A River Runs Through It

I went camping with my friend Chris and some friends of his this weekend at Swallow Falls in Western Maryland. It was pretty fun, although it was very cold. The second day we were there we hiked over to the falls and took some photos. I had a good time trying out my camera and realize that I have a lot to learn. I thought this picture was framed really well, but I am not the one who took it. Notice that the sweatshirt is a Goonies sweatshirt, which was Chris' and is now mine. I don't care if he wants it back, its the least I deserve from him. (Loooooong story)

The park was really beautiful and I realize that I like camping. A lot. I would prefer to camp with people I'm a little better friends with and I'd like a lot less drinking and a lot more hiking. There were 6 of us and 120 beers were consumed in 3 days. That is ridiculous. I think I can take credit for 10 total. The math doesn't look good for the others. Another lesson in "this isn't the way I want to live", but I guess sometimes you have to learn that from experience.

I think this picture is my favorite. The falls were gorgeous and the river was so beautiful too. I just loved the sound that it made and I felt so peaceful there. I could have spent the entire day there, but I think I was the only one that who enjoyed sobriety.

Two more pictures. I have a ton and I think I may make a slide show. Not that pictures of a river are too exciting, but it was a nice chance to experiment a little bit with my camera. Now I need to learn Photoshop a little better.

Body Issues

This morning was a rough one. I put on jeans (though its Thursday, I have a terribly long day and jeans were the decided attire for it) and an orange sweater. I left the house. Then I turned around at the end of my street b/c I looked down at my huge thighs and said "there's got to be something better than this." I went home and kept changing pants for about 10 minutes and finally, in tears, I put the jeans on that I had been wearing. I get to work and I ask my cube mates, "are these jeans terrible?" They were like "no, but the sweater is too short for them." ARGH!! Do you do that? You "marry" yourself to one particular article of clothing that is actually the problem? The sweater is cute, but it just doesn't go with lower waisted clothing.

I'm starting to get nervous about my impending social situations of the weekend. I am going camping with people that I don't know very well...and that makes my nerves go insane. This is all part of getting outside of my comfort zone. This is WAY outside too.

I've also decided that I'm such a fatty that I have to go back on Weight Watchers. I've gained 10 lbs since I returned from Florida, and I haven't be exercising as much as I'd like to. So I am recommitting to the weightloss and fitness effort. I'm not too far from my goal and if I could lose 80 lbs, then I can lose 15 more.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Slowing My Roll

I have a friend that always tells me to "slow my roll". I'm taking his advice, especially after my last two weeks of being crazy-busy. I did have a pretty hectic weekend, but it was a great time and I didn't get overwhelmed, so it was worth the middle of the night homework session on Saturday. On Friday I went out for sushi with Sarah, which as always, was a great conversation and left me happy all night. The sushi was pretty good too, but the service was terrible, which made me sad because I really want a great sushi place to go to in this area.

On Saturday I went to a Renaissance Festival, which was way out of my element. First of all, I couldn't give a crap about the time period and I'm also not really into drama. (Real life drama, yes, make believe, no!) This is going to sound catty, but I'm definitely not into overweight women in very tight bodices that usually feature a bare midriff and me vomiting up my mead and turkey leg. It was a sight. I see it from two perspectives. One, I am totally uncomfortable with my body and I really respect that people are willing to be comfortable in those clothes. And yet, I also felt very repulsed by some of the sights that I saw and some of it was just in poor taste. Camel toe is not Renaissance.

On Sunday, Marc and I had a birthday party for our cat, little Fernie. She turned 7 and was very happy that her daddy came over for the occasion. We took lots of pictures, which I will surely post as they are embarassing to both me and the cat. Marc was awesome- he helped me clean up my yard and other outdoor projects and I really appreciated that he went above and beyond. I owe him one-I'm pretty sure it will come in the form of helping him with flower beds at the old house.

As I'm trying to "slow my roll", I kept a low profile yesterday, and just went to the gym for an hour or so and then went home to catch up on grad school homework. Tonight I think I'm going to meet a couple of friends from work after the gym and go out for a beer, as John's wife and baby are out of town and he has "clearance" from her to go out and have fun. I thought that was really funny.

