It Takes a Village

It's midterm week and I'm freaking out. The math test, which is open book & open notes, has really been a family affair. Lainie and I worked on it together on Sunday, after Mircea helped me with the first 30 problems (that's right, 30), and then Bill and Marc both helped with some other problems. It is ridiculous. This class is insane. I hate it. Wahhhh!!!

The other class sucks too, but I've been working on taht today and it's actually going ok. We'll see. I'm half-assing it a little too much, but I've stopped caring, which is never good. Last night on the phone I said "Well, this time next year I'll have a Master's degree" and that actually got me excited. I'm going to start introducing myself as "Kate Reed: Master's Degree". You know, maybe I should just pick up Esq...because I can.

Hope everyone is having a good week. Love all the kid videos on everyone's blogs and I'm imploring Marc to do a post on how sweet, cute and completely annoying the fur babies are doing.

Does this scare the crap out of anyone else?

Milkweed, We Hardly Knew Ye

This post is coming out of leftfield, but I was trying to explain (don't ask me why) what milkweed is to Mircea. I was explaining how when I was growing up in Schoolcraft, Michigan, that I used to rip open many a milkweed pod, get the sticky "milk" on my fingers and send the seeds and "fur" flying off into the air. I loved those little pods, they were my favorite mess to make. (I loved everything about growing up in Michigan and I think at some point I'll take the opportunity to share some memories on here. I only hope that my children will have those same experiences. I hope I have children...ok, back to the blog.)

I told him I'd look up some pictures of milkweed and send it to him. In my internet travels I discovered a lot. The main, most interesting thing to me, is that milkweed can be used for this. That's right ladies and gentlemen, this isn't child's play. Milkweed is a great cure for genital warts. My favorite part of this ad is that it says it's "100% milkweed milk" but then in the active ingredients is "2.5% milkweed milk" and there are all sorts of other fun ingredients in it too. It's just a fun ad to read, that's all.

Did you know that...

-Sap from milkweed was used by pioneers as a cure for warts? (and it's available on eBay too?)
-The airborne fluffy parachute of the seed was used by Native Americans to insulate moccasins? -The dried empty seed pods were used as Christmas tree decorations by early pioneers?
-The boys and girls from Wisconsin schools collected 283,000 bags of milkweed fluff for use in military life jackets during World War II?
-It is used as an indicator of ground-level ozone air pollution?

Clearly this is a very important "weed". So respect the milkweed. I'm pretty sure I'm singlehandedly responsible for all milkweed along Flowerfield creek because man I loved that stuff.

Two Movies = Too Many Tears

This picture reminds me of one too many Christmas photos at the Rowden-Weigand household. At least they didn't ask her to take the picture.

I woke up this morning (4 am) with a really sore throat and I couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to watch some movies that I've Tivo'd since I've been here. The first movie I watched was The Family Stone. This movie had been suggested to me several years ago by Marc's sister Carly (and her Mom) and I never got around to watching it. Patty mentioned a couple lines from it a few months ago and when I saw the opportunity to see it I Tivo'd it right away. This movie hit home big time. The movie is about this woman who is all uptight and not herself as she's trying to be perfect when she meets the family of her boyfriend. She's screwing everything up because she's so nervous and feels out of place. And the family is mostly treating her like crap, though she finds some reprieve in certain family members. Now I'm sure I'm going to piss off a couple people with this, but this movie reminded me so much of how Marc's family could treat me sometimes. I found reprieve from the nightmare of being judged when I was with Carly and Marc, but so often I felt that I was constantly being watched to see what I would do wrong and even being set up in certain situations (Marc's mom saying "you know, I always thought Marc should have ended up with Amber Crum" when I went up to the cottage with him one summer.) to act badly. I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I know that Patty will appreciate my point of view here (since she suggested the movie). Someone does need to "love me best" and sometimes you just end up with someone who is great and wonderful but isn't "the one" for you, no matter how hard you try. So I guess I'm saying even though it wasn't cool, maybe his family could see all along that we weren't right for each other, but they neglected to see that it wasn't all my fault.

