Time Management

" We live and die by our habits"

This last weekend I spent some wonderful time in Milwaukee with my family :) As I spent time with my sister Kim and some of her friends I began to wonder if I work hard enough because they have part time jobs and I don't (yes I'm laughing at that that thought now). But it caused a conversation with the lovely Miss Cassandra and we decided I should make a list of the activities that I feel waste my time and a list of things that I long to do but don't have time for. This is what we came up with:

Wasted Time

      Television

      Facebook

      Pinterest

Things I long for

      More Bible time

      Time to skype with siblings

      Violin Practice time

      Time for a one on one Bible study with a friend

      A Clean house - lets add some time to cleaning

      

As I looked at the wasted time category I calculated the amount of time I'd be willing to cut out of those things. 

 - TV only when Andy and I are relaxing together and 1 show on a lazy afternoon by myself per week

 - Pinterest only 10 minuets 3 times a week

 - Facebook - No more aimless looking - be purposeful, check what you need to check and get off.

Fallowing these things I'll be able to add 4 hours a week of the things that I long for.

I'm excited to see how much of that wasted time I can redistribute to better uses.

One thing about making new habits is that you need to make them easily accessible until they have have become a habit.... SO I did a little decorating that I think will help me pick up my Violin a little more often. (So excited about this one!!!)

Blessings,

Kaitlin 

Fall is already here!!!

Hello Everyone!

I hope your fall is starting out well. (I can't believe its already fall!) I'm loving being back in school instead of being an intern... I feel more at home in this routine that I know so well then I did at my internship where everything was new and unknown to me. As some of you may know this last spring I had decided to add a semester onto my schooling to earn a minor in Quality Engineering. But this summer at my internship I realized that I am not built for that field and thus have no need to add that extra semester... this means that I only have 3 semesters left (counting this one!) While I felt like 2 years was still a long time to be in school somehow only having a year and a half left is feeling so short! So I'm trying to soak up as much of this wonderful, stressful, thing called college.

Hanna at the lake in Monticello at the Fall Retreat with by Bible Study

I am the student president of my bible study this year and we are trying to become a student organization on campus. Over the summer I completed the necessarily paper work to apply, and now we are waiting to see what the student board and another board thinks. It has been fun to be the student president and get things organized and scheduled and to be the contact person for everyone. This year Gary Gilbertson who taught last year is feeling the call to delegate his ministry to more people which is hard and good all at the same time. We don't get to see Gary or have him teach as much but we also have found a wonderful couple, Jon and Janet Chara, that have opened their beautiful house for us and Jan is doing the majority of the teachings this year. Jon is amazing at explaining the old testament and how it speaks to our lives right now and he is also really good at seeing where things tie together in the bible. I'm excited to see what this year will bring if we are able to get onto campus and open our doors to more people.

Last weekend we had a 24 hour fall retreat with my bible study. The retreat was for all of the campuses of Prepare. It was fun to meet more college Christians who share such similar beliefs  Me and 2 girls from my group went to Monticello, and it was such a good time of relaxation and spiritual rejuvenation. 

Next week there is a Career conference at stout so I'll be once again putting myself out there to find a internship. It seems like I shouldn't be already trying to find one but this is when I found the one at SMC last year. I spent a few hours today trying to figure out which of the 54 companies present at the Career fair are within a reasonable driving distance for me which was easier said than done :p

Last night I got out my camera and did some more photos for a time laps movie... the stars pull me in in a way that I can not express... I am always amazed by their beauty and I hope that never changes. To think that God made those just to show off and to give us something to see him by is amazing! I hope you enjoy the short video.

For some reason this video is not very clear.... here is a link to where I uploaded it on facebook. In the lower right hand corner click the HD button to see the stars more clearly.

