The Engaged Idealist

So I'm copying this my good friend, Chrissie! You should check out her incredibly cute blog

{HERE}

She had this personality test in her latest blog post, so I decided to take it and then blog about it too! :) Here are my results:

Your personality type: "Engaged Idealist"

Popular and sensitive, with outstanding people skills. Externally focused, with real concern for how others think and feel. Usually dislike being alone. They see everything from the human angle and dislike impersonal analysis. Very effective at managing people issues and leading group discussions. Interested in serving others and probably place the needs of others over their own needs.

Careers that could fit you include:

Teachers, consultants, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, clergy, sales representatives, human resources, managers, events coordinators, politicians, diplomats, writers, actors, designers, homemakers, musicians, religious workers.

Apparently, I am {VERY} much an extrovert - just as extroverted as one can be. This test doesn't define extroversion as being outgoing, but rather it means that I am more concerned with the outer world and my effect on it than being more interested in my inner-self and my own ideas.

I am much more intuitive than sensing. So I gather information by interpreting patterns, possibilities, and meanings, rather than by fact .

Again, very much feeling over thinking, which means that I decide things based on what matters to my self and others and interpreting feelings rather than logic and analysis.

I'm closer to the middle with judging/perceiving, but more so judging. And no, that doesn't mean I'm a judgmental person. It means that when it comes to structuring my life, I tend to organize, plan, and like to be in control, whereas perceiving means one responds and acts with flexibility and spontaneity. I think it's completely true - I am very much a planner, and prefer things that way, but at the same time I can be very flexible and spontaneous if the moment arises.

So that's me in a nutshell!...according to this quiz, anyway! You should try it:

[Take the Quiz!]

Livin' the Good Life

Life is good.

Like, really, really good right now.

Yeah, I'm still drowning in homework.

But it's two weeks till the semester's over: what do you expect?

Other than that, life is fabulous.

I've been having an awesome time with my staff.
I have such a wonderful staff.

My girls are all amazing.

I consider them all my babies, my sisters, my friends.

They're my girls.

My residents are wonderful.

I am such good friends with so many of them.

I'm really proud of myself for that: building relationships with the residents.

I was really worried that with becoming a Hall Manager, I would lose touch with residents, but I haven't and it's been great!

My cousin's bridal shower is this weekend which I'm {super} exited for! And we have our End of the Year Banquet for Residence Life. I'm very excited but very not excited for that. It marks the end of the year, it's the time for a lot of goodbyes, and it will be rough night me, that's a promise. But a good night all the same.

I also have a dinner date with the future in-laws on Friday night that I'm incredibly excited about.

Oh, and I have an amazing boyfriend who comes in 42 days.

Gosh I can't WAIT.

Life is good. It's hard, and draining, and terribly exhausting at the moment, but still: so incredibly wonderfully beautiful and fun. And I am lovin' it.

Workin' Playlist

A playlist for ya'll.

Just some of my favorite tunes.

A variety of genres and sounds.

Good workin' music.

I think so anyway...

Check 'em out.

1. Best Love Song - T. Pain ft. Chris Brown
2. The Story - Brandi Carlile
3. Marry Me - Train
4. Colder Weather - Zac Brown Band
5. Double Vision - 3OH!3
6. Breathless - The Corrs
7. Wildflower - The JaneDear Girls
8. Heaven is a Place on Earth - Belinda Carlisle
9. Felt Good on my Lips - Tim McGraw
10. Vanilla Twilight - Owl City
11. Next 2 You - Chris Brown ft. Justin Bieber
12. Wonderful - Gary Go
13. Every Rose Has Its Thorns - Poison
14. Dreamer - Chris Brown
15. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
16. No Sleep - Wiz Khalifa
17. Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks
18. Remember When It Rained - Josh Groban
19. Enchanted - Taylor Swift
20. Bow Chicka Wow Wow - Mike Posner

~Smile~

Things that make me smile and make the whole world better:

Babies laughing:

Puppies:

Puppies and Babies Together...

