A few of Kaycee's favorite things!

As you look at this picture you will see two of the things I would never want to live without...coffee and my cell phone. Look how happy they make me! They are just a few of the many blessings God has brought into my life.

Coffee...it's what gets me out of bed each morning. Every morning the first thing I do is walk into the kitchen and put some Texas pecan coffee beans into my coffee grinder...oh, the simple pleasures of life. The taste of that freshly ground, freshly brewed caffeinated goodness is the highlight of my day. It's the sweet nectar of my life.

Cell phone...while I have times in my life when I may not like the actual phone it, I love the fact that I can call anyone at anytime. And I love that people can get a hold of me, especially since I'm one of those freaks who fears something awful might happen and no one would be able to get a hold of me to tell me about it.

Now, I know that we are to have no idols before God but these two things come very close. I believe this is why God took me through period’s time without them.

About a year ago one of my best friends was trying to quit smoking. I said, like an idiot, that I would give up something too to support her. As like a SUPER idiot, I let her pick. Of course she had to pick the one thing that brought me to tears just thinking about a day without it...COFFEE. It was pretty rough the first week but after that not to bad, until I fly home for a visit. I have this "thing" when I'm traveling in an airport that I must fill my layovers with a latte and a book. I've never noticed how many coffee places there are in airports until that day...or maybe I was just hallucinating. Visions of a white chocolate mocha bigger than the size of Texas haunted me that whole trip. Then to top it off, I met up with some friends at my favorite coffee place in the whole world! They make this drink called the "Kupachella" and you just can't get anything like it anywhere else. It was devastating that my one trip a year back there, I had to pass the "Kupachella". BUT, eventually my friend quit smoking (YAY) and I got to go back to sweet deliciousness!

Now, the time without my phone was a much more dramatic event. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am known for wearing hooding sweatshirts in the winter time...they are my fav! But the pockets in the front just are not very practical. However, that doesn't stop me from putting stuff in there. So, one evening I'm in my apartment and I go the bathroom. I do my thing and turn around and flush. This is the point where time went into super slow motion (so envision the rest of the story happening very slowly). At exactly the time that I push down on the handle my cell phone slides out of my impractical pocket! My phone splashes right into the toilet (before you get super grossed out, my business was only #1). So me being the genius that I am, doesn't just reach down and grab the phone. Oh no, that's way too easy. I say to myself "I know, I'll just make the toilet stop flushing". So I take off the top of the toilet as fast as I can and just start pulling and jiggling everything I can. Of course, this accomplishes NOTHING! As I look down in desperation, I see my phone swirling and it finally goes down with a loud sucking noise...NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! It was gone...tear. I just sat there stunned and thinking "WHYYYYYY" in a Nancy Kerrigan voice. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I went 4 whole days without a cell phone, plus I had to do the walk of shame to my apartment complex office and tell them the story. Needless to say, at first they did not believe me then they broke out into hysterical laughter.

So, I do know what life is like without my two favorite things. Those times have made me more grateful for coffee and cellphones. Why would one want to function without them?

If you think my awkward story below is funny you've gotta read this!

AWKWARD!

I hate awkward moments. While I hate them, usually they are the funniest moments of my life. I would like share one of the awkward moments of last week…one, I’m sure several of you have had.

Last week I was with my roommate, Courtney, eating at McAlisters. They have the best iced tea ever and apparently just ordering one of their gianormous glasses of tea makes me have to go the bathroom like Whoa! So I get up and go to the bathroom only to find that there is ONE stall and it’s currently in use.

One stall…in a women’s bathroom…who was the idiot that designed this bathroom! So as I was waiting (and doing my “Pee, please don’t come out” dance) I started to scan the room. I observed what one would typically see in a public bathroom: paper towels, sink, urinal, garbage can…wait…rewind (record scratch sound)…URINAL!?

The little people in my brain started working over time applying the same methods I learned in my inductive bible study classes…

OBSERVATION: There is a urinal in this bathroom.

INTERPRETATION: This is NOT the women’s bathroom!

APPLICATION: Get out, Get out, Get out!

Here’s where the awkward moment comes in. You just know that someone watched me go in there and they have been sitting there sipping on their big glass of iced tea just waiting for me to come out in the “walk of shame”.

So I did what any dignified woman who just walked into the men’s bathroom would do…I kept my head down…dodged straight from the men’s bathroom into the women’s bathroom…relieved myself…then walked out confidently, sat down and enjoyed my tea!

So, ladies…next time you’re in McAlister’s and you have too much tea and you need to make a mad dash to the restroom, just remember…veer RIGHT!

It's on!

Who will be the last one standing? For those of you who don't know, I spend an abnormal amount of time with my second family, The Henry's (I've even started getting phone calls there). With a family of 6 kids (no...that's not a typo) it's the craziest place I know and I love it. It's the funnest place on earth! But with this fun comes the danger of getting any strange disease/virus of the week that is floating through this house.

Wednesday...the first Henry goes down. Poor little Hannah throw ups just before school. Thursday...the second Henry goes down. This time it went down in the mini-bus that this extremely large family transports itself in. This is the first time in my life that I was thankful NOT to be with the Henry's. So Melodi (this is the amazing mom that takes care of this plethora of children) takes them into see The Amazing Dr. Bacak and he says that this virsus was probably making it's way to all of us days before Hannah even got sick.

Hmmm...days...lets see where I was during these "days"...Friday night...with the Henry's...Saturday night...with the Henry's...Sunday afternoon...with the Henry's...Tuesday afternoon...with the Henry's. Conclusion...I'M DEAD MEAT! I'M A SITTING DUCK! The virus could be making itself at home in my body right now! I feel fine...no throw up feeling at all. This is a sneaky virus...I can tell. It's going to wait until I'm somewhere extremely inconvient like stuck in my car at Texas Ave. or in Walmart (I always get sick in walmart...what's up with that!) to start squeezing my stomach.

So Melodi and I decided that as we sit and wait for projectile vomit to start coming out of our mouths, we're going to make it interesting. A contest...who will be the last one to throw up? Winner gets PRIDE and a certificate that says "I took a punch from Mr. Puke Your Guts Out Virus and I did NOT go down!"...Loser gets nothing but to see the contents of their stomach projecting out there mouth (and if you're like me, your nose).

The update today is that Patrick went down. So Hannah, Joseph, and Patrick...you get nothing. Who will win...stay tuned!

MY LIFE STORY: The old...the new!



So for those of you who haven’t heard from me in a while, I’ll try to get you up to speed. The most recent news that I have is that I successfully defended my thesis in August. That’s right…Master Kaycee. That just sounds so much better than Doctor Kaycee and takes way less time to get! I don’t “officially” graduate until December. So this semester I am publishing my research and am a teaching assistant for radar meteorology. This naturally leads to the next logical question, “So what are you going to do after you graduate?” But to answer this I must take you back on a journey through time…roughly six years ago. I must warn to only take this journey with me if you have a little extra time…it’s a loooooonnngggg journey but an AWESOME one!

It was October of my freshman year of college. I was back in my hometown, Miller, SD, under unfortunate circumstances. A high school classmate had just died. I was driving from our ranch into town for his funeral and suddenly it dawned on me…a revelation like non I had experienced before…God was real and loved me.

What was interesting is that I was always pretty confident that God existed. Absolutely certain…hmmm…probably not. I had always wondered a lot about him. I used to wonder if I was good enough to get into heaven and what standards I should even be comparing myself to know if I was good enough. Should I compare myself to my mom, my dad, my pastor? I didn’t know. They all seemed like good people but who were they comparing themselves to in order to see if they were good enough for heaven?

What was even more interesting is that I was involved in our church. My family started going to church my sophomore year of high school. I was involved with the youth group and the worship team. If you would have asked I would have said I was a Christian. Strange thing was, I didn’t know much about Jesus. Sure, I heard his name a lot in church. But again, the questions just kept coming. Who is this Jesus guy really? Why did He even have to die such a terrible death for my sins anyway? What did that have to do with me? So is this Jesus guy a man or God? Ahhhh….what a migraine. Did I ask anyone these questions that were so overwhelming me? Yeah right…and have people look at me like I’m some sort of idiot who doesn’t know something that everyone else in the whole world seems to have figured out…no way…that’s not my style.

