Travel Bug

So, we can save up a good amount of money for a decent overseas trip by next summer. We just have to choose where. On the list: Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Geneva, among others. Italy is pretty much out of the picture, the flights are as high as flights to Greece, but the cost to sleep and eat there is exorbitant. Tokyo also has cheap flights, but hotels are a bit pricey and we'd probably have a better time in another city, like Kyoto, where there is more historic things to do. South and Central America are still on the table, but not on the forefront.

We're also throwing around the idea of going to visit Chris's cousins in Hawaii. With no hotel expenses, we wouldn't have to spend too much for that trip. They live in Maui, which everyone says is the most beautiful of the islands. I just want to sit on the beach and hike through the forest with my new husband and my new family. I think it would be awesome.

It's amazing to me that although Chris and I don't make a lot, we have a great cushion and the discipline to save up for things that we want to do. I get frustrated at the fact that I don't have as many options to go to school because I have to work mon-fri from 8-3:30 in order to pay bills and save up that money. Jobs that generally work nights and weekends are usually the lowest paid, like retail and fast food, so I'm not complaining that I have to work mon-fri, I'm complaining that not enough classes are offered outside of those hours. It's a real failure of the higher education system to make classes available to the most amount of people. Anyway, enough of that, I'm ready to go on a bike ride.

I wish

I wish I was one of those fucks with rich parents who don't do shit with their lives. Because I would have quit working years ago and just gone to school. Less and less classes are available on nights and weekends. Paris Hilton is GED dumb and daddy probably paid for that, too. Love how this society works, really.

Punch Line Part 2

Chris won the Dimple drawing last week for ten tickets to the Punch Line is Sacramento. We saw Jim Jefferies, who was absolutely hysterically funny. This week, I was the lucky winner, so we went and saw Dov Davidson, who was also very funny, but Jim Jefferies ruined stand-up for me and I'll forever compare other acts to his. That's saying a lot, because Dov Davidson was flippin' hilarious, but Jim is still at the top in my book. My mom also won tickets, so we're going back in August. She's busy next week when Dat Phan will be there, so we will miss his show (boo hoo) but I'm convinced that any show at the Punch Line is going to be a good one, especially if it's free. A good night with good friends.

Speaking of friends, Chris and I are trying to save up money for a trip next year with a couple of our good friends. If we can save enough, Greece; that would be best case scenario. Other possible destinations include Belize, Panama or even New Orleans or somewhere on the East Coast, like Boston. Anyway, we all have the travel bug and we really want to go out of the country so we're looking at all our options. Anyway, it's been a good night and I'm ready for bed now.

There I was, all week working hard at running, biking, being active. There was the scale, mocking me, hovering between 167 and 168. I didn't have the energy yesterday to keep it up. I was staying up too late on work nights finishing books I had put off so I could get ready for when I get Song of Ice and Fire, so I crashed and took a nap. I had done at least a half hour of exercise all week and had begun my beginners' running regimen on Sunday and I didn't see any change between Tuesday and Thursday.

Stuck there, my doubts began to creep in, telling me that I had overshot my goal. Despite the Calorie counts and the exercise, I had reached my plateau and lost some water weight and would be stuck there for the rest of my life. The calculations were all wrong and I was losing momentum. Then, this morning I stepped on the scale nervously. Finally, I had lost .4 lbs. I can probably reach 167 even by Monday. That would make my progress five pounds in two weeks. That's over a pound over my goal. I finally heard myself say, louder than ever, "You can do this."

I did a half hour of my run/walk training, fifteen minutes on stairs (Oh my GOD, that machine is hard), and twenty minutes of stationary bike. I also rode my bike downtown twice today and walked on my outing at work. I was sweating, burning, and loving it. I imagined what I would look like in the same workout clothes in January. I looked myself right in the eyes in the mirror at the gym room and challenged myself to keep going until the picture in my mind matched the picture in the mirror. I know I can do this. The time is now.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

Day 9

I've been under my Calories every day. I am becoming more and more inspired by the large group of fitness gurus on Pinterest (how many of them are actually heeding their own advice or slogans is still up for debate), and have created a board of my own for inspirational work-out quotes. Today, I had a mini peanut butter cup. It was 55 Calories and it was worth it. I burned 183 doing my intervals on the treadmill.