Stars Time Laps

Blessings and love,

Kaitlin

Baby Fallon

Yesterday at 11:15am Fallon Noel was born to Holly and Nat Bremer :) Fallon is the third of girls for Nat and Holly and my third niece :D I was able to see her last night and my goodness is she cute :) such tiny hands, eyes, nose and well everything! This weekend Holly and Nat are coming up to visit so I'm sure I'll have some more pictures of her soon :)

School is almost here again and I finished my summer internship last week (which went really well) so it has been really nice to have a week off before I get back into the swing of class :) Today I'll be helping my sister Kim move into the Eau Claire dorms :D I'm very excited that she is going to be so much closer to me :)  My mom and sister Kalli are also coming up and will be spending the night at my place :)

I got my books for school :p nine books for five classes.... I guess its just nice that I won't have to carry them all to class everyday :)

O and I could use your help in a photo contest... If you would click HERE and vote for my picture that would be great! :D you can vote once a day but the contest ends tomorrow... My picture is called Falling Snow... and it shows heifers with falling snow :)

Yummy Bars

Here's what you'll need:

1 box yellow cake mix

1/2 cup butter

1 egg

1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk

12oz chocolate chips (1 1/2 cups)

Mix the cake mix, butter and egg together and spread in a greased 9x13 pan. leave 1/2 cup out for latter.

Melt the chocolate and sweetened condensed milk together and spread over the cake mix

Use the 1/2 cup cake mix and place drops of cake mix over the chocolate

Bake at 350 for 20-25 min (until edges of drops are golden brown) allow to cool for 5-10 min.

  

Work Life and God

God, Work, Husband, Cleaning, Cooking,Sleeping... how does one go about fitting all of these things into each day?

Work has been good but so busy. I get up at 6 to be at work by 8 and get home around 5:45... Now while I had thought that I would have so much more free time since I don't have to do homework when I get home it almost feels like I have less free time. I think that is mostly because I don't know what i'm doing at work quite often. I mean really I'm not done with school yet...(i guess that's the point) And not knowing what i'm doing really drains all my energy so by the time i'm home all I want to do is veg on the couch.
Work has been good but very taxing. It is a little stressful to know that things are taking you three times as long as everyone else. And to not know if you are even doing them right. I am starting to enjoy the work and I really enjoy the people that I work with. I am working with one Engineer named Bill on a project for a company and it has been interesting to see just what ME's (Manufacturing Engineer) do. It is much different than what I had expected (not really sure what I expected) and i THINK i like it :p I still have SO much more to learn!
This last week I feel like i have learned just how important it is to keep my house clean. While it is so tempting to get home and watch TV and go to bed i'm learning (a little slowly) that if I keep moving when I get home I can get some things done and that that is what my dear husband really needs. He needs me to work hard for him to keep the house livable. To cook healthy meals instead of pizza and hamburgers all the time. So now I am trying to balance work sleep and a clean house :P

I'm ashamed to say it but I've never been one to have regular quite times. Sure I pray on a daily basis (most of the time) and at one point I listened to my audio Bible every day but to have a time to talk WITH God everyday would be so amazing. I don't know how i'm going to fit it in but i know that i need to that without Him I am nothing and that without connecting with him I will have nothing. He is such a Huge part of our lives and sadly such an easy thing to ignore. We don't see him but that doesn't mean he isn't there waiting for you to talk to him. So go ahead... right now.... say hello to the Lord. Tell him what is on your mind let him know what things you are struggling with what things make you mad at him. What things should be different in the world and what things you are so thankful for. He knows you and he wants you to be honest with Him. He wants you to trust in him.


I hope and pray that you're relationship with him will grow deeper. Tell him what keeps you from him and ask Him to help you overcome that barrier. He wants to help but he needs an invitation so invite Him in today!


I love you all! Have a blessed Saturday evening

First day on the Job

           Today marks my first day as a Manufacturing Engineering Intern at SMC in Somerset. The morning was spent on teachings of safety rules/procedures fallowed by verbal quizzes. Then off to finally meet up with my Boss and see my Cubical... yes I did just say that I have my own cubicle... never thought I would be excited about that one but as I was expecting to be sharing a desk with another Engineer I was VERY excited. I have my own space and my own computer. It was now time for lunch and since the lunch room is on the completely opposite side of the building I had my lunch in my cubicle. After lunch Joel (my boss) took me on a tour of the plant. It was fun to see all the different areas that I'll spend time in this summer and also to fail miserably at remembering everyone's names. After that Joel paired me up with a woman who keeps all the operators on their toes, She inspects things after they have inspected to make sure they are completing their job correctly. It was interesting to fallow her around and learn how all the operators know what is acceptable flaws in a part and what needs to be thrown out.

