Procrastination and Katie Reimold

I should be writing a paper or studying like every other student but I am just not really focused right now. I watched an episode of Friends earlier....bad idea. I totally lost motivation. So during this time of re-focusing and procrastination, I started thinking about my roommate, and then I decided to blog about her, in a totally non-creepy way.

This is her...she just ran a FULL MARATHON 2 days ago. She is my hero.

On my way back to Knoxville yesterday, I started thinking about her and how cool she is and how blessed I am and really wanted to hang out with her. (She tends to get stressed about school and ditches me for studying! :)) We decided to just hang out at our apartment and chat, catch up on each other lives. Then we planned a shopping day for today...random errands. When I was driving around with her this morning, listening to Gungor's Beautiful Things, I was so thankful!! 

2 years ago, at this SAME TIME, I was freaking out about college. I was about to graduate and getting more and more anxious about leaving for a new city. At that time, I didn't have a roommate. I didn't even have a plan for finding a roommate. 

Over the summer, I messaged some girls on Facebook about possibly rooming together, trying to find someone with similar passions and interests. And then on one ordinary day, a friend of a friend told me about Katie. Katie was also going to UT and didn't have a roommate and was looking for one. "You guys would get along great!"is what she told me. So I found her on Facebook, stalked her (I had to make sure she wasn't crazy) and started messaging her and then we decided to live together! We met in person for the first time at the Target in Clarksville, where we color coordinated everything for our dorm room...we were THOSE girls. 

Anyways. We have lived together for almost 2 years now, and we are planning on being life-long roommates! Even when we get married, we have talked about living next door to one another. HAH! I even gave her the nickname "Ramrod" which is what she is known for now....she used to hate it, but I'm pretty sure she wants to tell her professors to call her that now because she is so in love with it. 

I am so thankful for her and her encouragement. God was so faithful throughout that entire process and I could not have asked for a better roommate. Yes, we get frustrated with one another every once in a while, but what friendship doesn't have struggles?! She keeps me going, pushes me to be better. Thank you, Katie, for being there for me, showing me the greatness of hammockin', teaching me patience, convincing me to run a half marathon, and pushing me in this crazy life. I pray that we will continue running the race of life together for many years to come. 

P.S. I think this picture describes our friendship perfectly...I'm weird, and I bring out the weirdness in Katie, Ramrod, Rams, Runner-girl, "List-lover"

Just a few thoughts for the day...

1) Jesus is on his throne. 

I think that we all sometimes forget this. I have had this idea of my life being a book stuck in my head for the past few days. I have heard that so many times, but it hit home the past few weeks. My life is part of such a bigger story but I am constantly thinking about one individual page. I think of hardships, struggles, blessings, moments, and feel like my world is falling apart or that my world is perfect and it is never going to fall apart. I tend to forget that I am looking at ONE page of my story. Throughout my book, my story, the plot is going to change, there are going to be different characters coming and going, there are going to be ups and downs. Through all of that though, Jesus is on his throne. He doesn't see individual pages, he sees the entire story...who I am going to become, how different characters are going to affect me, where I am going, what I am going to be doing, on and on. He is on his throne. He knows. All I can do is trust. He knows what he is doing and how the individual page that I tend to solely look at is apart of such a greater, more beautiful story than I could ever imagine. 

2) The most extraordinary moments happen on the most ordinary days. 

Think about that for a second. Think about every GREAT moment that you have ever had, or every terrible, moment you have had when you feel like the world is crashing down all around you. Did those moments happen on some incredible day that was planned, or did they happen on an ordinary day? Yes, some extraordinary moments can happen on extraordinary days, but for the most part, they happen on ordinary days. 

I remember, very specifically, the day I found out I was moving to Tennessee. It was such a beautiful day. I remember being so happy that day, having no worries in the world as a little 7th grader, an ordinary day. And then Mom and Dad call Jake and I into the kitchen for a family meeting, which were not uncommon in the Apelt house. In one moment, my life changed, we were moving. At that moment, in my little 7th grade mind, I was looking at one page of my life and I thought the world was going to end. I could not imagine the bigger picture. But looking back, that moment on that ordinary day turned out to be extraordinary. I moved to TN, found the greatest friends I could ever ask for, grew so much closer to Jesus, ended up at a school I never would have attended, and found out what I want to do with my life all from that one extraordinary moment on what seemed like an ordinary day! 

3) Laughter is good for the soul. 

I feel like that is pretty self explanatory, but just to clarify, get some of your closest friends together and have fun. Laugh until you cry or until your stomach hurts. It is probably one of my favorite feelings in the world. 

 

This is my favorite "laughing" picture. It was not planned at all. This is simple, pure, laughter. Yes, it is like 3 years old, but I remember being upset about something on this day. I don't remember what I was upset about. And then I started laughing. It was freeing and GOOD FOR THE SOUL. So I dare you to try it, laugh more. Stop stressing about school or grades or the future or the unknown and take a second out of your day to laugh! 

Positive thinking is such a hard thing to do for someone who has lived her whole life on negative thinking.

I lived my entire life wondering when my parents were going to sit my down and tell me that we were moving, again. Packing up everything, leaving my friends, my church, my school, my comfortable life and moving to a new city with new faces, new adjustments. I never got too attached to any city that I lived in because I knew that eventually, we were going to move.

Negative thinking.

Recently, I have been "renewing my mind." Learning about grace and learning about positive thinking. There are so many things I am scared about. Instead of looking at them and thinking about the positive that can come from these unfortunate circumstances, my default is to think negatively. Because that is all I have known. My whole life has been a cycle of negative thinking.

I have been letting this negative "energy" take over me without me knowing it. Sure, some days are better than others and I can breathe deep and remember that the Lord has a plan for all of my fears, but some days I get so frustrated and anxious because I start thinking negatively. I think that I have been so caught up in that old way of thinking, that old wineskin, that I haven't even thought about trying to think positively. So on Friday, I felt claustrophobic. I felt trapped in Knoxville. I needed to get out. I thought about hammocking with some friends. Nope. Going to the park. Nope. Reading a good book and getting lost in it. Nope. Nothing sounded good, because I was still going to be in Knoxville. In the city where I just couldn't breathe.

So I left.

I packed up and went home. And as soon as I was in my mom's arms, I could breathe. There was no more pressure to hold it all together. There was no expectations that were put on me. I was just home with my family, out of Knoxville.

After crying and explaining to my mom why I came home randomly, and how I was scared about 5 million different things, she said so simply, "Why don't you think positively?" She took all the things I was scared of and turned them into positive things. When she said them in a positive way, it make so much sense and made me excited! But, because of my old ways, my old wineskins, I could only see the negative.

Positive thinking seems like such an easy concept. People, me even, say all the time "Think positively!" but if it is so apart of your life to think negatively, then thinking positively does not come naturally or easily.

I am learning to change my ways. Make new wineskins.

Matthew 9:16-17
"Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved."

Blogs

Blogging has always kinda intimidated me. I LOVE reading them, but writing them freaks me out. I have always liked the idea of blogging...sharing what I am thinking or things I am interested in at the time but I have never started writing. I just designed everything, actually Sarah Spiceland did that, and never wrote anything.

Recently, I found a blog that I like. This girl decided to blog 500 times and each blog was in the form of a letter. She wrote to whoever or whatever she was thinking that day. One of my favorite ones was "Dear Time..." where she talked about wanting more time and realizing that there is not enough time in the day to accomplish everything that you want to accomplish. After reading multiple letters, WAY more than I needed to, I decided to find my designed, but never written in blog and possibly start blogging.

So I guess all of this is a way to say that I am going to start blogging.