Tis the Season

This was taken with the Ricks at Molbaks in Woodinville, Seattle. I don’t know why they didn’t kick us out of the store, but it was great fun. We Owl-ed on almost everything.

The End of Indecision 2011

I wrote earlier about Colin’s Job hunt. After months of flying coast to cost, applying for over 13000 jobs (ask Colin how he did that one day), checking out ever travel book in the library, living  out of boxes, we have finally made a decision (drum roll please) and we are going…

NOWHERE!!!

It seems a little strange and even disappointing to me at times that we are ending up staying right here in Utah for the time being. Neither of us are from here or have any family that lives here, so the fact that this is where Colin got his first post grad job is a little interesting. None the less, this job was the right pick and we are happy to have it.

It’s not that I don’t like Utah, in fact I have loved it here. I do have to say that it’s a bit strange that so many people who were born and bread here, are the most negative when it comes to living here. I’ve had several native Utahan's tell me it’s a nice place to live but not to stick around when I’m raising kids. Really? Was the experience that bad for them? What’s with the self-hate people?

Still, I can see their concern. My jaw about dropped to the ground when my grandma told me she thought I was picking up a Utah accent. I had to comb my words for what I might have said. Have I started dropping the ‘t’s? did I say Buh-en instead of button or mou-en instead of mountain? Did I mention melk (milk) or my pellow (pillow)? Did I say “oh my heck? Of course, this grandma has a thick Philadelphia accent, and probably shouldn’t be given any weight as a judge of proper speech.

Here are my other Utah worries:

Utah Hair:

This is the look on celebrities, and sorry gals, it still aint cute. I guess I know why it’s called the “beehive” state.

Sap:

Look, I’m a pretty happy person on the whole. I know it’s a lot cooler to be whiney and critical all the time, but well, life is pretty good and I’m pretty happy. In fact, I would say a naturally tend towards being sappy and sentimental. But what if Utah pushes me over the edge? What if I start loving lifetime movies, those pictures of smiling Jesus, and that little kid who “loves you this much”? What if I start referring to Thomas Kinkaid as a “painter of light”? This could be a real problem.


Becoming a human baked potato:

My people are a blend of all the pastiest peoples of earth (English, Irish, Scottish—all people who were made for the damp). The severe lack of trees in Utah might just tan my hide like an old leather saddle bag.



This blog is basically the summation of my fears:
http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/

Good. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Like I said, I’ve loved living in Utah so far and I’m sure I will find many more things to love as time goes by.

Now all Colin and I need to do is find a new apartment and plan two cross country Christmas trips to family before the year is out! Go team!

Things I’m Thankful For

“So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.”

Helen Keller

In appropriate Thanksgiving fashion I thought I would talk about what I’m grateful for.  Here are just a few:

1. Thanksgiving and Holidays in General

There is something about the winter holidays that just gets me so excited. I think it may be the license we all get this time of year to be just a little more cheesy than usual. You may have to bear with me as a spew gouda. Wow, that does sound bad. Oooz? Shmear? why are all cheese appropriate adjectives so nasty sounding? Personally I find a good cheese quite delightful.

Christmas cheese.  See.  Delightful!

Because we were unable to visit family this year, Colin and I decided to go low key for Thanksgiving. Since we’ve been eating every. meal on the coffee table since September, I thought it would be a little silly to do a whole Thanksgiving spread just for us.  Instead, we went to an early showing of The Muppets (Colin’s all time favorite stuffed goof balls) and dinner at Cracker Barrel.

As a wax cheesy and sentimental today, there is no better ball of brie than The Muppets. I know they’re a fuzzy big eyed creatures perfectly designed to pacify and enchant your wiley toddlers. I know this. I know and I don’t care. Don’t adults need to be pacified and enchanted? Yes. Definitely yes.

2.This Guy

Before the movie,  we prepared to stuff ourselves with more candy than a piñata by going for a walk in the park (yeah, those equal out calorie-wise). At the first crunch-crunch of his feet on the pavement Colin got a look on his face that can only be described as sheer delight.  It started off slowly enough: crunch crunch drag drag crunch crunch shuffle shuffle crunch crunch kick kick KICK KICK KICK! In no time at all we we got the image seen here. Of course, there was no coaxing from me at all….

