my dislike of journaling

I know, I know we are super bad at posting regularly. This whole "keeping you updated on the Penfield's" thing is not working out so well. :) The beginning of my 4th grade year I was home-schooled by my wonderful Mom. During that time she tried to make me keep a journal. And the reason why I say tried was because though I did write entries like she wanted they didn't say much. Most of them said something along the lines of:

"My mom is making me write in this thing. Not much happened today. I'm home doing school and very bored." The end

So as you can see it wasn't much of a journal and it didn't tell you too much about my life as a 4th grader. Again my junior year of high school my teacher made us write a journal once a week at the beginning of class. Her's was a little more structured because we were required to write about a certain subject and how it pertained to or affected our life. But still had this loathing for having to journal. And I basically wrote just enough to get by with a good grade. :)

So I guess basically what I am trying to say is that I am not good at journaling and in turn not good at blogging, but I am trying. My biggest problem is that I always feel like nothing significant enough happens to tell "the world" about it on our blog. Not that our life isn't great and wonderful, I just always wonder if people really care to hear about our daily schedule. :)

As you can see even now I am trying avoid getting to the part where I actually have write about what's happening in our life, because not much is new from my last post. But I will attempt anyways.


Blake I have decided we will be starting a new sort of "diet". I put the word diet in quotes because it's more of a life change in our eating habits. Just basically deciding to eat more healthy and possibly lose some weight in the process. :) We are going to do the Fat S*mash Diet. Basically it's a diet that starts you out with a 9 day detox where you can only eat fruits and veggies. Then for 2 weeks you still detox, but add in chicken and small portions of beef as well as very small amounts of grains. And finally in the last phase, as they call it, they allow you to have more of all of the above as well as incorporating have a sweet or a "less" healthy entree every now and then. This phase is to set the habit of eating healthy for life.

I will keep you updated on how all that goes. That's about it for now, but we start our "diet" on Monday so I will report more later. :)

till you're better

I've been thinking a lot about a single line in a song that we sang at church this past Sunday. It's from the fairly well known hymn called "Come ye Sinners". While the entire song is a very powerful and moving song, one line in particular really stood out to me this last Sunday as we sang the words:


Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

What really hit me was that last line about if you tarry until you're better than you will never come at all. So often in life we think we need to wait until we've gained more skill in something, made more money for something, become more comfortable in our surroundings or in the case of this song just simply become a better person or better at living life before we can ever accept the blessings that the Lord has in wait for us.

My heart aches when I think of the many people in the world who simply refuse the Lord because they believe that they must become "better" in order to be worthy of being accepted by Him. How wrong they truly are! Jesus did not die for people who are perfect and worthy of salvation. He died for sinners.

That means all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, doctors, lawyers, photographers, artists, prostitutes, criminals, police officers, tax collectors, fishermen, the poor, the rich, the strong, the weak, the blind, the lame, the disfigured, the models, the mentally handicapped, the genius, the student, the teacher, the child, the adult, the CEO, and the homeless, the white, the black, men, women....

The list could go on and on. He died for us all. So please do not tarry any longer, thinking you must wait until you're better or you will never come at all.

Happy Birthday Blake!

It's my wonderful hubby's birthday today!



I love you sooo much Blake and can't tell you how much I absolutely love being your wife. You are an amazing man and I truly look up to you. You show a kindness and love to me that I could never have dreamed of. I am so very blessed to be loved by you. I love you, babe!



Love,

your Katie

our busy life

I am sorry that it's been so long since I last posted. We have just been so busy getting settled into our schedules of work and school that I haven't even thought of our blog.

Blake started school on Aug. 24 and now has a pretty good idea of what to expect from daily classes, etc. He seems to be really enjoying it though it does keep him very busy. We have been traveling a lot lately seeing family all over Texas. This last weekend we traveled over to San Angelo to visit my grandparents and great-grandmother for my great-grandmother's 90th birthday. It was so fun to see everyone and celebrate with her on her special day.

This next weekend we are staying in Waco, which we are very excited about because we love just staying in town and doing nothing! :) Saturday is Blake's birthday so we will definitely be doing some celebrating. We had originally planned on going to SA for his birthday, but everyone's schedules did not match up so we are going the following weekend instead.

Well not to much else is new with the Penfield's. Just enjoying our first home and life together. Today we have been married for 80 days! Crazy how time flies! Anyways...hopefully I will get better about posting more often.

we've got crickets

So on a little lighter note, but still just as serious :)......we've got crickets. And when I say that I mean we HAVE GOT crickets. haha

We are having a ridiculous cricket infestation in our apartment. Every night they sing us to sleep in their "beautiful" shrill type of song. And it doesn't matter where you are sitting you will generally find a cricket on your shoulder after about 5 minutes. So basically if you don't like crickets, don't come to our house. :)

Every morning we wake up we find a couple floating in our toilet. However, yesterday we found quite a few more...


The pest control person is coming on Tuesday so I am praying that will help!

life decisions

I was thinking a lot today about the decisions we make in life. For our own lives me make hundreds of decisions every week. What we will wear, what we eat, the things we will watch on TV and the places we will go. However, the decisions I have been thinking a lot about are the decisions that we have to make for other people who are either unable or unwilling to make the decisions for themselves.

For instance for a child, making the decision of what they will wear and eat for the day because they are unable to choose wisely for themselves. Another decision would be for elderly, deciding to put them in a nursing home because they can no longer take care of themselves. One of the most heart breaking would be deciding to take someone off of life support because it is the only thing keeping them alive.

When I think about making tough decisions, it makes me feel tingly and anxious, but when I think about making tough decisions for other people it makes me feel nauseous. Having the responsibility of deciding something that could affect or change a life for another person it terrifying. I mean sure I can handle making small decisions for people like where to go eat and what they should wear, but it's the life impacting one's that scare me.

What got me thinking about all this was a text conversation I had with a friend of mine today. We were talking about having to make the decision for a child whether their birth father should remain in their lives or not. She was asking my opinion about the decisions my mother made for myself and how it affected my life. I've always recognized and respected that the decisions my mother made for me when I was first born were incredibly hard. And because of that I have always had an immense amount of respect for my mother and her ability to make those decisions.

I mean, yeah, I might give her a hard time now about how hard it is for her to decide if she's going to buy an outfit or not when we go shopping :), BUT the big, life-changing decisions she made for me when I was born have no room for ridicule or joking.....they have my ultimate respect and gratitude.

I told my friend that I have no advice for how to make those decisions and I can't imagine how hard it must be. However, I did tell her that I know the Lord has a plan and that he is in control of all. And that no matter the decisions you make, as long as you trust in him and seek to follow his will, the decisions won't matter whether they are "right" or "wrong", because the Lord will be in control of all.

So the next time you choose a pair of shoes or grab a bite to eat, praise God for his guidance in all decisions we make in life for both ourselves and those we love.

our new home

Here are some photos of our new home. Sorry it took me so long to get them up. I just had to find the right opportunity when it was clean and looked presentable! :)

Here is a couple of our bedroom:





Here is our bathroom:




This is Blake's office/guest bedroom:




Guest bathroom:




Livingroom:





The book case in our entryway, breakfast area and kitchen: