2011.

We've come to another year's end here at twelvedaysold, which was more sparse than last year.  My life in general was more sparse, but sometimes I need those quiet years.

Those of you who have been around for a while or have been reading through my archives (I love you), last year ended kind of sucky, with 2010 becoming kind of a douche.  I was a wee bit sad and stressed out.

After we found out about Jesse's diabetes last November, he immediately lost something like 40 pounds and now weighs less than me.  On the plus side (bah!), all the happy pounds I've gained since we got married have rounded out my butt quite nicely.  Whenever I'm around my mom for an extended (like my waistline) period of time she starts making everyone look at my butt and says, "Where did that come from?  Why don't I have a butt?"  Which always ends with my dad asking if we could please stop talking about my behind.

I went to jury duty, bought a bike, went on vacation, and purchased a video which became the best present ever for Jesse's birthday of a man dancing topless with "Happy b-day Jesse Bear" written on his stomach.

I told a lot of childhood stories, since I was a wee bit of a peculiar child, and I do a lot of embarrassing things.  I was watching an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive and one woman, after cleaning up almost her whole house, said something along the lines of, "This is how I get to help people, by sharing my story.  I don't know why it had to be hoarding, but by doing this I'm helping other people."  I'm kind of like that, with making a fool of myself.  It's okay if you do stupid things.  There's humor in there somewhere.

I talked about the broshay, and the time I thought we were "that family" when my dad told me he drowned a racoon in our backyard.  I admitted to thinking my overweight cocker spaniel was as fast as Superman, gagged while remembering the long-forgotten chocolate milk that exploded in my car, blushed while writing that I cut my eyebrows to look like Vanilla Ice's, and most recently I told you about when I was a kid and dropped trou in my bedroom and peed in a heater vent.

Cinnamon is doing well at the ripe age of 16 1/2 and doing well apparently requires sleeping a lot.

I did a good amount of knitting/crafting this year, including a lot of presents I never took photos of.  I also got VERY MAD at knitting.  Sometimes it's a love/hate thing.

I'm not a book worm, but I almost always have a book going.  I kept a list this year, and 18 books in 12 months sounds pretty good to me, even though I was a lazy bugger all of November and didn't read once (I mean, I read labels and signs and stuff.  I didn't avoid all printed words).

I got a little disappointed earlier this year as well, when I told my mom I was excited about turning 25 because I could be sold on Etsy as an antique.  Then she told me an antique on Etsy only needs to be 20.  There goes that joke, lame 25.  What am I going to do with you now.

So, good friends, family, active readers and lurkers, I hope 2011 wasn't too hard on you, and here's to a totally awesome 2012.

Also, I don't like when soap looks like real food.

Signing off from 2011,

K-dawg

It's Christmastime! Everybody start crying.

Some of you may know that Jesse and I get really into our Christmas cards.  I'm usually the one to spark the fire, coming up with an idea mid-February, but Jesse is the one that really gets it going.  I've only been blogging for a couple years, and I figured it might be a nice walk down memory lane to visit our old photographs.  All four of them.  Woah, I know, we don't have all day for four whole pictures, Katie.

The first year, we didn't have our photo taken.  I wrote once on how Jesse didn't like the holidays until I forced them down his throat and he was filled with Christmas cheer, and you can read about that right here.

The next year, I decided I wanted a dorky picture of us wearing Santa hats in ugly sweaters (with Jesse wearing a mullet wig) taken at Sears, because I had a coupon.  I made an appointment for the weekend.  We sat there with about 1 million screaming children and parents waiting for their picture to be taken, and they were over 2 hours behind schedule.  We decided to go home, me sweating with my jacket over my ugly sweater.  We asked the same friend who took pictures during our wedding to snap a couple for us and gave him the cash instead.

I'm sure my fancy pants graphic design student husband is now cringing that he let me do that writing in MS Paint, but oddly, that was the effect I was going for.  Also, Cinnamon sees into the future.  And nice bookcase.  Decorating is my something or other.

The other two I've posted before, but who doesn't like a little bit of redundancy of redundancy?

I know, CUT TO THE CHASE.

When Jesse was finished with the card, he emailed it to me, and I said, "Don't I look, you know, huge compared to you?"  "No.  It's perfect."

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and winter holidays in general.  Oh!  If you want a copy of our picture sent to you, say ROCKET SHIP in your comment and I'll choose an extremely lucky winner.  I'll count if even if it's not in caps, because I'm cool like that.

Peeter vent.

I figure it's time to talk about me peeing in a heater vent.  I've mentioned it a few times, but haven't told the story because I don't think it's that interesting anymore.  But I have been telling it for a long time.

From what I remember, this particular not-so-shining-moment in my life came about around the age of 8.  Something happened, however (namely extreme embarrassment and shame), and I didn't think about it again until I was 18.  Enter: Ms. Larsen's English class.

Sometimes in Ms. Larsen's class we had to sit in the front and give a speech, and by speech I mean talk about whatever we wanted to for 5 minutes.  During what I am sure was one of my many riveting speeches, I remembered this story out of the blue.

When I was 8, I got to move into my brother's old bedroom after he moved out.  My mother may tell me that this is wrong and correct me, because I don't remember this very well.  I actually don't remember much, if we're going to nitpick.  The timeline adds up though.

Since you may be wondering this later, the bedroom was literally right next to the bathroom.  There was a heater vent in the floor, and occasionally I would remove the vent and pull out the crap that had fallen in there.  Hair clips, army men, those type of things. 

One day I decided to pee in it.

I can't say for sure, but I do remember peeing in it a couple of times, perhaps multiple times that same day or over a couple of days.  I suppose the number of offenses doesn't matter after the first one.  An unknown amount of time later, my mother turned on the heater.

The house, of course, reeked of urine.  Apparently after doing some investigating my dad asked me, "Did you pee in the heater vent?" and I said yes.  He was so caught off guard that I did that, it being so bizarre and me so readily owning up to it, that I don't think I got in trouble.

(My sad little mind had changed the story over the years, and I thought I had blamed it on my sister's cat Sarah and that she wasn't allowed inside anymore. I figured I should add that since this is what I actually told my English class before I was corrected by my sister later when this was the only thing I talked about for 6 months.)

During the uproarious laughter in the classroom (which I'm sure is what was happening), someone asked me how old I was when this happened because I hadn't said it yet.  Jokingly, I said, "16."  Laughter, laughter.  "Just kidding, I was like 8."

Lucky for me, NOBODY HEARD THAT LAST PART.  Class was dismissed and people started saying things like, "You peed in a heater vent like two years ago??" "Hey Katie, we closed off all the heaters in the hall so you could come to the dance on Friday."

Anyway, here's a picture of me and my neice on Thanksgiving.  I told her to put her hands in her lap and look awkward.

I'm thankful for Jesse, my friends and family, my job, crafting, Christmas, Legally Blonde, and that I'm not in prison.  Also that I kicked that habit of peeing in heater vents, and that you read my blog to hear such bizarre childhood stories.

xxooXOxOOo,
Katie

I do not like the cone of shame.

Cinnamon had a boo-boo.

I didn't mention the old man recently on the blog, because when it comes to summer time, Cinnamon only comes inside to eat.  He is far too cool for his parents when it is sunny outside.

A couple Saturdays ago we came home and I saw something by his tail that I thought was a slug he had rolled on and squished.  Does this happen to other people's pets?  Perhaps it's an extra hairy cat/pacific northwest combination.  We've had to grab two slugs off him before (though, not dead. Just caught in cat hair). (Then again I bet most people don't get slugs in their shower, either.)  I tried to wipe it off so he could come inside and he FLIPPED OUT, making me think he was wounded, so I packed him up and took him to the vet.

Over the course of 45 minutes the wound became much, much worse as I watched in horror and I felt like the worst owner in the world.  Cinnabutt had an abscess that had to be flushed out.  (Insert collective "buhh.")  Buhh.

Since I already felt like the worst pet owner in the world, it didn't help when later I had to buy him a cone and everything he did with that cone on was hilarious.  He must have been doped up from his pain meds because he let me put that thing on without any hassle, purring the whole time with his big eyes on (his 'beetle eyes' as Susan calls them).  Then he kept walking backwards and taking the most exaggerated steps while looking up at me, confused, adding a pathetic "meow."

Then he climbed on my chest and pushed the cone up against my cheek, purring.  He seemed unsure as to why he couldn't reach my face so I put mine in front of his in the cone and he licked me, uncertain.

I took the cone off so he could eat (he tried to jump up, hit the side of his table, looked at me confused and meowed) and after that first night I was able to remove it and he hasn't been obsessively licking his freshly shaved butt, so everyone is happy.  Including my credit card company.

In other news, I went to the Yarn Harlot's book signing:

"I write humor.  I'm funny."

So what's new with you guys?  Lots of stuff?  Nothing?  Neighbors shooting guns in their apartment?  Go on.

"There's no crying at Disneyland." -- Jesse Bray

I'm going to talk about something that we seem to think is untalkaboutable.  That subject is:

For our second anniversary, Jesse and I decided to go to Disneyland.  We were flying down on a Tuesday, going to Disneyland on Wednesday, and flying back Thursday.  I especially liked how people asked, "Oh, you're going to Disneyland?  For how many days?"  "Just one."  "You can't just go for one day."  No one seemed interested in dropping an additional $148 for us to visit Disneyland for an extra day and pay for another night at a hotel, so we kept our original plans of a one day visit to Disneyland.  We weren't worried since we didn't have kiddos that couldn't go on rides or we would have to sit out with, etc.  We definitely knocked that place out in one day.

Flare those nostrils, Jesse!  Unfortunately, I wore a skirt that day.  I'm not a big skirt wearer and did not think about my sweaty thighs rubbing together and causing UTTER AND COMPLETE MISERY, and there was a point in front of the haunted mansion where I had to sit down for a second and have myself a little cry.  But if I hadn't had painful red disgusting thighs that day, we wouldn't have spent $40 on sweatpants that have Minnie Mouse on them for me.  I love you, Minnie Mouse sweatpants!  After we bought those and I changed in a disgusting restroom, we continued to have a very nice time and I no longer had to worry about sitting unladylike.

Next up we have Comic Con which I talked about in nauseating detail last year.

Ugh, looking at this picture disgusts me.  Jesse has lost like 40 pounds since he found out about his diabetes.  JESSE.  And your manly METABOLISM.

At one point in vacation time Jesse was saving seats for us in Hall H and I realize this may mean nothing to you, but that place is huge and my phone died when I was supposed to call him and see where he was.  I walked around aimlessly for probably about half an hour and there were NO PAYPHONES ANYWHERE.  I have never needed a payphone before, and suddenly I sorely missed it.  I finally realized I needed to ask someone to use their cellphone.  I shamefully walked around sizing people up to see who I should ask.  I decided on asking one of the Sailor Moons if I could use hers, and called my husband.  He told me where he was and I found him in Hall H and by the time I got to him I was a bit WEEPY, gosh Katie is such a GIRL, and Jesse got me nachos to make me feel better and this is literally a shot of me at the end of crying.

Post-crying Katie!  So refreshed and nachoed!

Which brings us to this year when we were in Phoenix last month.  YES THERE WERE TEARS, calm down, I'm not crying anymore.  I vaguely mentioned that I had us walk in the wrong direction for approximately a mile while trying to get to the car rental place.  The sad thing was, we took a bus, got off at the stop, walked a while, Jesse realized I had us going the wrong way, we turned around, and slowly I began to see that the bus had stopped us right in front of where we needed to be to get the car.  In 103 degree heat after walking for some time, Katie had a wittle bit of a meltdown, which was so super sexy, you should have seen it.  I was embarrassed and had a tiny bit of the heatstroke malfunctioning my inhibition unit which usually makes me refrain from crying.  I stopped by the time we were inside but by then the waterworks of my sweat glands on my FACE were going for a good 45 minutes trying to both cool me off and dehydrate me at the same time.  I guess I don't have a picture for this instance.

It's so nice not to have cactus on the mountain.

The two week vacation of 2011 has come to an end.  We had a great time in Arizona, and then a great time at home loafing last week.  Well, I loafed.  Jesse worked a few days while I sat at home and mod podged light switch plates and didn't shower.  Good times, good times.

So here is an obnoxious journey through our vacation with pictures and my blathering commentary.  I'm knocking this out in one post, so I apologize for the overabundance of photos and words, unless you just come here for the pictures and only look at those without reading the words on the screen.  Those of you are way ahead of me.

My wonderful parents drove us to the airport at 4 am on Saturday, and on second thought I'm going to show you the emails my parents sent me after I told them the time we had to get to the airport.  My mom had already volunteered them to drive us out there, and I offered to buy them donuts in return for the ride.

Dad said: "Mom was obviously just joking about taking you to the airport at 4:00 in the morning.  She is such a jokester, that mom of yours!  And your crack about buying us a couple of crummy doughnuts was pretty hilarious too."  He then included links for public transit and local taxis.  My mom quickly replied, "IGNORE him."

Also, I think my parents are a riot.

After a layover in San Francisco (we got cheap tickets, hence the layover.  Unfortunately we bought those cheap tickets 5 months ago so by the time the flight actually happened they had changed the layover from 40 minutes to three hours.  True story) we arrived in sunny Phoenix and Amy and Earl showed us around the town and stuffed our faces with delicious food.  

Sunday morning we went couponing with them (you can see the haul here, and by the way, we have gotten into couponing and Jesse and I actually enjoy grocery shopping together.  Just fyi) and then we all went to the GRAND CANYON!  (Enter fireworks and a YEEEAAAHHHH!)

Before seeing the Canyon we were met by a tarantula, like, in the wild.  I didn't even throw up on it or anything!  But I did say, "So are one of you going to squish it, or..." and then I had to remind everyone what a kidder I am and how I was totally kidding.  ("But really, no one's going to take care of that?")

The Grand Canyon was pretty spectacular, and to be honest, seemed fake.  It was very quiet out there and I'm pretty sure I could see a guy touching up the backdrop on some scaffolding.

Then they took us the long way back to Phoenix through Sedona which was absolutely gorgeous, but we didn't get many good pictures of.

Monday morning we decided to have an adventure with public transit to get our rental car which included me (that loser) making us walk for about a mile in 103 degree weather (but it's a dry heat!) and me being so embarrassingly sweaty that as I was standing at the counter and had my forearm resting on it, I left a pool of sweat that I tried to casually wipe away.  Phoenix + Katie = Super Sexy.

After getting the car and hotel all checked into (and setting the temperature in the hotel room to a balmy 65 degrees for the duration of our stay) we went out to lunch with Jesse's cousin Daniel.

I have no pictures of this.  But Daniel is very buff and manly looking, what with being an ex-marine, and I have pictures of him later when we grabbed coffee, just hold your horses.

Tuesday we trekked to Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, which was pretty interesting, however NOT priced correctly with their website.  In case you were going there and expecting Tuesdays to be considerably cheaper.  And look!  Pictures!

This was probably the most sweaty part of our trip since we had to spend so much time outside.  When we finally got into a room for a while, the guide talked about how normally that room is quite comfortable, but the A/C had gone out.  She kept looking at me and saying, "We'll be going to an air conditioned room soon" even though there were probably 20 more people to look at but I was the only one with sweat dripping down my hair onto my shirt while my bangs were matted to my forehead.

The tour was cool, and Frank Lloyd Wright had some interesting ideas.  His work with acoustics was pretty amazing, so if you're interested in architecture I definitely think the Taliesen West is well worth the visit.

Wednesday we decided to head out to Tombstone, which neither of us knew was in Arizona until Amy and Earl were telling us places to visit a couple days before.

My boobs in real time, Tombstone, AZ.

Tombstone was interesting, but I will say it left a little to be desired.  We probably walked past close to 20 gift shops and we were both admittedly expecting to be wowed and have a little bit more of an experience, almost like a theme park. That may sound ridiculous but I feel the need to inform others who read my blog and are thinking of visiting Tombstone, which is like everyone, right?  We also went on a quiet Wednesday, and maybe it's a little more hoppin' on the weekends.  That aside, we visited the Rose Tree Museum which had some great history, not to mention the freak rose tree in the back that was pretty spectacular.  We then went through the mines, where I got to wear a hard hat!  Well, everyone did.

Then we hung out with a dinosaur that we had seen at a McDonalds on our drive to Tombstone.  There was also a giant grasshopper.

Next up we went to Cracker Barrel where I did something I've always wanted to do.

I saw the people next to us hardly ate their appetizer.  So when they left, I...well, I ate some of it.

Oh, also, we pumped our own gas, which I was unreasonably happy to do.  In case you don't know this, Oregonians do not pump their own gas.  We have gas station attendants, and yes, I love it.  It rains a lot here.  But I do enjoy doing it myself when I'm on a trip.  Actually, the first time I left the state by myself I forgot that I had to pump my own gas and thought the guy sitting in the station was just being a jerk.  I sat in the car so long while we stared at each other and I thought he was going to come out that I drove away to another station when my friend realized we were in Washington and I was too embarrassed to stay there.  I just drove away.

Anyway, on Thursday we had a lazy day where we actually did some laundry at the hotel.  We are normally light packers and we realized that we didn't have enough summer clothes anyway, so we just washed them there.  Then we went in search of a comic book shop for Jesse and a yarn store for me, and Jesse fell in love.

He even contemplated buying a $10 box of comics to then turn into carry on, thereby making it a $35 box of comic books, and that my friends did not happen.  He got a giant Mongol figurine, and I am again talking about superheros and super villains as though I have any idea what is going on.  At the yarn store I purchased some yarn for a table runner (that yarn is crazy town, I'll show it to you when it's finished).

Friday we went to a restaurant called Centurion for our 4th visit that week.  That place was bananas, and you should go there if you are visiting Phoenix.  The chef is a crazy nice guy and he will serve you a great meal.  Amy blogs about that place all the time, and she is not lying about how great it is.  Fabius the centurion was out front, which of course we loved.

Friday afternoon we went to the Phoenix Art Museum where we immediately got in trouble for taking a picture of something we shouldn't (I was mimicking a nude statue) (I was clothed, btw) but the guy was very nice and told us what to look for if we couldn't take a photo.  That place was HUGE.  Definitely a good pick if you normally like art museums and galleries in general.

Then we went to Dutch Bros where Daniel works and got some coffee before we went to the Diamondbacks game.  Enjoy the nice clear shots of his face.

Chase Field was pretty cool, especially when I got to watch the top open up.  I felt a little bad for my dad when the Giants lost (his favorite team), but it was pretty great game.  Says the person who doesn't know anything about sports.

Amy and Earl are pros about hiding from the camera.  I barely got this picture.

The next morning we had some delicious breakfast and then started our 11 hour journey from airport to airport and plane to plane.  The way back was supposed to be an hour and a half layover that became 4 hours.  Another true story of woe and sadness including having to spend almost TEN DOLLARS on the smallest bottle of Aleve in an airport.

It was a pretty great trip.  We were more than happy to be greeted with rain last week after having such a warm vacation in Phoenix.  Oh, and!

We rented a Fiat, which we did not know would be a Fiat, because we were told repeatedly it would be a Chevy Aveo (been there, done that, would you like to buy some other useless thing while you're here at the car rental place and there are more taxes to that than when you got your reservation and I have a bigger car for you to rent for only bla bla bla more and I don't listen and meeee mee MEEEEE).  Anyway.  I am so over car rental places.  But everyone (everyone) loved our Fiat, which we had never heard of, being the car fanatics that we are.

That is the story of vacation tales and lazy days.  To all of those people who notice that I regularly comment on your blog and that I have been very, very absent, my google reader is a scary place right now and it will take me some time, but have no fear of long sentences, I am coming to comment!  It'll just take me a while.  Thank you for tuning in to the latest episode of twelvedaysold, and don't forget to wear sunscreen.