Weekend Update

OK you guys rock. Thank you SO MUCH for your advice on music. I am overwhelmed and really enjoying what I’ve been able to investigate thus far! I’ve had a request to fill you in on what I’ve found from your suggestions so I’ll give you a list of what I love SO far. I’m still looking into a bunch of it, so if I don’t mention something you suggested, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it! It just means I haven’t had time to find it! I have VERY random taste in music (as you will see from this list.) my iPod has everything from rap to Broadway, butt-rock to opera and everything between, so pretty much all of your suggestions have been loved. Or will be as soon as I hear them. OK, the list:

• Mae . . . oh how I love Mae. I bought two albums already and yesterday it was the soundtrack to my housecleaning.
• Hem
• A Fine Frenzy
• Sia
• Ingrid Michaelson
• Joshua Radin (OH MY GOSH he is AMAZING)
• Vampire Weekend
• Hooverphonic
• Blue Man Group (who knew they had an album? Not me!)
• HelloGoodbye
• The Last Goodnight

Some of these bands I already knew but re-discovered thanks to your suggestions AND I have about a million more to research! I’m so excited! You guys are fab! I feel like a new person with all these new tunes to listen to!

Not to change the subject but I had to apologize that my SOS was only four paragraphs. I know you guys are ready to kill me but I HAD to end there because the next part would have made it the longest post in history! I promise I’ll give you more next week. This story is taking FOREVER but I can’t leave parts of it out or else it won’t be a juicy!

In other news, I had a great weekend. I went to “Definitely, Maybe” with my girl Rhonda on Friday and then we had an old fashioned sleepover at her casa. We played Dr. Mario and chatted until the wee hours of the morning. (For the record, I suck at Dr. Mario and got totally WORKED.) Saturday morning I made a long overdue visit to the LDS Temple in Mesa and then went to play practice for “Hello, Dolly!” which I’m currently in. To be honest, the practice was a total waste of two hours for me because they didn’t need me, but whatever.

Saturday night was a little more . . . action packed. I spent some time with some great friends playing Wii and driving their new Porsche Cayman S (OH.MY.GOSH it is the MOST.AWESOME.CAR.). In typical Kate fashion, I almost got myself pulled over for peeling out of an intersection. I was PLANNING to haul butt and get to about 100 mph in 1.2 seconds or so, but my co-pilot (and owner of the car) screamed “COP!” as I was at about 37mph and SOMEHOW I was able to NOT go above the 40 mph speed limit. The cop followed me for several miles and eventually gave up because I acted like I was just learning how to drive a stick. Hahaha. It was hilarious and nerve racking all at the same time. I’m glad I got away. Especially because about five seconds before we saw the cop, I had been doing about 90mph in a 35mph zone. LEST you fear, I was in a very empty, non-crowded area where only I would have been harmed had I done something stupid. It would have been worth getting a ticket. Seriously.

Sunday I cleaned my kitchen until it sparkled and got some other much needed things done around the house. Matt and his brother went to the sand dunes with their quads (ATVs, four wheelers) and as much as I missed Matt, it was kind of nice to have the house to myself. It was also nice to have him come home and kiss him on his cute, scruffy, post-camping, sunburned face.

We watched (and loved) the Academy Awards (um, could Helen Mirren look more amazing? My goal is to look like that when I’m her age. I should maybe start by trying to look like that NOW.) and then we watched what might go down as the funniest comedy sketch I’ve ever seen. It was Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck (mocking Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon.) I can’t access YouTube from work, but take my advice and go check both videos out. They’re a bit on the dirty side (ok a lot) so if you’re pure and clean (ahem, unlike me) you will probably not like them. Or me. Right. If you’re dirty and have the mind of a twelve year old boy (ahem, like me) you will probably love them.

OK. I’m off to work. I still have that huge project looming and my brain is hurting just thinking about it.

Kisses!

