This is the End, Part 1

Today I showed up at work and looked at the schedule for next week. It was just posted today. First I laughed at the funny note my boss put in there about why my friend had requested a day off. And then I looked up at my name. It had my shifts and then under Sunday and Monday said "THANK YOU KATIE!" And I started crying.

You see, Saturday, September 5th is going to be my last day at Papa Murphys. I put in my two and a half weeks notice recently. I've been planning on quitting for a while. I'm starting school up at Bellingham Tech at the end of September and also going to be working more hours at the dentist office. I honestly just don't have enough time to work at Papas anymore. That being said, I was kind of stupid and made my last day 1o days sooner than I planned out of anger at a certain situation. I wish I wouldn't have, but I can't change it now!

So this is going to probably end up being a two or three part blog about my time at Papa Murphys. There is a lot to cover. There have been so many laughs, so many tears, so many new friendships and so much new growth over the last 29 months. I am a completely different person because of my time at Papa Murphys in both good and bad ways. But mosty good.

***

In the March of 2007, I was working at a job where I was the youngest person my several years as well as the only person who actually followed the rules. Because of this, my coworkers hated me. When they worked with me, they had to deal with a 15 year old telling them that they actually had to do their job. It was pretty miserable working there, but not many places hire people under 16 due to labor laws. My boss at this job didn't really follow those laws and I wasn't really familiar with them.

One afternoon in the beginning of that March, I got a call from my boss. She told me that things just weren't working out with me at that job and that my coworkers were complaining about me. I was told that I was miserable to work with. My boss said that she didn't know what was going on really (she wasn't a super involved boss) but that she was going to take me off of the schedule for six weeks until she started working with us again.

Well, as you could probably have guessed, six weeks passed and she didn't call me. Luckily, I was actually searching for a new job at that time anyways. My mom and I talked and decided that it wasn't really healthy for me to be working at a place like that. I needed to be working at a positive place.

***

This part of my story is a bit difficult to talk about. I don't talk about the details of it too much. At this point in my life, I was in a depression that I had been suffering from for around three years. I started homeschooling in the seventh grade and unfortunately for me, none of my friends returned my effort to spend time together once we were no longer class mates. I had virtually no friends in middle school. I sank into this depression at that time. I never went to the doctor for it or was treated, but I was definitely depressed. This continued through to tenth grade.

I decided in my tenth grade year that I wanted to go to public high school. I wanted to be around people. I wanted to make friends again. It took a couple of weeks to convince my parents, but in August of 2006, I registered for classes at Anacortes High School. This was definitely a good move for me. I made some friends and lots of acquaintences. I was around people. It was really good for me. I began to come out of my depression a little bit, but I definitely was still suffereing from it.

***

Fast forward back to March of 2007 where I had just gotten basically fired from my job. This was a huge blow to me. I cried. A lot.

There was a family at my church that I also babysat for. They owned Papa Murphys Pizza in my town. It just so happened that they had a couple of people who were about to quit. My mom talked to Penelope, one of the store owners, on the phone one evening when she called about babysitting. Penelope told my mom that they were always cautious when hiring people under 16 because of the labor restrictions, but to have me fill out an application and bring it with me next time I babysat. So I filled out my application and waited.

Saturday, April 21st found me being woken up by my excited mom. Penelope had just called and told my mom to have me call Jeff (her husband) at Papa Murphys when I had the chance. So I got out of bed and as soon as I was awake enough, gave him a call. He asked if I would be able to come in that same day to start work. I was able to and at two o'clock went in to Papa Murphys.

***

This was a completely different work experience for me. Coming from a place with zero structure and no authority, Papa Murphys was a welcome change. There were managers, supervisors and rules. I was trained by the assistant manager, Heather, who I knew from church alhtough not very well. She was a few years older than me.

I really only worked Fridays and Saturdays until the end of the school year. I learned fast and got along with everyone pretty good. The crew started inviting me to hang out with them on random Friday nights. I really was happy there. I knew right away that it was where God wanted me and had purposefully placed me.

