Hey Stranger!

Oh my, it's been way too long. I apologize for my absence. May has been a whirlwind. Kind of. At any rate, I've been staying somewhat busy/ill, so I've been staying away - to keep my germs from spreading to you. No one wants to be too close to a girl with a gross cold (I've learned the last few weeks, as people maintained a good 10 foot distance from me when I saw them...).

And now that the world has slowed down a bit, I feel like I should sum up my life from these last few weeks. It's kind of late tonight, and I need to go to bed, so I'm afraid the best I can do is give you a short list of the goings-on here.

May 2012 - the Haps:

My Birthday! I'm 26 now, and it feels so good. And kind of old. But generally good.
DC-Iowa-Missori-Iowa-DC. I flew to Iowa with a Congressman, a Senator, and my brother's boss - who was seated right next to me. Serendipitous! Ben, I deserve a cut of the raise you're sure to get after my friendliness and restraint on the plane - I restrained myself from being a total embarrassment in front of your boss. It wasn't easy. I was bursting at the seams, trying to hold the music in my soul from coming out in full Musical format for everyone to enjoy with me. You. Owe. Me.
Celebration Trifecta in Missouri. We celebrated my birthday (ice cream cake! so good...), Mother's Day (love you, mom!), and a baby blessing (Zoey, you are a doll) in one fun-filled, party-packed weekend. We of course celebrated with kickball, ultimate frisbee, turtle hunting, turtle racing, and fireworks. Z&J sure know how to show us a good time.
Stupid cold lasts way too long. I can't seem to fly places without returning home sick these days. Glad it wasn't strep throat again this time, but I haven't been able to fully kick this blasted cold since getting back. I've been working with sexy voice for the 6 days (it's a blessing and a curse).
Memorial Day Weekend spent at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Duck Beach take two happened this weekend. I saw Boy from last year at one point, and it was super awkward, so that was fun. But beyond that, most of this year's experiences were pretty different from last year, mostly because this year I knew a lot more people, so I was less awkward in the many large group settings of the weekend. I put sexy voice to use when I could, and generally relaxed all weekend. Activities included playing in the powerful ocean waves, running away from ugly crabs who dared to near my towel, dangling my legs in the pool, getting to know new boys (and making some new lady friends - a girl needs his girl friends), {not} sleeping, doing a jigsaw puzzle (of course), and burning my skin in the only way I can - in weird splotches on random spots of my face and body. Awesome.
Job Interviews. Since my boss is retiring at the end of the year, other offices with scheduling needs have been asking about my plans, so I've had a couple of interviews. I won't lie, I'm not quite ready to quit my office yet...I don't want to leave! But it's been good to remember what interviewing is like, so this has been good practice, getting back into the search.
Selling my soul and getting totally sucked into the Bachelorette.  Which is totally more justifiable than the Bachelor seasons, so I don't feel quite as ashamed about it. I was ironing tonight (ironing! me! It felt so weird, especially because I was ironing, and I liked it...I know, I'm scared too), and watching the show on Hulu, and I was totally into it. I can't to tune in next week and find out who gets kicked out next. I hope it's Kalon and/or Ryan - they're total weirdies.

And that is my life these lat 31 days in a nutshell (not literally). And now, I'm so exhausted and falling asleep sitting up typing this (literally). So I'm going to bed. I'll do my best to not leave my next post until the end of June for a recap of that month...but this was fun to go back and relive it all. May was so fun! There's a reason why it's my favorite month of the year. And yes, a lot of that is because of my birthday, but it's also because good, fun things just happen in May. Hopefully June can keep up this year.

Anything that I missed recapping? I'm certain I forgot something awesome, but obviously I can't think of anything, so lemme know if you can!

A Birthday Song For You, But Mainly For Me (and Other Song References)

On this, my birthday eve, I thought I'd share a song with you that you should listen to on my birthday day - a song that is a new annual tradition for me to listen to on my birthday. I found it sometime last year, and I've since been counting down the days (which has been a long time, I found it, like, last summer...) until I could legitimately play it.

Sadly, it's kind of obscure, so it's NOWHERE on the interwebs in its entirety. And I'm short on time (I'm leaving on a jet plane in 4 hours!!!), and lacking a collection of pictures of my last 26 years, so I can't turn the song into a jazzy life montage of all my fun times on this planet, and then figure out how to put the montage on youtube so I could then link to it on this, my blog, and then later deal with copyright issues like all youtube videos for songs do. Otherwise, I would totally go all self-absorbed and do that, yo.