Warning: Description of a gay cowboy movie

The other movie I watched was Brokeback Mountain. Wow, that was heavy. 28 minutes into the movie when the love scene occurred I thought I might have to stop the movie. I don't have a problem with it, it just felt so uncomfortable because I really did feel like a voyeur. I don't know if I can really say that Brokeback was a "beautiful love story" because I had a lot of issues with the characters, especially Jack Twist. I mean, I guess you can love someone and still have sex with prostitutes in Mexico, or a torrid affair with another married farm hand, but I guess I tend to think that maybe you're just looking to have your sexual needs satisfied at this point. I don't know. First of all, it's a movie, but it's also not my place to judge any relationship, but I would have much rather enjoyed, for some odd reason, if they'd both had their wives and then had their love on the side. This next sentence is going to come across wrong but its out there...I guess if you're going to have a gay love affair with someone while you're still married I'd like to think that the gayness is monogomous (and the marriage too) Why do I think that? I don't know. But I do. Again, not my life, just a movie, and anyone can do whatever they want, but I also worried about AIDS. I didn't want Jack's philandering (gay or straight) to bring an STD into the relationship. Ok, now I'm just overworrying. The way Jack died was also terrible. Terrible terrible terrible and I hated it. Ok, no more of this. I'm crying again.

I feel like hell but I'm going to go do a little more of my midterm before heading to a party at my friend George's house. He's throwing a big "Back from Paris" party at his house today and who doesn't like a little wine and cheese? Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Can You Say 3 Ring Circus?

I just read this article. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or hurl. The baby gets custody. Then the judge says where he wants the body and he's "wrought with emotion". I feel awkward about this judge. I feel like he's having "relations" with the dead body of Ms. Smith and it freaks me out.

I don't know what else to say. So so so so weird.

Pity Party

Poor Poor Kate
Too much homework
Too much stress
Away from friends and kitties
Worrying about weightloss
Wanting to eat more

Everything is so terrible



I can't throw a good pity party like Patty. But I love the power of it. I started writing this and I feel stupid. However, I am still pretty upset about all my classes and what not and now I'm on some sort of weird sleeping schedule. (Go to bed at 5 pm get up at 3 am)

Ok, now I'm finally going to work on my stupid midterm.

A Tad Overwhelmed

Where are my puffy kitties when I need them? I just need kitten kisses and hugs and I miss Fernie and Lily so much. I call Marc and say "Send me pictures of the kitties" and he says "All they do is sit" and I say "Please..." and all the pictures look the same, but I am still happy. He said that the cats really like his girlfriend and I think that's good. We raised our girls well!

I hate school. I have the wrong book for my strategic planning class and the wrong brain for my math class. It really sucks. And I should probably stop blogging and get on with the damned strategy class, but I want to just sleep. I've been at work since 5:15 because our contractor wanted to come in early and the guy who is usually here is out sick so I volunteered to come in at the ass crack of dawn to open the doors. I regret that, but I'll regret it more tomorrow. Ha, I can leave work now, but I think I'll stay longer to make up for the fact that I leave early for PT. Speaking of which, I thought my abs and buns class was last night...I got intercepted by Fred who worked my butt off again. I start to dread him. I think I'm going to go on a run tonight on base. I have this crazy fear of running and I need to make it fun again. Wish me luck!!

Another Picture

I'm so tired and I'm procrastinating on my homework tonight. Hopefully Lainie will hook me up with some answers (HINT HINT).

Mircea sent me some more pictures tonight and we discovered that our favorite one was on his camera. Hope you enjoy-I love it!!

Why Does it Have to End?

I'm so sad that the weekend is over. Mircea and I had an absolute blast!!! On Friday we just had dinner in the room and watched tv which was really nice. (I miss that normal stuff while I'm away, you know?) On Saturday morning we got up pretty early and went to the Hash House for breakfast, which was a crazy place. The meals were big enough that we split one and still couldn't finish. Then we traveled over to Sea World, where we had a really good time. The only disappoints were that the penguin and the sea lion exihibits were closed. Those are two of my favorites! We had a really good time going to the shows, petting starfish and batrays, and enjoying some complimentary beer at the tasting tables (thank goodness for Anheuser-Busch).

