Today I'm thankful for my housemate having thought of me in her baking adventures with a group of friends and brought me home a gluten-free cupcake. Which was, actually, one of the best cupcakes I've ever had. Moist dark chocolate with some surprise cream. Perfect pre-broomball snack.

I'm thankful that even though today was only my fourth official day of my new AmeriCorps position, security at Northfield High School now recognizes me as someone who works in the TORCH office and let me politely in. I feel so official!

I'm thankful for support at work to run with some programming ideas to connect with students and the community in more of the creative service vein. I never expected another one of my Northfield identities, Zumba instructor, would be so heavily drawn on in my AmeriCorps work, but once the word got out that I teach Zumba classes, the middle school and charter school coordinators excitedly entertained possibilities of me doing Zumba in some of the kids' after school programs! That in addition to a Zumbathon charity event that I'd like to hold for this community is a whole lot more dancing than I ever dreamed of doing in a position serving low-income students, but I am blessed to have this skill and opportunity to use dance as another way to serve where I am!

Today I'm thankful for this lovely quote from CSI: "Today is life. Make the most of today." Give it all you've got while you're here.

I'm thankful for safely making it home through a night fog, and for the incredible glow that lit up Northfield through the street lamps. It was magical.

I'm thankful for a cooking date with a couple of my housemates. I never would have though to make enchiladas with sweet potatoes, but my fellow foodie housemate's creation of this dish was outstanding. 

I'm thankful for late night Cub runs, for Carleton dinner dates with new friends that need to use up their dining dollars, for supportive co-workers, and for the opportunity to work with some amazing high schoolers. Slash just wonderful people in general. I love experiential learning, figuring out the niches I can fill, and being surrounded by people trying to think creatively every day how to better serve a population that is often left behind. I believe in equality of opportunity, and I have been blessed to be able to do my small part to work to that end as a recent grad! God is good.    

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" 1 John 4: 18.

Hey all! Sorry it's been a few days, I've been busy trying to take one day at a time! I've been a little under the weather, and I'm thankful for some time to rest, even if I didn't take enough of it. I'm thankful for supportive friends and family who were understanding through that time and who also had my back through my presentation at Carleton about my Cuba delegation! I'm thankful Carleton gave me that opportunity to talk about Witness for Peace's work as well as even a fraction of what I nerded out about in Cuba. And I'm thankful for some leftover tamales, courtesy of Latin American Studies, that are occupying my fridge (but not for long!).  

I'm thankful for so many opportunities to meet some of Northfield's difference-makers in my new AmeriCorps work, as I am still learning the ropes but have great resources to learn from.  

I'm thankful for my first ever contra dancing experience - it was incredible to see so much of Northfield turn out for a night of jubilant folk dancing and to learn right along with them! I was also grateful for the opportunity to have a few Carls over to my real-world house for some snacks and silly dancing. A couple years ago I never would have imagined coming out of my shell enough to want to host a party atmosphere, but I am thankful I have come to possess enough comfort in my own self to aim for respectable ridiculousness with a group of people I love and trust.  

I'm thankful for the time to drive up to my home church this morning to see their production of The Lorax. Doing inter-generational productions with my dad was a really pivotal way my church supported my involvement with arts and acting, and it was so fun to see all the little munchkins and adults alike involved this time around. I missed actually participating in one, and it was really sweet when a number of people told me I should have been in it this time around, but Northfield is where I need to be for now. And I'm just so proud too of my dad's instrumental role in recruiting production leadership as well as families to participate for this all to come together. He's the best. I'm a pretty lucky daughter. 

I'm thankful for a new friendship to keep me accountable. He asked me in all of the busy-ness and transitions in my life, what are two goals I want to focus my life path and ask God to direct me towards. Even though we do not see each other very often, he checks in with me to see my status report on if I am working for social justice related to Latin America and if I am trying to be a vessel for God's love in all that I do. I ask God to give me strength, wisdom, and peace in these endeavors, and I hope that every day I can ask myself this question or be asked by my friend, I would be able to confidently answer "yes." With my continued involvement with Witness for Peace and new Promise Fellow position, I am definitely doing social justice work related to Latin America - especially as I start working more with Latin@ students and their families on post-secondary options and how to afford them to help lift families out of the poverty cycle. I hope I walk with God's love wherever I go too!  
  
Many of my friends still at Carleton are seniors and are in the midst of a confusing time being pulled in many directions at once, with desires to spend precious time with friends in their last few months, focus enough of their energies on their senior theses, take the final few classes they are required to take and/or interested in, and also figure out where they (and possibly their significant other) are being led next in life. Some of those pieces tugging at them involve a lot of patience, especially landing a job and discerning where in the country and world they are meant to be. And if there is a significant other involved, there will inevitably be even more things to think about. I found this piece from a recent Encouragement of the Day particularly relevant for my friends who find their patience being tested, and perhaps you would also find the phrase "wait training" helpful!
"Just as physical weight training builds strength, so does spiritual 'wait training.' We are promised this in Isaiah 40:31: '... but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.'" May waiting for whatever you are in life strengthen you, and may the results of your patience be fruitful.

Also, there's nothing like unconditional love from furry animals. There just isn't. At this point in life I am not settled enough to have a pet of my own, but Carleton had a winter carnival today, and giving hugs to and petting the fluffiness of a pack of sled dogs in the sunlit, sparkling snow was basically the best thing ever. God is good. 

Today I'm so thankful to be officially confirmed a new AmeriCorps Promise Fellow here in Northfield! I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to serve youth and families in Northfield in my time here, and it is such a privilege to have so many wonderful people supporting me and encouraging me to find my path here. What a joy to feel my experiences thus far in life and skills are validated and wanted - the nexus of need and skill are where we're meant to be, right? Something like that?

Anyways, I'm also grateful that I do not have an inordinate amount of things to do tonight because I need to rest away these sniffles and sneezes!

May you all have a blessed evening!

Today I'm thankful for a necessarily relaxing weekend. I've been under the weather for a couple days, and it was so great to be able to exist in a state of sleepiness and half-brain awakedness for much of the last 72 hours. I'm fortunate that I did not have to miss any work, and that I have a flexible enough schedule that I could crawl back into bed after Zumba classes.

I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to go up to the Cities with one of my best friends on Friday to see her brother play in the first hockey game I have ever seen - the game really was beautiful and fast-paced at their level, pretty incredible! I'm thankful also for the opportunity to see the play Nellie at the History Theater, about one of Minnesota's own civil rights heroines. It was so powerful to see how racism, conflict, and struggles for civil rights played out in what I always imagined as homogenous, white small-town Minnesota, and to see my Zumba instructor in that context up on stage was another joy! She was my inspiration for getting my instructor license and has been so supportive. She's a proud believer and lets her personality shine through Zumba with ridiculous facial expressions like I do!

I'm thankful for catching up with one of my Carleton roomies on life and for her making me talk about myself to make sure I know she cares about me and that I can talk to her about anything.

I'm thankful for a productivity date with one of my housemates as she studied for an upcoming test in her nursing program and I got some writing done before my brain hit the fog of unwellness. Song changes on her Piano Guys playlist on Grooveshark were a pleasant distraction as we would listen for a few seconds to recognize which cover of a popular song had come up next as we typed away. I especially loved their instrumental version of "Bulletproof"!

I'm thankful for the two times that I needed to find parking spots at busy times in Northfield, that cars just magically pulled out to open a spot for me right where I needed to be. That's a happy coincidence.

And I'm thankful to have received this letter in the mail as a part of the follow-up from my Witness for Peace Cuba delegation. Our Regional Organizer took all of our letters that we wrote to ourselves on the last day home with her to mail them out to us a time later so that we could reflect on our experiences and find energy in our efforts. Especially important now as I'm preparing for three presentations in the next three months (with the first this Thursday!) here's what I wrote to myself:

"Dear future Kathryn,

Well, I guess it's present Kathryn at this point. This letter is part of the closing ceremony exercises of your Witness for Peace Cuba delegation as a part of proof that you were here! When not many U.S. citizens had the opportunity to come and learn and experience Cuban reality at a time of continued political stubbornness but palpable shifting tides, you were here, and you still have work to do! You have met with so many amazing, educated, intelligent, thoughtful professionals as well as everyday Cubans about how they experience life on their side of the blockade and how we love each other. That love and understanding needs to translate into political warmth. You did not get to formally meet with any dissidents, so that firsthand perspective is perhaps missing, but the overarching feeling is that Cubans are making do with what they've got and are trying to take care of each other through it all. Is the embargo/blockade knocked out yet? Have you kept in touch with Ariel and Betsy about life and questions and maintaining that connection? Will you continue to work for Cuba to have the right to sustainable development its way? Reconnect, don't fall off the face of the earth, and continue spreading knowledge about your experience in solidarity.

