Wear Sunscreen.

This is one of my favorite things I have ever seen.  I think Amy might have been the first one who showed it to me,.  It was either her or my cousin Maria.  I don't really remember....

I listen to it every once in a while when i get stressed out, and it always makes me feel like things are where they belong again.

I'm listening to it right now, and I guess I was just thinking how lucky these kids were.  What a way to enter the real world.  

Anyways, I found out it was Kurt Vonnegut that gave it.

Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, so it makes sense that I would love it i guess.

My favorite line?

DONT BE RECKLESS WITH OTHERS PEOPLE'S HEARTS AND DONT PUT UP WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE RECKLESS WITH YOURS.

But it's all really good, and something I want to start listening to even more often.

love

This too shall pass

life wishes.

Mose trap was always my favorite game as a kid because i loved building the.... structure? I dont know what to call it, but I loved it.
Since I am an adult now (and really because most of the pieces are missing) i have always wanted to make a similar contraption that takes up a whole room, warehouse, ect.

like this

Katherine Ann Fleming

I don't Know how to develop my own film.

I don't own an SLR camera.

...I don't even know if those are the right letters.

I'm not the center of attention.

I'm not funny to most people.

I'm SHY at first.

I second guess myself a lot.... but usually follow through anyways.

I am not an art major.

I don't know half the bands you talk about.

I don't spend my money on gas to get to utah and tickets to get into shows.

I probably don't use the right kind of paint for the projects I do.

I can't afford canvas so i paint on cardboard.

I'm not that creative--but i can mimic and mix and match.

I pay attention differently.

I never took art classes in college

I can't spell without spell check

I have never been in love

I have never been asked out

I am not the number one pick to hang out with on the weekend

But I know how to nurse a baby bird back to health and watch him fly away one day.

I know that it's okay to break up with friends.

I can quote all of A Knight's tale from memory. Including the words on the screen before the movie starts.

I can saddle a horse and put a bit in the right way.

I can clean their hooves so they don't get thrush.

I like Bright eyes and Ludacris.

I remember your favorite books and movies even when you forget mine

I know how to take care of a sick pony at the fair

I can stay up for 36 consecutive hours

I love con artists, but i don't play games with people's emotions

I've been hurt more that I have hurt

I avoid confrontation

I know I can get over it, but I dont know what other people's hang ups are

I'm pretty different than the people I have been friends with in the past, which usually results in me not being their number one, but I am okay with that now.  Most of the boys from my past aren't worth it anyways and a lot of my "friends" from the past are rude and inconsiderate of other people.

There's nothing wrong with me--there never was.

I have my own talents and they and theirs.

Sometimes you have to go thirty hours across the ocean to see who you are and figure out what kind of life you want to live.

Life Plan.

My mother dearest once told me it’s a good idea to make a life plan for yourself and then readjust it as people come into it.  She said it’s important to keep your options open if things come up, but it’s also important to have a plan and a timeline you are living by.  After having the opportunity to go to Europe and get a taste of traveling, I have made some changes to my life plan and this is what it now consist of:

 

-Serve a mission

-Graduate

-Work for an orphanage in India

-Work for an animal orphanage in Costa Rica or Australia

-graduate school in France or England

Usually I would be offended...

If a celebrity look-a-like generator told me I looked like a BOY!  But, since it was Conor Oberst, I can deal.

Good News.

In the past 24 hours I discovered two WONDERFUL facts:

-They are making Eat Pray Love into a movie, featuring James Franco.

-They are making the Perks of being a Wallflower into a movie.

Eat, Pray, Love.

These past two semesters have been kind of hard for me--mostly because of my own stupidness or faith in unstable people.  woof.  However, something good always comes with the rain: I learned a LOT though these past few months, and it all kind of set me up to really appreciate and LOVE my dream trip to europe. bonus.

In a lot of ways, this trip has been my own version of eat pray love. 

 I ate--oh, i ate:  Pastries, carbs, pizza, gilatto, more carbs... and nutella on it all!  I loved and felt loved; I prayed and had just about every prayer I sent up to heaven in the last year returned, answered.

The truth is simply: I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me :)

And I am very thankful I got an opportunity to see a little bit more of it.

