Katie's Picture Book Birthday

Okay, I am going to finally post about Katie's birthday! Which was about a week ago, the 12th. It will be mostly a lot of pictures, I had a lot of fun that day taking photos! (*side note - I do now own Transformers 2, I told you I would own it the day it was available! LOL!)

So, on Kat's birthday, she decided she wanted to go down to the beach. She knew it was now too cold to swim, but she really wanted to go. Just to be there. So we packed up extra jackets and towels in case we sat on the beach, etc. And then we made the hour drive to the one beach still open to the public, Hammonasset beach. We had so much fun. Okay, the girls and I did. My parents either walked around or, if you were my Dad, sat on a bench and just stared out into the ocean. The girls and I all rolled our pants up to our knees and walked along the coast. We picked up pretty seashells, and it was just perfection. It was so serene and we were almost the only ones there, so it was like we had this paradise to ourselves. Katie was so happy, she would come running up to me with a new seashell she found for me or Sam, etc. She was just like a kid. After awhile the water didn't even feel cool, it felt soothing. It was like all our cares and troubles went out with the tide as we walked along the water. I don't think I have felt such a moment of quiet peacefulness like this in a really long time. It was so special. I didn't want to leave at all. But my parents were getting really cold so Katie MADE me go to the bathrooms to get my feet washed off.

We convinced Katie to go to her favorite restaurant, well one of them, Olive Garden. We are still getting advertisements for the Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, so that excited Kate but they weren't offering it AND we are still seeing the commercials. So she ordered her favorite normal one and got gypped. It was like they ran out of ziti, so they gave her half a portion, but charged full price. My Dad let the waitress know it was Katie's birthday and that we expected a song and dessert, and she gave us our bill and left. That made me SO mad, I made sure I went up to someone and said something, that was so wrong! I hoped they would offer something and I could give it to Katie because she figured out what we did and then...nothing!! How sad is that! Luckily we had 2 apple pies at home for her birthday "cake", but still, she helped MAKE them the day before, so the singing was to be special! Grrr to Olive Garden in West Hartford!!

We went back to the house and Katie opened her birthday presents! I KNEW she would love mine! I got her My Life in Ruins, she loved it so much, and she loves all Nia Vardalos movies! Look this was her face when she opened it!

Sam got her this gorgeous jeweled sparrow necklace and a gift card. My parents got her many gift cards, as Kate likes to pick things out herself, stuff for her bellydance bag, a Skelanimals hat, a harcover book, Golden Girls Season 2, some other little things and her first Ipod, a purple Ipod Nano, which has a video camera and FM, sweet! Plus they got her a full Ipod kit, with excercise band and car chargers and speakers, etc. She was so happy, she is constantly borrowing my Ipod or Sandy's (sadly mine needs a new battery, sucky Apple battery!!...sorry needed to vent! LOL). So I also hooked her up and let he pick out any music from my Itunes and transferred it to her Ipod. So now she can have all her bellydance music and songs she just enjoys for fun!

She chose her birthday movie to watch that night, and of course I told her, she would NOT end up wanting to see Betsy's Wedding (thank goodness, I have overseen that) and I was right. We watched Nia's movie! It is SO funny, those who haven't seen it still, rent it!! Poupi Kakas!! ROFL! Ahhhh, so good. And then we sang to her with her pie and she had much pie. And that was Katie's birthday. And here are some of the best pictures!!

This is the purple sand!! It was just there, on one section of the sand! Click on it, seriously it was purple!

And my Halloween-y trailer!!

Birthday Girl - Katie Lynn

This is written at 5 am, just 5 hours into her birthday. I will probably have a post and pictures when her birthday is over, but here is a special post for her now.

*Me holding Baby Katie!

Katie Lynn M. was born on October 12, 1980 at 4:30 am on the dot. My father almost had to deliver her, because he could see her head already, when they got to the hospital!! Kat was ready to be BORN!

She was NOT a "good" baby apparently. She was a "screaming memie" as my parents call her. She was constantly yelling her lungs out, nothing made her happy, then suddenly around hitting 2 I believe, she turned into a good girl. LOL. My parents never let her forget she was the worst of the babies. Who was the best you might ask? Well I was! Seriously though, I was. Apparently all my parents had to do to get me to sleep was pat me on my back and I was out. I KNOW that is something every parent dreams of. Let me bow. LOL.

Anyway, Katie even as a little girl, loved to dance. When she was old enough she joined me in ballet class. Then together we took 4 years of Acrobatics, which we loved. Katie is vertically-challenged compared to me (she is 5' 3", I ignore it when she adds and 3/4") so she was able to lots more flips and stuff than me. I was up to my 5'10" by our last year, plus having scholiosis, I just couldn't do some of the back bend then kick into a standing position things. Katie excelled at it though. After 4 years they stopped offering it, so we each tried Jazz, but were spilt up. I hated Jazz so that was my final year of dance. Katie continued on for several more years. She stopped at one point, but when she started college, she also became very interested in Belly Dance.

As you know, she took many years of belly dance before starting to teach it herself. Then she began to professionally dance and continues to both teach and perform to this day. (She teaches 5 days a week and does school for OTA) She is absolutely AMAZING. And I have seen many belly dancer's now, thanks to me helping Katie out on gigs, and my sister has a special talent. She just FEELS the dance and dances from her heart. She has joy in dancing and you feel that and it makes YOU smile. The audience ends up feeling that joy. She is gifted and she is just amazing to watch in her element. Here are a few bellydance pictures of my gorgeous sister. And is it hard to have such a gorgeous sister? You bet your sweet fanny it is! Look at her!

I KNOW!! LOL. That pic of her in green is a new fave, I just found it on FB...thabks a lot Kat! Anyway, Katie excels at anything she puts her mind to. She is an A+ student in anything she studies, okay maybe NOT art, thank goodness though, that is MY thing, she has enough she is good at!! While we clash heads a lot, which I think is due to the fact that we ARE such tight sisters, Katie is also one of my best friends. She knows when I am feeling down and does her best to cheer me up. Whether it is going to a horror movie, which she is terrifed of, or just hanging out. She can make me laugh so much, and HER laugh is absolutely contagious! The laugh you may hear ringing out through the movie auditorium? So gonna be Katie, and I love that about her.

She wants to please everyone, which means her friends take advantage of her a lot. I mean it, a lot. And that pisses me off. And she is too kind to stand up for herself. She is very good at letting things roll off her back, but she hides those feelings sometimes which is not good for her, because she can be like me, and NEED to have an outburst to get all those yucky feelings out. Her friends NEED to appreciate her more, and see what a GEM they have in her. She sticks by them through all their mistakes and keeps her mouth shut if they don't want to hear her true opinion. She is generous with her time, her money, her everything, for people she cares about. So people need to SEE that and appreciate it. She gives with all of her heart, and deserves that in return.

My little sister Katie is a sweetheart, and here is to hoping you have a great day today Katie!!

Happy Birthday Katie Lynn!!

Birthday Tradition

Sorry but this will be a pretty short post. It is after 4 am and I need to take my pills early, like NOW. It is officially Katie's Birthday!! She is officially 29, but we are saying she is 27, because I am claiming to be 29, so we cannot be the same! Duh! We are NOT Irish twins, though we know some! LOL!. Anyway, it is a tradition that at the stroke of midnight, the two sisters whose birthday it is not, bring the birthday sister something to blow out and eat. Last year I got a part of a granola bar. We put Sandy's in a Reese's PB cup, etc. We put Kat's in a tiny piece of cake. If my parents are actually awake they take part too, but they are normally long asleep by then.

We also go out for something to eat. For about 2 years we went to a diner for "breakfast" but people got tired of that last year so we go to McD's and get stuff to go and eat it in the parking lot, and just talk. Katie decided she wanted Max to go, and it made it very interesting indeed. LOL. He loves the car, but is very noisy and demanding, you want to throttle him sometimes (not really of course). Katie played with him while I drove. We got food and cocoa, since it is FREAZING outside, well not officially, but 41 is pretty doggone close! We ate the food and talked and had a great time, but McD's cocoa SUCKS! Nasty stuff. So we dumped it and went to Dunkin' Donuts, which has good cocoa. Then we headed home. Sandy went to bed, she was so cranky, it was a good thing.

Katie wanted to watch a movie so we ended up picking Iron Eagle. I bought it on a whim, because we used to watch it ALL the time growing up, and loved it, but I could not remember a single thing about it, besides Lou Gosset Jr and Jason Gedrick starring in it. SO I bought it anyway when I saw it in March in Florida. You know what? Besides a few lines being corny (it WAS the 80's, it has been like 23 years since Iron Eagle was released), the movie was great! We both really liked it and figured out, THIS is why we loved it obviously! Jason Gedrick's Air Force pilot father is captured and set to be hung in three days. Now Jason has been putting in flight simulator hours for years and has gone up in the f-16's with his father, so he can FLY. But he needs help to rescue his father. With the help of his friends, the Eagles, he gets all the intelligence he needs (hey it is a movie and these Air Force brats are related to big wigs on base and USE that) and brings it to the one Colonel he thinks will help him, Louis Gossett Jr. And he works with all these kids and devises a plan that he and Jason will act on. The Air Force won't rescue this man, but one Colonel and one young man, in 2 F-16's, will attempt to do what they will not. If you want to know if they are successful, rent this movie. If you want to know if they all make it home, rent it. If you want to see Lou Gossett Jr rock? RENT it! I love Lou, he is so cool!

