October 31st, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Ahhh Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays, yet this year I have failed it miserably. I don’t really have a costume (seriously, my fleece viking hat paired with a cute outfit SO does not count) and we aren’t doing anything tonight. I DO have candy for the one or two kids who live in our new neighborhood but that’s about as Halloween as we get this year. I’m ashamed.

To make it up to myself and you guys, I’m posting a picture from when Matt and I were dating. We flew to Utah for the Jolley Annual Halloween Party and Matt was SUCH a good sport about his bear costume. He looked awesome. And I? Well I was Goldilocks in a short skirt and to be honest, I was a wee bit uncomfortable. But we looked good, no? Grrrr.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween and I’ll post lots more pictures in the coming days! I have so much to catch up on . . . you have no idea.

October 26th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So we’re off to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes with Matt’s family and our quads. I bought new pink and black gear for the occasion which might spark the question “Kate, why on earth did you buy matching ATV gear to go out with your family?”

Well, that is another discussion for another time, but basically . . . IT’S PINK AND BLACK!!!

We won’t be back until late Monday night, so I’m sorry I won’t be participating in Soap Opera Sunday yet AGAIN. I suck. But trust me, I’m the worse off. I’m gonna have sand in places you didn’t know sand could GET by the time we finish up four days at the dunes.

I leave you all with the knowledge that when I get back, it will be a week full of pictures because WE FOUND THE CAMERA CORD! So you’ll be able to see me in the Shark Tank at Mandalay Bay, the new house, final pictures of the old house and me, covered in sand, but stylishly. I might dub it Ocular October or something stupid like that because you might just get pictures!

I apologize. Ocular October is a lame, stupid name.

OK we’re off on our elebenteen hour drive. Have a great weekend!

October 24th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Hmmm, maybe I should change the title to “Where Have All the Gentlemen Gone?” because that’s really what I mean. But that’s neither here nor there. I like my title and it’s staying.

I realize I’m not the only woman who asks this question, but I had an experience today that gave me pause and I couldn’t resist writing about it.

In my office we have a soda fountain, similar to one found in a gas station. It has about six varieties of soda, the most popular of which is the Diet Coke. I may have mentioned my addiction to this amazing beverage of life - and it’s true. I’m totally addicted, but I’m trying to cut back to one a day. So, at about 2:00 this afternoon, I wandered into the break room to serve myself up my one delicious Diet Coke, and whattaya know . . . the machine is out.

This is fairly typical in my office. I seem to work with a giant group of helpless idiots. If there are no more cups on the counter, they will wander off, dejected, rather than reaching on top of the fridge to grab a new sleeve of paper cups. If the coffee is out, they will walk to the Starbucks two blocks away rather than make a new pot of coffee. You see what I’m getting at, right? Naturally, when the Diet Coke is out, people just wander away rather than doing the fairly difficult job of switching out the syrup (because the box of syrup weighs about thirty pounds).

But not me. Oh no not me. I need my Diet Coke.

Today, switching out the box was more complicated than usual because the Diet Coke was buried under the orange soda and the Dr. Pepper. And the space we have the boxes of syrup in is pretty tight so I had to move the other two boxes completely out of the space and into the middle of the floor in order to get the Diet Coke out. To add even more detail you probably don’t care about, today I was wearing these boots:Needless to say, my balance wasn’t quite what it normally is. As I was trying to grab the Diet Coke box by the flimsy cardboard handle, the handle broke and my feet slid out from under me and I fell flat on my back. Splat. Ow. Laughter.

Right about as I helped myself back up, wondering if our security cameras caught my moment of glory, two of our developers walked into the kitchen to get coffee. Now, lest you forget, I had two boxes of soda syrup spread out on the floor and another box I was trying to lift into the cupboard where we hook it up to the life giving veins of the soda fountain.

The two guys saw, and basically sat at watched me, in my pointy black heels and nice dress pants, struggling to lift the Diet Coke into the cupboard, then continued to watch as I attempted (in vain a couple of times almost causing the damage of the cute pointy toe of my right boot) to lift the other boxes back into their tight space. They just SAT and WATCHED. And it made me so mad!

