Brokded

Um, so my blog sort of broke. So did Brillig's. We're not sure why, but we're working on it, so for now, I'm redirecting my .com back to Blogger.

Sigh.

Hopefully things are back to normal soon. Brillig is the master of this plan. Let us all pray for her.

Until then . . . hi, Blogger. I've missed you?

Stuck

So, apparently there's some big-ace storm that hit the east coast and all the planes are either cancelled or delayed. Luckily, I am on the delayed end of the spectrum rather than the cancelled end, but either way, I'm stuck at the airport.

I have no real reason to post, no true coherent thoughts, but I thought I would pass the time by posting.

So, we all know I live in Phoenix, the hottest freaking place in the US. I was in DC this week for work, and while I realize the area gets very humid in the summer time, the temperature isn't usually unbearable. I was looking forward to a much needed break from the heat.

I must be cursed. Because this week in Phoenix, it apparently barely rose about 101 and 25% humidity. This week in DC? Where I was in stead of Phoenix? Oh yeah, 102 with like EIGHT MILLION PERCENT HUMIDITY. I felt like I was stuck in Hell's sauna. Seriously. I usually love me a little humidity and what it does for my hair and skin. This morning, while trying to see some sights, I was basically a giant walking ball of sweaty stickiness. I was DRENCHED from head to toe. I was, naturally, walking everywhere and I started to notice that if I stopped walking for any reason other than to enter an air conditioned building, I could feel the heat throbbing through my body. So, I just.kept.walking. Forever, it felt like. However, it was totally worth it.

I've never been to DC, despite flying into Baltimore at least once a year for the past ten years to visit my Dad and Step-mother. In spite of the horrendous weather (and now horrible airport conditions) I LOVE DC. I love pretty much everything about it. I love the beautiful green parks. I love the way the city is situated. Most of all, I love the history and the symbolism of the city. I was in absolute awe all morning while walking around. I've traveled quite a bit, and the only other place I have felt this much awe was in Rome. Around every corner was another amazing building or special memorial.

I was lucky that I woke up at the crack of dawn and was able to see most of the amazing things to see without crowds.

I got even luckier and had someone traveling with me who was willing to go to the Washington Monument by 6:00 AM and wait in line for tickets to go to the top. I loved it. LOVED it. I loved the view of the city and how fitting that monument is for the amazing man George Washington was.

I was the ONLY ONE at the top of the stairs at the Lincoln Memorial this morning. It was a pretty special experience, honestly. I have always loved Lincoln and his attitude and persistence, and I'm glad that his memorial is so incredible.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the founders of the country as I read the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I am in awe of the challenge that those few men took on in order to do what they thought was right for their fellow men and for generations to come.

My favorite part, however, were the war memorials. I have mentioned before that my Step-father Mike, who passed away a few years ago was a Vietnam Vet. I believe I have also mentioned that my brother Sean served for several months in Iraq at the beginning of the war. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned that my Grandfather is also a Veteran of Korea. I know I'm not alone in my respect for our troops and all they have done and continue to do for our country and I also know I'm not alone in feeling a special bond with any veteran because of my family's personal sacrifices.

I was very emotional as I walked through the new WWII memorial, which is absolutely amazing. I saw one lone old man, obviously a WWII veteran, sitting on the side of the Field of Stars wiping tears from his eyes. I can't even imagine what he must have felt to see this amazing memorial to the men and women he served with who did not make it home as he did. There is one star for every 100 people who died. There are 4,000 stars. That is a number of lives lost that I cannot even begin to comprehend.

The Korean War Memorial wasn't one I had heard much about or seen too many picture of, but I loved it was well. I love the look and feel and felt almost haunted by the faces of the men on the wall behind the bronze statues.

Then, my very last stop of the day, was probably the most special to me due to my relationship with my Step-father. At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial I was again moved, this time to tears, watching a man in his early sixties, wearing a plethora of Vietnam Vet gear, find a name on the wall, step back, and with tears streaming down his face, salute.

I have always been a very patriotic person, a person proud to be an American, but today, I think I changed. Today, I was hot, sweaty and verging on miserable, but I was humbled and grateful and prouder than I have ever been. I loved every minute of my hot sweaty day, and now I sit here in the airport for hours, verging on miserable again, but my heart is swelling with pride for the country I am blessed to have been born in. I am grateful beyond words for so many people sacrificing so much, be it time, energy or even their life, to ensure that we have the freedoms we have.

I didn't really mean for this post to turn so sappy, but I guess that's just what happens to me sometimes. And now, I say goodbye, because a small miracle has occurred and my plane has just arrived and I will be boarding soon.

Thanks for putting up with my sappiness! I'll make it up to you, because the second installment of Soap Opera Sunday is already written and ready to be posted!!

Not that you care . . .

I've alluded to this before, but I want to make it VERY clear that I am not a fan of people who take themselves WAY too seriously.

Yes, there is a long story behind this, but unfortunately, feelings might get hurt if I share too much, so, let's just say I know this person who can't seem to find the humor in anything, and while all around people are laughing hysterically and poking harmless fun at themselves and others, this person becomes frustrated and tries to explain why NOTHING about the situation everyone else is laughing about is funny in any way. Then, this person gets insulted when said group of people are laughing too hard to hear what they're saying, even though, by my estimation, they were laughing FIRST.

I know that there are times to be serious, but let me tell you, if you choose to go out and about with a jovial group of people, you'd better freaking be prepared to at least TRY to have a good time.

Also, for the record, when going out with a jovial group of people, it might be a good idea to stop talking and listen long enough to realize that there is some FUNNY CRAP going on around you.

Just saying.

Maybe I Should Just List My House as a Meth Lab

Ah the joys of the Phoenix housing market.

When we bought our house, it was a sellers market. We fought tooth and nail and made several overs before bending over backwards and paying out the tuckus to buy our house

Now, two years later, it's a buyers market. There are gazillions of houses on the market and we're going to have to, once again, bend over backwards and pay out the tuckus (from our equity) to sell our house.

But whaddaya do right?

Persevere. That's what you do.

So Saturday, we had our second open house. I must say that we outdid ourselves cleaning this time. I just got a new vacuum, so I still think of it as more of a toy . . . so I vacuumed EVERYTHING. Couches? Check. Rugs? Check. Carpet? Check. Drapes? Check. All spotless and vacuumed. The house smelled beautiful . . . looked beautiful. The yard was gorgeous, Matt has done wonders with the grass in this blasted heat. I reorganized all the cabinets, everything was perfectly in it's place. I even organized my plethora of prescriptions, cold medicines and vitamins.

So at 11 AM we left the house for the day to go shopping and do some other fun things. Rhonda joined us and we went furniture shopping with my friend Stacey, then went to lunch. Then we saw the new Pirates movie (so good by the way!) and then we headed home.

We talked to our realtor on the way home. The open house was a bust. Only one person stopped by. A guy by himself . . . my realtor didn't feel comfortable being in the house alone with him, so she stayed outside and he went inside (random I know. I don't want to talk about it.). He came back out a few minutes later and said we had the nicest house in the neighborhood, said he would go get his brother and come back. He left his name and number and left.

He never came back . . . and our realtor went and visited with the other Realtors in the neighborhood (three of whom were also having open houses) and none of them had seen the guy. Weird right?

Well, our realtor had his name and number, so she was going to call him back and try to schedule a private showing for he and his brother.

We came home late Saturday evening and settled in for a boring night of TV and calling it an early night. We're so exciting right?

Sunday morning, I went downstairs to take my antibiotics. (I was diagnosed with bronchitis last week. Fun right?) I opened my perfectly organized cupboard and immediately noticed a problem. There was a hole. A hole that used to contain my favorite prescription bottle. My cough syrup with codeine. When one gets bronchitis twice a year like I do, this is the most glorious of all glorious medicines to have. And it was gone. Usually, I'm not extremely organized and this wouldn't be strange. I misplace stuff all the time. But not this time. I knew exactly where that bottle had been the day before because I had gone as far as to organize my medicines by type and by frequency of use. It was most definitely missing.

Holy crap right???? Some guy had come to our house posing as an interested buyer and STOLEN MY FAVORITE DRUGS. We, of course, started madly searching the house for other missing things, and came up with nothing. Everything else was in it's place. Stupid guy just took the cough syrup.

What's funny is that I don't feel like my privacy has been invaded, because I don't really have a strong sense of privacy. I'm not scared that he'll come back looking for more. Want to know what I am?

I'm PISSED that he stole my CODEINE. There was perfectly good doxycycline and steroid cream in there. Take that!! Take anything but the codeine! Do you have ANY IDEA how sick I had to get to be allowed to get that stuff?

Secretly, I'm almost hoping Matt gets sick now so we can go get some more, just to have it on hand.

I'm not a druggie, I swear. I just play one on Blogger.

The first "Mattastrophe" in history!

My husband is a sweet, calm, careful human being. He very rarely makes mistakes, very rarely makes an accidental mess . . . pretty much the opposite of ME.

Last night, however, we had ourselves an accident ala Matt.

The blinds in our dining room were misbehaving. One side went down just fine, but the other just stayed up. It was totally stuck. So we were both checking it out, trying hard to figure out what the crap was wrong and praying we didn't have to go find new blinds for our money pit house that we're putting on the market soon anyway.

Nothing was happening . . . we were frustrated and figuring we needed to buy new blinds. I told Matt we should just give up, the stupid blinds were stupid broken. Stupid. Yeah.

Then . . . it happened. Matt tried to fix the blinds one more time. And down they crashed hitting not one, but BOTH of us. I got hit in the head, Matt got hit in the mouth.

I was in that . . . shocked, surprised and scared mode . . . and I just sort of started to cry.

Matt was bleeding in two places . . . on the outside of his mouth AND on the inside.

It was traumatizing for a few minutes, then it was just funny. Today it's just funnier, although Matt may still not think so!

There is also a silver lining on our cloud because, while the blinds were on the ground, we were able to see into the guts of the stupid things and fix them! NOw we just have to NOT TOUCH THEM EVER AGAIN.

**Random sidenote that has NOTHING to do with this post. HOW IN THE CRAP IS SANJAYA NOT IN THE BOTTOM THREE OF AMERICAN IDOL? This is just makin' me angry. Stupid.

My Manly Man

Kate and Matt are lying in bed late one night. Kate is trying to sleep. Matt is deep in thought.

Matt: (determined)

I want to be a Spartan

Kate: (sleepily)

uh . . . ok?

Matt: (even more determined)

Seriously, what if the world came to that again? You know, if we had to fight for our land?
*thoughtful pause*
I'd totally get my ass kicked!
*another thoughtful pause*
That's it. I'm quitting my job and training to be a Spartan.

Blog Schmog

THE PRESSURE! IT'S KILLING ME!

I feel the pounding pressure to BLOG ALL THE TIME. And let's be honest folks. I don't have much to say, I just have this addiction. So brace yourselves for the nothingness of my blog:

I'm trying to figure out how to create a sidebar button that tracks the number of days since my last "Kateastrophe." Scnozz, who I've never met and has never even heard of me creates these hilarious sidebar buttons all the time (oh yeah, props to her for letting the internet steal her ADD Superstar button showing over there) and I'm seriously thinking of sending her an email that says "Hey, you don't know me from Adam, but I have these Kateastrophes, see . . . and I want a sidebar button that tracks them - kind of like the signs at some companies that count the number of days since a work related accident? A counter of sorts?) But I think she'll think I'm a nut job. Which I am, but that's a different story for a different day.

Work today was . . . well, like doing the work of three people. You know . . . the usual sales calls, marketing tasks followed by admin duties that were supposed to be over in August. I'm not complaining, mind you. For one thing, it's easier for me to do the admin stuff then try to explain it to yet another temp who may or may not be here next week. For another thing, I enjoy being crazy busy then dramatically coming home at the end of the day and telling Matt "YOU decide what we're doing for dinner. IIIII am doing the work of twelve people and I have no brain power left!" (followed by a MORE dramatic flop on the couch -- where I sit for the REST.OF.THE.NIGHT.) Then Matt or I order pizza and I basically push "DELETE" on the workout I got my arse out of bed at 5:30 AM for. But mmmmm stuffed crust cheese pizza. (SEE?!? THIS IS WHY I AM NO LONGER SKINNY)

Speaking of skinny . . . my friend Stacey has an elliptical machine she can't use because of some back trouble she's been having, so she is loaning it to me. NOW, I plan on watching ALL the TV I want, guilt free, because I will be pounding away the fat on the beautiful thing. I figure I'll be a size 0 in about four days . . . because that's how much TV I currently watch.

And that folks, is all she wrote for the night. Lost is on and my butt hurts from sitting in one position for too long. I'd better lay down, I'm burning too many of the pizza calories using my fingers to type so fast.

A Capele?

***Updated to add: This is in PROVO, UTAH folks. I forgot to mention that part. It's part of the reason the guy with the cigarette (that if you'll notice he only really takes a puff of once or twice) is even funnier. I could seriously watch this ten times and still think it was funny. I notice something funnier about it every single time! Hahaha
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Wanna see something awesome? Check out this video Sheila's brother Ryan and some friends of his made.

The guy in the red (who they have dubbed Ryan 2 (he is NOT Sheila's brother) was recruited to perform a romatic surprise. Yes, that is his real room. And yes, he is VERY serious.