November 13th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Is THIS WHOLE STORE

Just in case any of you were wondering.

WHICH I KNOW YOU ALL WERE.

***DISCLAIMER: Ok, not the WHOLE store. Whatever I can wear with my garments. Please call if you’re not sure of the specifications. I look great in red, blue, pink, green and black. I love knee length pencil skirts and the slightly puffy sleeves on their shirts. I also love all of their shoes. I am a size L in shirts, 12 in skirts and 10 in shoes. Things that are on sale or clearance are perfectly acceptable. Thank you for your consideration.

November 13th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Julia has decided that I need to move back to Provo. In her negotiations on the matter, she has accrued a list of reasons why:

1 - I live here
2 - Going to girly movies together
3 - Burger Supreme
4 - Shopping trips
5 - Actual Seasons
6 - The delightful late night drive-by of old boyfriends houses
7 - Slacker Sundays
8 - Sleepovers
9 - I don’t live in Phoenix
10 - Los
11 - Being able to have parties and BBQ’s together
12 - Getting slurpees in the Summer
13 - Driving around with music blaring
14 - Talking each other into making ridiculous purchases we know we can’t afford
15 - Getting bevs
16 - Current late night IM conversations can be taken care of IN PERSON and they will be FUNNIER because we’ll be laughing TOGETHER
17 - OZZ!!
18 - Hours upon hours spent at Taco Bell on University Ave. talking about naughty encounters
19 - And finally, you need to move back to Provo simply because you are one of my Best Friends and we are missing out on some golden years by living apart!!

Well, what can you say folks?!?! This is a very persuasive list of reasons, and besides that I’m homesick right now . . . I guess I should try to convince the man I call husband and try to find us both good jobs!

November 13th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

OK, so everyone has a weird ward if they belong to the LDS Church. I get that.

But today my ward takes the cake, I swear. It was a very . . . uncomfortable sacrament meeting for most people, I would imagine.

We had three speakers today. Two of them were actually really good. One was a young man leaving on his mission this week and the other was a lady in the ward that I’m not HUGELY fond of, but her talk was well thought out, well planned, educational, spiritual and funny.

Then there was the OTHER lady.

Her talk was on how apostasy comes on slowly. It started out awesome. She was talking about slowly changing clouds and how that made her think about sin and Satan.

Then she hit us with the bomb. She said the phrase: “Soft Porn” in church.

Now, that, in and of itself, is not so rare or odd. But when it’s in the following context, it’s really uncomfortable.

She was talking about the TV show ER. She said she liked it the first season, then the second season it got a little racy. Then in the third season it got downright sexual. Then she she said that the commercials she’s seen lately for the show (since she quit watching it when it got sexual) now indicate that the show is nothing other than SOFT PORN.

Now, here are several reasons why that statement was uncomfortable:

1.) I bet that most of the congregation watches ER or something like it (er, Grey’s Anatomy anyone?)

2.) Soft porn, in pretty much anyone’s opinion, including the rating system’s, shows actual boobies and whoo-has. Last time I checked, TV didn’t allow that.

3.) There were SEVERAL prospective members of the church in the congregation that day. This missionaries had brought them. Accusing most of them of watching soft porn on a weekly basis probably isn’t the best move, wouldn’t you say?

I swear to you almost every head in the room sunk a little lower or into a hand with the common thought “oh my gosh she did not just say that.”

I, being the psycho that I am, just started laughing. The silent, shaky church laugh. Come one, you know the laugh I’m talking about. Hunched over, tears streaming down your face, yet, no sound comes out. I don’t know why I thought it was so hilarious. Maybe it was the thought that one woman had just made 250+ people REALLY uncomfortable. Who knows.

Then, during my fit of laughter, I hear the following conversation from the row behind me:

“Mommy, do you know what a sheriff is?”

“Yes Josiah I do.”

“I bet you don’t. A sheriff is a principal dressed up as a cowboy. That’s what a sheriff is.”

Que uncontrollable laughter.