Anyway we finished a little after 3:45 and I have no idea what Kate's plans will be...neither does she, lol. But anyway, I have to be prepared! I went out Saturday night and had some fun but that post and those pictures will have to wait a day or two, it is my sister's Birthday!

One Year Blogiversary!!

I really do find it extremely strange to think that it has been a year to the day, since my first post. A year...it seems unbelievable! Oh and what a post it was too. It was entitled "What Up?" and said this:

"Well it seems everyone is jumping on the blog bandwagon, and so I am giving it a shot of my own. I'll probably post poems, talk about my love of movies and talk about just general stuff and rant of course...when I remember I have a blog. See, I was never much good at keeping a journal or diary so this may start off strong and fizzle, or maybe no one will even read this, but even if they don't, hey...maybe I will have an online journal I can print out one day.
But seriously, these are my personal meanderings, so they may seem to veer aimlessly from subject to subject at times, but it's just from my perspective. My thoughts tend to be scattered, but hey...maybe yours are too!"

Yup that gem was how it all started. What the heck was the matter with me...what up??!! Oy the pain of the lameness I am known for. But none-the-less, a miracle happened. I stuck with it. I even exceeded any expectations I ever had in my dreams. I have often posted multiple times in a day! I have more than 400 posts. I, who can't write in a journal more than 2 days before forgetting about it and years pass, have been steadily writing for a year now!

I have been able to do things I never thought myself capable of. I decided after about 3 weeks maybe, that I was going to be 100% me on this blog. I was going to be honest and open and let it all hang out there, for the world to see. I decided to start writing about how I actually felt, to share my battle with depression and other mental disorders, like Social Anxiety and OCD. I decided to tell people I had a gastric bypass, and went into every minute detail of my experience with it. I decided I was just going to be me.

The more I wrote, the more something inside of me was set free. I was writing about things I didn't think I could ever talk about, not even to people I have known forever, and it was scary, but it was liberating too. Oh yeah, it has been scary. I worried what people would think of me, how I would be judged. If revealing the real me, would end up being a mistake. That it would make me lose these friends I was making through the Blog World, because they would see me as some sort of freak. But the feeling I got, as I wrote down my feelings and worries, it felt good. Scary but it felt so right too. Like talking out the bad, or even the good, from that day and sharing it, was helping me somehow. I still don't know how, but I can feel that this helps me.

And people were responding to me, encouraging me and giving me words of advice and love. Through luck I found Kristina in the beginning, and she suggested a few friends of hers as people to read and respond to, and they, a miracle to me, became my friends too. And then I found more and more amazing people that I liked and they liked me too and started leaving me comments. People actually found what I had to say worthwhile and interesting. Which gave me more courage to write and to comment on their blogs. It started getting easier to believe that people actually liked my blog.

Sure, I have my issues with self esteem, so I still worry, what will people think about this post? I wonder when I only get one or two people commenting, am I losing my friends, have I gotten less interesting? But the thing is, I am being me, and if I change my blog to attract more followers, is that worth it? It will mean I am not being myself and I think that is what has kept me blogging. For a whole year now. So if being myself means I never get over 60 readers, I am trying ( hey I am being honest) to be okay with that. It means those people actually care about me and what I have to say. They stick by me, through the good funny stories, and the rants about my darkest feelings. And those are the people who really count.

I have found a little piece of the net, where I belong. And I have found friends here who make the days easier, make the days funnier, just make my day sometimes with a simple comment. I have been blessed with the people I have encountered through my blog. No wonder, I have been able to keep at it. I have made too many friends, real friends, to want to stop talking to them about my days, or to stop hearing about theirs. I have learned so much from all of you. I have found people who actually LIKE me rambling about movies, and found their ramblings about movies fascinating to read.

I can only hope I can continue with this. This has been so good for me. In so many ways. This has been a place to express the real me and feel accepted. This has been almost like a journal, something I have never been able to do before. This has been therapeutic in some ways, because I have found people who have felt the same way and have given me hope and great advice.

I am so proud to have made it to One Year, and can't wait to say I have made it to another! In celebration of blogging for a whole year, I will be doing a giveaway when I get back to CT. This is no review and giveaway, but a Giveaway hosted solely by me, for you guys. I have some shopping to do, but I do have one thing I have been holding onto, from The Body Shop. That is all I will say for now. LOL.

