July 14th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Som, um untilll the blur goes waya I migh t be laying off teh bloggging.

Yeah, I think thats a super idear.  Gor my sannity and yourz.

July 11th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

I will never forget my pre-Kindergarten eye exam when they pulled my Mom aside and not so quietly whispered “your daughter desperately needs glasses.” And from about a week later on, I’ve had glasses.My first several pairs were HOTTT. Pink plastic old lady glasses. I wish I could find halway decent pictures. They were bad, bad, bad. My Mom thought they were cute. I just knew they were pink. Pink always equals cute, right? Since then I’ve tried my share of glasses, contacts, nothing at all (for two years. Seriously, I’m surprised no one died. I’m practically blind in my left eye). I’ve had a love hate relationship with my glasses. I do like the way I look in glasses, but I prefer the way I look without them. Contacts never worked all the way. I was either getting corneal abrasions (YOUCH!) or messing with weighted contacts that blurred every time I blinked. About five years ago I gave up on contacts all together and succumbed to a life of cute glasses and blind stumbling in the middle of the night. I gave up on cute sunglasses. I gave up on every being able to see clearly while scuba diving or swimming. I finally decided to embrace and love the glasses.

Then, six months ago, the news came that the laser technology to correct my wretched left eye had finally been approved. I could have laser vision surgery and NEVER WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS AGAIN. I decided to give it six months for the technology to be perfected (and to get on my company’s flexible spending account) and TODAY IS THE DAY!

At 3:20 I will be all valiumed up, watching the cool laser fix my retarded eyeballs.

Within a few weeks, I will have at least 20/15 vision, if not 20/10. I will be able to see myself in the mirror in the morning. I will be able to wear sunglasses all the time! I will be able to SEE!!!!

Goodbye, glasses. I would say I’ll miss you, but honestly, I won’t.

July 7th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

People, there are LARGE WILD TOADS on the loose in Arizona. Wild, ferocious attacking toads.

If you live here beware.  They are sneaky.  They might do any of the following:

• Jump into the large community pool at night for a nice swim
• Jump into the large community pool at night for a nice swim, unaware that they will become trapped and not be able to leave said pool
• Find the nearest tall dark thing, assuming it’s a way out of the pool
• Swim towards nearest tall dark thing
• Swim towards nearest tall dark thing very stealthily, from behind said tall dark thing
• Not be stealth enough because neighbor woman will  see it swimming toward tall dark thing
• Cause neighbor woman to freak out, screaming “what the hell is THATAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH” and jump out of the pool faster than a bullet
• During that exact moment, JUMP onto tall dark thing
• Tall dark thing is Husband who did not see toad coming (due to the stealthiness thereof)
• Cause tall dark thing (aka Husband) to completely FREAK OUT (and possibly think it’s a snake)
• Cause neighbor man to jump out of pool faster than his wife (and later claim he was “getting to higher ground to see what it was.”  Yeah right, pansy.)
• Cause Kate to try to RUN AWAY IN FOUR FEET OF WATER.  Kate does not move fast in water.
• Latch on to tall dark thing’s  back with claws and hang on tight as tall dark thing flails and screams in pool, still not sure what is attached to his back
• Finally realize tall dark thing is not a way out of pool, and most likely the surest way to death.
• Let go of tall dark thing
• Swim away very fast as humans laugh themselves into hysterics
• Swim towards trap door in side of pool
• Realize this is not a good idea and is next surest way to death
• Spend the next half an hour narrowly escaping hilarious human attempts to save from death by pool chemicals
• Finally succumb to capture in small cooler
• Freak out and jump all over inside of cooler making loud thudding noises, causing humans to laugh uncontrollably
• Escape from cooler and then hang out near a tree
• End humans desire to be in pool for very long time.

I wish I’d had a video camera.  In fairness to my poor husband, if that toad had jumped on MY back, I would have shat myself.  He just jumped and yelled a lot.  And we all abandoned him to deal with the toad by himself.  He is very brave.  And now we need our own pool.

July 5th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

OK, so new look and feel . . . AND A BLOGROLL!!

It took a while but I think I got everyone. I think.

Couple of business things

• IF you feel I missed you and would like a spot on my blogroll (I’m sure I missed a lot of people, it needed some serious updating) just email me or leave me a comment and lemme know. I’ll add you in a snap.
• IF you don’t want to be on the blogroll (I left quite a few out on purpose because I know they’d rather stay private) again, just lemme know. I don’t want anyone to feel their privacy is being threatened. I’ll keep reading, I swear!
• Let me know what you think of the new look! I had a different, sort of cooler one, but it didn’t allow me to use widgets to run my sidebar and heaven knows I’m not in the mood to learn the code to do THAT myself!!

I’ve been getting quite a few spam comments with nasty things in them.  Sorry if you see them pop up on my sidebar.  I just installed a new plug-in that will HOPEFULLY help prevent that kind of crap.  If not, I’ll search for something else to ward them off.  I’m trying not to install one of those word verifyer things.  I sort of hate them but it might become necessary.  We’ll see.