There are going to be a LOT of changes in my life in the next year. (12 month year--not calendar.)

1. my two bffls are getting married to their soul mates for time and all eternity on the exact same day!!

2.  My baller of a big sister will return from her mission

3. Tons of my guy friends from freshman year will also be returning from their missions.

4. I will put in my mision papers and hopefully enter the field.

IT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL

When you are impatient...

This seems like a really cute, easy, and fun solution to waiting for hair to grow out....

I gotta be strong, because I know ultimately I want this more:

Party in the USA

home from europe:  not happy.

After 21 days in a dreamlike state, I finally am back home in America.  I have been home for just over 24 hours now, and part of me feels like i never even left--and the rest feels like I will wake up tomorrow and be in some new country and going to some cathedral or on a walking tour of some ancient civilization's ruins...  

I bet coming home from a mission has got to be one of the weirdest things ever.

I knew from the moment we touched down in London that something inside me was about to change, but I couldn't have guessed how big it would be or even fathom half of the prayers that were answered on this trip or any of the impressons that came to me.

Nie wieder

Finding intranetz while in Europa was actually a lot harder than I though which resulted in terrible upkeep with my blog, but a fabulash journal and lots of great pictures.

THESE WERE THE HIGH LIGHTS:

France:

Our teachers took us to the Eiffle tower our first day in Paris, a bunch of us loved it so much we went back out last night.  It is massively enormous and at night it lights up!

We tried to go to the top of it the first time there as a group, and waited in line for over an hour and a half, only to discover that we didn't have the right kind of tickets.  I though it was funny--others were not so amused.

I had originally brought my fripod ti listen to "Soco amaretto lime" on the tippy top but since that didn't work out I sat across the plaza and watched the lights.  Under those new lights and the same old moon I realized that there was a LOT more out there for me in the world and that it was time to finally let go of ties that lead to heartache, bridges that should just be burned, and people that didn't help me be a better person.  This is my life and I will never again let myself feel like it is going on around me and I am just sitting still waiting for my chance to join in.  I've got the reigns now.

The last night in Paris--when we went back-- I brought fripod again and listened to the same old songs that make me feel infinite.  The eiffle tower stood before me as my only friend that night and i couldn't have been happier.  For those few moments nothing else mattered except the fact that I was on a great journey and I was doing something that I knew was going to change my life forever and give me a glimps of all the wonders that this world still has in store for me.

Other high pointa in France included watching a mass in Notre Dame, Chartres, Church in Paris, and the Louvre.

LDN day one

So, I am in LDN, and it is just as dreamy as I imagined. The hostle we are staying in has internetzzz you can pay for--and is GHETTO. I love love LOOOOVE it. Today i learned how to work the underground, how to work british money, and how to cross a british street during rush hour. I also learned that getting lost can lead to some pretty amazing adventures. Today I mostly just walked and walked and walked and WALKED!! I am taking tons of pictures I will upload later to the book.

The room i am in in this hostle is up about 100 flights of super steep super narrow stairs--after walking around, not fun. when i came back down to go on the computer, i just held on to the rail and flopped down like a little rag doll. my legs are going to be sooooooo sore tomorrow.

Tomorrow we go to the brittish gallery i think, and then toorrow night i go to wicked! the girls that saw it tonight said it was amazing, so i am super excited.

i am also almost out of time

i love europe already

Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So, love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. No one said it would be easy, they just promised it'd be worth

iWant

My eurobuddy Drew came into came into class today with THIS on his laptop:

snow white's revenge.

Mt. Eyjafjallajokull

has had me thinking a LOT these past few days.  I would be eternally crushed if it's ash cloud didn't move from over the UK, but it's kind of made me realize that you can't always depend on other people and other things for happiness and personal growth, because sometimes they fall though.

I hope very much that things work out and I still get to go to Europe, because I have been looking forward to thins for a year--since the day I told my mom I feel trapped and then sat in Amy's house looking for travel abroad trips after her simple solution "go on a foreign travel studies tour".

Lately I can't function unless I know when the volcano is doing.  This is the latest: http://www.xomba.com/ash_cloud_over_europe_flights_may_resume_after_delay_volcano_iceland

GOOD NEWS!

