Katie's 99 in 999 (currently 55 in 555!)

Ricky and I actually joined the church choir here within the first month of moving, but I didn't have anything exciting to take a picture of until this month.  Luckily, the Christmas season is full of "special musical performances," and I volunteered to play a clarinet accompaniment to the choir's rendition of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (which is a great piece for a clarinet sound, for the record). My choir director was concerned because she couldn't find an accompaniment part for the piece that fit with the piano part we already had.  "Don't worry," I told her, "I finished two whole semesters of music theory and I can totally write a part for this.  How do you feel about a descant?" A note: playing the clarinet in high school/college: not that impressive playing the clarinet in grown-up world: SUPER IMPRESSIVE transcribing/composing basic pieces in college music classes: not that impressive transcribing/composing basic piec...

This was one of my favorite goals so far.  I love crafting, but I hate tracking down all the supplies and setting everything up and other responsible organized things, so I never muster up the desire to actually do anything.  It's a shame, I know, especially since everyone and their dog has an Etsy shop nowadays and I feel like I should get a piece of the action. Anyway, my woes of laziness aside, I was presented with two awesome opportunities for creativity--a wedding and a baby.  (Not mine.)   Gift #1: Back in October, Alaina (one of my best friends and fellow English major) got married, and I knew she absolutely needed something literary for her home. On one of my thrifting excursions, I found a copy of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (a literary staple!) from the early 1940's, and it was crafting love at first sight.  (Luckily, Rebecca isn't one of my favorites, or else there's no way I could've taken it apart for the project.)  I bought four smal...

This is the thrilling conclusion to this post , in which I explain how my very favorite husband bought me Cirque du Soleil tickets for my birthday and how excited I am to see the show. IT.  WAS.  SO.  GOOD.   (The show, not the blog post.) It was a sold-out house, making parking and traffic pretty crazy, but we left early enough for Miami that we had plenty of time before the show started to grab a bite at a super-shady Wendy's and talk about how much we hate Miami. Cirque du Soleil lived up to every expectation I had for it, which is saying something, because I've been building expectations for seven years now.  I laughed and screamed and took blurry pictures and smiled like an idiot the whole time.   One of the few redeeming qualities of big cities is that awesome things come to them--like Cirque du Soleil. We were literally five feet away from the stage, which actually turned out to be a disadvantage because a lot of the stunts were 30-5...

Long time, no see, blogosphere! I've been up to my eyeballs with schoolwork this past month, and I rewarded myself with a few days of breathing easy after my last final before tackling "the blogs" again.  I've got a few things to catch up on, so let's recap, shall we? Besides re-reading HP7 (which needs no review) for the movie premiere this past month, I picked a book off my shelf that I snagged at the Green Valley Book Fair a couple years back.  (If you are in the BV/Lexington area and haven't driven to Staunton for this too-amazing-for-words book fair, you're missing out.)  Thursday Next is a sequel to The Eyre Affair , a novel I read in my undergraduate genre studies course and absolutely loved.  The sequel, unfortunately, is nowhere near as good, but I'm not too heartbroken about it because the book only cost me $2 (see book fair note above).  I'm not sure how to begin as far as description goes.  It's not a futuristic settin...

Confession: I did not actually finish this book in the month of October. I know that makes me a terrible person.  I realized on Halloween that I hadn't finished it (which is pretty sad, because it's incredibly short), and it just so happened that we had church, choir practice, a dinner invitation, and another get-together (I think that's the married people term for "hanging out") that day, leaving me no time to finish the book.  So, I finished it on November 1st, and hopefully all you monitors of my progress will forgive me and let this one slide.  October was, after all, the month of midterms and the like, and since we're currently in the month of giving thanks, you should be thankful that I am so honest about these things.  You're welcome. To add insult to failure (?), this was a book I've already read multiple times.  It's one of my favorites.  For those who aren't familiar with it--which is nearly everyone, even people schooled in the H...

This goal seems pretty trivial, but I LOVE puzzles.  They're so therapeutic, which is why I should do them more often...and yet I never do, which is why I put it on my list. A few Christmases ago, I received "The World's Smallest 1000-Piece Puzzle" from my good friend Sara George-Kreider, and I'm ashamed to admit it took me almost two years to actually put it together.  Eventually, though, I did, and it was awesome!  It wasn't one of those stupid puzzles where the water and the sky look exactly the same and you put one in the wrong place and it throws the entire puzzle off.  Instead, there was a subtle but clear differentiation between what was water and what was not. It's the little things.

On the last Saturday in September (procrastination, as usual), Ricky and I made the 3 1/2 hour drive to the Orlando, FL temple for what threatened to be a supremely awesome day.  (For those of you unfamiliar with the purpose of LDS temples, there's a website !) It was hard leaving our dear Washington, D.C. temple behind--after all, we did get married there--but we were excited for the chance to make Orlando our "home base" for the next few years.     Not as impressive as the D.C. "towering over the Beltway" look, but still impressive! Isn't this place gorgeous?  You can't see the fountains in this picture, but the temptation to jump in them was pretty strong.  It was SO HOT. No Jensen outing is complete without an awkward, "look, we match" picture.   95% of the time this is a total accident. The temple was, as usual, amazing.  You know that feeling you get when you're on vacation and you realize that you have nowhere to rush to and n...