So thank you for being great friends, and for reading my blog! I appreciate each and every one of you! And I hope in one year I can say it all again!!

The Day was Good and a Vlog

This is my SHORT blog, I ended up having a extremely bad night, so I couldn't handle doing a real one. Sorry!

The Good and The Bad

We went and had my dinner and movie portion of my Birthday today! Outback was so not crowded so I was happy. Sadly they did not have my Creamy Potato soup but it is okay, I managed! LOL! I shared the filet mignon with my Mom and it was so good. And our waiter sucked so bad, he never showed up asking if we wanted refills, he only showed up to ask about our meals after 3 of us were DONE, he just was crappy. And then he was gone again and I was like I am gonna go sit outside on bench, it was another pretty day, and so because of the guy I found out I was supposed to be sung too and get ice cream, so the girls' surprise was ruined, they were mad too, we waited for like 25 minutes before he finally showed up. But it was delicious, it had oreo crumbles all along the bottom, mmmmm.
Then we went and saw my movie FINALLY!! As soon as the credits started I was clapping my hands! LOL! Yes I am that much of a geek for this franchise!! I waited too, I was so ready to see it the day it was released and stayed away from cheating sites, so I would not ruin it for myself! And I refused to let critics bad opinions influence me! I LOVED it!! Yes there is a LOT of robot fight scenes but the movie is called TRANSFORMERS! If it was mostly Shia then it would be the story of the Transformers!! There were more cuss words, I swear the only one in the first is that annoying lil robot saying "oh s%@#", this one had more but it wasn't that much compared to what is on some tv shows, so whatever, I didn't care. I loved it! I got really upset at one point, you who have seen it will know why, but it ended with me smiling and yes, the only person in the theater clapping!! LOL! My Mom has agreed to buy it for me the day it gets out! YES!

So that was a good day. But I have refrained from talking about something really bothering me because I didn't want to think about it (as much as possible) let alone talk about it on my birthday. I am having issues with someone, I have mentioned "this" in some other posts in the last few months. Apparently this person wrote my father and claimed I had [put up things I am not allowed to. Ummm....say what? I walked back up to my room because I have just had it. After I changed I opened the door and heard myself being talked about. My sister was defending me telling my parents I had nothing about the unmentionable up.

Sandy reads my blog every day. I have been fine with Sandy reading it, she is my sister and rarely mentions my blog unless it is to laugh at something I said or vlogged, like kicking my own butt. But these people are not supposed to EVER look at it again, it is a condition on them never being mentioned by name and pics posted of them now up. So I am furious. Sandy was so furious she got my Dad to see that these accusations were unfounded and these people had no right to even be saying ANYTHING. He did want to see my blog and wanted to see that my Facebook account IS private, when he got back. Yeah, am I totally okay with that? No. Not that my parents and sisters can't read my blog, if they want to okay. Because I don't like lying or hiding things.So I am not a liar and Sandy backed me up saying I had done nothing wrong

Thanks guys, I needed to vent about this. I am so sick of having my blog being used as a weapon against me. Finding friends, expressing my true self and being accepted. The horrible people would have that taken from me.

Bloody Great Birthday!

So I had a pretty great birthday today. I was awoken to a yummy brunch: eggs, bacon, watermelon, OJ, milk and toast. I was greeted by two balloons, one is absolutely GIANT sized, look at the difference between my normal sized balloon and my awesome giant one!

Then we all got dressed and ready and went out to go bowling. Real bowling too, not duck-pin. Sadly they were ALL closed. Everything was closed for my birthday that I would have loved to do! The one drawback of having your birthday on a Holiday! But I found a regular bowling lane that would be open until 11pm, so we headed there and it is really close, I never go past the Plainville Shopping center that way, but it is right there! Man those bloody balls are heavy, and I had to take a 9 so that my fingers felt comfortable. We began and things were okay, I wasn't as bad as I had been in duck-pin. I wasn't great, but I was okay! Sandy was doing very, very poorly. Sorry Sam but you were getting 0 pins down! So after 4 rounds the guy put the bumpers up, yes indeed we did play with the bumpers. My parents didn't play as Dad bowls like "the pro's" and lands on his knee which is messed up and Mom has wrist trouble, so they just wanted to watch and cheer, or in Dad's case jeer and mess you up by offering money if you got certain shots which would ensure you didn't get it. Except ONCE when Sandy did, and now he owes her 5 bucks! Heehee! You know what, I would have preferred we leave OFF the bumpers because suddenly this made Katie and Sandy UNSTOPPABLE and they were getting strikes and spares! And Katie rolled hers so gently I was shocked every time that the ball went all the way and hit pins! So we played two games and did birthday girl win even once? No!! Rotten no good sisters, not letting the birthday girl win!! Katie won both! Grrr! LOL!

Then we headed to Outback just to drive by it and make sure it was open. It was but Sandy wanted us to pull over to talk. She had an idea. She thought since we had snack foods for the movie later, then Outback would be too much. Her suggestion is since we are doing my Birthday movie tommorrow (just because it is for my Birthday, ye fellow church-goers) that we should do my birthday dinner tommorrow too. So tommorrow we are going to eat at Outback and then see Transformers. I am amazed I kept myself away from seeing it this long, I am SO freaking excited for it, it is not even funny!! LOL! So we stopped by McD's and had stuff from the $1 menu to tide us over until movie snack time. And I got to sit in the birthday chair. Oh boy! :p

We went home and got stuff together, including Max but he got scared and went inside...

Now it was time for the water fight! It is something we usually do on my birthday, last year we couldn't because we were rained out. It was sunny and like 70 degrees with, yes a chilly wind, but we decided to go ahead with it anway! My father cheated, not only is his water gun 2 times bigger than ALL of ours, but he filled it with ice cubes!! THAT was not okay, that was painful, seriously!! And it chilled the gun sooo well, evertime he filled it, it still felt like ice water!!

We all got soaked!! And with it only being 70 and the wind...it got freezing!! We ran in and took showers, but if I hadn't known I would want one later, I would have just dried off and put new clothes on, it was refreshing!!

We did presents next! A lot of my gifts were pieces of paper, with presents written on them. Everything I really wanted is getting out after my birthday, so they pre-ordered stuff like House, Gossip Girl and Dollhouse for me. And Push, Knowing and Race to Witch Mountain too. I got an awesome shower thing that although I share a bathroom is JUST for me, wahoo! That was actually "from" Max, lol! Katie got me a gift card to Blue Moon, a store I love. And Sandy got me a necklace from there. It is part of a blue rainforest butterflies wing. But it is special, this company only collects dead butterflies and uses the income they make to keep the rainforest going strong and keep it's inhabitants clothed and fed! It is so pretty!! I will see if I can take a picture of it soon, it is dainty, but it is so pretty and I love that it is eco-friendly! I also got 2 other gift cards (one for Cheesecake Factory, wahoo!) and a few movies, like Inkheart and He's Just Not That Into You! Plus I got a Logitech webcam!! It was practically my whole list, sure I had trouble this year, I usually have more options for the shoppers but got stuck on movies/tv series and couldn't find other things I liked. And they decided the blouses I put down were ugly...I liked them but they thought them ugly, so I am to go to Lane Bryant with Mom and pick a shirt out! My family rocks!! It is kind of weird to only have a handful of your gifts ON you, but when they start to come in the mail, it will be fun! They were so generous, I love my parents and sisters!

We prepped the food so that halfway through Inkheart we could eat, but my Mom made it 28 minutes and said "I hungry".LOL. So we put the perogies into bake and got out the bread bowl with dill dip and the pickle things ( ham or turkey with cream cheese spread on them and wrapped around a pickle and then sliced...SO blody yummy!) and I got to have some of my frosted brownies Sam made for me!! Soooo good! It is like heaven in a pan! Then when it was ready we ate and watched the movie and I felt like, as Sandy said, I was pregnant with food. Small stomachs so less food but still we felt SO bloated!

We decided at 9pm to do our fireworks because you could hear other people doing theirs and Max hates them, he thinks they are thunderstorms, and he is terrified of them! Poor baby. But the mosquitos are out in FULL force so we all suited up. And it felt fine because it was only 64 degrees outside!

In July! It is usually about 100 degrees here on my birthday, thus why a water fight is always had, but not tonight! The fireworks were awesome!! We saved our 2 favorite so next time Dad drives through South Dakota he will be picking up a bunch of Merlin's Wands and Fireballs! My camera did not pick up the best pics or videos but I still like them.

We went back inside after and finished the movie. Then they broke out my lil Carvel ice cream cake and sang me Happy Birthday and we had cake...mmm love those crunchies! Then Mom and Dad went off to sleep, Mom has to be Supervisor on duty tommorrow, a guy was nice and took today from her!! So the girls and I just sat and talked until my birthday was officially over! Sure while we are at Outback and the movie tommorrow, that is my birthday, but it is over and part of me is relieved. Now we get to look forward to Sandy's birthday on Wednesday! LOL! Such a cluster! Have a great night everyone!! I am a happy girl!!