So there you have it. I might be changing it up a little bit here and there, now that I remember how to do it. I’m also dabbling in designing my own header. I’ve gotten as far as fancy fonts, so it might take another hundred years or so for me to figure out how to do anything else, but we’ll see!

I’ll be back later today to put up the Mr. Linky for Soap Opera Sunday.

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!

July 3rd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Well, I officially feel old. We just had the ten year reunion for the Timpview High School Class of ‘98.

I must say, we had an amazing class. I’ve heard teachers and faculty say that we may have been the best class to ever come out of the high school. While we still had cliques and groups and all the normal high school crap, we had it in much lesser doses. We, for the most part, were all friends. There wasn’t a single person I was dreading seeing or running into. We won state titles in Football, Girl’s Basketball, Girl’s Volleyball, Drama, Choir, and probably a bunch of other stuff. The football players were in choir. The cheerleaders took AP classes and excelled at math. The drama geeks dated the student counsel. We were something special.

We had three different activities . . . there was a girl’s breakfast on Friday, a family picnic on Saturday afternoon and then the adults only dinner/dancing/mingling on Saturday night. While it was a lot to fit into two days, I was very sad when it ended.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. I didn’t take nearly enough (and some of the ones I took are sooo bad) but at least it’s something!!!

My old pal Ricky and his darling son Brandon. Yes, Ricky is flipping me off and yes, Brandon is sucking on his finger. Typical Ricky.

Julia’s son Cache, showing me his hot dog, made special by Hannah (in the next picture, in her custom dog slingin’ attire and bus) of Franks Franks! (and if any of you live in Utah, you have GOT to go get you some of their hot dogs.  SO GOOD!  I ate two and hung my head in gluttonous shame)

Me in the dress. And um, I’ve apparently replaced my calves with elephant legs (courtesy of the two hot dogs I ate for lunch). Ahem. But the dress? Me lovey.

My girls and I. We stuck together that night for the most part, just as we’ve done for the last 14 years. (FOURTEEN YEARS?!?!?! And hi, don’t I have a lovely double chin? That’s what I get for taking ONE picture of us)

And finally, the highlight of the evening, our former school mascot can still do the CENTER SPLITS ten years later. Ahhh good times. I love the guy in the background (Mark Bohn for anyone that cares) and his look of sheer joy.

I seriously didn’t take nearly enough pictures. I had so much fun seeing everyone again and I wish I had pictures of everyone!

Any chance we could organize and 11 year reunion? I’m sort of pathetic but if we organized it? I would totally show up.

July 1st, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Well I’m back in the real life . . . not loving it so much, but what can you do. A girl’s gotta pay the bills, right?\

The ten year reunion? A million times better than I ever expected it could be. I went to school with some of the world’s neatest people, who grew up into some of the world’s coolest adults with some of the world’s CUTEST kids. Also, the dress I FINALLY found at the midnight hour? A-MAZING. It’s my new favorite thing ever. I felt SO good that night, which made it all the more enjoyable. I will see what I can do about posting some pictures. I took a lot of other people and only a couple of myself and my girlfriends, but what can ya do?

The new boss is still as cool as I thought he was. We’re digging in this week and getting started on a new website, new messaging, new collateral, new press information . . . basically NEW EVERYTHING. I have my work cut out for me. Luckily, I like the general giving the marching orders, so I’ll march happily.

It’s hot here. Really, really hot. I’m not surprised or anything, I’ve just been lucky to have missed most of the really hot days so far this year. Now I’m sort of immersed in hotness. It’s a little bit uncomfortable. We were thinking of getting the hell out of here for the 4th but I’ve been gone SO much, all I really want to do is hang out at our house and catch up on some sleep, so we’re staying in the hot and having an indoor BBQ. Without fireworks. Or something similar that in no way resembles the 4th of July holiday festivities I grew up with. And now I’ve successfully made myself homesick. There’s nothing like the 4th of July in Provo, Utah. NOTHING. Sigh.

I can’t get my blogroll to work on this Wordpress template. I recently realized how LAME I am for not having a blogroll, so I am going to work on a post with ALL the blogs I read (there are zillions) and then I’ll post THAT post as a page. Sorry to all of you who I read and I don’t currently give linky love to. I’ll fix it, I swear. It’s just going to take a while because there are A LOT of you.

And now that I’ve let my brain explode all over the computer screen (you’re welcome) I am off to do, like, work stuff. Unless I can find something else to distract me . . . hmmmmmm

**Edited to add:  I just realized it’s my psuedo half birthday!!! (Since there’s not a June 31st you see.)  That also means it’s Miss Molly’s half birthday as well!  Happy Half Birthday to us, birthday twin!  Yaaaaay!

