Sometimes.

Sometimes I go on Pinterest. 

And I'm jealous of those clothes. 

I'm jealous of that house. 

I'm jealous of her hair. 

I'm jealous of those people who choose to make time to cook all that food and make all those crafts. 

Sometimes I go for a run. 

And I hate every second of it. 

I hate that road. 

I realllly hate that hill. 

I hate feeling like I'm about to pass out. 

Sometimes I miss Minnesota. 

I get worried about all the upcoming rainy days here in Seattle. 

I know I'll miss the snow...a little bit. 

I miss my grandparents. 

I miss my friends. 

Sometimes I worry about the future. 

Sometimes I wear the same jeans 5 days in a row at work. 

Sometimes I get so happy and hyper for no reason. 

Sometimes I buy mint Oreos. And eat them all in 2 days. 

Sometimes I wish I could live out in the middle of nowhere, no technology, no electricity, no running water. 

Sometimes I just want to be bored. 

Sometimes I honestly think I'm crazy.

Sometimes I want to go back to school. Like really, really bad.

Sometimes I want a dog. 

Sometimes I question EVERYthing. 

And you know what?

I think sometimes that's all okay. 

Learning to Listen.

This weekend I will be moving for the 11th time in 7 years. 

I'm ridiculous. 

But, really, it's preventing me from ever becoming a hoarder, so that's a plus. 

While counting up the moves, I realized that number is high because I've been blessed to stay at places for free. Nicole and I got to "house-sit" for 4 months, I lived with my parents for a month before moving to Denver (yes this counts, I had to physically move all of my stuff AND change my mailing address) and most recently I was able to stay with Karen for 7 months before I had a stable job here in Washington. 

Each of these blessings came at crucial times in my transitions to new states where it would have been financially impossible for me to move without them. 

I don't think that was just luck. 

The Lord has quite literally opened the doors for me to continually affirm that I'm on the right path. However, I've also done a lot of waiting in the hallways. I've even forced open and peeked into the wrong doors at times. 

But I've been learning lately how to recognize and discern when the Holy Spirit is urging me to "go" (or do, or say, or act)  and when he's urging me to actively choose to NOT. 

I believe it's different for everyone, as we all have different and unique experiences, faith levels, and personal relationships with Jesus. 

Because of this, we can't wait for a Sunday sermon or a famous Christian author to tell us how exactly to know what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do when it comes to specific situations. Like which college to choose. Which house to buy. Which job to take. To go to the party or not. 

But if you ask Him to teach you how to listen to Him, He will show you. 

Here's what I've learned so far (but remember, it might be different for everyone!):

1) Pray first. 

2) Compare it with the foundational morals in the Bible. (Ex: adultery is always a NO) 

2) Ask the opinions of Christians you trust.

3) Pray again. 

4) Visualize each scenario prayerfully and ask for peace about the right one. 

Every time I've done this for big life decisions, I've eventually either had a "bad gut" feeling or total peace about what I should do. 

It's so hard sometimes. Because I often want to go when He says no. And He says go and I say noo way. 

But He is so gracious. And so good. And I usually learn later why I should have listened to Him the first time. Then I am more trusting to follow His leading the next time. And His way is always more fulfilling, filled with way more adventures (the good kind), and way less shame, guilt, and regrets. 

So I challenge you to pay attention to how the Holy Spirit speaks to you! He may use different means (dreams, situations, the Bible) to speak to you, but you should start to recognize what is from Him. 

I've got a lotttt to learn. I sometimes feel like I'm just getting started. 

And I've never been so excited. 

A Letter to my Teenage Self.

What do you get when you mix braces, glasses, crazy shyness, goody-goodyness, bushy eyebrows and straight A's? 

You get teenage Kirsten. 

Okay, I really wasn't QUITE as nerdy as I just made myself sound. Promise. But...pretty close. At least I was athletic. 

I loved my childhood and high school years. I honestly wouldn't change a thing. As the saying goes, I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't go through that awkward braces AND glasses thing...at the same time. 

I stayed out of trouble, had awesome experiences, and grew up in a happy home. 

But if I could write myself a note of advice and pass it back to teenage Kirsten, this is what it would say: 

First of all, enjoy being a kid. Yes, even as a teenager. Embrace the silliness. Eat too many cookies.  Laugh hard, uncontrollably, and for no reason with friends. Lose track of time. 

Don't take so many prom pictures with your date. Sure, take a few, but take most of them with your girl friends. Those are the ones you will hang up in your college dorm room, two boyfriends later. 

