The Past Month

Hi all! First let me apologize for not writing a blog in roughly a month, I feel I have been lacking motivation to write and/or not a terribly exciting week to write about, but it's today I have lots to talk about!
First off, I just got back into Harrisburg yesterday from spending a week at home with my family and friends. I flew to Minneapolis last Friday and stayed till Sunday. I was in Mankato for a couple days to see friends and then my mom picked me up and I spent the rest of my time in Iowa. Let me tell you, going home came at a perfect time. I was feeling out-of-it, not terribly motivated (I'm usually a highly motivated person), and just homesick in general. So, even though the Midwest weather proved itself correct, meaning its unpredictable and the sun didn't know where to be happy or sad, I had a wonderful time at home in the 40 degree weather and clouds and rain. While at home, I ate my mom's home cooked meals, saw a lot of family and friends, and relaxed. On Tuesday, I didn't even get out of pajamas, which is insane for me and rarely ever happens! This was the last time before I would come home permanently so it was very special to me since I hadn't seen my family since Christmas. I will be leaving the East coast in late July to come to graduate school in Minnesota. There was a slump for me after service trips to now that just moved slow, one of my favorite sayings is "Moving slower than a stampede of turtles through peanut butter" and that is definitely how I was feeling. I feel more refreshed now than I have since March and its nice to be able to leave the East coast for a little bit to enjoy the simple things in life. Looking at stars at night, not hearing traffic all the time, seeing the windmills off of I-35, Iowa sunsets, less traffic. I miss all of those things, I am definitely ready and excited to come back to Iowa and Minnesota, but I will enjoy my last few months in Pennsylvania, I am hoping it will go by fast.

Visiting two of my favorite little girls

Dickinson is closing up it's semester. Next week is the last week of classes for students and the following week is finals and senior week. Graduation includes baccalaureate and graduation outside the building Old West which is original to the campus when it first started. It is also symbolic because when you are a first year, you have a ceremony of walking up the stairs, as if you are walking and committing to Dickinson when you get here. Graduation is opposite, you are walking across the stage and down the stairs, symbolizing that your time has come to an end and you are graduated. One thing that will be really cool is the Mark Ruffalo, the actor of the Hulk in Avengers, he was in Foxcather, 13 Going On 30 and countless more movies, will be doing the commencement speech because he will be working with Dickinson  next year with a huge sustainability project. I hear about 500 people attend graduation, but I suspect with Mark being here and Avengers coming to theaters very soon, I suspect there will be many people from the community who just want to come check him out and see him speak.
This will be my 3rd week (technically 4th, but I missed one week) of my basic drawing class I am taking through the Art Association of Harrisburg. This class has been very fun! It is very small, there are four of us in the class and the teacher. So far, we have worked on grey scale and trying to get used to the different types of pencils we are using and then we worked on drawing cubes and cylinders. We learned if you can draw a cube, you can pretty much draw any chair imaginable. Drawing cylinders lets you draw any type of can, but it is also a stepping stone to drawing a cup and saucer. I have practiced many of those, I could probably sell them for about a million dollars, if I do say so myself. They are pretty nice, but I am also biased :)
On Saturday, I will be going to Hershey Park with my office and some students. I am very excited for this!! I haven't been on a good roller coaster in what feels like 30 years and I'm not even 24 years old yet! So I will be taking full advantage of that and hopefully enjoy time in the sun!
I DID IT! I actually completed one of my New Years Resolutions! I read all of the Harry Potter books and have (almost) watched all the movies. I only have to watch the movie, which is broken into two. I was surprised that I really enjoyed the books, I was so anti-Harry Potter when it came out, but I wish I would have read the books when I was in 5th grade, when they came out, because I was the same exact age as the characters and when they grew, I would have grown with them. Oh well, I am finished with them and actually enjoyed them. My brothers favorite character is Peeves for devious reasons, I would say mine is Dobby because he is special and adds a bit of humor but I also enjoy Sirius Black and Fred and George Weasley.
Also, my favorite day happened. If you know me and my love for Miss Congeniality, you will understand.

I think I will move blogging to bi-weekly occurrence, but it may be weekly every of often, I will just keep you on your toes :)
Happy Monday!
Katie

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! (a little late...) Yes, I am a day late in wishing that but this weekend was filled with lots of great company, Harry Potter, tons of candy, and beautiful flowers!
This was my first Easter away from my family in Iowa and the first Easter I have ever spent at a Episcopal Church. Let me tell you, St. Stephens looked incredible! I asked my mentor, Anne, who works in the flower guild of the church, and they spent hours and hours on the arrangements at the alter and the garden in front of the pews. I can easily see why it took hours, the garden had little butterflies that moved and floated with a little waterfall. The alter was a sun and was huge. The decorating went all the way down to having put Koi fish into the baptismal water. Because I am in the cathedral choir, I had a pretty busy week. We sung at Maundy Thursday and then had practice after that. We sung at Easter Vigil and then sang in 2 of the 3 services on Easter Sunday. I have never seen so many people at our services before until Easter. It was completely full of people and it was great to see. There were children, which our church does not traditionally have a lot of small children but this weekend there was! They had a large Easter egg hunt in the Bishop's Garden on Sunday and all the kids were very excited to get more candy from what the Easter Bunny had already given them.

I was very lucky and I was able to join Tina and her family for Easter. I spent three nights with her and when we weren't singing in the choir, we were most likely watching Harry Potter and stuffing our faces with candy. As many of you know, I decided that I was going to read and watch all the Harry Potter's for the first time. I was very anti-Harry Potter for years, and this year for one of my New Years Resolution was going to be read and watch them all. Which was great, because all three of the kids love the movies and the two oldest have read the books as well! I had over 19 hours of Harry Potter ahead of me, but unfortunately, we ran out of time. We only got through 6 of the 8 movies. I was not able to finish the last book before Easter, so that gives me time to actually read it and enjoy reading it- everything happens for a reason!
All the kids did very well with their lent this year and every year they get what they gave up for lent. I did not get very far in my lent. I lasted about 2 weeks. I gave up bread for lent which proved to be impossible when I went to Georgia with the service trip. Regardless, the kids did great and got rewarded! One of them gave up all meat, and for Sundays lunch/dinner got London Broils from the Easter Bunny. Tina went Vegan so she got cheese and we had cheese omelets in the morning for breakfast. I am so grateful that they opened their house to me for so many nights and included me in all of their family outings.
I am also very excited for tonight (Monday) because I start my art class at the Art Association of Harrisburg. It is a class every Monday until June from 7-9pm. This class is basic drawing and I will be working with all kinds of mediums that I have not worked with before. Ink, charcoal, pencils, pastels, and a few other methods will all be used! I am very excited to meet new people in my class and to be working with my hands again! I have always loved being crafty, especially with scrapbooking but this will be a new skill for me, which is very exciting! I'm sure I will dislike some of them, but I hope to create a new hobby that I can carry over to when I go back to the Midwest.

This week at work will be pretty laid back compared to the few upcoming weeks. I will focusing on programming a party for service trips called Service Trip Extravaganza. I am also still working on the President's Honor Roll and I hope to complete that this week!

Giant Gummy Bunny