November 11th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

If you’re looking for Soap Opera Sunday, it’s just below this post!

Today I’m thankful for:

1. Stores with great sales. I refuse to buy things full price and am overjoyed to report that I saved approximately $400 today and I’m SO happy!

2. Diet Cheater Days. Today is my “day off” and while MOST of the day I was actually really good, I was overjoyed when I ate my cheese ravioli.

3. College Football. Despite my team (the Ohio State Buckeyes) losing HORRIBLY and getting bumped from the #1 spot today, I am grateful for the college football season for many reasons. The heart, the passion and the tight pants. Plus, my other team, BYU, is doing awesome thanks to their star running back (and my brother’s best friend), Harvey Unga.

4. Washers and Dryers. I cannot BELIEVE the amount of clothing Matt and I have to wash in a week and I’m so grateful every time I put a load in the washer and am able to close the door and forget about it! Saves SO MUCH TIME!

5. Sunroofs. Since I started buying my own cars, I have always had a sunroof and I love them. I love driving around and being either bathed in sunlight or able to look up at the stars.

November 10th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Welcome back to Soap Opera Sunday! Thanks bunches to the gorgeous Jenn in Holland for being our gracious hostess this week! Be sure to link to her site if you’re sharing a Soap Opera or just to read more gloriously soapy tales! If you want to play, here are the rules and don’t forget our Anonymous Soap Opera blog for any of you who are a little shy (or scared your in-laws might see!)
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To catch up with last weeks story about Charley, go here. And now the end of the story.

If my memory serves me correctly, Charley and I exchanged letters a few times while he was on his two year mission for the LDS Church. I honestly have no recollection of where he went, but he was gone, and I went on with my life. I dated lots of guys, was “waiting” for a missionary of my own (or so I thought, that in and of itself is a huge saga), traveling through Europe after studying abroad in London and just having myself a blast doing the college thing and I sort of forgot about Charley. I knew he was in love with Amber and figured he would probably come home and marry her.

I don’t remember how or when it happened, but Charley and I crossed paths during my Sophomore year in college. We chatted like the old friends we were and spent some time catching up. It turned out Amber had married someone else and he was still very much single, as was I. Excellent. Then, as we were ending our conversation, the thing I had dreamed of for so long happened. Charley asked me out on a real, honest to goodness date. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

There was a nasty catch though, we were doubling with his best friend Rob and his wife Ashley.* I hated Rob and Ashley. The stories of why I hated them stemmed from so much drama I can’t even begin to spell it out for you here. There are tales of misunderstandings, confrontation, snobbery, idiocy . . . and basically the two of them being total and complete MORONS individually who somehow fell in love and got married and became morons together. But I was so excited to go out with Charley I figured it would be fine.

The night of the date came and Charley picked me up in his truck who he had bought from a mutual friend of ours and I remember it’s name was Thor (don’t even ask) and we headed off for our date. We were going to dinner and a movie. I was overjoyed, despite knowing I had to spend an evening being nice to Rob and Ashley. We had dinner at Wendy’s (cheesy I know but we were all poor starving students) and honestly it was SO awkward. Rob and Ashley were all fakey nice and I tried to make polite conversation but it wasn’t working. Charley was trying to make me feel included but it was made very clear to me that I wasn’t liked and I was an outsider in their midst. Super.

I, once again, don’t recall what movie we went to but I know it was at the $1 theatre and what I remember most is that Charley left to go get treats and left me ALONE with the morons. It was so bad. We just sort of . . . sat there in an awkward silence trying not to make eye contact.

I know hindsight is 20/20 but looking back I should have just called it a night after the movie was over, but I still got all tingly when Charley was around and we’d held hands during the movie and NOW we could finally be alone. A girlfriend of mine had invited us over to use her hot tub so we headed that way. It was a cold night and I think it was snowing, which made being in the outdoor hot tub even better. Charley was very snuggly, but there was no kissing, which was weird to me because HELLO?! It’s CHARLEY! And it wasn’t like I was playing hard to get (or ever did for that matter. Hi my name is Kate, I was a Mormon Slut. Thank you.). We spent a lot of the evening in the hot tub talking about funny things that had happened in high school, people we both knew and what had happened to them and then randomly, made a list of the best songs currently on the radio to make-out to. (I know. Wha???)