That’s what I love about this guy. He delights in the small things. Since he generally hates to be the center of attention, you wont often catch him making a big fuss and gathering a crowd. But if you watch closely he’ll show you all the fun and beautiful things you were missing all along.

That’s how he is with service too. I remember once I broke the zipper pull on the top of my purse and spent the next week or so slowly inching the zipper shut with my fingernails. One day I was sitting on the couch blabbering away in my usual fashion and as we were leaving I grabbed my purse, zipped it up, and headed for the door.  I zipped it up. I was halfway to the door when I had to do a double take. I had just zipped it straight across without thinking. Somehow, wordlessly, the zipper pull had re-appeared in perfect repair.

That magic thing that keeps things always working: That’s Colin.

The thousand times I’ve woken up covered in a blanket that I never grabbed. The magic stacked-and-wrapped sandwich in the fridge when I know I only have five minutes for lunch. The extra alarm clock that sounds just after I’ve shut mine off. The path shoveled in the snow to a cleanly de-iced car. All the suddenly working electronics, renewed library books, clean sink—it’s all him.

I’m thankful for him every day. Sometimes I forget, and he always finds a way to remind me.

3. Friends Like These

This is a little game of “spot the fakers”—a new baby shower classic

This is the closest picture I could find to all of us together. It’s a little bit of an older picture. Both the actually pregnant moms have 2 kids now. All of us fakers were just showing (pun intended) our support for the baby shower. The only one that’s missing is Stiffy, but he’s behind the camera. He was “showing” his support too—which I’m sure only further confused people looking at the shower pictures on facebook.  I would almost give my right arm to have a video of Stiff leading pregnancy yoga in his trendy turban. Sometime I will have to write about the “epic” parties we threw. This was definitely one for the books.

Every now and again you get friends in life where your relationship is so easy it’s almost a given. That’s what these ladies are like, no matter what happens or where we all move, any time we get together we instantly pick up from where we left off. Every time we get together we make each other fall on the floor laughing. Literally in one case where Abby and I broke my dorm room bed from laughing too hard.  I’m thankful for soft floors and storing enough crap under my bed to break a fall.

Some people collect red shoes. I collect red heads. Not weird right?

Here’s another friendly picture. This time of year I always think of these friends for the reason of one majestic beast: the turkey. Late one night when we and I were teenagers we headed to Sheets at midnight for Nachos ‘cause that’s just what you do sometimes. For some reason we had been making a ton of turkey noises and had this thought:

What if you made turkey noises all the time?

What if it was uncontrollable like laughing, shuttering, or sneezing?

What if you did it every time you got cold?

Thus the “cold turkey” impressions followed. It was one of those things that’s not really funny, but at the same time it REALLY REALLY is. Shortly to follow came the flirty turkey, pompous turkey, turkey-caught-in-the-act, and best of all the angry turkey. There are not words that can describe the roll-on-the-floor-ability of Emily’s angry turkey. Of all things this Thanksgiving season. I’m thankful for the angry turkey.  I may have recounted this story last year…and I will probably do it for every Thanksgiving to come.

4. Family

This is the Family 3-4 years ago at Thanksgiving. Yeah, we kind a fill a room. I think we were close to 30 people that year. My family has children and my aunt has five—add in grandma, children, and a few significant others and boom—thirty foot table has suddenly become a necessity. I’m pretty sure all the adults regress about 10 years whenever we eat together. Even now, Mom still counts the minutes it takes for the conversation to disintegrate into “potty talk”—“15 minutes. That’s a record!” It’s always faster if Robert is there. I can think of nowhere else that I would be that comfortable. I love my family.

With Colin traveling so much this year I have experienced something new: being home alone. I’m pretty sure it never happened to me before. I’ve always had family or roommates to keep things moving. What did I discover about being along?

I hate it more than sticking toothpicks in my eyeballs.

Alright, maybe not that much. But it still makes me wicked uncomfortable.

I should mention here that I am a particularly bad sleeper. I don’t mean that I am restless, I mean that I am sleep crazy. Usually for a few minutes after I wake up I am still acting in my dream. Once woke up completely startled because I thought someone had broken into our house and was watching TV (one of the three channels on our sweet 10 inch). I shook Colin awake and insisted that he go look. As it turned out we had left a DVD in the drive that had restarted a few hours after we left it. I also pulled a knife from our top kitchen drawer because I thought someone was breaking into our apartment (on the third story). What I’m trying to say here is thank you family for never letting me kill myself or anyone else in my sleep.