Now, I am a pretty independent, tough kind of gal. I don’t mind lifting boxes, I don’t mind taking care of things like that myself. I grew up in a house without a father and until my brothers were bigger, Mom and I had to take care of a lot of that stuff ourselves. I can tile, operate a saw, a drill and other small power tools. I can do a lot of that stuff myself and I don’t profess to “need a man” to help me with things like that.

BUT - it’s really nice sometimes to have the help or at least the OFFER of help and there are jobs that I simply cannot do by myself. I lack the arm strength, despite my bulging biceps, and it seems less and less guys are being gentlemen in these types of situations.

I once worked for a man who once handed me a huge heavy box to take to his car and then walked in front of me all the way out to the parking lot talking on the phone, not even pausing to hold the doors open for me as I struggled to walk behind him.

Another man I worked for had me clean out a large room in his house and basically watched and directed me as I loaded heavy things into a truck then sent me off to the dump and storage units to unload the same stuff by myself.

I dated a guy for a very long time who had me do everything and would sit around watching. I did the cooking followed by the dishes. I would have to be with him when he went to the doctor and he’d have me fill out his paperwork for him.

Part of the problem is that I have a hard time asking for help and I’m a huge enabler . . . but I guarantee that if I really need the help, and someone offers, I won’t say no. However, in some cases, I really shouldn’t have to wait for an offer. There are situations where a manly man just needs to stop what he is or is not doing, or help.

Now, in contrast to the above, my husband is a great guy who always offers to do the “manlier” jobs himself, or to at least help me. I may not always take him up on that, but it’s SO great to have the offer of help with heavy boxes, hard jobs, etc. My Father and brothers would rather die before letting my Mom, Stepmother, sister or myself pick up a heavy box or whatever job they consider “manly.”

But, as you can see from my other examples above, in my life, guys like my husband, Dad and brothers, seem few and far between. Don’t get me wrong, I know they still exist. One of them opened the door for me today coming out of a restaurant. Another picked up some papers that had fallen out of my briefcase. But overall, it feels like men have stopped being Gentlemen.

Trust me, I don’t want to go back to the days where men walked on the road side to prevent the women from getting dirty but didn’t allow the women to vote and I don’t want to turn back time to the days when men were “true gentlemen” and a woman’s “place” was in the kitchen (extreme examples, I know, but I hope you know what I’m getting at), but, I would really appreciate more men being more respectful. I would appreciate two strong men offering to help me lift thirty pound boxes rather than standing around staring. I would love to have more doors opened for me and not feel like I have to cause a hernia lifting heavy boxes or furniture. I like feeling girly!! I like pink and ruffles and roses and all of those girly things. But even if I didn’t, myself and every other woman I know deserves a little more respect from the general man population.

I wish I had a solution. I know my son(s) will be raised to behave like his/their father. The men in my family will be gentlemen, but I obviously can’t be the one to influence the world.

I just hope that my generation can help bring some of that chivalrous attitude back, because chaps and Wranglers or not, cowboys knew how to treat a lady.* Yipeeeai, Yipeeeay

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*For the record I am aware that not all cowboys were or even ARE gentlemen and some of them are/were disgusting. I’m purposely making generalizations here, mostly to tie my ridiculous title into the post. No judging. Thanks. Kisses.

October 20th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Oh wow I’m so sorry about last week. As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a bit of an Internet debacle as well as a moving and time debacle and let’s all just chalk it up to a big ‘ole debacle. And I’m sorry I’m posting late this week!

OK so to get caught up on the longest SOS in history, go here then here then here then here
then finally here.

Told you it was the longest SOS in history.

So, for those of you who don’t have seven hours to catch up, basically I’m accidentally dating two guys and one of them is currently on a Greyhound Bus on his way to see me from California, and I’ve got to figure out what to do with the other guy.

So I do what any normal, 20 year old, cheating girlfriend would do. I lied my pants off.

I told Sam I had a cousin coming to town (I met Keith through my cousin so technically the cousin part has teeny tiny bit of . . . ok it’s just a flat out lie) and that I won’t be able to see him for a few days while we do family stuff. Now, had Sam said something like that to me I would have asked to meet the cousin, and been incredibly suspicious when he wouldn’t let me. Good old Sam just said “OK, cool.”

