****WARNING**** MUSHY POST AHEAD**** 2.0

So, a lot has happened since I last posted. I am no longer a student at BJU. I am currently unemployed (but looking for a job). And last, and most exciting . . .
I GOT ENGAGED!

so that's really exciting, and considering the name of the post, you guessed it! I'm gonna tell you the story!
    Matt and I had been talking about it for a while and so we had been talking tentative wedding dates, so i knew it was coming soon, but I wasn't expecting it for another month or so. This week Matt starts back to school, but we had nasty weather that postponed the semester's start. We had time for a nice date before school started up, so we went out. We ate, then headed down town for, i thought, some time to chill and relax together. so we walked around for several hours looking in different novelty shops and the military surplus and a cute little vintage clothing store. Then he took me down to the park. we walked around for a little while and sort of meandered over to a spot where there was a little waterfall. It was one of those trickling type water falls. Matt wanted to get closer so i went up another set of stone steps. He told me he wanted to get closer again. I'm not great with heights unless I'm strapped in to something or there's a railing (I'm not very graceful, and have a tendency to slip or trip over nothing). So it took a little persuading to get me to come off of the steps and over off of the path. We got closer to the waterfall, and we watched it for about thirty seconds before he asked me to turn toward him. Still clueless I wondered why he wanted me to turn toward him. Then he got down on one knee, and pulled out a silver cubic Zales box. I think I lost it for a minute, he asked me if i would marry him. I'm afraid I had an oober girly moment and started jumping up and down and screaming. Once I regained some of my composure I bent down to my still kneeling man and kissed him. He responded with an "I'll take that as a yes, so do you want the ring?" So i held my hand our and he put it on my finger. So that's my engagement story.
I feel like every time i get on here I'm apologizing about not posting often enough, so I wont promise to post next week or next month. I'll post something sometime.
So, later

Thanksgiving . . . Giving Thanks

It being the weekend following Thanksgiving, I would like to list some of the things that I'm thankful for.
I am thankful for a God who loves me and sent His son to die on the cross so that i could spend eternity with Him.
I am thankful for godly parents and grandparents who want to see me follow in God's way.
I am thankful that I have the Sweetest boyfriend that anyone could ever ask for.
I am thankful for the many friends that i have, who encourage me, and help me grow.
I am thankful for the work environment that I work in.
I am thankful for my supervisors who desire to see me excel at my job.
I am thankful for my teachers who sacrifice by teaching me and my fellow students.
I am thankful that I have a warm bed to sleep in when i go to bed.
I am thankful that i never go hungry, and that there is always extra food in the house.
I am thankful that I live in a country where I can still worship God without the fear of government interference.
I am thankful for the men and women who have given their lives for my freedom.
I am thankful for the men and women who have and still are serving to keep my freedom alive.
I am thankful that God never gives up on anyone, even when everyone else has.
I am thankful that God knows exactly what is going on, especially when I do not.
I am thankful that I have a job when so many right now do not.
I am thankful that in this country I can protect myself by owning a gun.
I am thankful that I can have a blog to share with people what I am thankful for.
I hope that thanksgiving day is not the only day that you are thankful for everything you have. Be thankful all year long. 

It's been a while since I posted (if you hadn't noticed). I just kept forgetting. I hope to resume my regular posting on Saturday mornings. Until next time :-)

Taylor the Latte Boy!

Any of you who know this song, know that it is a song of love. If you have not heard it I suggest that you go look it up now and then read my post. As you know this is really a song about and infatuation of a girl for a boy that was sparked by COFFEE!!!!! The Starbucks part is irrelevant. Coffee in my line of work is the nectar of life. My line of work is school, a part time dispatch job for my school and entertaining and encouraging you with my posts :-) i hope i have been doing a good job of all three. Any way, coffee. I drink a lot of it. My boyfriend would say that i drink way too much. I disagree. Some would say that I am addicted to it, but I am most certainly not! I have cut caffeine out of my diet multiple times. Each time was successful and I have had periods of 2-3 months with no coffee. Anyway, if you don't like coffee, I encourage you to try some. It tastes good, and it's not really bad for you. If you're skeptical about the taste, try something with coffee in it, like coffee ice cream, or a mocha. There's just enough coffee that it will introduce you. Anyway, Kitty out!

Focus? On Who?

Despite what you may think, my life is not all roses, chocolate and smiles. This week was particularly discouraging. I wont go into any details, but let's just say the end of my week was completely and totally horrible. I felt like i was loosing someone. I felt rejected and used. I was also tired. A hug just wasn't going to fix everything! (believe me, I tried that). I was focusing on ME, MY problems, and how hurt I was. I didn't leave my focus on the God who is in charge of everything and, despite how it feels sometimes, want's His children to be happy serving him. A good friend pointed this out to me this evening. I really didn't want to admit it to myself, but I had lost focus. It was on the horribly fallible me, and not on the incredibly infallible God. I needed to see that I'm not really what matters in the scheme of things, and that God is, and what I do to draw others' attention away from me and toward Him. This is a lesson I am constantly learning, and re-learning.
So those are my thoughts for this weeks post :-)     

Oops!