So when this “revelation” hit, I knew at that very moment that I had to figure this out. By the end of that following summer I had learned that sin had separated me and everyone on earth from this Holy God. Romans 3:23 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. So this answered my first question, “Was I good enough to get to heaven?”…according to the Bible, NO…not even close. That’s right; this sweet, brown eyed, curly haired girl was heading straight for hell and eternity spent without God. BUT, reading on to Romans 5:8, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. YES! Finally, answers to my overwhelming questions. Come to find out, Jesus is both man and God! Wow! If this blows your mind, join the club. But it’s true…%100 man (1 Timothy 2:5 and Matthew 8:20) and %100 God (John 1:1 and Colossians 2:9)…check it out for yourself. So basically God put skin on and came down to earth to pursue us and died in our place (“for the wages of sin is death”-Romans 6:23) so that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will be saved from this eternal separation from God and be restored into a right relationship with him (Romans 6:23, Romans 10:9, John1:12 and Mark16:16). And when I say “believe”, I do not mean just to believe the facts…for example, that he existed. Like I said, I was pretty confident that he existed but that really isn’t enough because even the demons believe that He exists and know far more facts than I do and they shudder (James 2:19). You must have faith (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 3:22-26, and 1 Peter 1:5) in Christ which allows you to accept him as your Lord (Mark 8:34-35) and your Savior (Romans 4:24).

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17

So is this blowing your mind yet? It should. It blows my mind. But I’m only getting started. As if Christ saving us from hell wasn’t enough…he saves us from a life of sin in this world too! The moment we are saved (this is a term Jesus used a lot…a shorter way of saying delivered from eternal condemnation) we are filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14) and we become a new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). We aren’t the same sinful creatures anymore!

Now, I know most of you think I’m a pretty good person, but I’m really not apart from the grace of God. And most of you have probably always thought of me as a pretty happy person…I wasn’t. I was always very discontent with this life…always trying to find something to truly satisfy…a true sense of purpose. I was always insecure…always trying to earn love and never thinking that I deserved it. This led to a life depression, anxiety, drunkenness, and many other sinful things in which I will spare the details of for this blog. Some of you right now will need to pick up your jaw from the floor. Others are saying, “Yeah, I saw that in her”. And a select few of you would be able to fill in these “sinful details” I’m leaving out. But all this stuff doesn’t matter anymore. I am a new creation AND the Bible says “there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” –Romans 8:1. As my Pastor would say…Boom Shockalaka! I am now a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17). Hallelujah!

I will say, however; that the most dramatic changes have taken place within the past two years. While a lot of things changed in me once I put my faith in Christ, there were a lot of things I was still holding on to. This then led me back into a spiral of depression and anxiety. I was being torn apart by living with one foot in Satan’s world and one foot in Christ’s world. But what was confusing is that for the first few years of my new Christian life, I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with continuing in these sins. After all the majority of “Christians” I knew lived like I did and the Bible does say “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…not by works.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) So this means a Christian should be able to live however they want cause we’re covered by grace…right? WRONG! 1 John 2:3-6 says “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

So long story short (well this isn’t exactly short), through the power of God’s Holy Spirit in my life I was set free from the sin that I had become a slave to. I am truly a miracle of God and can in NO WAY take credit for any of these changes in my life. GOD is so AMAZING! If you have never experienced this, I HIGHLY recommend it…a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ…not RELIGION. Religion will give you nothing more than a set of guide lines to try and help you earn your way to God…can’t happen. And it doesn’t have to because of what Christ did for you 2,000 years ago.

So back to the question that took us on this long journey…”what am I doing after graduation?” Whatever God tells me to do. At this point, I highly doubt I will be doing anything with my atmospheric science degrees accept to chase a storm or two. Shocker, huh? A change of heart that big only comes from God. He has taught me that “10 year plans” don’t work when walking by faith.

Out of all the different people in my life that will read this, some of you will agree with what I’ve said, some of you will be intrigued by what I’ve said, and some will completely disagree with what I’ve said. Whatever category you fall in I still love you. Whatever your stance, if you’re reading this, you are a part of my life somehow and my life is now Christ. That’s it. He’s all that I have and all that I am. He’s the reason my life’s not boring and that I even have a reason for a blog!

Sorry for all the references to Scripture without writing them all out, but this thing is long enough. If you’re interested in what these say, email me and I will type them all out for you. Or you can even go to www.biblegateway.com and get the entire Bible online!