particular some times. Okay, a lot of the time, but I’m trying to work on it and not be so opinionated. However, there are some things that I think everyone should already know and do.

1. When it’s raining or foggy, you should drive with your headlights on! Actually if your wipers are on, your lights should be on, that’s the actual law. I’m wondering why cars don’t automatically do that, actually… Anyway, it makes life so much better when your lights are on when it’s foggy and raining, so just do it already!

2. The toilet seat … now in your house you might have different rules, but in my house we leave the lid down all of the time, well, because I learned about it on Bones. And it’s nicer to walk into a bathroom when the seat it down.

3. How to use “Reply All”? There is a time and place for this. It is not for congratulating one person who gets a promotion or to comment on the fridge being cleaned out at work. It is for collaborating on a project when all people who are involved are on the email chain, for instance a family vacation where we’re trying to secure a place to stay that we’ll all like! So “reply all” responsibly!

4. Overflows in the microwave and anywhere in the kitchen are best cleaned up when they happen. That seems like something my college self didn’t know, but this homeowner self does. If it overflows, get a sponge and clean it up, don’t leave it for someone else.

5. Same thing with toilet paper … just replace the roll already if you finish it! Paper over or under, just paper on the roll! If you’re a guest, just tell your host, “the TP seems to be out in your bathroom.”

6. Ten Items or Less means, have less than ten items in your cart! There is only one exception to this rule – if you go to the store and ALL registers are marked 10 items or less, and none are for “full service” you can go to one. That has actually happened to me at my local Food Lion before, weird, but true.

7. Put your cart away. There are no excuses to this. It’s really just lazy, inconvenient for everyone else, and also potentially dangerous for the everyone who drives into the parking lot. If you’re hands are full with kiddos, ask for help or park near a cart return. If it’s raining, even more important because people are crazy drivers in the rain and carts all over the parking lot don’t make that easier. In the last two weeks, I’ve been asked three times “Can we help you out with that ma’am?” … there’s always someone to help if you need it, don’t be afraid to ask!

Wrote this before I saw Kelly took December off and doesn’t seem to be doing quick takes, but you can check out previous ones here if you need more reading material this cold Friday!

7 Quick Things I Could Do With $4,495

1. I could buy 3,250 copies of one of my favorite books from this year to share with my parish at Christmas. We wouldn’t even need that many copies! Dynamic Catholic offers an amazing deal to help change the Church with their $1 Parish Book Program (see details). How life changing could this be?

2. I could fly to Portugal for my birthday, round-trip, 6 times! SIX TIMES! How amazing would just one trip be?

2. I could go on 9 $500 weekend trips in 2018 to places like Montana, the Beach, Main, Wyoming, Denver, the Grand Canyon, San Diego, Chicago, and Texas! How much fun would that be?

4. I could add some serious money to my retirement fund. Not as exciting or life changing as those other items, but now $26,000 when I’m ready to retire at a modest rate. That’s probably a year of living expenses!

5. I could (& already did this year) buy a brand new A/C unit. How “cooling” is that?

6. I could pay off my last student loan and still have money left over. How amazing to my monthly budget would that extra $400 be?

7. I could buy an entire new wardrobe! This one I could really use as in the last ten months I’ve lost twice that in pounds (that’s 20, btw). How fashionable would that be?

Why am I contemplating what to do with $4,495? Because this week I was told I could pay that amount to a matchmaker for a few first dates. I have it in my savings account, but is that how I should be spending more than half of my emergency fund? Um, no. I couldn’t. It would be so irresponsible and goes against everything I believe about money. So I’m dreaming up the amazing things I could do with that money and maybe I’ll do a few of those in 2018!

Linking up with Kelly and the gang today! Check out more SQT over there!

Control … I Want It!

I’ve been thinking a lot about control lately. How much I want to have it in conjunction with how few things are actually in my control. I don’t know about you, but this is a huge point of contention for me in prayer. I want certain things in my life, I don’t want to have to wait another 10 years or even 5 years to be married and have a family. I wrote about this a few weeks ago when I was trying to love my crazy life rather than fight against myself (check it out).

It’s come up even more this week though with work and life and Lent. That’s really the sticking point for me now. Lent 2016.

There are so many things I cannot control in my life. My metabolism, my family, friends, boys, my parish, plus a million and one other things. So I’m trying to discipline the things that I do have control over so I can more easily embrace the things I don’t have control over.

1. I can control what I put into my body and whether I exercise every day or not. I can do something about my health and about my attitude concerning health. This is going well … I just need to keep my perspective.
2. I can control whether I practice the piano every day – not whether I am naturally talented or not. I get so much joy from playing the piano – I can’t believe I let it sit there in my living room collecting dust. Well, no longer!
3. I can control whether I schedule Daily Mass into my calendar or not. Although life does get busy – and sometimes my day over takes me, I don’t work in an emergency room whether things are life and death – I can take an hour to drive to Mass, be with Jesus, and drive home – and still eat lunch.
4. I can control my attitude regarding my single state in life. I cannot control whether this boy wants to date me or that one wants to just talk on the phone or this one wants whatever… I can check my attitude and give it over to the Lord and ask him to “Let me what what He wants for me.”
5. I can control how I interact and relate to my family. I cannot control whether they speak to one another or not. I cannot fight their battles for them, but I can offer it up in prayer and ask the Holy Family to make my family holy.
6. I can control whether I do a phone block every day to follow up on incoming leads and new prospects. I can control whether I follow up with customers and do what I say I will do. I cannot control whether they buy from me. I can improve my selling skills – I cannot force people to buy from me.
7. I can control my attitude, my responses, my reactions, and my actions. I cannot control my feelings, other people’s reactions or actions. 