I realized after posting last week that it was 9/11. I felt kind of bad, but then I realized, every blogger who is a loyal US citizen probably wrote something about it if they wrote that day. So, today I will talk about 9/11 since the day has passed, and probably too few people think about it on days that are not 9/11. Now some of you are probably thinking "great a 9/11 rant." I wont do that to you. all I have to say is I am grateful to those who have served our country and have tried to right the wrongs of that day. God bless America, and may she never forget the times of sorrow that she has experienced and think that she is immune from pain and grief and does not need the help of the great God who created all and can destroy anything He has created.

That's all for today. Sorry it was short. Next week I will try harder to wax eloquent.

School . . . BLARGH!

Yes, I am blaming the fact that I did not post on school. Sorry! But I'm on now. I have decided that i will be posting on Saturdays. I will try to have it done by noon, but sports for the girls societies are often in the morning. So, Saturday it will be!

While I am not really looking forward to the school year i am looking forward to some structure and routine. I don't know about you, but I feel like i get a lot more done when i have the restrictive structure of classes, and a regular work schedule. While it is "restrictive", when I think about it i realize that restrictions are what keep me from not doing things that i really have no need to do, and help me do what is right. While I don't really like restrictions, I know that they are necessary for us as flawed humans to work together and to get anything done. I mean think about it. If there wasn't a governmental law, Biblical command and/or societal expectation that people should not kill each other over petty or even serious offenses, there would be a lot more murders today. While most of us would say, "i would never kill someone over something," there have been those times in the past that we really wish that our conscience would not bother us as we desire to make someone pay for the wrong they have committed against us. Rules, restrictions and other such statutes are in place to make life with others possible. I know that i have in the past (and probably will in the future) complained about a rule that i thought was stupid. We must keep in mind that when we do that we are only thinking of ourselves. So, next time you think, "I don't understand why I can't do this!" relax, it's probably just to make interaction with other people go more smoothly.
And that is my thought for the week :-)

****WARNING**** MUSHY POST AHEAD****

I didn't want to be all mushy in my first post, so I didn't tell you much about my boy-friend. Today, however, I'm going to tell you how we met.
I met him in Life of Paul, with Dr. Hand. He was that short guy that I sat next to in Bible class. We didn't talk much, just the occasional "Hi, How are you today" and other casual conversation. Neither of us saw the need for any further development in the relationship at the beginning of that semester. And then, late September,  it was time to find a dating outing date. I wanted to go, but couldn't find a guy friend that would be free that weekend and I was starting to freak out a little. Each guy that my friends tried to set me up with ended up having something that weekend and my chances of getting a date were looking slimmer by the day. I decided to take matters into my own hands and decided I would start asking the guys around me in my classes if they were free and would like to go with me. He was the first guy I asked. His response only made more frantic to find a date. His society was also having their dating outing that weekend, and the times were overlapping. I figured he would take it as just a "I need a date to this, help please?"  but I had accidentally sparked his interest in pursuing something further than a classroom "Hi" relationship (I did find a date to the outing, just not him). Soon after I missed class due to fatigue from work. He e-mailed me and asked me if I would like the notes since I had missed. I told him that I would really appreciate the notes and left it at that. I missed a couple more times and each time he sent me the notes. We started to e-mail back and forth about just random things. A couple of weeks later he asked me if I would do lunch with him. I figured, "hey, just lunch . . . right?" and tried really hard to convince myself and my friends that it was just lunch. Then he asked me to lunch again and there was no denying that he was interested in more than just casual friends. I started to get nervous. I had decided at the beginning of the year that I would not get into a dating relationship, and that I would just do the casual take-a-friend-to-artist-series thing. (I'll just tell you now, that fell through pretty fast.) After the second lunch he walked me to class and asked me if i would like to go to artist series with him. I said yes. So we went to artist series together and he got me a dozen red roses. I was very surprised and impressed, and I was starting to fall for him. This made me panic just a little. I wasn't looking for a relationship and this was what was beginning to form. Not long after he brought up that it was obvious that there was a mutual interest and asked if we could go out. I told him that while I was interested, I didn't know him well enough and that he would also have to meet and get to know some of my friends. After about two or three weeks (he says it was more like four) on December 10th he asked again, and I said yes. He has helped me draw closer to God, and i hope that i have done the same for him. I believe that he is the man that God wants me to marry. I look forward to our life together, and i pray that God will keep us humble and open to those around us who reach out and want to help.


On another note. I will try to post once a week, for anyone who is wondering. I still haven't set a day to actually consistently post, which may make this harder once classes start up. When i decide a day of the week to post i will mention it in a post. Until next time, Later!