Dee-lay

Don’t hate me. Soap Opera Sunday is taking a break today because I have SO much to do. I’m leaving at 6:00 tomorrow morning to drive to Palm Desert, California for yet another work conference. I have piles and piles of laundry to do, then I have to pack. Somewhere in there (like right now) I have to head to church for a few hours (three, to be exact) so my day is looking a little overwhelming.

I’ll try to catch up during the week from my hotel room, but no promises. My favorite Italian restaurant Tuscany is on the hotel property and I hear Lobster Risotto calling my name already.

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Party Blocked

Want to know what upsets me a little?

The fact that, since I chose to register as an Independent, rather than affiliate myself with a political party I don’t always agree with (that’s both sides, for the record), I am not allowed to vote today in the state of Arizona. And I’m irritated.

I realize it’s a Primaries and that we’re deciding just the delegates from the two political parties, but I truly feel that everyone should be able to have a say in this election as well, since the results WILL affect me, my family and friends in the very near future. I WANT TO VOTE TODAY DANGIT!

I love the right to vote. I love the fact that there is a chance my vote will affect the outcome of our government.

One of the delegates is from Arizona. Most likely, he will win here, which is frustrating to me because MY vote wouldn’t have been for him. Today, my vote just might have mattered a lot. And I can’t go vote. Grrrr.

That being said, everyone who CAN vote today, GO! Let your voice be heard!

Drama, Drama, D-R-A-M-A

Hola there. I suck at blogging lately, but I promise I have good reasons.

So I’m alive, cruising along in life doing my thing happily, and then someone decides its time to turn up the drama meter. I hate the upped drama meter.

- My Mom’s in the hospital for the fourth time in six months for the same problem. Only this time, she’s in California which is NOT where she lives. She was there to take care of my Grandma who just got OUT of the hospital. Yeah. That causes problems. Her first night in the hospital was awful. Obviously my Grandma couldn’t be there with her so she was alone and something happened to the tube in her stomach and it got kinked and was causing her immense pain, and the nurses ignored her cries and pleadings for more pain medication all night. The next day, “somehow” it leaked out that my Grandfather has a wing at that exact hospital named after him and he was the most feared/loved Medical Director in the hospital’s history, and now she has TWO private nurses, a doctor checking on her every two hours and is being treated like a queen. I think it’s sad that someone has to throw a name around in order to just be COMFORTABLE. It makes me so mad. (And don’t tell my Mom it was me who threw the name around. She’ll get mad at me!)

- Took my damaged vehicle in to get fixed. I had to drop it off on a Sunday night due to my business trip. They didn’t call me to tell me they got it (as I requested), then they called me to tell me it was going to be MORE expensive, then didn’t call me to tell me it was done. THEN, I called to see if it was done and they told me it would be three more days. That’s four days longer than they told me the car was going to take total. SO, I got mad, chewed them out for only calling me when they wanted more money and hung up. About five minutes later they called me back. “oops, we were wrong. Your car is done. We had it mixed up with another car.” Gee, thanks. I picked up my car and it was FILTHY. They hadn’t cleaned out the fiberglass and glass on the inside from changing the windshield, it looked like they’d wiped it off with a dirty rag and it still smells like glue. Grrrr.

- Our builder’s landscaper screwed up on our yard. We’ve been calling them since September to fix it and no one EVER got back with us. I had to raise hell to finally get someone to set an appointment to get it all straightened out. This morning at 7:00 AM was our set time. Matt and I waited for 45 minutes and the guy never showed, so I got pissed and drove to work, leaving a nasty message at his office. He called me at 8:15 saying he had written down our appointment wrong and he was at our house and could I come home? Um, no. I proceeded to chew him out for fifteen minutes and now he’s staying late tonight to make a 6:00 PM appointment with us. Because I’m a beotch that way.