         While today was very exciting and thrilling I kept of thinking that soon they will realize that they have hired someone who knows absolutely nothing about manufacturing and that I don't belong there. But the best part is that they know that I don't know very much and they are willing to teach me as I go along. I feel like I'm going to learn SOOO much this summer! Returning to school in the fall will be strange.

O and one more perk about this job..... lol the fact that it is to the west of my house..... meaning that the sun is behind me both in the morning and on the way home... the opposite of what it is when I'm going to school

Transitions

Well I'm not very good at transition times so I'm thankful that I only have a few more days until I start my Internship (3 days!!!). Transitions make me sad for the part that I'm leaving and anxious for the future. I'm really excited to start my summer internship but also, of course, a little anxious. What will it be like? Will I make friends? Will I like the work? Will my managers and co-workers like me? Will I be over my head? I know that these are things that will only be answered in time but sometimes it is hard not to wonder what it really will be like. - I'll let you know how it goes next week :p
        School was really great this semester. While I haven't gotten all of my grades back yet I think I did well in my classes. It is easy to tell which class I loved... I got a 99.9% in my photography class! wow! I'm sad to see that class be done. I had a lot of fun learning new ways to take pictures, how to set up my camera to have higher quality photos (lower ISO) and to really look at what is in each photo before I hit the button.
        Even though I was taking 18 credits this semester it didn't feel like that heavy of a load. None of my classes were work heavy which was so good. I was able to participate in my Wednesday night Bible study group and I'm proud to announce that I have made the decision to be the student leader next year. Mostly this means organizing the study. Getting a student organizations started so we can meet on campus, scheduling the use of a room on campus, letting everyone now where we are meeting and things like that. While Gary, or other teachers come to bring us a new message. If there is a night when a teacher isn't able to come I may teach occasionally but not every week. Setting up the student organization is taking a little more time than I had expected but that's alright since I don't have to have it done till fall when we start.

This week since I had some time off and was home during the day I was able to get pictures of my father in law planting a corn field. I hope you enjoy my second ever time-laps photography movie.

(Pictures were taken every 8 seconds for about an hour and a half)

Finals week

Well this coming week marks the start of finals for me. Monday and Tuesday are class days, Wednesday is a study day and then Thursday through Tuesday is finals. I have 5 final exams (one is a take home, Yeah!!!), 3 photo assignments, and a very time consuming Solidworks project.

In fact yesterday I didn't have class but i went to school to work on my Solidworks modeling project.... and I was there for 8 hours...  and all I got done was an animation. I drew each part (except the pins and screw) and then mated them together and then began the very tedious process of animating it. The most frustrating thing about the animation was that it wouldn't show you errors until you decided to save. And once you had saved it was very difficult to fix anything. The video that I shared with you isn't perfect and I hope that I am able to fix it but am not sure if I will have the time this weekend. Here is the video. If you would like to see it larger click on the title to open it in a new window.

Well, its time for me to go out and take some pictures for class. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Time laps photography

Today I did my first time laps photography :) I was able to program my calculator and plug it into my camera so it told my camera how often to take the shots and how many shots to take. It was a little frustrating at first to sit there doing homework with a loud click every few seconds from my camera but I just turned up the music and worked on homework while getting these shots that make for a good first time laps video :) I hope you enjoy :)

Photography Portfolio and one busy week

I'm proud to announce that I've made a website just for my photos. You can click in the tab above to get to my photography website. While I don't have many pictures up just yet I plan to add more as I have time.


I've been able to take Bahama out twice since she moved in on Sunday :) today we went on an hour and a half ride around the 4 wheeler trails. She has quite the stamina, we might have been running half the time which I LOVE :D I don't really know the trails very well so its been fun to learn where they all are and explore them

As the semester is coming to an end it is almost amazing how much I have to get done. Lots of projects, a few papers and lots and lots of tests :( But soon it will be summer and I'll be just as busy at work :D I'm very excited to start my internship. I know that I am going to learn such a large amount of things that they can't teach me in school.

