Guilty As Charged

In the middle of my laundry fiasco meltdown the other night I said to my Mom, "I am tired." She initially thought I was tired as in I didn't get enough sleep but I went onto explain that I meant tired in the sense that I am sick and tired of everything that has been happening in my life. All of the crap that keeps coming up. One right after another. Piled on top of each other. Growing bigger and bigger and bigger. I'm tired. I'm so tired. Why can't I have a break? Just a little time to just be.

Then I went to church this morning. It was like my Pastor was there for that conversation. One of his main comments that stands out in my mind is, "If you lead a life of ease God never has to show up." Wow...if that isn't a slap in the face I don't know what is. Here I am praying for a better relationship with God out of one side of my mouth and complaining about all of the problems in my life out of the other. Later he said, "If you want God in your life ask for a challenge" and "God did not wire us for an easy life". Well dang. I guess I need to just get use to it if I want to grow and change and improve to become a person that people look at and say, "Wow...she made a difference." I need to embrace everything that happens, good and bad, and see how I can use it as a learning experience but how? In the moment all I seem to be able to see is the crappiness of the situation. How do I change my thoughts to look for the opportunity?

At the end of the sermon our pastor challenged us to pray and ask God for a challenge. As soon as he said that I immediately thought, "Wait. What? Huh? There is no freaking way I can take on more than I have on my plate right now." Then I thought that is a very self centered thing to think. It isn't about me and what I can do. It is about what I can do through Him. I'm a chicken though. What if He has A LOT more faith in me than I have in myself and I don't know about you but for me he usually does, what then? Hmm....

I’m Motivated…Now What?

“Have you ever listened to a great motivational speaker? They probably made you feel inspired, ready to take greater risks or work even harder. But studies have show that all too often these effects are short lived. People may get excited in the moment, but all too often the energy fizzles out if it isn’t focused in a particular direction or initiative.” ~ A Grand New Day – Bible Study

Has anyone else experienced the above? I have. Countless times. I get super psyched about something and then times wears on, reality sets in and I get easily discouraged or side-tracked. I think it is another one of those human nature things so the real question is how do we overcome the slump after the initial excitement? How do we turn that excitement into action? How do we turn that action into habit?

I don’t really have an answer for any those questions. Personal experience has shown me that writing this blog has helped me stay motivated about losing weight and improving myself. I still go through slumps but they are few and far between as compared to what they were before I started writing on a regular basis. There are some things that I don’t write about as much or I don’t necessarily want to advertise to the whole world. What do I do then? That is where I am struggling. I haven’t done a very good job with those things. My spiritual, financial, and professional goals are lagging in comparison to my relational, physical, and emotional goals. How do I get myself to a point that I am consistently working on all of the goals in my life? I have been praying for an answer to that and God’s answer was to send me a couple of great women to help me.

One of them is in a very similar mindset that I am. She also wants to change and doesn’t know how or where to start. She only knows where she wants to end up. I get that. I am the same way. Thank goodness she is a bit more forward thinking than I am. Per her idea, she and I are having a slumber party tonight. Why? Just because. Why else? We decided that we are going to talk about our goals. I mean REALLY talk about them. Talk about our wants, desires and we are going to lay out a plan to get it done. Why am I so super stoked for this? Because then someone else will know. She will know everything. She will be able to call me out when I don’t feel like doing anything or I do something counter intuitive to my goals. I am also excited that I will be able to do the same for her. I get to be a part of someone else’s journey. I get to be involved beyond just knowing. Isn’t that awesome?!

There are also a couple of joint goals that we are going to be working on. Similar desires that we now have teammates for. I know this won’t fix everything. I know this won’t make everything perfect. I know that there will still be times of struggling to stay motivated but I know there is someone on my team. Someone who wants me to succeed as much as I want her to succeed. That is motivation in and of itself. 

“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.” ~ Zig Ziglar

How do you stay motivated? 

My Name is Catastrophe Kathy

There is a reason I have a good sense of humor. I have ridiculous things that would never ever happen to anyone else in the whole wide world happen to me. Seriously. Bob calls me Catastrophe Kathy. I know what you are thinking, “Quit being dramatic Kathy.” I hear you but I’ll prove it.

I hate doing laundry. A lot. That is why I have enough clothes to last me a month. I would rather head over to the laundry mat and pound out everything within a couple hours. That was my plan last night anyway. You know how apartment complex laundry mats have the HUGE washers? Let’s just say I had 5 washers full of clothes with another 2 or 3 that I could have done. I started at 8:00pm so I estimated that I would be done at around 10:00ish. Not bad, right? Well…enter Catastrophe Kathy. The little card that I loaded money on worked so I could start the washers but when it came time to dry…CARD ERROR. Really?! You have got to be kidding me. I then had to load myself and all 5 WET loads of laundry in my car and drive to my folks place. 29 years old and doing laundry at my parents…how cliché.

I was in full pity party mode by the time I got to my Mom’s place. That counted a bit of screaming at God and I was crying. Okay…that part was a *bit* dramatic but how would you feel? I got to my Mom’s and she ever so lovingly offers to be in charge of the first couple of loads so I can go home and get some other stuff I needed to get done finished. Thanks Mom! I worked like a dog for the next hour and a half (it is now about 11:30) and then my Mom called. Her dryer broke. Seriously? Yes, her freaking dryer broke. What are the odds of that? I headed back to her place, we loaded everything in my car once again and headed to a 24 hour laundry mat. Not gonna lie…this place was so scary at midnight. Thankfully my Mom had enough quarters to get my laundry done. She helped me fold everything and get it in my place before I took her home.

Here is the interesting part, my Mom had a crumby day yesterday and my mini crisis helped her to not focus on it. By the time I dropped her off we were already laughing about the ridiculousness of the situation. It was another reminder that not everything is about me. The situation felt personal but in reality it was about my Mom. I am glad my night when horribly awry. I know this sounds weird but I am also glad that God grants me small doses of crazy reality to remind me to take time to laugh.

Personal note to my Mom:
Mom, thank you for everything you do for me. I cannot express to you fully how much I appreciate your help last night. I am forever lucky to call you my Mom. Love you! 

Friend or Frenemy?

How freaking sweet would it be to be Oprah?! I mean really…she has her own magazine and literally every month she is a cover model. EVERY MONTH for almost 10 years! That means she has been a cover model at least 120 times not counting any magazine covers she has been on during or pre-O Magazine. Anywho, the point to this is last night I bought my first O Magazine per the recommendation of Charlotte (thanks Char!) and not gonna lie…I liked it. A lot. There was quite a bit of content that I found completely applicable and just plain helpful. Totally surprised me. I felt like I was conforming to some societal something though and it made me very awkward at the store. Dumb? I know. Anyway, I read the article called Friendship Detox and it was as good as Char said it was. One of my most favorite lines was: 

“The deepest friendships have nothing to do with proximity; they aren’t based on how long we have known each other but on how well we love each other.”

Isn’t that so true? Just because you have known someone forever doesn’t mean that they are best friend material (though I did get really lucky because I do have a friend I have known for a long time who I am still really close to). Well, my life has changed signifigently the last year or so and I have lost a lot of friends, purged a lot of friends, and just grown apart from some of my friends. As I wrote the other day, I am in another purging stage and have had a harder time discerning who should stay and who should go.  Here is what the article had for that: 

“I am starting to think a fremeny can be exposed with a few easy questions:

 Do you look forward to seeing this person, or do you consider it a chore?

Is she truly happy to see you, or do you suspect she wants something from you or needs to lord something over you?

Will you walk away from this meeting feeling good – or feeling manipulated, demeaned, poisoned or played?”

I have a few more questions that can be added to that list: 

Is she truly happy for you when you succeed?

Does she make time to see you?

Does she offer encouragement when something excites you?

Does she tell you the truth even if it is hard?

Are you always the one calling or does she make effort to seek you out?

Does she call bullshit when you say you are doing good when you clearly are not?

I am sure you have a few questions that you could add to those lists but those are what I am using to figure it out. In fact, I went to my Facebook friends and purged another 10 or so people this morning. It felt good. Don’t get me wrong, I want friends but as the article puts it:

“I’d much rather see the true friend once a year than suffer a faux friend every day of the week just for the sake of having someone around”

I want both. I want EXCELLENT friend(s) who live close to me. In fact, I have really been praying for God to bring some choice women into my life that I easily connect with. He has really came through. I'll write more on that tomorrow. 

Yeah…So…Uh…Maybe That Isn’t the Greatest Idea

One of my girlfriends, Ivonne, posted an interesting article to her Facebook page about friendship and bad decisions. It is short so I pasted it below: 

Why Don’t We Stop Friends From Making Awful Decisions?

Building A House

Say a friend has bought a house with the intent of fixing it up and then selling it. It’s one of those deals where they keep sinking money into it, doing repair after repair, renovation upon renovation. But, of course, things keep falling apart, and your friend doesn’t know what they are doing. But they keep throwing good money after bad.  In other words, they are making some very bad decisions.  Would you stop them?

You would like to think you would, however, according to a few studies, because you know your friend, there’s a good chance you’ll actually encourage them to keep going.

Why?

Because it’s like you internalize their hopes and desires and aren’t able to be objective. It’s almost as though you’ve caught their fever for flipping the house. So you end up justifying their bad decisions instead of pointing out their flaws.

But if you didn’t know your friend and had no personal connection, you’d be more able to give objective advice.

This article totally fascinated me so I talked to a couple different people about it. I got varied opinions and most of them were different from the article but similar to mine which is I often don’t say anything because my friends aren’t going to listen anyway. Why do I think that? Because I don’t listen to my friends when they give me advice. For example, I liked a boy. I had 3…count them THREE…different, unrelated friends from different parts of my life tell me, “Kathy, that isn’t a good idea.” All of them had different reasons for saying so. The first friend’s reason was valid and straight forward, he is not Christian. It is a fact that different beliefs automatically make a relationship harder so why start things off with difficulties? The second friend’s reason was that he was going hurt me. This was based on knowing him personally. The third friend's reason was that I hadn't let enough time pass by from my divorce. I promptly ignored all of them and guess who was right? Not me. Why didn’t I listen? I have no freaking clue.

It got me thinking even more about the fact that I often make choices that going into it I am thinking, “Wow…this probably isn’t a good idea but…” Why do we do it? Why do we make the dumb mistakes/choices when we “know better”? And why…oh why…don’t we listen to our friends? They know us. They know our thoughts, desires, hopes and dreams. They want us to succeed. Why would they give us bad advice? And yet…I think I know better. I guess the same goes with God. There have been times I have prayed about a decision, been given a clear answer from Him, and, again, promptly ignored it. It goes back to me thinking I know what is best for me. Me…with my clouded thoughts. How’s it working out for me? Not so great. I guess I should sit back and have more faith in God and in my friends that maybe…just maybe…they have a clearer picture of reality then me because they are outside the situation when I am in the midst of it.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it. ~Agatha Christie

A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime

As you all have probably noticed, I am a constant purger. I am always looking for ways to cut things out of my life. Yesterday it happened to be some friends I had on my Facebook account that I barely, if ever, talk to. I deleted almost 20 people. It stresses me out to have too many “friends” because it makes me feel like I have to keep in touch with them. I cut it down to only the people that I want to see stuff from. I am probably considered a mean Facebook user because I ignore people all the time along with periodically purging. For example, a few people that I have met once or twice through my brother have friend requested me and I ignore them because I have no idea who they really are. It fascinates me when I see people with like 1,000 friends. How do you really know that many people?! I guess that comes back to the whole purging thing. Some people aren’t as weird about it as I am.

Along those same lines I am purging my live friendships again. Recently I have had a lot of people from my past try to get in touch with me again. I am in this weird dilemma of do I get back in touch with them or let that friendship stay in my past. It makes me think about the following poem: 

A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime 

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person. 

When someone is in your life for a REASON . . . It is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are! They are there for the reason you need them to be. 

Then, without any wrong doing on your part, or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. 

Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. 

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered. And now it is time to move on. 

When people come into your life for a SEASON . . . Because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They bring you an experience of peace, or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. 

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. 

~Author Unknown

Speaking of the lifetime kind of friendships, I got a chance to talk to Bob last night and, much to his happiness, informed him that I couldn’t stand my hair any longer and he needn’t worry about me getting bangs. He said that made him very happy because he wasn’t looking forward to the monthly monitoring that would have taken place to make sure I didn’t have bangs and the not talking to each other as long as I did. We both had a good laugh about that. We talked a bit more and he asked what I was planning on doing with my hair. I said I wasn’t sure yet and he replied that he was going to email me some approved styles. We both laughed again. Well…this morning I opened up my email to 5 links to photos. Ba-ahahahahahahaha! That guy cracks me up! Here are the approved styles:

I must say that I really like my options. What I will probably end up doing though is sitting down in the chair and telling Sarah to do whatever she wants. 

I Can't Freaking Stand It Anymore

It's official. God did not design me to have long hair. I am almost to the point of wanting to chop my hair off myself and we all know that nothing good will come from that. I don't feel like I look good and I just...ugh...can't freaking stand it anymore. On top of  that I have been trying to get into the book club book and let's just say I want to kick the ass of the girl who picked it. Who's that you ask? Me. I want to kick my own ass for picking these books. I didn't realize that Jane Austen was an old English style writer and I would rather read my old college math book then this dump. Okay...that is a bit harsh but you get the point. They are not my style. I'm still going to read it and if it is the heart of the book club we will read all of them as planned but if it isn't I won't be too sad or sad at all really. Also, I am so tired from my job. Due to all of the cutbacks we are extremely understaffed. I mean EXTREMELY! I feel like I am doing the job of 3 people. No matter how hard I work my pile never gets any smaller. Kind of like doing laundry. No matter how much you do there is always more to be done. Makes me want to become a nudist. I need to get a hotter body before I do that though. Or maybe it would be a good incentive to get my body in order. If everyone is seeing everything then maybe that ice cream won't taste so good? Maybe? I think I just made things awkward between us so let's move on.

I did have a really stressful day today and got home to finally see my roommate for the first time in...seriously....2 weeks. We both have so much going on that he is usually coming when I am going and vice versa. Tonight we got a good hour to catch up. We made dinner together, talked and watched an episode of Family Guy. Nothing like a horribly offensive TV show (unedited because it is was from the DVD) to get you to stop thinking about your day. I know I shouldn't but I love that show. Anywho, I made my way over to the studio for my Monday night Intro Pole Class and by the end of it all was right in my world. I don't know how people cope without something like that in their life. For real. I just relax and let my body go through the meditation. Phew! I needed it bad today. I had a great group of girls too. All super enthusiastic and they just went for it. I love that. Well...there's my boohoo for the night. Sleep well everyone!

I'll Serve Where You Want Me To Serve...

Have you ever felt like you should do something but not the “should” in the sense that you feel guilty about not doing it but the “should” in the sense that you feel the desire deep within your heart and it almost physically pains you to not do it? Well…I finally did it. I answered the call I have been feeling for over a year and now I am freaking out.

A couple weeks ago the young adult pastor from my new church got up and spoke. He spoke on Jonah and answering the call when you are called to do it. He got me thinking that I need to take the plunge and finally commit to something bigger than myself on a more permanent basis then a mission trip. I have been thinking about becoming involved with youth groups for over a year now but never committed. I wrote him that very night and offered myself to help with the high school aged kids. Due to the kid’s winter camp and a few other schedule conflicts I finally got to talk to and meet him face to face for the first yesterday. He said the need for more help is there (especially for female leaders) but he wants to make sure I know what I am getting myself into. He wouldn’t let me commit to anything until I check it out first hand. My first meeting is this Wednesday for the youth activity. I’m so nervous I could throw up. I guess that is why I ignored it for so long. I have no idea what to expect but getting out of your comfort zone is what life is all about, right? That is how you grow and improve. Let’s see how Wednesday goes…

I have never done or given up anything for lent before and *technically* I already messed up but I am a rule bender so as of this morning I decided to give up soda. As we all know, it is something that I have struggled with for months so now is the time to deal with it. Should be interesting.

Also, I have been eating like crap the last couple of weeks due to lack of planning and care. I keep rationalizing away how it isn’t THAT bad but reality is…it is. Now is the time to get with it. I have goals that I am trying to accomplish and my lack of sticking to what I need to do is getting in the way of those goals so here it is: I am going to buckle down for the next 6 weeks. 6 weeks isn’t very long and I am going to see how much I can accomplish by checking the days off over the next 42 days. I already am doing no soda, working out in the morning 5 days a week and will be doing at least 3 pole classes a week. That most definitely is a recipe for success if I could just get the rest of everything in order. That’s it. I starting a calendar and working my way towards 6 weeks of success. Not perfection but success. Wish me luck!

It's a Bird...It's a Plane...Nope...Just Kathy

I am really starting to like this 29 new things before I turn 30 goal. I got my daily notice from Groupon today (my new favorite website) and guess what the deal of the day was? You’ll never guess…54% off trapeze lessons at Trapeze U! Isn’t that freaking awesome?! I already bought one so feel free to click here and do the same if you want to join me. I’m terrified of heights so it's going to be interesting but everyone should face their fears, right? This is a relatively safe environment to do it in. The odd part is I have already done some really scary things when it comes to facing my fear. I have done a 150 ft zip line, walked balance rope 30 feet in the air, climbed a 55ft rock wall, repelled a 125 ft wall and I still get SO scared when it comes to heights. Huh. Anywho, it is going to be a blast! Hopefully…

Crabby Kathy and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I don’t feel like me lately. I know it is a combo of no meds/new doctor, hurt back, and everything else I have going on but it is totally putting a damper on my birthday month. For real. I’m crabby. I’m irritable. I’m anxious. I’m unmotivated. I’m…ugh. I can’t wait to get back on track with what my new doc says. I guess I did get some organizing done last night. Well…like an hour or so. Whatever. The rest of the night was filled with a movie called The Last Kiss which, by the way, was a terrible idea because it is about failing relationships and I have been bumming about my marriage lately, reading Glamour magazine, eating grilled cheese and tomato soup and having a lovely glass of wine. I guess it wasn’t so bad of a night. I tried to go to bed at 8:00 but tossed and turned until close to 10:00. That is a bit out of character from how I have been sleeping lately. Oh well.

Back to the grilled cheese …all of the sudden at like 2:00 in the afternoon I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. RIGHT NOW. I posted it on my Facebook page as my status and got a load of responses. It was quite entertaining. The super entertaining part is probably the fact that I stopped by the store on the way home and purchased everything I needed to make one since I don’t keep any of that stuff at my house. The super SUPER entertaining part was I drove right past my brother and didn’t notice it was him because I was so focused on the grilled cheese sandwich that was about to happen. Guess what? The grilled cheese did not disappoint. It was delicious and I may have one for dinner again tonight. I dubbed it my big kid grilled cheese since I had it with wine. Had to sophisticate it up, right?

~ Crabby Kathy

Yowza!

There are very few things that I make a big drive for anymore. Today though…I was glad to make the drive. I went ahead and taught my dance class last night even though my back didn’t feel the best and let’s just say…I pretty much crawled to the shower this morning. I was hoping a nice hot shower would loosen everything up but the stars were against me. No hot water. At all. Not a drop. I had to wash my hair and everything in ice cold water. ICE COLD! Oddly enough my hair feels fantastic today but that is completely off subject. Anyway, I made my way slowly into work and struggled through my morning. By 10:30 I was dying so I texted my friend Darwyn (one of my mentors), who is a physical therapist and begged him to see me. This time the stars were with me because he had an opening at 11:30 so I made a 30 minute drive there for 20 minutes of therapy and another 30 minute drive back. Worth every minute of driving. It is not completely fixed yet because he didn’t want to push it and make it worse but I can stand, sit, and move without experiencing blinding pain. It is fascinating how he has me do what seems like the simplest things but I stand up and it is a huge difference. Thanks Darwyn!

Also, back to the cold shower thing. I know I always harp on not taking things for granted but I was definitely miffed this morning. It *should* have been hot water but it wasn’t. Once again the universe is teaching me that there are no guarantees except change. Change always happens no matter what. 

Ahahahahahahhahahahaha!

How on Earth did I forget to write about  this?! Ahahahahahahahahahaha! I work in a very professional, conservative office with mostly men for my "real job". Well...our office has under gone a lot of changes the last year or so and was in need of a big spring clean which I spent all of last week and will spend most of this week working on. Anyway, there were a couple chairs that I have been dying to get rid of and did just that last week. As I flipped one of them over to compact the trash pile I noticed a huge wad of gum stuck to the bottom. I immediately burst into laughter because a scene from one of my favorite movies, Baby Mama, popped in my head. I ran next door to grab my phone to share this experience with you all. Aren't you grateful? As you should be. Anywho, I was still laughing as I ran next door so my boss asked me what was so funny. Somehow, not sure why, he didn't seem to find it as funny as I did. I guess the mental image I had from the movie didn't transfer well with words. Below is a close up of the gum in case you couldn't see it very well in the first photos. Of course I had to go home and watch Baby Mama after an experience like that so I paused the movie at the part I was thinking of so you could appreciate my mental image properly. I didn't know that people (read: adults) actually put there gum under their chair. I mean really?! Freaking fantastic!

Wait...What's Today? Crap.

I’m behind. Bad. So many things have happened in the last week but I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to write about them and then more stuff happens but I still haven’t written about the stuff that happened before it so then I try to sit down to write but I am so far behind that I have no idea where to start so I write nothing and the circle continues to get bigger and bigger until I just stop all together and I end up writing about the fact that I haven’t written. Anyone else do that? I just did.

Well…I will just start with yesterday. I woke up and my back is in extraordinary pain. It hurts to sit, stand, kneel, lay, and just plain exist. I made it through church and teaching an intro to pole class but I am hurting today. Hopefully it gets better by tonight so it won’t hurt to teach another intro class. *fingers crossed* I also am sleeping so much. As “normal” as I feel I would love to stop going to bed at 7:30pm every night. I feel like an old lady.

Everything is going fantastic! We had the kick off meeting of the book club, my birthday flowers arrived, and so much more. I will slowly start updating all of the exciting things over the next couple of days and hopefully nothing too exciting will happen in the meantime so I can get caught up. I won’t hold my breath for that…

I will leave you will my deep thought for the day: I am terrible at showing mercy. My pastor spoke of extending mercy to those that offend us or make mistakes and sitting there listening I realized that I am horrible at it. I remember everything. My poor ex-husband paid for his sins over and over and over again. Unfortunately he also created bigger and better ones but still I wouldn’t let him move past what he had already done. Same goes for family. When someone does something to me I hold them to it for a long time or until they do a huge act of asking for forgiveness. No seriously. I have completely cut different family members out of my life for months at a time for things that they have done or said to me. How sad. I think I need to work on that…

Sweet Freaking Deal!

I write and talk about teaching the pole intro classes all the time and you may have some curiosity about it so...today's Groupon deal is for you. The 90 minute intro class is normally $30 but it is being offered for $15! Click here for the sweet freaking deal for youself, your girlfriends or both! Would totally make a great gift. Also, if you want to be in my class I am teaching the intro class every Monday night and most Friday nights for the next 6 or so weeks. We have a blast!

~K

"Did You Just Do What I Think You Just Did?"

That is what my older brother said to me at dinner last night to which I calmly replied, "If you think I just threw up in my napkin a little bit then yes."

I love my family! I met MUM, my older brother (her husband), and their 2 cute kiddos for dinner. My niece had to go bathroom so it was my nephew, my brother and I left at the table. We had been talking about my new doctor and my brother suddenly showed me his elbow and pushed on it a bit...and this lump, about the size of a marble, appeared out of nowhere and moved around. I grabbed the closest thing to me, a couple napkins, and well...threw up a little. (Apparently my stomach is weak about more than just blood.) Don't worry it was mostly soda. We both sat in complete silence for a minute, not looking at each other, before the conversation above happened. I put the napkin down and we burst into laughter. We both laughed until we cried. In fact, I think the people next to us left in disgust because we were laughing so hard. I literally had tears running down my face. Poor MUM came back just as the laughter was subsiding and asked what was so funny. We went onto explain it to her and I said, "My favorite part was that there was like a minute of dead silence before either of us said anything." My brother added, "That's because I kept thinking over in my mind what had just happened trying to come up with a logical explanation but kept coming back to you throwing up." Good times...

It is the stories like the one above that really make my day. It could have easily turned into an awkward situation but instead we laughed. Hard. It makes me think about how seriously some people take themselves. Like at the beauty pageant some of the judges were so serious. It was like there was no room for laughter in their life. I am so not like that. I like to laugh and smile and dance and have fun and try new things and I am not afraid to make an ass of myself because in reality you only make an ass of yourself when you yourself are bothered by what you did. Who cares?! So what? I threw up. Everyone does it at least once in their life. Maybe not at the table but whatev. That's just details.

"God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny." ~ Garrison Keillor

Anyone else have a good story or two like mine? Or any story that really made you laugh? I would love to hear (read) a couple. Post a comment and share because we all know that Sharing is Caring.

ARK

“You change the world by one Act of Random Kindness at a time.” ~ God in Evan Almighty

Isn’t that a great line?  It is so true. I know I have talked about it before but seriously the smallest things make the biggest differences. For example, I was at the dance studio on Monday night and there was a book that someone *who shall remain nameless* left for me called The Jane Austen Companion to Love. Not only was it a pleasant surprise but so very thoughtful considering my Jane Austen book club kicks off this Friday. I plan on laying it out for others to be able to look through.

Interestingly enough the last couple of weeks I have had several people talk to me about ARK (or Acts of Random Kindess) centered programs. First, my company but they turned it into a competition. Yes. A competition. You do good things for other people and track all of your good deeds on a sheet that you turn in for a chance to win a prize. Huh. Let’s just say I didn’t participate. Second, someone I am really close to makes a conscious effort to do something nice for someone everyday and also tracks it but in a personal journal. That…I like. It keeps you thinking about doing nice things for other without the “Wow! Look at what I did!” factor. It also would keep me focused on what I can do for others instead of me, me, me, me, me which is easy to do. I could give you a whole list of excuses right now that would keep me from doing things for others such as I am tired, busy, agitated, hungry, blah, blah, blah but the reality is it could be something as simple as holding the door for a person with an armload of stuff or letting them go before you in line if they seem like they are in a huge hurry. ARK’s don’t have to cost anything.

All this being said, I am stealing the at least 1-a-day and personal tracking idea. I would also like to encourage everyone who reads this to do the same. I won’t write about what I do because again it is the “Wow! Look at me!” factor but I do plan on writing about what I feel like a month from now and whether or not doing something like this changes my attitude in general. I have a strong feeling it is going to because I have been making a huge effort to pray conscious prayers for other people and I have already noticed a difference in my attitude. Wish me luck! 

Back to Normal…ish

I am seeing a new doctor for my Hoshimoto’s Thyroiditis (still sounds like a new form of martial arts). The main reason is she, all of my blood work and medication will be covered under my insurance. That is a huge plus. Anywho, I saw her for the first time last Friday and the result of that appointment is she having me get all new blood work done. Damn. I don’t do that blood thing very well. You may remember my post from the last time. The thing is I had to go off of all of my medication. Everything. Thyroid. Testosterone. Multi-Vitamins. Everything. Until this Friday when I can finally get my blood work done. She wants everything out of my system so she can get a clean report of what my blood work looks like au natural.

Here is the strange thing. While I have absolutely no energy and just want to sleep all of the time it is oddly comforting because I am starting to feel like myself again. I know how to handle this. Sleep more. For example, I went to bed at 7:45 last night and slept until 6:30 this morning. I dreamed too. It was wonderful. The bad part is I have no energy and my metabolism took a nose dive. Oh and my joints ache and my eyes hurt and I am probably going to gain a little weight back for a while until I get everything regulated. Boo. 

World Peace and The 29 #1

I judged a beauty pageant this weekend. Yup. A beauty pageant. A teen beauty pageant to be more specific. I filled in for Christie, the owner of Express MiE. It was fascinating. First, I met the most wonderful women who judged with me. Second, the girls were...interesting. Third, this is my first office The 29 experience this year. Yeah! Anywho, here are how things went...

Friday we did the interviews. I was with 3 other women and we judged the 13-15 age group that also happened to be the largest. 85 girls to be exact. 85 girls that each got 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. I'll let you do the math or I'll put it like this we started interviewing at 4:00pm and I left at around 9:30. The girls would come in one by one and we would ask whatever we wanted. Sometimes the couple minutes flew by and sometimes it felt more like 30 minutes. The personalities were all over the spectrum from painfully shy to over the top. The thing that surprised me the most was how thought out so many of the girls future plans were. On top of that I bet close to half of them wanted to be models or actresses. The funny part is we asked almost every single girl what her favorite subject in school was and probably close to 70% said math. It kind of turned into a joke because one of us judges, about half way through, looked at the rest of us during a break and called BS on all of the girls who said, "Math because I like a challenge." She went onto say, "What about art or music or recess?" After that every time one of the girls answered math we all had to keep our eyes to ourselves or on the girl as to not burst into laughter. I finally made it to my house around 10:15.

I had to be up at 6:30am and out of the by 7:10 so I could get to my Tres Dias meeting on time. I am really starting to enjoy that time of fellowship with the other women. I got out of that meeting at 1:00pm and I made my way towards the actual pageant. It was so freaking far. Do you know where Sun City West is? Yeah...15 minutes past that. I was almost in Wickenberg. Freaking ridiculous. On top of that they weren't allowed to bring any real food in so from 2:30-10:45 I had nothing buy candy and chips (I'll come back to that). There were 4 divisions with over 275 girls total with all of them doing a casual round as well as a formal round with answering one question. Plus 10 ten in all four division with those girls answering another question. It took sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long. I had a blast but wow. I was tired. I had a pounding headache and bailed as soon as I put my last score down at 10:45 (an hour before the show actually ended). Mind you the show started at 4:00pm. Yeah....anyway, back to the candy and chips. My body is not use to eating crap like that so needless to say I felt horrible. As I was driving back I made it about 20 minutes down the road before I had to pull over and puke my guts out. Yes...super trashy style in a Food City parking lot. It felt so good and so terrible at the same time. I slept easy that night since I got home at close to midnight. Oh and I was up at 8:00 the next morning for another fun filled day.

Here are some things that blew my mind (in a bad way):
1. I met a 13 year old with a nose ring and a 15 year old with her lip pierced (don't get me wrong...I have one...but I was an adult. This girls Mom signed for her to get one)
2. There were at least 29 girls that colored their hair (remember these girls are 13-15)
3. The clothing that some of them were wearing (again I have more issue with the lack of parenting than with the girl). Some walked in with extremely shorts skirts or tops that showed more cleavage than a string bikini top.
4. There were a handful of girls with visible tattoos. (Again I have them but I signed for them myself)

No wonder girls these days are growing up so fast. What happened to kids being kids? All in all, this was an amazing experience and I would love to do it again.

New Beginnings

I think my new beginning for the year was intended to be the year from birthdate not from January 1. So far MY new year has been better then I could have ever imagined. It has been filled with new experiences, love, friendship, and spirit. To carry on from my last post the rest of the day was wonderful. I did a little bit of shopping and found some fantastic shoes (I'll post pictures later) and as I was driving meet my brother for dinner Bob called. The conversation went kinda like this:

Bob: Happy Birthday!
Me: Thanks!
Bob: Well...
Me: Yeah?
Bob: Weeeeeeell?
Me: What?
Bob:Weeeeeeell-a?
Me: I'm not sure what you are hinting at?
Bob: Did you get anything today?
Me: Some new shoes.
Bob: Did you get anything at work?
Me: No.
Bob: Are you sure?
Me: Yeah.
Bob: What?!
Me: Why?
Bob: What the hell? My girl and I sent you flowers.
Me: You did? That's so nice.
Bob: I was calling to give you are hard time about being an ungrateful b*tch.
Me: Ahahahahahahaha.
Bob: *looking at computer* Ah man. Hey....so you will be getting flowers next Thursday. Somehow I selected the wrong date.

It was so funny! It love that my birthday has now been extended for a week. Anywho, just as we finished our conversation I was driving up to Texas Roadhouse for some yummy dinner. I could live on those rolls and butter. I would be as big as a house but whetev. My roomie and I both ordered steak and enjoyed some great conversation until the weird balloon guy walked up. The tables are elevated so he
was almost eye to eye with us. He first looked to me and said, "Would you like a nice rose?" then looked at my roomie and said, "Or perhaps a nice valentine heart?" We both awkwardly looked at each other and then back at him and at the same time we said, "We are brother and sister." All he did was look at us, tip his hat, and say, "Have a good night." We both died laughing! I loved that he didn't even try to recover. He accepted defeat with heart. Here are some pictures from dinner. I look like crap but I still had fun.

 

As we neared the end of dinner a whole group of waiters and waitresses walked up with the saddle. Ah crap. "Climb on", our waitress says to me. So I obliged and all of the employees and most of the people around us all sang some Happy Birthday song. I have no idea where the idea of trying to embarrass the birthday person came from but most of that stuff doesn't bother me. Here are 2 pics of me on the saddle. The first my eyes were closed and the second I didn't mean to have taken but oh well. I was flipping my brother off because he was giving me a hard time with how silly I looked in the first. Good times...

It was so nice to just sit and talk to him. He is such a kind, considerate, fun, Godly man. Any girl would be lucky to land him and she is going to have to work hard to get my support. After dinner headed over to MUM's place for some cake. She made me a birthday cake! Isn't that nice? She even made me a cake from that giant cupcake pan. It was so yummy. We chatted and ate cake and chatted some more. I love my family. They are so good to me. My birthday day was so excellent. Oh and my niece made me a birthday card. She signed the inside but put my nephews name on the back. I love it!

Happy Birthday to Me!

“Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.” ~ Unknown

It’s official! I’m 29! Isn’t that crazy?! I think so. I had a fantastic start to the day with a great workout and lots of birthday wishes. The day is going to continue with dinner with my brother and b-day cake at MUM’s place. Who could ask for more? Seriously. Friends. Family. Oh and a day off tomorrow and taco salad for dinner at my folks on Sunday. See? A great birthday indeed! I also got myself one badass birthday gift.

It is an aquamarine ring. The meaning behind it is personal and *technically* it should be a sapphire but that will have a wait a while. I am usually not into real jewelry but not gonna lie…buying it was HIGHLY satisfying. I got it for me and it means a lot to me. Perfect kind of birthday present if I must say so myself.

I got to thinking that maybe I want to start a 29 new experiences in the next year list. It wouldn’t have to be big stuff. It could just be things like trying a new food or going to a new place. What do think about that? Good? Bad? Too much pressure? Stupendous idea? Other ideas? I am all ears…so to speak.

Side note: Two people sent me two different birthday e-card today that had the following bible verse. I enjoyed it so I thought others might as well.

Zephaniah 3:17 (New International Version)

The LORD your God is with you, 

he is mighty to save. 

He will take great delight in you, 

he will quiet you with his love, 

he will rejoice over you with singing."

Have a great day everyone! 

Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

I am freaking crabby right now. I mean SUPER crabby. I have no reason to be either. Pole class was fantastic last night. I actually got some really good sleep including the fact that I remembered a dream. I haven’t remembered a dream in ages. I had an awesome workout this morning minus the fact that my iShuffle died on me. I am alive. I am free. I have a car. I have a job. I have family and friends that love me. I am in a good space right now and yet…I am crabby. I need to figure out how to uncrabbify (is that a word?) myself.  

Today is the first birthday of one of my cutie nephews so I wanted to say Happy Birthday little big man! The older he gets the more his personality is coming out. He has started walking and he waves. They all are growing up SO fast. Anyway, here is a picture I took of him on Sunday. This is the angle I saw from where I was sitting. It reminded me of one of the scenes in elf where Papa Elf is holding Buddy the Elf as a baby. I couldn't find the exact image I was thinking of but I did find one that was close enough. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I laughed. A lot. 

Dear February #1

Dear February,

Welcome my birthday month! I am totally loving how you are starting out already. This week is packed with a couple of exciting events like judging a beauty pageant, teaching a full intro pole class, a long hike with Becca and the doggies, participating in a graffiti pub crawl and more. Oh and just in case you forgot... my birthday!  I know this is not normal but I am so excited to turn 29. The rest of the month is shaping out to be just as great as what is planned this week. I am finally getting going on the website for my tattoo artist as well another client that I am doing an entire package for, I am getting involved with my new church, I am getting rid of a ton more stuff, I am seeing a new doctor for my increasingly worse depression and I should actually be completely unpacked. Things are looking good. I am going to keep my goals to a minimum because I want you to be so awesome! I can't set my birthday month up for failure.

1. Officially start book club and continue reading 1776. This one is well on its way. The kickoff party for Snuggielicious is soon and I am plugging away at 1776. I just need to make sure I take it with me everyday so I can sneak 20 or so minutes of reading in at lunch.

2. Continue working out every morning M-F. I missed a couples days the past few weeks due to being tired or not prepared. As the old quote goes..."when you fail to plan you plan to fail" so I need to get on this one.

3. Get connected with a life group at my new church. YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! So stoked to do this one. I decided I do want to meet with a group of singles. Not to do "man shopping" but because they get where I am at. They get life as a single Christian.

4. Spend at least 5 hours a week on my personal business. I have more than enough work to do so this one will be easy.

That's it! So exciting, huh?

Hugs,

Kathy

P.S. I went to the clothes swap at the dance studio this weekend and traded some great stuff I don't wear anymore for some great stuff that I will wear. Greatest. Idea. Ever. Thank you Jessica for putting it on! The first picture is what I took with me, the second is what the room looked like with all of the stuff laid out, and the last is what I brought home. I actually brought home less than I took so officially it is still a part of the purge. Boo yeah! I did bring home a jeans jacket and my brother and one of his buddies (nicknamed my 21 year old boyfriend) told me that 1980 called and asked for its jacket back. Nice....