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

(prompt from here ) Write about something you now know that you wish you knew earlier in life. How could this knowledge have helped you? If I could go back and have a conversation with College Me (all of six to three years ago), I think I would tell her to stop being such a self-righteous idiot. High School Me was a social moron (weren't we all?) and often quite mean, but the self-righteousness didn't start sticking its nose in the air until I went to a religious college. Don't get me wrong--my college was pretty awesome--but what happened for me when I was immersed in a religious environment was that I forgot how to not be a jerk about what other people believe and think. I thought that if someone self-identified as Mormon, like me, that I was then at liberty to tut-tut over skirt lengths and choice of movies and church attendance and marriage partners and wow, College Me, you were seriously embarrassing. College Me's preoccupation with other people's business ...

Even though my marching band days are far behind me, there's something about a drum corps show that is just so fun.   Ricky had no idea that drum corps even existed before we started dating, so I made it a goal to eventually drag him to an event, and--lucky for me!--DCI Orlando had some nice corps this summer. (For those of you familiar with the DCI scene, Carolina Crown took first--their show was awesome!  It was unpolished, but they had this crazy intensity.  The Cadets were cleaner, and I actually had them pegged to win it, but they took second.  The Cavies' show was surprisingly boring.) We weren't even sure if the corps was going to march, because there had been a threat of pretty bad rain, but the weather held out!  (Which was good, because we drove three hours to see it.)  Ricky agreed that seeing drum corps live was way better than watching YouTube videos.  I only wish DCI Orlando was later in the season so we could see more...

Some backstory: I've had my Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot since my senior year of high school started.  That's over seven years!  That little camera's been stepped on and dropped all over the place, and it still takes great outdoor shots, even though the lens gets stuck sometimes and the battery cover barely hangs on.  The problem is indoor pictures!  That poor little camera takes the crummiest low light/indoor shots, and I was ready for a new one.  So when Kodak announced that they were pulling out of the camera business and all their cameras went on sale, I snagged a Z990 for just over $100.  It's not an SLR--I didn't want to deal with all that!--but it's a better-quality point-and-shoot, and the pictures are MUCH better.  A lot of waiting paid off for such a great deal! Please note that I did NOT take this picture to be artsy or hipstery or whatever.  I only posed it this way because it reminded me of the Borg.   

Catching up some old events!  Last October (that's right--2011), Ricky and I took advantage of a Groupon for a dive class.  I really want to get Ricky his open water certification (I'm already certified), but he wasn't sure if he would like it, so this was a chance for him to get his feet wet, literally speaking.  He loved it!  I had a great time doing a refresher course, and it was fun going with Ricky.  (The title here is misleading.  SCUBA certification never expires, but you do have to do a refresher if you haven't been diving for a while.)  I forgot how amazing diving is.  I told Ricky that as soon as he's done with school, we're going to get him certified so that he can be my dive buddy. I wound up leaving my dive gear (oops!) and we had to go back to Orlando the next month to retrieve it.  But it was a good excuse to visit the dive shop again!

After a disastrous attempt at "traditional" Thanksgiving last year (I dropped my pecan pie taking it out of the oven and it exploded everywhere; Ricky's turkey didn't thaw in time), Ricky and I decided Thanksgiving is The Worst Holiday Ever and that we needed to Do Something About It.  So instead of stuffing our faces with genetically deformed turkeys (that's my only vegetarian jab, I promise!), we turned to a celebration of our nation's pilgrim heritage by crossing a body of water in a boat. I guess our city is technically in the Everglades area, but everything here is all about the beach, so there isn't much in the way of inlet/swamp exploration.  For that, we drove to the neighboring Everglades City, where you can rent canoes or kayaks for the day and explore.  We were pretty excited at the chance for adventuring, but a little wary--they just send you off with this poorly drawn navigational map and tell you to be back by 4:30.  We had to stop in th...

(prompt from here ) A place you’ve traveled to and where else you want to travel. When I first moved to Florida, I mentioned to someone that I had lived in four states.  She responded (sounding surprised) with, "Wow, I didn't realize you had lived in so many places!" Her reply caught me off guard, probably because I'm pretty sure I've moved the least out of all the other military families I know, so I don't consider four states "so many places." But because we moved between South Carolina to Virginia four times before I started college, it feels weird to consider staying put in any one place, especially since we've really got our fingers crossed for some extended quality time with Florida.  I consider living in one place for more than five years a seriously long-term commitment.  How do I get people to stay friends with me for that long?  Do I have to address embarrassments instead of hiding behind the knowledge that I'll be leaving ...

(I've given up on trying to make this consecutive weeks, but I'll still count it if I get 27 journal-type entries in.) My good friend Alaina posted these questions on her blog for people to answer, so I'm stealing them!  We know how I feel about middle-school-type surveys. 1. What makes you cringe? Angry confrontation.  I'm happy to engage in open, respectful discourse, but as soon people start using "attack language," I literally shrink down in my seat.  It makes me uncomfortable, like when your friend's parents yell at her in front of you. 2. How do you eat an Oreo and what do you think that says about you? I eat mine the same way Alaina eats hers--I eat the filling, put the two cookie parts back together, and eat them.  I'm also the kid who eats all the marshmallows first and then has to eat the cardboardy cereal bits by themselves.  I think this says that I'm not very good at rationing out the extra-good parts. 3. Are you a procrast...

I'm realizing now that I have a LOT of posts to catch up on--I'm nearly halfway done with my list (!!) and don't have near enough posts to show for it.  So here's an old one: Last November, my awesome friend and former roommate Elizabeth met Ricky and I in Sarasota for their annual chalk festival (think 3D street art and such), and then she came to spend the weekend with us in our apartment.  She's the first person to sleep on our couch!  (That doesn't sound like as big of a deal as it feels in my head.)  Anyway, while she was visiting, I told her about my lasagna goal, and she waved her hand dismissively like the pro she is and said she could help me whip something up.  (She was actually was more supportive and enthusiastic about it, but I like the mental imagery of Lizbeth scoffing sophisticatedly at my cooking peasantries.)  So we went to the store!  And we cooked things! I hope it counts even if I didn't make the noodles from scratch, but who e...

DAY 5 - FRIDAY, MAY 18TH Friday began slowly and painfully.  Somehow we made it off the bus and managed to stagger all the way to the metro terminal opening before collapsing on the floor.  No, seriously.  I didn't get any pictures of it, but there were people sleeping up against the walls/pillars waiting for buses and trains, and since it was 5:30 and Ricky looked like a character from The Walking Dead , we staked a claim on one of the huge pillars and took a nap.  Ricky's nap was deliberate--I had every intention of staying awake, but I eventually dozed off and was woken up by a concerned man who pointed out that my iPod had fallen on the floor and might get stolen.  Whoever said New Yorkers aren't considerate was lying. Around 6:30, after Ricky had sufficiently power napped on the floor of a bus terminal (we're super classy, guys), we took the metro to 5th Ave. for early-morning mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral .  But first, Starbucks: It was fr...