As some of you know I am in a bible study on Wednesday nights called Prepare. It has seriously changed my life and I am so thankful for our teacher Gary Gilbertson who drives from the twin cities to teach us each week. Well the current student leader (Tim) is going to seminary this fall and won't be able to lead the group which leaves us without a leader.... or maybe not.... I started to think about the possibility of leading it myself. I feel like the Lord has shown me that it is what he wants me to do this fall and I'm excited about the possibility. Thought I do feel like I need a little more confirmation from him before I really commit to what could be a very big time commitment. But the possibility is really getting me excited. I have felt more and more this semester that I've been made to teach just as much as I've been made to be an Engineer. So this would be a great way to share that talent with others.


Here is a Photo that i'm working on for my class :) its 3 pictures combined into one using photoshop :D

A horse for the Summer

I have a horse for the summer :D 

Some good friends of ours who have quite a few horses are letting me borrow their 16 year old Missouri Fox Trotter for the summer. Since we only live a few miles apart I rode Bahama home to my place for the summer today. This horse is great :) she loves to go and is easy to turn, she listens to your voice and will stop and start to verbal signals. But you never want to kick her or you'll both be half way across the field before you can say a word.

I am so excited to go riding with her around the farm. We have 4 wheeler trails that we'll be able to explore together.

Andy's Birthday & Pinhole Photography

It has been a busy week :D Andy's birthday was on Tuesday so with cleaning, decorating and cooking for our meal together I feel like this week flew by! I don't have any more Friday classes for the rest of the semester which is awesome and means that today will be a get all that homework done, work in the yard and possibly horse-back ridding type of day :)

The semester is quickly coming to an end, I only have 10 class days left and then finals.... for a while if felt like this semester wasn't going to end and now i'm wondering where the time went. With the semester ending that means summer is coming!!! :D I am so excited for the warm weather and no homework season. I also am very excited about my internship. I will start work on the 21st of May and work through the summer as a Manufacturing Engineering Intern at SMC in Somerset... I feel so blessed to have received this position and I can not wait to learn how the real world of engineering works. And while I can't deny that I'm starting to get a little nervous about starting something new I know that it will be worth it.

In my photography class we have been doing pin hole photography for the last month, we have a paint can that has a pin size hole in one side and we put photographic paper on the other side. A piece of black electrical tape is used to keep the hole closed. To take a picture you set your can somewhere it won't move and then remove the tape for 30-60 seconds (depending on the lighting). The tape acts as a camera's shutter and the paper as film. We then have to go into the dark room at school, open the paint can, remove the paper and put it through a series of chemical baths to develop the picture. While it was fun to see how the process works it was frustrating when you hadn't guessed the time right and you turned out with all white or all black photos, or when the can moved just a little bit and the whole picture turned out blurry or when you thought you were getting a picture of just the door of the building and instead you got the whole building. But as frustrating and time consuming as this project was I was able to get a few good shots so here they are :D
I put the negative (what I got out of the camera) first and then the positive :)

I hope that you all have a blessed weekend.
-Kaitlin

Prayer picture frame

For this project you will need a picture frame, scissors, tape, a ruler and markers or a printer

You'l need to cut the paper into the size of the opening, then use a dry erase board marker to write the prayer requests on the glass of each picture. Inside each picture I taped the name of each person that I want to be daily praying for.

Promises in a Jar

For my birthday my mom sent me 21 promises from the Bible, among other things all with the 21 theme.

I loved the promises but wasn't sure where to put them.... until I thought of the empty pickle jar sitting on my counter. I am going to put this jar at an easy to reach place in my house so when i'm having a hard day or just need to be reminded of God's love for me I can pick one out and be refreshed.

As I use the promises I think I'll make more. They are so easy to make. Simple type (or copy and paste from online) the verses on a piece of paper and then cut the paper in strips so their is one verse per paper. then roll them up and place them in the jar.

A little Organization and Decoration

This last week I was talking with a friend and we ended up desiding that I needed to redesign my upstairs living room area. It has been our storage area and because out basement is musty and it needs continue to provide room for storage. This was a little of a dilemma in my planning the space since I didn't want to have boxes everywhere. the other major problem is that the two walls are slanted since it is part of the upstairs...... but creativity won out... 