But I can't - so the best I can do is give a long explanation (see above) about why I'm just putting down a link to a clip of the song:

http://wpte.tunegenie.com/music/bleu/happy-birthday/ (click on the clip for Kate. obviously)

Listen to the clip. Imagine how great the full song would be. And celebrate a day of joy that is my birthday. Because when it's my birthday, it's everyone's birthday!*


*I don't really know what that means, but it seemed like something a commercial would tell you. At any rate, I hope you enjoy my birthday as much as I'm planning to! if anything, because it's on a FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!

The Muddying of a Care Bear T-Shirt

So, I've shown you how to make a Care Bear t-shirt.

And now let me present to you how to muddy a Care Bear t-shirt.

(Disclaimer: the actual muddying process was not caught on camera - because we definitely did not bring a camera on the run. It wouldn't have survived...)

Before:

 Care Bear STAAAAAAAAARE!!!!!!!!!! (You'll just have to imagine the rainbow beams shooting out of our stomachs...the camera couldn't catch the light properly...and I'm not that proficient with PhotoShop)

I totally got peer-pressured into the little care bear ears/pigtails. But they turned out cute enough, and stayed in the whole race, so I can't complain too much about it. That said, I should never be a speaker during DARE week to help kids stay strong against peer pressure (do schools still use that program?!)...

 The Mighty Care SpiderBear...Friend Bear shoots spiderwebs of friendship to engulf her friends so they can never leave her - friends don't let friends get far!

And After:

Most of the mud comes right at the end - in the big mud pit you have to crawl through to get to the finish line. Turns out, muddy water is just as chilling as clean water, when it's kind of cold outside...brrrr.

Care Bears are tough. Don't be fooled - they're still bears...Grrrrr!

 And this is the cross-over show the Care Bears are in talks of doing - Care Bear Wrestlemania!

These guys were crazy. They had just finished running while we were getting ourselves put together. They stopped for a photo blitz near us, and people kept asking to take their picture, so they were there posing forever. So of course, we jumped on the bandwagon and asked for a picture with them. I couldn't decide if I thought they were hilarious, or if I wanted to throw up from their nasty speedos. The guy on the end by me was doing these deep, meditative breaths - because, you know, it's hard work holding up all the air in the sky.

Some Highlights:

Running into friends unexpectedly before and after the race

The WWE guys - total hams for the camera. And we fed their egos.

The string jungle that we had to get through Entrapment style (not really). At the end, Jillian was still in it and yelled to me, "Friend bear - help a friend out!" Thanks for keeping me true to my tummy symbol, J.

Our calls to keep us together - "Care Bears Unite!" Pretty sure that's not from the show or movies, but we liked it anyway

The sunshine that came out for 5 minutes after we finished - if that was all the sun we'd get, we got it at the perfect time

My silky smooth skin after the mud bath at the end

The lake we cleaned off in - not as cold as it probably was for the earlier racers!

Totally got dunked in the water by one of the aforementioned friends we ran into. NOT COOL. Very cold, in fact.

FIVE GUYS FOR LUNCH! Sooooooo good

Getting to use my care bear ribbon that I've carried with me for the last 8 years of my life, just knowing there would come a time when it could be a legit part of an outfit. It was tied around my ponytail, but when I got suckered into pigtails, I tied the ribbon around my wrist. After every obstacle, I raised my arm and the ribbon brought us together and running again.

This was definitely one of the more fun races I've run in my life. Slight burns, bruises, and cuts aside, I had a blast. Here's to repeating it next year! Though hopefully it will be a wee bit warmer then...

The Making of a Care Bear T-Shirt

How to make a Care Bear tummy symbol t-shirt:

1. Obtain t-shirt in color of desired bear

2. Buy fabric paint

3. Using white fabric paint, create a large white circle in the middle of the t-shirt (see Image 1). You may want two coats to make it really solid white. This will be the main background for the tummy symbol design.

 Image 1.

4. With a picture of the tummy symbol to reference as your guide, free-hand the symbol on the white circle, using the necessary colors (see Image 2).

Image 2.

5. Let dry.

Warning: t-shirts will be adorable (see Images 3, 4, and 5), which will make it difficult to want to wear them in the mud race they were created for.

 Image 3.

Image 4.

Image 5.

All credit of this project goes to my dear friend Jillian Busath. She created these masterpieces. My one contribution was adding the 2nd coat on my shirt while she painted another shirt's symbol - I had come by after a run the other night and wanted to be part of the t-shirt party she was having. And boy, was it a party, indeed! But how could it not be with One Direction blasting from the speakers. Best part of the night? "Which One Direction boy should be your boyfriend?!" quizzes. Mine was Niall, the cute, blond, Irish one. EEEEEEE!!!!!!!! (more shrill, girlish screams!!! Because, OMGoodness, he's sooooo cute!)

The t-shirts were seriously adorable - and still are, of course. Just a wee bit mud-tinged now is all. And by wee bit, I mean, stained brown. Hopefully the mud washes out eventually...