Finally at about midnight, we finally threw on some warm clothes over our suits and headed back to my apartment. We pulled into the driveway and sort of sat there for a second trying to decide what to do. Then Charley reached down and turned on the radio. Ironically, the song we had dubbed the #1 sexiest make-out song on the radio at the time (Fiona Apple’s Fast as You Can . . . not romantic mind you, just HOTHOTHOT) had just started playing. In one of the quickest, most exhilierating moments of my life, Charley reached over and cupped his hand around my neck and pulled me to him for an extremely passionate kiss . . . that sort of lasted four hours. In the parking lot of my BYU approved (read: boys out by midnight)apartment. Still wearing wet bathing suits under our clothes. With wet hair. In a small truck. With a stick shift in the middle. It was a very steamy (literally. Steam from the wet hair and the suits. Ok and us too!) slightly uncomfortable, roaringly fun evening/late night/early morning. I went inside at like 4:30 or 5:00 AM and fell blissfully into bed.

I remember feeling like I had just reached the peak of Everest or something. I had wanted Charley for basically four years and FINALLY I had made out with him. (OK I realize that it’s not like it was hard, considering he made out with EVERYONE, but to that point it had never been ME) I found myself confused though, because I was ecstatic in a very . . . non-committal way. It was so weird! We planned to go out again but I think now that I had finally gotten what I really wanted . . . it was sort of all i wanted! Just a good make-out buddy!

We only hung out one more time on a gorgeous snowy evening. Charley came to see me and we ended up in a huge snowball fight in the yard in front of my apartment and then at the end of the night he hugged me tight, kissed my cheek and said goodnight. It is one of my favorite memories. I knew at that moment we’d never go out again. I didn’t know why, but I knew. And I was totally OK with it.

I found out about three weeks later that between our first date and the second time we hung out, he had gone to visit some old friends in Colorado and had fallen head-over-heels in love with the woman who ended up being his wife. I received a wedding invitation less than four months later. I can honestly say I’m so happy for Charley. I have heard that he’s doing VERY well for himself, has a beautiful little boy and I’ve heard nothing but good things about his darling wife.

I should note that, ironically, my little sister and her husband are BEST friends with Charley’s little brother and his wife. What a small world, huh? I get to tell funny stories to them about Charley and I’m sure Charley has funny stories about me to share with them in return. This is one of the few “relationships” in my life that didn’t end awkwardly. I will always think of him as a friend and I hope he does the same.

And that, dear friends, ends the saga of “Heat.”

*Names have been changed to protect the stupid.

November 9th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Let’s see . . . I seem to suck at blogging about . . . anything relevant lately. I feel as though I’ve been in a writers slump. Not that I consider myself a real writer or anything important like that because I don’t.

I do have two minor Kateastrophes to report on, so I suppose I should share, and there are a couple of other things to update you on. So I guess I present MORE RANDOMNESS!

First of all, I rolled - that’s right ROLLED - my brother-in-law’s quad at the Dunes last week. Several things make the story funny. First, Taylor (the B-I-L) laid it down sideways WITH his poor wife on it the first time they rode together. He hurt his wrist but overall they were OK. Second, my father-in-law also laid it down on his first ride on it. So basically, Matt is the only person who rode it who didn’t wreck it. The other thing that makes the story funny is that the reason I rolled it was because I was going too slow. That’s right. I crashed because I was going TOO.SLOW. I was on the side of a steep dune and rather than gunning it to prevent the roll, I got scared and slowed down. Aaaaaand down I went. Luckily I slid about ten feet down the hill so the quad didn’t roll ON me. I was only about fifty feet from Matt and he was so scared that I was hurt and came running down the hill. I was just lying there on my back, holding the quad (which is still running) with my legs so it wouldn’t roll any further and of course laughing my head off. I wasn’t hurt, thank goodness, but I think that quad might be the devil.

My second Kateastrophe happened the night we got back from the dunes. I was doing serious laundry because EVERYTHING smelled horrible, and I didn’t clean out the pocket of my riding pants, and I washed my iPod shuffle. What’s really sad is that on the drive home, I told Matt I was worried that I’d wash it so he needed to help me remember to clean out all the pockets. After he found out I washed it he laughs and says

“You know what’s funny, wifey? You KNOW what you’re going to do wrong. You always ask me to remind you NOT to do something stupid that you think you might do.”

