Year Twenty Three

Let me start by apologizing to all my readers for being unfashionably absent from the blogosphere for the past two months. My life has been turned upside down on itself, leaving me a little out of my element and with so many thoughts, I don’t know if anyone out there could make any sense of it.

But with a recently past birthday, I thought what better time for new beginnings.

Twenty three is not one of those years that you hear people say, “That’s a great year.” In fact, after twenty one, you hardly hear that. But twenty three was a good year for me, and because much of the goodness happened away from my blog, I’ve decided to share some of the highlights:

May-June 2008: This is a little before my birthday … but I’m counting it. I officially graduated from undergrad. I had actually finished classes the previous December but couldn’t walk with my fellow graduates (Who schedules graduation 4 days before Christmas … UNLV). Had a huge party at Mat’s parent’s house. This was the first meeting of our families. And the first time I was tipsy in front of my family … yes that is a highlight!

July 2008: Mat and I traveled to Indiana to attend the two-day Dave Matthews Band festival with many of his back-home friends. We camped, got inebriated and watched and listened to great music.

September 2008: I met my new bff Liz.

October 2008: Pumpkin carving party at the house. Many of our friends came. We ate pizza, drank spiked apple cider, and carved some amazing pumpkins. I love my friends. Some of them have moved away, and I miss them!

November 2008: Mat and I went to New York together. I went for work; Mat tagged along. Maybe the greatest three days of my life. It was a much needed trip for our relationship. I loved New York. It was the first time I had ever been to the city, and I hope not my last.

November 2008: I started my blog: JustMeInMyTwenties

December 2008: I truly feared for my job.

February 2008: Mat and I both got acute pneumonia. Quite possibly the most pathetic days of our lives.

February – May 2009: Mat and I decide to look for a house to buy together. This was a long, frustrating, tearful process, but is soon to end with a very positive outcome – we hope.

April 2009: Mat and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We lived it up at the Stratosphere!

April 2009: I traveled to Montreal, Canada and Dusseldorf, Germany for work. Had a great time. Experienced new places. And even though I had to leave Mat and my animals at home, I got to see them every night, thanks to Skype.

May 2009: Mat and I go from an almost 2,000 square-foot house to a 10x10 room. We moved out of our subleased rental house that we spent the last year in together and into his parent’s house. Things are not bad. But I miss my animals so much and all my stuff and space.

June 2009: Mat and I find a house. Closing date is July 20th. Cross your fingers that everything works out.

June 2009: I start training for a half marathon with my sisters. I have run over 50 miles this month. That is probably more than all the miles I have run/walked, up till this point, in my life combined.

June 25th 2009: I turned 24. Looking forward to another great year!

I know there are so many other events that happened in my twenty-third year, but these are main ones that come to mind. I feel really lucky that this past year was full of good friends, good music, good goals and good times in general.

I don’t want to jinx anything but I feel like the years keep getting better and better. I make better and closer friends who have become my family. I learn from my mistakes and try to be a more complete Katie. One of the most important goals for me is to constantly evolve. To have a good idea what my likes are; dislikes are; what my style is and what makes me happy. It doesn’t matter if the list is cohesive or not. I just want to be content, strong and secure, emotional, physically and mentally. I would be lying if I said that aging does not scare me a little. It does. But the solace in aging is that I like what I see.

Here's to a great twenty-fourth year.

Monday morning music

Monday morning music has turned into Monday lunchtime music. Got caught up this morning and just couldn't get to it. But I didn't want to skip it all together, as this video and group has been on my mind a lot over the past few weeks.

Royksopp was introduced to me by the boyfriend who found them on Pandora. The music and videos have now become a standard in our house. It's just so cool and different. This video in particular just makes me happy. I know there are references to some video game throughout it, but that is not my forte. So I can't say much about that, except that the boyfriend has told me on several occasions that this has something to do with a video game, which one, I can't even remember.

Anyway - check out more Royksopp. You won't be disappointed.

Monday morning music

Another Monday, and here's a video I love. Christopher Walken is just as interesting and funny to watch as he is to listen. Hope this helps start your week off right.

A table only a mother could love

Two days ago I sold this table to a couple that responded to my craigslist ad. I had it listed for a few weeks. First at $100, then after a week of no interested buyers $75. So, when I finally got a call I was a bit relieved. But more than relieved, I was sad.

This table was a special piece of furniture. It was the first piece of furniture I acquired while on my own. A classmate my second semester of school gave it to me. Her name was Shelia - a cute little lady probably in her late 50s early 60s. Shelia and I became pretty good girlfriends. She told me all about her life and I told her all about my roommate's and my wild and crazy apartment adventures. I told her about our fine furnishing, which consisted of a cardboard box and a tent in our front room in order to use up some of our space. After hearing all my stories I think she was torn between three distinct feelings toward me (1) I think I reminded her of her youth (2) I'm sure she felt sorry for my lack of well everything and (3) I'm fairly certain she thought I was crazy. The feeling sorry for me part won. She offered to give me, for free, a dining set that her sister and husband were getting rid of. I promptly went over to her house to see the table. And it was truly a treasure.

What stood before me was a 1970s brown-tinted glass-top table with four beige leather chairs. And the fixtures were light-stained wood and brass tubing. The glass was cut in an octagon, giving any room a little geometric flair!

I loved this table. This table moved with me to all of my apartments thereafter - my studio; the boyfriend's and my loft and then the house. It wasn't always being used; it was often in storage. But I could never get rid of it. We moved it from the garage into the house for our Halloween pumpkin carving party last year. And we never moved it back. Instead we gave it a semi-permanent home in the kitchen even though we already had a nice kitchen table. And when anyone came over instead of sitting at our nice table, everyone congregated around the 1970s table.

Well, I decided to sell my little vintage table. The boyfriend and I are moving soon, and most likely we will be moving into storage. So we don't want to have to move, store and then move again anything we aren't going to end up using. But I was determined to find the perfect owner for this table. I wanted to find some cute person who loves vintage items. And who would find this table just as special as I found it. Is that too much to ask? I just wanted this table - that has really accompanied me through my adult life - to have a good home and good owner that would appreciate all its 1970s flair!

Said person was not found. I'm sure the table has a good home and fine owners now, but I'm sad that the perfect person didn't come-a-callin'. I'm sad that I totally sold out and sold my table for a measly 65 bucks. But the good news is that I sold the table, and I think I sold the table to a couple that needs a table. Maybe the love and appreciation for that fine piece of furniture will come in time.

Monday morning music

I guess this music video was pretty popular a few months ago. But I just recently discovered it and have fallen in love with it.

Monday morning music

This video is awesome! And I love that the guy uses proper grammar to relay the fact that he cannot play the drums or the piano (end of video: "I can neither play the drums nor the piano.") But he must have some kind of musical training because the song itself is pretty amazing. Hope you like it too!

Word on Weightloss: Month 2

February was a tough month. Not only was it shorter, but this month had a couple celebrations for me - Valentines Day and Mat's birthday. That's two out of the three weekends that were not easy.

Even though I did have a few special events - and special events always include food around here - I was still fairly successful. This month I lost 7.8 pounds, for a total of 13.

I can't see too much of a difference. But I have noticed differences in some of my clothes. Like the fact that I don't have to do squats when I put on my jeans after they get out of the dryer. I can definitely feel a difference in the waist of my pants, and the mid section of my shirts feel a bit more loose. There is also a bit more room right above my knees in my jeans.

I am still not working out. Although I have been itching to run again. The only good thing about not working out has been that I haven't lost much weight in my boobs. The first time around, that is were I lost all my weight. My boobs seriously went from a D to a B. It was so sad. And the boyfriend was quite depressed. My boobs have since grown back into a C, and I don't really care to lose them again. I used to always say, "I wish I could lose weight in my thighs and ass, and not in my assets!" I'm sure once I start running again, the boobs will shrink. Oh well, I know it's worth it. Boob implants are cheap!

I feel really good about this month. I had all these celebrations and was still able to lose weight. I feel like this time around I am able to see the bigger picture. This really is a a lifestyle change. And I think the first time around, I was so perfect with the plan and worked out at least 5 times a week that there was really no way that I could have maintained that throughout my life. Things happen. Life happens. And I was so stressed about life happening the first time around. I couldn't enjoy celebrations. The only things that were not so picture perfect were my weekends. I would be perfect all week; go to my meetings Saturday morning and weigh in and then be horrible the rest of the weekend.

Things have definitely changed. I would say that I am conscious everyday. I give into my cravings on a daily basis, there's no doubt about that. But I'm more reasonable about it now. I have three tootsie rolls everyday instead of the whole bag on Saturday. I can enjoy myself at a restaurant or at celebrations, but I now will look up the restaurant's menu and nutritional values before we go. And I can try to practice portion control (although still my biggest weakness).

I have about 10 more pounds until I reach my goal with Weight Watchers, but I have decided that I want to set a new goal. After talking to my mom about her body type and really analyzing my first time around at Weight Watchers, my new goal is 135. Crazy I know - especially after all the "being realistic talk" above. But it's not that I'm not being realistic, I just want to have something to really work toward. And if I ever got to that point, I can only imagine the self confidence I would build. So I think it's a worthy goal. And I have decided that after I reach my WW goal, I am going to train to be a leader, and I am really looking forward to that!

*Camera is being funny. So no picture this month.