So, gorgeous Keith arrived at the Greyhound station in Salt Lake where I was waiting for him (another weird story for another time. Those places are CRAZY!) and we commenced our weekend of, well basically making out and hanging out with my family. He was very sweet the whole time, and as my girlfriends remember, followed me around like a puppy. They thought it was hilarious when, after they mentioned that to me, I commenced calling him my puppy. He is actually still known today amongst Rhonda and Jewels as my puppy.

One of the nights he was in town, my Mom had tickets to the outdoor theatre at Sundance to see Fiddler on the Roof. Keith, like the trooper he was agreed to go. We had seats way at the top of the amphitheater on the grass, so we were all cuddled up in blankets. Right before the show started I went to go get us some treats at the concession stand. After I got my stuff, I turned around to walk back to my seats and ran smack dab into Sam’s father.

Oh holy crap.

I started to panic. That family went nowhere without the whole clan. I just KNEW Sam was there. I knew it. And I knew as soon as his Dad got back to his seats, Sam would be looking for me. And I knew that when I didn’t run down to say hi to all of them, that they would get suspicious. I had no idea what to do. I had never juggled two guys before, not when I actually had a boyfriend at least, so I was lost. I ran up to my blanket, and basically hid under the covers for the rest of the play. Unfortunately, that didn’t hide my entire family who was there with me and I just knew I was totally busted.

I was totally nervous the rest of the weekend Keith was in town. He was such a sweet guy. So sweet in fact that he sat me down and told me we shouldn’t see each other romantically anymore because our religious differences would tear us apart and he didn’t want that for me. The girl who thought he was hot inside of me tried to talk him out of it, but another part of me was relieved. I didn’t know how to juggle two guys, that was completely obvious.

Monday morning I dropped Keith off at the bus station and prepared to meet my fate with Sam.

When I saw him next he didn’t say a word about it, but things weren’t . . . normal. He was spending a lot of time at his houses and asked that I not come over and distract him. I went into repair mode. I started trying to “help” all I could. I dropped off little treats for him to remind him that I cared. Every time we talked he would say “you are the kindest person I’ve ever met.” I thought it was sweet.

Turns out it was his way of prepping me for the inevitable. You see, I was the kindest person he’d ever met and that’s why it was going to be hard for him to dump me for the absolutely stupid reason he had chosen to dump me for.

Naturally, he didn’t tell me that reason when he called me on the phone to dump me. He just told me I was the kindest person he’d ever met and he felt horrible about it but it just wasn’t right. He wasn’t ready. He gave me the infamous “it’s not you, it’s me” speech. Even though I had cheated on him I was completely heartbroken. I’m not sure if it was the thought of being alone or what but it literally took me months, and my next dramatic relationship (another SOS saga for sure) to get over him.

I truly don’t think he ever knew about Keith. He had decided long before that to dump me. He had decided the day after our first kiss on the drive home from Park City. When I was eating a bag of Cheetos and licking the orange dust off my fingers. He thought that was absolutely disgusting and he had been planning to dump me since then. I found this out months later when I was talking to his younger brother. Sam had told his family about the Cheetos and they had apparently looked at him in shock, not believing that weird, ridiculous thing was the reason he had ended things with me. They thought he was retarded and so did I.

So folks, thus ends the saga of Sam, the boy who dumped me because of the way I ate Cheetos.

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I seem to be having trouble with the Mr. Linky code, so if you’re playing this week do me all a favor and head over to Brillig’s site and leave your link in hers. She’s got a great SOS this week . . . sort of a play along! Go check it out!

Happy Soap Opera Sunday!

October 16th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I only have a few minutes but I wanted to update you all on the boring goings on in my life. Because I know you care sooooooo deeply. Or something.

So, in no particular order, I give you:

- I would LOVE to post pictures of the new house for all of you, but somehow in the move, I have misplaced the camera cord. Well, by I, what I actually mean is Matt misplaced it. And by misplaced I mean packed in a box and forgot which one. So um . . . yeah. Sorry about that, but not really because all the pictures are of a HUGE MESS. Our bed is in the family room due to technical difficulties with the frame (which should be fixed tonight. Who knew a 200 lb man doing a superman-esque leap onto the bed after running down the hall at full speed might actually do damage to a bed frame? Oh wait. I did. And I warned him.) and there are boxes and wrappings and blue tape (from finding little things that need to be fixed by the builder) EVERYWHERE. So it’s really in no condition to show you.