 Here is a before picture :p 

So I went and bought 

a Blanket

Pillows and pillow cases

Cloth to cover the inside of the shelf

 A table with a lamp

since we had painted this room not to long ago I went to Walmart paint department where I had gotten the paint and found the same paint swatch... then looked at other colors and since I knew I wanted black it ended up being black and gray. But having the paint swatch helped me pick out pillow cases... i was going to do black and gray pillow cases and then i saw that they had some light green ones, so i walked over not expecting them to match my paint swatch but they did! so i was able to get some green pillow cases that match so wonderfully :D

The other side of this room still needs to be finished and hopefully I'll have time today and this weekend :)

Spring, Alergies and Good Books

Well this week's weather has been wonderful! It makes me feel alive again and ready for some more excessive... But then the day after everything warmed up I got hit with a cold :( as much as I am hoping this is just a cold it feels much more like what I would imagine allergies feel like (I've never had them before). My nose feels like its packed full and by eyes feel a little irritated. my whole head feels like it weighs an extra few pounds and I don't feel quite as energetic as I had felt the first day of the nice weather. But I am sure this too will pass and hopefully won't become an annual occurrence. 

This week of spring break has been so wonderful and I am dreading going back to school on Monday :(  By Andy's suggestion I started a wall of my photography :) Right now there are 9 big frames and 4 small ones and we will switch out old pictures for new ones as I take more that we like. It is fun to have my art up on the wall for guests to see.

I started a new book last night. its called Crazy Love by Francis Chan and so far it has been amazing. The first chapter was all about how Great our God really is and how little we daily remember it and live it in our lives. Here is a video that he made to show just how insignificant our earth is... It amazes me just how small we are in the universe and it is such a good reminder to see. The Awe Factor of Gad I hope that you watch that it isn't very long :)

Despite my cold i'm about to go work with some young horses today and then hopefully go ridding for a little while :) I am excited to get outside and I'm hoping that my cold won't slow me down too much :p

DIY Kindle Case

Last week I decided to make my own kindle case. The cases out there can be so expensive. I didn't think it was worth buying one so I decided to make my own. Here is how I made mine. (for under $10)

What you'll need:

Cloth for a cover (I used an old shirt)

Felt

Old Book

Superglue

Ruler

Kindle

Elastic Straps

Construction Paper

Step One:

Find a book that your kindle will fit inside. For this I went to Goodwill and sized my kindle up to books till I found one that would work and bought it for $5.

Step Two:

Cut out all the pages of your book and also cut your cloth to be 1"-1.5" than the book on each side (A non-stretch material works best for this).

Step Three:

Superglue the cloth to the book and allow to dry. I also decided to place a strip of cloth in the center because my felt wouldn't cover that area

Step four: 

Cut out felt and paper to cover the two inside covers of the book

Step five:

Sew on 4 elastic straps to the felt to keep the kindle inside the book. When you're sewing them on make them a little tighter than you think you need to. Once you glue it down the flatness of the felt seams to make more room.

Step six: Superglue the felt down to the book (for this step I used E-6000 superglue) and place something heavy on top of felt while it dries.

glue paper on left cover.

 And you have yourself you're very own kindle case!

let me know if you have questions in the comment section below.

Spring Break

Well spring break started for me at noon on Thursday and I celebrated by going down to Milwaukee for the weekend and spending time with my Mom, and two younger sisters (Kim and Kalli). It was so good to see them and spend some time with them. They are in the process of unpacking and setting up their new apartment. They just moved two weeks ago from a 5 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apt. so everything is a little crammed right now. but they have done a great job of making it look like home. I wanted to show you but I am realizing that I didn't take any pictures this weekend :(

It feels amazing to have a break from school. I've slept in every day and gotten some much needed cleaning done :) The weather this week has been beautiful! its supposed to get up to 75 today!!! So latter this afternoon I plan to go horseback ridding at a friends house :)

Wow it has been a LONG time since I've updated.... guess this semester has been more busy than I had expected. Seems like time has flown past and I can't believe that this semester is already half over. Driving in everyday takes up more time than I had anticipated and the house has been unusually messy this semester... but classes are going well so far. I took a welding class which ended this last week and that was a lot of fun. I was able to learn 5 different ways to weld and practice them all. Some were much harder than others and i have a new appreciation for welders.