Be less selfish. 

Enjoy mom's cooking. Learn how to cook with her! You may get sick of some of those "same old" meals, but those recipes will mean so much to you once you live on your own, thousands of miles away from home. Thank her after every meal. 

Befriend more people in school. Don't wait for them to befriend you first. 

Push yourself harder in sports. Your work ethic in sports evolves into your work ethic in a future job. Don't take shortcuts or "just get by". 

Also, you WILL have conflicts with a teammate/coach. Learn from it. Have patience. Keep your cool. You will have conflicts with future coworkers/bosses someday, and you can't just "quit the team (job)" when you don't get your way. Well, you can, but that's not usually the route you want to take.  

Go ahead and date if you want. You'll learn a lot. Just be careful. 

Take your faith seriously. Start growing it now. Your college years will soon really test you. 

Don't be embarrassed about taking that job at the Garbage/Recycling plant. That high school job of learning to drive a forklift will get you your first "career" job with your dream company. Also, it's a pretty bomb story to tell. What 16 year old girl learns how to drive 8 pieces of heavy machinery!? 

Smile big in that sports photo when you have the big gap in your teeth in the middle of all that orthodontic work...sure it's not cute. But neither is an awkward smile hiding your teeth!

I don't know what I could tell you to be more confident, because I know it comes with time. But know that life has many huge adventures for you, high school is just the training wheels. 

So start getting out of your comfort zone now. Some of the best parts of your next 10 years happen there. 

Stop worrying! Yes, there will be some challenges along the way, but you get through them. And you'll become a better, stronger person because of them. 

Just trust me, you're going to have a pretty fun life with lots of adventures and happiness. And I'm speaking from only 25. I hope 80 year old Kirsten will tell us the same thing :) 

This Season of Life.

It has now been over 6 months that I've been a Washington resident. That...is crazy. But I fall more and more in love with this state and the awesome people in it every day. 

Some other crazy exciting news!? I will be a World Vision employee again as of this Monday!  I've been working there for a few weeks now, but as a temp. I will now be a Warehouse Specialist again, and yes, I have quickly re-acclimated to wearing jeans, a baggy shirt, ponytail and minimal makeup to work. Although sometimes I still go home and dress up for no reason just to feel girly ;) 

So starting next week I will again be officially official. Washington will be my third state in which I've worked for this awesome organization that does such amazing work!! (I love World Vision, can you tell?)

Some new coworkers! (Not my picture)

God is so faithful! Always, always. 

I also will soon be moving to an apartment with my friend Emily who is moving out here from Minnesota! I have been SOO unbelievably blessed to have been able to live with Karen since I was pretty "financially unstable" when I moved out here. Now she is headed to move and live the exciting downtown-Seattle life and I can afford to get an apartment! 

God is again faithful and His timing is perfect. 

Along with all the blessings, there are definitely some difficulties. The hardest part, especially lately, is being so far away from family and specifically my grandparents as they've recently had a series of strokes and a major heart attack. Although it kills me to not easily go and visit them when things like that happen, and even through all of the frustration, sadness and tears on my part...I am still affirmed in my heart that this is where I am supposed to be. No doubt in my mind. 

But that still doesn't make it any easier to be far away. 

This season of life continues to be full of changes, transitions, and never quite getting settled in anywhere for very long. But I'm ultimately enjoying the journey and have been blown away with how much God is teaching me through it. 

Patience. Truly being patient.

Trusting in His timing. Like, for real trusting. Not making up my own agenda for how things should go. 

Knowing when to leap. Not using "I'm being patient" as an excuse when I know I should actually be going out of my comfort zone in response to a call to action. (That is a hard, but important differentiation.)

And most of all, I'm learning that no matter where I live, or who I hang out with, or where I work, or how far away I am from my family....my Jesus remains right here in my life and never ceases to show up. And He is fully, 100% deserving of all praise and total control over my life. 

Because guess what? 

He is faithful. And His timing is perfect. 

An Unlikely Idol.

As I'm sure everyone with social media now knows, my parents were just out here visiting. And the entire time I was having a battle inside myself regarding smartphones and social media. 

The thought of spending any time at all glued to my phone during the few precious days with my out-of-state family is embarrassing. 

But here was my battle: I was constantly desperate to capture every fun and happy moment. By photo, video, vine, tweet, Facebook post, text...anything. It needed to be documented. 

I wanted to capture every moment in every way imaginable on this silly smartphone because I knew every moment was fleeting. Even now, it seems like their visit was here and gone before I could even exhale. 