- We are almost completely moved out of the old house. Now all we have to do is a bit of cleaning. I’m proud to say the house was not that messy. We got the wood floors pretty dirty moving everything around but all in all, I pat myself on the back for being able to keep the house relatively clean over the past six months. It’s been helpful in many, many ways. And has sucked and been stressful in many, many ways.

It’s bittersweet to be moving out of that house. After spending one night in the new house it seems small, cramped and old, but I still love it. Our blood, sweat and tears went into turning it from a pink carpeted, outdated disaster to something we were proud of. Tomorrow as we do the final cleaning and shut the door for the last time, I will be sad because a very, very happy chapter of Matt’s and my life together is ending. We were in love when we got married for sure, but I truly fell madly in love with my husband in that home. I will miss it and be sad. But only on the drive to the new house. Then I will see the new house and I will be happy again because I really LOVE our new house.

- The Great Internet Debacle of 2007 is raging a war at our new house. We had one of the satellite companies come and install our new TV system and they forgot to mention that they were tapping into the cable box in the study . . . which means that the TV in the study works but the cable Internet doesn’t. That’s a big problem because as nice as a TV is in the study, Internet would be nicer considering it’s where the desktop computer lives. The satellite company promised us a phone call in 24-48 hours to arrange a time to fix it and it’s now been 48 and no call from them. For now we’re thinking wireless on the desktop, but that uses valuable USB cords and heaven knows we need those for multiple iPods, the laser mouse, wireless keyboard . . . you know other junk. So wireless it is for now.

BUT then we tried to use the wireless router. Somehow, on the drive from the old house to the new house, the router broke. It wasn’t dropped, damaged . . . who knows what happened. Maybe it’s against new construction. However, JUST the wireless part broke, the router part still worked. So we had Internet when we were connected to it through a cable but didn’t have wireless. *scratching head here.* So after an hour of trying to figure it out on our own, we decided to do the really dumb thing and call tech support. IN INDIA. (Please note I have nothing against India in general, I just find it very, very difficult to understand and be understood by anyone in another country trying to do TECH SUPPORT.) It was a giant disaster.

“Please plug your modem into the router and then your router into your laptop.”

“Done. I have Internet“

“No, take the laptop cord out of the modem and put it in the router and that should get you connected to the Internet“

“Um, that’s what is already done. And I have Internet on the laptop.”

“I repeat myself kindly please. I need your laptop plugged into the router.”

oh.my.gosh. It went on like this for like two hours and three disconnected calls. We finally talked to someone who seemed to understand what was going on and it appears our router stopped assigning an IP address. So um . . . now that means new router or wait for the company to send us a replacement one.

And the money keeps rolling out.

It’s expensive to move. And I’m tired of sleeping in the family room and eating fast food. And lifting and unpacking boxes. And not exercising and feeling fat. I want so badly to wave a magic wand and make it all done.

*squinting eyes and waving hands*

Not done?

Crap.

October 13th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So, I have this friend, right? And she’s like . . . amazing, right? In like, every way possible see, but today, she crossed the amazing line. As just a little background, Julia (or Jewels as we lovingly call her) has a two year old boy, just gave birth to another darling boy and has a Fire Chief husband who pretty much works around the clock and she still manages to look like a million bucks, throw amazing parties and is a creative genius like none I’ve seen.

Jewels has always had a knack for making the best ANYTHING from scratch. Apple pie, Halloween costumes . . . you name it, she’s good at it. SO, she had a friend who had a baby shower back around the time she herself was about ready to have her second baby and she got a wild hair that she would custom design and sew onsies and burp cloths. And oh my gosh, she did an amazing job. So I asked her to make some similar things for a couple of baby showers I’m attending this week.

People, do you have any idea how cute the stuff she made for me is? ANY IDEA? Probably not off the top of your heads so I will show you just how cute this stuff is.

Exhibit A:

Vaa Vaa Vroom!