This weekend I am going camping, and I'm pretty pumped about that. I'm going with a bunch of people that I don't know, so that is a little nerve-wracking, but it should be ok. A couple of them went to Purdue, so I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly because (most) Boilermakers are fantastic people!

Not sure why I just gave a "schedule of events" for myself. There's not much going on. I have a ton of grad school work, I'm trying to get time to do some photography (looking into a class) and I'm patietently waiting to hear from work if I get to go to California as early as November 1st. Wish me luck!

Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?

I think it is fair to say that I am a tad overstressed. Self-induced stress, but overstressed nonetheless. I have a problem saying "no" to people. Is it that I need the acceptance? I want everyone to love me so I bend over backwards for them? I think that is all true and it stops NOW. I've had a cold for a week now that I just can't shake because I haven't been getting much rest and I've been going out about every night this week. Except Wednesday. Let me share with you my wonderful Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning I'm excited because I don't have anything except Grad School class in the evening. I made a list of things that I had to do; litterboxes, dishes, laundry and REST. Then I get a call from my friend Chris who asks if I am busy that night. I say "yes, but I guess we could hang out on Thursday." Long story short, I invite Chris over for dinner. I've decided I'm making Spinach and Feta Meatloaf*, which my friend Robyn made several weeks ago and it was delicious. She made it in a slow cooker (I've now been told meatloaf in a slow cooker may not be the best idea, but we'll get to that.) so I figured I would do so as well, so it could cook while I'm at work on Thursday and I would come home to a meal ready-to-eat. (Little Military joke there.) So I'm getting all the ingredients together at home and then I realize I don't have any breadcrumbs. No biggie, I'll just omit them. I also had to omit the milk because although I thought I bought plain soy milk I actually splashed the meatloaf with vanilla soy milk. Awesome! Its about 9:15 at this point and I start looking for the crockpot. I can't find it. I call Marc (whom I'd just called about the breadcrumbs as I'd remembered buying them) and he said "oh yeah, your crock pot is right here." So in my pajamas I drive over to his house, get the crockpot (and breadcrumbs, why not?) and then start my drive back. I was FLYING down the road because I was so overtired and so busy. To no real surprise I saw the boys in blue behind me and I got pulled over. The look of surprise on the officer's face was worth a million bucks. I was so disheveled, with my wet hair, pajamas and flipflops, I'm pretty sure she thought she was going to get me for DWI (which I will never do, so that's highly impossible). I was going 70 in a 50. After about 10 minutes of waiting (see how speeding doesn't pay), she came back and said "I wrote you a ticket for going 59 in a 50, so its just one point and $75, instead of 3 points and $500. Of course I said "thank you" and slowly made my way home. I finally get everything done at about 10:15 and I finally get to bed.

The next morning I put the meatloaf in the crockpot, as well as some potatoes for the meal. Easy right? I set it on low and get going. I come home at 5 to a sort of "eh" smell. Yes, of course I burned the meatloaf (I guess there wasn't enough moisture in the crockpot) and the pototoes had completely disinegrated (they looked ashy). I decided not to panic. If a friend can't appreciate that I tried to make a meal then he's no friend of mine. He was actually fairly nice about it, though I would have appreciated he being a little nicer, but oh well. Since I burned the pototoes I made a microwaveable pasta dish and he focused on eating a lot of that. Can I blame him?

So my meatloaf adventure cost me $100 in the short term and God only knows how much in the long term with the hike in my insurance rate. I'd like to get community service instead of the ticket, but I don't like how passivly you get a court date. You just don't pay your bill and then they mail one to you. That makes me feel like I'm in default or something.

That's what being overtired and overstressed does to you. I think Marc put it best when he said I really needed the speeding ticket to let ME slow down, not just in the car but in life in general. Amen to that.

*In the recipe, which is actually quite good, I used dried onion soup mix instead of carrots/onions as I hate carrots and onions. It is also pretty important to add seasoning, as the spinach is fairly flavorless. Its quite a good recipe though and I'd like to perfect it. I've got nowhere to go but up!