Not only did I get to attend this wedding, but I got to be in the stinkin' bridal party! Alaina (center) and bridesmaids.  Yes, Melanie, I heartlessly ripped this picture right off your Facebook. We--the bridesmaids and Lainy, that is--have all been great friends since ninth grade, and some of us go further back than that.  (Lainy and I became best friends in eighth grade, and used to talk about how she and I would each be a bridesmaid at the other's wedding.  How's that for fortune-telling?)  We all live in different places now, so spending a few days with these ladies was indescribably fantastic!  So many of my other close middle/high school friends (including the groom!) were at the wedding that we called it our mini-reunion.  It's amazing how you can be apart from people for so many years and then just pick up like you never left--I definitely hit the jackpot in the friend department.  They're incredible people.  I was too busy having the ...

I've never been a crafty person.  Ok, that's partly a lie--I'm actually fairly decent at crafts, but I'm definitely not the type to sew a new skirt on a whim or make my own thank-you cards or scrapbook all the details of my life.  I think the people that do those things are on-par with superheroes, only they save the world through coordinating colors of textured paper and cricut machines instead of boring things like flying and superhuman strength. The point I'm trying to make here is that I spend more time scrolling through craft blogs than I will ever spend actually making crafts.  I've come to the realization, however, that sitting at home by yourself all day gets really old, really quickly.  After watching the entire eleventh season of Law and Order: SVU in a grand total of three days, I decided I needed a new hobby, and then proceeded to decide that an awesome hobby would be making hair accessories for all of the bridesmaids in Alaina's wedding party...

This is Ricky. He's 25, loves the Yankees, takes out the garbage, does his own car repair, and enjoys wearing three-piece suits.  I know what you're thinking: "This guy may have all the appearances of being the best husband of all time, but does he really have what it takes?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he certainly does.  I present into evidence Exhibit A: These are tickets to Cirque du Soleil.   Cirque.  Du.  Freaking.  Soleil. Eight years ago, I spent New Year's with my family at my grandparents' house in Miami.  Because grown-ups are bound by law to drag their children to boring, grown-up parties that said children would rather not attend, I spent the first few hours of New Year's Eve down the street at a stranger's house being a mopey teenager.  After I had dutifully served my time, I cajoled my parents into letting me go back to my grandparents' house, at which point I enthusiastically began AIMing all my friends back home. (Remember wh...

If there's one thing I love--luckily, I love more things than that, but if there had to be just one, and it wasn't Ricky or my cat or my family or any of those things--it's Julie Andrews. I didn't mean for Home to be my September book.  In fact, I was really eying a Dostoevsky for this month, but Ricky and I made the mistake of going into Borders one night and I found this beauty on sale for five dollars.  I opened it up there in the store and proceeded to read for 20 minutes until they announced that the store was closing and I better buy the book or get the heck out.  After a tiny twinge of guilt for spending money on a book that I certainly don't need...I bought it anyway.  (It's a problem.) And it was AWESOME.  Julie Andrews had a fascinating childhood, and the way she writes is so astoundingly British that my inner reading voice actually develops a strong accent.  I love it.  Her children's book, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles , is ...

This one took FOREVER.  Seven cans of spray paint and about a million trips to Wal-Mart later, our dresser is finally refinished!  When we arrived in Florida, I knew it would be my only chance to make it over, so our clothes have been stacked haphazardly around our bedroom waiting to have a home. We inherited the dresser from the wonderful Kaitlyn, who lived in our VA apartment before us and left it behind because it was a behemoth to move.  We didn't want to get rid of it, obviously--it's a free piece of furniture!--but I had to do something with it because it really was not jiving with my style. The very first thing I did was remove the hard water etching design from the vanity mirror. I was pretty amazed at how easily it came off.  I used a fine-grain sander and some water and it disappeared!  (See upper left corner of the mirror for an in-progress section.) And after: Ta-da! Next, I repainted the vanity section that sits on top of the dresser. Ther...

About three months ago, when we decided we were definitely going to move into an apartment that allowed pets, I began looking for a new addition to our family.  In my online searches of pounds, humane societies, etc., I stumbled across Brooke's Legacy Animal Rescue, an organization that literally rescues cats and dogs from kill shelters on the day they're scheduled to be euthanized--I was excited at the prospect of freeing up a space for another animal to be rescued, so I looked through the pages of pets and found the most gorgeous calico cat!  My childhood cats were calicoes, and I love them more than the average person probably does, but how can the average person NOT love them?  I mean, they're stinkin' beautiful. Anyway, my only concern was that our big move was still months away, leaving an uncomfortable amount of time for someone else to snatch up my lovely cat. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Then WE FINALLY MOVED. And I waited a little more. T...

