CES Fireside

CES Fireside

This is one of my most favorite talks. It is called Sense of the Sacred and was given by our newest apostle Elder D. Todd Christofferson in November, 2004.

Listen to it or read it. I think you will enjoy it.

More Fun! Labor Day Weekend

I realize that my blog is still a bit primeval (one of these days I will take the time to learn how to make it more aesthetically pleasing) and that reading about my current adventures is not only arguably dull, it is not really worthwhile reading. However, for myself, I appreciate having a medium to document my activities and remember an extraordinary summer enjoyed.

Once the pace of my life begins to change, which I hope is soon, I will adjust the content to be more worthwhile for the reader. Perhaps a re-focus of this “personal” journal to entries of greater substance and meaning will also help me re-focus my life to a life of greater significance.

Until then, however, here are some more adventures in the life of Katie.

Family Time

Me with my mom and sister Natalie

Siera and I

Big brother Jesse and cutest nephew Owen

Game night at our place. Here we are playing "Electricity"

An attempt at "Electricity" on the stairs

Four Wheeling at the sand dunes of the Little Sahara

Jared and I

Jill, Steve and Dorian

Jenny and I

Playing lazy in the shade

Trying to decide if I want to wake up

Off I go!

Jared and I

More Boating!

Justin

Captain Levi

Jason and Erica

Great Week

This past week was a fabulous one. I started the week off shooting a bunch of guns. What could be better than that? Some friends invited me shooting, so we headed out just past Utah Lake and took up arms. Most of the time my aim was lacking, especially with the hand gun, but every once in a while I hit something. My best was 50% target hit. Then I was handed an assault rifle. Wow, that thing was cool! And it had great accuracy, which meant that so did I :) After we shot around for a while, we decided to pull out the camera. Modeling with the guns was just as fun as actually shooting them :)

While gazing out at Utah Lake during our shoot off, we decided we needed to get out on it. So Tuesday we hit the water and went boating. The water was pretty choppy so I wasn't too happy about my wake boarding performance, but I was glad to get out and try. I absolutely LOVE being on the water, if nothing else just riding on the boat. There are few things in this life that are better than that. The company was great, the evening was beautiful and the water was warm-ish :) Thanks Captain Steve for taking us out!

The week continued to rock! Wednesday I had the chance to go to Education Week at BYU. I love Ed Week. It's one of my favorite things each year- hundreds of classes on so many topics with incredible teachers. I was only able to attend Wed and Fri nights this year so I made the most of my limited time and soaked it all in. Some of my favorite classes were on prayer, symbolism in the scriptures, and following Christ in member missionary work. I learned so much and it has really changed my way of thinking about things, especially when it comes to scripture study. There are just so many hidden treasures in the Bible and Book of Mormon. I love it!

Thursday is temple day. I LOVE Thursdays. Not only did I get to spend some wonderful time there enjoying the peace and spirit, I was able to see many old friends- even some from as far back as my days in San Diego. I love what a small world this is.

Friday was back to Education Week. I had a great time reconnecting with my old EFY friend, Bryan, and enjoyed some great classes.

Saturday was a whirlwind day. It began bright and early with a breakfast/service project where I got to know the awesome members of my ward. I went home and was finally able to work on my yard. Then it was off to a pool party with some great girls and then boating again. Yeah! I did better on the board this time but I still struggle getting out of the left wake. I get to try again tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. I made a sweet new friend and reacquainted with an old one. I quickly changed and headed over to a wedding reception for a co-worker where they served cotton candy and smoothies to the attendees waiting in line and then had Cold Stone for dessert. It was great! The night ended with a fun date of batting cages and miniature golf which included lightening "war" rounds and a hole-in-one finish!

Life is GRAND!!!

Accidently Drugged...

So, funny story...
Sunday night I went to a potluck with some friends for local singles from my church. I had had a really long weekend and had thus acquired a pretty bad headache. I rarely take medication but I wanted to feel up for socializing. So, I reached into my cupboard and took the last of the pills from the Tylenol Extra Strength bottle. I didn't really pay attention to the fact the pill was not very Tylenol- esk.

Thankfully my friend decided last minute he didn't want anymore sunburn from my convertible so he wanted to drive. About halfway there, I started to notice that I was seeing double. I couldn't really see straight at all but my mind was all fuzzy so I didn't fully realize that anything was happening at all. My muscles were super heavy and I just couldn't focus on anything.

When we got to the party, I couldn't walk straight so I made my friends carry my food. I had to immediately sit down and felt like I was swimming. It was not cool. Some guy came over and talked to me for about a half hour and to be honest I don't remember much of what he said. I was fine to stare and look like I was listening but anytime I tried to move it took so much effort and I was slurring my speech. Good thing he did most of the talking. It was a pretty interesting night. I'm sure I was entertaining for some. It took me a while but I finally was able to clear my head enough to try to figure out what happened. In the end, I've concluded that I accidentally took an Ambien, the very pill that I usually cut in half to do that trick of knocking me out. I haven't had to take any meds for a while so I didn't even notice when I swallowed it down. Oops!!

To make it worse, this is the third time in a year I have been drugged like that on sleeping meds- once before on my way home from Israel I took one to help me sleep on the flight. It worked for an hour then I was awake but still heavily medicated. The other time I was sleepless on a cruise so I took two Benedryl to help me take a nap. Stupid, I know. Dinner that evening was difficult as felt so out of control and like I was swimming. Try walking down a rocking ship's hallway while drugged. Not so easy.

Lesson learned...hide the meds from Katie!!

Nothing to read...SORRY!!

I want to apologize to anyone who has happened upon my blog. The link has not yet been shared, for good reason, so there should not be many of you. I promise that one day I will actually take the time to write something worth reading and regularly contribute to this site. Until then...just navigate away as there is really nothing here. Have patience and maybe check back one day for "something cool!" :)

Hallelujah

Great news on the work front...

I've been working on writing content for a new distributor kit that we are preparing to distribute. There have been countless hours and edits but I was pretty happy with it. Then came the tricky part- passing it on to the executives. With so many varying opinions, this is a scary prospect. I expected tons of comments and lots of rewriting ahead. Well, today I got an email back from the person I just KNEW would shred it. And...three simple, tiny comments that were changed de una vez! I was floored and ecstatic! What a relief. All those hours paid off. YEAH!!!!

Four wheeling at the Little Sahara

It was a blast!