CR-V Woes: What do I crave?

Do I crave my old (2005) CR-V, with its grocery-getter styling?

Or the new (2007) CR-V, with its desire to look like the Acura RDX?

Honestly? Neither. I only got a little SUV because Marc and I had planned on having children next year and I figured I'd get it when my lease ran out on my old car. Well, what is the point of having it now? (There is a pretty good argument that I didn't need it then, but it has hauled an awful lot of things that our other car wouldn't have been able to handle.) I've made the decision that if I move to California for good I will be buying a much more economical vehicle, most likely the Honda Civic, as that is what I (as well as Marc) wanted in the first place. It doesn't hurt that my car has been acting crazy since I first got it, and recently the water pump went out and I need to get that fixed (luckily its under warranty). So enough complaining. I do love my car, I do love the Hondas, and in general, I've been nothing but happy. But I do crave the new styling. Its pretty sweet.

"There's not a whole lot of ways this can go right."

**of course I have pictures to add. And of course blogger isn't being agreeable**

Last night I had the pleasure of viewing the film Jackass: Number Two. First we can all laugh at the clever way they involved toilet humor in the title itself. They know no bounds. Let me first explain that I was told that a “big group of us go to movies on Tuesday, we’d love to have you join us”. This group was supposed to include a lot of gals, and a lot of people that went to Purdue. Can you guess that the only ones in attendance were myself and four guys? I asked the one “I thought your girlfriend was coming?” He replied, “she wouldn’t see this movie, even for me!” So I was stuck. And by stuck I mean, having a great time, because I love the Jackass movies. It may stem from my undying love for Johnny Knoxville, or the fact that I like watching people hurt themselves for money. Lots of money. Jackass Number Two grossed $28.1 million in its first weekend. That’s pretty good for a bunch of guys that probably can’t even get insured.

I'd also like to note that although I have had far too many drinks on several occasions in my life, I have never been drunk enough to do any of the stuff they do. Which leads me to believe the obvious, that they are under the influence of drugs way stronger than alcohol. Their pain thresholds never cease to amaze me...and make me wish that I had maybe a quarter of that skill so I could handle things like "hammer to the thumb" and the like.

I don't want to share too much about the movie as some may want to be surprised by the idiocy they cracked open for this one. I will say that I laughed fairly heartily at a some of the Spike Jonze stuff, and I was disappointed that there was less of "Party Boy" Chris Pontius, who is one of my favorites. Of course Tony Hawk showed up, for a pretty good stunt with a gauntlet, and Luke Wilson made an appearance in the credits.

When I first started watching Jackass, I felt really bad for Bam Margera’s parents, Phil and April. I don’t feel bad for them at all. Their son is making BANK and they are surely being compensated and well cared for in all of this. I also used to find Jackass highly offensive, as they are often doing penis-related activities. Not so offensive to me anymore. I realized that they aren’t hurting anyone (except themselves) and that people can choose to watch the programs. I don’t ever watch the tv show anymore, but I’ll say it was pretty enjoyable and whenever I hear the twang of the Jackass theme, I just have to smile. And wince.

**I'd also like to note that I was talking to Marc about his visit to Salt Lake City with our friend Jamie, and he said they watched a movie called The Dudesons, which is akin to Jackass, and it actually came out first. Apparently the Jackass guys are in the movie, as is the Bloodhound Gang, which pleases me greatly. I'll have to get this movie. Maybe when Patty is in town, as she is the one who got me interested in Jackass in the first place. In fact, the last time we were in Maryland together we watched Jackass, so maybe it will be a tradition. Maybe**

Helps!!

Anyone have any suggestions for a new blog name? I'm obviously not doing the marathon this year so it is a little silly to even pretend I'm working on running and the like.

Also, I'm having a heck of a time finding a blog template of any value. I think I may need to just come up with my own. Which means this blog will be a mess for awhile.

Any suggestions would be great.

I'd like to name the blog "Its Kate-tacular" but I think that may only be funny to me. Right now!