(The dollar sign in the title post is intentional, of course.) This has been one of my favorite list items so far!  I knew Atlas Shrugged was a classic and everything, but I never had any desire to read it...probably because it's over 1,000 pages long.  Go figure.  When you read a description of it, it sounds like the most boring plotline imaginable.  A railroad executive?  Corporate America?  Overreaching government?  1,000 PAGES?!  (You can see why it took me so long to begin reading it.)  Imagine my surprise when it took about .2 seconds for the story to become incredibly engaging.  Out of the entire behemoth of the book, there was only one section of about 30 pages that had me anxious to skip ahead to the more "exciting" parts I knew were coming, and even those 30 pages were worth reading. Besides being a wonderfully well-written and appealing story, the philosophy is fascinating!  It's almost impossible to walk away fro...

Florida driver's license! (Masterfully censored for identity theft protection.) This means that next fall, I get in-state tuition!  (Quite honestly, that's the only reason why I got this done so quickly.  It took me ages to get my Virginia license.  It's amazing what the thought of saving $700 a credit hour will do!)

Compared to many of my other 99 goals, this one seems a little silly.  After all, what impact will acquiring a table and chairs have on my personal growth?  But, let's be honest, some things are just necessary.  Ricky and I loved eating on the couch and everything, but it's a tad embarrassing when you have guests...so I was on the hunt for a table, not for my personal growth, but for my social development.  And by "on the hunt," I mean "scavenging Craigslist."  (As if you didn't already know!) Most of the options down here in southwest Florida fall into two categories: the white-washed, pastel-cushioned, retirement-community style... ...or the metal-and-glass, I-don't-have-any-children-that-may-break-their-faces-on-this style. Give or take a few rattan pieces (which probably could be used as makeshift rafts in a hurricane-induced pinch, I suppose), this was my selection. "Why can't I just find a contemporary, wooden set that just h...

I got in! "Dear Ms. Randall:  It is my pleasure to grant you acceptance into the Masters of Arts Program in English at Florida Gulf Coast University. We are very proud of this year’s class, and I am happy to invite you to be a part of it." That's right, ladies and gentleman.  I'm officially a graduate student. My classes for the fall are "Literature, Language and Society" and "Gospel Music and Early American Literature." I was going to take Shakespeare, too, but let's face it--I hate Shakespeare. Meanwhile, I'm working on #75--find a job--by applying to all the bookstores in the area. Pardon my enthusiasm, but THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!! :D

The weekend before we left for Florida, we drove up to D.C. to say goodbye to my family.  While we were in the area, we decided to venture north for 2 hours more and spend a day in...  Philadelphia!  (For you non-baseball fans, that's the Phillies Phanatic. Scary, huh?) We met up with our extra-awesome friend Angela to tour the sites, including one that just happened to be on my list. (I won't try and pretend that crossing an item off my list and hanging out with Angela weren't my primary motives for the Philly trip.) Here we are, in line for the Liberty Bell.  The two girls in strange outfits standing behind Angela represent everything wrong in America...namely, cutting in line.  Ok, so that's more like "everything wrong with the third grade," but really--who cuts in line to see the Liberty Bell?!  When I visited the Liberty Bell for the first time back in 2002, it was just a glass enclosure.  Now, there's an entire Liberty Bell Center!  It w...

A few months ago, when Ricky and I knew we would be moving to Florida, we decided that we needed to go gallavanting across the northeast before we were too far away.  Enter #15, the Hill Cumorah Pageant, held annually outside Palmyra, NY in July.  (More about the Pageant here ; the storyline is based on the history of the Book of Mormon .) We left on Wednesday and drove the nine hours to catch the pageant at 9:00 that night.  It was a blast! Ricky definitely thought so. Seriously, the pageant was awesome.  Before the show, the actors mill around and talk to people in the audience, and we had the chance to talk to so many awesome families!  They came from all over the country to participate as characters in the pageant.  I was jealous.  One more down on the list!  The Hill Cumorah wasn't the only place we visited on our trip (Niagara Falls, anyone?), but since nothing else was on my 99 list, you'll have to read about it on my other blog. ...

I can officially cross an item off my list! When Ricky and I knew for sure where he was going to law school, I started looking for English grad school programs. It was April, so I wasn't expecting to be able to start until fall 2011, but I poked around the area we're moving to just out of curiosity...and I found an English M.A. program at a university just 20 minutes away from Ricky's law school! Perfect, right? I was fully prepared to wait until the February deadline and start next August, but I out of MORE curiosity I decided to call the head of the program and see if they could make an exception and review an application for this fall instead. "Oh, that's no problem," she said. "We actually just extended the fall 2010 application deadline to August 1st!" To put it mildly, I was excited. I've been practically dying to go back to school since I graduated last May, and the odds of me finding a live classroom (I hate online classes), small (...

I've been writing this 99 list for a long time....and you can tell, because a lot of them (ok, a handful ) are already in progress (and one is already completed)!  I don't mind, because it makes me feel like I have a jump-start.  (Or it may possibly make me a cheater.)  Either way, today is the official start day of my 99 in 999 list.  Wish me luck, and feel free to join me with a 99 list of your own!