*slap self on back of hand*

I have been a bad, bad blogger.
That is, not posting for the simple reason that I didn't feel like it, which is kind of the point of this whole operation.

Regardless, smile-y things:

• Waking up to find CHRISTINE across the room :)
• Hanging out with CHRISTINE for a whole two hours!
• Making a facebook fan page for the MRWP :)
• Not getting pied... again... *
• My math teacher asking me if it was okay if he skipped math class and I had study hall
• Sitting on the swing in my happy-skirt-sub-two (which acts as a sail of sorts) and reading while the wind pushed me back and forth
• Reading from the Katie-book :)
• Hearing David's grad school plans...!!
• Reading more... and not doing homework.

And tomorrow you ought not to expect to hear from me, again, because I will be out until the wee hours of the morning, doing about the only thing there is to do around here after midnight. ie Rock&Bowl. wheee :)

I promise I am still mostly an optimist, even if I have skipped a lot recently.

Kathryne

*It's actually kind of devious of the teachers... every day since last Thursday I have come to school thinking "this is the day I get Cool Whip in the face" and live in suspense until 6th period when I am informed we are postponing it to the next day. And the next day. And the next day. et cetera. If they do it one more time, I am personally going to THROW AWAY the stupid pies.

Hello to my dear blog-stalkers ;)

Today was pretty fantastic. Smile spots:

- Skipping school (would have only been 3 study periods anyway) and sleeping in
- CAR WASH!! was epic.
- Swinging on the swingset with my hair down and flopping in my face
- Bare feet, y'all :)
- Cheesecake Factory with my family and two friends for Kristen's birthday... Y.U.M.

Kathryne

PS- I'm watching you, blog stalkers! watching! (okay, just listening... can I help it if the walls in my house are thin?)
PPS- (4hours)(sun) - (any)(sunscreen) + aloe = much(OUCH!)

Bessstttttt :)

AP Lit test > AP Calc test
AP Lit essays > SAT essays
Elizabeth Barrett Browning > most anybody else*

After school was awesome as well. I did my government homework outside, while throwing a ball for Tag. Then I went to the backyard and alternately read my book while swinging, and chased Tag around the backyard-which-has-yet-to-be-mowed in my bare feet.
Mar.ve.lous.


Kathryne

*thank you, AP Lit test, for exposing me to poetry! would have been nice to study it... sometime... besides that one month at the beginning of this year.

GPAs and such

I got my cast off today!

And I turned in my Literature project!

And I was approached by exactly 4 people who had heard that I'd read the first two Harry Potter books, incredulous that I had liked them. Maddie practically had tears in her eyes. I thought it was great fun.

Doug practically ran into me, when this morning he shoved some Indiana Jones movie into my hands. Apparently I have officially stepped into pop culture. It's a fascinating place. The exchange went something like,
Katie: What?!
Dalvin: What was that?
Doug (to Dalvin): She's never seen them before!
Dalvin: Not any of them?!
Katie: Nope.
Doug (to Dalvin): See?! No wonder she's the way she is!

*eyeroll*

My grandparents are here. I was talking to my Nana about college, and she said,
"Two physical education classes?! There goes your grade point average!!"

haha.

I am in a good mood today.

Kathryne

Dear Christine,

Life in Bel Air this year has been horrible.
I might even go so far as to say, it's deplorable.
Every time I want so bad to see you
I must slap my own hand and say, "Stop! I will beat you!"
"If you do not stop this abominable wish
To see someone so far away as Africa... ish...
You will be miserable, take it from me
I've been there, you know, the depths I have seen--
The depths of the pit of Hell and despair."
(Okay, this drama thing is going nowhere)
But alas, through all of my self-reprobation,
I miss you; my heart is one huge conflagration.
It's burning and aching... oh, no, here we go...
Melodrama went out three decades ago.
Regardless, my dear, Christine, my friend,
I miss you a lot. So this poem I send.
My yearning for you is true ever-present;
Without you, it's quite hard to be effervescent.
So come back at your earliest convenience
For I miss you with all of my love and allegiance.


Kathryne

Scrabble.

I won! I like winning sometimes.

Also, music practice with Megan and Page and Doug... and sitting in the parking lot with Megan and Doug trying desperately to jumpstart Megan's car... good times.

Kathryne

cyclopes...es

* )

...content cyclopes...

o)

...happy cyclopes...

O)

...cyclopes getting excited...

D(

...angry cyclopes...

:P

Today... I played for the Christmas Tea... went shopping... found a dress! with sequins! that still miraculously looks sophisticated! (or, as Kristen said, "like the Eiffel Tower!")... got some stuff done, but not too much... overall, very chill day. I needed that.

I Learned...

Amazon has a lot of awesome free downloads of Christmas albums. And equally as many not-awesome ones.

Kathryne

rest

Today I have only Physics homework and college stuff. And that makes me happy. And I got to write a blog post on Veloquence :)

So now I will do my Physics and write my third Lafayette essay and then I will sleep. Sleep also makes me happy.

And the scroll button on my computer mouse works now. This also makes me happy. whee.

I Learned...

Implicit differentiation is a lot easier than my Calc 1 book taught it. I would explain, but I really don't feel like it. And nobody would read it.

Kathryne

break.

I did not write a single essay today. NOPE. Not one. zilch.

That makes me so happy, you have no idea.

Also, Advent in the Baptist church is way cool... they actually, like, explain each of the candles as they light them and do Scripture reading and stuff.
Oh, and this is for Daniel... they did a good bit of jazz improvising during offering. I caught some chords that were definitely not your worship-music-C-and-Dm-with-an-Am7-thrown-in-there-once-in-a-while. It's a small church, but they had a saxophone AND trombone, and it was cool.

I Learned...
"Pepperoncini" is not a kind of small pepperoni that you can pick out of a salad. It's a variety of spicy yellow pepper that contaminates your salad.

Kathryne

unexpected blessings

My Physics teacher surprised the living daylights out of me today.

We were going over some of our work from the past week or so. I raised my hand with a mundane, simple question about a lab report. As he acknowledged my hand, before I could get a word out of my mouth, he said...

"Katie, you can go have a study hall in the library, if you want. You get all of this already."

Shock much?

And then I went to Panera with Megan and Marina, yay! we talked. I like you guys <3

And then we went to Rachel's ballet class, since it's visitors week. I have lots of things to say about that, but am too impatient to type them.

And then I came home to find that ...CHRISTINE AND ERIN ARE ON FACEBOOK?!?

Shock much?

Kathryne

Fairy Place :)

The Good: got to go to BIBLE FORCE!!! :D

And, for those of you who are somehow unaware, there is a creek in my general area that has a stone wall I like to sit on (photo taken 10.25.09)...

...and today I got to go down there with my journal and my book and my camera (plenty of occupation for a few hours). I rediscovered my fairy place (upstream a bit of the wall) and had lots of fun just looking. I think Christine & Erin & Kristen and I are going to have a photoshoot sometime soon, when the leaves change.

The Bad: SAT yesterday :P

The Random:

(donkey from the farm across the street from the stone wall)

Kathryne

extravert?

am I an extravert?

I am doubting my introversion. I know I adore having time to myself being busy and such, and I need it, and I enjoy it... but dear me. talking with people and seeing people makes me so happy!

and "words of affirmation" is most definitely my "love language," if you will. therefore, when people talk to me and ..umm...affirm... me, it just makes me smile.

first day of school, by the way. goodish day.

and a boy asked for Kristen's email address today... lol. he invited her to come to his pool on Saturday. that made me smile.

Kathryne

One More Time With Feeling!

we went to the beach for the second time! but today we went AFTER dinner, so no sunscreen, no super hot-ness, no weird sea creatures, and no loud children. lol.

Also, got to go to Barnes & Noble. 3 cheers for Wi Fi!!!


Kathryne

roads

I love the feeling of newly-paved roads. Especially when there are lots of trees around and not too many cars and the speed limit is at that perfect 30-40 mph.

Kathryne

PS- I now have 25% of my required driving time!!

PPS- do subscribe to my other blog; it would make me very happy.

WHEEEE!!! :D

I have my FIRST subscriber to Veloquence on Toast!!!! WHEEE!! (actually, the sound in my head is more like "waaaaah" but when you write it in all caps like that it looks like crying-noises instead of happy-noises. and it's definitely happy.)

...and don't go ruining my fun telling me it's "only Rachel." Yes I KNOW it's Rachel, but... come on... this is Princess we're talking about! royalty has subscribed to my blog! :)

ooooh and then after LIT (yes! Love LIT! but, sad! last meeting... sigh!) SANDY is sleeping over! yay for Africa buddies! and Barbie movies! and other fun things which will happen if I can stay awake past 11 o'clock!

I am rather happy; did you get that?

Kathryne

Act Your Shoe Size Day!

I started this last July... third Wednesday in July, yes :)

It's a good time. I wear a 7.5 or 8, so yesterday was going to be awesome.

I started out the day waking up at 8. It felt good. Any time 8-9 is the perfect time to wake up in the summer.

Then Mark came over with footage & stills for the Sunday School volunteer recruitment video. That was not something I would have bothered with when I was 8.

Then I decided to get serious. I took my book, my water bottle, and my two Oreo cookies in a bag up to my reading tree. It is the reading tree because it has good spots for sitting and reading and eating Oreos. It has been my favorite tree since I moved here almost 13 years ago.

After about 5 minutes, I realized that there were ants crawling all over me. Another 5 minutes in, I realized that there were lots of other, more vicious bugs crawling all over me. Not long after that, I realized why I always had so many bug bites when I was 8.

So I did what any self-respecting third-grader would do and ran into the house where there was air conditioning and no bugs.
THEN I did a bunch of 16-year-old-stuff like Facebook and email and video editing and book club.
Then I read. Like, a lot. That's about all I did when I was that age. Reading, reading, reading, all the time, even while eating. Speaking of eating, I went to the grocery store with my mom like I used to, and then got Rita's like I always have when I have a sore throat...
Speaking of which, I was sick yesterday, so I also did stuff I did when I was 8 and sick, like complaining.
Then I went to bed at 9, which I actually think is 30 minutes past what my bedtime used to be. My bedtime was 9 when I was 12, let alone 7.5.

the end.

Kathryne

CYMA Small Groups :)

YAY!
Okay, for those of you who do not know, I get to lead a small group of 10-11 year-old girls at my church's music & arts summer camp. And I am SUPER excited.

Today I got my list of girls...
I got Rachel :) she is my little buddy.
AND I got two girls who were in the daycare I used to work in. How on Earth did that happen? They don't even go to my church! So that was a (pleasant? maybe) surprise. Hey, I haven't really known them since they were little 7-8s, and I sure hope they've grown up :P

All my lesson plans are complete. I am so happy... I shall not ever be a teacher, but I did have so much fun planning my 30-minutes-a-day :) We're going to do all kinds of things; like charades and friendship bracelets and skits and posters! yay for 5th graders!

Kathryne

perfect night :)

Tonight I saw Christine and talked about everything. I love you!
Then I got to dance a wee bit of lindy hop with David. Yay! It makes me want to learn more. Later.
Then I saw Sandy! *fish face*

Then we finished packing for the Grand Canyon... yup, tomorrow at 4:45 AM I am leaving for an 18-hour transit from BWI to Chicago to LAX (no, Miley Cyrus, I shall not be wearing cowboy boots nor shall I be listening to Jay-Z) back to Sedona, AZ. There I shall meet up with my cousins and (other) grandparents and begin our adventure :)

As for now... the air smells like cotton candy snowballs, and the moon looks like a giant ball of aged parmesan hanging in the sky. The iHome is playing "What a Wonderful World" (string quartet version), and I concur wholeheartedly. Life is awesome. I could not wish for anything more (except maybe the ability to not sleep... Sandy, I'm going to be Ursula to your Ariel and steal your soul!)

Goodnight and goodbye!*


Kathryne

*I may find internet access throughout the week.

happy things!

So, there's this thing going around Facebook...

"If you like this status I will post on your wall something I like about you. Make this your status if you'd like a challenge :)"

(originally the smiley was going the WRONG WAY. oh, that bugs me!!! but I changed it.)

Sandy thought (reasonably) that one of us OI people started it, but I am sad to say I did not. Idk about anybody else.

It's an amazing way to challenge yourself to think positively not only about circumstances but also people.

AND... oh, Sandy, you made me smile OUT LOUD.

One thing I like to do, as a private, modified Optimism Initiative, is to take a person I don't like all so much (no names) and write something positive about them every day for 2 weeks. I have never actually carried this through all the way on paper, but I'm about there...

Kathryne

happy places :)

there are some places that just make me smile. they make me so inexplicably happy.

I went to a place like that today... the kind of place you can go with 10 other people and feel... not isolated, but... just free, like if you snapped your fingers, everybody else would just evaporate. the perfect sort of thing for an ambivert :P

(just kidding. I am an introvert. I just like people.)

(and then I made myself another clover crown.)

AND I drove! and didn't die! AND I saw Aaron & Matt on the side of the road at their carwash :P pleasant surprise.

Kathryne