November 11th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Soooooo

I was supposed to not post anything until Jewels sent me her FAB list of reasons that I need to move back to Provo, but people, she’s extremely busy starring in a PLAY and I’m sort of addicted. I can’t let a day go by without posting and not be irritated by that. Besides I found out it’s NaBloPoMo which apparently means National Blog Posting Month or something scary like that? Don’t ask me how I found this out. I don’t want to admit to being any more lame than all of you think I am. Because I know I am, ok?

OK. ANYWAY, what this means to me and all of you, is that in November, those of us who Blog are supposed to do so at least once a day. I fully plan on doing that even though no one probably really cares. So be prepared for the most. boring. post. ever.

See the title? ‘Splains it all. Especially the LAME part.

Tonight I did the following:

Read my husband’s new Sports Illustrated from cover to cover. HOW LAME IS THAT?

Partially painted the downstairs bathroom. And when I say partially, I mean PARTIALLY. I didn’t do anything that didn’t involve the large roller. And those of you who paint know that means I just painted the middle section of the walls. The two walls that I could use a roller on. (It is a very small bathroom)

Hung the laundry room door.

Hung new doorknob on laundry room door.

Went shopping for half an hour with Karajean, who is in my ward.. Yeah, you heard me. Half. An. Hour. Somewhere in the craziness of the weird things I did tonight I went shopping with Karajean. We drove 25 miles to shop for 25 minutes. And yes, I’m just as confused as you guys probably are right now. I bought a shirt that was on clearance at Bebe. Karajean bought nothing. We did laugh and chat about some funny stuff though.

After that I spent an hour on the phone with my Aunt Alex and my sister Meagan. I totally forgot about the ability to conference call. How cool is that? All three of us were talking to each other. Man I miss those guys. Half the time we couldn’t hear each other because all three of us were trying to talk at the same time.

I am now . . . wait for it . . . transferring all my music from my laptop to our new computer. Why you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. My laptop is company issued, and I want to make sure that, if they ever take it away from me or if I ever lose it or drop it or something, that I have a back-up copy of my AWESOME music somewhere. Now here’s where it gets funny.

SINCE the laptop is company issued, I cannot use our home network to view it, due to the anal security measures my company takes with all our technology. SO, I have to use a 1GB jump drive to transfer the music wee tiny bits at a time. Needless to say, I have lots of dead time.

There’s actually a lot of other things that went on today, it was one of those insane days where you get to the end of it (it’s actually midnight on the dot right now. PHEW!) and you think “wow, a lot of stuff happened today! I should make a list! I was super productive” Some not so productive stuff went down today too, but I’m sort of . . . over it, I guess. I sort of went through an entire grief cycle today or something . . . the whole shock, denial, anger, despair and acceptance thing . . . except I also added my own phase in the cycle — uncontrollable laughter. I don’t know if it was early morning boot camp, lack of food or WHAT. I just got sort of goofy by the end of the day and decided that everything, even the bad stuff, was just funny. I highly recommend it if you’re having a bad day. Down about ten caffeinated beverages and find out what you’re REALLY made of!

This may explain why I was uber productive tonight. You think? Ten Diet Cokes in one day? I think that should do it. I should press ‘DELETE’ on this little tangent, but I’m sort of writing just to write and get some thoughts out of the old noggin, so WHY NOT LEAVE IT says me? Besides, it’s a free plug for Coca-Cola. EXCELLENT.

Coca-Cola. Proven to eat away at metal. Tastes good. Drink up!

Oh and Jewels? You have my word that as soon as I get your list, I will post it tout suite (ps - did you know that means ‘quick fart’? You probably did, which is probably why you decided that you will name your racehorse that, but I did not. I had to go look it up just now for spelling purposes and I laughed really hard after reading the definition. I’ve been saying it ever since our Mexico bash and haven’t known I was basically saying fart a lot.) and, it will be the funniest post ever. As opposed to this one.

But in fairness to me I did just write a paragraph about the word ‘fart’. If that’s not comedy, I don’t know what is.

Ahem.

November 8th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Step 1: Start with a kitchen that looks something like THIS

Step 2: Watch ‘Design to Sell’ about ten too many times and thinks “dude, I can TOTALLY do that AND make more money on my house!