The race itself was awesome. And of course, pictures of the t-shirts pre- and post-race will be forthcoming (when I get them from the other girls...). Stay tuned!


*Note: the care bears each girl wore was as follows:
Jillian: Funshine Bear (yellow)
Kate: Friend Bear (orange)
Kaitlyn: Love-a-Lot Bear (pink)
Kim: Good Luck Bear (green)

Pimp My Mac

Guys, I did it. I got a Mac. I've joined the hipster, elitist masses and sold my soul to the Man people still argue is the champion of the little guy - Apple, Inc.

Actually, a lot of normal people I know and love have macs, so I don't think I'm too much of a poser right now, trying to be cool. I think I can still consider myself normal. Perhaps slightly better than the common person, but normal nonetheless.

I won't lie - I've been missing my PC a little bit. The newness that is a Mac is more life-changing than I though. Literally everything is different on a Mac. Buttons are different. Keyboard shortcuts are different. Applications are different. There's no 'del' button on my mac to delete the words behind the cursor. There's no extra keypad for me to type numbers on (that was a special feature I added on my PC when I created it - I didn't realize how much I'd miss that...). I had no idea how to access my various folders and files for a while - no "My Computer!!!" This "Finder" thing is still throwing me off. And the scrolling - it's actually a great thing, this 2-finger scroll idea; it's just that I keep scrolling the wrong way - my PC asked that I scroll on the side of the mousepad, rolling down to bring the page down. On here, I scroll 2 fingers upward to go down. I keep bouncing all over the place on this computer, trying to scroll the way I want to go, trying not to over think what I'm doing because it's so silly, but inevitably over thinking it anyway.

But the more I use this new computer, the more I get comfortable with it. And it's got some things my PC certainly lacked. For one thing, it's soooo gorgeous. So shiny and silver. The apple on the front, lit up when in use, is so pretty. The screen is so glossy. And the actual computer - it's soft like thin, crushed velvet. Not too smooth and greasy like my PC sometimes got, but soft and warm. I find myself caressing it during those moments when I'm thinking of what to type next. It's really quite lovely.

And with something so lovely, it's only necessary that I eventually get some body art on it. Because tattoos are awesome and everyone who loves their bodies gets one these days (sorry, I couldn't hold it in - I vomited in my mouth a little as I typed that. I actually really dislike tattoos, they just look so dirty. I'm not often impressed by someone's tattoos - even if it's a sprawling motivational phrase is beautiful calligraphy, like "the sky is the limit." I just don't like them, okay?)

Anyway. I looked at some decals on Etsy, and found some that I like. I also found the Winner - the one that will grace my computer screen at some point, probably after it's 2 month birthday at the earliest. Gotta set some age restrictions or things get all sorts of out of hand. Would you like to see what I found?

(This clever one is in honor of my nephew Max - which made me wonder: did Max get to read and love Where The Wild Things Are? Because that's a darn good book and I'd feel sad if he didn't get to enjoy that namesake...)

Incognito...

PENGUINS!

And...the WINNER:

Awesome, yes? I love it. It provokes some good memories - like how when I played Super Mario Bros. with Abby, and we'd get to levels with Yoshis, I could never seem to stay on mine, and Will kept jumping off his yoshi and freaking out until we got him back on, just so he could immediately press the button to jump off again...also I sometimes play Mario Kart as Yoshi - because who doesn't like being him?

Of course, if I don't end up bedazzling my little Maccie with Yoshi, it will only be because it got beat by my beloved Calvin and Hobbes. I will always love C&H - the smart person's comic strip, I like to call it. I would read them when I was younger (I liked to steal Zach's C&H books when he left for college), and then when I was a Philosophy minor at school, the main philosophy professor liked to incorporate the comic strip whenever he could - which was often. Calvin's imagination of the Self, time travel, and beauty just seemed to introduce class lectures so well, you know? Plus his snowman creations were always amazing.

Oh that boy. I just kind of love him.


*All decal pictures from Etsy stores.

A Personal Note to a Sister on Her Birthday

So I got a new computer this weekend.

It's been really frustrating exciting to transfer everything from my old computer to my new one; I've gotten to look over a lot of documents/pictures/songs/etc I haven't seen in a while. It's been fun to look at what my life includes and the changes/growth I've gone through.

Most recently, my project of transferring data (because the easy migration process between computers is not actually so easy for me, it seems) involved me importing all my pictures into a program on my new computer so I can view the pictures easier and what-not.

As they imported, each picture flashed on the screen for just an instant (unless the computer was overwhelmed, in which case I got to smile at a cute niece or nephew stalled on the screen a little longer - tender mercies!)