It’s totally true. I know I do this crap. I know I forget stuff like that, so I ask people to help me remember not to be stupid. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work. So I figured my iPod was dead, but remembered a time a few years ago when I dropped my cell phone in the lake and it somehow survived the damage after it dried out for a few days. SO, I let the Shuffle dry out and magically, it works! I’m guessing it’s going to be a little retarded for the rest of it’s life but it WORKS! YAY! Kateastrophe averted! That sure doesn’t happen very often!!

Update on my fatness . . . I’m on a serious diet. I’ve started eating less than 2000 calories a day and making sure that it’s mostly veggies, whole grains and lean protein and I give myself one day off a week to eat what I want. The only cheating I’ve done in over a week was last night for the chicken noodle soup. It’s actually very healthy but the noodles aren’t made with whole grains. So my cheating technically wasn’t that bad but I do have to call a spade a spade and admit to the cheat. I’m sort of sick of salad and lettuce but I’m loving the Trader Joe’s whole grain mixes. They are super delicious! I’m a carb junkie, so the NO carb thing doesn’t work for me, but the whole grain carb thing does. I figure I can do the calorie counting and some of the other stuff . . . it doesn’t feel as extreme. I’m also loving fresh fruit. Mmmm yum.

In addition to the diet, I’m also working out six days a week. Right now I’m working up to serious workouts, but I do 45 minutes of cardio every day and when I have the energy I add in some weight training. It feels pretty good.

Sadly, I’m being UBER superficial and using my ten year high school reunion as my motivation right now. I don’t really know why . . . I’m still in touch with most of my friends from high school and they know what I look like now but I guess any motivation is good motivation right?!

So um, I will end this post with Friday’s Thankfuls, as most of you will see this post on Friday.

1. Perfect weather. We’re finally, FINALLY out of the hotness in Arizona and the weather is gorgeous. I sure love me a good 78 degree day.

2. Dove shampoo and conditioner. See I used to be a hair care product snob. Only Aveda was good enough for my hair. But then I got a house and a husband (and a life?) and got cheap and I got the HUGE, cheap bottles of Dove at Costco. Surprisingly, I LOVE it! My hair always smells clean and is SO soft and silky. Yay for cheap, great haircare!

3. Julia. I got the FUNNIEST message from her today at work and died laughing right there in my cube. I’m so grateful for her and her undying friendship and amazing sense of humor. We’ve been through a lot and I’m grateful that it’s only brought us closer rather than ripping us apart. I love her so.

4. Chapstick. In such a dry climate my lips always feel so parched, so I’m glad somebody a long time ago had the good sense to package some of that goodness in a tube.

5. Remote controls. How annoying would it have been to have to get up to change the channel? Ugh. Yay for laziness and fun buttons.

November 8th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

1. Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (recipe courtesy of my Grandma Shirley). My husband is sick and in my opinion, that stuff can cure anything! Plus, it’s fun to make and my house smells delicious!

2. Long pants. I mean the ones that are long enough that they look perfect with high heels. There’s nothing like that awkward “my pants are too short feeling” and vice versa. I love long pants!

3. My sister, the great Tofutti. We talk about four times a week and she is amazing and funny and witty and I miss her and love her.

4. Bottled water. Arizona tap water is gross and I love that I can just grab a bottle of cold, tasty water and go!

5. Costco. That place and it’s giant amounts of giantness rules. ‘Nuff said.

November 7th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So my best friend Jewels and her sister Andrea are both posting five things they are grateful for every day in November and it got me thinking. See, I am a HUGE fan of Christmas. I have been obsessed every since I was little. My birthday is near Christmas as well, so December is sort of the focus of my year and I sort of skip the month of thankfulness.

I realize that part of Christmas is being grateful and helping others, but, as Julia and Andrea pointed out, November and it’s focus on being Thankful is often overlooked due to the overload of Christmas that starts the second Halloween is over. So, I’m jumping on their bandwagon and I’m going to post five things I’m grateful for every day for the rest of the month. (Or at least try to. We all know how life happens, right?)

So today, I give you my first five Thankfuls:

1. I’m thankful for sunshine. Sitting in a cubicle without a window nearby sometimes causes me to forget the amazing mood power of the sun. I walked to lunch today and it felt so good to be warm and covered in light.

2. I’m thankful for Diet Coke. I’m on a serious diet right now, and Diet Coke is the only sort of sugary tasting think I’m allowing myself, and oh my gosh does it taste good and even better, no calories! (Those of you who know bad things about soda, shhhhh not listening.)

