There are NO WATERFALLS to swim in in the Denver area. Pshh.

Well hello there!
Sorry it's been a while. Since my last post a lot has happened so I'll try to fill ya in.

So I mentioned I was in Austin for the 4th of July, but I did NOT mention that the city of Austin is far too wonderful and liberal and appealing to me for it to be located in the state of Texas. Real talk here, I've been quoted to say on numerous occasions since that life-changing weekend that if it weren't for those two pesky letters (T and X) I'd have to add to my address, I'd love to live in Austin someday. But even so this doesn't mean I wont try with great vehemence to convince loved ones to move there, which would thus enable my need to experience the city more. It. Is. Wonderful. That's all there is to say. Now go see it for yourself (and be a doll and relocate to there too).

So that was the 4th of July weekend. It was followed by four days of work (two at Da Club and two out with the Summer of Service kiddos), then yet another vacation! Real covert-like, the great conspirator Mark Mraz pulled a fast one on my siblings and snuck buddoned me a plane ticket to our family vaca that I was supposed to be missing. (Yes I just inserted a beloved Mrazism, "snuck buddoned," into normal writing, which in this context basically translates to "slid along under the table," but where's the fun in that? Is it obvious I'm itching to get home?) So I got to romp around on the beach for four days with my sibs-plus-one-friend and my dad! SO WONDERFUL. But...there was a huge void that no amount of crabbing and speaking in Mraztastic tongues could fill with the absence of my mom. She's in "poopy grad school" this summer and couldn't make it to Virginia Beach this year. This is a mistake we won't be making again any time soon.

The family vacation brought me right up to, yes, the very last day of work! It honestly flew by with little-to-no sense of finality, and the only component that actually made it feel like it was any different than any other day was that I toted my camera around for an hour at one point to document the kiddles. Oh and I guess I got a few more "Miss Katie I lov yu an wil miss yu!" cards/signs than usual. But the day ended and we packed up our storage closet and the next morning at 7am we were on the road.

This round taught me how important it is to me to have positive relationships with my coworkers aka my teammates. I always thought that was a given but, in the absence of happiness surrounding the actual project, it amazed me how happy I still felt in my heart as a result of my relationships. Being someone who likes to live what she believes, I've never so chronically hated my circumstances to the extent I did the last two months. If I'm not happy with my circumstances I've always made great strides to make them more conducive to my happiness. So being in a good job/living situation/major/WHATEVER always sort of guaranteed my happiness, regardless of my attitudes toward the people I was surrounded by. And while I still maintain that that approach is the healthiest, I guess what I learned this round is that with the right outlook on the PEOPLE around me, I can really get through anything. And this was an action I had to make myself. My teammates didn't change...people really don't change that much...but suddenly I found myself willing my patience and openness to stay intact when situations would arise where I'd typically pass judgment or get irritated. I'm not saying I was the image of Christ himself the last two months...I certainly had my number of demon-induced freak outs...but my point is that this was the first time in a long time that I saw amazing results from an attitude adjustment. Crazy right?!

I'm back in Denver now, and will be here until GRADUATION! on July 27th. My overall mood is general complacency about being too over-the-top with my good byes here (they never seem perfect enough awayway), and serious excitement/anxiety about moving on to the next chapter of my life. I HAVE TWO MONTHS AT HOME!!!! Woohoo! It breaks my heart that not everything that comes to mind when I think of "home" can stay that way forever, but I'm happy to get back to my roots nonetheless. And then I'm taking on New Orleans again, this time for eleven full months. Yesss.

Oh ps, I turn 23 tomorrow. OLD.
K miss you!
kt

Art?

So art is difficult to define. Right? I mean I consider myself to be borderline introspective, but I still can't fully appreciate what it means to call a sheet of canvas painted one solid color "artistic". Clearly I'm missing something. But on the other hand I do know what it is to be moved by objects people create. So I know just about as much about art as you do. Well long story short, someone thinks I can make art! My teammate Cody and I took a shot in the dark and asked a coffeeshop owner if she'd let us add some pieces to the local art collection she had up on her wall. Within eight hours we already had wall space, an arrangement of our "work" (Cody's pencil drawings, my photographs), and one sale each! Dear Darlene From Houston, you gave me a dangerous confidence booster.

So perhaps another blog is on the way...Katie's Photographs?

More later...I'm in Austin for the fourth!
Katie