Procrastination

So this is just a small form of procrastination. I am taking a mini brake from homework, why you may ask? Why because I hate Frankenstein, and i do not want to write a paper on it. But here are few of the engagement pictures that Haley Obray took. 

Ringling Brothers Circus!

So I went to the circus for the very first time! It was amazing! They had elements and tigers and a man that got shot out of a giant cross bow while on FIRE!!! And a thousand other things, it was amazing. Everything i imagined a cirrus would be....without the tent. It was at the delta center. But it was still cool. I went with Joseph and three of his brothers and their families. It was a lot of fun. I think the best part was watching the kids and how excited they were. Especially little Curtis, who i babysit every Tuesday. He loves elephants, so it was neat to watch his face when he saw them.

On a completely unrelated note. My fiance is pretty much the sweetest guy ever. I had to go down to my parents for a densest appointment and to try on my wedding dress...two other stories in themselves but anyhow... while i was gone Joseph got one of my roommates to let him into my room and he made a heart out of glow in the dark stars on the ceiling above my bed.

Other than that....i did like 10 hours of homework today. Yuck!!

And wasn't the Relief Society broadcast AMAZING!! I love Pres. Uchtdorf's talk about the forgetmenot's. Which insistently eased my fears on the existence of blue flowers for my wedding plans in addition to uplifting me spiritually.

But my mind is pretty much mentally destroyed...plus also it's Sunday, so in fifteen minutes which means no more homework until Monday morning at 6 am! Sweet!

Little Things

This is probably my favorite of all the Mormon Messages, and that is saying something. 

I LOVE it!

There's something about it that just makes me grateful for everything. 

Today I am most grateful for my amazing fiance, who not only made me lunch, he also made me dinner and did the dishes for both meals. And he took me to the temple, so i would not swear at my computer which was making homework difficult. He is the most amazing guy a girl could hope for. I love him! He makes me want to be a better me, and at the same time he makes me feel it's okay to just be the me I am. I know it doesn't make scene, but it's true.

The Power of Vulnerability

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

So Joseph shared this with me a few months ago. It is pretty much one of the most amazing things I've ever heard. It has really encouraged me to change some very unhealthy habits I have. I'm petty sure it has been a huge factor in my being able to handle a relationship as close as my relationship with Joseph is becoming. It has also changed the way I look at my relationship with Heavenly Father.

It is also in large part the gentle prod i needed to start sharing more in my blog than the surface me. The me I spend my life trying to be. So ironically, my new mission for this blog is to give up pretending, even if it's only here on this blog. I am going to attempt to give up being Millie for the moment, and just be Katie. Katie with a regular, every day, everybody has it name, from a regular everyday Mormon family, in a regular university doing lots of regular things. And maybe my experiment will help me be a truly extraordinary person....in all my regular-ness.  But i warn you, i get really flowery and physiologically on occasion when I don't have my  "what will people thing of me"  guard up.

So, here goes nothing!

Also I have to say thank you to Joseph for challenging me to discover and become my very best self.

Engagement Pictures....and other stuff.....

This picture we took just for my dad. I keep saying, "my dad will think there are too many kissing pictures" so we took this one all for him. 

This was the coolest spot ever! It"s an old abandoned elementary school...i really wanted to break in.

That is the beginning, of a genuine, spontaneous heel popping kiss!!

(Not for Dad).

Well, the point of this entry was not really to post engagement pictures, but there's a part of me that hopes ppl just look at the picture and don't bother to read everything I right.  I've been doing some serious reflection lately about my life. Joseph and I have a lot of big decisions facing us, and I've been really trying to figure out what God wants me to do with my life, which led me to reflecting on past experiences. I also just got a letter from Sister Fonua, an old mission companion, filled with the spirit and the joy of bearing testimony. It occurred to me, that that really was the original point of this blog. When i got home for my mission i wanted to continue putting my testimony out there....somehow. So i was going to make a profile on Mormon.org and start keeping a blog. 

Well, i never finished my Mormon.org profile, and the fear of what would people would say or think crowded in to my blog leading me to ....basically post nothing of value, just bear minimum facts. I never put anything Spiritual on my blog, mostly because  i know family and friends read it. If there were strangers reading this, it wouldn't bother me. But after a very intense Spiritual Chastisement during Institute class yesterday, I've decided to be more open 

I named my blog for a reason, I really do just spend my days wondering from one situation to another, trying to convince the world I know what I'm doing. Maybe even trying to receive a confirmation from the world that i know what i'm doing.  

The big question in my life lately has been weather or not i should stick to my plan to go to grad school now that i'm planning on getting married. It may not seem like a big decision but it has been a very hard one to make. Getting a Masters degree has been a goal of mine for a long time, and school is really important to me. In a lot of ways i feel like it's the only thing i'm really good at it. Well, Joseph and I have talked about it a dozen times or more now, we've gone to the temple together and I've been praying about this issue since even before we were engaged. Well, yesterday in institute we had a lesson on following the Spirit and the answer finally came. A master's degree is not what I need right now. It's not the answer i wanted, which is probably why it took me so long to understand it. 

It's been difficult just to let go of the idea, i feel like a little kid who's had their security blanket taken away from them. Before, i always had a plan, even if i wasn't sure about it i still had a plan. Now i have nothing. If someone asked me what am i doing next fall....i don't have an answer. I'll just have to move forward with faith and hope the Lord provides something for me. 

But I've got more mediate worries at the moment, like a Spanish test in the morning so I should stop wasting time blogging. 

First Week of School

So what can I say about the first week of school. I'm glad it's over, even if I am already WAY behind in my homework. It has been a really rough week. I have read hundreds of pages already and I've got thousands more to go. So I may be blind by the end of the semester from reading too much!! My roommates all seem really great which is nice. Living with random strangers can always be a little frighting but I got lucky. Thank you Joseph for finding me my apartment. I actually have a thousand things to thank my amazing fiance for! Not only did he find me my apartment and help me move in. When he found out what a rough day I had packing and trying to get up to Logan, he had flowers delivered for me! He is such a thoughtful guy!

So basically....if i don't update much in the coming months, I am writing a senior thesis, reading way more Brittish Literature than i bargained for, trying to learn Spanish, planning a wedding and actually trying to spend some time with my fiance (go figure). Sorry for the neglect.
Can i just tell you about my first day in my senior thesis class??? My professor basically told us, that this would be the hardest class we'd ever taken and we better be prepared to devote our lives to it or fail. Well, every professor says that at the beginning of every class right? But this guy means it!!! We have to read a book in one week. We have to set up by weekly one on one appointment's and we have to select all are own sources. Which admittedly we need to be able to do to survive grad school, let alone the world of academia. But still, that class alone is going to kill me! And i have four other classes to keep me busy. Jumping in after two years of not being in school....maybe not my smartest decision ever. Good thing i also decided to marry Joseph, because I'm pretty sure his moral support is the only thing keeping me from being too overwhelmed to function.
Anyway, that's my life just now....so hopefully I'll have time to keep you posted...