Church was really good today.  Like REALLY good.  I got to sit by christina and Zach in sacrament meeting, and then sunday school and RS was all just combined but it was good.  i think I am going to like the ridge.

If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every-time.

It has also been quoted by the great Rob Dyrdek that "the only enemy of success is laziness".  I really think it's true that you get out of life what you put into it.  The only way to have a friend is to be one.  I know sometimes I am selfish and not the best friend out there, but I am trying to do better and put other people first--sometimes it's just kind of hard.

Preparing to go to Europe has had me in a dream like state these past few days for many reasons:

number one:  I am going to effing EUROPE!

number two:  I am going to see some beautiful art and be M-O-V-E-D by it.

-Researching that art has taught me a lot about the artist and the tales of   the time

number three:  It makes me wonder what else is out there for me

number four:  with my new passport, i can TRAVEL

number five:  I am the lucky one because I am not the one getting married at 20 and I get to still be selfish for a few more years. :)

-I'm just not ready to get married yet.

number six:  Euro-trash hipsters

number seven: Youth Hostels

number eight:  I am so grateful for my family and the fact that my mom works again.  Even though it was hard and lonely in high school, it is worth every day home alone now because my mom can help me out with school and traveling and self discovery through both.

number nine: I have gotten a lot of lucky breaks in my life. 

number ten:  I can't sleep when I am excited!!!!!

All in all I think that this trip will let me get to know myself a lot better, and hopefully the ME i am suppose to be, not the ME i use to be or the ME i think i should be.  (She's really not that cool and actually, kinda lame.)  It's funny how much more enjoyable life is when you finally realize "maybe God does know me a little better than I know myself, and maybe he knows what's good for me a little better than my friends do..."  Imagine that.

I started my EutoTrip wish list for my travel studies class.  I am making it into a little book that i can write in with a ball point pen since all i do with an english minor and communication major is write papers and and do projects on the computer.  It's cute and I am very happy with how i is turning out.  

I also started researching for my 30 pieces of art I need to research before we leave: We have to write a one page paper about each one, that way, when we find them we can know their history and hopefully have a stronger reaction to the piece of art.  I am doing some Monet, Van Gogh, and Manet as well as Michaelangelo, Degas, and some Impressionist art.  I am also interested in architecture, fountains in Rome, and the egyptians and greek art that will be in the Lourve and other museums.

p.s. i think my indie-cred is about to SKYROCKET.  j.k (but seriously...)

TWELVE DAYS

10 things that make katherine happy

1. Pinkerton (bonus: dog and album)

2. Hip Hop, Rap, and Ludacris

3. crazy hair--borderline manes

4. Travel and dreams of it (not to mention planing!!!)

5. dorms PSYCH!  

6. Bright Eyes/ Conor Oberst

7. Guitars and pianos

8. Lists (bucket, wish, to-do...)

9. Dance Parties.  drop it drop it low girl.

10.  Missionaries

janesville doll:

Back in High School,  I played on the Lady Spartans volleyball team.  It was fun and I've got some good memories; however, the strongest one has nothing to do with the games, and everything to do with the bus rides to away games--specifically the games in Mankato and the ride through Janesville.

The Janesville doll is: weird, bizarre, and all together horrifying.

The Janesville Doll is a doll, hanging in the attic window in this little old house in Janesville MN.  It looks out over the park across the street, and year after year it sits there and watches life go on.

creativity

I was thinking the other day about education and how wonderful it is from a "life" point of view.  It is absolutely good to know things about the world you live.   Take time to learn about your country and your culture, then leave it all behind and travel to the four corners of the world and learn about theirs.  I am all for making the world your classroom, but I also believe that our intelligence enslaves us as well as liberates us.

Once we are educated, we no longer can believe that clouds are the left over smoke from fires all over the world, or that we can roast tree tops on sunsets like marshmallows.  The fire can no longer tan your skin.  Stars aren't just ideas that were never given a change to become anything and tiny people no longer live on my globe. 

When we are educated life looses its poetry and its magic.  

Stars are just balls of fire, trees are too far from the sunset to roast,  the light from a fire doesn't have the right kind of rays to tan you, and clouds are made up almost completely of water--not smoke.

It's good to be educated, but sometimes it kind of kills the A.R.T.