Cute Baby Animals:

Browse the Adorable-ness!

Flowers

Gorgeous Sunsets:

Cute Old Couples:

In a Nutshell

I'm finally writing again. I haven't had the time {or the heart} to write in forever, far too long. Okay, it's only been like a week and a half, but I consider that too long. So much has been happening, so much has been on my mind these days.  

I'll start with something happy: a Thomas update. Thomas is on his last transfer! He's with a greenie (a fresh new missionary, just starting his mission) so he's loving being able to train his new companion and "show him the ropes." He's super excited for this last transfer too, because he gets to "shotgun" the area. That means, both him and his companion are new to the area, so it's a fresh start which means they both have to work extra hard to do the work. Well, Tom would say he "gets to" work extra hard...that boy, I tell ya. He is loving being a missionary. I think he's going to have a hard time adjusting to the real world when he comes home, but I'll guess we'll see in 46 days! He's in Declo, ID now for the last 6 weeks.

The hall, my Prucha Ladies. *sigh* Things are kinda starting to get back to normal in Prucha. I have to take Kersten's memorial down tomorrow. I don't know how to do that. It's been up two weeks, but it feels like just yesterday. Taking it down is going to break my heart. I'm doing okay. Kinda. I've been "lectured" by my supervisor and my counselor that I need to change the way I've been handling things. I've been told I'm giving too much of myself to my staff and the residents, that I need to start taking care of myself. I was given the "homework" assignment of one hour away from the building to take time from myself. This was meant to accomplish two things:

1) Show me that the staff and the residents could survive without me for an hour.
2) That it's not selfish, but necessary,for me to take time for myself so that I'm not constantly "putting on a face"

I didn't do it. I wanted to, kinda, but I ended up spending that night in my apartment with various staff members throughout the night. Which I like too. There's only three weeks left of the school year. Three. Weeks. Oh my goodness, that breaks my heart. I can't imagine this is the end of my career in Residence Life. I love this job so much. I adore my girls. I am so not even close to ready for this year being over. It has been the most wonderful experience of my life. I'm not going to ramble about it now, because it makes me sad and I'm sure I'll be writing much about the end of the year in the coming weeks...

It was mine and Tom's five year anniversary on the 14th. It was just like any other day. Nothing exciting happened. No extra feelings of love or of being loved. It was just your average Thursday. The Monday after though, I got a package from him. And it was lovely. Just wonderful. He made a sort of scripture scavenger hunt thing. The box was filled with about 20 plastic eggs, and in each plastic egg were two little slips of paper. On each paper was a scripture, followed by a word number. For example: "John 3:16 word 2" The slips of paper were numbered, so that I looked up all the words in a particular order, and then once I found all 40-some words, they spelled out a wonderful message to me: "Katie Jo I miss you so. Seems like its been forever that I have been gone. You are my world. I love you with every particle of my being. Happy fifth year anniversary. I cannot wait to be with you for eternity." He also sent me this book in which he had cut out a square in the middle of the pages and put in it some pearls and red jewels along with some scriptures about how a virtuous woman is more precious than pearls and rubies...I forgot the exact scripture and I don't have it anywhere near me at the moment since I'm back at home and it's back at school. And he sent me his disk for his camera, full of pictures and videos! It was wonderful.

I'm struggling these days trying to figure out what exactly it is that I want in life. I'm questioning virtually everything it seems in my life. I think part of the reason I'm all of sudden doing this is because of Kersten's death and partly because Tom is so close to coming home. I'm looking at my life and trying to figure out if there's things I wanna change about who I am or how I am living. I am looking really hard at my life trying to make sure Thomas is the one for me. I know, for those of you who know Thomas and I, this seems incredibly dumb. Anyone who knows us together has always always always talked about us getting married. And I sit and fantasize about our our future: him coming home, our wedding, our life together. And it's all prefectly wonderful and exciting...but then there's this nagging feeling at the back of all my thoughts: What if he's changed? What if I've changed? What if we've changed? And that scares me sooo much. We had...have...the most amazing relationship I could have ever hoped for. Every day with him is the best day of my life. But that was before the mission. I have no idea what it's going to be like after the mission. As the day of his return gets closer, I find myself getting less and less excited, and more and more nervous. It doesn't help that everyone is always talking about how much of an adjustment it's going to be for us too. Everyong talks about how we're going to have to start all over, get to know each other again, and that things will be different.