** update ** as I’m reading past blog posts, past Katie wrote about this before… will she ever learn to trust her Guardian Angel? (Oct 2014) **

All of the things I cannot control I need to let go. I need to give up to the Lord – the only being who has this whole world in his mind all of the time. I can only do what I can do – and that is all I can do. I cannot control the world.

That’s a hard statement for this Type A perfectionist to wrap her mind around, but I’m doing it one small discipline at a time this Lent and hopefully will be closer to the Lord because of it by Easter.

After typing, realizing there are 7 things I can control – so linking up with all the bloggers here.

7 Quick Takes Friday, May 15th

— 1 —

Wow readers it has been quite a while since I’ve written anything at all and the last thing I wrote was just a bunch of pictures so that hardly counts – but you seem to be coming back day after day to read what I wrote. I’m back … for now, I can’t make any serious commitments. I want to, but I can’t. Instead of boring you with a first I did this, then I did that sort of quick takes, I’m going to relay the things that I’ve learned in the last 3 weeks. The last time I wrote was my last day on the job as Office Manager. So I’ve learned lots of things these past three weeks at my new job.

 — 2 —

The most glaring thing is that I don’t think I handle stress as well as I thought I did. Not that I experience it all that often, I’m very blessed that I don’t really get easily stressed out (not in the past few years anyway). It usually manifests itself with being really tired, but not getting enough sleep. But these past few weeks I’ve had some neck pain and some issues with my tooth (which are not entirely resolved – prayers would be most appreciated). Although there are underlying issues, I think they were exacerbated by stress. I won’t go into everything that happened, but a lot of personal learning experienced coupled with beginning a new job. I learned that I have to make sure that I’m doing stress relieving activities. So I took up running again. After my break up with running back in August – we are back to together. Starting slowly – just getting to know each other again. I’ve committed to running a 5K at the end of the summer with a friend, so now just to train. I’m three days/1 week into the Couch to 5K training app (my favorite running app).

— 3 —

I learned that I can actually sell things. This was a concern of mine with my new job – but I made a few sales this week and now my daily numbers no longer read 0-0-0! So that’s pretty exciting!

— 4 —

I learned that I really enjoy living alone. I’ve been working from home these past two weeks and I’m loving it. I like being able to go downstairs and grab a cup of tea, using the stove to boil the water rather than the microwave. I also learned that I like tea with water that was boiled on the stove rather than made hot in the microwave – I don’t understand why there’s a difference, but there is. I also like being able to take a break mid morning to make breakfast. It’s been quite lovely.

— 5 —

I learned that I have the best friends. They listen to me when I just need to ‘word vomit’ all over them with problems or issues that are happening. I’m so grateful for MG and her ability to be a sounding board without judgement and then provide me with good advice. All of my friends have been so great these past few weeks listening and just being ‘great friends’ … I hope I am the same for them.

— 6 —

I learned that I love being a parishioner at a parish. This is the most fantastic thing in the world – all of you fellow parishioners don’t know how great you’ve got it! On May 3rd – my first Sunday at the parish after leaving (the previous weekend I had been away on retreat with the teens and then the entire week I was in Indiana) – I was having a doughnut with a friend and her family when someone came up to tell me how the urinal just wouldn’t stop running and that there was an issue. I politely replied with “I don’t work here anymore, I’m sorry but I cannot help you with that issue. The new office manager is actually over there, you can take the issue to him.” SO freeing!!!

— 7 —

I also learned that not all parishes have automatic answering machines that go on in the evening! When I was in Indiana I wanted to go to daily Mass and one of the parishes didn’t have their Mass times on their website so I just decided I would call. Surely they had them listed on their phone message. They might, but I don’t know because when I called at 11:30pm Father Drew answered! I was so embarrassed. I had to make sure I went to the parish the next day for Mass and sure enough, he recognized me. This is quite the valuable lesson: for me – be aware before you call a church at 11pm at night; for the church – make sure you’re websites are accurate!

For more Quickity, Quick Takes, check out the gang with Kelly over at This Ain’t the Lyceum!
See you next week, or stop by this week for more musings and antics!

I’ll be back soon … have to catch up on my blog roll too … have over 250 unread posts!

7 Quick Takes Friday … April 24th!

— 1 —

Well, I promised I’d share some photos from my trip to Texas, so here we go!

This is the view from my Aunt’s porch. As soon as we got to the house on Tuesday, I had to sit outside and take in the view. I remember it being amazing, but it was even more incredible than I recalled! We spent a lot of time out here on the porch! 

The fire and the View!

 — 2 —

One day we went into San Antonio to the Aquarium (not amazing), the oldest cathedral in Texas (beautiful), the riverwalk (lovely), and dinner at the Tower of Americas (delicious)!

cute little sea horsies

Just amazing – they have confession every day all day long! How cool!

The view at dinner – from 63 stories up!

Celebrating my birthday with Aunt Char & Uncle Joe

— 3 —

Another day we took a drive to see the wildflowers. It was like they bloomed just for me! They said it’s been a few years since they’ve been so beautiful – and this year did not disappoint. It was a day of incredible views!! Here’s just a quick sampling of all of the amazing flower photos – I couldn’t get enough!!

— 4 —

We also stopped at Enchanted Rock. We were going to hike, but the morning was rainy and then we didn’t have enough time. It was so amazing though. How incredible that God put this granite rock in the middle of Texas and you can climb it! Also, only about 1% of the rock is even above the ground – the rest is hidden beneath the surface!

— 5 —

On Saturday two of my cousins came up to the house to visit and we sat on the porch after dinner with the sunset and a drink I’ve been waiting my entire life to try. I have this memory of my grandmother making pink squirrels when I was a kid, but I never got to try them. My cousin made them for me that evening as an after dinner dessert (and it is sweet) drink. Quite delicious and a great memory!

vanilla ice cream, creme de almond, creme de cocao

 — 6 —

Before we left on Sunday I made everyone take a photo with me – just in case it’s another 7 years before I’m able to come back!

Blake & Joey

Stephanie & Mark

Aunt Char, my godmother

Rubi & Greg

— 7 —

The porch from the other side as we said goodbye to this little piece of Heaven on Sunday before heading out to the airport.

I’m so glad I was able to take a vacation and visit family who I haven’t seen in a while. A great way to celebrate the Octave of Easter!

Came back to two weeks left at my old job – and today’s my final day. Staring the new one on Monday!! Here we go!

For more Quickity, Quick Takes, check out the gang with Kelly over at This Ain’t the Lyceum!
Also – I really want to read that book Kelly’s talking about today … need to start!
See you next week, or stop by this week for more musings and antics!

7 Quick Takes Friday … March 13th

— 1 —

Happy Friday the 13th to You! & Happy 30th Birthday to me! Well, I can’t say that I’m excited to turn 30, but I can say that I’m excited it’s my birthday! Yesterday we celebrated at work and our receptionist (the resident cake maker) made this for me!

It was SO delicious – Salted Caramel Latte Cake … and each bite was like having a nice warm latte in the middle of the afternoon! It’s from Annie’s Eats if you want to make it!

— 2 —

Earlier this week I had a small revelation in prayer that I wrote about … if you missed it check out “Simply, That’s How” with a mix of me, Papa Frank, and Therese.

— 3 —

I’m one post away from finishing my Latin & Me series. It’s been so good for me to reflect back on this journey as I’m turning 30. The Katie who turned 25 wouldn’t even have thought the Katie turning 30 would be who she is now. I guess that’s how it always is though, right? We cannot see into the future, we cannot know who we will become – only that we will continue to grow.

— 4 —

Cindy posted this article from Jason Evert in our Not Alone Series Facebook Group. It was quite interesting, particularly these paragraphs:

In the book of Tobit, the archangel Raphael declares to Tobias, regarding his future wife, “Do not be afraid, for she was destined for you from eternity. . . When Tobias heard these things, he fell in love with her and yearned deeply for her” (Tob. 6:17). 

This isn’t Hollywood; it’s the Sacred Scriptures. We know Adam was made for Eve, Sarah was destined for Tobias, Joseph was created for Mary, and so on. But how, when, and why does God choose to play the role of a heavenly match-maker? 

Obviously, only God knows the answer to this. But we know that divine providence intervenes in our lives to the extent that we make room for it. Those who walk with God often marvel at how he seems to intervene in the most providential ways in the tiniest details of life. Believers routinely speak of “divine appointments,” and other occasions where we can see God’s hand at work. (emphasis mine)

An interesting note to pray about.

— 5 —

Someone asked me yesterday what I was doing for my birthday – the answer? All of my favorite things! Some friends are coming over for dinner tomorrow, and I asked that they bring my favorite dish they make for dinner. I’m pretty excited! And also just excited to spend time with everyone at my place. 

— 6 —

Just for Fun on the 2nd Anniversary of his election … check out these great Papa Frank Memes!

From ChurchPOP

— 7 —

Pictures from my 29th Birthday celebrated in the Jungle of the Congo last year!

Fr. Charles after Morning Mass

Fr. Blaise after Morning Mass

Everyone sang to me at lunch

Flowers & a Candle at my place

All of the people at the house made cards mostly in French

That’s all for this week … here’s to a great beginning to my 30th year! See you later!

For more Quickity, Quick Takes, check out the gang with Kelly over at This Ain’t the Lyceum!
See you next week, or stop by this week for more musings and antics!