Becoming Katie

They say life isn't about finding yourself, but about creating yourself. This is my blog about my life, myself, the things I like, and how all those things are changing.

[becomingkatie]

Thursday was our anniversary (four years married!) and tonight was a ~fancy~ dinner to celebrate. I’ve been to this restaurant four times, three with Ken, and I love it. A hand-written card and champagne toast was a very sweet touch on an amaaaazing meal. I had a crab pasta that I wish I could eat every day for the rest of my life. Ken got a cocktail and I got a wine flight, and we shared a creme brulee. But it’s the pasta I’m still thinking about.

We didn’t make reservations til last weekend (and it was Ken who thought of it - I’d have showed up at the door and been turned away) so the only times available were 4pm or 8pm. We opted for the late dinner and felt very European (I grew up eating between 5 and 5:30 and now usually eat by 6:30).

ALSO we got pedicures this morning, and since the boba place is right next door we got boba Vietnamese iced coffees and it was so freaking good. And then I picked out a pink color but when the nail technician sat down she also still had a periwinkle color from her previous client and I liked it so much better than the one I’d picked, so I ended up asking her to use that one for me too. Even though I’d made us appointments for two at the same time, they didn’t have technicians available to start on us at the same time, but that just meant that we got to sit there and read our books for even longer so it ended up being really nice.

Also also I went to the gym and the power went out so I got to do one set in total darkness, which was a new experience and very cool. One woman lost her damn mind and started screaming. The rest of us looked around, paused for a minute, then went back to lifting, and the power was restored quickly.

Basically it was a perfect day??? I’ll take another couple of those!!

[becomingkatie]

This week is a real exercise in being willing to look dumb.

One of the things my therapist and I talk about is my resistance and avoidance and how tied up it is in shame. This week one of the senior engineers is out having surgery and the customer has been directing questions at me that I have no business answering and every part of me wants to leave the emails unanswered but all that does is feeds the guilt and shame and makes the cycle worse. So I've been sucking it up and sending responses that could be wrong or could look stupid and BOY IS IT HARD.

[becomingkatie]

I started a side blog @takingcareofkatie for stuff around food/weight loss/binge eating/self care/etc. They're taking up a lot of space in my mind right now and I want to blog about them but I also know that's not interesting for everyone and can be harmful for some, so I wanted to separate it out.

[becomingkatie]

Update: We’re in the truck driving back home and he put on different music!! Everything is going to be all right!

[becomingkatie]

My mom and her boyfriend are visiting us and took us to an Orioles game. He really likes going to baseball games at different ballparks and he has old friends from pharmacy school in Baltimore with season tickets so we all went together.

I am not going to complain at length but this man’s driving is so bad I would not be able to date him but I’m not the one dating him and only ride with him places maybe once a year so it’s not that big of a deal. But like, trying to figure out where we’re going after we’re already at highway speeds, looking at texts and then zooming in and out on the map while driving, weaving, braking hard. Bonus is that his truck’s suspension only works sometimes so we went from smooth ride to Ken literally hitting his head on the roof when we drove over a bump. And the icing on the cake is that for two hours in traffic he just played one song on repeat (“take off to the great white north” - you have to look this up so you understand what we’re dealing with here). He’d pause it and we’d ride in silence, and then he’d turn it on again.

Okay, so I did complain at length. It was bad okay!

But the game was really fun! A+ hot dog. Two home runs in a row in the seventh inning I think. It was a high scoring game and I was a little bummed we lost but my mom’s bf is a cubs fan so he was happy.

Now we’re going to breakfast with his friends from pharmacy school and then back home. I’m entirely at a loss for what to do to entertain them but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. They’re with us at least until saturday, but mom said something like “but who knows, maybe we’ll stay and check out the farmers market with you and then head back sunday” and I’m like what do you mean who knows??? I need to know! If you are staying in someone else’s house they need to know how many days!

[becomingkatie]

Cardigan progress!

Aside from yard work, I spent the long weekend knitting. I finished the ribbing, bound off, then finally sewed the little flaps along the neckline to form the neck band. I knew I had gauge issues at the beginning of the neckline so it’s a little weird and bunchy at the center of the neckline on the back, but I’m hoping it blocks out (and it’s not bad enough that I’d be really upset if it didn’t).

Ken was like “you’re basically done!” and I said “yeah! Just sleeves left to do!” and he had completely forgotten it needed sleeves and thought I was literally on the finishing steps now. But I’ve heard people categorize it as the yoke, body, and sleeves each being approximately a third when estimating progress, so that puts me at two-thirds of the way done.

I was just about to get started on sleeves when I realized I don’t have the right sized double pointed needles, so I’ll have to make a trip to Michael’s before I can get going on those.

[becomingkatie]

Pollinator garden part 2 - I forgot to mention that the cocktail pics were our post- tree felling celebration yesterday. But here’s the diagram Ken made and a picture from a month or two ago in the back when the coneflowers had just started blooming. Once we got the native plants established out back we’ve kind of neglected it so it’s pretty weedy but that’s the general vibe of plants we’re going for out front (but with more diligent upkeep).

[becomingkatie]

And on the hottest weekend of the year, what if we turned our front yard into a pollinator garden?

This has been on our list for a couple years since the grass in the front doesn’t stand a chance against the constant full sun that piece of yard gets. Ken mapped out a plan and ordered baby plants and then they arrived just in time to make us do this yard work in 101 degree heat.

Step one was removing a small tree Ken put in a little over ten years ago. We dug around it with a shovel and pickaxe until we could knock it over. Hauled it around to the side of the house to deal with it another day.

Today was step two, planting! When he planned out the garden, Ken drew up a little diagram with scale circles based on the projected size of each plant, so we measured and laid things out according to his plan and then got to work planting. That was easy peasy (because he put in the big ones that required shoveling holes and I just did the little guys where a trowel was sufficient). Then newspaper and mulch to kill off the grass and weeds. This would have been fine if we properly estimated the required amount of newspaper and mulch the first time, or even the second. By the third trip we got it right, though.

We have a patch in the back with a lot of these same plants and they’re gorgeous when they bloom so I’m excited for these to grow in!

[becomingkatie]

Birthday weekend!

I turned 32 yesterday and fulfilled a teenage dream of going to the melting pot. When one opened up in my hometown I wanted to go sooo badly (cheese! chocolate!) but it was pricey so we never did. Now I’m a grownup and really love when I can do things for myself that I couldn’t do when I was younger. The cheese fondue was fine. Mojito was amazing. Chocolate fondue delicious. Salad was good, and we skipped entrees because we had enough food.

That was saturday, and yesterday on my actual birthday I felt pretty sick all day. Did the melting pot betray me??? I went to a knitting group at a coffee shop and Ken brought his kindle to hang out. Afterwards I read and napped on the couch, then got my butt in gear and did a peloton ride. It’s my fourth birthday since getting the peloton but my first time actually doing a ride on my birthday, and I got to use the birthday hashtag on the leaderboard!

Ken always makes me a cake for my birthday and this year we went all chocolate. Pants helped.

All in all a very nice weekend, except I put off all my chores so now I have to do them after work today.

[becomingkatie]

me eating leftovers for lunch while wfh: 😍i love this taco bowl 🥰 it's soooo tasty 🤤🌮✨ me 30 mins later when someone pings the office group chat that there's bagels in the kitchen: 😤☹️😠

[becomingkatie]

❤️ brothers ❤️

Sometimes when I talk about the boys people are like “oh they’re brothers? They’re from the same litter?” Girl they’re cats. If they live in the house together they’re brothers.

Anyway these guys kept me up all night friday and saturday so both weekend days were plagued by exhaustion and I did very little besides chores. WAIT no I just remembered I also spent over two hours making cinnamon roll dough only to realize later that my yeast was old and dead so it had to be tossed. I blocked that part of the weekend out. This coming weekend is my birthday so no cinnamon rolls then (they’re a very long, labor intensive recipe and I have other things I want to be doing besides sweating in the kitchen on my birthday - Ken will be making me a cake so I won’t be short on treats) but we have a long weekend for the 4th so I’ll try again then!!

[becomingkatie]

You can just order a lava cake at Chili’s for dinner. You don’t even have to order real food first. Female empowerment.

[koiagain]

im going to fix my entire life

[fruitcakebro]

When?

[koiagain]

Like Um. later

[becomingkatie]

I got my stitches out!

Here’s me running out the door with a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal to finish at stop lights, and then a bonus pic of Pants trying to get my lunch yesterday so the singular pic wouldn’t be huge.

The PA looked at the stitches and said “oh perfect! These look great!” And then the doctor agreed, and the PA took them out. It didn’t feel great but it didn’t hurt like I was afraid it would. I asked the doc “how long until I can do vigorous exercises?” He said, “You’re good, you can do whatever you want now.” And I said, “swimming?” to which he waved his arm and repeated, “you’re good! You can act like this never even happened.” Then he rushed out of the room while preaching sunscreen and hats.

That is… not in line with anything else I’ve read? But also, he’s the doctor who actually looked at my specific incision site. I’m going to make myself start with a 30-minute peloton ride and not a longer one, and pick one that’s not super intense. When I feel confident I’m not going to split this back open I’ll advance. As for the pool, I don’t look at this incision and think, “yeah that looks ready for me to dunk it in a body of water” so I’ll probably skip this weekend, or go but not put my head underwater since I don’t have to be super paranoid about splashing.

That is the best this could have gone!!

Now I’ve got meetings from noon to six with no break, and they’re all meetings that when I think about them my throat constricts and I feel like vomiting. Work is making me sick lately with how stressed I am and how much I hate this project and I am just crossing my fingers it’s not too much longer. There’s going to be a move from CUI to classified for a lot of aspects of the program this summer, and I do not have a clearance, so I’m praying all the areas I’ve been supporting move up in classification to something I can’t support anymore and someone else has to take it over. Of course, they’re trying to keep as much as possible at CUI level to avoid staffing problems. A girl can dream, though. And simultaneously start working through the parachute book on figuring out what job I would like to do instead of this one.

[becomingkatie]

my stitches is ITCHIN and i am BITCHIN about it

(not as itchy as when I got my tattoo, but it being on my face makes it really annoying)

Also i just googled how long after stitches removal before I can go to the pool and work out and I am gonna cry. I had it in my head that he'd remove my stitches tomorrow and be like "okay go do anything you want" but it looks like it might be another week or even longer before I can peloton or bike again, and 2 more weeks before pool??? I know it's dumb but I am seriously close to tears over this. It's just so much more time than I imagined off from the activities I love, and the pool isn't open for long so losing the whole month of June is basically a third of the summer gone.

[becomingkatie]

I'm getting a stand mixer "for my birthday" and I am so excited! For years I've wanted one but our kitchen is small and counter space is extremely limited so we haven't prioritized it. I finally groused enough that Ken suggested a spot for it and it arrives Wednesday! He'll use it to make my birthday cake in a couple weeks but I'm going to be excited and want to use it sooner so I think I'll first re-make some lime cookies I made to take to my brother's. Those are quick and easy so I can do them Wednesday evening right when we get it. Then this weekend I think I'll make cinnamon rolls so I can use the paddle for creaming the filling and the dough hook for the dough!

[becomingkatie]

I was like “I’m not making any progress!” and scrolling back through my camera roll to look at the previous pic didn’t make me feel any better until I literally put them side by side. I’m not flying through the project by any means, but it is actually getting longer and not somehow staying the same despite my knitting row after row, which is what it felt like.