I still have plenty of Calories left for dinner. I've finally found a balance. I was coming home from work after having breakfast and lunch and having to settle for a tiny dinner because I had used up so many of my allotted Calories. I've cut the bread from my sandwich (I always eat them dry anyway) and have forgone snack crackers and instead bring a fruit, a veggie and a low-fat yogurt.

It's said that when people make public statements, they tend to stick by those statements more because retraction in front of a large group of people is hard for humans to do. So I'm saying on the web right now that I will be 135 pounds by January. I'm going to take "before" pictures tonight and put them up. Ugh. Yes, put them on the internet. I haven't decided if I'm going to put them up on here or wait until I have the "after" pictures, but they are for sure going on facebook.

Speaking of facebook, if you are a friend of mine or Chris's, or a friend of our friends, you can go see our Europe Trip documentary that Chris made out of the footage we took when we went "Over There!" (Please excuse the geeky WWI reference, I just can't help myself). It's on Chris's page in three parts so you don't have to watch them all at once (in fact, you probably don't even have to watch them in order). The trip was two weeks and the total film was forty or so minutes, so it's not everything, but we got some really good stuff in. Anyone planning on going to Europe might be interested in my "Advice for Future Travelers" pieces. Enjoy!

Song of Ice and Fire

I've ordered the first four books from half.com. What convinced me was that my sister's boyfriend, Graham, who reads a ton of fantasy fiction, told me that George R.R. Martin ruined fantasy for him. The books are so good that his expectations of the genre are now so high that he doesn't think he'll be able to enjoy another fantasy book by another fantasy author as much as he has enjoyed the Song of Ice and Fire series. So here goes, it's in the mail.

I have a couple of books to finish still. The Beautiful and the Damned, is still on my kindle app about a third of the way through. I like Fitzgerald, but I can also put him off for a long time and pick back up where I left off without having to backtrack to remember what was going on. The plot isn't super complicated. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing; there's a way to tell a story simply and beautifully that is a mark of the style of his time).

I am still reading Into Thin Air that I borrowed from Chris's mom before I moved and then shelved and didn't pull back down again (maybe I'm just not the adventure type). I also started A Farewell to Arms. I don't read as much as I used to. I watch TV or blog or read internet news or play video games. I would love to be able to sit down for hours like I used to and just relax with a book, but there's always something that it seems I need to be doing. Perhaps it's time to concentrate more on giving myself that time. So I'll end this blog entry pretty quick here.

Maybe swimming today, but no running because, despite stretching, I am a bit sore in the legs. I'm under my calories and saved enough to have a hamburger for dinner. Chris is cooking. Hopefully I can fill up more on the salad than the mayonnaise and greasy ground beef! I'll check in again tomorrow to tell you all how I did.

I Am Not A Runner

But I want what runners have. I want endurance and I want pride. Biking is awesome, but I don't have the money or equipment to take it to the level that it takes to get really fit on a bike. Running just requires shoes. Swimming and biking are my faves, but I can't do them in the winter due to my ears being extremely sensitive to cold from being prone to childhood ear infections so many years ago. There's a tread at the gym at my apartments. I can even time my intervals easily until I get to a point where I can run continuously.

Beginning is the hardest part and today was day one. Two minute sprint and three minute walk for thirty minutes. I burned 170 Calories. This is the second day in a row I've had over half my calories left before dinner time and that's rare. I feel good. I feel accomplished. The last two minute run interval I was screaming at myself in my head, "Do it for you." It was beautiful, one of those magical moments that people talk about.

Tomorrow I have another date with myself. Give my body the food it deserves and release it from the years of disinterest and laziness, procrastination and excuses. This is the beginning.

Putah Creek and Sophia's

What a beautiful day! We started it by going on a hike down the Putah Creek Riparian Reserve in west Davis. All the land on the North side of the creek is owned and maintained by the University. It's protected, so there's a ton of wildlife scurrying about and it's very peaceful without any motor vehicles or cyclists. It does pass under 80/113 and one of the railroad bridges, so you do hear cars eventually, but otherwise it's just a valley hiking trail.

I used to think the valley was ugly and hot, but getting to know the wildlife and the ecosystem, I'm starting to like it more and more. Hawks screech in the distance, hares dart out of the way, reeds grow as tall as your head near the creek while grass grows sideways from being blown by the wind. It smells like baked dirt. It reminds me of romping around Tracy where I grew up.

We got home, got cleaned up and did our shopping and then went on a bike ride. We stopped by Borders for their going out of business sale, but the place had tables marked "30% off" full of books that were only 10% off, which you only find out at the register after waiting in a long line. The only thing to say at that point is, "No wonder you people are going out of business."

We went to see a couple bands at Sophia's Thai Kitchen tonight. Tha Dirt Feelin followed Wooster. The first was great! I had to find their website and explore some more. Wooster was also very good, but the patio area got so crowded that I started feeling uncomfortable and a bit headache-y so we went home and did some reading of our travel journals for Chris's movie montage about Europe. If he can finish up a few things and complete rendering tonight, we'll be able to watch it tomorrow! I can't wait!

Today was a very good Saturday. I'm in Happily Ever After mode, just loving my husband and exploring my town. I look forward to our adventures tomorrow, but now I think it's about time for bed. Goodnight world.

Amy Winehouse is Dead

Big surprise. Her doctor told her her liver couldn't handle her lifestyle. There are more important things going on in the world than a junkie that happened to have a record deal. Cue the overnight bandwagon Winehouse fans screaming about it being a tragedy. Happens every time someone famous dies. Doesn't mean their life really meant shit.

Google, Why Do You Make Shit Out of Good Ideas?

Google News personalization is useless to me if I can't go to my sections and remove sources and articles I don't want to hear from. Why can't I remove Christian Post from my Atheism section? I even added it to the "adjust sources" bar and it's still showing up! Before this last remodel, I could click on an "x" and choose to not see stories from whoever published the story.

Does anyone know of a better news aggregator that will lay out everything in topics like Google News? Twitter is almost useless because I have to scroll through my feed to see the stories I want and most News profiles tweet all the fucking time with shit that's useless to me. I need News! I need better News! Give me News or give me death!

It's just tiring that Google does this stuff. I'm really not all that excited about Google+ being more than a place for people who already hate facebook or aren't on facebook to go and talk about how much they hate facebook. In the way that Google changes things, changes privacy settings and tries to constantly show me content I could give a shit about, they are definitely, definitely the New Facebook.

Jim Jefferies at the Punch Line

Chris won the Dimple drawing for the Punchline show for him and nine other friends. My mom and step dad were going to go, but ended up being busy, but I don't know if I would have been comfortable with my mom being there with the things that Jim Jefferies was joking about. So Chris and I picked up Maho and Sean and met Sarah and Lindsay at the Punchline. I told Sarah to be there at 7:15 because I knew she'd be late. I was getting worried at 7:40 that she'd actually be late, but they finally showed up. I love my friends, they are so funny.

Maho is from Japan and hasn't lived in the US for more than a few years. Sean is pretty good at explaining idioms and nuances of English to her, but Jefferies' Aussie accent was a little hard to pick up. There were some things that couldn't be translated, however, and can only be found funny in a cultural sense. God wading through dead babies was not really getting to her funny bone. I don't know if we'll ever be able to explain that one.

I'm a complete fan of this comic now. He's intelligent, funny and says things that people don't want to hear but need to be said. The crowd was roaring all night. I would pay to see him again. I had a blast.

My mom also won the drawing so we're going back in August for another show. The Punchline obviously houses some great comics, so I'm looking forward to the next show.

State Fair Success

Today was a success. I was vigilant and stuck with my Calorie goal despite going to the State Fair at work and then again afterward with Chris. The smell of the fried goodies was so tempting and I even got paid today, but I kept telling myself that my long-term goals are more important than any short-lived satisfaction from a funnel cake or a maple bacon sunday. I got through both trips without going over or wasting Calories on garbage. I'm proud of myself.

I'm proud of Chris, too. He had a few more Calories available than I did. We went to Subway after the fair and he could have been slightly over his goal by eating a footlong or under it by eating a 6". When he saw me save half my sandwich he decided to save his, too, and confessed that his original plan was to just eat the whole thing. That's what doing this together has done for us. Before, I would try to do this alone and it was hard. With Chris and my sister on the same app and diet plan as me, we can all help each other. It works!

The Fair was fun. There were a lot of animal exhibits, which was nice; animals are my favorite part of any fair. We're not big fans of midways or the huge shopper's booths where people sell their knives and Sham-Wows, so we didn't spend too much time in the buildings.

The Counties Exhibit was cool, with El Dorado County being so cluttered and aesthetically skewed that I was glad I didn't have to admit to living there. Yolo's was quaint and incorporated Davis's recreational favorites like hiking, biking, etc as well as the rest of Yolo's agricultural roots. San Joaquin County was just weird, with an Alice floating near the top of the booth and a hand of playing cards in the background and a table full of wine bottles. San Joaquin County sucks. Period. I lived there for fourteen years, I know. Placer's was nice, so was Monterey's. I was wondering who puts these things together, though, since it seems like every county in California is going broke and some of these exhibits looked like they cost a pretty penny.

Back at home, Chris is rendering a video he put together from our Europe footage. I'll see if I can put it on YouTube, but YouTube has that stupid video length limit that's supposed to prevent people from uploading movies. It might end up on Vimeo or just facebook...or even Google+

Today was a success. I'm proud of myself and proud of my husband. It's time to kick back and relax now and enjoy the summer evening.

Day Three

I'm going to call Monday "Day One" because it's easy and it's the first day I stayed under my net Calories. So today is Day Three and I was fortunate enough to have been scheduled with a walking group today. Due to the nature of the work I do, I can only tell you I was able to add thirty minutes of light walking to my exercise count today. It made a nice buffer and allowed me a burrito bowl at Chipotle for dinner.

Chris and I ride bikes and went shooting. I haven't been shooting in awhile, but I really wanted to get some ducks. That would be photography shots, by the way. No, I do not kill animals.

The problem I find with bright days is that I can't get the camera to capture the light that I see with my eye. I'm still not great at setting for the highlights and I'm beginning to like the Cannon's auto white balance less and less. Fortunately, shooting in RAW allows me to fix it up later in PS, but I always feel like that's cheating, even though all the info is in the RAW file already. It's a fine line.

My twitter was hacked last week. Nothing serious, just a link to tumblr posted that said I won a starbuck's card. But today my tumblr was hacked, and both those are linked to my facebook and twitter. I revoked tumblr's privileges and changed my password, but the thing is, my password before was pretty freakin strong. I'm looking into it now, but something is up. I don't let my laptop on public wifi, and I wonder if I have used a network on my phone that could have put me at risk. As of now, I can't think of any and I thought the exploit for this kind of tomfoolery was a firefox thing. We'll see what develops. It's just strange to me all this is starting now all if a sudden after all my carefulness.

Going to the State Fair tomorrow and then the Punch Line on Friday. Chris won tickets for him and nine friends. Lucky us! Over halfway through the week now. I'll be glad when it's over. I found out some pretty depressing news on Monday about someone, but in the end I have some really awesome friends who care a lot about me and I know I can get through the tough times so I can enjoy the good. And that's all for Day Three. Oh yeah-down four pounds from Dr's office weigh-in last week and down 1.4 since Day One. Go me!

Blog Entry: 19 July, 2011

I really like this Fitness Pal app on the iPhone. It's a really great app. Fat Secret was a great web tool, but Fit Pal is so portable, and not only has a bigger database of various Calorie values, but also has a built-in barcode scanner.

With Fat Secret, I would log my Calories and try to stay under 1500 and exercise to create a deficit, which is fine, but very stringent and hard to follow. With Fit Pal, I can earn more Calories if I exercise. If I don't reach my allotted 1200 Calories (Fat Secret told me to stay under 1500, Fit Pal told me to stay under 1200), it tells me that not eating enough is bad for me and warns me that my body can go into starvation mode.

If I exercise after I have hit my food goal, it doesn't give me that error and if I still have a net loss, I am still good for the day, even if I go above 1200. For example, today's Calorie count was 1370 Calories consumed, 533 Calories burned with various exercise for a net count of 817. Am I explaining this well?

I found out that healthy-looking cereal does not equal healthy cereal. A 1 cup serving of a cheap brand of cinnamon swirls is half the Calories of a 2/3 cup serving of the Trader Joe's brand of maple-flavored nut clusters. I also found out that original Special K is in a bigger box, but has less cereal in it than the honey oat one, with just 30 less Calories than the latter. I didn't eat much cereal last time I did the Calorie counting diet, so I am learning a lot.

Swimming laps, bike riding and frisbee today. I don't count the walking, wheelchair pushing and general up and down at work, either, so I think I'm doing pretty well in the exercise area. We do have a whole top layer of wedding cake in our freezer right now that is calling my name-but no! I will not give in to it's carrot cake, butter cream goodness! I will survive! Chris, on the other hand, has some Calories left and is now eating it. Right. Next. To. Me....

My Fitness Pal for iPhone

I did really well on fatsecret.com for awhile. I fit into a wedding dress and didn't want to mess that up, so I lost ten pounds and hovered there for awhile. Now I'm married and haven't been doing as well. I decided this weekend to hook up on my fitness pal with my little sister via iPhone. Chris is signed up now as well.

There's a million excuses for why we stopped riding and frisbeeing (frizzing, as we call it), too hot, too cold, etc...but really we just fell out of our healthy habits. It happens; unhealthy habits are way easier to maintain.

So here I am back to 1200 calories a day and mild to moderate daily exercise (don't know that I could handle anymore than that). Let's see where this takes me this time. I'm hoping next year to be fit enough to join some cycling events or maybe even do a run (even though I hate running-we'll see).

I'm 200 calories under, so I'm going to get a snack now. Did you all know a banana is 100 calories? No kidding!

Google

Switching all your google products from one email/username to another is extremely difficult. The most oft-used products don't allow for their multiple sign-in features. Picture it: Blogger, YouTube, Reader and Friend Connect all don't allow for multiple sign-in, which means you have to sign out of one account and go back into your old one in order to do anything with them. With Blogger and Friend Connect, I've simply made my new account the main one and re-followed the people I followed before (which means that those who I am following will now have two Katie's following them). I had to go to other sites and add the RSS feeds to my reader because there's no way to import them. As for YouTube, I don't want to have to re-upload all my videos and change all the links and embeds already on the blog. I don't have any idea how I'm even going to use YouTube anymore for embedding to the blog. It's a big mess.

If Google's ultimate goal is to move everything to the cloud, they are going to have to make it easier to change profile names, info, etc. Not that I'd be comfortable with storing everything on my computer in the cloud anyway, especially the sad privacy record that companies like Google hold, but it would still be nice if they made their products easier to use to accommodate things like name changes, status changes, marriages, adoptions, etc. For now, I have to juggle all these things until I eventually can phase out Katie Pope entirely or Google figures out a way to make it easier for me.

Summer Fun

This summer is turning out to be much awesomeness. I'm swimming all the time now that my only options aren't the dirty, cold waters of El Dorado County. No more fear of stepping on budweiser cans or being bothered by scruffy drunk hicks with too much ego and not enough education. (Can you tell I'm really glad I finally left that god-forsaken place after ten years)?

It's been eventful, but also very relaxing. Last summer at this time we were getting ready to go to Europe. I can't believe it's already been a year. What a wonderful trip. I still miss the Irish countryside. Friends of ours are considering the possibility of a trip to Greece or Italy next summer, but we'll see. We have some money saved up but we're trying to be very careful. We might need to wait. Plane tickets alone will be over a grand.

So no huge events this summer, but still it's been a lot of fun and I am really liking being back in the valley, despite the heat. The smells and the trees and the flowers and the atmosphere down here is a lot like Tracy where I grew up (except, no Holly Sugar plant smell on the North end of town like in Tracy)! When I go back up the Placerville, the smells and the environment are more recently familiar to me, but the smells of Davis are deeper. They remind me of rollerblades and best friends, monkey bars and long walks home from school. They remind me of sneaking out late at night without my parents knowing, sitting underneath the stars in parks, breaking my curfew. They remind me of the years between two and sixteen, the years I spent in Tracy growing up, good and bad.

This time, though, the bad memories are fading and the smells sights are being re-associated with love, friendship, joy and happiness. No more does a walk on a dark night remind me of the pain I felt when my parents split up and I had nowhere to turn. It reminds me of bike rides with Chris. I have a deep sense of home here. It's like being six again; everything is hopeful.

This summer has been great for me. I'm really enjoying downtown, the art galleries, the home-town pizza places, the UC events, the peacefulness of it all. I've started learning what some of the local plants and trees are, just like I did when I moved to Placerville. I've gotten to know Magnolia and I've even seen Magpies, which didn't come to Tracy much. It's all new and all old at the same time. I just simply love where I'm at today.

Gowalla For Life

I still check in to foursquare via Gowalla's app on the iPhone, which is probably why the sour-grapes eating foursquare assholes didn't give me my 1,000 check-ins badge. They probably noticed that I wasn't actually using their app very much and so decided I wasn't worthy as they sit there and hand out stupid useless "deals" (check in with twenty friends and get a 50% off of 1,000 dollars of crab meat! As if you can find 20 people with REAL LIVES that are on foursquare!) and create badges only available to a few select people in New York who can afford to buy over-priced and over-hyped fashion.

Gowalla, you have the check-in aspect that lets your friends know where you are. You have incentive to go to different places and explore new venues because you get more stamps that way. You have the chance of getting a bonus item at any new venue you check in to or you can trade in items to add to your collection when you go out. You also have the trips and challenges that make it fun and exciting when you reach a town you've never been to. I checked into every ride I went on at Disneyland just to get the next beautiful stamp and to get the Disney challenges.

Unfortunately, foursquare is the media darling, the first, the one with all the hype. It shouldn't be that way. Gowalla app is more stable, design is infinitely superior and the game play is a lot more exciting and engaging. Foursquare just has good PR and the ability to facebook it up by making all kinds of deals with different companies. Bor-ing.

Sac State Students

Funny I've never heard a UC student talk bad about a CSU student, but CSU students think it's game to make vague caricatures of UC students and laugh about it online. Both Sac State and UC Davis are essential to the Sacramento area not becoming the Central Valley's Oakland, but even the ex president of the Sac State Young Dems has to be taken from my friends list because he's such an asshole about it. What does that say about your own school, Mr John Ryan? You're the one at Harry Potter right now with nothing better to do than insult people you've never met to make yourself feel better.

If you can't appreciate your own school without hating on another one, you don't have much of an argument.

The update that ended it was something to the effect of, "The theater where I'm watching Harry Potter has an air of self-importance. Must be full of UC Davis students." This was only one of many such pitiful caricatures of the students in my town, but I'd never heard a word on the Davis side about Sac State students. It's as if the "rivalry" wouldn't exist without the Sac State students perpetuating this.

It's sad, because I know there are students who have gone to both schools and had a great experience at both. The two schools are a big part of keeping Sacramento from dying and both are part of California's public higher education system that is trying to compete with private colleges like USC so that college can be a little more affordable for Californians. They both have their own culture and their own strong points, such as Sac's social work degree program or Davis's vets. Riding onto a campus and smelling a farm is awesome to a girl like me who grew up in a farm town. It's quaint.

Both schools are good but there is quite a number of Sac State students that are so "self-important" that they have to build this mythology behind their causeway rivalry in order to make themselves feel better. I met a lot of these kids at California Young Dems events and they seem like nice people until they start bashing a school they've probably never been to. If they want to build their own school up, they should try pointing out it's qualities rather than insulting others.

I'm Living My Dream

I live in a small apartment in Davis that doesn't have room for a pet larger than my betta fish. My car is thirteen years old and I need new brakes and new tires. I work 35 minutes away doing a job that most people tell me they don't have the patience to even attempt. My closet is full of boxes that can't yet be emptied because we just don't have the room for it. Our couch is a hand me down, older than I am and has scratches on the bottom from my in-laws' cats. I'm horrible at keeping up with dishes and I can't stand doing laundry. I've known how to cook for a long time, but expanding my recipes to include new and more advanced dishes is a challenge, especially with the super-sensitive smoke alarm that likes to go off when I'm pulling something out of the oven.

The thing is, these aren't complaints. These are the wonderful, quirky things about life that make it so beautiful and wonderful. I love it here, I'm happy here, and I'm living the life of my dreams. I have an amazing husband I love very much. We go swimming and walking around downtown Davis together and laugh and smile and love each other. I got to cook him breakfast this morning, which would have been a surprise if the smoke alarm hadn't gone off. He insisted that he wasn't going to spend any more money on our fish after the last fish tank and then the next day he orders a filter for him that is less agitating to bettas. I no longer go to sleep alone at night, lights on, waking at every noise I hear like I did when I had my own apartment. I get to watch him make music when he's in a creative mood and fall in love with him all over again when he does things like get excited about the bagels he bought being pre-cut. This is joy. This is love. This is life. I am living a dream.

Shopping Trip

It was a very productive day today. Chris and I took a trip up Highway 80 to all white peoples' favorite store: IKEA!!!

The mission: to find a book shelf for the corner of the living room by our bedroom door. Early on, we came across a Bestå. It's not as deep or wide as our Billy, and a little shorter, which was just what we were looking for. We decided to think on it while we explored the rest of IKEA!!!! (I have to write it in all caps and with exclamation points, I'm sorry).

At the marketplace floor we found some more things we needed for the house, including but not limited to: plastic storage boxes, dish brushes and a garlic press. We decided to go ahead and get our Bestå (which I've mistakenly called a Blerta, Blesta, Bertha, Blasta, Basty and a Basta) and realized we had forgotten the name of the extra shelves we wanted to buy for it. Poor Chris had to run all the way up to the show room and back to get the name (which completely escapes me at this point; such trouble it was to remember the name of the case itself).

Mission Accomplished, we proceeded up to Highway 5 and went to Bed, Bath & Beyond. We each got new pillows and can now sleep comfortably. I got the apple corer and banana hanger I wanted as well as a new knife set (thank goodness, too, because the Big Lots knives were about to mysteriously disappear into a lake). As well as all this, we also got wonderful new flatware, a duster and measuring cup the size of a shot glass (sooo cute). We even got 10% off our entire purchase because we registered there.

This trip was as productive as our Target trip last week! (When I got an awesome new welcome mat, a kitchen mat and a strawberry huller). The best thing about it was that I was doing this married stuff with my husband that I had seen couples doing when I'd go window shopping at these stores by myself as a single woman. <3 Love! I love it! What a great Saturday!

Awkwaaaaarrrrd

Haha. So when I signed up for Google+, there were all these email contacts that needed to go into circles and so I started putting people in circles without ever making any sense of them or investigating how the whole thing works. I thought they worked like facebook lists, where you list people and then put your privacy settings to include this or that list. Apparently, it's a little different, so I accidently added Chris's ex to the same circle as my big sister, who has clearly shown she doesn't want to be a part of our lives. I named the circle "Google Negative," thinking it was a clever pun (I crack myself up).

I soon found out that this actually means that I've included these people in my Google + contacts. Whoops! So I removed them from the circles and clicked on the "x" next to their names to permanently hide them, but I wanted to clear things up, so I now have to email these people to let them know it was an accident. Awkwaaarrrrdddd! I actually had to tell Chris's ex how to remove me because she couldn't figure it out. Don't you just love these uncomfortable social situations that these lovely networking sites can get you into? I think LinkedIn did it to her (did I blog about that?) I kept giving invites to her LinkedIn and I kept emailing her to stop but they kept coming and she never answered me about them (but can answer within a few minutes about a mistaken email invite. Psssshhh).

Any way, done is done. Awkwardness or not, sometimes the right thing just needs to be done, like apologizing for sending email invites when they never should have been sent. It's just part of being a grown up.

Dear Google

Not having multiple sign-in for YouTube and Blogger is really a pain in the butt. At least for Blogger, I have created a new profile with my new name and can just post from it, but I can't change my YouTube at all. Subscribers, subscriptions, channel, playlists and videos are stuck forever with my old email profile. This wouldn't even be too bothersome except for the fact that when I sign out of the new email to go into YouTube, it also signs me out in Blogger, because all your products are related like that. It's really a pain in the ass, Google, and I wish that you would fix it. I have some friends with some coding and engineering backgrounds that I'm sure would be willing to help you see past the nose in front of your face.

Kthxbai,

Katie G.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

People are complaining NOW that the last shuttle has launched, years past when the shuttle program was originally supposed to make way for new vehicles and new technologies. Public interest waned and we voted for people who would rather keep us "safe" than continue a peaceful space exploration program. Blame yourself, America, you had 30 years to make it right.

Disneyland Honeymoon

I'd like to share some photos from our magical Honeymoon in Disneyland.

everything is new

Everything is new. Everything. I saw someone in my friend suggestion I don't ever want to see again. So I preemptively scrolled through some friends of friends and blocked people I hope to never hear from again. People I don't even want looking at my profile picture.

I also blocked my husband's creepy ex on twitter. She's been angry at me for getting with him five years ago, then friendly with me, then we didn't talk a whole lot, then she got really silent after we got engaged. It's just creepy that she follows my twitter.

Everything is new. All the bad stuff (like my previous entry) doesn't even have a place in my happily ever after. Old memories of people hurting me to protect their own friends or using me to prop their own egos up don't belong in the joy that is living with my best friend in the best little college town that anyone could dream up. Life is a fairy tale, if you let it be.

Everything is new. Life is joy. Love is strong. The end.

Good Riddance

My big sister didn't come to my wedding. She's been flaking on me while also trying to control my wedding planning (she didn't get the wedding she wanted; hers was basically a shotgun wedding because the pastor in her new church was upset that her and her man were living together unwed) and the last insult was when she insisted that I let her bring her eight-year-old stepson to my bridal shower or she would have to "drive all the way up to Placerville (from El Dorado Hills) and all the way down to Franklin and then all the way back" to drop him off at my Dad's house to watch him.

Thing is, he was already supposed to be gone that weekend on a trip with his dad, but she also tried to make me feel guilty about that-for having my bridal shower on Mother's Day weekend when her family would be on this trip and she would have to spend the weekend alone just to come to my shower. How dare I? I told her to not bother coming to the shower or the wedding. I had already moved the location of the wedding because she had complained that a separate ceremony with just a few people followed by a large reception to include everyone was unfair if her kids couldn't come to both. Yet, she didn't even invite our step-sisters to her wedding at all and got mad at my Mom for saying that they would have their feelings hurt. Selfish, self-centered, hypocrite.

A few days before the wedding my husband texted her and told her that her and her family were still invited. She never answered, only telling my father that she didn't want to hear it from Chris, but from her. So after my dad pleaded with me to make some sort of gesture, I texted her phone. She never answered, but texted me later from her husband's phone, claiming hers was out of power and she "wasn't near an outlet," (her default excuse for not getting in touch with people when she's being a flake), and just wanted to wish me  a happy day. I asked her if she had gotten Chris's text and she said she'd rather hear it from me. Like my husband can't speak for both of us. So I finally gave in and said, "Look, you're my sister and I love you. I'd love for you to come, but ultimately it's your decision." She NEVER answered.

I used to think my sister's sudden migraines or cramps before family get-togethers and times when she said she wanted to hang out were just that, medical issues that she's just happens to have. But they were always so convenient and they didn't happen when she'd go to see her in-laws or drive to Bodega Bay with her husband or up to Redding for hunting trips. None of those places were too far to drive, either, but dropping her step-son off in Placerville to come to my bridal shower was just a gruesome drive.

She knew I was starting to be on to her about the convenient head-aches, so before my bridal shower, she made sure to have some other way to manipulate the situation and kept her step-son home and telling me (not even asking me), "Terren is coming to the Bridal Shower. Is that going to be a problem?" If this had been her own friend's bridal shower, would she have even asked at all? I highly doubt. That's just who my sister is: she walks all over people to get what she wants and manipulates people to try to look good while she's doing it.

Afterwards, she even lied to our little sister, saying that our Mom put all this stuff in my head and that's why I got mad at her. Our Mom had nothing to do with it. My sister makes the bed she lies in and she can lie there so self-righteous now with her new family and her new church and all her bullshit being the sly terror that she is. Good riddance. She won't be hearing from me again.

It's the Fourth of July Weekend!!!