Thank you for walking with me in 2014!
But now, it's a new year, with a new word, and a new blog!
Join me for my year to SERVE!
Friday, January 9, 2015
Monday, December 29, 2014
a very Spanish Christmas
Randy and I shared an incredibly special first Christmas together!
As I was thinking about what to get Randy I decided to go the sentimental route and put together a photo album of our walk across Spain, frame our compostelas/certificates of completion, and create a clock with no hands. (We met a kid on the Camino with a tattoo of a wristwatch that had no hands, which symbolized all kinds of things including not being a slave to time and embracing every moment that is ours.)
My sister-in-law Kari had the same idea, sending us mounted photos of our journey.
Randy's mind was also on the Camino.
12 days before Christmas a box appeared on the island in our kitchen with a letter of the alphabet inside. And each day thereafter a new letter appeared. Clues to my Christmas present.
The letters didn't come in any particular order. I didn't know how many words or how many letters in each word. In fact, I didn't even know what language the puzzle was in.
Each day I came up with random phrases with the letters I had. "So time" and "It Moose" and "Te Amo Mi Son".
Finally, with all letters in hand (and a couple clues from Rand!), the puzzle came together: "One More Time?" he asked in Spanish.
"Are you asking what I think you are asking?" I questioned.
"I have 3 weeks blocked out in March," he said.
WE ARE GOING ON CAMINO!!
Last April we parted ways 306 kilometers before reaching Santiago. So we're going back to finish our Camino. Together!
Best Christmas ever!
As I was thinking about what to get Randy I decided to go the sentimental route and put together a photo album of our walk across Spain, frame our compostelas/certificates of completion, and create a clock with no hands. (We met a kid on the Camino with a tattoo of a wristwatch that had no hands, which symbolized all kinds of things including not being a slave to time and embracing every moment that is ours.)
My sister-in-law Kari had the same idea, sending us mounted photos of our journey.
And from these items we created an "inspiration wall" in our new home.
Randy's mind was also on the Camino.
12 days before Christmas a box appeared on the island in our kitchen with a letter of the alphabet inside. And each day thereafter a new letter appeared. Clues to my Christmas present.
The letters didn't come in any particular order. I didn't know how many words or how many letters in each word. In fact, I didn't even know what language the puzzle was in.
Each day I came up with random phrases with the letters I had. "So time" and "It Moose" and "Te Amo Mi Son".
Finally, with all letters in hand (and a couple clues from Rand!), the puzzle came together: "One More Time?" he asked in Spanish.
"I have 3 weeks blocked out in March," he said.
WE ARE GOING ON CAMINO!!
Last April we parted ways 306 kilometers before reaching Santiago. So we're going back to finish our Camino. Together!
Best Christmas ever!
Saturday, December 20, 2014
my Christmas letter
Dear loved ones,
2014 has been a year of faithfulness!
I rang in the New Year with a new circle of family and friends, who will forever have a place in my heart. More than anywhere else this year I have seen God at work in their lives, from healing relationships to physical healing, from prayer and financial support to radical faithfulness. Their strength has taught me what it is to be strong.
2014 has been a year of travel!
By the first week of January I was already off! After flying to Texas with my parents and older brother, we joined my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma on a cruise ship for a week. Then I was off to Corpus Christi for a week with my younger brother, sister-in-law, and the cutest niece in all of Texas.
On March 4, I was back at the airport and off to Madrid for a 30-day walk across Spain! On day 58 I finally arrived in Santiago, having spent the first 34 days falling in love and the next 24 days falling apart and trying to put it all back together again.
The next 6 months were spent healing, navigating the transition "home", and traveling back and forth to California. This was by far the most challenging part of the year.
2014 has been a year of family!
I was "gone" as much as I was "home" in Ohio this year, but every day there was spent with family. Experiencing four of my nieces turning 5 and my nephew turning 8, t-ball games and football games, trips to McDonalds and visits from the tooth fairy, weekly family dinner nights and boxes of wine after the kids went to bed, walks with my dad and talks with my mom, these are the "moments" that make up the year.
Even when the decision was made to move to California, it was still all about family. Randy, Jovi, and I spent as many days with family members in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico on our road trip as we spent on our own.
And arriving here didn't take me away from family, it simply expanded it. I now have even more brothers, sisters-in-law, kids, nieces, nephews, and parents to love and be loved by.
2014: "Walk With"
2014 may be remembered as the year that I walked. But for those of you who have taken this journey with me, you know that "walk" wasn't my word of the year. Because it wasn't about walking; it was about who God placed on my path to "walk with".
With gratitude to all of you for your prayers, walks, and love!
