Day Off.

I woke up with a headache. 

So we went back to bed. 

Then when we woke up again Cj was feeling sick (flu?) 

We were trapped. 

Based on our waking-up-track-record (0-2) we just couldn't risk going to sleep again. 

But, both of us being sick, we couldn't really get out of bed. 

So...we stayed in bed. All day. 

I got up once to make nachos.

I'm not saying every day should be like this. 

But I can't say I'm mad it happened. 

Here's to the occasional sick day. 

And to eating nachos in bed. 

Katie 

Life Changes

It's blurry but its real. After 23 years of virgin hair I finally took the plunge and dyed it. 

And by plunge I mean I did that thing where you walk into the water with your arms up, standing on your tip-toes because it's cold and you are a big wuss. 

And by all that I mean I only dyed the bottom of my hair. 

But still, if you know me at all you know this is big. 

I don't really do "change." 

It's called a melt, and I love how it turned out! 

I texted this picture to my mother this morning and the conversation went like this: 

Katie: "Check out my new hair!" 

Mom: "I don't get it. What is different?" 

Katie: "Mom. It's completely blonde on the bottom now."

Mom: "...on purpose?" 

As if half my hair accidentally marinated in peroxide for 15-20 minutes with a thorough rinse and condition afterward. 

Oh Mom.

News #2: I was brushing my teeth this morning and part of my tooth fell out. 

Really. That's the whole story. 

There I was, doing my up-and-downs, right before my back-and-forths, when a big chunk of my left molar just popped off. 

Is this normal? 

Do teeth do this? 

Don't I already know the answer to these questions? 

All I do know is I have spent the evening testing various tooth-hole fillers. 

Things to NOT replace a molar with: 

peppermint gum 

tinfoil (ouch)

my winter semester term paper 

a tic-tac (pre-sucked) 

the love of the childhood pet I never had 

I figure if I don't find something soon I'll have to do something drastic, like go to the dentist. 

And pay someone money. 

Heaven forbid I finally have an injury that can't be fixed by superglue. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Katie 

Craig's List Breaks my Heart.

A few weeks ago I posted an ad on Craig's List, offering my services as a summer nanny here in Provo.

I will be teaching summer term and I am also taking the summer to write my thesis (slash lay in bed and watch "Revenge") but I thought it would be nice to pick up a little extra money to support the fam by watching someone's kids a few hours a week.

To reassure potential employers that I am not a total psycho I posted a picture of me with the post (possibly not my best idea?) because if someone posts a picture on the internet it is obviously them and you can immediately trust them.

So far the responses have been awesome, hilarious and ridiculously creepy. Enjoy:

"I know you are looking to do more child care, but I was looking through CL and saw your picture.  You are very beautiful.  I am an amateur photographer and i would love to have you model for me.  I am 35/m based out of slc.  If you are interested, please let me know.  I look forward to getting to know you." -- Tom

Very flattering Tom. Maybe we can do the whole two-birds-one-stone thing and you can amateurly photograph me nannying some children. And then probably get arrested for it. Seems like your kind of thing. 

"Do you do vacuuming and mopping? Or can you make my boys do it? It hurts my back."-- Carrie

What do you mean by "make"? And is this the only thing you want to hire me for? I feel like I'm missing something here. Either way, sorry about your back. 

 "I saw your post on Craigslist...we are looking for someone to watch our 3 1/2 year old little boy this summer in our home. (Monday-Friday, 7:45-2:15)...it will be $20/day...$80/week." -- Sarah 

You do realize, Sarah, that this would pay me a little over $3 an hour? Obviously the picture didn't offer a very good first impression (if only we could say the same for Tom.) Also, is Friday a freebie? Or do I just pick either $20 a day OR $80 a week? I'll have to think on that one. 

"Do you baby sit at clients house or your own? I am looking for childcare in walking distance of my house... I live at 300 s 400 e..." 

No name on the email? The use of multiple elipsis? And you want me to give you my address? You make me nervous anonymous person. 

One couple even sent me the link to their child's blog. He's two years old.

I can just picture him awake late at night after the one-year-old is in bed, slaving away on a post about his latest DIY kitchen craft. 

Is Craig's List just a forum for bizarre encounters with potential serial killers and moms who are really bad at math?

Despite my experience with it, probably not. 

But it is definitely not a forum for finding a nannying job. 

Here's to another episode of "Revenge".  

Katie 

The RULES.

A few weeks ago Broc said to me "Katie, what are your goals for your blog?" 

And I said..."I can't hear you. The blender is going."

And then he said, "I said, what are your goals for your blog?"

And I said, "What??" 

Except this time the blender wasn't going, it was just one of those times where you say "what" even though you did hear them because you want a second to think about your answer. 

And then he said, "You have to have blog goals. Like...one of your goals could be having people read it." 

At this point I still hadn't had enough time to think about my answer so I just said "WHAT?" again and he rolled his eyes and moved one. 

