Carbs, Crafts, Sickness and a Very Special Lady's Birthday!

I’m sick.

Clearly no one wants to talk to me because I look and sound like I have been smoking a pack a day since I was four and have been forced to walk across Canada all summer in the same outfit without showering. That might be a little harsh but I bet you are get the picture, I feel pretty gross right now.

My weekend was a celebration for my weakness for carbohydrates disguised as my Grandmother MacDonald’s birthday. So I am feeling doubly crappy today. It is like a massive food hangover crossed with a fall flu. Yes, it is totally possible to be hung from food.

Anyways, I bet you never would have guessed that this blog was crafted to wish my Grandmother MacDonald a big ole’ happy birthday. She reads these blogs when I’m not around so someday she will stumble upon this and hopefully smile.

My weekend was incredibly productive until the sickness hit me Sunday morning after a quick staff meeting at work. The productivity started when I made a delicious dessert for our fish and chip party at my parent’s house Saturday night. Peanut butter bar squares garnished with a little grated skor bar.

To be honest with you, my food hangover pretty much centers on these squares. My amazing dessert arrived at the party via a proxy and had melted together so I may have had a little cry in my childhood bedroom with the pan before supper. Yes, that happened. Sometimes I am a grown ass child about things. It is not a family event until someone cries, right? That only lasted about 10 minutes and only a third of pan was sacrificed to my sad. I call it having a sad. Having a sad happens every once in a blue moon and usually before sickness hits.

On top of getting my bake on in a totally domestic fashion I also crafted this weekend. Like most crafts, it sits nearly complete today (Monday) and cost way more than just going to Walmart to buy the item that I originally needed. Breanna and I set out to make corkboards this weekend, hopefully next weekend we will finish them and I will tell you about them here in the blog. You can see it truly is a beautiful work in progress…

As you can tell, now that we have a house I am attempting to be more domestically inclined. This is really conflicting with my desire to not bring in any crap to my house that I do not absolutely love for furniture. I still do not have a dresser, but that is on my list of musts for the week. Our house is a mess.

Anyways, in my hunt for things to make our new house our own I am constantly snooping around my family members homes for things we can use for our house (with permission of course) and I found this hilarious read at my grandmother’s house.

Part of me wants to read this cover-to-cover and learn from it. I hope this book was important and informative for young adults in my Grandmother’s day (much like Adulting by Kelly Williams Brown was for me). And the cynical/bitchy part of me is angry that there are only women on the cover of a book for “Young Canadians”. I am a little conflicted; maybe I will come back to this topic in the future.

Regardless, a big “Happy Birthday” to Grannie MacDonald! I was a tad craft-bitchy at her house on Sunday so I will leave this apology here as a permanent tribute to such an important lady in my life. Sickness and failing miserably at crafts are not a good combination; I hope to someday lose my temper and gain some patience. I also someday hope to be as happy with a Palm Bay tiki girl for my birthday as you were after your trip to the LC with Lisa and Kim. Seriously.

Until then, I’m just a (temporarily) sick 25-year-old inadequate crafter with a weakness for carbs. Happy Birthday Gram, I love you!

Adulting With Kate: An Unexpected Stop Over

I set really high expectations for pretty much everything in life. I personally think it all stems from learning

how to read those stupid classroom signs with inspirational quotes on them. I may have taken them to heart a little too much.

It is kind of strange. I had never really thought about it until right now. When I was a child I thought I would be a world travelling professional (specifically a lawyer or a journalist) that would not have to settle down and still manage to wrangle my four or five kids into bed every night after a lovely homemade supper. I have grown out of that fantasy, the one where I was a serious adult with very serious career and demanding personal life. That being said I do take my career very seriously, I absolutely am in love with my job and my adventure working in radio so far, but I still expect to take the world by storm some day when I have gotten the practice and developed the patience it takes to be a real adult. I love my career tract enough to let my personal life suffer a bit, moving across the country away from any friends and family I have ever had to start my career off working independently was a choice I made and that until recently had not really bothered me.

The real adult part is the struggle. Sometimes I set the bar so high on my expectations that I end up a little heartbroken when they don’t work out the way I see them in my head. I am a very visual person and have always embraced visualizing and willing myself to win. I was the kid who always cried on Christmas Day when the magic had worn off and the sugar had set in (and DisneyWorld was still not in the card for the upcoming year). My parents were thrilled when I became able to drive myself to hockey games, I never thought I had played very well and usually was a huge ball of nerves before and after every game. 

I could continue this list of setting relatively high bars to hurdle and uber competitiveness mashed with a side of temper flare ups but I think two examples is enough. I never really was a very whimsical child, I obsessed over music and sports until I went to university and then went on to obsess about getting out of university on time and onto something I would enjoy a lot more. If you haven’t read my previous blogs I was not the best student at university, I freely admit it.

I have always been super passionate about the things I have become involved in, from cutting carbs to travelling there are things that are always on my mind. My attention span may dwindle, but the passion never really has been drained. Let’s just say I can be a little intense.

But, as being part of an adult today’s lesson is that I need to stop reading those damn quotes and taking them so seriously. It is amazing to have aspirations, huge plans, and incredible dreams and to live the fantasy but at some point you have got to get your head out of the clouds and take a breath. Yes, shoot for the stars, but be okay with an extended stopover flight. Sometimes that is what life is, life is a massive journey full of experiences that won’t wait for you to experience them yourself sometimes. These situations thrust themselves on you and though they may not be welcome, or what you expected they are a reality that should be greeted with warmth or at least curiosity.

Sidenote: When I was twenty-one I did end up going to Disneyland (I know it’s not quite Disneyworld) with my boyfriend and I must say it was a trip beyond all of my expectations, even though everyone had informed me after a lifetime of dreaming of a Disney vacation that I would be disappointed, I was not. 

Rant: Girls Night Out

I have come to realize that the phrase ‘girl’s night out’ is one of the most annoying things you can say to a guy…ever.  Seriously, even in a text message you can feel things tense up the second those words are used together. When I throw the idea out there to my boyfriend his eyes squint, just a little bit, as if he is imagining the high decibel screams and eventual tears that will be shed as part of the festivities.   

The headache is also is because most of the time when screaming ‘girl’s night out’ there is a chorus of two or three other ladies joining in and you all have had one or two adult beverages (on the night of). I know just in the planning stages when I say those three little words I picturing those ladies saying it with me in my head, as I pop a bottle of champagne and look hella fine.

That is exactly what is going on in my head every five minutes as we approach the end of this short work week (yes, I know it is still Thursday). As the clock counts down minutes to freedom, getting ready for Friday, I have already pre-planned my outfit for Saturday night and about 90% of the details after my plans changed a slightly. Yes, in my head, I have the ideal Saturday night ready to go. It involves one of the two new dresses sitting in the JJ’s back beside me that I picked up on my lunch hour, a bottle of sparkling rose, some of my favourite people I have ever met working in radio (yes, they all have vaginas… it’s a girls night) and high heel shoes that I will most likely end up carrying at some point.

Yes, I am all about the planning. Always have been, always will be. As much as I love the wild, free, careless disregard of a ‘girl’s night out’ I still love being in control. I am not a very spontaneous person, not at all. Even when I was in university, when ‘girl’s night’ would happen at least twice a week I was all about the plan.

Growing up, I thought it was silly that all my female relatives would flock to the city together, complain that they never went out together enough and drink way too much. But, at the ripened age of 24 I have started to get it. I have a serious boyfriend and single girlfriends so I feel pretty guilty going out without him, it is pretty hard to find nights when we can all make plans without leaving anyone out (or sidelining the boyfriend without annoying him). Now I know half the pain my female relatives faced, the other half being kids… don’t even get me started there.

I cannot wait to sit in a car for hours with my favourite people in the Kootenays and get into Vancouver this Saturday night, end rant. Happy girl. 

Kate's Reading Challenge Book 1: ‘Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps’ by Kelly Williams Brown

         One of my goals I set for myself on my twenty-fourth birthday was reading a book a week.  I am a little behind, moving twice and finishing school put a damper on my plan. To help motivate myself to finish books on time every week my new plan is to share my latest read with you on my blog. I will read anything and everything and I would love your suggestions, feel free to email them to me at kate@mountainfm.net.

         Book 1: ‘Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps’ by Kelly Williams Brown.

For my first blog I picked a book that is incredibly relevant at this point in my life, it is called ‘Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps’.

         I really enjoyed ‘Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps’, author Kelly Williams Brown is hilarious. Her book is the perfect guide to transitioning between childhood and adulthood. I wish I would have read this book earlier in life, I think it would have better prepared me for some of the mini-disasters that have plagued my life in the past.

         In fact, I was reading this book when I went through my current life crisis (click here for the story) and it really helped me get through it with her AFGO theory in Chapter 10: Times Were Tough (Step 389 especially). My little car incident did not ruin my vacation the next day and everyone commented on how calm and reasonable I was being... unlike my previous car accidents. 

         I recommend this book for anyone who needs someone to help to get it together (I did). I think it is pretty hard to get everything in parenting; this guide to ‘adulting’ is perfect for helping move between stages of life. From ensuring furniture will fit into your new apartment, choosing a partner or even just recognizing that not everyone can be a special snowflake; this book can help you out in any stage of life.

Next Week: 'World War Z' by Max Brooks