Katie
2014 has been a year of faithfulness!
I rang in the New Year with a new circle of family and friends, who will forever have a place in my heart. More than anywhere else this year I have seen God at work in their lives, from healing relationships to physical healing, from prayer and financial support to radical faithfulness. Their strength has taught me what it is to be strong.
2014 has been a year of travel!
By the first week of January I was already off! After flying to Texas with my parents and older brother, we joined my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma on a cruise ship for a week. Then I was off to Corpus Christi for a week with my younger brother, sister-in-law, and the cutest niece in all of Texas.
On March 4, I was back at the airport and off to Madrid for a 30-day walk across Spain! On day 58 I finally arrived in Santiago, having spent the first 34 days falling in love and the next 24 days falling apart and trying to put it all back together again.
The next 6 months were spent healing, navigating the transition "home", and traveling back and forth to California. This was by far the most challenging part of the year.
2014 has been a year of family!
I was "gone" as much as I was "home" in Ohio this year, but every day there was spent with family. Experiencing four of my nieces turning 5 and my nephew turning 8, t-ball games and football games, trips to McDonalds and visits from the tooth fairy, weekly family dinner nights and boxes of wine after the kids went to bed, walks with my dad and talks with my mom, these are the "moments" that make up the year.
Even when the decision was made to move to California, it was still all about family. Randy, Jovi, and I spent as many days with family members in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico on our road trip as we spent on our own.
And arriving here didn't take me away from family, it simply expanded it. I now have even more brothers, sisters-in-law, kids, nieces, nephews, and parents to love and be loved by.
2014: "Walk With"
2014 may be remembered as the year that I walked. But for those of you who have taken this journey with me, you know that "walk" wasn't my word of the year. Because it wasn't about walking; it was about who God placed on my path to "walk with".
With gratitude to all of you for your prayers, walks, and love!
Katie
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
lean into grief
"I didn't miss the sad story, did I?" Kelli asked, returning from the ladies room.
"She's right in the middle of telling it," I said, surprised she would want to hear again the story that just weeks ago had dissolved her into tears.
We were at a women's brunch at the church, listening to Nichole Nordeman share in story and in song. Word for word, song for song, the same set we had listened to last month during the Women of Faith conference in Sacramento. (And it was just as powerful the second time.)
The sad story was about a young couple, deeply in love, who asked Nichole to sing at their wedding. Shortly thereafter the groom was diagnosed with cancer and within the year Nichole was singing again, this time at his funeral.
When Kelli had dissolved into tears beside me the first time I had only known her for about 3 hours. So even though I wanted to wrap her up in a hug, I didn't. This second time, however, I knew her enough to put my arm around her, exchange a little conversation and some shared tears.
Kelli's own son had met and fallen in love with and married a young lady, beautiful all the way to her core. And earlier this year, still in her 20s, his beautiful bride passed away.
It struck me that Kelli would want to feel the grief inspired by the similar story that Nichole shared. Isn't grief a feeling most of us try to avoid? And yet Kelli has discovered, I think, a secret that might better serve us. That to lean into the grief, to feel the feelings, is where healing comes.
In addition to being Kelli's daughter-in-law, the young woman who died was also Randy's niece. During our family Thanksgiving prayer last month, his brother named the sadness that we all felt at her absence from us, but the joy that would come when one day we would be with her again.
Again it strikes me that the grief would be named, felt, shared, rather than being the elephant in the room or the thing that everyone knows not to talk about.
I'm heartbroken for this family's loss, but grateful that through it they are teaching me how healing comes.
"She's right in the middle of telling it," I said, surprised she would want to hear again the story that just weeks ago had dissolved her into tears.
We were at a women's brunch at the church, listening to Nichole Nordeman share in story and in song. Word for word, song for song, the same set we had listened to last month during the Women of Faith conference in Sacramento. (And it was just as powerful the second time.)
The sad story was about a young couple, deeply in love, who asked Nichole to sing at their wedding. Shortly thereafter the groom was diagnosed with cancer and within the year Nichole was singing again, this time at his funeral.
When Kelli had dissolved into tears beside me the first time I had only known her for about 3 hours. So even though I wanted to wrap her up in a hug, I didn't. This second time, however, I knew her enough to put my arm around her, exchange a little conversation and some shared tears.
Kelli's own son had met and fallen in love with and married a young lady, beautiful all the way to her core. And earlier this year, still in her 20s, his beautiful bride passed away.
It struck me that Kelli would want to feel the grief inspired by the similar story that Nichole shared. Isn't grief a feeling most of us try to avoid? And yet Kelli has discovered, I think, a secret that might better serve us. That to lean into the grief, to feel the feelings, is where healing comes.
In addition to being Kelli's daughter-in-law, the young woman who died was also Randy's niece. During our family Thanksgiving prayer last month, his brother named the sadness that we all felt at her absence from us, but the joy that would come when one day we would be with her again.
Again it strikes me that the grief would be named, felt, shared, rather than being the elephant in the room or the thing that everyone knows not to talk about.
I'm heartbroken for this family's loss, but grateful that through it they are teaching me how healing comes.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Creating a Home
Randy and I just moved into a place of our own. Yet another adventure!
When I came to visit for the month of September, the primary item on our agenda was to find a new home. Something small and homey, with room for the dog to run. Each week we looked at Craigslist and Zillow, the local newspaper and the Loomis Facebook page. We told everyone we knew and even had a local realtor friend checking on upcoming properties for us.
Finally, on the last day of September, just hours before my return to Ohio, we visited what this week became our new home.
But not without lots of minor hiccups along the way.
The current tenant hadn't yet given her landlord notice, because she was waiting for everything to be finalized with the home she had just purchased. So we didn't actually know if or when we would be moving in.
I had more than one meltdown about where I was going to work and where the dog was going to sleep and how I was going to feel about moving to California in November and living in a place that wasn't ours. Out of suitcases until this place came thru. Which prompted Randy to wonder if this was in fact the place for us, or if he should find us somewhere that we could immediately move into on or around November 10 when we'd be arriving after a 16-day road trip.
But 3 days into our trip, the last week of October while at my grandma's in Arkansas, we got word that the current tenant had given notice. We were then able to speak with the landlord, fill out a rental application, and sign a rental agreement, all over our cell phones. The place would be ours! We just had to wait until December 1.
Meanwhile, Randy had an office all setup for me in the condo he was living in, and a place for the dog to sleep. My clothes found their way into the closet and we enjoyed a comfortable three weeks together, hoping each day that the current tenant would decide to move out early so we could get in and settled.
She didn't.
In fact, she injured herself so she wasn't able to clean the place, an assignment left to her by the landlord who was out of town getting a face lift, having left another one of her tenants in charge of caring for her 35 indoor cats.
So when we finally did get into our new home we found nests of black widow spiders, earthworms creeping along the tile floors, a distinct cat smell, and two days worth of cleaning on our hands.
Nevertheless, we enjoyed cleaning side by side, creating the welcoming environment we had dreamed of.
When the day came to move in our stuff, a mix up meant Randy's suburban was not at our disposal. And there was no way we could move everything in my car.
So we went shopping! Where we found a great deal on a washer and dryer. And my credit card was promptly declined.
99 percent of the time I appreciate Capital One's fraud protection which automatically declines "unusual" purchases. But this was not one of them.
Then, at the same store, while admiring a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, we broke the one ornament that decorated its pitiful branches.
Still determined, we gathered Randy's son and another friend and made our move on Wednesday. Even while the rain poured down and my phone repeatedly alerted us to the flash flood warnings that made our new country living driveway a muddy mess and drew even more earthworms into our living room.
But here we are at last! Happily making a home. Not even letting the mountain lion that lives in our backyard deter us from loving life together!
When I came to visit for the month of September, the primary item on our agenda was to find a new home. Something small and homey, with room for the dog to run. Each week we looked at Craigslist and Zillow, the local newspaper and the Loomis Facebook page. We told everyone we knew and even had a local realtor friend checking on upcoming properties for us.
Finally, on the last day of September, just hours before my return to Ohio, we visited what this week became our new home.
But not without lots of minor hiccups along the way.
The current tenant hadn't yet given her landlord notice, because she was waiting for everything to be finalized with the home she had just purchased. So we didn't actually know if or when we would be moving in.
I had more than one meltdown about where I was going to work and where the dog was going to sleep and how I was going to feel about moving to California in November and living in a place that wasn't ours. Out of suitcases until this place came thru. Which prompted Randy to wonder if this was in fact the place for us, or if he should find us somewhere that we could immediately move into on or around November 10 when we'd be arriving after a 16-day road trip.
But 3 days into our trip, the last week of October while at my grandma's in Arkansas, we got word that the current tenant had given notice. We were then able to speak with the landlord, fill out a rental application, and sign a rental agreement, all over our cell phones. The place would be ours! We just had to wait until December 1.
Meanwhile, Randy had an office all setup for me in the condo he was living in, and a place for the dog to sleep. My clothes found their way into the closet and we enjoyed a comfortable three weeks together, hoping each day that the current tenant would decide to move out early so we could get in and settled.
She didn't.