And then, on top of Thomas, I think about myself. Sometimes feel like there's so much in life that I'm missing out on. I feel like I'm being held back, that I haven't really lived or done anything exciting. I'm a boring person. Okay, I'm not boring, I'm pretty crazy and obnoxious, but I never do anything crazy. I just feel boring.

I guess I better stop because this post is getting long...far too long. So this is my chaotic crazy rambling brain at the moment...in a nutshell.

All We Need is Time

I love my job.

Maybe that's an understatement.

My job is amazing and has changed my life and who I am.

I have built to so many incredible relationships.

Relationships that will last a lifetime.

I love my job.

I love my girls - my RA staff, my residents.

I am very much the "mama" of my building.

I truly love each and every one of the 200 women in my building, and I am protective of my girls.

That's why this past week has been just about unbearable.

One of our girls was found dead in her room the morning of
Thursday, April 7th.

It was devastating that day, and things are still broken in the hall.

To lose one of my girls like that is beyond heartbreaking.

Her name was Kersten.

Her funeral was wonderful - as wonderful as a funeral could be.

It was literally overflowing with people.

People had to stand and some had to sit outside the church.

It was an amazing sight to see so much love for one person, but at the same time, all that more heartbreaking, knowing how many people were hurting, just how many people she had impacted.

I'm doing okay, as okay as I can anyway.

The initial guilt is gone. But the heartache lingers.

Her door is empty. I hate walking past it.

But I'm healing. Slowly, but surely.

What breaks my heart now are my girls still here.

It kills me to see them hurting.

It breaks my heart to see them in pain.

My staff, my residents.

I see them cry and all I can do is hug them and cry with them.

I don't know what to do, or what to say.

I would give anything, anything, to be able to take this pain away from them.

I wish I could do something.

I hate knowing how much they hurt.

It breaks my heart.

I know it will take time.

I know that.

I just wish it was easier.

I love my girls more than anything.

I just have to give them time.

It's Finished!

Woohoo!

I did it.

I finally came up with an idea for Tom's anniversary gift.

And I started it and finished it in one night.

Yes, I'm proud of myself too.

So what is it you ask?

It's a "Promise Book."

Allow me to explain...

It all started because originally I thought of doing a coupon book of coupons for him to use when he comes home from the mission. But then I realized just how lame that was. Everyone does coupon books. Plus, I'm pretty sure I've made a coupon book for him before. Anywho, so that just wouldn't do. Not spectacular enough for five years together.

Then I thought of promises. Not coupons, but promises. All the promises I could make to him for when he comes home and for the rest of our life together.

Then I expanded on that...a book of promises, filled with pictures and doodles to go along with each promise.

So I went out and got a blank book that I could fill with these promises. There was one problem: The book was huge. There were A LOT of pages. And while I could probably come up with enough promises to fill the whole book, I simply did not have the time to try to do so. So I got creative...

The first half is a promise book. It's filled with promises from me to him about the rest of forever together. The second half is a journal for us. Tons of blank pages for us to journal our lives together. We'll still have our separate journals for ourselves, but this will be one for us to do together. One to chronical our life once he's home and keep track of all our memories, experiences, and precious moments that we go through together as we grow old together.

Here's my final product (well, some of the pages anyway):



The final page before we begin our journal together.

So this is [part of] the final product! I'm also sending him the the sketches I made and talked about in earlier posts, and two anniversary cards (because I couldn't decide on just one), and a letter. It's not a very full package, but I think he'll like it just the same. I'm planning on doing more for him as a "real" celebration of five years together when he's home from the mission. Oh, and it's now Sunday which means it is officially less than two months till he returns!
59 days.