After Sea World we went back to get ready for our night on the town. Mircea had me drive downtown still not knowing what we were going to do for the evening. He directed me to a parking lot (where I promptly ran into the tow hitch of the Toyota in front of me) and we started walking. His surprise for me was a romantic dinner cruise on the San Diego Harbor. It was so romantic and so wonderful and we shared champagne, had some wine and ate until we were too full to enjoy any other food and drink. It was so romantic and so sweet and it was nice to get all dressed up with my handsome man. The waiter took pictures of us, but they're on Mircea's camera so I'll upload those when he emails them to me.

Oh, we also exchanged our Valentine's gifts. I gave him an iPod as I want him to have some extra incentive to run with me. He bought me a very beautiful diamond circle necklace that looked so pretty with my dress when we went out.

It was a wonderful superfantastic visit and now I have just thirty days until I see him again and I'm home for good. I'm going to enjoy the rest of the time in San Diego, but I can't wait to get back to my sweetie and to the cute kitties (all three of them)

It's storming here today. It rained the last time he left too. I didn't cry this time though, I know that the next time I see him there won't be anything that can pull us apart.

Hmmm...is it the glasses?

I love MyHeritage. It always makes me feel good about myself because it claims I look like Anne Hathaway and Katherine Heigel. I'm ok with this. I've always thought that it doesn't really go for people you look like, it goes for people that have their face positioned the same way as you have yours. So I decided to test it with my glasses. Hmmm....turns out I look like all these people. Or do my glasses look the same? And who the hell is Patrick Stump? He seems like the kind of guy who went to my high school.

Nothing Too Exciting

Not much going on in my life right now. I've been going to the personal trainer and he has been kicking my rear end. I can barely walk most days but I feel pretty good about it. I was supposed to meet him tonight, but instead I've got a Valentine's date with him now, even though he's probably my sworn enemy. I stopped doing the South Beach diet b/c it is lame. Well, I thought about it some more and realized that even if I lost a little bit of weight on this it wasn't the lifestyle revamp I needed. (I really just need a reminder and refresher of my good eating habits) I've definitely introducted healthier foods into my diet since I started it and I will continue with those. Fred (the pt) and I are working on an eating plan to help me cut down on my spare tire and help me have enough energy for all my workouts. I wanted to take the night off but I think I'm going to go do some cardio after I talk to my sweetie. Speaking of my wonderful man, he's coming to visit this weekend. I'm very excited as we've made some fun plans. Friday we're going to tour the Midway and then pick up dinner at Coronado Brewing Company. On Saturday we'll start the day at Sea World and then finish the evening with Mircea's special Valentine's surprise. ( I can't wait to find out!) On Sunday we're going to recover from Saturday's festivities, but I think we'll meet my friend Rebecca and her husband Pat for lunch (or dinner) at Miguel's as well as take a walking tour of Balboa park and a drive up to the cross on Mt. Soledad that overlooks La Jolla. I still need to take him downtown, so maybe we'll take a quick jaunt down to the Gaslamp Quarter or something so he can at least see it. I really want to go see my favorite local band on Friday night, but Mircea is always so worn out after the plane trip (and the three hour time difference) that I can't justify keeping him up too late when he first gets here. We'll see though, maybe he'll get the urge to dance around like a fool! (With a fool!)

This week is sort of weird. I'm in meetings all day with people that I know from home, so I've answered the question "what the heck are you doing out here?" about a million times followed by "oh, it must be terrible for you". I have stuff I need to do at the office, but won't be in again until Thursday so it will definitely pile up in my absence. And the homework-dear Lord I'm behind on my homework this week. I can't concentrate on ANYTHING!!

This post is entirely too long now. I'll post more when something exciting happens, and I'll definitely post pictures from Mircea's visit. We're taking pictures this time damnit!!