Preparation Days 1-14

Step 3: Go to Sherwin Williams and ask the scary question “Do you think it’s too hard if I try to paint my cabinets myself?” The answer is always “no! it’s easy!”

Step 4: Buy all supplies you think you need

Day 1

Step 6: Get all hopped up on sugar and decide to tackle the SOB

Step 7: Take cupboards off one by one

Step 8: Throw up when you see how much CRAP has been stuck in the hinges

Step 9: Attempt to wash cupboards one by one

Step 10: Throw up when you see how much CRAP has been stuck in the crevices

Step 11: Use toothpick to remove built up crap

Step 12: Stab self in hand with toothpick

Step 13: Swear a lot

Repeat Step 11

Lather, rinse and repeat, particularly Step 13

Step 14: Decide cupboards are clean enough (or decide you’re going to paint over the damn dirt no matter what anyone says)

Step 15: Move everything in living room to accommodate as many cupboards as possible at one time and lay them all down.

Step 16: Realize there’s no place for you to actually sit while painting

Step 17: Remove about ten of the cupboards to make room for your huge butt

Step 18: Find primer in pile of paint and supplies

Step 19: Apply primer to one side of cupboards

Step 20: Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . .

Step 21: Get distracted and forget you were doing a project

DAY 2

Repeat Steps 19-21

DAY 3

Step 22: Apply first coat of real paint to one side of cupboards

Step 23: realize there are paint drips everywhere but decide you don’t really care, you’re going to antique the edges anyway. We’re going for the “old cottage” look here.

Repeat steps 20-21

Day 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Repeat Day 3 until all cupboards are complete

Day 12

Step 24: Sand edges of all cupboards for that “antique look”

Step 25: Spray Polyurethane coating on one side of cupboards for that shiny finish

Repeat Step 20

Repeat Step 25

Repeat Step 20

Repeat Step 25

Day 13

Repeat Step 20

Repeat Step 25

Repeat Step 20

Repeat Step 25

Step 26: Attempt to clean grime off of hardware

Step 27: Take a short and annoying detour on cabinet project due to THIS

Day 14

Step 28: Slowly start re-attaching cabinets, realizing that it’s not as easy as it looks and you’re not quiiiiiite sure which ones go where or how to make the Step 13 things straight

Step 29: Start attaching new knob pulls and realize that, naturally, it’s not as easy as it looks either. Oh no, it involves the use of several different drill bits (plan on breaking at least one or two if you’re anything like me) and many more of Step 13 and many Macguyver maneuvers to ensure that everything is attached, straight and looking decent.

From Day 15 until you move out of the house

Step 30: Stand back, take a deep breath and realize that it was, in fact, worth it, because now your kitchen looks like this:

I still think I might need a drink though . . . PHEW!

November 7th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Well, after all my bellowing, I finally have received my 90 day review and my raise. It went a little bit like this:

“Kate, by the way, we talked to HR this morning and we’re going to offer you a raise to $XXXXX and you will also get a quarterly bonus of $XXXX. Cool? Cool.”

All in all, as I add up the figures, it gets me an additional, like, $150 or so a paycheck . . . but it’s actually a pretty decent raise as far as percentage of current income goes.

Most likely I will get the raise retroactive to October 1st, so that’s nice and might pay for 1/10 of Christmas expenses or something.

I’m not saying any of this to brag or imply how cool I am, I just wanted to mention the end of my whining and moaning and the start of my new life, making $300 more a month. I feel so much richer already. I might go buy some expensive shoes.

Oh wait, that goes straight to debt and a new house. Silly me!

November 6th, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Today at lunch I did two things I’m proud of and one thing I’m not.

Let’s start with the bad, shall we?

I paid $10 for this sandwich

I mean, it’s HUGE and all (and that’s just a picture of half of it) but TEN DOLLARS PEOPLE?!!?! SERIOUSLY?

The two things I’m proud of?

I walked to the deli (that’s apparently reserved for millionaires) in order to work off just a few more calories.

I ordered french fries on the side, then I said NO, STOP. Fruit salad. I want fruit salad. I really wanted french fries, they sounded so good. But after my weekend of gorging myself on Whoopie Pies , I needed the fruit salad. Then it only had melon and two pieces of pineapple, no strawberries, no grapes. I don’t eat melon. So basically instead of fries I got two very small pieces of pineapple. Saved me a lot of calories.

I’m giving myself a pat on the back with one hand while smacking myself in the face with the other. I mean I did pay TEN DOLLARS FOR A TURKEY SANDWICH.

That kind of decision is going to make us very poor. But hey! At least I’ll be skinny!

November 3rd, 2006 by Kateastrophe

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern. A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock. A unique woman like you needs a city that offers everything. No wonder you and London will get along so well.

ALSO

You Are Confident Sexy

You’re one sexy chica, and you know it. You’ve got the confidence to strut your stuff… And approach any man who happens to catch your eye. You may make a guys run away, but the true men will appreciate your moxie.

OR

You Are A Little Snobby

And being a little snobby every once and a while is totally allowed. Because if no one was ever snobby, no one would ever try to dress up or look pretty. And while you do enjoy the finest things in life (that you can afford), you tire of superficiality. You know there’s more to life than what’s just on the surface.

OR

You are Dark Chocolate

You live your life with intensity, always going full force. You push yourself (and others) to the limit… you want more than you can handle. An extreme person, you challenge and inspire the world!

November 3rd, 2006 by Kateastrophe

Man, I wish I had pictures of my lunch drive today.

I went to pick up a birthday cake for a co-worker and lunch for myself. I drove less that 1/4 of a mile to do these things. In that time I saw the following strange “only in Scottsdale” things:

1. An 80+ year old man riding a scooter - and not one of those old people help you get around scooters. Like, a Vespa scooter — complete with a little “carrier” on the back for his . . . purse?. He was all hunched over the handle bars and driving about 5 miles an hour in front of me. I would have been mad but it was HILARIOUS.

2. A little girl dressed in some couture outfit for three year olds, complete with what looked like designer sunglasses, eating the “sand” out of a cigarette disposal receptacle

3. Another 80+ year old man on a two wheeled apparatus, but this time it was a giant Harley Davidson

4. A porn star looking character with a barking toy dog sticking out of her Chanel bag, buying A banana at AJ’s. Just one . . . and nothing else. Mind you AJ’s is the luxury grocery store around here that charges you triple for everything, so she was buying A banana for the price I usually buy a whole BUNCH of bananas for. And let me tell you, if I had dropped the wad of cash it would have cost to buy a Chanel bag, you bet your britches no darn DOG will be getting a ride in it! It would, most likely, be in a glass box in my closet with motion detectors attached to it to keep things completely away from it.

5. A Scottsdale cop ordering a vegetarian rice bowl with brown rice. I thought cops only ate doughnuts and unhealthy MAN food!

Now I know why we can never live in Scottsdale. I mean, with super inflated house prices I knew that already, but now I REALLY know! At least not until I have my body completely altered with plastic surgery and we win the lottery. Then maybe we’ll fit in.

November 2nd, 2006 by Kateastrophe

The biggest difference between men and women (besides the obvious PHYSICAL differences, duh) is that we both know our way is better 100% of the time.

And since Matt doesn’t remember the password to our blog, or the fact that he can, in fact, post to it, guess what? My way is officially always better. Especially when it comes to home improvement projects.

SO, I am FINALLY finished with the cabinets. And if I do say so, whilst patting myself on the back rewarding myself with chocolate and a new pair of these fabulous jeans that were on clearance, the cabinets really are so great looking. I’m now hoping they add maybe . . . $20,000 in value to my home!! Hahahaha. No. Seriously. If not I might sue that show “Design to Sell” for convincing me that painting the cabinets would do that if I don’t get to raise the asking price of my house by that much money. And I promise, as soon as the kitchen doesn’t look like THIS
anymore, I’ll post pictures of the whole beautiful thing.

Also, in other home improvement fun, tonight we did this:

And also this:

P.S. Who’s idea was it to call a garbage disposal the BADGER?

And as you can tell from the first paragraph, we did a liiiiiiitle bit of this: