FIRE!

Everyone has at least one ridiculous fear that they just can't seem to overcome. For some people its heights, others its germs, but for me... Spiders take the cake. They have got to be the most disgusting, creepy, scary thing I have ever been afraid of, and let me tell you, deep down I'm a pansy. Things scare me. Lots of things. Moving on. I hope to someday be able to not scream when I see the creepy little things and not be afraid to go in the same area after it's been removed because of a fear of the pregnant spiders having millions of little creepy babies. I saw one smashed once and it had a sack on it's back and babies literally exploded from that disgusting thing and covered the ground, repopulating the world in just one second. I've never been the same since. The other day at work I went in the back closet to get some things to restock the kitchen and when I turned around there was the biggest nastiest black spider I have ever seen for a while. I ran out screaming and jumping around and now people out there can't stop themselves from making fun of me. It's really quite mean of them but it seems to bring them great joy.
Last night I decided to take a long hot bath to soak away my stress and I was enjoying it thoroughly when I decided to shave my legs. I love that feeling when they're all soft and smooth. It's one of the greatest feelings in the world, and I hear it's kind of like having a baby- minus the pain, just the overwhelming satisfaction and you can't help but stare at them (babies too). Well during this invigorating experience I looked up and started screaming. It was the most nasty sick spider ever and it was less then two feet away from me. It was traumatizing! Well I started yelling for help and screaming "SPIDER!!!" When I heard someone running through the house on their way to my rescue, which really suprised me because normally they just ignore me and tell me to take care of the problem. Well, my rescuer happened to be my mom which really shocked me. It sounded like she was trying to tear through the door and she about took it off the hinges, I had locked it, naturally. What a woman! When her child was in need, nothing would stop her, no matter how ridiculous she thought it was. She finally got the door unlocked (in record time) and I was still yelling "GET IT OUT!" When she came in she looked around, and the anxiety left her face. I was a little confused since the spider was still there. Thats when she asked what was wrong. When I told her it was a spider I thought she was going to drowned me! She couldn't believe it, although I had been yelling it from the start. She thought I had been yelling "FIRE, GET IT OUT!" and her motherly insticts had kicked in on high alert. I was a little disappointed to find out she probably wouldn't have cared if she knew what it really was, but she did get the spider out and all was well, after she checked for more and made sure the proximity was safe with no baby spiders around. Thanks mom, you're the best!
Kate

Brain Dead

There comes a point in the school year when the mind has simply had enough and all signs of brain power are lost. You might as well be a vegtable sitting there staring the way you do in class wondering what language the teacher is speaking. Your reaction time is slow and your words come out slurred and unrecognizable. Tiredness overcomes the body and getting out of bed is like scrapping smeared road kill off the side of the road and trying to revive it. Doing your hair feels like a hopeless cause and socks feel like a thousand pounds on your feet. What was once your vibrant beautiful face 2 months ago is turned to rage and uglyness. Your eyes droop and a smile takes to much of your precious energy. Your sweet voice and eligant stride turns to a sort of barking with an arched back and a head hung low. You feel a wheel chair is the only possible way to keep moving but you don't have one so you simply crawl up the stairs and then fall back down them in the process of getting where you are going. The days drag on with no signs of speeding up. Everything feels like it's floating by in slow motion and each class seems 4 days long. Remembering what you learned is impossible and every cell in your brain and every muscle in your body screams "NO" when you even think the word homework. The entire school part of you brain and body is almost completely turned off, yet you still have 25 more days to go. How will you ever do it? Is it possible? Is it logical? Is it healthy? All you can think about is shorts, flip flops, and a boy that awaits you this summer. Excitment is a constant part of your thoughts but 25 days seems like an eternity when time seems to be standing still. Will this torture ever end? I couldn't tell you for my poor brain is DEAD!
~Sarah

Reality Check

Tonight was the beginning of my last banquet's before graduation. I thought I was so ready for this...but wow!! Slow down! How come this morning 21 days seemed like an eternity and now it seems like everything just kicked into fast forward? I guess you can all say 'I told you so.' It was great though, we had this little half of a sandwich and some cake that was supposed to hold us over for another two hours and then they tricked us into staying longer and read us all of these mushy poems and made us hold our mom's hands so that we would all start sobbing uncontrollably and send us on a major guilt trip for being such horrible children and not realizing how great our mom's really are all along. All I have to say is it worked, for me anyway. I think Mom was just poking her eyes so she didn't make me feel bad but thats ok. Mom, I just want to say thanks for everything! I love you so much and I'm so grateful for everything you do for me. You're the greatest! Dad informed me the other day that I give you guys a complex- my sincerest apologies! You can just hide me under the bed if you want! (but not really) Dad I love you too! I'm greatful for everything you've sacrificed for me and I'm sorry that I never tell you how much I love you. You're the best parents anyone could ever ask for!
-Love Katie

Todays lesson taught by... El Buick

Well since it was so beautiful today and I didn't want to stay inside I decided to wash my car. Here is what I learned from it, and I hope you all learn from my mistakes.
Top 10 Tips for washing a car:

1. Never wear white shorts. No matter what. If you think you're car looks clean, it's not. Even when it's clean it's dirty. White shorts is a bad idea.

2. If you do wear white shorts and happen to lean against your dirty wet car-creating a plethera of mud on yourself, quickly take them off and get the spot out.

3. When looking for the spot remover spray, always clear away other cleaners because when they get bumped they fall on your head.

4. Make sure you're outside water is turned on or you will have to carry all of the water from the bathroom to the car in ice cream buckets.

5. Never wash your car alone. You will have to run to the bathroom to get rinse water every two minutes instead of sending your little sister and by the time you get back to the car the soapy water will have evaporated therefore making it impossible to get the streaks out and you will have to start over.

6. Never park under a blossoming tree. When wet, the blossem petals stick to the car and make it like a tattoo, nearly impossible to get off, and if it does come off, there is still a trace of where it was.

7. Forget washing the windows, they just look worse if you try to clean them.

8. Don't wash the top of the car. As soon as you do birds think its hilarious to relieve themselves right as you finish.

9. Streaks never come off. No matter how hard you try. You might as well give up and save some energy from running from the bathroom to the car again and again.

10. It is usually worth it to fork out the dough and just go to an automatic car wash. Then it's not your fault if it still looks terrible, which it usually doesn't if you go there first.

Se-Se-Se-Seventy Seven!

China is finally cold!! Do you know what that means?? THE WEATHER IS AWESOME IN NEPHI UTAH!!! Can I get a woot woot?? WOOT WOOT!!!! Bring out the flip flops! It was 77 degrees today!! I can tell this is going to be a wonderful summer. I already have an amazing flip flop tan line that everyone is jealous of. I've had people take pictures and I've had to autograph them. It's like they've never seen good lookin feet before or something. Also on the list of good news, I only have 23 days of school left until I kiss my high school days goodbye, sad of course but also the most looked forward to day of my life. The scary part is that I have to be grown up and stuff now, how lame is that! Most old people are boring...That is, until now! I will be a legal adult in 3 months, which will mean no more getting caught. That shouldn't be a problem since I am sneaky-like the woods. Well, the sun is still up so I need to go soak up some more rays. Catch ya later!!
-Kate

Child Prodigies

Sarah and I have been recruited by Harvard in the art institution for our amazing talent as artists. We will be leaving in two months where after we will never see you again because we will become rich and famous and too good for the likes of you. We are working on putting a few samples on the computer so that everyone can marvel at our abilities but we have to finish doing all of the copy right work first so you don't try to print it, sell it, and cheat us out of any of our money. If anyone would like to pay us the small amount of $20,000 to have a painting done we do landscape, portraits, animals, cars, sports, and basically anything else you can think of (minus nudity shots unless you throw in an extra $40,000 for corrupting us). There is also a one time fee of $900 to look at the pictures but don't worry, we accept Visa.
As for the other aspects of our lives, we are as tan as Mexicans now and are well on our way into the modeling department. We have our own personal catwalk we practice on 23 times a day and spend the rest of the time counting calories and looking in the mirror. Our diet now consists of celery, cranberry juice, and herbal tea. With only one bathroom it gets a little crowded but we worked that out a long time ago (see previous posts).
Being as well rounded as we are we also spend some of our time on the golf course. We don't go as often as we would like because we have hit too many of their rang balls to Dog Valley and they are running out and it makes them angry. That won't be a problem pretty soon though because when we get rich we will reimburse them. Our first meet is tomorrow and the coaches say if we only hit about 5% we will do awesome. Sometimes its not as easy as it sounds to control our strength so we will have to see how that goes. Other than that our lives are pretty much normal: eat, sleep, poop... repeat.