Only NOW I have had enough time to think about it (meaning finals are over and my brain is now down to only one major life project, which is planning a wedding. Piece a' cake!) 

Anyways, I have made a list of blog goals.
Because Broc said I should have them.

And Broc has a wife who is having a baby, so I bet he knows about stuff. 

Katie's Blog Goals & Other Important Life Commentary: 

#1. Have people NOT think I want them to know every detail of my life. Or that I want to say cheesy/profound things. I know that is the major goal of some people's blogs.
I just want to talk about crap. That is seriously it.
#2. NOT have this turn into my married blog where I post pictures of the time me and my husband and all of our friends had a crazzzzaayyy parrrtaaayyy where we all decorated leprechaun cookies for St. Patrick's Day and drank out of little green and white stripped straws that get all bendy when you drink out of them because they are cardboard, but they do look good on my blog.
And we recycled them.
#3. NOT be so worried about writing on my blog that I forget to live my life.
#4. I know people/bloggers who fall into all 4 of these categories. If you are confused what I mean, the categories are as follows:

A. People who share way too much personal info on their blog/love their husbands

B. People who baked the Leprechaun cookies

C. People who blog every day even when they have three papers to write and are being audited for failure to pay taxes but they haven't had time to worry about that yet because they need to blog about it first (see A)

D. People who eat the cookies, leave the party, and fall asleep face down on the couch before they have a chance to blog about how frustrating those cardboard straws are. 

I'd like to consider myself a "D." Although the kinder point I have been trying to make for a few paragraphs now that I have yet to get to is this: The A's, B's and C's are much more interesting to read than whatever crap I put on my blog. I just choose to define my major blog goals based on NOT being them.

Except for just this once I'm going to be a little bit 'A' and say that I get married in THIRTEEN DAYS.
You've got to be kidding me.
Who wouldn't be excited to marry this darling boy?

Why yes...this is a sneak peak into our bridals. (Though notice how I picked one of just our faces?)
Stay tuned for more.
Though probably not until AFTER the wedding.
Blogging any time between now and then would most definitely make me a 'C."

And we can't have that.
Love,
Katie 

I'll never not be sick forever.

Pneumococcal Pneumonia. 

When I was younger my brother told me it was the longest word in the whole world (I think because one of my grandmothers had it at the time?) 

It wasn't until just about 5 seconds ago when I looked it up that I realized it isn't even one word. 

It's two. 

And I don't have Pneumococcal Pneumonia. 

But I DO have regular kind of Pneumonia. 

Remember that "bad cough" I was talking about last post? Who knew?

I sure didn't. 

In fact, I was so annoyed that Cj and my mom were making me go to the doctor that I complained the whole way there about what a huge waste of money and time it all was. The wait at the doctor's office was super long and at some point CJ had to leave to go to class and I sat there like a grumpy grouch (who couldn't stop coughing) until the doctor called me back. 

I was a grumpy grouch while he listened to me breathe. 

A grumpy grouch while he forced me to get an x-ray for reasons I was not understanding. 

And then...I felt rather sheepish when he showed me the cloudy stuff in my lungs. 

Good thing Cj and doctors know just how to ignore my stubbornness. 

Meanwhile, all this coughing has put me in the mood for a funny story: 

(It's a women's flag football story. Which are the best kind.) 

So I'm on a team this semester with a bunch of girls who I have never met. 

My friend Jill invited my sister and me to come play and I showed up the first day, shook hands with my teammates, attempted to learn names, and stepped onto the field.
And there they were. 
Team Pretty in Pink.
It was 10 a.m. on a Saturday and they were wearing sparkly pink hair bows and black strips under their eyes (it was cloudy, mind you.)
This is a team that represents everything I hate about women's flag football.
I even wrote a book about it and provided the text of said book below for easy reading.

Lessons I would like to teach Team Pretty in Pink: 
#1. Pink+Football= Nothing.
 No seriously. Nothing. They don't go together. Nobody has ever thought that. Ever.

#2. Women's flag football does not require your quarterback to have a playbook on her arm.

#3. Your quarterback should not have a playbook on her arm if she runs over to the sideline between every play to ask the "coaches" (boyfriends) on the sideline what they should do.

#4. Stop it.

I was dreading playing this team because I was unsure how my team would fare (I'd just met them all) and losing to a team in pink who has to depend on boys to run the game for them makes me feel the same way Frodo looks after he gets bit by a giant spider.

That face is just about how I felt for the entire first half. The pink-heads scored three touchdowns to our one and we didn't even get the extra point. Things were looking bleak and their pink shorts were really starting to rub me the wrong way.

Our quarterback called us all in and called a play.
By some miracle (part of which involved one of the pink-faced girls literally jumping on my back as I ran. The nerve!) we scored a touchdown our first play back on the field.
Then, we scored another.
And another.

I could see their little pink cheeks turning red.
(Okay, now I'm just being rude, even if it is a little bit deserved, and even if they...were wearing pink! on a football field! don't they know??)

