woes of being a responsible adult...

it has been no secret that matt and i are considering, in the long term, a move to the kitsap peninsula, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which include a lower cost of living (about 80%) and higher-paying jobs. plus, with the uncleared acreage for sale, we could buy a piece of land and build our own house, which we really want to do.

but i guess it's always been comfortable as a "long term" goal. today, i feel low, mostly because the naval base is hiring, at a great rate of pay, and we're not really emotionally or physically ready to pick up and go. i know it's cheaper to live there, and we'd be making more money, and we feel called to live there - we're just not feeling called to go *right* now.

i just feel like if we don't go now, we'll lose out on the opportunity to go. the truth is that if God wants us there, He'll make the way. i'm just very uncomfortable with change right now. and i hate moving.

if i could be any age...

if i could be any age again, i'd choose to be 5.

• At 5, you're excited to go to school.
  
• At 5, you only go to school for half a day.
  
• At 5, you still have naptime.
  
• At 5, your biggest concern is that mom might make you eat peas with dinner.
  
• At 5, your hardest chore is making your bed.
  
• At 5, nobody looks at you funny if you ask for a PB&J sandwich for lunch.
  
• At 5, you're not concerned about your weight.
  
• At 5, you don't have to worry about getting enough exercise - playtime is always guaranteed.
  
• At 5, you really have very few responsibilities.
  
• At 5, you don't have to work at making friends.
  

what a weekend! i love long weekends, but this one was something else, a lot of good, a little not-so-good.

first, the good...

we kept our nephew friday & saturday night and had such a great time with him. he's at such a fun age. good manners, well behaved, totally sweet, but he asks "why?" about everything.

we took him swimming friday night and then out to dinner. saturday morning, we got up and made breakfast, then took him to a park near our house. i love this park - it's just so cool, and of course, i have a ton of photos to share with you...

this is my favorite thing about the park - a train scene.


{this is the train scene. in the vertical photo, you can see lines running forward - those are tracks. on the ground, closest to you, it points southbound "to seattle", and pointing towards the train, northbound, it point "to everett". how cool is that??}

i have a few fun page ideas rolling around in my head for this... the first is just a page about david... here are some of the photos i want to use:



the second idea is a layout titled "of bigs and littles" (as in big boys, and little boys, in case that wasn't obvious...)




and the third idea will somehow include the quote "i get by with a little help from my friends"... or something of the same effect... these photos:




love these photos. they're better in full size. can't wait to play with them.

anyway, saturday night, matt went to see bill engvall in concert. he had a great time, but that meant david & i were on our own. mostly, we hung out together, playing video games and such. sunday morning, we got up and returned him to his mom.

the not-so-fun stuff...

monday i was on call, for all 24 hours, due to the holiday. this meant that i had a pager strapped to my hip, and that nothing was planned that couldn't be dropped in a heartbeat, to run to aid a server in need. for the most part, nothing terrible happened. however, the stuff that did happen was stuff that i mostly was not able to handle for some reason or another (over my head, or i simply didn't have that much power on our machines) and thus, the pager left me feeling woefully ignorant for most of the day. thankfully, i got to turn it off at 11pm last night, and i've never slept better.

in return for being on call yesterday, i get another day off, which i'll take tomorrow. sounds quite lovely - i really want some time to myself to play with my toys!

ok, it's a little cheesy...

after my post the other day about the onslaught of fall, i decided it was time for a layout! and since the title of my blog entry firmly inserted the song by the same name into my poor head for days, i decided that the lyrics needed to be re-written to suit the current theme.

so... here we go:

{to the tune of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year}

It's the most wonderful time of the year.
With the leaves turning colors,
and clothes getting warmer,
I think it's quite clear:
It's the most wonderful time of the year.

There'll be yellow school busses,
and kids making fusses and
school shopping, give up the dough!
there'll be much cooler weather and
dinners together of soups and stews
served in a bowl.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.
The leaves will be falling
and friends will be calling,
you out of the drear!
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

yep, i'm a biiiig cheeseball. and you can *bet* this will be appearing in a layout soon. ;)

{copyright kate thaete, 2005. ... or whatever}

ten things i'm thankful for...

in the wake of tragedy, i'm counting a few of my blessings...

