Thanks to all the people in my life (Nov. 23, 2011 TDN column)

Thanksgiving is such a good holiday for me. It’s a day or two when I get to spend time with my family, but I don’t have the stress of buying gifts or worrying about making any lists for other people to go out and stress over a gift for me.
This holiday is a time when we get together as a family to enjoy a meal and spend time together. One of my favorite parts about this holiday is that after we eat and we all lay ourselves out on the floor to let the over eating digest we all get our second wind and we play spoons — while getting seconds.
Spoons at our Thanksgiving gatherings is not your normal round of spoons. I’ve got to tell ya, we are mean and vicious when we play that game. We don’t play for any winnings, no money, no bets, nothing — just our pride and that leads to more scratching and clawing than anything.
Last year at Thanksgiving, my grandma even got out of her chair and scratched someone to get a spoon out of their hand. It’s a vicious game, but while it may be vicious we laugh, and smile and make it all fun and games.
It never gets to a point of being too serious. I just love the time I get with my family around Thanksgiving. I know that as we get older, things are going to continue to change and we all aren’t going to be able to get together as often all at the same time. As this is my first year without my sisters and their significant others, I am realizing that more and more. So, it has hit even harder how important it is to share the time you have with your family and really be thankful for it and enjoy every minute of it.
Thanksgiving is a time when I get to say, thank you — thank you for being my family, thank you for supporting me and thank you for being by my side every step of my life as I continue to figure out who I am, what I am doing and the direction I’m heading. I know that sometimes families have drama, families have fights and families don’t always get along. I am thankful that — at the end of the day — my family is one that is always there in the end.
I am so thankful for many things this year. Last year, I talked about how we say we are thankful for friends and family and all the good stuff, but really we mean we are thankful for our smart phones, our cars and our iPads.
While, I am thankful for the things I have, as I admitted last year, this year feels a little different.
This year, I feel thankful for all the relationships I have in my life now. I feel thankful that even though I have had things tear me down and try their best at breaking me I haven’t broke. I am thankful that even though there are fights and there are disagreements and there are misunderstandings that I am figuring out who my real friends are and continue to be surrounded by them.
I am thankful that as I started this new lifestyle and have kept it going that I have people supporting me every step of the way. I have family and friends that are cheering me on and are proud of my accomplishments. Not all of my goals have been met but they remind me of my progress and remind me that even though I haven’t reached where I am going, I am still headed there and help me look back at where I came from.
I am thankful that I have opportunities to improve my health, my life and my outlook. I am thankful that I have the opportunities to experience this life at a whole other level than I thought I ever would.
And last but not least, I am thankful that no matter what I continue to love and am loved. I love deeply, I am loved and I continue to love no matter the cost. Because no matter what, when all else is gone and all else is scattered and all else fails, love is left, love prevails and love will never leave.

Katie Yantis appears in the Troy Daily News every Wednesday.

No more limits or boundaries on this girl (TDN column Nov. 16, 2011)

There are just some times you have to push yourself above and beyond any limits you thought you had on yourself. This year, I have transformed the way I look at my health, my activities and my train of thought toward myself. I have torn down every limit, and every wall, as many who know me well know.

Before this year there were a whole lot of things that I thought I couldn’t or I just wouldn’t do. For example, running 3 miles. Three miles doesn’t sound like much and for me would be a small step toward a new goal, but for me was still lofty when I started. Three miles is a lot for someone who was “that girl” in gym class that whined everytime the Presidential fitness tests came around. My sisters were the ones that always got the patches, medals and standing ovations. I was the one that was huffing and puffing as I made my bajillionth lap around the small square around the fifth and sixth grade building. I always wondered why they never took us to a track, or something that we didn’t have to run 18 laps around. Instead, we stayed right in our cozy little corner of Casstown and I had the added torture of running by my house 18 times. I just wasn’t into it.

So, setting a goal at the beginning of the year of running as much as I have was a new start and a new life (one, I love might I add.) In the beginning I got some doubts from other people, but also had some doubts within myself, even though I claimed there were none. But everytime I got off the treadmill at my mom and dad’s house drenched in sweat like I’ve never been before and they would ask me “How many today?,” I would respond and would always receive a smile and a “good job.” Everytime I got those smiles my doubts faded away and I slowly gained more confidence in myself.

As I have said before, I have reached all my goals and even have surpassed them. I have ran more 5K’s than I planned, a 10K and even worked up to a half-marathon and now am about to go on another new adventure.

I have been planning to participate in an event with Sam for quite awhile now. We have been training for it and have been researching it and pretty much consuming ourselves with it. And Saturday it will be our reality.

Some people have heard of the Warrior Dash and I even know quite a few people who have done it. I have wanted to do a Warrior Dash since starting all my new adventures, but have decided with Sam that we would just go big or go home — we are doing just that. A few months ago we both signed up for the Tough Mudder competition. The tough mudder is 12 miles, 25 obstacles and is outside in Indiana in November. We are going to be diving through water, running across ice and running through live electrical wire…in the middle of November.

I have to tell you, at first I was a little nervous. Sam and I would sit down and watch the videos of other competitions in other parts of the nation and watch as people fell on their faces, fell down flat walls and twitched as they ran through the electrical wire. As we continued the conversation of us and his friends doing it, I got more and more excited.

There were many Saturdays we woke up and went to Duke Park to start training. There were even Saturdays when we would run a 5K then go to Duke and meet up with friends to continue training. Now, let me just say the obstacles at Duke, while they are nice (Thank you to all who help maintain them, ) are not like what they will be on Saturday. The obstacles still helped prepare us for what we are going to face on Saturday.

So now, Saturday, after being the girl that whined because I had to run 18 laps around my old school, I have turned myself into a girl that will be running 12 miles and completeing a list of obstacles that many would have never imagined they would see me doing. The mudder is going to be the key ending of a great season. After the mudder, it will be the starting of more training to prepare for next season — with more adventures and new competitions.

Don’t worry, you’ll get an update on the mudder, just as long, as my parents don’t have to worry about that death waiver I’m going to have to sign.

Katie Yantis appears every Wednesday in the Troy Daily News.

People just like us - just a little more well known.

I had my first concert that I shot by myself. I have been shooting concerts for a year now since I arrived at the Troy Daily News. However, it's usually along side our Chief Photographer Anthony Weber, so my photos are usually just for my repertoire. Well, Jim is on vacation and Tony couldn't shoot it, so they asked me to do it. I had a photo published on the front page. It wasn't this photo but another good one (I think.) Shooting at Hobart Arena is always such a great time. All the people are starting to remember I am from The Troy Daily News, so it's fun to talk to the same people over and over again. And, it's just fun to talk to all the artists and all the people in charge. There is a whole other sub-community at Hobart Arena and I love every time I get to shoot there. This concert was particularly fun. I shot it and headed back to the office and then went back for the end. I was able to participate in the meet and greet and was even asked to take the meet and greet photos. While I didn't get one with the whole group I did get a picture with guitarist Dave Amato. I have realized how lucky my position in this job is. It has opened my eyes to a whole new community and it has been a blast. Over the course of a simple year, 365 days, I have met The Oak Ridge Boys, The Band Perry, Thompson Square, Mercy Me, Steel Magnolia, Josh Thompson, REO now and Third Day, among others.

I've gotten to the point where it's not so much about talking and meeting with people who are "famous" or "well-known" but it's more about their story and what they have to say. There are so many intelligent things I have heard out of some of my interviews. Josh Thompson and Mac Powell from Third Day have said some things to me that I've never heard and I really enjoyed hearing their stories.

Oh that one thing that keeps nagging at you.

Well, there is one thing I said I wouldn't do — that was spend anymore time in the college setting. After years of pondering and nit picking at my heart and realizing that there is something that I have always wanted to do, here I am looking into masters degrees. Now that I am 25 and enjoy my job, I am looking for something that will be even more fulfilling and helpful to other people as well. I have started the process of looking at a masters degree. I am talking to my first admissions coordinator today. (Well, not actually). See, Sam took me to U.C. and it turns out that I got there for the open house and it was the wrong program. Yup, they don't even have the program that I am looking for. So, I buckled down did all my research and found four colleges that have the program I want. Now, here I am, up early preparing for a conversation with the admissions coordinator at Miami University for the Student Affairs in Higher Education program. Yup, it's going to be a long tough journey, but I'm trusting in the Lord and listening to what he is saying to me. (I hope, I am hearing him right.)

Anyway, I walked out of the house this morning with two cups of coffee, one was in a mug and one wasn't. The other, had steam rolling off of it. It is the first day of the year that it is in the 30's this morning.

Here goes nothing. Here goes nothing, to me continue the chase of the American Dream and striving to do things that make me happy. All I can think about are the days I had in the Student Leadership offices at The University of Tennessee. My experiences at SROW and all the experiences I had throughout the summers of being an Orientation Leader and Ignite Leader, those summers changed my life and that is why I am doing this now. Hopefully, I can change others.

Love can be found in the strangest places.

I was walking into the hospital the other day to see my cousin have her baby. There was construction, dirt all over, noise from all the machines and I looked down for a minute as I was walking and in the midst of all that....one of the machines made this. How appropriate right outside of the maternity ward.

Love really is all around.

Here's to all the leading ladies out there (TDN column Wed. Nov. 9, 2011)

While I was running at the gym a few weeks ago I was watching a movie. It was “The Holiday.” My parents gave me the movie for Christmas a couple of years ago and I think I may have watched it once, but not all the way through. While I was watching it at the gym, I really focused in on the movie and what one of the actors — Arthur Abbott — had to say during one of his scenes.

He was telling one of the British girls who had fled off to America to get away from a scenario with an ex something that resonated with her and somehow is still resonating with me weeks later and will continue to sit on my heart.

He said ‘in every movie there is a leading lady and a best friend. You are acting like the best friend and I don’t know why because you are a leading lady. Every woman should be the leading lady of her own life.’

Wow. What do you say to that? I have realized lately that there are things in my life that need improving. There are things that I can tweak (Yes, mom it needs tweaking, t-w-e-a-k-i-n-g.)

How often do we really think about who we are? Not, necessarily who we are as in “Hi, I’m Katie Yantis,” or where we are in our life, but who we are at the core of our being?

In the last few weeks, I have had some tough conversations with close friends and with myself. I realized that there are a lot of things about myself that are in need of some improvement. I’ve realized that while I should still learn from them, the mistakes that I have made in the past and the things that have happened to me in the past need to be forgotten. I need to leave them behind. Everyone always says the past is the past for a reason. Don’t let it be part of your future.

As I go through my daily routine, I wonder how true that really is for me? How much have I really let go of my past so that it’s not part of my future, so that history doesn’t repeat itself?

In realizing all of this, I have starting grasping on to a better realization of who I am. I am a complex human being, but we all are. I am a small town girl with high emotions. I love unconditionally with out reason and only with hope and that makes me who I am and no matter what happens in my surroundings or along my path — nothing is going to change that.

I am someone who likes to lace up my hiking boots and head out on the trails, but also strap on my high heels and string on my pearls for a night out on the town.

I like listening to Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble and Adele, but I can shake it like a country girl with Luke Bryan and Josh Thompson and even rock out with Aerosmith, Styx and The Rolling Stones.

I have realized there are times when I am more emotional than I need to be, but in the end I learn from it. There are times when I talk before I think, but people always know how I feel and sometimes I focus too much on the small stuff and don’t just enjoy life. But I’m working on that and even though we all say it, I’m going to focus on that fact that no matter what, life is too short to nit-pick and we need to just enjoy life and go skydiving.

I’ve realized that no matter what happens, I am who I am. I don’t require a lot of things, just simply to be loved as I love and to enjoy what life has to bring. I’ve realized that no matter where life takes me, when I continue to be that person, that is here to enjoy life, the people who enjoy and love that person will be by my side and won’t leave for a short period or for that matter any period of time.

So ladies, I encourage you — be the leading lady of your life and along the way you will start gaining a new appreciation for yourself and the self you will discover. You’ll find you are stronger than you ever thought and along the way you will gain people in your life who are the people you want to hold on to. Let the past go, love without end and be your own leading lady — you’re worth it.

Katie Yantis appears in the Troy Daily News every Wednesday.

When you think there is only hurt, there is love and beauty

Sometimes in life I feel like a fool. Sometimes I wonder why I am here and what I am suppose to be doing. Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard I try my efforts come up with nothing and in the end I'm still empty handed.

It often feels like I give and give and get nothing back. I love without condition, without reason and only with hope. It makes me wonder if there is a reason that God made me this way, why I continue to love, expecting only love back and when I get nothing, I'm crushed. Why do I assume that people will love the way that I love?

We are all different, we all live life different and we all see different and love different. So when I love someone that doesn't love or live the way I do am I so confused by it and not just consume the love they give? Why do I make it harder on myself?

I was walking along the paths at Charleston Falls today and noticed that a tree with sharp thorns was standing in front of a treat with beautiful red leaves amongst a forest of barren trees.

Is that why I do? Do I let the thorns get to me before the beauty? Do I let the fact that not all people love unconditionally like I allow me to think that they are being hurtful? And instead on the contrary there is beautiful love coming from them that I need to see further in to grasp? I wonder, what is that I am doing and why can't I just let people love without second guessing or questioning it?