Love,
Past Kathryn"


So I have work to do. When my brain gets less fuzzy from whatever knocked me out this weekend, I will be writing for Cuba!

On a lighter note, this morning I got a bro nod from a college-age guy shopping at Cub dressed as Lincoln. Day made.

Oh, and my broomball team faced off against one of our rivals tonight, and I had to enter the game late because I was teaching a Zumba class, and only at the end did I see that the goalie on the opposite end was in fact the president of Carleton! And to top it off, (even though I'm pretty sure my team was just playing some solid offense and doing a great job keeping it away from my end...), he complimented me on my goal-keeping. Happy President's Day all!

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” John 13: 34-35.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody! This holiday can be filled with romanticism, expectations, disappointment, sadness, butterflies, commercialism, contentedness, profound joy, or a mix of any of those sentiments. No matter your relationship status with another special human being or not, may God's love have found you well today. I have been so encouraged by displays of love and thoughtfulness by my friends and in the community today, and I'm thankful for a wonderful friend date at a comedy show with one of my besties. I'm also thankful for one of my housemates joining my Zumba class today, spontaneous buy-one-get-one-free hot cocoas at Caribou, and deciding to whip up some scrumptious pancakes for dinner to be followed by basically a half hour of YouTube videos of adorable children doing adorable things.

"You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His" ~ MercyMe.

Today was an exhausting but awesome day. My fellow Carleton alum bum and I attempted to go check out the fifth year art apprentices' show at St. Olaf this morning, only to realize it did not open until 10, so we had a breakfast date instead. My Wednesday morning Zumba class switched to a new time so the word may not be out in the community yet, and only a young mom showed up, but she rolled with it and it was so fun to have a mini dance party! It was great to get a little sweat on in the morning, but then I had a half hour to dash home, clean up, get presentable, and breathe before an in-person interview for an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow position that would charge me with serving low-income students in a variety of programs in Northfield starting soon and going through the summer. I was a little surprised to walk into a room with an interview team of five, but I was grateful to connect with some of Northfield's professional do-gooders and try to answer their questions with as much grace as I could. 

Today I'm also thankful for a lovely lunch date to catch up with a friend who I haven't conversed with more than just in passing, so it was great to have the time to check in with her on life.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to keep working part-time with my Chinese professor and for how varied our work is - this afternoon was filled with some writing and then also construction of a powerpoint!

I'm thankful for a little extra silliness/giddiness/slap-happiness at this afternoon's Zumba class. For some reason, we were all a little off our rocker today, and it was great to get some giggles in there.

I'm thankful for a constructive house meeting. Only two of my housemates have been here since the beginning of the lease in the fall, and the other three of us have moved in all at different times and are still figuring things out, so it was much-needed to sit down as a crew and talk about things like chores that we have just been going with the flow on. I'm grateful everybody is so open, relaxed, and respectful about everything!

I'm thankful for battle wounds only discovered when I got home from tonight's broomball game. Tonight's competition got the best of us, and the slight rain made conditions rather treacherous, and let's be honest, I'm still not very good, but we fought hard!

I'm thankful to (hopefully) not bug anybody by singing in the shower in this new home of mine!

Hey, remember that AmeriCorps interview earlier in the day? Got the job tonight. Seriously? I'm overwhelmed by how quickly that all happened, so amazed to feel qualified, and so grateful for this opportunity to serve more of the Northfield community while I am here. I'm still coming to terms with this next chapter of my gap year, and it will undoubtedly be rewarding and challenging, and I cannot get ahead of myself in thinking about summer housing (my first ever lease is up at the end of May and there is a group set to move into this house for the summer), plus I'm not about to count any chickens because there are still a couple of formal steps before this new post is officially mine. I'm just thanking God for all I have been blessed with and trying to make the most of every circumstance and every challenge. Happy dance for now!