Exhibit B,C,D and E: OK, I’m talking hand sewn sequins, custom designed trees AND monograms? Goodness! And check out the butts of the butterfly and zebra ones!!!

I.COULD.JUST.DIE.

Shake your bon bon!

And last but certainly not least . . . the burp cloths. They are seriously too cute to let anyone spit up on!!

Pink damask with pom pom lining!? Ruffles!? Flowers and paisley patterns? Be still my quivering uterus.

Seriously, have you ever seen anything cuter? And she did this all with a two year old and a newborn on her watch. She is so amazing.

So, darlings, if you or anyone you know is in need of something like this, I have a feeling Jewels might be willing to help you out in that department! Just hop on over to her blog and see what she can do! I think she’s decided to call her line “Jollies.” So dang cute. I bow down to her amazingness.

October 9th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So um, Brillig, I updated my “About” section and so far, that’s all I got but hey, it’s something, right?

Go on, check it out!

October 8th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

First off, let me start my blog post the way I normally do . . . with an apology. Haha.

I apologize that I don’t have pictures for this post. In fact the post is almost pointless without pictures, but I had to post about it before I ran out of time. So . . . yeah.

So, this week we started moving stuff in to the new house. Correction: We started moving stuff into the garage and kitchen and that’s all. We have been taking over a trailer and two car loads of stuff every day and the third car bay of the garage is practically full of boxes. However, we have not moved over ANY furniture. So, recap. I have an empty house and a full garage. Per-fect.

Ooh ooh ooh but I DID (with the help of my amazing friend Rhonda) organize the entire kitchen. I am delighted to announce that I have WAY too many cabinets and drawers. I am a person of MANY, MANY kitchen things. The kitchen at the old house was bursting at the seams with stuff. I had about eight cupboards and four drawers. I now have four drawers and six cupboards on my ISLAND ALONE. I am full of bliss and excitement at the thought of a shopping trip to Williams Sonoma (someday when we have money again) to fill the cupboards with fun kitchen gadgets, serving platters and the like. Excellent.

We were also able to finally pick paint colors, thanks to a model decorated with exactly our color of carpet, tile, cabinets and counter tops, and as of Saturday afternoon, the living/dining room, nook, main hallway and kitchen are now painted. They messed up and put the wrong color on one wall in the kitchen, so I’ll be working on fixing that this week, but it’s not a huge deal. The house looks AMAZING. The colors are perfect. Now I just have to save up some more money to have the rest of the house painted. See, now I never want to paint again. I let the painters in at 7 AM and arrived at 2 PM to a finished product. Could it get ANY better?

The house selling negotiations are . . . well, going. This market sucks. S-U-C-K-S. I truly feel lucky to sell our house in this city. I went garage sale hopping on Saturday morning and I swear every other house on every street was for sale. There aren’t a lot of people selling their houses and we’ve been able to sell ours. But I won’t lie, we’ve been HATING it. We have been asked to do some repairs to the house that just seem utterly ridiculous, but in this market, we can’t fight too much about it. We just have to suck up and do it. Luckily, our Realtor has really come through for us and he’s handling all the repairs so I’m going to get a lollipop and stand by watching him spend our money. Who needs money right? I’ll just work Matt a little harder. Hehee.

Speaking of Matt, have I mentioned that I have the most amazing husband? The man works all day, then comes home and works some more and he still manages to pack, organize and move a load a day and help calm my craziness to boot. We’re both under a lot of pressure and it’s obvious who deals with it better. (Hint: it’s not me.)

And while I’m talking about amazing people, my crazy Mom ran ANOTHER marathon this weekend. Naturally, I can’t get her to call me and tell me how she did, but I’m sure she did great. I think this is like the sixth marathon this year? I told you. CRAZY. Love her but she’s CRAZY. And skinny. Damn I wish I was that skinny. Without having to run a marathon . . . or six.

OK, thus ends the craziness of this random, stupid post. I promise pictures of the new house soon and keep you updated on moving progress.

Merry kisses to all and to all a goodnight.

October 7th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Ahh readers, let me apologize in advance if this story is a wee bit . . . badly written? Nonsensical? Retarded?

