Hey blog, long time no see. I haven’t forgotten about you, promise. I’ve just been a little busy.
Sometimes I’m at work. Yeah, I got a job. It’s temporary, but it comes with a paycheck and nice people, so I’m happy.
Also sometimes I’m having out with these guys who, no offense, are much cuter than you, blog o mine.
Also sometimes I’m writing or running or sleeping or hanging out with this guy. Again, cuter than you.
But, I promise we’ll catch up soon!
Last week was sort of anxiety-ridden for me–what is it about trying to figure out what to do with my life that stresses me out so much? I spent most of the week refreshing my email and simultaneously hoping my phone would ring and praying it wouldn’t. By Friday afternoon I was in a bit of a tizzy and decided to go for a run around the lake to clear my mind a little. This usually works.
I wasn’t half a mile into it when I came up on a woman who made me clench my fists real tight in the way you are not really supposed to do when you run. You know the kind: super skinny, always looking completely made up while she walks slowly around the lake–so slowly you wonder how it even counts as exercise. But then you give her a little credit because, after all, she is pushing her poofy white dog in a stroller. It must weigh at least four pounds.
Anyway, I’m running along and see her up ahead and start ranting at her in my head. There were a lot of expletives involved. So much for improving my mood. I get closer as she’s waiting to let her poofy white dog pee and I notice how nice her stroller is. I don’t know anything about strollers, but I can tell this one is pricey. “What a waste, this woman should get a life, or at least a dog that can walk three miles on it’s own legs,” I think to myself as I start to pass. And then I realize that there’s an actual baby in the pricey stroller.
Ah, oops.
Sorry for cursing you, skinny lady with an adorable baby. You look an awful lot like someone else who frequents the lake.
Hurricane crafts part two: Billy balls.
Exhibit A:
I took this craft idea from Design Sponge, so I won’t recount the steps. If you’re interested, just go here.
However, I will share a few things that I wish I’d known before I started.
First, when you form your balls (uh huh), spread the yarn out a bit and make a bubble, rather than a roll. I tried rolling a few of mine and when they were done you could really see the ‘seams’ where the different edges met.
Second, make your water really hot and really cold. I had ice in the cold water and had a pot of boiling water nearby to add to my hot water as I went.
Third, if you have any yarn that looks like this:
You’ll really want to pull it apart before attempting a ball or else you’ll end up with something that looks like this:
That’s the bobo billy ball.
And no, I have no idea why they are called billy balls.
When I was six my mom remarried and the law firm my step-dad worked for transferred him to Maui to work on some big case there. At the start of second grade we moved from California to Maui — Keikilani Street to be precise. We had a big cream colored house right at the T-intersection of Keikilani Street and Nalani Street. Things like this grew in our front yard:
Shortly after we moved, someone told my mom that a girl around my age lived in the first house on Nalani Street, just across the way from us. After what I can only imagine was a lot of coercion on my mom’s part (I was a shy kid) I went and knocked on the door. A girl answered and after a slightly rocky start (turns out we bought the house from her former best friend who had just moved, so I wasn’t exactly a welcome replacement), Colleen and I were basically inseparable for the next seven years.
Colleen and Kate, circa 1989.
Kate and Colleen, circa 2011.
Later in elementary school two more girls moved to our neighborhood — Kealia and Sesame. We pretty much had the greatest childhood ever, bouncing between each others homes and parents. We all went to the same school, rode in the same carpool, acted in plays at the same theater, took the same dance classes…etc. We had only one big blowout fight, which I think is quite good for four middle school girls.
Kealia, Sesame, Kate. 2011.
Right around the end of eighth grade (ninth grade for Colleen), we all moved out of the neighborhood: Colleen to the next town over, Kealia to Oahu, Sesame to Arizona, and me to North Carolina. We’ve kept in touch (sometimes more or sometimes less) over the last 18 years, and last November we all reunited at Colleen’s wedding on Maui.
Burak and Colleen, two of the nicest people on earth.
It was a wonderful trip. I hadn’t been back to Hawaii since 2000, and while I’ve seen Colleen fairly regularly over the last few years, it was great to get to know Kealia and Sesame as adults. It was the first time all four of us had been together in 11 years.
On my last day there we toured our old stomping grounds.
The house I grew up in, slightly modified since I saw it last.
The house Colleen grew up in. I probably slept there as often as at my own house.
Little critter.
Nothing beats donuts on a stick.
And of course there was the wedding…
It amazed me how few things had changed — almost all the stores I remembered were right where they were when I left, and despite a couple of new roads, I still knew where I was most of the time. I can’t wait for my next trip back…
A long time ago I told Jessie that when she had kids I’d make them quilts. And wouldn’t you know it, Jessie (who never does anything half-heartedly) is about to have twins. So I got to make two quilts.
It was lucky I was unemployed or the boys may have gotten them as high school graduation gifts.
Well, and I had a lot of help from some furry, four-legged creatures.
Making the quilts was a good way for me to a) adjust to the idea of Jessie and Brent having two children, and b) think lots of good thoughts about the babies and make up some dreams of my own for them. I know they aren’t my kids, but I’m excited to see them grow.
The quilts are basically the same, but with different color borders and four mostly solid squares to match.
Every time I pulled the quilts out Oscar was all over them. He just wanted to show that he loves the babies too. Or he thought he needed a new blanket.
Congrats Jessie and Brent! I can’t wait to meet Vin and Whit! (I hope you know this means I will basically invite myself over at any time for as long as I feel like it. But I promise to bring food with me.)
I love this picture–we both look so happy.
If you don’t live in Raleigh you may not know that it is one of the very best places to live. In the world country. At least, according to these lists (and others):
Raleigh is not always the most interesting place to visit (every time I have visitors I stress about what to do with them), but it is a nice place to call home. Seeing all those lists come out caused me to do some thinking: If Raleigh is so great, there must be people who are doing things to make it great. Who are they? What are they doing? What do they like about the city?
I didn’t have answers, but I figured I could find them. This thought process turned into a writing idea — I could interview people who are doing interesting things in the city and write profiles of them. It sounded fun, but time consuming. And then I lost my job. So, with nothing but time on my hands I thought I’d go for it.
Anyway, after several months of doing interviews and writing them up and driving around the city taking pictures, here’s the product: Raleigh Obscura
Take a look, I hope you enjoy it. I hope to publish a post a week until…well, until I run out of people to interview or energy to write them up, I guess.
2011 was an odd year – there seemed to be a lot of changes and unknowns and odd little spots. Or, at least that’s how it appears now, three days into 2012, from where I sit on my couch. Instead of a countdown like last year or a year’s best list like 2009, here’s a year in photos, capturing one great memory from each month.
Freezing almost to death in New York City in January.
Skiing in February; also the very first photo I took with my iPhone.
Riding the greenway in...okay, this is from April, but I don't have a good March photo.
Celebrating Katie and Andy's wedding in Jacksonville, also in April.
Jessie shaved her head in front of her school in May. It was a very impressive thing.
Celebrating my dad's 79th birthday in Buffalo in June. Of course no one was looking at the camera...
A morning on RAGBRAI in July.
Sunset over Asheville in August.
Enjoying sunshine and beer at the Asheville Brewgrass Festival in September.
We went back to NYC in October, the weather was much better.
Visiting Hawaii in November for my oldest friend's wedding.
One adorable Christmas tree livened up my living room in December.
All of this talk of getting another year older made me remember a question Charles once asked me:
What was your favorite year growing up?
This was about two years ago, but I think my answer is the same: third grade. It was a pretty great year. Here are a couple highlights:
Of course, some bad things happened too:
* Big Toys are those big wooden playground structures (like this). Our school had two: Upper and Lower, based on their relative location on a hill. The Upper Big Toy had a cool net thing you could play on, that’s actually where the wasp incident happened. The Lower Big Toy had big bars that you could do gymnastics tricks on and some tall(ish) pedestals we would stand on and chicken fight on when the teachers weren’t looking.
What was your favorite year growing up?
This post is one of two craft-related posts that are long overdue…back when Hurricane Irene came through I took advantage of the rainy day to sit inside and start a bunch of crafts. Most of them I’ve even finished — a huge accomplishment since most of my projects generally end up in craft-purgatory for years quite a while.
The first of the hurricane crafts: upgraded bamboo trays.
I’d been wanting some trays to cart stuff around on. I like to sit on the porch or the couch with some crackers and hummus, a book, and a glass of wine, but I’m lazy and get annoyed carrying things around.
I found these useful, but ugly, trays at Goodwill:
So, I painted them white:
Then traced out the inside onto a piece of scrap paper:
Then I traced the scrap paper shape onto some oil cloth and cut that out to line the tray with. I must not have done a very good job though because I had to trim quite a bit off. As I said, I’m lazy, so this step was sort of tedious.
Anyway, add some hot glue glue and (ta-da!) much improved trays:
Very handy.
I turned 30 last week. The birthday was lovely — church, brunch, seeing turtles and snakes and four-inch-long flying beetles at the science museum, napping on the couch, delicious cake, and drinks with friends. A very, very nice day.
I’ve noticed that people in their late twenties tend to approach this event with trepidation that sometimes borders on fear and anger. On the other hand, people in their thirties seem to be enthusiastic about what a great decade it is. Things like, “That’s when I hit my stride!” Or, “It’s the best decade yet!” Etc., etc.
It’s no secret that I love birthdays, but while I adore the days themselves, I tend to not care too much about the age factor. That said, I did have about a day when I was not too thrilled to hit thirty. After all, if you pressed pause on my life at just this moment, it doesn’t look like I’ve accomplished too much — I’m jobless, don’t have any of those things people are ‘supposed’ to have (a nice car, a house, two and a half adorable children, etc.) by this age and, according to the calendar, I’m clearly not getting any younger.
Lucky for me, I’m refusing to think of it that way. I’m usually quite good at not measuring myself to others and not throwing myself extended pity parties (I mean, we all do that sometimes, right?). I liked my 20s more than my teens, so I expect to like the next decade more than the one that preceded it.
So, cheers to the next 10 years! Here’s hoping I don’t grow moss on my back like this guy.
