{nearly there...}

good news! i'm almost over my jet lag!

too bad this couldn't have happened before i started school. ah, well. soooo. updates!

my room still isn't cleaned. only half way. after work tonight i will start creating! i can't keep you guys in suspense for too much longer now, can i? haha. oh! for all of you who gave me your address for a postcard...i have them! i wrote them in switzerland. but because i couldn't speak german, i didn't get stamps. and i was unable to send them from switzerland. i hope you don't hate me! i have them on my desk and will be mailing them to you this weekend. just, they might have an american flag stamp on them, which is kind of weird, come to think of it, but hopefully you'll be okay with that. please?

i haven't uploaded switzerland photos quite yet. but my momma has! here are a couple i really liked (sorry they don't have my signature round corners! i took them from her flickr):

this is the clock tower in town. it's clocks disappeared every other day. i can't for the life of me figure out where they went! it's quite a dilemma.

these message walls were everywhere. i just thought they were the most awesome things ever. people stapled/tacked messages to fences or walls, and tore them down when they were done. i loved them. just loved them.

this was the view from our hotel window. we hiked to that waterfall.

basically, switzerland is the most beautiful place in the whole world. it is the place of my dreams, i think. really.

truth.

haha that painted fire hydrant there? that's sven. i named him. after a viking. and yes, inside of that innocent looking sign to the hotel were dolls. evil dolls. i had nightmares about them.

so that should tide you over for a while!

coming soon: pictures. of many a thing. creative stuff. etsy finds. gifts (thanks allison!! you're such a sweetie!!). other random niceness.

ciao!

{i wrote you a note}

goodbye, all! just so you know, if you do want a post card, i will actually get you one. just post your address by 10-ish so that i can check it.

and sorry for all who wanted to see my thrift finds! coming when i get back. see, this is what happens when you put off packing to the last minute.

and sit at the computer blogging when your suitcase is calling your name.

*sigh* i'm coming, i'm coming.

i'll miss you all! ciao!

{longish post coming your way}

i've got a lot of ground to cover in this post, seeing as though it's been a couple of days. i went up to wisconsin to get my little sister (who i haven't seen in a month!) from camp, and i had a great time re-living the memories from when i was a camper. i feel totally old, even though i'm totally not, because it seems like that was just me, like last year. riding up to camp, eating so many m&ms i got sick, missing home like crazy, marvelling at the beauty of creation, getting pelted with hail, shooting a gun (they trusted me??!!), camping (um...yuck), missing camp like crazy when i got home. it made me a little sad. but not too much.

anyway, i got some great pictures of the boats there, among other things. i got this one picture of an otter that really made me laugh (what is it about otters that is so funny? am i the only one with this problem?), but i didn't upload it. i took way a lot of pictures. especially at the hotel pool that night with my friend and sister...yeah. you can't see those either. but you can see some of the boats! because they were so colorful and pretty.



then i came home and made a journal from my scrap box. my scrap box is huge and has many many many many many random pieces of paper in there. i love it probably most out of all my supplies. i meant for it just to be beautiful and reflective, but it turned out to be beautiful, reflective, and pretty personal. so i decided not to take pictures of all the pages. it felt so great to get some journaling done, it's been a while. i did decide to take pictures of the cover, though :)

i made it out of: scraps of patterned paper, a business card, catalog pages, an invoice, a page of a french map, a greeting card, an envelope, a library card, an awesome pink playing card, post it notes, my favorite post card, an index card, and a 3d coloring book page. i love it. i'm going to make another one, later, and take pictures of the blank pages. maybe i'll even give it away.

you can see the rest of the photos from this weekend on my flickr.

i'll try to post every day this week, but no promises. i'm working on a pretty great project now that you can definitely see. plus also i think it's time you took a look at my sketch book. so pictures are coming your way, too. so until tomorrow, ciao!

{i'm back!}

and in one piece (barely)! costa rica was the absolute best trip of my entire life. i can't even think of where to begin to write about it (and certainly can't write it all!) so i'll start with some pictures.

these are some of the fantastic kids i got to teach the first week. my spanish skillz came in handy, but the fact that all of the kids are learning english kind of helped (a lot!). costa rica is on a different season schedule than those of us north of the equator (they're in winter right now!), so they had their winter break the second week. the girl in the middle of the last picture cried and cried when i left. she kept saying "kate, you're leaving me? i don't want you to go! don't leave me." it made me cry. i miss all of them so much!
i went to a zoo, and the parrot wasn't in a cage. it was pretty much amazing. when you spoke to it, it said "hola!", so i thought it deserved a space on the post. plus also i really liked the colors ;)

we did construction our second week. we dug ditches (shown here) that took forever, and i had a run in with a cement mixer we "fondly" called gordita (little fat woman, for those of you without spanish skillage). i have many bruises and sore muscles to show for all of this. plus a cement sidewalk and ditches for pipes. hooray!

costa rica was incredibly beautiful, and so were the people. even in the poorest parts of the city, eveyone was so welcoming and kindhearted. i could totally see the work of God everywhere. i felt so close to Him there-man. it was just the most amazing thing ever. i wasn't homesick once (much to my surprise {and my parents' dismay!}) and bawled when we left (our plane was delayed and we had a 28 hour travel day coming home with 4 hours of sleep, so i guess that's what i get!). i want to be a teacher when i grow up, and i can totally see myself teaching english on the missions field there. more on this later, but i just feel so full of spirit right now. best experience of my life.

in the creative department, i sketched project ideas out the whole trip. a couple of things are in the works. actually, many things. expect an influx of pictures coming soon!

i miss costa rica terribly, but it's good to be home.

ciao!