In fact, she injured herself so she wasn't able to clean the place, an assignment left to her by the landlord who was out of town getting a face lift, having left another one of her tenants in charge of caring for her 35 indoor cats.
So when we finally did get into our new home we found nests of black widow spiders, earthworms creeping along the tile floors, a distinct cat smell, and two days worth of cleaning on our hands.
Nevertheless, we enjoyed cleaning side by side, creating the welcoming environment we had dreamed of.
When the day came to move in our stuff, a mix up meant Randy's suburban was not at our disposal. And there was no way we could move everything in my car.
So we went shopping! Where we found a great deal on a washer and dryer. And my credit card was promptly declined.
99 percent of the time I appreciate Capital One's fraud protection which automatically declines "unusual" purchases. But this was not one of them.
Then, at the same store, while admiring a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, we broke the one ornament that decorated its pitiful branches.
Still determined, we gathered Randy's son and another friend and made our move on Wednesday. Even while the rain poured down and my phone repeatedly alerted us to the flash flood warnings that made our new country living driveway a muddy mess and drew even more earthworms into our living room.
But here we are at last! Happily making a home. Not even letting the mountain lion that lives in our backyard deter us from loving life together!
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Nutty Chicks
Almost 9 months ago, on our first day of walking across Spain together, Randy gave me this Nutty Chicks granola bar to have as my lunch.
It was the best thing I have ever tasted.
And not just because I was so ill-prepared for what turned out to be 2 days of walking through waist deep snow over and across and down the Pyrenees Mountains.
Randy told me that a woman, an ER trauma surgeon, had started the company after her coworkers loved the homemade granola that she would bring in to work every day. She started selling the granola, which evolved into these delicious bars, at farmers markets. The demand grew and soon stores were placing their orders.
A few months after I had my first Nutty Chicks bar I met the woman behind it all. It was late at night, after her shift in the ER, and she was elbow deep in granola, trying to keep up with demand.
This past weekend I met her husband. He shared with us that the people behind the Emmys had called, and then the CMAs, asking for Nutty Chicks bars for their "swag bags".
"It was huge," he said.
But it soon became apparent that his wife felt more overwhelmed than excited.
So they said "no" to the Emmys. And the CMAs. And to the company altogether. At least for now, while she continues working full time as a surgeon.
It was shocking. But I can't help but be inspired.
It's easy to hear this story and think they made a terrible mistake. To come up with all kinds of ways they could have made this work. From selling the recipe to hiring a ton of staff to quitting their day jobs in order to make it big in the granola world.
But when it comes down to it, they chose the only option that would eliminate all their stress immediately.
They said "no" to what could have been fame and fortune in order to say "yes" to what was more important -- their emotional well-being, the day jobs they feel truly called to, their relationship, etc.
Maybe some day, when they retire, Nutty Chicks will revive. At least in our local farmer's market. But for now, this delicious snack is just a memory.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
you are loved
The Women of Faith tour was in Sacramento this weekend. Women of Faith is a Christian women's event that brings in amazing Bible teachers and musicians to inspire women to deepen their relationship with God. This year's theme was "From Survival to Revival", challenging and encouraging us to not just go through the motions of life, but to leave behind whatever holds us back in order to embrace every moment as the gift that it is.
Randy has 3 brothers, two of whose partners went with me to the event. Robert is married to Suzanne. And Roy is engaged to a different Suzanne. Kelly, Robert's daughter's mother-in-law, also joined us. And the time of fellowship with these 3 women was the highlight of my weekend!
On Friday night of the event, the emcee asked us all to take out our cell phones. "Now text 2 of your girlfriends who aren't with you and tell them that they are loved," she said.
Many of us wriggled uneasily in our seats. Just randomly text a friend and say, "You are loved"? Isn't that a little weird?
"Just do it," the emcee said.
So we all dutifully grabbed our phones and texted the first 2 women who came to mind.
"There are 8,000 women in this arena," the emcee said after giving us a minute. "That means 16,000 women just received the message that she is loved."
How cool is that?! And how many of the women who received that message needed it at that exact moment?
I immediately received a text back from one of my girlfriends, telling me I was also loved (and reminding me that it was 3 hours later in Ohio... it might take me a while to get used to the time difference!).
My other friend has yet to acknowledge the text. But that is okay. The point wasn't to get a response. The point was simply to remind the women in our lives that they are loved. Loved by me and loved by God.
Would you add to the number of women this weekend getting the message that they are loved? I know it's a little weird and a little awkward, but it just takes a second and it might be exactly what she needs to hear right now. So just grab your phone and text two people these 3 words: "You are loved."
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