Presents!

Christmas was amazing this year. This year was. . . weirdly fun. I say weirdly because, as you may or may not know, my dad had a heart attack on Christmas Eve. He's doing well, had a double bypass surgery, and is about to start driving again. We're beyond grateful for how well everything went.

I think I've said this a million times, but I was SO excited to go home for Christmas this year. We were flying across the country for the first time from our new home in LA. We were bringing the furbaby. We had almost all of our shopping finished. And even though we had 5 mini Christmas gift sessions, it was awesomely imperfect because my Dad was there, and alive and on the (slow) road to recovery.

I wanted to share a few gifts that I'm really enjoying. We're not even going to touch on the stocking situation. My stocking, as an adult, still fits up to my thigh, and my mother stuffs it within an inch of it's life with everything from jewelry to Wii games to DVDs to clothes. Amazing. I'm digging on:

A Barnes & Noble Nook! Oh. My. Gee. I love this guy. I wholly advocate the purchase of one. I lug around no less than three books at a time, always, so this was perfect for me. I do like reading actual paper, too, but for the books I need to have- brilliant.

This Blu-Ray player. Our DVD player from, I dunno, maybe 8 years ago, pooped out recently. We didn't care much about Blu-Ray until we saw that this Star Wars boxed set was available! Sold.

A ukulele! This gorgeous little Lanakai soprano came from my hubby! I've been playing nearly everyday, in the hopes that I won't be terrible at some point. I was dithering between this and the tenor size, but I'm glad he went with this for my first real Uke. I love it.

I AM SUPER THANKFUL this year for having such a generous and thoughtful family, who made the holidays chipper in spite of the scary situation. ::Cue Full House tender music selection::

That's probably the best gift of all.

K.

Big Sunglasses (or how to hide from the world)

So, as evidenced by this tragically hip photo, I love big sunglasses. The bigger the better. Besides being blind as a bat, and really needing them to keep my vision from progressing into a worse state, I wear giant sunglasses because I love the way they make my face look tiny.

I was thinking about what to post today- it's been a hot minute since I wrote last and I was not sure what to tackle first. My awesome sister was visiting me for 8 days, during which time we went to Vegas (and saw Love, which was SO incredible and inspiring- see it!), thrifted our little hearts out (add to my wins a $680 pair of snakeskin cowboy boots for $22.50), had a big fight (only one, but it was a doozy), and just enjoyed being together. So needless to say, I was away from the computer a lot. A good thing, since the computer. . . and the Wii, and the television, and my new Nook, are all good ways to avoid being with people.

When I get blue, or am not feeling the best about my body, or hair, or what have you, I start hiding. I hide in either baggy or old lady clothes. I hide behind the Wii or Facebook. I hide behind giant sunglasses and by wearing my hair down. This feeling has been fading slowly over the last year, but it's a habit that is hard to break. I'm hard on myself about these things (and everything else), but I'm going to try to let that go. I am awesomely imperfect, and it is time to stop hiding. I am going to try my darnedest to make 2012 a year of jumping out from the shadows, and hopefully scaring a few people by doing so in a ninja like fashion.

How do you celebrate your awesome imperfections?

k.

Introducing Colonel FitzMorris Beauregarde Cofield IV.

This is my kitty. I should point out a few things:

1. The aforementioned is just his racing name. His full name is simply Morris Beauregarde. We call him MoBeau, although the hubs and I disagree on the proper spelling.

2. This picture is not of him taking a lick. His tongue is consisitently outside of of his mouth. This is likely due to a mystery accident in which he broke his little face. More specifically, he broke his jaw, and a piece of it had to be removed, including the lower canine. The upper canine on the same side was removed due to a spiral fracture. We have no idea what happened, but somehow he's even cuter now.

3. Aside from my hubby- he is the love of my life.

4. He breaks into kitchens and pantries and eats anything in sight. His favorite palate pleasers include: bagels, rolls, cake, cookies, and bread of any kind; zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe and banana; milk, meat, cheese and of course, tuna.

5. He is the most dog like cat I've ever met.

6. He wears a bow tie willingly and happily.

I'm certain there will be more posts about the little furbaby, so I just wanted you all (all 6 of you?) to meet him formally. He's very concerned with doing this the proper way, you see.

k.

Thrift Store Rules (or, What Not to Buy)

If you have never been thrifting, you may not understand the true glory of stumbling upon, for example, and incredible Christian Dior silk and lace camisole in perfect condition for $2.99. I'm not making this stuff up- it happened yesterday.

Thrifting is something I started doing just before high school, when my fam relocated from the hood to the burbs for better schools. I tried for about 6 weeks to wear sweater sets and Gap tapered jeans. But besides being super pricey, I hated those clothes. So, I found my favorite weekend hobby: thrifting. At that time it was over sized men's sweaters and 70's disco polyester paired with my beloved Jenko jeans and Sailor Moon tank tops. Throw in the Doc Marten's I save up for, and BAM. Hot.

What I now know is that my own awesome personal style includes, often unfortunately, expensive items. Which I have to really hunt for while thrifting. See these amazing Seychelles:

These run between $90 and $150 a pair. And these gorgeous, barely worn beauts were mine for $14 plus California tax. Not quite as huge of a steal as my sisters Dior tank, but still! The fact that I spent just over $70 and came home with 6 dresses and two pairs of amazing shoes, all in mint condition, is a true testament to the power of thrift.

Here are some thrifting rules to live by, to avoid coming home with fugly stuff.

1. There is a fine, fine line between "cute" and "old lady". Toe this line carefully.

2. Do NOT buy anything stained, ripped or gimpy in any way.

3. Try things on, where possible.

4. Don't buy things that don't fit- this especially applies to things that are too small.

Exceptions to these rules include: Halloween costumes, if you are a seamstress extraordinaire, or work in fashion, you have all the time in the world to ACTUALLY resew a zipper, 17 buttons, patch holes, reweave wool, and/or work out until you squeeze into something. The only other exception is when you find that one thing that you will wear even though there is a giant blood stain on the chest. Sometimes there are those things.

Yours ever in geek chic,

k.

These are my flying nails.

Well, actually, these are my 2012-is-gonna-kick-ass nails. They could also be called my I-am-sassy-so-i-wear-nail-stickers-nails. Or perhaps my please-don't-let-me-start-nail-biting-again nails.

I am obsessed with these Sally Hansen nail strips. Mostly because I have crap nails- they are thin and not pretty at all. This is not helped by the fact that since I can remember, I've been a nail biter. I remember in Kindergarten, we did a Halloween activity in which we painted some nails black and some nails orange, in order to learn that adding 4 orange nails and 6 black nails would equal 10. My teacher came to paint my nails, and looked totally amazed at my nubbins. She made a comment that I can't recall, and tried to paint the tiny canvasses I had left for her.

Anywho, these Sally Hansen dealies are made of real paint, and you just peel and stick. That's pretty awesome. And the hounds tooth seen above is always out of stock, so I did a little victory dance when I found one left on a shelf.

Why should anyone care? Because if a chronic nail biter like me can change her ways and have cute nails, you people can do just about anything you set your mind to. So there. That's your motto for 2012. Make it work.

k.

Homeward bound.

Le sigh. I am going home today. Home is a funny way to put it, since home has been (and still feels like) Atlanta for so many years. Before we left, I said 'I'm so excited to go HOME for Christmas!' And that felt totally right. Because although we've been living in LA for months now, I still can't quite believe that we've moved, we've made the leap, we did it.


Flying out today, with cat in tow, feels both great and sad. My dad had a sudden heart attack on Christmas Eve- he's doing really well now, at home, recovering. And even though we had already planned a 3 week stay with the fam, it doesn't feel like I've done enough to help. My mother's freshly organized closet, vanity, bathroom and pantry would argue differently, but still. . . how do you do enough for people who not only raised you, but raised you without drama, without fear of approval, and with an abundance of love, support, excitement, manners and sisu? I think the answer is, 'you can't. But you can try.' So, hopefully I tried enough. We've already bought tickets to come back relatively soon. That makes me smile.

The other thing that makes me smile is that I'll be in my own bed tonight, and cooking dinner in my own kitchen. And tomorrow- my sister comes to visit LA! Super win.

More soon on just how mega awesome geektastic my slew of Christmas gifts were. Amazeballs.

k.

What the world needs now is another blogger. . .

My name is Katie, and while I'm not perfect, I am pretty awesome. I'm thinking I'll blog about both of those facts. Awesome imperfection.  Because that's just how I roll.

k.

ps- this is me. . .