I love my big fat white family (pretty sure we’re not Greek).

Also, I love my grandma who sent me this picture one Thanksgiving:

You guys are the best. Happy Thanksgiving!

Staph Meeting

This title is particularly appropriate because I discovered this little wonder whilst at work. I had a few mosquito bites around my knees from…well being me. Even if I was wearing plate metal armor, living in a hyperbaric chamber twenty thousand leagues under the sea I ‘m pretty sure I could get a mosquito bite. Maybe I need a S.W.A.T team.Oh the puns! How the never end!
I remember sitting at my desk at 9 am thinking “Crap, that is one heck of a mosquito bite” then as it tripled in size “Crap, that is one heck of a spider bite” by my the time my Wikipedia search had come up dry, and the infected spot had reached the size of a small continent I started thinking “Python? Rabid wolverine? Chupacabra?”
I started marking the infection as it grew. Thinking I was probably obsessing over nothing (because I never do that) I showed one of my co-workers who nearly fainted on the spot. As it turns out she’s not much for medical mysteries. “Go to the hospital RIGHT NOW.”

Some of my other well intentioned co workers insisted I take off my socks (sorry office!), elevate my foot (again sorry), and rub on a powerful potion of essential oils before going to the doctor.
I had been tracking progress on crazy thing, and it looked a little like this:

Since the doctor wasn’t really sure what it was, he gave me a nice blend of antibiotics and steroids (yum). He also drew a line around my leg and said “no big deal. You’ll be totally fine. But if it grows beyond this line GO TO THE EMEREGENCY ROOM IMMEDIATELY”
That left me a little hard pressed when the infection crossed only the bottom line by about an inch. Do I only half need to go to the ER?
Whatever they gave me, it worked and my leg shortly turned into a healthy shade of pasty white.

Moving Mayhem

We were unwilling to sign another year contract while Colin was still doing to job offer limbo. We put off finding a new place as long as possible, hoping to know what job we would need to be living by in the near future. We loved the old place. It was a prime example of a Provo house turned small apartment complex. Sure it had it’s quirks (pink bathroom anyone?) but it also had a working gas fireplace, huge windows, and a huge tree outside just perfect for a Sunday afternoon nap. But as no firm job offers came in time, we decided to move into a month-to-month rental just around the corner.

 

So about the new apartment—it has a few quirks. The coolest is a small metal trap door with the word “milk” etched in the front. It’s like a mail box for your milk man. That’s just cool.

The less favorable parts include a soft subfloor in the bathroom, warped paint, Swiss cheese walls with brown and maroon paint, and a completely mold covered freezer. (I’m open to suggestions on this one. I tried face mask and a ton of bleach, but I hear that won’t kill the spores). Lucky for us the apartment manager hired someone to redo all the flooring, including the hardwood, which should look sweet when finished. However, but some stroke of madness we agreed to paint the whole house in return for discounted rent.

 
The new place has significant advantage in being a month-to-month rental with low rent. It also has some of the classic charm associated with older apartments, one of which is a small metal trap door with the word “milk” etched in the front. It’s like a mail box for your milk man. That’s just cool.
 
But the place needed a lot of TLC. We agreed to paint and patch for a discount in the rent, and the landlord agreed to hire a handyman for the more complicated floor repairs.  We also ended up doing a ton of cleaning, including a freezer that had been left with food particles, what I can only assume was a spilled bottle of soy sauce, and a freezer totally covered mold.  (I’m open to suggestions on this one. I tried face mask and a ton of bleach, but I hear that won’t kill the spores.)  Little did I know that the mold I speak of would actually end up keeping me safe. It was a very similar mold that scared me away from using the toilet.  The Handyman later informed us that the same exact  toilet was a hair away from falling through the completely soft sub-floor. That would have been an adventure! Thank you mold! You literally saved my butt! 

We rushed like crazy to get the painting done on time Saturday so that the handyman could start work that Monday. We went by to check on the progress Monday to find the place exactly as we left it. Nothing done at all. We called the land lord, who called the handy man, who we went to see Tuesday to tell him we were supposed to move in Thursday night. We ended up moving in while he was still working, which was a little tricky in a 400 square foot apartment.