My photography class has been fun and a little challenging at times. here are some of the pictures I've turned in for assignments. We haven't done as many assignments as I had hoped we would have but part of that is because it is a beginning class so she has to explain how our cameras work and everything else.

Blurred Motion (Christmas lights with 10 second exposure)

I hope that you all are having a good week. Hopefully I'll be updating a little more often in the future :p

-Kaitlin

Spring semester

Well today marks the second day of my Junior year at school :D the spring semester has started off with a ton of snow and ice, my drive yesterday morning was quite a bit longer than normal but I guess that's normal for Wisconsin.... feels like winter is actually here now. now that the roads have been cleared some it I am loving the clean look that the blanket of snow brings

I started my photography class today. I'm excited to see what I will learn this semester! I'm sure my blogs will be a little more picture heavy this spring as I will get to take pictures for homework :D I actually have to take 50 pictures for my first assignment. She wasn't really clear what they should be of or about but just to take them so that I have something to work with when we learn Photoshop next week :) I was hoping that we would be doing a lot of photoshop but it sounds like we are going to focus more on how to take the pictures than how to edit them.

This semester is going to be quite different than last semester. I am on campus from 8 or 9 am to 3:30 or 5:30 pm Monday through Thursday. And on Friday I have two labs that are only going to meet occasionally so it looks like i might not have friday class that often. Being on campus means that I will have more opportunity to get homework done between classes and also more opportunity to do things with friends since I'll be around more. But it also means less time at home, which hopefully won't equal a messier house and less home cooking.

O by the way you can now fallow me by email, there is a little box in the top part of the right side where you can put your email and then you will get email notifications whenever I update my blog.

Necklace Holder

Well this last week I joined a website called Pinterest and have been finding a ton of fun and cute ideas on there... one of them was to make my own jewelry case. I found a tea spoon holder at good will today and thought that I would give it a try. And I am loving it, it took me a while to figure out how I was going to hang my earrings but by taking apart a necklace that I never would have worn and adding some wire I was able to make a good spot for my earrings :D

So other than my little project tonight I have been doing quite well, tomorrow is the last day of my win-term class, which has turned out to be a breeze. The class was scheduled for 5 hrs a day for 2 weeks, well the professor only lectures for an hour and a half and then we do our homework for the next hour and a half and then we don't even have to bring anything home. Plus I found out that they class is set up for both 3 credits and 2 credits and I only need 2 credits so I don't have to go to the last three days of lecture!

Andy is out in North Dakota hunting coyotes with two of his friends. They left last night and won't be home till late Thursday night.... so I have three days to myself. It feels quite strange to be in our house alone and to sleep knowing that he is a few hundred miles away. But I am so very glad that he gets to have some fun guy time with his buddies.

Yesterday I got my hair cut... I really needed it. I had really bad split ends and my sister had to take off about 2 inches just to get to where it wasn't split. But WOW my hair looks so healthy now! It is amazing what a difference it is!

Onething conference was so good and I have been enjoying watching the teachings that I saw during those 4 days online. It amazes me how much more I am getting out of them the second time around.

here is there website if you would like to take a look. I highly recommend the teachings. each one is about an hour long so grab some popcorn and a notebook and take a look.

A trip to Duluth

Last day of winter break is today.... wow those 2.5 weeks went FAST! but I am so glad that I had them, It has been so good to get a little relaxing in before school starts again. And while I'll have a lot of class time the next two weeks with winterm I'm hoping I won't have a ton of homework. I'm taking an Engineering Economy class and I really liked economy in high school so hopefully I will also enjoy this class as well.

This last week Andy and I went up to Duluth for an overnight stay at the South Pier Inn which is right next to the lift bridge up there. We had a fun time exploring the city and eating some very good food (Grandma's Bar and Grill, Northern Waters Smokehaus, Bellisio's, the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and Betty's Pies)  :) We got to see a ship go through the canal while we were in our hotel room, so we were right there as it went past. And we also drove up to Gooseberry Falls and saw some beautiful frozen water falls.

Here are some pictures from our trip

 

Tomorrow is Andy and I's 6 month anniversary! it's amazing how time can fly and how it can go so slowly, I feel like we both know each other so much better that it couldn't have only been 6 months :p

I hope you all have a wonderful week!