See, I’ve been up since like 6 AM and have been moving all.day.long. I’m exhausted, so bear with me.

Ahem.

Last week, I left off after my bloody nose put a bit of a damper on my make out “sesh.” Needless to say I was very embarrassed, and very worried that Sam would dump me because of it. He just seemed like that type of guy, you know? He had dumped a girl for putting her feet on his pillow, so a bloody nose all over him didn’t seem encouraging.

Oddly enough, I was wrong and he wanted to see me the next day, and every day after that (for a while at least.). We were preparing ourselves for a lengthy separation. I was headed off to Pennsylvania then Ohio to see my Dad and attend a cousin’s wedding in Columbus and Sam was headed to Lake Powell for a family vacation. We were going to be apart for about ten days, if I remember correctly. We said our goodbyes, said we’d talk on the phone if and when we were able and went off on our trips.

My trip back east turned out a LOT differently than I was expecting. Well, mostly my trip to Ohio. My family is . . . how do I explain them. Oh yeah. IRISH. CATHOLIC. Read: lots of loud, hilarious, drunken fun. My Dad is the youngest of seven kids and I have tons of awesome cousins. And we all (aunts, uncles, cousins and even spouses) pretty much share six names. Patrick, Robert (Bob), Paul, Kate, Sean and Kathy. So, needless to say, a wedding in the family causes more craziness and parties than normal. This trip was no exception. We were having a blast. Then, the cousins my age invited my siblings and I (all four of us) to a party. Now, we had all grown up in Utah and weren’t exactly used to normal, teenage/college student parties, and this was a normal teenage/college student party. That meant underage boozing. Lots of it.

(I should clarify that I have two brothers who are not active members of the LDS church and who drink on a regular basis. I pass no judgement on them, as I strongly believe each individual needs to choose religion and personal rules for themselves, but I didn’t want any of you to be surprised as I tell the next part of my story.)

This was the first party like this that I had ever been to. I was totally fascinated by what was going on around me. I think drunk people are hilarious and I was observing everyone. And then I observed Keith. HELLO KEITH. He was GOR-GEOUS. Like, Channing Tatum gorgeous. SO gorgeous that my sister Meagan and my cousin Kate also had their eyes on him. This was the first time that my sister, who is four years younger than me, and I had ever had our eyes on the same guy. And it was strange to me that my cousin (also four years my junior) and I seemed to share the same taste. But I took it as a challenge and was determined that I would hook Keith by the end of the night. Oddly, Sam didn’t even cross my mind.

It didn’t take long for me to get my way. Honestly, to this day I’m still surprised. Keith was WAY out of my league. AND, he wasn’t even drunk. I’d been watching . . . he’d had one beer the whole night. But, by some random luck, he had also singled me out. Within about fifteen minutes we were chatting comfortably and I was getting the evil eye from my sister and cousin, who finally gave up and went home, very very mad at me for stealing him, but I didn’t care one bit.

We spent the entire evening together and, I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but soon we were making out. In the middle of the party. In front of everyone. Including my huge 6′2 and 6′3 overly defensive brothers. But pretty much everyone was WASTED, including my brothers. They were very confused about what was going on. They all kept noticing what I was doing and trying to tell someone who could beat Keith up, but they couldn’t say his name or even my name right. Keith and I kept laughing about it, especially because we were sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room making out right in front of my “mean” brother and he just kept staring. Obviously, it wasn’t like an . . . intense, involved make-out, but we were alternating talking and making out for about three hours.

To be perfectly honest, Keith was actually a really amazing guy. He had played football in high school (still had the gorgeous body to prove it) in the Columbus area and then his parents had divorced and he now lived in the Sacramento area with his mother and was just visiting with his Dad. He was investigating different religions, trying to figure out what he believed and at the moment, his focus was on Buddhism. He was smart and hot and funny and hot and interesting and did I mention HOT?

Finally, I HAD to get back to my aunt’s house. I was the designated driver and my brothers and cousin were practically passed out. Keith was headed back to Sacramento soon after I was headed back to Utah and he told me he was going to try to come visit me. At that moment I remember Sam, but I thought “Yeah right. We met at a booze party and you live in Northern California. Suuuuure you’re going to come visit me” We kissed good-bye, again in front of my glowering brothers, and headed our separate ways.