My spirits were high tonight, and even higher when I rode that feeling of accomplishment and dove into making a powerpoint for next week's presentation on my Cuba delegation. I'm thankful for the time and clarity to conceptualize presentation organization and go through all my photos and memories. And I'm thankful that I now know this house well enough to get around in the dark without calamity since my productivity mode took me into the late hours.

Today I'm thankful for the hour my car could sit in the sun so when I started to drive away, the sheet of ice that was formerly firmly solidified on the roof could slide right down both windshields. What a satisfying feeling.

I'm thankful for three wonderful informational interviews about possible site placements for my service year program. They left me rather brain-dead and with a lot of thinking and discerning to do, but I am at peace with this direction for next fall.

I'm thankful for a lovely dinner getting to know another wonderful Carleton woman a little bit better, all while enjoying Mardi Gras specialties in the dining hall (and my fave dessert that I could not pass up, flourless chocolate torte!).

And I'm thankful for these three easy steps to reconnecting with God from my Encouragement of the Day email:
"We can miss being with God, but we also can miss the movement God is doing in our lives. Missing God {either way} is tragic and threatening to our souls that long to thrive with God."
1. Find our God-space. (Take two minutes, or two hours, whatever you need, but try to be intentional about that time to get all filled up with the Spirit).
2. Experience the awe of God. (Life's not all rainbows all the time. Try to notice all the large and small ways God is working in your life, and how amazing beyond comprehension God is!).
3. Have ears that listen {always}. (Listening is a pretty huge part of communication. We don't have to figure out life all on our own. Listen for God to show you the way).

Today I'm thankful for random moments of running into Carleton friends on campus. It was a huge blessing today to have work interspersed with intentional and unintentional time connections, and even if I was jokingly accused of being a hobo, I'm thankful to have a day once in a while to meet friends, run around, work, and have fellowship at my old stomping grounds.

Thanks friends. Your hugs and your taking an interest in how I'm doing and what I'm up to as a silly alum in my gap year is so wonderfully supported and much appreciated!

A note of encouragement from today's Encouragement of the Day email: "Are you in need of hope today? Will you choose to remember God's faithfulness, love, and mercy, despite the despair and destruction around you? Today, dare to hope."

Today I'm thankful for interviews upon interviews this coming week as programs for a next stage of life develop more from hopes into real possibilities. Nothing tangible or definite yet, but I am thankful for opportunities.

I'm thankful that when life gets a little complicated, nothing sorts it out like a walk and talk in the most perfect snowball snow. 

I'm thankful to have girl best friends to make half-serious pacts to move into adjoining sides of a duplex together someday in case the whole husband-God-intends-for-us situation doesn't work out. I now firmly believe in the cliche "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" (I understand this conceptually, but trusting another person in vulnerability and love is hard!), and if timing and life work out for me, I hope to be married someday to a man who is my best friend, someone I can come home to and cook/dance/talk/cuddle/nerd out/watch TV/travel with. But in the meantime, every day I get to discover more of who God intends me to be, and I am so thankful for unconditional friend-love. And for "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire," a quote shared with me by one of those dear best friends.

And I'm thankful for this article that reminds us all to be mindful of what we put out into the world: My take: A word to Christians - Be nice. This one in particular highlights how some Christians display some appalling conduct online. As a teenager, the hypocrisy of claiming to hold yourself to a higher standard but judging and dividing in hurtful ways really repelled me from religion, but as I have grown into faith, now I feel ashamed when people claim to love God and walk in the way of Jesus but use the internet and other public fora to tear down others. The author ends the article with this emphatic point: "If we will give account for every careless word spoken, might we also give account for every careless comment typed or tweeted? Christians aren’t the only ones hurling hateful blows on the Web. But we are the only ones who claim to follow the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. So let’s be nice."

I also want to go on the record that my intention with this blog and whatever else I choose to share with humanity is never to offend anyone, but I am divulging many of my personal beliefs and thoughts to you all, my readers. My intention is to give love and encouragement, but also be very real with you all through the mountains and valleys of faith and life. You are free to disagree with me, and I will still do my best to love you as a sister or brother.

“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.” (1 John 2:9,11).