***

Okay, so its now 3:02 AM and I need to go to bed. I will be posting the second and third parts of this story over the next week or so. I'm also planning some fun stuff to leave at Papa Murphys for people to remember me by. Not that they will forget obnoxious me anytime soon...

Do I Really Love the Rain?

This one is strait from one of my journals from back on May 12, 2009. But I actually kind of wrote it to share with people.

***

There is a song called I Love the Rain by Rock and Roll Worship Circus that has helped me through some interesting times. I first heard the song in middle school at my old youth group. We sang it in worship and I always loved it. After several years of searching for it in vain, I found the song on Youtube and downloaded it immediately. Its now one of my favorite songs.

Its a pretty simple song with just two verses and a chorus, but the words carry so much meaning. The first verse talks about how when you love someone, the love can become so intense that it makes you cry. It ends by exclaiming that as much as we may love a human, God loves us infinately more.

The chorus presents the analogy that the rain is like tears falling down from the Father's face as an expression of love towards us.

The seocond verse talks about when we mess up and how ashamed we fee. We sometimes wonder if there is anything that will wash that shame away. The chorus presents the answer that the rain, God's tears of love for us, is more than enough to wash away our shame.

For some reason, this analogy really hit me. Maybe its because I live in Washington and we have such a massive amoung of rain here. I always seem to look at the rain as such a bad thing but maybe its not!

There was a night a couple of months ago where I felt horrible and unloved. I had been trying for a long time to be somebody I wasn't. Things had come to a head and I had had a conversation with a friend that really helped me to see how much of a vain, selfish person I could be.

I went to bed that night crying, begging God to restore my heart. I honestly felt ashamed about the life that I was living. Its not like I had been doing 'bad' things like drinking or sleeping around. But I had been showing absolutely no compassion to other people. I was puttig myself and my own needs ahead of everybody elses.

So I went to bed that night and prayed that Christ would re-enter my life and teach me how to love others, how to see their needs and place them before mine. I prayed that God would take away my shame.

As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, it began to rain pretty hard. I listened to the rain on my window and roof and the words to this song came to mind. At that instant, I knew that God was listening to my cries. He did remove my shame and has really transformed the way that I look at others.

"I love the rain. Its like tears are falling from my Father's face. I love the rain. Tears from up above...thats my Father's love."

What In The World Do I Want?

As you may or may not know, I am about to start at a new college to focus on earning a certificate in dental assisting. I have had a goal of going into the dental field for a loooooong time. I think I was 7 when I first decided that I wanted to be a dental hygienist. Now I want to be an assistant, but really I didn't change my mind much. I feel so awesome about finally being able to start doing something with this goal! Its so crazy for me to think that I'll be looking for my first job in this career in two years or less! I'm so excited.

But here is the problem with growing up and starting a career. There are SO many other things I'd also like to do with my life. I always joke around about this, but I am completely serious. I want to be a merch girl. Maybe even a tour manager or road crew. I don't know. I just think it would be so awesome to see the country by traveling all over it in a van or bus. I used to think it would be the greatest thing ever to be a professional musician myself, but luckily God has taken that desire away from me. Music is a hobby for me and I'm totally happy with that. But this dream of being a merch girl hasn't died. In fact, its just grown and grown!

I have always said that I want to live in Anacortes for the rest of my life. But-shocker-I think that that has begun to change. I am actually thinking that after I start my career and earn some money, I'd like to move to Nashville and get a job at an office there. My heart is so in music and I know I would feel perfectly at home there!

Another crazy dream that I have is to audition for Survivor. I know that there is only about a 0.000001% chance I'd ever get picked, but I still just would love to audition for the heck of it! Who knows, maybe God has a plan all worked out for me to go on the show. I don't know! I just know that I want to and plan to audition.

I also know that at some point in my career I want to go to an impovrished community (I'm currently thinking somewhere in Africa) where I can minister to the people as well as provide some health care for them. I'm thinking this won't be for quite a long time, maybe 20 years out. but who really knows! I could graduate from school and have the oppertunity come up immediately!

