2 hours

How on earth can it feel like I have been at work for 36 hours straight and I still have 2 hours left?...actually i have 1 hour and 55 minutes left but who is counting - right?

Since I am quite annoyed that i am still sitting at my desk when lots of other "funner" things could be happening, I want to take advantage of this little bit of time to point out that a big part of me sort of hates short weeks that follow long weekends. There is nothing short about a short week when you set your hopes all high and figure that 4 days is going to be so much better than 5. It never is for me. Four days always feels like 8 and you never get a 4 day week when you have a light work load.

Don't get me wrong....I still loved and appreciated the spectacular long weekend. I am just bitter now that I am heading into a 2 dayer....and I NEED a 5!

Lots of important stuff to attend to this weekend. We are officially moving a week from Monday (possibly Sunday if these peeps are turbo movers) and I have a boatload of boxes to pack. Luckily, unlike the Florida to Ohio move I don't really have to worry about things breaking in transport. There will not be any bubble wrap or 1,000 mile distances to travel in a U-Haul...everything will just have to be thrown together nicely enough to survive about 5 stop lights.

P.S>Writing about the last move just made me think of how many places i have lived throughout my 25 years.... just in case you were curious:
I was born in Menomonee Falls Wisconsin, moved to Oahu Hawaii, then to Anaheim Hills California, then i went to college in South Bend Indiana, then I moved back to California, then I moved to Jacksonville Florida (where i had one false alarm move to West Palm where we even put our house up for sale, but decided to stay put), then we moved to Fairlawn Ohio and now i am moving to Bath Ohio (5 stoplights down the road) which is super cute. Wow - Look at me! I have been all over the place lately.....but looking forward to settling in for a long time.

My heart stopped...

So I could try to make this into a funny story but in reality...it wasn't funny. For a few seconds this morning I thought I was going to be murdered. I woke up, turned on the tv to watch the today show, said goodbye to Pat, locked my front door when he left, and got into the shower about 10 minutes later. I toweled off, hung up my towel, and walked into my bedroom (naked) only to find a MAN standing in the doorway of my bedroom that I obviously had never seen. I'm not joking...it was like my biggest fear came true. I am forever thinking that i will be washing my face in the shower, soap in my eyes, and when i rinse them off and open my eyes again there will be a killer standing in my bathroom looking at me. Even though I have thought about this a million times I never thought it would actually happen.

This event gave me maybe the worst feeling I have ever had in my entire life. I screamed as loud as I could and my stomach instantly started burning- the guy turned away and moved down the hall so I ran and slammed my door. As soon as I stopped screaming he yelled to me that he was only there to fix my air conditioning.

I do have a broken air conditioning so this made sense....but what I did not have was any kind of call from my landlord letting me know that he had scheduled someone to be in my house at 7:45 am!!!! I am seriously so mad at the landlord right now I am fuming.

It isn't so much that the guy saw me very very naked....It is more the fact that i was terrified (even though it really only lasted a few seconds before things got cleared up). I had absolutely no idea that anyone would be there and to walk out to a bearded man with a huge flashlight in your bedroom - That is not cool.

One more reason why it is absolutely time to move the eff out!

so sad.

Did anyone else finish watching the Jon and Kate Plus 8 premiere feeling drained and absolutely devastated? I turned the tv off hoping that the next morning there would be a press release saying that the season has been postponed or cancelled so that they could work their issues out privately. Unfortunately that has not happened and things really aren't looking good. All week I watched the previews - hoping that the uncomfortable and very separate couch interviews were just dramatizing the situation - and when the show actually aired I was hoping that they would say that they are still in love....at a rough place...but working on it. That so didn't happen and even though I am not surprised I am still bummed for them.

I have long maintained that I feel like Kate was a great mom and a bad wife. I guess I probably shouldn't pass judgement or act like I know them, but the show has made me really aware of how hard it seems like marriage gets once you bring kids into the equation. Obviously when you only focus on your kids (as they both stated like100 times) your marriage is going to suffer...and guess what - Then your kids end up suffering too, and that just can't be the case.

So long story short, last nights show really made me think about what I want my life to be like (and my marriage) in the years to come. When I do have some kids I want to know that date nights will still happen and that we are both ready take on all of the shared responsibilities of parenting and providing for a family....even when things on't go according to plan.

In closing, I would also like to say "thank you" to reality tv for making me evaluate my life and the standards I plan on enforcing in my marriage. You (reality tv) have made me realize that waiting to have a baby so that my husband doesn't freak out and have a midlife crisis - ultimately deciding that he hates my guts - is probably a good idea.

what a fab weekend!

I had a great weekend and there is no picture evidence to prove it unfortunately. Instead you get "my words." (stop cheering...I know it is exciting). Anyways, I think Lebron set the pace for this fabulous weekend with his last second ridiculous 3 pointer to beat Orlando at the buzzer on Friday night. Clint and Tara were in town and we all watched the game at the O'Briens. Of course, Mrs. OB made a delicious 35 course dinner beforehand.

Saturday was fun, too. We went to Pat's little brother's golf tournament and discovered the Ohio equivalent of Mt. Kilimanjaro when we got to the third tee. I mean seriously there was a mountain that we had to climb just to see him. I purposely lagged behind Pat so he could not hear how hard I was breathing. but in my defense I have NEVER seen anything like this on golf course. It was gorgeous outside though so i guess it was worth the hike. After golf, we went to this super fun little market that I love and Pat hates. There are wine tstings constantly, delicious cheese samplings galore, a little band of old men that walks around playing music and a wonderful bakery. The whole reason for the trip was to get these amazing brownies to bring over to the people we bought our house from. We had been invited to the house for a sort of orientation and i felt bad going empty handed. Afterall, these people are "giving" (yeeah right "giving" my ass) us their house. j/k. So I collected thebrownies in my allotted 30 second timeframe and moved on to the house! The people we bought it from are soooo darn cool and nice. They absolutely didn't have to invite us overl, but it was so appreciated to get all of the cleaning tips, find out where the secret hidden sprinkler system was, they introduced us to neighbors and the lady even showed me her adorable new shoes that she had bought that morning ("just becasue they were so hot"). The couple is moving to Atlanta and I for sure 100% expect to see this lady on Real Housewives of Atlanta next season. She is a total diva and I want to be her friend....the husband is pretty much exactly like Pat too!

Sunday, all of the boys went golfing again and I met my friend Melissa and her friend Jackie for a walk. It is amazing how many gorgeous wooded walking trails there are. This particular one has a creek, it is 2 minutes from my new house, and 4 miles long. It is my 100% goal to start jogging that thing regularly in the summer. After walking I went out to do a little shopping and found the greatest place ever. It was like a mini Roger's Gardens (if you are from California) and they serve unbelievable margaritas on the weekends. Who knew looking at plants could be so fun!

Monday was uneventful - but soooo appreciated! Can you imagine if we had 3 day weekends on a regular basis? I feel so rested....and I don't feel cheated like work has consumed my life this week. Why isn't this just the standard? I know everyone agrees with me. I spent a lot of Katie time on Monday and decided that i was going to figure out a way to have my own little apartment BBQ to close off the weekend. This is hard without a grill, but i figured it out. My panini maker came through like a champ and delivered some AWESOME shishkabobs a-la-my favorite! This time I used center-cut sirloin, onions and pepers marinated in just Ketchup, soy sauce and garlic. So simple but it really was so good! Try it - k?

Hope you all had good weekends too! ....in case you haven't realized we also have a short week and we can wear white pants now! I am stoked!

Sweet Summertime....

This picture epitomizes summer for me...and if you are wondering "who is that adorable little blondie getting off of the hammock in front of corn fields"...It's Pat! How freaking cute is this picture ????

It is supposed to be in the 80's today so I am going to do my best to recruit some friends to find an outdoor patio someplace for lunch...it is always good to pretend that you aren't really working midway through summer work days. Outdoor lunches are the only things that get me through :)

I am not patient...

I am many things and "patient" is not one of them.

In a lot of ways I am still very much like a kid when it comes to patience. For instance on Christmas morning I still wake up prior to 7am, wake up my brother ( i guess Pat now too), then I go on to the much larger task of waking up my sisters so that we can all run downstairs and see what Santa brought us. Or in other examples of me being impatient ...if i get a chip in my nail polish while i am at work, I cannot wait until i get home from work to fix it or take off the rest of my nail polish. I scratch all of it off right away (not that that looks better - believe me I know)but i just can't seem to wait.

The moral of the story is: It is amazing- I am 25 years old and I am incapable of waiting for anything really!

Much like this Christmas morning scenario - I am finding it impossible to patiently wait for the day that we get to move into our house. Oddly, we already own the house, but the previous owners are renting it back from us until their kids are done with school for the year. At the time of negotiations this idea sounded fine and I figured it was the thoughtful concession to make just so long as we got the house, but now I go to bed thinking "seriously, how important is 3rd grade? I am sure the kid could skip out on the last 3 weeks - I want to live in my house d@m*&"

I am so not being patient with this one :)

We have so much to do and so much to look forward to and I really cant wait to get the show on the road. Every time I see that one commercial where the girl goes into her closet with all of her friends in her new house and screams (then all of the boys go into a giant refrigerated beer room and scream also) I begin to fantasize about the actual day when i can go into my new closet and scream like crazy too...... and seriously just wait until you see this closet I am talking about...the previous owners BUILT ON to their house to accomodate the ridonculous clothing and shoe collection they both possesed. It has an island ...it will soon have a chandelier....and I will have about 600 hangers worth of new reasons to go shopping! But just to add insult to injury - the closet that is now housing my clothing just broke. The bottom rack pulled out of the wall and I can't hang anything on it. It is time to go....time to move on to the new casa, and i am hoping that for some reason that date (June 8th) comes quickly!!!!

Remember when I went to Florida for Easter?

well the pics arew finally up. Here is our afternoon cocktail sesh from day 1. I obvi enjoyed mine thoroughly. Nothing better than Margaritas on the porch at my parents :)

Pat fished off of the dock the first night we were there and caught this lovely fish. Ignore the blood and this is a pretty cute pic.

Day 2: my parents drove us out to this little Island (that obvi has a light house) off of Ft. De Soto Beach. We dropped anchor, ate lunch, jumped off of the boat, and pretty much just chilled all day. P.S. 3 weeks later I am still sort of tan.

The captain and First Mate (of the boat tenatively named "Judy's Booty"....although I am not sure Judy will ever actuall be on board with that)

Moi and the Mom!

My Dad... I love this picture of him

We went to some fun little beach bar that night and my Dad unveiled his ridiculously amazing skills for getting a little metal ring to grab onto a hook. Until this night I had never seen anyone succeed...my dad did it like 4 times.

Pat was not quite as successfull (Dad 4 - Pat 0)....but we still had tons of fun. Can't wait to go back!

Caaaa-uuuute!

Okay - I hate geese a lot- But even I thought this was cute! I stopped by panera for one of those delicious breakfast sandwiches they have ( i get mine with egg, white cheddar cheese and tomato)...then took my usual shortcut behind Lowe's to get to work and this was what i saw. I am pretty sure that it is some kind of Goose preschool and the 2 parent geese are actually teachers becasue I have only seen a max of 2 little goose chickies (gosslings??) with all of the other mother geese. There are 8 here????

ANyways just thought it was a fun picture to post - so here you go :)

Last night I played doctor....

....with MYSELF. weird huh?

I didn't actually play doctor. It was more like dress up and It was Grey's Anatomy's fault. Every time I see that show I really wish that i would have liked school more...and by "more" I mean enough to have wanted to spend an additional 8 years becoming a doctor. How cool would that be? I always say that had I become a doctor I so would have wanted to become a plastic surgeon that does the perfect mix of really heart warming life changing operations and then a bunch of super superficial booby cases too.

Since that didn't happen - I have found a "great" compromise that fulfills my deep love for all things scrubs.... I went to school for the stomacheable 4 years..... I work in advertising - and a few of my clients are hospitals! That is how i got this fancy Grey's -esque scrub cap (the really "smart" looking facial expression is all my own- I was thinking about how I could remove Izzy's tiny little brain tumor). Yesterday, I actually got to dress up in full scrubs and spend my whole day shooting a commercial for a new heart center and it was so fun. They even had a last minute snafu with not being able to show employees that aren't doctors so I got invited into the shot to play the super important role of nurse. I wanted to be a girl cardiologist but oh well.

so anyways...that is how i spent my day and apparently I am not above admitting that i do frequently play dress up by myself when Pat is not home. Does anyone else do that?

No?...okay me neither then.

Shants

It is May 6th - which should mean that it is Spring outside - and when it is spring outside that means that we will be wearing spring clothes inside to work. Because of this fact, I decided to pull the good ole spring/summer "shants" out of my closet for the first time since last year. The funny thing is, despite the fact that I own a pair (and only one) I actually hate these shants and always regret my decision for wearing them.


Let me explain.....Just in case you did not attend Cerro Villa Middle School or Villa Park High School I will fill you in on the back story, the term "shants," and the outrage that ensued when these short pants came into style. My outfit choice for today has brought all of this back to me and now -holy crap- 13 years later (eff I am old) I can discuss why these pants - despite their comfort and function- make me feel like the least attractive person on earth every single time I wear them.


Back when we were Vikings, hanging out a Cerro Villa (the year before we switched to uniforms) Capri pants were very-much-so in style. Pretty much every girl had them on every single day. Some girls wore them with tennis shoes ( i never did), some wore them with those god awful platform rocket dog flip flops, some wore doc marten loafers (i think)...but it really was all anyone had on. The boys at our middle school noticed and immediately took offense. I can think of 2 guys in particular that will remain nameless but just for fun their initials were DS and MW. These guys literally made signs and posted them on campus telling girls just how awful they really looked....Seriously full color posters and neck danglers with drawings of ugly pants on them. When you would ask for an explanation, they were ready with many:

• the length of the non-shorts non-pants makes every girl appear to have (another very bad hybrid) "cankles"
• It doesn't matter if you are J-lo....your butt inevitably becomes elongated and icky looking when you are wearing shants
• and last but not least...unless you are Audrey Hepburn or Calista Flockhart the lines of these pants pretty much adds 15 pounds on to each thigh regardless of your height or starting weight.
  

They really are awful and the boys knew much better than the girls. I know this though- so I don't really get why I haven't completely given them up? It isn't like my ankles get super hot....and I certainly don't like looking like I have a long butt and cankles so wtf? I guess it is the variety I like?

Variety shmariety I think this is the last time I will wear these. MW and DS you win....I made that official when I tried to take a picture of what i have on to post with this little story BUT my ankles looked so fat I couldn't bring myself to post it - and i don't have fat ankles . Ha ha.

McCullough Wedding

I finally (finally) uploaded lots of pictures from the past few months. I was most excited to see all of these pics from Kevin and Lindsey's fabulous DC wedding. Honestly, this wedding was such a blast. It was great to see some old friends, hang out with Pat's brother and his girlfriend Tara again, and see a little bit of DC scenery. The cherry blossoms were out in full force, it was 85 degrees, and pretty much a perfect weekend for a wedding.

I took this picture out of our hotel room window. We were right next to the Capitol building too.

Sooo Pat looks really handsome here and I look a little worn out in these post rehearsal pics. Why - you ask....well that would be because I went on about a 50 minute jog in my freaking dress, barefoot, alone, through the streets of HIV infested DC. (please note: I'm not sure that DC is in fact infested with HIV, but that was what my wonderful sister Kristen told me when I called to tell her that I was barefoot running through the city- how comforting right?) Anyways, when I left the hotel I found out that we were actually walking to the rehearsal. It didn't seem that far and I figured a few blocks in some super high heels would be a great leg work out. All of this was true until my stupid shoe broke!!!! The groom told me that there were some shoe stores in Union Station a few blocks up the street, and over a few more blocks to the left. I took off quickly so not to disrupt any wedding activities and after about 2 blocks (that felt a lot more like 20)I got stopped by a cop - seriously. I think he thought i was running "from" someone. I explained, but apparently I did not strike up enough sympathy for a ride in the back of a police car to go by some new shoes :) I did end up surviving so here are some more highlights from the weekend .....

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Pat, the groom- Kevin, and his brother Pat at the rehearsal dinner ( these are notre dame friends so pretty much everyone was named Patrick or Katie at the wedding)

more guy pics...that is Pats brother Clint next to him

Just after church let out! The wedding ceremony and church were both gorgeous :)

The new Mr and Mrs. McCullough!!

Pat and I at the wedding (aren't we nicely coordinated)??

Dr. Tara applying some lip gloss. Fun fact: we have the same birthday and our boyfriends have the same parents and siblings! whoa.

Now this is important: This guy is Travis Tucker. Travis Tucker was the 4th runner up on American Idol a few seasons ago and he is legit! This band was the best wedding band of all time. We all danced the entire night - I would HIGHLY reccomend them to anyone getting married in the DC area.

See.....I told you. We danced ALL night long. This is my wonderful mother-in-law and T-tozzle again. Other honorable mention would be me in my surprisingly short dress. I don't remember it being that short. Whoops.

And - well I don't know what to say about this one. I wish that there were mirrors on dance floors so that I could re-work my moves once i realize what I actually look like ( in my head I was looking awesome)

Soanyways that takes care of the latest fun wedding weekend post. Congrats Kevin and Lindsey!

where have I been??

On Monday I flew out to New York first thing in the morning for a little work trip. Oddly, this trip (which consisted of about 25 new business meetings) took place entirely on board a humongous cruise ship. I have never been on a cruise so I didn't really know what to expect. The verdict: I'm luke-warm on the cruise thing. Had I actually ended up on a sandy beach somewhere it might not have been so bad.

Here is a pic i took as i boarded the ship with a little bit of the cityscape in the background. I wish I had a picture of the reception we had when we actually left port. It was dark and the city looked so beautiful from the water. Unfortunately i didn't have my phone to take a picture of that :(..... Anyways, we only "cruised" far enough out in the water for our cell phones not to work and so that bored meeting goers could not jump ship and easily swim back to avoid my sales pitch.

Here is the view from my table where I conducted all of my meetings... pretty nice huh?

And then the "not-so-nice" part was my room. No window in sight, very tight quarters, and kind of smelly. I hardly spent any time in there at all though - so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Having this trip over and done with means that I have a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. The preparation was sort of grueling...and if you noticed, I basically had very little free time to do things like update my blog. I have big plans for some upcoming posts so get ready :) This weekend I am heading to Pittsburgh to meet up with the Dowd's (my sister, my college roomate, their significant others, and the little dowd sister La who is graduating from college).... Should be a good time - can't wait to see the baby belly too!