A few days later I was back in Utah and back in Sam’s arms, happy as can be, Keith all but forgotten.

So, I was very, very surprised and flattered and . . . worried . . . when Keith called the DAY he arrived home in Sacramento and said he wanted to see me that weekend and that he was taking a GREYHOUND BUS to make it happen.

Oh. Crap.

Next week we’re going to learn exactly how bad Kate is at juggling two guys and just maybe learn what the fatal flaw was that caused Sam to run for the hills. If Kate can fit that much information into one post.

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Ok kids, hopefully most of you know the next part!

Those of you participating in Soap Opera Sunday, please leave your permalink in the Mr. Linky as well as a comment. Then, make sure to link to both Brillig and myself in your post so that all your readers have the option of finding all the great stories from all the SOS participants!

October 3rd, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I woke up this morning and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel ominous. I didn’t feel like I was going to sluggishly tromp through my day. I had energy and spunk and most of all, I was grateful for all the amazing things in my life for the first time in a long time.

I’ve been focused on the bad for way too long. It’s not like me . . . I’m SO not a negative, wallowy (is that even a word? Eh, who cares.) person. I HATE feeling like I’m in a pit of despair. So I’ve been doubly miserable lately, drowning in my pit and hating myself for it. Basically, I was being stupid.

I have an awesome, luck filled life. I married a man I don’t deserve who loves me in spite of ME. I have an incredible job I probably don’t deserve that came with an incredible boss I probably don’t deserve. I have an amazing family who is loving and supportive (how many people have 20 year old brothers who call JUST to tell their sister they love and miss her??) and I have the most incredible group of friends that I know most would kill to be a part of.

So today, I decided to be grateful for it. I said a prayer and thanked the Lord for my life and apologized for being such a butt-head (yes, I actually used the word butt-head in my prayer) and then I skipped off to face my day with a smile.

And this has turned out to be one great freaking day.

I don’t want to jinx it, I just had to share because we had a plethora of good news in the last 24 hours.

First, after INSANE amounts of controversy, stupidity and more stupidity (the real estate world seems to be full of idiots. No offense to any of you who are in real estate. You’re not the idiots of which I speak. Just everyone else in real estate. That includes Realtors, Banks and Title Companies. I’ll share that story later) we FINALLY got the keys to our new house!! It’s ours! It’s more beautiful than I ever hoped. Here are some pictures to prove it!

A key! We have a key!

My favorite room, the kitchen (two views, one from the family room)

The breathtaking view from our front porch
(oh and the final picture of Rhonda’s Mini. It got traded for a hot new set of wheels the next day)

And last, but certainly not least, my hubster, having the first go at the master lavoratory.
Two important things to note:
1. His pose. What the crap?
2. He gave me permission to use this picture

On Saturday the paint crew arrives to do away with the ugly white and make it look a little less sterile in there. I’m SO excited. I will post pictures of the other rooms soon. They’re on my other computer and I’m too lazy to go get them off.

My second piece of good news is actually the one thing I’ve been waiting on for almost two years. I FINALLY got the PEARL PINK RAZR!!!! I have wanted it since the second I saw it but I was too cheap to pay for it. Hahah. So now, it’s mine, all mine! Next step is to bling it out. I can’t WAIT!

Look at it in all it’s pearly pink wonderfulness!!

The final piece of good news is the one I don’t want to jinx, but I HAVE to tell everyone about.

We got another offer on our house!!

It’s not a perfect offer but it’s a good offer and it sounds like the buyers are in LOVE with the house, so I’m feeling good about this one. I’m crossing all fingers and toes and saying many prayers that it will go through. If it does, it causes major stress because the buyers want to close on October 15th. (I KNOW! What the crap?! That means I have to move this weekend and I haven’t even packed one single thing!) However, it means we don’t have to pay ANY double house payments. So, here’s to hoping it works out and that I don’t die of the moving stress this week!

You have all been so great during this entire debacle. Thank you for your words of encouragement, your funny comments and most of all your stories on your blogs that got my mind off of my issues for a few minutes. I love blogging.

Seriously. What a great day.