June 25th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

I finally have a new boss.  I totally love him and am SO excited to work for him.  So excited I can’t even tell you.  NOT having a boss is so not as cool as it sounds.  It’s boring as crap.  So, new boss + Kate = TLA in a non gross way (a lot because he sort of reminds me of a really non-annoying John Lovitz.  A lot more because he’s my boss.  But I have to love him because he plans to incentivize (is that even a word???)  me with lots of money.  And after New York Shoppingstravaganza?  I needs me some of that.)(Holy long and retarded parenthetical Batman.)(ALSO?  LESS THAN A MONTH UNTIL BATMAN!!!  Mmmmm Christian Bale.)  Woah, weird.  Moving on.

So now, with new genius marketing boss, the list of things we have to do?  Oh it’s endless.  The time we have to do it in?  Nonexistent.  Also, more travel appears to be on the horizon.  Boston in July . . . possibly DC in August, Vegas in September, maybe Boston again in October . . . wOAh.

What this means is that, at least for a little while, I am SWAMPED.  So um, I might not be, like, blog present, for like, awhile here.  I know you’re all crying right now.  Sobbing hysterically, really, right?  No?  Just me?  That works too.

I’m sure I’ll still be around . . . I mean my ten year reunion is this weekend and you KNOW I’ll have lots to say about THAT.  I just won’t be AROUND around . . . if you know what I mean.

And with that, I’m off to market stuff.  Riiiight.

June 14th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Hello again! I am (once again) inundated with family stuff while I’m visiting my brothers and Othermom (step-mom) Lisa in PA. I’ll try to write my story tonight if I get time, but Lisa’s famous mashed potatoes are going to be calling my name aaaallll night long.

If you’re playing along, here’s the Mr. Linky for your linky goodness. If you don’t know what the crap I’m talking about, check out this post about Soap Opera Sunday and the rules. Also, remember that we have an Anonymous Soap Opera site for those of you who want to . . . well . . . write anonymous soapy stories!

Can’t wait to read your stories this week!!

June 13th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Well I leave today for my whirlwind trip to the East Coast. I spend the weekend in the big PA with my family, then hitch a train ride to the NYC on Monday for work. The trade show is Tuesday through Thursday then I get to spend the weekend with my overachieving younger cousin in her not one, but two fancy loft apartments. We get to chooooose which one we want to stay in. Oooooh, aaaahhh. She’s very cool and very hip and I’m hoping can show me stuff I’ve never seen before in New York. If she can get away from her 90 hour a week job, that is. Wealth and awesomeness, at least in her case, has it’s trade-offs. Ahhh Wall Street.

I’m really really excited. I LOVE being back east, especially during this time of year (um, someone please tell the heat wave to vamanos, yes?). I’ve got lots of shopping to do because I need an outfit for my ten year high school reunion the NEXT week . . . plus it’s New York. And there’s an H&M. That’s three stories (two? three? I don’t remember. HUGE.). There’s also Soho and the Garment District and so much fun stuff to do.

Also, food. OH the food. Any recommendations from those of you who’ve been there recently? I’m always up for suggestions!

I’m also going to make an attempt at culture . . . I’ll fo’ sho’ see a Broadway show, since hi there! I’m Kate. I’m in love with Broadway. I’m also planning a trip to The Met, which I’ve (shh don’t tell) never been to before. There also an LDS Temple in Manhattan which I am planning to spend some time at as well. I’s very excited.

So, on Friday the 13th, off I fly. I’m not really a superstitious person, but I’m sort of hoping everyone else is so that I have a plane to myself. I’m not counting on it, but a girl can dream, right??

June 3rd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

SHEESH I’ve been a downer lately! It’s like I took every good thing in the world and decided I hated it!

In an attempt to be more positive, I have a list of things that are making me happy today!!!

• I just had my eyebrows waxed. Unibrow be gone! I look like a new woman!
• I’m getting my hair done tonight. I’m thinking lots of sexy red and keeping the length. Va-va voom!
• It’s about ten degrees cooler than average here this week. So far this has been the MOST glorious year in Phoenix!
• In just over 24 hours I’ll be on my way to the airport to pick up my girls to start our rockin’ vacation!!
• As a thank you for doing him a HUGE favor (and being the best admin in the history of the world for the two years I worked for him) my former boss (and dear friend) bought me THESE!

  

  I refer to them as my “everyday Manolos” even though they are my first and ONLY Manolos and I’m a wee bit scared to wear them. Maybe when I go to see Sex in the City this weekend I will don them!

   

• I went to the gym last night and I feel SO much better today because of it. I will never go a week without going to the gym again. Even if I have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn.
• I just had a delicious turkey sandwich with avocado for lunch.
• I got a new covered parking space at work . . . away from the outdoor smoking area I was planted next to for the last month. It’s sad how happy this makes me.
• It’s JUNE! I love June.

And with that, I am off to find more things to make me happy, despite sitting at work freezing because the air conditioner is turned up full blast. I’m convincing myself that I LOVE THE COLD!