After what seemed like a month of packing, a few nights sleeping on the floor, and some nasty cleaning we were ready to go. Since we were only moving across the street, we felt no need to get a truck, we just used a dolly and some of Colin’s brothers willing to work for pizza. I cant tell you how annoying student foot traffic gets in circumstances like these. I heard a girl audibly laugh out loud at me as I moved my microwave across the street at 10 pm on a wheeled office chair. To which I wanted to say, “Listen Chicky, you gotta problem with the chair, you gotta problem with me!” after which I would ask for her help moving my collection of brass knuckles and cement booties.

After much shuffling of our gleaned boxes and about a week leaving every window in the house open, we are finally in, or at least half way in. We still cant walk around the edges of the bed, but we can basically sit, cook, and sleep. Hopefully that will tide us over until we can make more permanent plans.

Baby Pinafore

This was a sewing project for a friends new little teeny. I found the pattern here:  I wanted to make ruffle-butt pants to come out the back, but alas the lack of time.

Last Traces of Summer:

One of the most amazing things about living in Utah is that sunflowers grow wild practically anywhere. What’s particularly amazing about these flowers is that they were growing out of a huge pile of gravel on the side of the road.
Colin braved the rocky summit to bring me back a few of what must be the most tenacious flower in existence. I was amazed at how much joy it gave me to bring the little guys home. I wanted to sketch them, paint them, press them--anything to preserve the loveliness effect. It’s embarrassing to admit how much enthusiasm I have for things like this. What kind of people are over the moon about flowers? Fairy princesses? Wood nymphs? Certainly not respectable grown women like me.
Who am I kidding? I was never respectable and I never will be. Hello, my name is Katie, and I get excited to the point of silliness. I’m glad I could get that off my chest.
When we got home I quickly snipped the stems under water and crushed a baby aspirin into the water to keep them good.
They withered in three days.
Seriously? They can grow from seed to blossom out of a pile of straight up gravel, but they can’t make it through three days in my kitchen? I guess I should have left them where they were.

Happy Trails to You!

Colin’s Family came to see us for his graduation in August and to bring his twin brothers up to their fist year of college (our little guys are getting so big!). As past of their trip they found a place where they wanted to take us all horseback riding. I’d never been on a horse before and had always been intimidated by them. When I was a kid, I remember hearing my mom talk to a friend’s mom about some kid that got kicked by a horse and suffer major damage. Being a  overly cautious child, I decided then and there that a horse was no place for me. Later, I worked  in a treatment center for girls that had an equestrian program and realized that many of these horses are the gentle giants others had always made them out to be. I got to feed the horses, pet the horses, saddle the horse—and then watch someone else ride them.   Kinda a bummer. So I made sure that riding got put on my permanent bucket list. Plus, with a guide that looked John Wayne, Roy Rodgers, and Yosemite Sam all rolled together (See below. Note mustache), I was sure nothing could go wrong.

I cant remember now what my horses name was. It was either something regal like Duke, or something to do with peanut butter like Reese’s. I guess memories are funny like that. The moment I got on top of he he started to trot around. Even with Yosemite standing guard, I would have thought my reaction would be to yell “where’s the breaks!!” shortly followed by “devil beast!” and threats of turning the people who got me into this into glue. But to my surprise I just started laughing. It was actual uncontrollable laughs of glee at something that wasn’t in the least bit funny. After that, me and Duke Reese’s were the best of friends.

It was funny to see Colin up on his (Buttercup maybe?). He had gone particularly paternal on his particularly hungry horse. “No, no you! This is no  time for snackin’! Move along.” He also got particular joy from saying “hold your horses.” In our home, lame puns are pretty common parts of conversation. I’m pretty sure when I get old I’ll be one of those old ladies who tells the baker he has nice buns. The again, in a retirement community, that’s probably tantamount to sexual harassment. I’ll have to re-think the habit.

Adorable Otters from the Seattle Aquarium

You cant help but love these little guys! Otters are my favorite and I always look for them when we go to the aquarium. Just another thing to get crazy-stupid excited about.

Sunday Walks

Recently, we’ve made a habit of going on walks Sunday afternoon. Sometimes we’re too lazy to go anywhere further than our own neighborhood, but this week we were a little more adventurous and decided to do the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  When I first moved here from Virginia I thought I would never acclimate to the severe lack of trees. And while I still wouldn’t trade my trees for Utah’s hot and dusty summers, I’m beginning to see that the place may have a beauty all it’s own.