True Confessions of an Internet Stalker

I didn't mean to. I'm not quite sure how it happened. And I blame my college roommate Courtney, actually. I read her blog every day (and a bunch of other friends' blogs) on my 10-15 minutes I get to eat lunch at my desk. Yesterday I was reading hers and read a post she did about some old family friends. When they were kids, her parents were friends with a couple who had kids their age and Courtney has reconnected with their daughter Jody. So Courtney did this great post about Jody and how wonderful and inspiring she was (they are both moms of big families) and so I just innocently popped over to the link Courtney provided to Jody's blog and I've been reading it ever since. I mean, literally. I think I read their blog on and off for almost 3 hours yesterday afternoon (in between getting things done at work). And I couldn't wait to get back to work this morning to read some more. I don't even know this woman. But I'm totally stalking her life.

I got sucked in by reading the story of Jody and her husband adopting twin 2 year olds from Sierra Leone and the incredible story of adding them to their family of four boys. It's fascinating to me. And she's very real about it, which I love. She talks about the amazing parts and also is honest about the really hard parts. I think that's why I keep reading. I respect and can relate to that kind of honesty. And think we maybe might be slightly alike in that way. And she must be a photographer of some kind - even if only an amateur one like me (another thing we might have in common) - because her pictures are amazing. Of course it doesn't hurt that her kids are also gorgeous.

It's fascinating how different people's lives are. I'm completely drawn into the world of a woman with 6 children in Iowa because its completely foreign to the world I live in. And hers is fascinating to me. I can't imagine being in her shoes, and yet I can. At any rate, I have to be reading about their family every second. I am doing this at work, mind you. I'm so engrossed in it that I get mad when the phone interrupts me, or my boss interrupts me and actually wants me to do my own job for a second. How dare they! I'm in the middle of reading about the Landers' family vacation to Colordao and how Quincy had a meltdown at the amusement park.

Oh crap. Jody just posted about two of her friends, Amanda and Britlee, BOTH of whom have blogs. Have to go read theirs now. Internet stalking is really hard work, and very time consuming. Gotta get back to it.

And yes, I did include the link to Jody's blog so that some of you can stalk her too (the story of going to Africa to get the kids starts in late May of this year) and I can feel slightly less creepy. But seriously, how could you not read about these kids?! Look at those faces!

Kora

Zeke

It's really weird that I just posted photos of another woman's children on my blog, right? A woman that I don't even know. I did semi- introduce myself in a comment to her on her blog. Does that make it at all better? Oh geez. Still completely weird and psycho and innappropriate, right? Well, fortunately any of you actually reading this know me well enough to know that even if I may be a little weird and occassionally inappropriate, at least I am not actually psycho.

Right? You know that, right?

God, I'm just making it worse...

The Birthday Girl

Today is my mom's birthday. I just want everyone to know how grateful I am for her. Without a doubt, I have the best parents in the world. No offense to any other parents out there reading this, but I'm sorry, my folks could totally take you.

Things I love about my mom:
She always wants everyone to feel welcome and special.
She is everyone's best friend.
She is a great secret keeper.
She lives on an island in Maine and picks berries from her own land and makes them into a cobbler (please!).
She volunteers when no one else will.
She loves you enough to never want you to feel any pressure to be anything other than yourself.
She is wise and understanding and a terrific listener.
She can put a positive spin on almost anything.
We have so much fun together.
She is the perfect hostess.
She is not afraid to talk in funny accents or dance around the kitchen.
She deals with the fact that almost the only time I ever have to talk with her is on my commute to work (which means competing with the noise of passing trains, the loud announcements at the station, and conversations being cut off when the train goes into the tunnel).
She loves and supports her family in what seems to me, a very selfless way.
She is a great example to me of the kind of mom I want to be someday.

Mom I love you so much. I hope you had a lovely birthday.
xoxo
kate

Fancy at the Last Minute

On the same night that I came home to find our completely green kitchen, I got a call from Alison saying that she had two extra party passes for the opening her show that night, and did Geoff and I want to get dressed up and meet her and Stephen downtown at Cipriani for the party. Um. Yes please?

So we met them at the theatre and took the world's longest cab ride downtown. But finally we got there and the party was in full swing.


The ceiling of Cipriani was pretty cool...


We quickly snagged some food and somehow the beverage of the night became champagne. Which I quite enjoyed.


Stephen and I having a "cheers!"


How gorgeous are my two friends? I know everyone is dying over Alison's dress. She was stunning and fancy and the very example of how cool I wish I could be.


The four of us...


I think I must have just told Alison how much champagne I'd had at this point...


Alison taking a picture of me and her friend Dan. Clearly we must not look so good.


Me and Jim Moye. He and I went to rival high schools in southwest Virginia, did community theatre together where he played Curly in Oklahoma (they made him get a perm - SO wish I could dig up pictures) and I did his make up. We also both went to the same college and now are both in New York and he is in Alison's show. I've known him for over 15 years, which is completely wild. It's so fun to be reconnected!


One of my favorite pictures of the night...even though the picture quality itself is dark and grainy, it just really captures the evening, and especially these two. Just fun, friends, celebration, good times. There's nothing like being at a party with friends who know and love you completely. So much so that they (Stephen) are willing to get on a train from Boston to NYC on a THursday afternoon to be your date at opening night, stay with you at the party until you've basically shut it down and then get back on a train for Boston at 3am, and still make it to your 10am meeting on Friday morning. That's real friendship right there. And does Alison look like a 30s movie star or what?


It was a blast, despite not getting home until 230am on a school night. We've been to a ton of opening night parties for Broadway shows in our day, but this may have been the best one. I think it was because I didn't have anything to do with this show, so I didn't have to work at the party. It makes a big difference.

Going green

We took on quite the project this weekend. Now, one wouldn't think that painting a small bathroom and just two walls of a kitchen would take all weekend. Well in our case, one would be wrong.

We decided to paint our kitchen a vibrant shade of green and our bathroom a lovely shade of blue. We'd finally picked out the colors and picked up the paint last weekend, but didn't have time to paint until this weekend. We had a nice morning on Saturday, and set to painting after a late breakfast (yes, you guessed it, bagel sandwiches. And I wonder why I have gained weight since the wedding).

Here is what our kitchen looked like before painting, the view from our living room.



We moved the table, butcher's block, fridge, did all of our taping, and started painting. Here I am sirring the paint. I only include this photo since you can kind of see our new coffee table behind me and I haven't taken a better one yet. Just to give you an idea...


Even after we had both coats on we started to fear that the color was too dark. Geoff disliked it right away, as you can kind of tell from this photo if you look real closely at his face.


I, as usual, took a little longer to make up my mind. I decreed that we would wait and see what it looked like in the sunlight tomorrow, since by this time it was grey outside and getting dark anyway.

We then attacked the bathroom. Geoff was afraid the blue wouldn't look blue, as it was very light and white-looking initially. But, as we've learned from painting the kitchen, paint dries darker than it is when it goes on. So the bathroom turned out quite lovely. As the bathroom was drying, Geoff started to watch the USC/Ohio State game, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He actually did a lot of yelling at the TV, as is usual when people watch football. Mostly positive, except for one bad call by the refs, after which he tore them a new one from the comfort of our living room. I am perfectly used to yelling at the TV during football, as I come from a long line of vocal college football fans ("Oh, he's gone! He's GONE!!" being my dad's favorite as a wide receiver breaks away and eludes tackles on his way to the end zone). It only was slightly problematic on Saturday if I had my back to Geoff or was entering from the other room or something. If I wasn't paying attention to him or the game and he yelled, it slightly scared the pants off me. Gotta stay aware, stay on my toes, always be ready for it. As it was a good game, he kept yelling louder and louder, and I can only imagine what the neighbors thought. Aw, keep 'em guessing...

So with the game over (good game, Trojans!) and the bathroom complete with touch ups and looking sparkly and the perfect shade of blue (still haven't gotten a picture of it in the sunlight, so those will come later), we watched a movie and went to bed FAR too late. Got up Sunday morning to check how our green kitchen was looking. A tad better in the light of day. But still just really green. A very dark, kind of muddy, GREEN green. Like if it were a musical it would be called, "Green! The Musical!" Exclamation points and referring to a musical as "The Musical" in the title, always kind of gives you the idea that you're in for something over the top. Which is not what we were looking for in our kitchen wall color. And this was not even happy over the top... it looked more.... angry/dirty over the top. We ultimately decided it was a bit much. It even was darker and muddier than this picture makes it look.


But, we couldn't do much about it right then, since I had to head off to the the theatre to see a show I helped cast at work, A Man For All Seasons (starring Frank Langella) and Geoff had to get to a film shoot with his friend Tim, but we decided he would pick up some new paint on the way.

After the theatre, I came home, got groceries, dropped off our laundry, picked up some fresh flowers for the house, and organized my bedroom closet before starting on some Turkey Chili Stew for dinner. I'd only chopped the peppers and onions when Geoff came home at 7pm with new paint and the idea that we'd just get it all done tonight. So we took a deep breath, threw the veggies in a zip lock to cook on Tuesday, and dove in. We'd left the tape on from yesterday, fortunately, so we had a bit of a head start. The evening proceeded as follows:

7:30pm - Move furniture, throw down drop cloth, open a couple of coronas and commence painting the primer coat
7:37pm - Am reminded to take off my rings, when a huge glob of primer lands on my engagement ring. Not to worry, it came right off
8:15pm - Geoff breaks broom handle that was attached to roller, permanently leaving part of the broom IN the roller.
8:20pm Geoff leaves for Rite Aid to buy a new broom, I continue painting edges.
8:31pm - Geoff returns from Rite Aid with $5 broom, which he promptly dismantles to use in roller #2
8:33pm - Geoff, clearly not knowing his own strength, breaks roller #2
8:55pm - Primer coat finished, we order dinner. I break down and order waffle fries.
9:10pm - Dinner arrives. We enjoy it, and our second round of beers, while watching the pilot of J.J. Abrams new series, Fringe.
9:22pm - We decide we don't really care for the multiple shots of the man with the see through skin on the show. Slightly disturbing, especially while eating.
9:30pm - Geoff bids me finish my dinner and enjoy the show for a bit while he gets started on the coat of new, lighter, lovelier green.
9:35pm - I watch with approval from the couch as the lighter green already looks MUCH better than Green! The Musical!
9:41pm - I feel sufficiently guilty that Geoff is working while I watch the scary see-through-skin man, and go to join him. (this picture makes it look slightly more yellow in color than it actually is.)


10:04pm - We both have much joy at how much better this color is and how we are almost done, just a few touch ups left
10:27pm - We finish and decide that one coat of green is enough. We celebrate by watching the end of Fringe, and despite the see-through-skin guy, enjoy it. I enjoy seeing NY actors I know in the supporting parts. (Lovely work by Jason Butler Harner and Blair Brown, and Jasika Nicole, who I'm impressed with, as I remember her from her college showcase just a year or so ago).
11:18pm - Go to pull the tape off and all of a sudden the paint comes off with it. In sheets, like wallpaper. Or even easier - like cheap nail polish. Not only our light green coat, but also the dark green AND the white that the room was painted when we move in. We are down to what appears to be plaster? It's a little dusty to the touch.


11:20pm - Um. We stare at it, not knowing quite what to do. Possibly Geoff says a swear word under his breath.
11:22pm - We triage by just pulling the tape off really really slowly everywhere else. Or I do. Geoff pulls the paint off in sheets in the 2 foot section between the corner of the room and the window, floor to ceiling.
11:34pm - we create a cut line to stop the madness of the peeling.
11:38pm - We contemplate having to have the super come look at it and fix it in the morning.
11:40pm - We abandon that idea, shrug our shoulders, throw a coat of primer on the bald patch of wall and follow it up with a coat of the green.
12:05am - We decide that we do in fact need two coats of the green on the rest of the walls that have not peeled off.
12:29am - Still painting
12:35am - Geoff says I have done a "half-cocked" job with the second coat on the section that I started with the roller that he broke earlier. I don't care enough to protest.
12:50pm - I continue to do a "half cocked" job on the trim.
1:00am - Geoff declares that as it is 1am, we are NOT getting up early to work out. Couldn't agree more.
1:20am - We declare the painting finished.
1:25am - I start to pick up the discarded tape and sheets of paint that came off the walls and vow that no matter how it looks when it dries and when we finally take the tape off the ceiling, we will NOT paint the kitchen anymore.
1:45am - Geoff wants to move the furniture back into place. I remind him the paint is not dry yet and go lie down.
1:53am - I give up entirely and go to bed. Geoff is still cleaning.
2:35am - After waking myself up coughing, I walk out to the living room to get my inhaler from my purse and am dazzled by how awesome the kitchen looks. Geoff has cleaned everything up, put all the furniture back and it looks amazing. Amazing. And I love it. And somehow seems worth all the madness.



PS: 12:24pm on Tuesday (2 days later) - I still have paint in my hair.

PPS: 7:02pm on Thursday (4 days later) - I arrive home to find Geoff out on an errand. I call him and he asks me to do him a favor and go into the kitchen. I walk through the pass through from the living room and stare at our pretty green wall and think how nice it looks. I'm still on the phone with him waiting for what this favor is he needs from me. He says he thinks he left something on the wall. I look at the wall, wondering what mess he could have gotten into. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary (and remembering I'm the one who gets into messes), I turn to look behind me and see that he has painted the other two walls in the kitchen while I was at work! We now have a completely green kitchen and I LOVE IT. AND I love my wonderful husband for such an awesome surprise.

Alison Says

Alison says that I should remind people to scroll down below my big treatise on my NYC day for new blog postings. Cause, 'member I just screwed everything up by taking a time out to talk about that day. I would feel more justified reminding people to do so if I had actually posted anything new in a week. Which I haven't. But Alison suggested it, "just in case any of your other friends are idiots like me." Her words. So, scroll down to read the new stuff...