Birthday Week

I had such a fabulous birthday week. Every single day was packed with activities I love, whether it was hanging out with friends or being at guard practice every day, getting to spend time with my guard girls and the rest of the band staff.

Tuesday I got to go out with Colton, Chloe, and James for a birthday dinner at Chili's. We had a lovely time, and they gave us free ice cream for my birthday :)

Wednesday I celebrated with my family, and man do they know me incredibly well. I received cardigans, a dress, the movie Matilda, a 12 pack of Pilot G2 .07 pens (my favorite), and a pencil organizer filled with fruit flavored candy. It could not have been more perfect.

Thursday, my actual birthday, I spent all day at guard (just like every other day this week). My beautiful guard girls sang a rousing, horribly off key rendition of Happy Birthday, and the rest of the band sang their traditional birthday song as well. I ended the day going to an early premiere of "The Fault in Our Stars" with Brooklyn, Chelsey, Noelle, and Jessey, at which we ugly cried and had a wonderful time.

Friday I slept from 8 pm until 1, then 2am until 9. It was much needed.

And Saturday I watched Orange is the New Black with Jessey and ended the week with a campfire party with a bunch of friends.

I'm not quite positive how I ended up with such lovely people in my life, but I am extremely grateful that I did. 23 is shaping up to be an extremely good year.

The status of my 2011 5-year plan

Today I had some free time and was going over an old blog I used to write in. One of the posts, written in 2011, detailed what I thought was going to be my 5 year plan. It included moving to Minnesota, attending bartending school, becoming a baseball statistician, having a child, and staying out of Utah. Past Katy was 1 for 5. Not an impressive record.

At that time in my life, I couldn't think of anything that sounded better than what I detailed in that post. Obviously, plans have changed, and as of right now, I can't imagine taking a different path than the one I'm currently on. Its only been 3 years, and although I don't feel like I've changed that much, I clearly have. I have a different set of motivators. I find happiness in different situations than I used to. And although now I feel like I'm doing well and am mildly successful, I know that 3 years from now I will be able to look back on this post and laugh at how much I didn't know.

As much as I say I hate change, it tends to happen without me realizing it's happening. I only realize how significant of a change has occurred when I look back in hindsight. And so far, I really like what I've changed into.

:)

Happy (NOT the Pharrell Williams song)

My great friend Ashley just started a blog, and her very first post asked the question of "What makes you happy?" Her blog makes me happy. If you want to check it out, go here. But it got me thinking-there are TONS of things that make me happy, simple pleasures in my every day life that make me smile every time. Because I'm uncreative, here is a list, in no particular order:

-Baking
-A well organized closet
-Sunshine
-My family
-Dani and Robyn
-My nephew
-My English clique
-Winning (Shallow, yes. Do I care? NOPE.)
-Analyzing literature
-My friends
-Phone calls
-Writing and receiving letters and thank you notes
-Late night conversations
-Driving with the windows down
-Hi-Chews
-Teaching
-Strawberries
-Puppies and babies
-Diet Coke
-Cleaning something in detail
-Going to bed early
-My work friends
-Spicy food
-Buying presents for people and making them open them early because I can't stand to wait
-Clean sheet night
-Walking barefoot in grass

Really, the list could go on for pages and pages. I've been really consciously trying to notice little things that bring me joy, and the result has been incredible!

BFFs

I vividly remember the most terrifying experience I had while attending White Pine. My friend and I were walking through the halls when a tall, pale, gangly boy wearing a bright pink backpack started running full speed down the main hall, his curly, unruly bangs bouncing on his long forehead. He ran around crazily, squawking and occasionally stopping to stare directly into someone's face, fall completely silent, and then loudly bark before running off again. I pressed up against the wall, hoping that I would not be the next victim. As the boy ran away down the hall, I murmured to my friend, "What kind of person would be friends with that kid?"

Turns out, I'm the type of person.

That kid was David Marshall, and that was our first encounter. Cut forward to our junior year of high school, when after school I saw David walking ahead of me, remembered that he had recently moved into our neighborhood, and ran to catch up and offer him a ride. He looked slightly taken aback, and then accepted. As we walked, I boldly started the conversation with an offhanded, irrelevant fact about myself that I was sure would be the clincher in our just-about-to-be-an-awesome friendship. David, astounded, shouted "Me too!" From then on, we were inseparable.

That first day on the ride home, David climbed into my sea foam green mini van and reached into the backseat, pulling out my colorguard rifle and examining it gleefully. He then proceeded to roll down the window and mercilessly fake shoot the group of seminary teachers walking home after school. Mortified, I shouted at him to stop, telling him that he was shooting my teacher. He excitedly turned around and shouted, "Me too!" before continuing his rampage.

Since that first awkward conversation and drive, David and I have been best of friends. He taught me not to take life as seriously and that it's okay to look and act stupid on occasion. I was forced to quickly got over my embarrassment of driving with him, and even forgave him when he thought it would be funny to write "Katy does meth" all over Sky View. His is one of the longest friendships I have, and I cherish it.

We're in very different places in our lives now, and are motivated by extremely different things. But I know I can always call him for a pick-me-up, count on him to buy me a drink at The Owl, and go on car rides talking about our futures. I'm extremely glad my 7th grade terror didn't keep me away from forming a great friendship.

awesome & awkward

Hi, I'm the worst blogger ever. I never have motivation to sit and write a personal essay type of blog post, so...I just don't blog. I think for a while I'll stick with list posts. For today: Awkward and Awesome.

