Joey: Here's a little tip, she really likes it when you rub her neck in the same spot over and over and over again until it starts to get a little red.

Calm down, I'm here.

Things have been blissfully uneventful, and sometimes that's just what I need.  I need the steady pace of a cat meowing outside my door at four in the morning and a husband that stays cute and draws things. (Here's a link to his blog with some new designs he's done, go check it out!)

I've made/fixed up a couple things, so here are pictures:

TABLE RUNNER

CAT TREATS LID

I put glitter on the cat treats lid, and was trying to find a good angle to showcase the glitter when someone in the background didn't like that I was just holding the jar and not getting down to business.

KEY RING

In other boring, grown up news, 2011 is becoming THE YEAR THAT SUNSHINE FORGOT.  Us Portlanders have stopped complaining about the crummy weather and just started shaking our fists and then hanging our heads in despair.  I'm knitting mittens, for crying out loud.  It's almost June.  I've been reading all these Australian blogs and am starting to feel like maybe we're on the other side of the equator.  I'll be spending my Memorial Day weekend nesting and finishing good books.  I should be nesting and finishing good books and saying, "We really should be outside."

This summer is going to be eventful though, with SOCK SUMMIT in July (w00t!) and then a super secret vacation to go and see my friend Amy.

Also, if you're going to Sock Summit, let me know!  I'll be there Saturday July 30th (a mere two days after my man turns 29 and after 48 hours of me going "I'm only 24, neener!").  I'd love to meet up (or ruthlessly avoid, BE HONEST) and I can give you some pointers about things in the Portland area.  And by "pointers" I mean I'm going to tell you the worst way to get somewhere and then when you're hopelessly lost on public transit and you send me a desperate text message, I'll only reply "?".

Anyone need a set of dishes?

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" "I think you can in Europe."

Me:  Are you ready to go?
Jesse:  Yes.
Me:  Where are your shoes?
Jesse:  Hey, you're the one knitting by the front door.  Like a crazy person.


This crazy person has been finishing a lot of projects recently, including a new pair of fingerless gloves for Jesse.

Oh, and peoples be asking me 'cuz they curious about my bike fund affairs and, no.  No one has wanted those dishes that I put up on Craigslist.  This is definitely the longest I have ever put something on Craiglist without giving up.  Usually after the first day I've lost all hope and change the listing to free so it gets out of our house.  I once put up a dress for $30 and two days later I made it $5.  Patience is my something or other.


And here?  Is my prom picture with my friend Alex and my feet.  I mentioned it in this post.

I was wearing these strappy shoes that made me taller than Alex, so I asked him if he wanted me to take them off for the photo.  He said he didn't care.  And I, for some reason unknown to me, thought my feet wouldn't show up in the picture anyway.


I think I've built up the whole foot thing, because it really wasn't a big deal, but who, really, who is barefoot in a prom picture?  Here's a quote from Susan about the whole foot thing.  "Your feet don't look funny, they look ugly. Which is much worse. And it's weird because you normally have nice looking feet."

REEE REEE REEE

6y


That 6y was brought to you by your favorite online fluffball, Cinnamon.  Here is an old photo of him when he was just a wee boy.  And when I was just a wee girl and my photography skills were bangin'.

No, I'm serious, I actually won a camera because of a picture I took in first grade.  There were two categories to win from, one of which I don't remember and then one that was like "pensive".  I had no idea what that meant, so I submitted a picture I took at the beach.  I didn't win the pensive category, but wouldn't that have been a much more interesting story?


Here's a pensive one for you.

Shoot.  I guess I was going for thoughtful.

Baby, when I met you for the first time I knew. We were meant to be as oooooone.

Jesse said he'll always remember the fateful day we met.  Love at first sight, he says.  He knew he would be adopting me and giving me my "forever home".

And it looks like I was on sale.

You know, it's my behavior in pictures like this that made my mother hate it when my dad and I were together in public.  Something about being immature.  Or something.  Waa waaaa.

I'm still saving up my pennies to buy a bike, but I want you to know that that cute husband of mine totally tried to get me to buy a bike online with a CREDIT CARD.  I know, right?!  This guy!

Annie, who is a dedicated follower, yet I have never mentioned her before because I'm a horrible person, sent me this beauty.

Not like, sent me a bike, but sent me a link.  It's the thought that counts, really.  I mean, look at it.  My gosh, it's gorgeous.

An old friend from high school is now following me, and his name is Alex.  Alex and I went to his junior prom together, where he very romantically said something like, "I need a date to prom.  Can you come?"  I'm going to find the picture from that prom and post it, and Susan is already giggling because my feet look funny in that picture.  Actually, I just realized that my date to my senior prom was equally as wooed by me as I was wooed by Alex when I said to him, "Sean, I need someone taller than me to be my date to prom.  Want to be my date?"  A way with words, we have.

And a pretty girl named Megan is following me.  I do not know anything about her.  So let's make something up.  Megan is from Idaho, yet she's been spending the last three years in Paraguay finding herself.  She had a short romantic interest in handsome Andrès, a doctor.  Things fizzled out towards the end, what with him being a busy doctor and her teaching children English.  But recently she found Louis, a Scottish biologist who was spending a vacation in Paraguay after grad school.  He just went back to Scotland, and Megan is trying to get back in the states so she can get things arranged to move out to the UK.  Because, guess what?  Even though they only knew each other three weeks, they're engaged!  Oh it's so exciting.  The lives my followers lead.

They see me rollin', they hatin'.

I have a new follower!  Katie at The Philosphy of KLo.  Except my name is already Katie, so I'm going to call her something else.  Like Shannon.  Welcome, Shannon!

I definitely don't have anything exciting to share, so I will talk to you about how I want a new bike.

"Shocks, pegs...lucky!"


Why don't they make adult bikes with a banana seat?

I'm actually looking for something more like this because I'm a boring grown up:

Except in some gaudy, hideous color because that's what I like.  What I'm really here to talk about though, is how I feel like a kid because I'm saving up for a bike.  Do you know how long it's been since I saved up for something?  We're staying away from using credit cards because I'm planning a gargantuan road trip later this year and don't care for that looming thing known as a credit card payment.  Thorn in my side.

I've been saving up whatever outside money I can (not dipping into our weekly budget) for my sweet new ride, including a $15 check from Washington county for my jury duty service.  I'm still waiting for a rebate check from my windshield wipers.  If that last sentence doesn't sound like the epitome of what every teenager never wants to talk about when they become an adult, then I just don't know what does.

I'm also doing something I loathe, which is selling things on Craigslist.  Or, more accurately, putting things on Craigslist and nobody buying them.  I'm not selling my garbage or anything, it's just becoming painfully obvious that me (the seller) and Craigslist viewers (the buyer) have something in common:  neither of us want those dishes.

Here is a photo of my large head and my unnecessary urge to smile as large as I can in photos.  Oh, and Jesse.

Oh, right, JESSE!  For those of you interested, a while back we found out Jesse has type 2 diabetes, and we went in for his follow up blood test two days ago.  His blood sugars are reeeally close to pre-diabetic levels!  This is really great news.  And, we have not spent any quality time with Jillian Michaels lately, either.  That means we've been terrible about exercising.  Just imagine what he could accomplish with his blood sugars if we actually started exercising.  He could be a hero.  He could go from diabetic to SUPER HUMAN.  Or maybe just a fit guy.

Stay classy,

Katie Westside

Justice is blind.

Veterinarian: Justice is fine.
Michael : Great.
Veterinarian: Although, dressing him up like a seeing eye dog seems a bit cruel.
Michael: Cruel?
Veterinarian: Well, yeah because he can't see.
Michael: What are you talking about?
Veterinarian: Mr. Bluth... Justice is blind.

The last time I went to jury duty, I got interviewed for a jury.  They were asking all these questions and then they'd look at their sheet and be like "Mmmmm, Mister So-and-so?  How do you feel about that?" and I would go, oh crap, I gotta pay attention, I have NO IDEA what they just asked.  And then a minute later I'd hear them ask another juror what they thought and then repeat my last reaction.  It was a fun morning.

Then we got released for a long lunch which helped me a lot seeing as I didn't live on that side of town.  But my eye had been killing me all morning.  So I went out to Ford Escort #2, pulled out my contact and saw a huge rip in it.  For those not contact savvy, that means the contact had an early death.

Now, this may surprise some of you, but I have horrible vision.  Jesse likes to play the game "Can Katie See My Expression" if I'm not wearing glasses or contacts.  Or, more funly "Can Katie Read That Giant Sign With The Huge Letters What's Wrong With Her She Is Lame".  So going with one contact the rest of the afternoon was exciting to say the least.  Oh, and they didn't choose me for the jury.  But I will always remember (I hate when people say that, "I will always remember ____".  And here I am) the look on the lady's face in the front row of potential jurors.  They started releasing jurors they didn't want, from left to right, front to back row.  They let everybody but one woman out of the front row and I remember when they got to about the third row, she looked back and realized they were letting people go systematically and that she had been selected.  Oh, that look of horror on her face.  It was beautiful.

Anyway, I was sent home again last Friday and I got a lot of reading done.  Oh, BUT KNITTING NEEDLES WEREN'T ALLOWED!  I know, right?  I wasn't sure about crochet hooks, but my crochet chops aren't up to making anything more than those flower fridgies I made a while ago.  Have I been all over the place with this post?  Sorry.

I have no new pictures to show you, so I will post one of my favorite pictures ever.  It's from the World Beard and Mustache Championships, and I want to have an 8x10 print of it made and framed for my house.  More details later.