3thd tooh!

once again, i wish the scanner worked so you could see this in all it's glory, but i'll just have to transcribe it for you. i have no idea how old i was when i wrote this.
without further ado:


Dear toohfairy,
This is my 3thd tooh!
I Wish I can meet you.
Did you ever see the Smerfs wear Baby Smerf gets soom theeh?
Love,
Katie

maybe this will be a regular feature on this blog - i can unearth treasures from my past and embarrass myself.

3 years ago today

3 years ago today.  i've been sitting here for a few minutes trying to come up with something to say about the anniversary.  i just looked through my "memory boxes" and found some letters and notes she wrote me, and what seems most striking now is that my mom always made me feel like i was important. i was living in the dorms at mtsu - a mere 45 minutes away from the rest of my family - yet the way she expressed missing me in these letters, it was like i lived across the ocean and only got to see her once a year.  and now i can't even put into words what this missing feels like.  

i tried to scan some of these notes onto the computer, but the scanner isn't working.  so you won't get to see all the cute stickers on the letter, but here are the words:

you know that i miss you so much. so does dad, and so does courtney. and so does carrie. i love you when it's sunny and cloudy and when the stars are out. you make my heart. may all of the angels watch over you always, and drop stars and rainbows and love in your lap! 

here's another one: 

under the same sun, under the same stars, under the same moon, under the same curly q's. no matter where we are...i love you xoxo

things that suck just a little*

*Not in a “this sucks so much it’s gonna make me depressed or totally alter my life,” but in a “ooooohhh man! Suck!” sort of way. Because I realize that there are PLENTY of things going on that really, truly suck. sorry for saying "suck" so much.

-when your husband leaves a pan of cooking oil in a frying pan on medium heat, leaves the room, and returns 5 minutes later to a burning, smoking, smelly mess. And then the smell of burnt oil and smoke penetrates the whole house and the smell won’t go away, even after the windows have been open all day and the ceiling fan’s been blowing. And when he calls you at work to tell you about this & prefaces it by saying “I’m having a bit of an emergency” and then you panic for a second, before realizing he’s just going to tell you about a burning pan of cooking oil.

-when you pay for $13.95 limited basic (15 channel) cable and you have free hbo and showtime FOR YEARS and then they disappear (I think because they’ve made the fully digital upgrade or something-or-other). When you’ve become addicted to “weeds” and “dexter” and “flight of the conchords” and now you won’t be able to watch ‘em anymore. We’re still getting free “expanded” cable (70+ channels) so…Please, Comcast, please please please don’t take away my expanded cable. You’ve scarred me enough.

images that make me happy

i like how clicking different links on web pages can bring you to exciting places. i started out on print and pattern which led me to illustrator helen dardik and her blog (i have a soft spot for helens)...and then to helen's post about mary blair. not a household name by any means - mary was a 'color stylist and designer' for walt disney in the 40s and 50s and worked on my favorites: "peter pan" and "cinderella".  AND she designed the 'it's a small world' ride.  right on!  

i am a SUCKER for stuff like this. if i could live in this alternate cartoony universe, with chocolate milk and elephants and magic slippers and eskimos, i would.  there was an exhibition of her work in san francisco that just closed (mar 18).

we used to have this record.  the choir director on this recording was the choir director at my school in california.

cooking mama

i ended up making  a Cherry-Streusel Coffee Cake  for easter brunch.  {this is one instance where the one i made almost looks as good as the picture!  ha!}  it got the krampf family seal of approval, but i'm not sure i'll necessarily make it again. 

today i worked from home and whipped up a very german-ish lunch for myself...leftover bratwurst fried up with some butter and onions, with a side of potatoes (i baked them first in the toaster over, then moved to the frying pan during the last few minutes). yum. *may cause heartburn

perfect weather

what a beautiful day!  i worked a 3-hr shift from home & spent 1 hour of it outside.  then the laptop felt like it was going to catch fire, so i went inside. just ate a grilled cheese sandwich (quality cheese + good (great harvest) bread = delicious sandwich). so it's officially the weekend, and it's already shaping up to be a busy one.  must make some spanish rice for a gathering tonight.  my family's doing a post-church brunch/lunch on easter sunday so i've gotta bake some muffins and/or coffee cake-type thing for that.  i haven't decided on a recipe yet. and an engagement party to attend saturday night.

not much else to report...happy easter, pals & i'll be back if i think of anything worthwhile to say. 

pretty colors

i love this color palette & this may prove to be a good source of inspiration when it comes time to paint the living room. maybe a nice blue-tinted grey for the walls? we already have a yellow painted cabinet (which holds our growing record collection, thanks to R's employment at grimey's)...and the kitchen is grey, so it would flow well.


from mel smith designs, via print & pattern

top o' the morning

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not the least bit irish and find this day rather irrelevant, but I do like jigs.

