August 14th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So um, after traveling like crazy and having late, late, late flights (even later than I thought last time I posted about it.) I came back to a house that HAS to sell in the next six weeks, a new house that will be done in six weeks, a huge party to throw for work and a bunch of other crrrrrap.

So I’m once again apologizing to all of you and telling you that I won’t be posting frequently for a while. I suck.

Installment #3 of Soap Opera Sunday is, however, pre-written, so I promise not to let you down there.

Thanks for your patience. Have a lovely day.

August 3rd, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Well, I’m about to board a plane to DC, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to post what is quite possibly my favorite picture of Matt and I to date for my Flashback Friday. My sister took this picture of us at Laguna Beach about a year and a half ago on a gorgeous, slightly rainy/misty day.

What I love most it Matt’s face peeking out from under his hat. Also, anyone who knows Matt knows he pretty much only wears blue plaid button up shirts. This one is his favorite. He calls it the “Go-to” and gets very upset when he can’t find it! His goal is to have a picture taken in the “Go-to” every place we go. Haha. He’s so cute I just want to squeeze him. I’ve been traveling a ton lately and I’ve been missing him terribly. Now I’m off again for ten days and I want to smuggle him into my luggage. But alas, I cannot. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?!?

OH! I must tell you that I’m very excited for my first Soap Opera Sunday. I’m starting on a long saga of drama, betrayal and love! So you MUST come check on Sunday. It’s going to be so fun!

July 31st, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Sorry I still don’t have time to talk about the trip much, but here is a teaser!

We LOOOOOOVEEDDDDD Hairspray. We seriously wanted to go see it again as soon as it was over.

July 29th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

So, um, yeah . . . this weekend with the girls was A BLAST. But I’m exhausted. And full. We ate a lot. No, a TON. See?

Hahaha. Don’t get any ideas (mother and mother-in-law specifically!). Julia (on the right) is really “with child.” I am just “with pregnancy imitating pillow at the Maternity store.”

I promise to post more pictures and tell the great stories of our weekend soon. Right now I just want to slip into a carb/sugar induced coma for like the next week, until I’m off to DC for work. Sigh . . .

July 24th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Yes folks, it’s another dear friend’s birthday! Happy 27th Birthday Sheila!!

I don’t remember meeting Sheila. Our mother’s lived two doors down from each other growing up, joined the LDS church together, and remain the best of friends to this day. Sheila and I were born four months apart and probably met when I was just a couple of months old. We have never not been friends. We have always been in each other’s lives.

We were vacation friends for the first 15 years or so . . . then we started taking longer visits to each other’s homes. We started sharing the same friends, keeping in touch better, and slowly but surely, we became practically joined at the hip.

Our freshman year in college we took all the same GE classes, and then continued to do so for the rest of our time there. We were there for some of each other’s funniest college moments. My favorite examples include:

The inability to read the word debris (it’s derbis, I swear!)

Sheila’s near death experience with a rock on a field trip

A teacher’s with upside down slides who didn’t know it and was explaining the “blue layer” as a strange rock formation from days gone by when, in fact, it was the sky

And my personal favorite, my being hit on the head with a remote control

. . . and those are just a few.

Sophomore year we moved in to the same apartment, and we lived together until the summer Sheila met and married her wonderful husband.

Together, throughout our 26ish years of life, we have laughed harder than I ever thought possible. I cant’ even count the number of times I remember us lying in bed laughing so hard we thought we might pee ourselves.

Chicky Chicky and Lady Buggie Pants!!

We have shared heartbreak, joy, true love, marriage, arrival of children (hers not mine ) and we continue to be the best of friends. She is an amazing example of calm, serene spirituality blended perfectly with joy and laughter. She is an amazing mother and wife, and I look up to her so much. She is my oldest, wonderfulest friend.

I am devastated because I can’t find the box that contains the best of our pictures together, but next year I’ll get her good For now, I think these ones will suffice. Specifically this one, for which she might shed my blood this week during the Girl’s Trip. Hahaha.

Love your guts Bo-Beila! I’m so excited to get to be with you on your birthday this year!! We’ll party like rock stars!

July 10th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Today is the birfday o’the Brillig, and you’re going to get to see some hilarious (and slightly embarrassing) pictures of the two of us. And she might kill me.But I do not care.

I met Brill under unusual, awkward circumstances. She was two years above me in school and we were both in Drama and Choir, and somehow, our groups of friends ended up hating each other during my freshman year. It was weird and I cannot ’splain it now, but we didn’t like each other.

As cheesy as this is going to sound, when I became friends with Brillig, I felt as though I had found the other half of my soul. Brillig was the most amazing person I’d ever met. She was/is hilarious, brilliant, interesting, full of joy and fun . . . we were fascinated by SO many of the same things and had SO many of the same mannerisms. We shared a love for quesadillas, pasta and saltine crackers that is hard to describe. We even found out that we slept in the same position. We sang duets (I’m a soprano and she has a GORGEOUS alto voice) and would spend hours at her parent’s piano just plunking away and singing at the top of our lungs.She introduced me to new, cuter boys, we stayed up all night sharing our hopes and dreams for the future and listening to her extensive record collection . . . we had SO MUCH FUN. We even make the same face in most of our pictures. See?

I don’t know if Brillig would say the same thing about me, but she brought true joy into my life and was my first real, no strings attached friend. (For the record, I have many of those true, amazing friends now, but I had an . . . awkward adolescence, so it took me a while to find my stride and discover myself and figure out how to be a friend. I think Brillig is the first friend where I did something right.)

We had more adventures than I could even begin to describe. I remember one involving a flat tire in my Mom’s van . . . another involving and officer thinking we were drunk drivers . . . and somehow (thanks much in part to our/her friend Matt) I have much evidence of rubber gloves . . .

We were away from each other for most holidays and summers because we both spent a great deal of time traveling. We were devastated to have to be apart so she ALWAYS made me fabulous 80’s mix tapes to keep me company during the long. lonely days we were forced to spend apart. We’d write each other lengthy letters and I still have BOXES of notes and letters from school and from our times apart and reading them just cracks me up. I love that I still have all of them and can reference them at will.

I guess all those times apart were preparing me to someday be far, far away from her, with no permanent reunion yet in sight. Yet, thanks to miracles of technology, I get to “talk” to her every day. (Holy goodness I am so grateful for IM!!)

Now, I want y’all to go over and with Miss Brillig a happy,happy, happy birthday. And if you figure out how, do it true Kate and Brillig style, and give her the birthday greeting Opera style.

And now my required personal note . . .

Dearest friend . . . I don’t think you will ever know how much I love you and how grateful I am that you are in my life. I will forever treasure our friendship and since I can’t be there with you, I thought this was the best way to wish you the HAPPIEST of birthdays. I just wish I could be there to share it with you. Now I want you to go out and celebrate in style for me!! LOVE YOU!!

July 4th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I love the 4th of July. I grew up in a town that brags that it has “America’s Largest Freedom Festival” and, whether or not that’s true . . . we celebrate in style. There’s a huge parade, tons of activities, gala banquets celebrating some of our nation’s finest heroes . . . and MOST awesomly . . . we have . . . STADIUM OF FIRE! I wish I had a sound clip of the Osmond’s singing the theme song. It’s hilarious. They always have some PC singing act, (read: Brooks & Dunn, The Beach Boys, Huey Lewis and the News (they year they were there people STORMED THE FIELD from the stands. No lie. I was one of them.), Martina McBride . . . ) a cool presentation such as bringing a Marine home to his family or something similar . . . then folks, we get STADIUM OF FIRE. An awesome, choreographed fireworks show that leaves half of the huge stadium full of people covered in firework bits. I get sad just thinking about it.

Unfortunately, the 4th of July ALSO reminds me of something I almost want to forget. That 4th of July thirteen years ago . . . the date of my first kiss.

I was 13 years old and I had my first boyfriend . . . my best friend’s older brother and next door neighbor, Matt (the first Matt. There were many to follow.). I was so excited to finally have myself a boyfriend as all of my friends had already had them and I was feeling left out. We had been “going out” for three days . . . which had entailed, well, holding hands.

So on that fateful 4th of July, Matt and I were downstairs in his basement listening to Celine Dion . . . The Power of Love, cuddling and holding hands. Then it happened. I got my first kiss to the cheesiest song ever, in the middle of the day, downstairs in my neighbor’s basement on their old couch. And it wasn’t good. It was sloppy and . . . weird . . . and . . . well, I guess a first kiss between a 13 and 14 year old who had no idea what they were doing. Yuck.

So now, every 4th of July, I can’t help but remember . . . and as grateful as I was not to start high school a kissing virgin . . . I sort of wish I had held out a day or something, so that the 4th of July wouldn’t always be joined with the memory of a soggy, spitty kiss.

But what do you do, right? Oh that’s right. You blog about it.

July 3rd, 2007 by Kateastrophe

Well, considering my brain is fried and I can’t think of anything to post about, thank goodness that Brillig pointed out to me today that the super special Amy aka Butrfly thinks that I rock!! I’m so honored, seriously. In my humble opinion, if anyone knows who rocks, it’s probably she. Thanks darlin‘! I’m totally honored!!

As for who I think is rockin‘ well . . .

Naturally, my girls, Jewels and Hannah . . . they rock for many reasons, but in this case because we make sweet music together . . .

Also, darling Molly who I still sort of believe is my long lost twin, and then my new favorite friend, Blond-D who I think be mine and Molly’s OTHER long lost sister.

Now, I have to go pick my brain and find something real to post about tomorrow. I know Brillig mentioned our inside joke about Groundhog Day, but I think I need to save that for a really rainy day, a day when you guys are deserving something truly special or when I have some significant apologizing via self-inflicted embarrassment to do, so unfortunately you’ll have to wait! Sorry about that!

Loving you all and sorry for the dumbness of me.

June 22nd, 2007 by Kateastrophe

December, 2004 . . . an all expense paid trip to Maui to stay in the world famous, five star Grand Wailea Resort and Spa with my company. They let me take my sweetheart. It was an amazing trip and we can’t wait to go back someday.

June 8th, 2007 by Kateastrophe

I can BLOG AGAIN!

I went out of town last Friday, first to visit Kyle, Adie and the new munchkin and then to a huge convention in San Jose for work. Over the weekend, I was busy playing with Hayden and didn’t want to stop! In San Jose, the Marriott decided to hate me and not give me internet access in my room. I felt completely cut off from the world. No email, no blogging, no google reader . . . nada.

Sweet heavens I hope that never happens again. I felt as though I’d lost a limb!

I am back and I am exhausted. Fifteen hour days on my feet don’t go over so well with ye olde body. I ended up wearing my favorite flip-flops on the last day due to severe foot-swellage which was so bad my feet decided to no longer fit into my shoes. I am considering permanently attaching those flip-flops to my feet. The sole is made of yoga mat. Need I say more?

I don’t have too much to say because I spent the last three days pitching eCommerce platforms to online retailers. It’s very exciting if you’re interested. Or not. I’m still recovering and trying to rediscover my wit and humor. As a reward for being patient with me in my absence, this weekend I am going to publish the details from the BEST.KATEASTROPHE.EVER. Seriously.

So prepare yourselves. It’s sooooo good. And thank you for not abandoning me. I’ve missed you so.