Feels like summer

Arkansas weather feels like we are just on the edge of summer. The season I love the most!

I love no school, which equallys sleeping in!

I love a sweating kiddo

I love big sunglasses and sunscreen

I love afternoons splashing in the pool & the smell of chlorine

I love having time to read (currently enjoying Jodi Picoult's "19 Minutes")

I love Watermelon and BBQ's

I love NO agendas, NO activities, NO sporting events

I love watching her jump in the sprinkler & eating popsicles

We are right there, so close! A few more weeks of school then we are home free. Awe

Of course we have to scrapbook all those amazing summer moments as well! I LOVE bright colors for summer and I have a few favorites I can't wait to use, they are really just screaming to have photos on them of swimsuits, beaches, big sunglasses and kite flying.

The first is from a new company Echo Park Paper Company. Summertime is their first and only line released so far and they have my mouth watering as to just what they will put out next. It is very bright and great for boys or girls. It features a lot of banners which are the "it" thing right now too.

The second is from October Afternoon and it's called "Fly a Kite". It is more muted but still summer ready and very kitchy which is totally cute. Good for far more than kite flying pics.

As soon as I get my pics on this paper I will share! Happy Scrapping.

Do over

Do you ever wish for a do over with your life?

Wonder how you go to the place you are today?

I suppose everyone's life is different from how they invisioned it in some ways. I have just been wondering lately about the little descisions we make along the way that lead to massive impacts to our life path. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those moments and take a mullegan. A do over.

But then, what would I have missed?

Maybe it's like trying to "have your cake and eat it too" or "the grass is always greener on the other side".

I'm not saying I don't love my life. I have so many blessings.

Today I feel like it is me I don't like. That the events and choices along the way shaped me into something I don't want to be.

Strange.

I am a perfectionist, a very driven people pleaser who doesn't want to let anyone down. Doesn't want to fall short of someone's expectionations of me. Riggid. Hard. Wants to climb the ladder, achieve and conquer everything. Passionate. Smiling with a heavy spirit, because it is again what is expected. A care-taker. But that's not the me I was always going to be.

Is this me? Or did the me I could have been get squeezed out, squashed by those little choices I have made. Little by little until me wasn't me anymore. I don't feel like I'm a fake person. I just feel like I am not me...the me I am supposed to be.

I think the real me was supposed to be free. Passionate. A creative spirit without limitations and bounds. Smiling from a deep and light place. A dreamer. Unaffected by the pressure of society & life. Someone who loved like crazy, like it was the only thing that mattered. Because it is.

Maybe I need little of both "me's". I need to become the me I want to be.

I want a tomorrow that doesn't look like yesterday. So what are you going to do? When the rubber meets the road Katie, when you can't have a do over and things are what they are?

Are you going to fight like hell for everything that matters? Give up everything that doesn't? Do something drastic, or stay static?

Mother’s Day

Do you here the angels doing an AAAAWWWWWW from heaven? They are at my house. A day just for me!!! And all the other Mama’s out there too I suppose. One of the things I wanted most for Mother’s Day was help cleaning the house – not the “picking up” kind of clean but the scrubbing, organizing, nitty gritty cleaning kind of help. Since I have gone to working more full time it is hard to manage this task. So Jon and Kaia chipped in. Kaia made my little heart flutter by organizing my shoes for me. This is the perfect task for her Obsessive Compulsiveness. All my shoes are perfectly stacked, matched and clipped together with clothespins. It is fun for her to tackle the task and I get to reap the benefits…I promise to try to keep up with it Kai!

I love this girl, and being her mommy is the joy of my life. She is growing up before my eyes, changing everyday. I love who she is – a creative, direct, unconventional, animal loving, sweet child.

Pink Hair

Pink Hair
…yes I colored my hair pink. Well I added hot pink Peekaboo highlights in a few select locations on my head. I guess I am known to drastically change my hair from season to season but this is a new one for me. I needed to embrace my fleeting youth I suppose and what better way that to do something pure fun! So I chopped it off into a cutie bob, went blond and added the pink.
I am also still playing with making different hair things and such. As you can see I made this LARGE flower for my hair and put in on a ribbon. I wore it to a scrapbooking class I was teaching since our colors are black and white and teal so it went perfectly. Makes me smile.

Foods I love

It’s no new news that I am a foodie. I love all sorts of foods – included in my hobbies are cooking, entertaining & trying new restaraunts so I thought it time to share some of those favorites…drum roll please. Now Katie’s top fav foods (from restaraunts) in no particular order please.
Salt & lime Chips, Table Mesa, Bentonville
Pork Carnitas with Pineapple Pico, Table Mesa, Bentonville
Bread Pudding, Famous Dave’s, Rogers
Fried Bowtie pasta & Spinach dip, Copeland’s, Rogers
Street Tacos, Yolos, Las Vegas
Spanish Fried w/ Onions & Jalapenos (w/ Ranch) , Ron’s, Bentonville
Tamale Cakes, Cheesecake Factory
Sticky Rice with Coconut Ice Cream & Mangos, Taste of Tai, Bentonville
Mongolian Beef, PF Chang’s
Cotton Candy Ice Cream with Reesies pieces

Things I love

In trying to practice an attitude of more gratitude I have been pondering a lot on the things I love. Here are some of my favorites. Sorta my verion of Oprah's favorite things, except I am not giving any of them away : (

[caption id="attachment_305" align="aligncenter" width="140" caption="Twilight Anything"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_306" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="The colors Teal & Yellow"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_307" align="aligncenter" width="132" caption="The number 13"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_308" align="aligncenter" width="101" caption="Hair accessories from flowers to feathers."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_309" align="aligncenter" width="127" caption="'nough said"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_310" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="All things vintage"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_311" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="Hobo International Wallets, Lauren Style"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_312" align="aligncenter" width="128" caption="Cupcakes!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_313" align="aligncenter" width="116" caption="Coffee with too much Vanilla Creamer"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_314" align="aligncenter" width="115" caption="Bare Minerals Make up"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_315" align="aligncenter" width="104" caption="Pedicured Toes"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="81" caption="Hollister So Cal scent...yummy"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_317" align="aligncenter" width="107" caption="A good book (especially on a plane trip)"][/caption]

Anniversary

June 1^st, 2008

Happy 6 year Wedding Anniversary to the love of my life!

[caption id="attachment_358" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My love in Iraq"][/caption]

I had to admit it has been a tough day to spend without him, and I have had way too much time on my hands to reminisce and sulk all day. I’ve tried to scrapbook but couldn’t get motivated so mostly I have been eating the pain away today – lotsa chocolate chip cookies. But no matter how hard this day is, we have a great life in-spite of the current circumstances and being separated for the most part of the past year. We have an amazing love and friendship that is enduring and even growing and thriving thru this deployment. I just wish he was here today, and every day to hold in my arms and to give kisses to show you how much I care about him. Rather than sending another letter…it’s just not right!

Honey, I trust you to love me for a lifetime, to never betray me or my trust, to put my needs above even your own, to never run from me. I trust you like no one else in my life, past or present. It’s a vulnerable state to be in. I can’t lose you. Please realize you are holding my heart and that it’s fragile and you have to honor it in all your actions.  I don’t know what to say other than that, I come with baggage – and now it’s yours to carry too.