So I was watching the pictures go by and I realized that probably just under 1/2 of all my pictures on my computer are of my sister Abby and her family. Mainly her kids. And I thought there were probably a few reasons for it:

1. She's my closest sibling, and only sister. Of course we're going to see each other whenever we can. And of course we'll document it. Because we're really fun, and we need pictures to prove that to other people.

2. She's been stuck in Middle of Nowhere, Arkansas for the past 3 years; how does a young single girl with the means and schedule to travel not feel overwhelming compassion in her bosom for this poor family and choose to spend her vacations buoying them up with her presence?

3. Like ALL of my nieces and nephews, her kids are freaking gorgeous, so how do you not take pictures of them every single second of every single day of your life?

4. She's a photographer in her own right, so she takes a lot of pictures, and when I visit, we do photo shoots, and then I make her give me all the pictures she's taken during my trip, as well as any other pictures she's shown me from times I wasn't around. So I steal all her pictures, basically.

5. I kinda like her a lot, so I like doing things with her, and I like having memories of those things we've done.

I like that we play Super Mario Bros. when we're together. I like that she thinks I have good taste in jewelry and accessories. I like that she thinks I have good taste in general (which she's never told me, but I know it's true because she always steals my stuff). I like that she answers my phone calls when I need someone to walk me home or to a friend's at night, and we only talk for about 5 minutes or so, but we talk enough that it's a good enough length of time. I like that we can talk about things that sisters talk about. I like that she is willing to open up to me and tell me frustrations, worries, and concerns, as well as happy moments, exciting moments, and funny experiences. I like that she will listen to me complain and break down and still love me like she always does. I like that she thinks I'm really funny (because I am funny - which is a statement I've been saying a lot lately, and I'm suddenly worried that I'm having to convince people of this fact...). I like that she thinks Yahtzee is an acceptable way to ring in the new year. I like that we cry every single time we get together because we make each other laugh so much. I like that her husband thinks we're crazy when we get together - I'm not sure why I like that, but it makes our relationship more special to me.

I just kind of like it all, you know? I'm pretty lucky in the family I got here on this earth. And on this Earth Day, I just thought I'd wish my sister a happy 30th birthday. Because 30 years is a big deal. You know, 30 sounds pretty great, and I think it looks good on you, Abs! Live it up! But don't get crazy. Happy Birthday, with lots of love from your little sister!

Kate Goes to Washington - and Meets President Lincoln!!

So I went to a Washington Nationals game Friday night. And it was a blast. I love baseball games.

Especially because we (the Nationals) won.

More Especially because my favorite player (as of the 8th inning of that game) ended up hitting in the winning run - because he's awesome like that and my favorite.

Most Especially because we won in 13 innings. On Friday the 13th! With 13 runs! Just kidding, we won 2-1. Though had we lost 1-3, I think I would've been okay with the loss, just to have that score.

(We had fun seats, right behind right field. FYI, the guy closest to us - the one on the field -  is my favorite player)

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the scoreboard showing the 13th inning like I meant to because - little known fact about me - I never actually get the good picture I really want. I remember to take pictures about random stuff, but when something cool actually comes up, I totally miss it...for reference, please ask Abby about our road trip from Idaho to Arkansas. I kept taking pictures of Kansas fields and trucks we passed, but I couldn't for the life of me get my camera in my hands to snatch a pic of Toad Suck Park or the ferret farm that had probably 20 signs along the Kansas wayside...sigh. It's a perpetual frustration in my life.

ANYWAY.

This is also relevant because yesterday, I went to a reception being held by a beverage association - one that works with all the non-alcoholic beverage companies (and therefore, the best one). It was a pretty nice reception, too. They had a root beer floats table, and a regular drinks table, and some food as well.

Of course, they won my heart immediately with the Sprechers root beer and cream soda at the floats table (can you spot the root beer bottle?!). I fully support this association!

But the main attraction - and what ultimately ties this to my opening remarks about the Washington Nationals - was that they would have the Washington Nationals' Racing Presidents! Which is a big deal. Having grown up with the Milwaukee Brewers' Racing Sausages, it's nice to have some continuity and similarity to grasp onto when you're far from home.

It was also cool because I got to meet them. And I'll tell you what - that Teddy Roosevelt likes to boogie. He was dancing all around the room, bobbing up and down. And Tommy Jefferson? Total camera hog - he jumped in every picture he could (except for any of my pictures, apparently...turns out, I don't have one of him. But he was busy jumping in other presidents' pictures, so).

And here I am with a cup of Sprechers root beer and my {new} favorite president, Abraham Lincoln!

Yeah, Abe's hair is kind of crazy. But what can you do? I mean, really? When you're head is 3 feet tall, and your arms can't reach to fix your hair...it's going to be kind of crazy.

So yeah, I'm a Nationals fan. Between my favorite player winning the game I go to and then meeting the racing presidents, it'd be rude not to be a fan now.