The game ended like this: 


We were up by one touchdown and they had the ball with 20 yards to go. If they scored they could tie or possibly even win.
My quarterback walked over to me.
"Ignore your man (woman)" she said. "Just go for the quarterback's flags."
I was nervous but I was going to do as I was told (what do I know about football really? I know you're not supposed to wear sparkles.)
The whistle blew...I ran as fast as I could (not very fast)...she was going to throw the ball to my open mark...I dove...

....and suddenly another whistle was blown and the game was over.
I was still laying on the ground from the dive but I looked up to see the quarterback standing there with her flags on the ground...ball still in her hands...and her pants on the ground.
Whoops.
It really was an accident.
But it was the most "poetic justice" accident that has ever happened.

Even the refs high-fived me.
And you just virtually high-fived me.
And I accepted.

Love,
Katie 

I must be dreaming.

When Cj and I first started dating we would talk about our yacht a lot. 

Besides the fact that "yacht" rhymes with "a lot," you might have noticed one other thing about that statement: 

We don't have a yacht. 

Which is fine, really. We just like to talk about it. 

For example: 

Me: "Hey Ceej, can we get one of these shark shaped submarine jet ski's Mark Titus told me about to keep on our yacht in case it ever sinks/we want to scare the children?" 

OR

Cj: "Boy do I love *Taco Bell. We should get one of these on our yacht."

*RIP the Beefy Crunch Burrito, except not on our yacht. it still exists there.

When we got engaged things shifted a bit. We went from mentally placing things on our pretend yacht, to mentally placing things on our pretend registry list. Again, examples: 

Cj: "We should register for unlimited Honey Nut Cheerios that will be spoon fed to us for the rest of our lives." 

Me: "We should register for not Katy Perry."  

Recently we've developed yet another way to carry on quirky, fake conversations. 

Birth control. 

I may or may not have spent a little too much time lately reading about the side effects of birth control. One night Cj and I got talking about it and decided that the list is so all-inclusive that we should just start blaming all problems on it. 

Here is a list of things that we have determined are a side-effect of birth control: 

being hungry

the irregular heating/cooling system in my apartment

the cough I currently have

insomnia

KONY 2012

ABC's "Once Upon a Time" (Never seen it, but I know it's birth controls fault shows like that exist)

bad weather

losing my flag football game

tired  

these pictures of Kobe Bryant 

Katy Perry 

I'm sure all three of these lists are not even close to an end. 

Nothing like pretending you are rich and/or blaming all your problems on modern medicine.  

All I know is, when I get that yacht we registered for, you're all invited for a BBQ. 

Love, 

Katie 

I mustache you a question...

(***CONFESSION: This is actually a post from over a month ago that I never got around to posting. If this offends you just consider it "vintage" and then it will feel trendy instead.)

So there I am, riding passenger side through Barstow, California on New Years Eve, sicker than a dog. 

I am wearing the same sweats that forced a middle aged man at the last gas station to tap me on the shoulder and say "you have...uh...something on your pants." 

To which I replied, "Thank you. I sat in Mayonnaise."

My head is wrapped up in the new faux-fur-throw (say that five times fast) that my Grandparents got me for Christmas (I'm that hard to shop for,) and I'm periodically moaning between waves of nauseousness as traffic spins circles around my driver who is trying his best to keep things steady and in my stomach. 

Said driver, who also happens to be my fiance, does the only thing he can do in the situation and puts on some calming Disney music, a cure-all for his family as well as for most of Mormon culture, one that produces annoyingly positive results despite my bitter cartoon-networky-protests.

We make it through the basics first: "The Bare Necessities," "Kiss the Girl," "A Whole New World." 

It isn't until we finish a Spanish version of "Colors of the Wind" (an ironic combo) that he can't take it anymore and bursts into song just in time for music from "Tangled" to come on. 

"...All those days chasing down a daydream
All those years living in a blur
All that time never truly seeing
Things, the way they were
Now she's here shining in the starlight
Now she's here, suddenly I know..."

I thought about the words he was singing for a second, thought about my mayo-stained predicament, and laughed until I almost threw up, and then silently giggled to myself for the rest of the drive. 

The ideas Disney puts into little heads.

They are wonderful, and beautiful and incredibly idealistic, and I guess that mayo probably would shine in the starlight, but I just can't imagine a fiance barfing in the passenger seat as they bypass the world's first Del Taco is any little boy (or girl's) daydream.

I guess I should clarify.

My children will definitely watch Disney movies. And I doubt all their hopes and dreams will be determined by what they see and hear in them (most little kids just think the horse is funny.)

I think what I'm trying to say is, I'd rather be laughing my blanket-wrapped head off in an X-Terra in the middle of the Mojave Desert than singing in a 2-Dimensional boat about my sparkling blur of a life to an 18 year old.

Somehow I resist this whole scene:

(sorry Brynn.)

In other news: I'm getting married next month.
Cool for me!

Love,

Katie