Friday, Finally Friday

Not much fun to report, more of a bulleted list.

• I saw a seal on the beach yesterday and it was eating rays and this big fish (that I couldn't identify) It was so cool and so big and I was scared! I just sort of froze while I was collecting shells and then it finally swam away, but it was a very neat thing to see.
• I've secured a position when I return to Maryland with Foreign Military Sales of a small, unmanned helicopter. I would be providing logisitics support to the foreign countries, and that involves some travel to the different places. I'm pretty excited about, though it will drag me away from PAX some more, but I think it will all be for the best in the end.
• I'm getting a "talking to" next Wednesday from my boss about the VTC snafu where another guy and I were talking when we thought we were on mute. I'm sure it will be about professionalism and the like, and that is so embarassing. Yet another mistake I've learned from.
• I have another appointment with my personal trainer tonight. I'm a little stressed about it, because my legs are still hurting pretty badly, but I'll survive.
• South Beach seems to be going ok. Haven't experienced tons of weight loss but I'm definitely eating healthier as I'm not having sugar or alcohol. Pretty sure I won't continue with it past next week.
• Mircea will be here in 1 week. I'm so excited I could burst. I am very excited about the Valentine's gift I got him and hope that he's pleased by it as well. Hooray!!
• I have a 5k on Sunday. That should be a total disaster considering I can hardly walk!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

The Most Disgusting Thing EVER!

My tv has been giving me trouble the last few days (and because of a poor cable signal I did not get to TiVo two Law & Orders last night) and the maintenance people screwed around with it today. Well they screwed it up, and I had to fix it. I moved the tv around (this is the second time I did this-first time when I moved in here) and then I saw this cloth. I picked it up and realized it was underwear. I knew it wasn't Mircea's because it was GINORMOUS, WHITE and, are you sitting down? POOP STREAKED. Not like brownish colors, no there was real poop in there. HOW THE HELL LONG HAS THAT BEEN BACK THERE? I almost died. I had it in my hands before I realized these gigantic man panties had actual dried poop in them. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I wrapped them in a bag and threw them away. The saddest part of this-a man clearly shat himself more than a month ago and then was too embarassed to just throw them in the trash can in the room (or out in the hallway) and HID THEM BEHIND THE TELEVISION. Oh my goodness.

I'm sanitized, but I'm still a little shaken. Until tomorrow dear friends. I have to sleep with them in the room tonight, but I guess its been a month so we should be close friends by now.

A Funny Email

Yesterday there was a bit of a snafu on a video teleconference that I was on. Basically we thought we were muted, we were not, and all of VTC land saw a guy (Dave) doing a mocking dance of the guy talking and heard me say "he's annoying". It was something special and yet another lesson was learned. (Luckily they only heard a "girl's voice" and those really close could hear what I was saying, but not the masses.) Here's the email that cracked me up. It was my friend John responding to my email which basically said "How bad was it?" before I knew that it wasn't all that bad.


Bravo, Bravo, great show. Although we couldn't make out the words the
voice was immediately recognized as yours. Dave put on a good show as
well with his mockery of "Alan"*. Speaking of Alan, I've been keeping a tally
of the number of questions he asks at FASO each day. Last Wednesday he was
on fire, asking a total of 22 questions between 0830 and 1230. Keep in
mind, this count only includes initial interruptions of the class. It does
not include follow up questions, personal stories, or other off the
wall happenstances. He was actually 30 minutes late the very first day of
class and the instructor had just finished telling us to be careful with food
and drinks around the laptops that we are using. At that moment Alan walked
in, set down his 20 oz coffee right next to a laptop, and reached out to
shake the instructors hand while introducing himself (totally
interrupting everything that was going on). Instead of shaking the
instructors hand, he knocked over his coffee cup and spilled coffee all over
the laptop, desk, floor, and person sitting next him. That was the start of a
long 3 week FASO training course graced with the presence of the one and only
Alan Irish..........If things don't work out with you and Mircea, Alan
is always on the market Miss Hot Pants Kate.