I have so much I want to do its crazy! I know that God has a plan for me. He just hasn't revealed much of it yet. Right now He is telling me to go to school so thats what I'm gonna do. But who knows what tomorrow will bring! Its just so crazy for me when I consider that God has a plan for me. It literally could be ANYTHING! I do feel that I have a calling for something involving music, but even that is such a broad area! I'm so excited to see where I end up!

My First Blog: Sleepless Nights/Introduction

I remember a couple of years ago when my sister Jen still lived at home, I used to harshly criticize her for always staying up so late and being so tired during the day. She wouldn't go to bed until probably 2 AM and she would always be late to wake up in the morning and therefore late to school. I always went to bed around 10 or 11 and woke up when I was supposed to. Jen moved away go England and I took over her bedroom. I started college and slowly got less and less sleep. Working two jobs and going to college full time while only 16 is pretty difficult, I must say. I remember there was one particularly difficult week where I would start my first class of the day at 8:30 by drinking a Red Bull and a Starbucks Doubleshot can one after the other. Despite how it seemed, though, I really only stayed up until maybe midnight most of the time. It was more my business that wore me out.

I finished up my degree early and have basically had the last 5 months off of school. I have spent the last 5 months slowly teaching myself to go to bed later and later. I usually don't go to bed until about 2:30. I think my record was 5:30 because I decided to clean my room. That next day was fun since I had to wake up at about 9:00. So my mom has definitely noticed this change in my sleeping patterns and has so kindly reminded me of how I used to criticize Jen for staying up so late. I think it has something to do with this bedroom...

So all of this to say that I have spent a lot of my sleepless nights reading blogs as well as writing stuff of my own. Nothing has been posted online before, but I guess maybe it will be now since I have started this! I have a lot of thoughts swirling around in my mind, a lot of things I have been learning, and some of them will make it onto this blog.

A little bit about me:

My name is Katie. I am 18 years old. I have an AA degree and will be starting school next month to get a certificate in Dental Assisting. I've wanted to do this for at least a decade. Pretty crazy. I play electric, acoustic and bass guitar, but really only in my bedroom. Hopefully that will be changing soon. I name pretty much everthing I own. My car ('94 Honda Civic) is named Adelaide after the song by Anberlin. My laptop is Sean-the-Laptop because of an inside joke. And my Blackberry is Lucille, or Lucy for short. I named her after Lucille Ball because she is red with a pink cover.

I work two jobs. I have worked at Papa Murphys since April 21st, 2007. I know its wierd that I know that date, but that job seriously changed my life. More on that later. I also work at a dentist office. I started volunteering there in January of 2008 and got hired as an office assistant in June of 2008. I'm hoping to go full time in the near future.

I got a tattoo as an 18th birthday present to myself. I wasted no time and got it only three days after my birthday. But its okay because I had wanted this specific tattoo for over a year. My family still is not too pleased that I got it because none of them like tattoos, but oh well. I prayed about it and felt complete peace about getting it! I got it on my foot and it says 'agape' which is a Greek word for 'love.' I got it from the New Testement of the Bible. It means everlasting love, or more specifically, God's love for us. I got this tattoo on my foot for two reasons. First of all, it is practical because it can be covered up quite easily. But secondly, I got it there because it is one of the locations that Jesus was pierced with a nail, one of the locations that so greatly represents God's love for us.

Random facts:
My favorite Starbucks drink: A grande iced coffee with milk, breve, add shot, substitute either caramel, hazelnut or vanilla syrup.
My favorite bands: Flyleaf followed by Barlowgirl.
My dream Car: A yellow convertible Mini Cooper, which I will be buying on my 24th birthday.
My dream job: A merchandise girl/tour manager for a moderately succesful band.
My favorite song/music video: The Way She Feels by Between the Trees
My favorite place: The hillside at the Gorge during Creation.
My biggest accomplishment: Graduating from Skagit Valley College back in June.
My favorite brand of jeans: American Rag