3. I’m thankful for high thread count sateen sheets. There is nothing like crawling into bed and being enveloped by that cool, softy, slightly silky feeling. Ahhh bliss.

4. Apples. Yes, I’m thankful for apples today. I’m eating a lot of them lately and I love that crunchy, crisp yet juicy first bite. Seriously, it’s no wonder Eve caved! Hahah. (dreading lightening bolt from Heaven about now . . . )

5. I’m thankful for the internet. I got an email from an old friend today and it made me realize how lucky we are to have instant communication. PLUS, I wouldn’t know most of you, my favorite internet people if we didn’t have it!

So there you go. My five Thankfuls.

What are you thankful for?

November 4th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Hey all! We’re changing up Soap Opera Sunday just a little bit and it’s actually very exciting! You can read about how on this post at Brillig’s place.

The first and most fun change is that we have a button! Woot! Isn’t it purty?

Second change is that we’re going to start having guest hosts! Staring today!

This week, Thalia’s Child is playing our gracious hostess. If you’re playing along, be sure to head over to her site to link your Soap Opera. If you’re just looking for soapy tales, head on over for the links!!
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Back when I was an awkward, weird looking high school Sophomore, I became friends with a beautiful Senior girl named Brillig. Being friends with a Senior had it’s perks . . . the biggest one being the Senior boys. One in particular who sort of became my obsession for quite a long time. let’s call him Charlie Edwards.

If I were to describe Charlie in detail, even I wouldn’t find him super attractive. He was . . . decent looking at best. There was really nothing special about his looks . . . he just oozed charm. Oh the charm! He typically had girls falling all over him. He had two nicknames, C.h.o.t.m.e and Heat. The first took me a while to understand so I rarely paid attention to it, but the second one I used all the time. Heat was actually an abbreviation of the phrase “Heat of the Moment.” And it took Brillig’s genius and most of that year in school to figure out the first nickname. It turned out C.h.o.t.m.e should have been written C.H.O.T.M.E. It was the acronym for Charlie “Heat of the Moment” Edwards, and as I’m sure you can gather, the origination of Heat. We just didn’t catch on to the second one for a while. Anyway, as you can gather from his nicknames, Charlie had the reputation of being the guy who kissed ANY girl he was left alone with. And somehow, I got it in my 15 year old mind that Charlie was the guy for me. I literally became obsessed, to the confusion of all around me.

We all knew about his reputation, me especially. I knew what he did and how he did it. The other thing I also knew about was HIS obsession with another Senior girl, Amber. Despite all his Don Juan-ing around school, he loved Amber. And she rarely gave him the time of day . . . they ran in the same group of friends, but she was the kind of girl who didn’t often kiss anyone and wanted to be in love if she did. She was not the kind of girl to date Charlie. Yet he was totally and completely head over heels for her.

See how stupid I am? I knew all of this and yet I was hopelessly in love with him.

Now, in fairness to myself, I didn’t actually just arrive at this obsession on my own. Charlie was always VERY nice to me. Well, more than nice. While we had yet to kiss . . . Charlie and I had our little moments. We’d cuddle in the choir room when no one was there. He’d rub my back and we’d talk for hours. He’d find me backstage during play practice and sit down with me and hold my hand and play with my hair. He was in the architecture class at school and he had designed a gorgeous home to someday build in Telluride, Colorado that he called “our” house (since a member of my family happened to own land in Telluride.). We’d talk about the floor plan and how to move things around and how to make it perfect. Charlie obviously knew I was in deep smit over him and he definitely used it to his benefit, while still seducing other girls and pining over Amber.

During all of this, I was a truly obsessed stalker. He lived just a few blocks from me and I used to drag my sister on walks, just so I could walk by his house and see if he was there. I’d go out of my way to find him in dark hallways and try to steal a few minutes for us to snuggle or whatever. And I did one thing that was the worst of all. I befriended Amber.