1. my husband, who loves me no matter what.
2. my family, who loves me and supports us and is always there.
3. matt's family, who loves matt and wants nothing but the best for him, and thinks i'm it.
4. a good job, that is there every day, consistently, putting food on the table and a roof over our heads.
5. matt's job, also there, every day, consistently, putting food on the table and a roof over our heads.
6. a Lord and Savior that walks beside me on the good days, and carries me on the bad.
7. free time to be myself, to discover new things, to enjoy my person.
8. a hobby about which i am so passionate.
9. a good education, and a good upbringing that gave me a good head on my shoulders.
10. my friends, who give me a break from the "real world" and give me the opportunity to be a kid again.

i just don't know how to help...

honestly, what i really want to do is drive to New Orleans just to hug every person i see and ask them to tell me their story. i want to listen. i want to hold their children. i want to dry their tears. i want to hear what they need to say, to help them come to grips with what's happened. to help them heal. but i can't. so i just pray. i know prayer is powerful: i've seen the effects in my own life. so i'll do what i know works the best. i'll pray.

it's the most wonderful time of the year...

ok, so bing wasn't singing about the back-to-school season - but i sure am!

i simply love this time of year. the air gets a little crisper, and i now need a coat to walk to the bus in the morning (and sometimes, an umbrella!). big yellow school busses start making their appearances, and sleepy-eyed kids stumble down the street to catch their ride each morning, already thinking forward to columbus day - their first school holiday. fall decorations fill my favorite craft stores, in palettes of red, orange, yellow and brown. clothing stores display warmer clothes in dark tones and thick wools and cottons, ready to bear the turning weather. i know that leaves will begin turning lovely shades of gold and crimson, and the fall holidays i enjoy are on their way. back-to-school sales litter the weekly circulars, and the smell of freshly sharpened pencils brings me back to my own days as a student.

back-to-school represents good things ahead: new challenges, learning new things, a fresh start, and most of all - for a kid, it represents another year older, just like a birthday does to an adult, but far, far more exciting. sometimes i miss being a student (and sometimes, i don't!) but each fall makes me long to go buy a new backpack, notebooks, pencils, pens and all of the other lovely supplies a student needs. not to mention the clothes. oh, how i miss buying a new wardrobe in time for the start of school, and then wearing your cutest outfit for your first day...

fantastic...

Princesses was fantastic. i don't know how else to describe it. just amazing. the music was {mostly} fun, the cast was awesome, the scenery was so detailed and exciting. in fact, a testament to how amazing this production was: matt is not a musical theatre fan. 99% of the time, he goes simply to humor me. when we got to the theatre last night, he was very, very tired, and in bad need of a nap. i decided that if he started to snooze as soon as the lights went down, i wouldn't be upset.

i was so wrong. he was wide awake from the first number, and he was laughing, and enjoying himself through the whole production, all two & a half hours of it. that's how good it was!

so, a little synopsis: a girl is shipped off to boarding school by her always-unavailable movie-star dad. feeling guilty, he comes to spend some "quality time" with her, and finds the girls preparing to perform A Little Princess. he volunteers to direct it, and play Captain Crewe, the little princess's father. of course, by opening night, something "more important" has come up, so he has to rush off, and leave them stranded. our protagonist is angry, and decides to quit, but her friends show her that she's just like her dad. determined to be anything but her father, she stays, and they pull off the production of A Little Princess. throughout the first act of the show, we see rehearsal of the early scenes of the play, so the later scenes of the final act are just the last few scenes of the play, in full. the writers did an amazing job of telling the *whole* story of A Little Princess, while still maintaining focus on the plot of the show itself.

so fun. i want to see it again.

oh, and i forgot to mention...

we "exchanged" anniversary gifts on our trip {read: we told eachother what we got, because neither of us actually had the gift with us}...

so, for our first anniversary - the paper anniversary:

i got matt a puzzle, custom made with a photo of us and a quote that says "When someone cares enough to love us in our perfectly imperfect form, they bless us with a rare kind of joy."

matt paid for me to go to four classes at the Washington CK Convention in October, and on top of that, made me a scrapbook page... how cute is he?? however, the page is still in the works, so i'll scan and upload when it's finished. :)

here in town, we have a theatre called 5th Avenue that performs musicals throughout the year. i love this theatre - they put on colorful, spectacular presentations. i was first acquainted with them in highschool when a guy i dated would take me to the shows, where his mom was usually in the chorus. i've seen a number of them over the years - Les Miserables (5th row, at that), Camelot, Titanic, Guys & Dolls (one of my favorites), A Chorus Line, Sound of Music, Kiss Me Kate, and a few others I know I'm forgetting. My parents recently saw Princesses and loved it, so when they acquired two more tickets, they gave them to Matt & I. So, this Wednesday, we'll be seeing another 5th Avenue production. I'm so excited!!