Awesome
-I will be in Mexico in 36 days.
-I wrote 15 pages in the last 2 days.
-I started my psych clinical at Sky View and completely love it.
-I made the dean's list last semester!
-I finished my taxes tonight so I feel super on top of everything.
-Color guard starts soon!
-I turned in all my paperwork for student teaching and graduation.
-I got the high score on an essay for one of my classes.
-We had an informal high school friend reunion and had a blast.
-I survived my first parent teacher conference.


Awkward
-I tripped in front of my entire psych clinical class while I was being introduced.
-I deleted a whole series of videos that I was trying to edit and then had to confess my stupidity.
-I tried to teach myself several simple ballet moves. It didn't go well.
-I ran into a boy that I went on a few dates with at Snow and could NOT remember his name. He noticed.
-My professor keeps asking me very personal questions about my life and I don't know how to respond.
-I was walking through a hall and a guy in front of me rapidly whipped off his jacket and punched me in the face.

Things are good. I fully realize my "awesome" list sounds slightly pathetic and extremely nerdy.  I'm pretty okay with it. :)

Things I Love

My guard girls had a competition in Provo last night, and we did not get home until extremely late. This morning, I had a class at 7:00 that I had to attend, so I had to wake up at 5:30. Although I downed a giant mocha, I had to keep physically moving in order to stay awake. Because I was confined in a desk, my staying-awake strategy was to write a list of things that I love. It's a great list. Here it is:

I love that upbeat classic rock is always playing when I walk into my 7:00 class.
I love that I have a 7:00 class and 7:30 class (most days).
I love that I'm getting paid to help with guard and hang out in the sun.
I love Taco Tuesday and watching So You Think You Can Dance with Jessey.
I love my Huffington Post app.
I love People magazine and doing the People magazine crossword.
I love that I get to read Ender's Game for a class.
I love binge-watching TV shows with my sister when we both happen to be at home.
I love working with Kellee, David, Chloe, and many others.
I love piercing people's ears.
I love skyping with Dani, Jaxson, and Tim.
I love that Dani, Jaxson, Tim, and Robyn came to BYU to watch my girls and to see me last night.
I love that Jaxson has learned to follow social cues, screaming when the crowd screams and shushing people when the crows calmed down.
I love phone calls with Texas, and listening to her life for half an hour before I get to talk.
I love working on Sundays, and the people I get to work with on Sundays.
I love that my body likes to fall asleep at 9 pm.
I love falling asleep in the bath tub.
I love jalapeno bagels and chai from the library cafe.
I love Tina Fey. Still, and always.
I love Billy Joel. Still, and always.
I love holding babies and buying baby clothes.
I love bargain shopping with my mom.
I love falling asleep watching golf with my dad, and staying wide awake watching baseball.
I love using my label maker.
I love getting books for Jaxson, and I love that he loves books.
I love watching vines.
I love that all-red packages of Starbursts and all flavors of Hi-Chews.
I love analyzing people's personalities with the color code.
I love going to my educational psych class.
And if you're reading this, I probably like you, too.

Balance

This post formed up in my head while driving today. The road is going to be curvy and winding and weird, but I promise I'll get to the point. :)

While driving to a parade with Launa, a lovely lady on band staff with me, the conversation turned to Billy Joel. I know. Typical. I was doing my regular fan girl gushing over him and Launa asked me about my favorite song of his. I named a few that I really liked, but the question prompted me to listen to my entire Billy Joel collection over the last few days in order to get a concrete answer. The votes are in. This is my favorite song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BGbeDb5VIk

I promise this isn't just going to be an ode to Billy Joel. I've already done that on this blog. But this song is so incredibly applicable to my life, more so than any other song I've heard.

Slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart, tell me
Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do and
Only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told..
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even
Get halfway through
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight...
Too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

Though you can see when you're wrong, you know

You can't always see when you're right...you're right

As does the fictional character in the song, I keep busy. I want to be successful and I know to do that I have to work hard. I like being busy. But I have the tendency to burn myself out. I put too much of myself into school and work and don't leave time for my relationships with friends and family, which are very important to me. For example, two semesters ago I left McDonald's for a short period of time and went to work at a call center. I didn't hold crazy hours, and the pay was a little bit higher when I was doing well, but I hated it. I even had a little more free time than I used to have. But the relationships weren't there for me. I didn't care about anyone I worked with, so I felt stressed all the time.

This semester, I've figured it out. This is, without a doubt, the busiest I have ever been. Several days of the week, I'm only home for a half hour period from 6 am to midnight. But I'm happier this semester than I've ever been. The solution:  One of my new jobs is coaching colorguard. In order to do this, I've had to cut back a few hours on each of my other jobs. But the payout (emotionally, not financially) I get from coaching is huge. I get to build relationships with my girls. I get to see them succeed. I get to see their "aha" moments and I get to see the pride in their face when they nail a move they've been struggling with. I get to see the thrill of performing on their faces and their absolute excitement and joy when they win. It's so affirming and validating knowing that I, in a small way, get to help them with this. 

This is the key. Not only is this job keeping me from totally losing it due to stress this semester, it's letting me know that my chosen profession is PERFECT for me. I'll get to see these same things when I teach, although they won't be on a field under the lights. I'm thriving in this situation, getting these girls from the beginning where many of them knew nothing, to the end where they're successful. I'm so stoked to finish school and start teaching, and to hopefully continue coaching for a while. I feel so fortunate to get to be with these girls every day.