I’m pleased to report that I had a super productive day on Saturday. I went to the Y for about an hour (treadmill & bike) and came home and tackled the computer room. I took everything out & rearranged furniture…and decided it would be a good idea to move the cd cabinet from the living room into the computer room (i was able to slide it across the laminate floor, but hit a road block as soon as I reached the carpet. So it lived in the hallway overnight until R could move it the rest of the way. Keep in mind this thing holds 900 cds. It’s heavy. And I thought I’d be able to do it myself. Hahah!) Anyway, the computer room looks great, but now the rest of the house is in utter disarray. I’d love to paint the living room soon & my goal is to un-media-fy the room. Between cds, dvds, records… it overtakes the space and I’m sick of it. so moving the cd cabinet out was a step in the right direction.

Sunday I picked R up from the airport. we drove around Murfreesboro trying to find a place to eat. Kinda hard since everything seemed to be closed and we wanted to avoid a chain. {so sad that Calypso is gone}. Went to the new World Market at “the Avenue”…and spent $60 on a wok, a wooden spoon, and Haribo gummy candies (keep in mind the wok + spoon = $14…so do the math on how much money was spent on candy). Also grocery shopping at Super Target where we redeemed a $25 off $100 coupon…and EVERYTHING was out of stock. if that had been my first time there, I wouldn’t have had such glowing reviews of the place. Sold out of grapes! The nerve!

to-do list

it's saturday morning and i thought i'd make a list of things i'd like to accomplish this weekend. i have severe motivation problems. so bad that sometimes i end up watching the 'america's next top model' marathon on vh1 for 3 hours. that's bad. so maybe this will help keep me in line, since i'll have a place to report back to on my accomplishments (and failures). lord knows i don't want to tell you that i spent my saturday evening watching "home alone" on fx.

• go to ymca (potential excuse: R has my ipod)
• organize office (potential excuse: i'm too overwhelmed by the piles of CD-R's and books)
• sort through receipts for taxes (potential excuse: it's boring. and somewhat depressing to see what we spent our money on for an entire year)

 here's the office. i need a curtain for that window. 

last week i took a boring laminate bookshelf and covered it in wrapping paper. i need to figure out if i should keep it in the bedroom or bring it into the office. 

random rules

i like the random rules section on the onion av club, so here's my take on it: (my ipod currently has 9,452 songs on it. rollum & i kinda share the ipod. i usually let him use it when he goes out of town and i usually listen to it when i'm at work. i'd say it's about 20% my music, 20% his music, and 60% stuff we both like. that's a total guestimate.) no skipping allowed!

Van Halen, "Everybody Wants Some"

Awesome! Rollum put a 2-disc VH greatest hits collection on the ipod, so i'm happy this song came up and not Hagar. And it's the cheeseburger song from Better Off Dead (my favorite part is when the french fry ladies are soaking their "feet" in the grease). "Everybody wants some...I'll show 'em what everybody wants!" - Lane Meyer

The Beastie Boys, "Lighten Up"

this really sounds like a stoner song. it's got a didgeridoo. carrie & i used to listen to this cassette tape on the way to working daycare at brentwood baptist church during the summer. i must've been about 15.

Radiohead, "Creep" (acoustic version from "My Iron Lung" ep)

it's 90s flashback time! what can you really say about 'creep'? i've never really liked this song too much. i didn't get into radiohead until the bends and i think pablo honey is incredibly dated and lame.

Vampire Weekend, "Campus"

I've only listened to this whole album 1 time through (although I've heard the songs from the ep-thingy a bunch, thanks to Rollum becoming quite obsessed with them). This sounds like a good spring/summer record.

Clinic, "The Majestic #2"

Good, this will give me a chance to go on a discourse about how Internal Wrangler is so awesome, Walking With Thee is okay, and everything after that is not so good. I don't know what happened to them. Several of us drove down to Atlanta to see them when Walking With Thee was out, and they played a 35-minute set. I think it was me, Rollum, Ryan, Ben Patton and Natalina. A random crew. We met Joe and Melinda down there too.

Missing Persons, "Right Now"

This is on the greatest hits but i don't remember ever hearing it. Not as cool as "Words". I think Rollum got this album off Mark's ipod?

Devo, "Girl U Want"

I probably heard Soundgarden's cover before I heard the original version. I like Devo and I think gerald casale is a little cute in the "Whip It" video.

