Beer Share

We have a weekly happening at our office called, Beer Share.

It's when we drink beer, and someone shares something awesome with the group.  This week, one of the principals is introducing all the newbies to the office.  So myself, and all the others who were hired in the last 4 months were asked to send in a picture along with a caption.

I figure this is my best chance to get the message out there.

What a Weekend

Celebrating this guy's birthday, his boat, and some very crazy friends.

We have no engagements tonight.  

Do you know how wonderful that is?!

[feeling cheesy, sorry]

Love & Photography

One of the greatest articles I've read on love, written by one of the greatest young women I've known. 

Go read, and relish in the beautiful insight and photography.

After an exceptionally hard day, I opened Streams in the Dessert to my marker last night, and found this:

He hath acquainted himself with my beaten path. When he hath searched me out, I shall come out shining (Job 23:10, free translation).

"Faith grows amid storms" -- just four words, but oh, how full of import to the soul who has been in the storms!

Faith is that God-given faculty which, when exercised, brings the unseen into plain view, and by which the impossible things are made possible. It deals with supernaturals. But it "grows amid storms"; that is, where there are disturbances in the spiritual atmosphere. Storms are caused by the conflicts of elements; and the storms of the spiritual world are conflicts with hostile elements. In such an atmosphere faith finds its most productive soil; in such an element it comes more quickly to full fruition.

The staunchest tree is not found in the shelter of the forest, but out in the open where the winds from every quarter beat upon it, and bend and twist it until it becomes a giant in stature this is the tree which the mechanic wants his tools made of, and the wagon-maker seeks.

So in the spiritual world, when you see a giant, remember the road you must travel to come up to his side is not along the sunny lane where wild flowers ever bloom; but a steep, rocky, narrow pathway where the blasts of hell will almost blow you off your feet; where the sharp rocks cut the flesh, where the projecting thorns scratch the brow, and the venomous beasts hiss on every side.

It is a pathway of sorrow and joy, of suffering and healing balm, of tears and smiles, of trials and victories, of conflicts and triumphs, of hardships and perils and buffetings, of persecutions and misunderstandings, of troubles and distress; through all of which we are made more than conquerors through Him who loves us.

"Amid storms." Right in the midst where it is fiercest. You may shrink back from the ordeal of a fierce storm of trial…but go in! God is there to meet you in the center of all your trials, and to whisper His secrets which will make you come forth with a shining face and an indomitable faith that all the demons of hell shall never afterwards cause to waver.
--E. A. Kilbourne

Um.  I think I'm 'living the life' right now.


These really are the days I know I'll look back on and smile, tell my kids about, sometimes remember with a bittersweet taste, wishing I could return but knowing I never will.  They're days too full of wonderful things - with someone too wonderful at my side.

They're exhausting long work weeks, followed by fantastic adventures outside, dreaming, exploring, peddling down quiet streets on old bikes that sound like locomotives when forced up hill. It's last second trips to favorite cities, sailboats, dancing, and a myriad of flavors in foreign places just down my street.  It's finding new worlds constantly  - ones that are, ones that could be.

I'll someday miss these days.

Essentially, the head of my company just asked if I had an iPhone 5.   I said yes.  He asked if he could borrow it.  I thought it strange, but began to pull my phone out of my case.  "No, your charger.  Can I borrow your charger?"  

I think that probably should have been obvious to me. 

This is the sort of dumb stuff you do at the end of a week like this.  On a Friday that follows a night full of tossing, turning and incredibly odd dreams where you're in a meeting, an alarm starts going off, your boss leads a group of you to an elevator, you jump in and think we shouldn't be getting in an elevator- but I guess we'd never make it that many flights of stairs if somethings really wrong.  You start moving down and then suddenly the elevator picks up speed, falls out of alignment and some part breaks open.  You grab onto a railing and watch as all your coworkers and boss fall some hundred flights.  Looking back, in a slightly more awake state, the scene seems an awful lot like one in the new Star Trek.  :/  Coincidence?  Probably not.  After that, my sister and I discover some well-intended, but ultimately incredibly disturbing inner secrets in the company.  My mom gets the wait staff at our lunch spot to let us eat outside.  John gets pictures taken with a pilot from an airshow.  And I have an emotional breakdown because no one seems to care that I just watched 5 people fall to their death, while clinging on to a railing in an elevator in free-fall.  

This is not my typical dream.  That was not a normal night.  And this, has not been an easy week.  

The only thing that got me out of bed and into work the hour early as promised, was the hope:  

THIS IS FRIDAY. 

And I hated the entire one minute I had to ride in the elevator this morning.  I might start taking the stairs again.  :/

Why I like Beau's hair...

Great men have great locks.

Leave it be. 

Last night I pulled my bike out into the alley behind my house.  The alley is not what you're imagining.  It's an old paved road with grass breaking through the worn concrete, and the neighbors garbage bins all in neat rows.  There are trees and yards and private back patios lining the road on either side.  I stopped my bike. I set the kickstand.  Backed up a few steps.  And put John's camera up to my eye.

Over the next twenty minutes I proceeded to take 37 shots of my bike, circling it like a shark its prey, turning it this way and that like a purveyor of fine goods.  I crawled onto it, only to capture the right angle.  And all the while my neighbor two houses down stood in her garden steeling awkward glances.  Her clippers in hand, she eventually stood up and stared.

When I repeated the incident to Beau, he merely replied, "What, you live in Ballard?"

It's not the weirdest thing I've been discovered doing in my neighborhood.  Did I ever tell you about my antique anchor, and my need to carry it down the street at 7am on a Friday?

I have a severe case of wanderlust. 


Hold out one more year, Kati.  Make it worthwhile.

Hey Friends,

I'm blessed to contribute each Wednesday to a wonderful art collective.  It tends to be a bit more practiced and refined than my typical Hope is an Anchor ramblings and it has already been a great growing experience.  It is quite a lot of fun and there is so much going on each day from all the contributors - today's article is about The Gold Under Our Feet.  And I'm especially partial to it, since of course I'm giving a little thought to one of my favorite children's stories, The Wizard of Oz.

Take a look, and perhaps add it to your "Favorites" bar.  ;)

My music taste is cheap - it can be bought - 'green eyes' dropped on a line and I'm sold.

I am fundamentally an optimist.  Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say.  Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.  There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair.  That way lays defeat and death.

-Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom:  Autobiography of Nelson Mandela