Sleeping Beauty & the Colts

That's right, I'm calling myself a beauty. Let the sickie have some vanity, ok? Yesterday I spent the entire day on my couch. I slept the whole day, with the exception of a few minutes of phone calls that came in during my slumber. I think I managed to sleep about 19 hours yesterday, and I'm feeling a little bit better today, though I still have all the cold symptoms, but I'm going to take it easy this week. I was just a social butterfly last week and I think that's why I got sick in the first place. I need my rest!

I'm also in need of some positive thinking. I need some good wishes and praying that I get the opportunity to do my current job in California. At the very least, it will be for 3 months, but it may turn into a permenant position. I was very worried that I was "running away from my problems" by going to California, but now I'm starting to think it just might be the best thing. I love my job, but if I can do it in another location that may be best. Wish me luck, I should find out more this week. Regardless of this job opportunity, I'll still be in San Diego from January-March, so at least I'll get away for a little while.

Hooray for my friend Lindsay and her husband Dan. Dan returned from Iraq on Saturday, safe and sound! Lindsay sent me some pictures from the Homecoming and I cried like a little baby. It was so nice to see those brave men and women returning to their families, the look of love and happiness in their eyes. I'm tearing up again! So thank you to Dan, Lindsay and Draigan, and all the military families that are sacrificing for our freedoms!


A little more football news! GO COLTS!!!!
My boys are doing well this year and it makes me happy. They managed to win even though I wasn't watching the game nor wearing a jersey, so I can finally accept that what I am wearing, doing or thinking, has no bearing on my team. Thank goodness because that stressed me out a lot. Its kind of hard to keep loving the Colts. It reminds me so much of happy and fun times with Marc and it makes me sad. I mean, I got engaged at a Colts game and its very hard not to think of that when I watch our boys in blue. Oh well, it can remain a happy memory and I can continue to enjoy them...but still.

Homecoming Win!

Thank goodness for this win. I have never been a fan of Minnesota and it makes me very happy to see Purdue with another win this season. It was our first Big 10 game, but thus far we're undefeated. I'm hoping that we can keep it up, though I don't have a lot of faith in it. The Boilers are my team, but they haven't been consistent lately.

Its hard to not be able to see any of the games. I listen to them on XM Radio, but the pain of that is that I have to sit in my car. I've been sick this weekend (head cold) so I haven't been in the mood for it.

I met some people last weekend that were going to Purdue for Homecoming and they invited me a long. I went last year with Marc while he played in the band, but I think I'd rather not go on a 5 state trip when I just met them. Alright, I'm going to go celebrate with a nice cup of tea and a nap!

I've Been Hiding

Ok, not really, but I've been busy with my class for work as well as grad school so I've sort of been under the radar lately. Well, at least on Blogger, as I've sort of become a "social butterfly" in the So. MD area (yeah right). Actually, I have been much more social than usual, meeting new people, attending parties and the like, and NOT drinking. Such a wonderful thing. I realized this weekend how much fun it is to be the designated driver. It really isn't that bad. I can still enjoy a couple of beers if we're staying for a long time and I can "fake drink" and hold a cup in my hand so I don't look too awkward. I met a lot of nice people this weekend and made some new friends. Robyn and her husband Andrew have been so good to me. They said that they are glad we have more time to hang out now (though not about the circumstances surrounding why we can hang out more.)

I've got a busy week this week as well. I went out to dinner last night with friends and I'm having a friend over for dinner and a movie this evening. Tomorrow I have class (blech) and Thursday I'm finally going to get to run for the week. Friday I have to take my car up to Waldorf and Robyn is going to join me to keep me company and to go to the mall (yeah!). My car has been acting crazy, and it also smells like garbage, so I'm not so happy with it right now. Saturday I'm going to the St. Muurry's County Fair with my friend Murthlyn, as its her birthday and all she seems to want is a funnel cake. I can oblige. I'm hoping to watch some football on Sunday. My friend Ben seems interested in me doing that with him as well, so it seems like a good plan.

Well, that's about it. I don't know if any of you read Marc's blog (Mild Amusement for the Masses) but he's had some pretty funny stuff on there lately. Check it out if you're in the mood.