- Our builder messed up on a few other things (like leaking windows) and so far SEVEN of the contractors we’ve had appointments with have blown us off, making either myself or my husband sit around waiting and end up late for work. When I tell our customer service manager, she apologizes and tries to set another appointment in the middle of the day. I finally had to chew HER out and tell her that we had wasted enough of our time and now the contractors needed to go out of their way to be at our house when it’s convenient for US, not when it’s convenient for them. We’ll see how this goes, but I’m (understandably) skeptical.

- One of my pieces of luggage was lost on the trip back from New Orleans, which is weird because when I switched planes, how did they transfer ONE piece and not the OTHER? Somehow some moron just saw HOUSTON TO PHOENIX and didn’t pay attention to the fact that there were FOUR flights to Phoenix that day. My bag was on the last one. My body was on the first one. AND, it was my make-up. So I came to work on Monday naked faced. Not. Pretty. Luckily, I got it back Monday afternoon, but it still sucked.

- I awoke this morning to some “blog wars.” There is one person who’s been quite a wretch to several of my favorite bloggers. Let me say this. I know that by publishing a blog, we open ourselves up to public criticism, people disagreeing with us, not liking us, etc. HOWEVER, if someone doesn’t like what I (or others) have to say, DON’T READ IT. There are people really putting themselves out there and telling us personal stuff. Stuff they don’t even tell their best friends. It’s scary enough without losers with no name insulting us for it. Speaking of losers with no name, if you’re going to leave nasty comments, at least attach your NAME to them. Don’t be a pansy and hide behind the ability to be anonymous. That’s just stupid. I like to abide by the rule “If you don’t got somethin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

SEE? D-R-A-M-A. And I’m off to deal with it. Hopefully I’ll have happier things to say tomorrow. What is it with January? Can this month be OVER already?

New York, New York, The Soapy Version

See!? I promised you an early Soap Opera Sunday and HERE IT IS! Woo hoo!!
———————————–

I wish I could say my last experience with New York was as awesome as all the others, however, I was not so lucky.

The day after Christmas Rhonda and I were going to visit another friend of ours who had moved to New York to be closer to her fiance, and Richard was going to join us there on the 30^th of December, which was the day before my 21^st birthday. Our friends lived in Stamford, about half an hour outside of the city and there were going to be five of us crammed in their tiny apartment but we were so excited to be there that we didn’t care. The first few days before Richard arrived were glorious. We shopped and ate delicious food and played in the city to our hearts content. I was so excited for Richard to join us and to let my friends get to know who he really was. Alas, this was not to be.

Richard’s arrival really shook things up. He immediately (though accidentally) insulted our host and hostess and must have been on edge because he was being SO annoying. He turned up his normal attitude and just rubbed everyone, including me, the wrong way. I couldn’t believe this was the same man. He seemed insecure and rude and pushy and NOT the Richard of the past month. To top it all off, he seemed to be avoiding me. He spent a lot of time outside talking on his cell phone. Now, granted, he was a total mama’s boy who had never traveled this far from his home and family (at least without one of them present.) so I was trying to cut him some slack. Then, the other shoe that I’d been watching for, dropped.

On his first night there, just the two of us were up late, ringing in my birthday with a funny conversation and then it all of a sudden got serious and Richard said “I’m not sure we should date exclusively anymore. It’s just too much too soon.”

Record scratching, ears ringing, que the tears. I. WAS. DEVASTATED. Luckily we were in the dark, so Richard couldn’t see the tears pouring down my face. I don’t even remember how the rest of the conversation went. All I could think about was that my entire week was ruined. Did I send him home? Did I keep him in New York and try to convince him that we SHOULD date exclusively? And ON MY BIRTHDAY? HE DUMPS ME ON MY BIRTHDAY??? I think I went through all the stages of grieving in about fifteen minutes.

Then, after he had just dumped me, on my birthday, on a trip to New York, for the first time in over a month, he tried to make out with me.