They're gone. But my phone isn't. It holds the memories inside of it. I can look back at them and smile. Then I quickly feel sad at the realization that I was busy photo snapping when my parents were right here with me. But I was fully aware of this battle at the time. 

A constant battle between being fully present in the actual moment...and my desperation to save the moment in any way possible to look back on later. 

We've all heard it and said it and probably agreed with it: Social media and smartphones have changed our real life relationships. 

However, I would say that my relationship with my parents this past trip wasn't necessarily affected by my photo snapping. But it made me just a little more attached to my phone. 

It almost felt like a teeny tiny glimpse of slavery. It has become almost an idol. I don't want to be on it, but I feel like I NEED to be. I feel like if I don't capture a picture or video, then it never really happened. 

And how ridiculous. 

Smartphones, social media, and photos can be a huge blessing, but I think living within the tension of capturing the moments versus actually LIVING the moments is a difficult thing for some of us. 

Yep, guilty. 

But I'm not quite sure what to do with that...besides blog about it via my iPhone  and attach a few photos from Instagram and then share it on Facebook and Twitter. 

My New Friend.

I have a new friend at work. 

He's the janitor. And he's hilarious. 

His level of English is roughly equivalent to my level of very rusty Spanish. For the first few weeks this was obviously a HUGE barrier for our little talks at the end of our shifts.  Our conversations mostly consisted of taking turns giving each other the infamous 'deer in the headlight' look.

But one night I randomly answered his question in Spanish. 

His eyes got huge. 

He thought I was bluffing. And then I said (in Spanish) that I had lived in Guatemala for 4 months so knew some Spanish. 

Then he said something I couldn't understand. So then we laughed. And that's how we became friends. 

Ever since that night, I've had many more laughs, understood the most (ironically), and learned a bit about his wife and kids. I've decided to try only speak Spanish with him from now on. But this attempt has really just turned into a mess of Spanglish by both of us. 

And plenty more laughs.

I'm not one to say too much publically about my political views and how I tie them in with being a Christian, because it all still mostly confuses me and I'm still working through that. But here's my one statement: I don't think Jesus would be holding a sign up to my new friend saying, "You live in America! Speak English!" 

I think he would love him wherever he was at instead of reprimanding and ignoring him until he was fluent in his new language. 

Sure, I get people's view of this subject on the large-scale. But I'm not going to go there right now. That stuff hurts my brain, especially this late at night.

Yes, I know it will benefit him overall in America to speak fluent English. Yes, I want him to be successful. But right now,  on evenings when we are sitting at the gym before we kick everyone out and go our separate ways, my job is to somehow show him the love of Jesus. 

So I'm going to speak Spanish with my new friend at work. I've been convicted to put down my conversational advantage and fumble through my own somewhat limited skill to show him that I value him as a person, regardless of his English fluency (or lack thereof). Even if it's only for just 10 minutes. 

God puts people in our path every day that he calls us to love in even the smallest of ways, no matter how uncomfortable or awkward it may be. 

I need to do a better job of living out this concept with EVERYone I interact with each day. Whether small or big, easy or difficult, convenient or not, love is love. Show it any way you can think of. All the time. 

Because that's what Jesus did. 

Sunshine in Seattle.

Life in sunshine via pictures. Ready, Go! 

It's been super nice out lately. My boyfriend has a motorcycle, so obviously I "make him" (ask very nicely to) give me rides on it. My head was hurting this day because I was wearing bobby pins. Under a helmet. Because I'm smart. 

Also, We think we are sooo cool. Because we are. 

One day at work I wore my new white shoes. Then they made me water the plants which, well...live in dirt. So I became a genius. 

I ran my 3rd half marathon on Saturday. Wasn't super happy with my time or pace, but it was sunny and 75 out so I didn't really care. 

And they still give you medals if you finish, whether you beat your own PR or not so...that's always awesome.

Ps. These pictures were taken exactly a year apart. Who knew some clean eating would even make a little difference on my cheeks!? Okay, sorry, but I got excited.

That's the weather I'm bragging about. Because I totally control the weather. 

Boyfriend and I have been dating for over 365 days now. I'm glad he convinced me to date him. And move here. But I was pretty easily convinced. I mean look at him! And where we live!! 

*sigh* :) 

Yesterday I worked for over 14 hours. So today I got to hang out in the sun with these cuties and their wonderful mom! Aaand then I went back to work again tonight. But it was fun while it lasted. AND I got burnt. So, there's that, too. 

Okay that's enough picture updates for now, so I will leave you with this: