random

I was planning on posting a ‘flashback’ every Monday, but Monday has passed, so today has become Flashback Tuesday.

With this past weekend being Halloween, I thought back to recent years and decided to get out some old photos of my costume couture. I’ve never been one to take the easy route and buy a pre-fabricated costume, preferring instead to use cloth scraps, tablecloths, safety pins…whatever I can find around the house. 

Katie the Ladybug – senior year of high school. my wings has strings with bells so I could ‘flit’ about.

Belly Dancer – freshman year at K-State. the last year I was able to wear a stomach-bearing costume….oh, college, so bad for my waistline.

Statue of Liberty – my mom was the star seamstress behind this masterpiece. that’s right, I was 21 and I had my mom make my costume  it has been my favorite costume ever.  I made the torch from a squirt bottle.  

Pirate – with my fellow Collegian ad designers. (and cute Mindy - can’t believe they have their own little son to dress up now!)  love y’all. 

Magic 8 Ball – easiest and warmest costume ever. I predicted peoples’ futures when they shook me. 

More on this year’s Halloween festivities in my next post.

for those of you coming here from runrunkitkat.blogspot.com ….. welcome to my new blog home.  isn’t it pretty?

thanks to my awesomely computerific husband, all i really had to do was find a layout i liked, make some minor tweaks (ie: my Seattle header) and he pretty much took care of the rest.  he’s savvy like that.  i <3 my geek.

i’m making a conscious effort to keep on keepin’ on with my blog posts during this transition.  but if you’ve missed anything, every single one of my old blog posts is now on this site [wow, i've been at this for 3 years], so feel free to catch up or jump in right now.  

i will still be keeping my previous style of posting random bits of my life and my running updates, so don’t fear (or hope for) any significant changes.

As I was running by the UW football stadium on Saturday morning, the air was permeated with the smells of bacon and the enthusiastic cheers and laughs of college students who sacrificed sleep for tailgating time.

It made me nostalgic for my days of college football tailgating. While I don’t miss it so much that I want to be out drinking beer and eating burgers with them, it did make me remember all the great memories I made with friends and fellow Wildcat fans during my 4.5 years at K-State. Tailgating was an important part of my college days– behavior I’ll never go back to– but something I have such fond memories of.

I especially recalled the morning several of us woke up at 4:30 am (unheard of for normal college students) to walk to the stadium and wait for an hour behind the barricades……sprint to the stadium gates…..stampede down the stairs to get prime spots….and then wait another 2 or 3 hours for the live broadcast of ESPN’s College Gameday from Manhattan, KS to begin. (yeah, this was back when our team was ranked in the Top 10…not so much the case in recent years)

I’m pretty sure my friends and I never got on tv, but who cares? We were part of a faithful following of crazy fans who devoted our Saturdays to supporting our team.

I went back through my photo albums for some good memories.

Tailgating before the 2000 Big 12 Championship vs. OU.

I was a cheerleader at heart. But I was too tall and about 30 pounds too heavy to make the real squad.

Junior year tailgating with girlfriends.

With my brother in his notorious I Eta Pi gameday apparel.

Hard to believe some of those were 8 years ago.

Eat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, K-S-U!

You know those little things you avoid talking about because bringing up that subject always ends in disagreements? (ie: I don’t talk to my husband for hours…yep, that’s me, totally passive-agressive)

That 800 pound gorilla sitting in the room?

The thing that you can’t seem to discuss without getting frustrated?

*hand raised real high*

Yeah.

We have one subject that we tiptoe around.

Her name is Silvia.

Todd talks about her every once in awhile, shows pictures of them when they were younger, smiles as he remembers all the wonderful times they had together. She was there for him in high school and college, he even moved her to Seattle when he got a job up here. She was perhaps his first love. I think our best man’s toast was more about her than me.

In the years that we dated, Todd started spending less time with her, and she eventually just sat by and stayed mostly out of the way. Never made a move to win back the title of his favorite girl.

But I know she’s still around. Sometimes he even reminds me just how close Silvia and I are in his ranking of favorite things. Thankfully I always rank just a wee bit above her.

Oh yeah, Silvia is a car.

You may think “Its just a car, why get so irrational over it?” Ah, yes, excellent question.

But to fully explain this, I’d have to go back in time to when my Dad began collecting his cars (no time for that- it would take an entire book to tell about all of his cars). And then my brother followed in his footsteps. I’ve seen the stress it causes my mother and sister-in-law. I never wanted that for myself.

But sometimes, things work out in ways you never wished for. I fell in love with a man who loves cars. Just like the other two favorite men in my life.

*sigh*

I suppose I could learn to love Silvia if I’d have the chance to actually go for a ride in her or drive her somewhere, but instead she has been locked in a storage unit for the past several years. Gathering mold. Going nowhere. She has no seats. No battery. And her rent is not cheap. I liken it to flushing your money down the toilet every month. What is the use in having a car that doesn’t run? Why not get rid of it? Touchy subject indeed.

This past weekend, much to my delight, we put Silvia on a trailer and hauled her off to Idaho where she can be close to her grandparents.

We can go visit her whenever we want, which makes Todd happy. And we’re paying 75% less each month for storage, which makes me happy. Perhaps we can put that money to good use and get her some parts.

And sell her. Muahahahahaaa!

I kid, I kid. I know how much he loves her. And as long as he loves me more, I’m fine if they stay friends and keep in touch every once in awhile..

I have recently become a huge fan of this website. Can’t remember how I discovered it, but it’s a slight addiction right now.

Kitten War

Even if you don’t like kittens so much (*cough* jamie), you have to admit this is pretty cute. I do feel bad having to make one of the kittens a ‘loser’, but like the site states “all our kittens are winners really…”.

I even submitted a picture of our beloved Miles McCool (may he rest in peace), but either it’s still pending approval or the judges have decided he isn’t ‘kitten’ enough.

After all, he was maybe 12 (he never would reveal his real age to us) when the picture was taken, so that would qualify him more for the ElderlyCats War if they had a website for that.

He’s still a winner in my heart. Look at that ornery face. Even in his last days he was a playful, happy dude.

Vote for Miles McCool in 2008!
[That's the most political you'll ever hear me be]

The real countdown is on.

30 days until the wedding. One month.

Which means 22 days until we load up the car and drive back to Kansas. Oddly enough, I’m really looking forward to that part. I think it will be a great pre-wedding stress reliever, driving through beautiful Washington, Idaho, Montana,Wyoming…South Dakota…Iowa…Nebraska…well, the beautiful scenery kinda starts to dwindle halfway through the trip but still, I’m looking forward to it. At least we won’t be driving a 17 foot UHaul pulling a car trailer, like we did on my move to Seattle last year.

No UHaul = faster driving, the ability to listen to music of our choice, less gas (not to mention, having to physically squeeze the gas pump handle while the truck filled up for 10 minutes) and not feeling like the engine is going to explode going down the mountain roads.

In the meantime, I keep running, packing up my apartment, and trying to enjoy this time while its here.

Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking….

Lately, I’ve found it difficult to find any time to do anything that I really need to do. My to-do list grows everyday and I can’t seem to get anything checked off. 39 days until our wedding, which means 31 days until we drive back to KS, which means I need more than 24 hours in a day.

I’m trying to focus on keeping myself healthy, getting rest, not getting stressed out, but it’s getting more difficult every day. I’m not happy at my job, so I’m stressed about what to do next. I’m maxed out with planning, but I should enjoy this time since it only happens once. I found myself recently succumbing to everything and sobbing my way down the street. I hate it when I’m in a weird funk. It’s not fair to Todd and it’s not healthy for me.

I do somehow manage to keep finding time for my gym classes and my running. It’s the best stress reliever I have. I’ve built my way back up to 5 miles, though at this point, I have no goals of running any races before October. There is a 10K in nearby Woodinville wine country in 2 weeks that I would like to do, but it’s also the morning that our friends are throwing us a couples’ shower. So I pick the shower fun over the 10K run, of course!

This past weekend I wrangled Todd into going with me to watch the Blue Angels perform. We took the bus to the Mt. Baker neighborhood above the I-90 tunnel and had some great views over the performance over Lake Washington. At some points, they even flew so close to use you could see the pilots (I think one winked at me). It was awesome! We caught some of the Sunday show while we were doing some shopping in SODO, so it was neat to get a different vantage point. I want to be an acrobatic pilot now.
Can’t wait until they’re back at SeaFair next year!