We started hanging out a lot. Now, I should say that I did really, really like Amber. She was so nice and sweet and fun to be around. But I had ulterior motives despite truly liking her. I wanted to find out if she’d ever like Charlie back. And it appeared that no, she never would. She thought he was a stupid, horny little boy who had no respect for women, and made sure to tell me that often. Yet I loved on and helped keep convincing her that Charlie was a no-good loser. (*hanging head in shame.*)

I truly think I was obsessed with Charlie for most of my Sophomore year. My legs turned to Jell-O whenever he was around. After I received a Superior mark (the best one you can get) at a Region Vocal Competition, he came and hugged and congratulated me. Sadly, that’s the only part of that day I remember. My hug from Charlie. I, as a Sophomore, had just been the only soloist from our High School to receive such a high mark and be allowed to compete at the State level and I don’t even remember what song I sang. I remember Charlie’s hug. (*snacking self in head now.*)

The year wore on and graduation was close. I was still hanging out with most of that group of Seniors and was overjoyed to be invited to graduation parties and such. One in particular was up Provo Canyon at a park and I remember Charlie offered to drive me home when the party was over. I remember FLYING down the canyon at warp speed (he was trying to scare me) and Charlie holding my hand to comfort me. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I figured that now that the school year was almost over, he might have decided to stick with me and love me back.

Then, the next day I remember hearing the buzz around school. Amber had been broken. She and Charlie were together. Like, really truly together. It had happened the night before after Charlie had dropped me off at home. What’s weird is that I don’t remember being exactly heartbroken. I remember being weirded out. Charlie was going on a mission for our church soon and I knew Amber wasn’t going to wait for him. I knew that I might get another chance. So I decided to hunker down and just wait, even if it was two years. I just decided to be patient and to wait.

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Next week, come back to see if all the waiting paid off!

November 3rd, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Brace yourselves . . . they’re coming. I’ll try to go easy on you and not overload your brains with TOO many pictures. It might hurt. Most likely it will hurt me and not you guys. But it might hurt both of us, so I’ll be careful.

First, I give you the final pictures of our first home. I have to say that it’s SO WEIRD to think of someone else living there now. We closed on Friday and it’s done, done, done. It was stressful and stupid and irritating but it’s done and now we can move on, but a part of me is sad to end that amazing chapter of my life with my husband. So here you go:

The way I took this picture is very odd and . . . optical illusion-like.
Ha. Oh well! Goodbye beautiful floors and lovely red paint!

The final picture of the outside. Sorry it’s at night. We’ll sure miss that mature palm tree! We should have taken it with us!

The final picture of us in front of our house, even though all you can see is the garage light. Haha. Oops! Also, memo to us: pictures we try to take of ourselves are usually very unflattering.

Now, I give you pictures of the new house! I am going to go chronologically, from dirt to final product. Sidenote: I have yet to take pictures of the slightly unpacked, slightly better looking version of the house, so just remember that I took these THE DAY AFTER we moved in. No judging.

Our bit of earth

Later, after they dug a bunch of stuff up. Veeeery exciting.

Pre-plumbing and the frame for the foundation

Walls!! Sort of . . .

Almost there . . .

Almost there . . .

Ta-Daa! Complete with empty lot next door that will cause many headaches when someone finally buys it and they begin building on it. Seriously, EVERY OTHER LOT IS SOLD. Just my luck that the ONLY unsold lot is next to our bedroom windows. Seriously.

Le front door

The view from the entryway

Formal Living/Dining/Entry/Great Room/HOLY AWESOME NATURAL LIGHT!

Great Room from upstairs, where there is a small loft, three bedrooms and a bathroom.

Most of you have seen this already but this is the kitchen (unfortunately pre-paint. I gotta get one with the new paint. I promise I’ll do it. It’s light brown, if that helps!)

Family Room/Master Bedroom for the first week

Master Bedroom sans bedroom stuff

Master Bathroom (two sinks AND a separate tub/shower? I’ve died and gone to heaven)

Closet. Sigh of joy.

Our first meal in our new house. Traditional Move-in Pizza Hut. Mmmm.

I LOVE our new house. I’m having trouble decorating, but that doesn’t take away from my absolute joy every time I drive around the corner and see it standing there. I seriously can’t believe it’s ours. I keep having to pinch myself. Especially when I see the view from our front porch. I gotta give it to Arizona, it has the most incredible sunsets. And now I have an unobstructed view of them every day. I’m in heaven and so, so grateful.

Well, I have lots of pictures of our trip to the dunes, but I think those will have to wait for another day because I’m about pictured out. Just to give you a teaser though, I proudly present me, kicking my husband’s butt on top of a huge sand hill.

We got very, very sandy.

Stay tuned Sunday for my newest installment of Soap Opera Sunday . . . the one in which I completely embarrass myself. Again.