Being the stupid, idiotic, retarded, just dumped birthday girl that I was . . . I let him.

I also decided to let him stay in New York. Because I’m dumb. Really dumb.

I woke up the next morning feeling like a total idiot and then tried to secretly explain to my girlfriends what had happened the night before. I spent the day in a fog, trying to be happy and have a good time. We were going to spend New Year’s in Times Square watching the ball drop. This was just after September 11^th and security was CRAZY, but we found an ingenious way to get all the way to the center of Times Square at 11:30 so we didn’t have to wait for hours in the freezing cold. I was so excited to be IN Times Square for New Year’s Eve and all Richard could do was complain about how cold it was. As we counted down to midnight, and everyone around us were kissing in the New Year, I looked expectantly at Richard for a midnight kiss, and he LOOKED THE OTHER WAY.

The next morning we had rented a car to drive the two hours to my Dad’s house in Pennsylvania. Originally, I had planned on Richard and my Dad meeting, falling in love and the wedding going forward. Now I had a very bad feeling about what would happen when Richard met my Dad. Very, very, very bad. And as horrible as I imagined it, I’m pretty sure what really happened was worse.

Over-Supporting the Troops

Calm down, all of you who just got your panties in a bunch and prepared to go to fisticuffs with me over political issues. I’m talking about the Girl Scout Troops.

Yes folks, it’s that time of year again. Time for Girl Scout Cookies. It’s that time when every grocery store entrance and street corner to be flocked with tables of deliciously tempting Tagalongs, Thin Mints and Samoas. Time for those “select” parents to go out a-lobbying to make their daughter the top seller of the year while the child sits at home playing video games. (you know the psycho parents I’m talking about.)

The grocery store girls I can handle. I just pretend to talk on my cell phone and ignore their pleading puppy eyes (and their psychotic stalker mothers.) Avoiding I can totally do.

Want to know what I can’t do? Thought so. What I can’t do is avoid my bosses and co-workers. I’m pretty sure there are at least ten employees in my office with daughters/nieces who are Girl Scouts, and they are making themselves known. One gentleman has his sweet sounding little girl call each one of us individually with a rehearsed spiel conning all of us, ever so politely, to support her and buy some delicious girl scout cookies. Another co-worker has taped the order sheet AND a picture of his beautiful grinning daughter in her private school uniform onto the cupboard above the soda machine in the break room. Another woman is going around to each cube asking if we could find it in our hearts to buy some cookies from her daughter’s needy troupe. Then there’s my direct boss, who has apparently pimped herself out for her boyfriend’s eight year old daughter, and when I told her I’d already ordered, she gave me this SAD look and begged me to buy just a few more. I’m with these people at least eight hours a day, and there’s no way for me to pretend I’m too busy to acknowledge them for that ENTIRE time.

So, I become a complete and total sucker.

I CAN’T SAY NO TO THIS!!! I am a total pushover! I have signed up for at least one box from every person who’s asked. I’m probably spending what I have left of my vacation savings on these damn cookies!!! AND, to top it all off, I still have four boxes of Thin Mints in my freezer from THREE YEARS AGO.

I’m cursing myself even as I write out the eight different checks. These little girls better remember this when they’re in my shoes and I’M the one with the needy Girl Scout! Because I’m comin‘ for them!

I paid for that advice?

Sorry I left you in the dark about the results of the doctor’s appointment. I’m fine, sort of.

He told me I had coxis saltan (?) . . . which means popping hip. Uhhhh, Mr. Doctor? I already KNEW my hip was popping and that it was due to a tendon. What I didn’t know is how to make the pain and popping STOP.

Sigh.

He prescribed six weeks of physical therapy twice a week and if the pain doesn’t stop we’ll go from there. I’m happy to do that but I’m doubtful that it will help much. We’ll see how the running goes over the next few days.