*Name changed to protect his sad sad identity. The saddest thing in the world is that he's not a very bright guy but he's THE NICEST GUY EVER. He means well, he's such a nice guy, but oh Lord, he asks a gazillion questions, always.

Hey, it's Mircea...

So Sarah asked a pretty decent question: How do you pronounce Mircea's name? It's Meer-cha. As Robyn puts it "He's a meerkat doing the cha cha" and yes, that makes me laugh every time I think of her saying that.

I know that I've said a bit about him, but I don't want to be too "gushy" about him. I am absolutely crazy about this man and the best part of all is that the feeling is mutual. I've never been treated so nicely, NOR have I ever treated anyone with the kindness and respect that I treat him with. (So I'm not comparing him to anyone-got that!?!) He has taught me so much about what I want from a relationship and so much about how to give of myself as well. My life would have been very different if I'd learned that lesson earlier!

So enough gushing on and on about my handsome man. In just a few short days he'll be back in San Diego and I've got some fun things planned for him!

He's not a fireman, but who doesn't dig a guy in a uniform? I can finally see Patty's point about the hottie firemen...

So Many Good Things...

First of all, the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl, and that makes me happier than I've been in a long long time. I have loved the Colts since I moved to Indiana in 1992, and for once, it has truly paid off to be a fan. I can't wait to order more Colts merchanidise, though the prices skyrocketed overnight. Oh well!

School is going pretty well. I think this math class might actually put me over the edge. It is really funny-I read the chapter, look at the notes from the instructor and I have NO CLUE that they are talking about. We get to the homework and again, completely dumbfounded over the work. Fantastic! I just keep telling myself if I can get through this semester that I only have two left and I'm done done done! Mircea will be graduating school the same time I do and we've been hoping we'll be able to go on a cruise or something to celebrate. I'll be celebrating the "end of school forever" but he's only just begun. HA!!

Work is going pretty well too. I need to finalize my permenant position with the Navy when I return to PAX and that is sort of lowering my productivity here, but oh well.

As much as I hate any sort of fad diet (since I was so successful with straight diet and exercise) I'm on day two of the South Beach Diet. I really want to lose some quick weight so I look cute in my dress for when Mircea is here. Like it really matters, but still. I have my buns class today followed by the personal training session so I should be whipped into shape.

Gotta run to a meeting...

Hmmm...

Ok, so my race sucked today. That's a lie. It wasn't that bad, I did terribly: 476/621, however, I haven't run a lick since early December and I had some ankle and toe trouble, which often plagues me, especially in the shoes I've been training in (duh, get new shoes, right?). It was a good trip back though, and though I had to walk a lot (which is why it took me 39 minutes!) I don't feel the aversion to running that I'd been feeling the past few weeks. They took a picture of me, and I hope it turned out good...as soon as I see it I will post it b/c I'm sure I looked HAWWT!

The highlight of the Super Run was that I got a great long sleeved t-shirt. The t-shirt is flippin' awesome-it has a Colts vs Bear's helmet thingie on the back! I'm so pleased!!!

Go Colts and Go Me for running when I didn't really want to!

Celebrities Know Their Sports!

GO COLTS!
And yes, I am wearing my Peyton Manning jersey to work today. Oh and yes, I look AWESOME!!!!!

Clarification

As some of you probably read, I'm lucky enough to have Anonymous as one of my "friends" and it was not, as believed, one of Marc's friends or family members. Though I am no longer linked to Marc's blog and they aren't reading this, I owe them an apology for distrusting that they were following the rules of "reading, but no posting" on my blog.

As for the fact that Anonymous was one of the people I know, that makes me realize how much I don't know about my "friends" but it also makes me realize that you can't run away from nasty things that people say.

In a couple of months I'll probably switch back to PurdueKate. And at the time will totally revamp the blog and maybe, just maybe, learn some HTML so I can make this thing look pretty.

I also haven't posted the funny post yet b/c its mostly photos and I can't get them to post correctly. Maybe once I get back home...damn!

Am I Missing Something?

I just read this article and it might just be me, but I think that these people overreacted just a little bit.