U2, "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"

eh. i kinda like U2, but i'm definitely more of an r.e.m person. I've gotten into the u2 vs. r.e.m. debate a few times. i like u2's older stuff a lot more. i bought the Achtung Baby cassette at Tower with a gift certificate the same day i got Deee Lite's World Clique. this song is inoffensive, but kind of lame.

Spinanes, "Reach V. Speed"

there was a time (1998) when this was one of my favorite songs. it's got sam prekop from the sea & cake on vocals, they do this back-and-forth sort of vocal thing and something about this song really 'got me' when i first heard this album (when i was music director at wmts). hearing stuff from that era makes me pretty nostalgic about my college days, in the same way hearing led zeppelin and the police instantly transports me back to high school. i went to see the spinanes in athens and approached michael stipe after the show & got my picture taken with him (and andrew from elf power).

super target

Since we bought our house in Smyrna more than 3 years ago, our friends have bluntly asked, “why do you live there?!?” My reply is usually that I wanted to live close to my parents; that we couldn’t have found a decent place in east Nashville in our price range; and without traffic we’re only 20 minutes away from Nashville, etc. But now, I have a new excuse: SUPER TARGET! What makes this target super is an expanded grocery section. I didn’t realize just HOW expanded it would be, but we literally gasped when we turned the corner of “regular” Target and came to a huge produce section/deli counter/bakery. We do most of our grocery shopping at Publix, so the prices were comparable (and in some cases cheaper. Case in point: whenever I make this recipe I pay $5.29 for a container of mascarpone cheese. At ST, it was only $2.99! and those little bags of fresh herbs were only $1. also, the frozen organic stuff {amy’s} was way cheaper too).

Some other notes:
-the bakery section had Naan. Didn’t buy any but will try it next time we cook Indian at home.
-it may take me awhile to get used to the layout
-it may also take me awhile to remember that I can actually do my full-on grocery shopping at Target
-they sold Origins skincare products

If you guys ever try the mascarpone pasta recipe I linked above, I have a few slight adaptations. The recipe calls for 1 ¼ cups of the mascarpone. I usually buy one container (which is 1 cup) and then use ¼ cup Neufchatel cream cheese, which is significantly cheaper. I also use basil instead of chives. Fresh parmesan also makes a huge difference.

sentimental about stupid things

i was just sorting through my makeup drawer, tossing out old things to make room for new (clinique bonus time at dillards!  i haven't bought clinique products in many years, but i thought i'd try the mild face soap again).

i have these little burt's bees lipstick things that my mom (oops, i mean santa) put in my stocking a long time ago, probably 6,7,8 years ago. i never used them and they are long since expired, but i can't throw them away because she gave them to me. same goes for a 9-year-old eyeshadow from victoria's secret.  if you ever come to my house, do me a favor and find these things and throw them away for me. yes, i am giving you permission to snoop through things in my bathroom and toss these things out, because i obviously can't do it myself.  i can see why my dad hasn't really sorted through/tossed out many of her belongings.  if i can't throw out a damned eyeshadow...what the hell?  

hello...

...and welcome to my blog. do i need to make some sort of grand statement here?  to prove to you why this is worthy of your time?  everyone else is doing it so i will too?  no, that's not it.  i lead a particularly interesting life and i want to share it with you?  no, that's definitely not it either. i think i just need something that will get me to start writing again.  with the exception of a few emails here and there (and a few things for 'the rage' many moons ago), i've not really written anything since...college?  (eek! i graduated 8 years ago!)  i need some sort of outlet, even if i do just end up writing about the boring things i do.  so there.  that's my mission statement.

perhaps this will end up like the countless journals i started...write a few entries...and then forget about it.  but, i'll give it a go and see what happens.

because sometimes my life is more than get up (early), go to work, go to bed, and do it all over again. sometimes things are actually interesting!   

so why did i stop writing? i don't mean to make it seem like i used to be a prolific journalist or poet or anything. when i think back on it, i think unrequited love and loneliness were my inspiration and even if i was just emailing about those things to a friend or pen pal, i was still 'getting it out'. my feelings and stuff!  so then i found my true love and i wasn't so lonely and life was happy.  i actually had a person that filled my time, with pokemon cartoons and talking and laughing and getting-to-know-yous.  that was 8 years ago!  almost to the day. 

and then the other big thing: death.  for the most part, i've shut myself off and closed up shop, but (i think) i'm ready to open back up again. 

if true love and death aren't enough to get me writing again, i don't know what would.  but that's not even what this is about. i just need to start typing again.  typing things unrelated to my job. typing about my feelings and stuff. because i think i still have them? feelings? a feeling that's not sad, gloomy, heavy-hearted, or woeful.  i just need to remind myself of that sometimes.