Speaking of running, I have TOTALLY been using my sinus infection as a great reason not to exercise. I’m still a little drippy . . . let’s watch TV!! As of today, excuses are done. Body, we’re going to the gym and we’re running a mile. NO ARGUING.

So, there you have it. Me and my coxis saltan are going to pop our way to the finish of the triathalon in April, even if it kills us.

There’s No Place Like Home . . .

As I proudly announced, I am currently on a little vacation home . . . to Provo, Utah, home of the Mama, the BYU Cougars and don’t forget, the Timpview Thunderbirds.

My home town . . . I always liked it growing up but sort of had an itch to leave. I had many opportunities (great, wonderful, rare opportunities) to leave, but I could never bring myself to do it. I swore I’d never attend BYU, yet I did, and I loved it. I swore I’d leave after I graduated from college, but it took me almost two years and a dumb boy (ok fine, I married him, it worked out) to drag me away. I grew to love this place more than I can say.

I like Phoenix, for many reasons. The warm winters are fantastic, the jobs are really great, I’ve met some amazing people there and I’ve had some amazing experiences . . . but.

There’s always a but.

Phoenix isn’t HOME.

Phoenix doesn’t look like THIS when I walk out on the back porch of the house I grew up first thing in the morning:

Er, sorry about the date stamp? I hate my Mom’s camera.

Phoenix doesn’t have my Mom and sister.

Phoenix doesn’t look like THIS from any college campus.

Phoenix doesn’t have my big group of bestest friends (with the exceptions of Rhonda, who I am eternally grateful to in Phoenix with me, and Sheila . . . but she just BELONGS in So. Cal, so it’s hard to picture her living here now!)

Phoenix doesn’t look like THIS from the side view mirror of my car:

Phoenix doesn’t have my pseudo nieces and nephews, all who are so cute I just want to eat them up, and I feel like I’m missing their childhoods, and they won’t remember me and it makes me sad . . . and did I mention they are cute?

Phoenix most definitely doesn’t look like THIS:

Or THIS:

Or THIS:

My life is in Phoenix. I am building a beautiful new home in Phoenix that I am SO happy to move in to. I have a wonderful job in Phoenix. I have a loving, amazing husband in Phoenix . . . but

My heart misses it’s home.

Huh?

So blogger decided to hate me today. I finished my 100 things list but it posted it as an older entry . . . so scroll down a little to learn more about how awesome i am!

Kisses,

Kate

Valentine’s Day, Go Away

OK, after you get married Valentine’s Day is supposed to be awesome and wonderful.

Enter my job and my second trip of the month . . . I will not be with my husband for Valentine’s Day.

I leave for Palm Desert (aka Palm Springs) tomorrow for work. I am super lucky and my best buddy Sheila and I get to play for a day before the rest of my sales team arrives for the conference. We plan on doing a lot of excellent shopping and hopefully some laying out by the awesome pool and I am SO excited to see her and get to spend some time with her. We don’t get to see each other often enough — However, like I said, this trip comes at the expense of Valentine’s Day with my husband.

Granted, I don’t have anything for him yet . . . and we were planning to celebrate next weekend, but here’s the thing with THAT plan . . . Matt and his brother Taylor were supposed to go to the sand dunes with their ATV’s this weekend, but Tay had to cancel because he got called in to work. So, being the AWESOME wife that I am . . . I told Matt we could put off our Valentine’s Day celebration so that he and Taylor could spend President’s Day weekend at the dunes. While I truly am totally fine with this arrangement, because I know how much Matt has been looking forward to this trip to the dunes, it presents the problem of VALENTINE’S DAY.

Wasn’t getting married supposed to solve the whole stupid Valentine’s Day issue? And what do you get a guy? Seriously? I mean, he doesn’t want flowers, right? He just wants everything from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, and whilst I’m happy to try to oblige, my body just doesn’t LOOK like that!

Could my present just be allowing him to go to the dunes without me on our planned Valentine’s Day? That would be so much easier . . .