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Is sleep deprivation a disorder? Is that even a word? If it is I think I'm handicapped! I think I fell asleep in all of my classes today and I somehow don't remember getting from one classroom to the next. If I had any conversations with anyone today, I don't remember what I said or who it was with. I'm like a breathing walking zombie and I think I can sleep with my eyes open. Have you ever just sat and watched someone try to stay awake when they have the head-bobbing and the random jerking movements? Funny, right? Well. I have to stand up for those of us who are only good for your entertainment on those days. Sometimes you just can't help it! The head-bobbing is absolutely impossible to stop, unless you lay your head down, simple solution, but puts you at a higher risk of getting caught by the teacher and made fun of even more. As for the random jerking... by this point your brain is basically dead and your head feels like it weighs 50 pounds by itself, you have no control. Especially when the weird dreams start coming where your falling out of bed (a side effect of the head-bobbing). I just pray that today wasn't one of the days where they put off the lesson so that everyone could get their kicks out of an innocent kid who sat staring at the ceiling all night because the sand man was on vacation. I can't count the times that someone had to pull me out of a deep dark trance I was in because I was creeping them out by staring at them for extended amounts of time without blinking (I don't think its true but they also told me I was getting a little stream coming out of the corner of my mouth at the time which makes it worse-I don't even want to try and guess what they were probably thinking I was thinking... Oh dear!!!) What happened to the good old days when we always had oodles of sleep and energy gallor? Oh well. I better get used to it!! Here comes college!
Kate

Bits of inspiration

So not too long before Kevin and I were married I talked to a distant family member and the conversation left me very angry and upset. After walking me around the block and talking to me for awhile my mood had still not improved. I just wanted to be mad. I didn't care to work things out, I was right and that was all there was to it. My poor Kevin didn't know what to do. Finally when he could do nothing and say nothing that helped me feel better he said...."Your happiness affects me too, you know." Oh boy did that ever teach me a lesson! How selfish of me to only think of myself. Sometimes we get too caught up in the "ME" that we forget about those around us who mean the most to us. May we all try to be a little kinder to those we love... and to those we don't. ;) -Mandy

Wonderful Weekend

I kind of left on a sour note and haven't wrote since so I decided it was about time to update. We just got back from an awesome weekend in Hurricane for spring break. We went down to suprise Trina and it was pretty cool, although we still have to play "Pin the lips on Trina" some time because that is a fabulous picture of her. Easter was way awesome too! I got my very first Easter basket!! It was so cool, but on the way home we left the candy in the car and the candy bars and chocolate eggs melted so we had to leave them at Heidi's house but thats ok since I was already on the verge of a sugar coma. I also got some of my school stuff done which totally rocks!! I can't wait to be done with high school, I just don't want to be all grown up yet, I'm too young to be old. Well, thats about all I can think of to say right now so I'll have to write again later when I think of something good to write about.
-Kate-

Another Breakdown

I loved my job. I loved working with the people and meeting new people. I loved the (most of) the people I worked with and I loved what I did. Now however, everything I loved I don't get to do. Going to work wasn't something I despised and hated, I liked it. Until now. Now the very thought of work makes me cry and want to walk in front of the resturaunt with a sign yelling "DISCRIMINATION!!!" and some other unpleasant things I wouldn't say in front of my mother. I was talking to one of my co-workers today and she is one of the "priviledged" people who run the front of the resturaunt and steal all my hard earned money. Well, she told me that on Saturday when she worked she gave the 'expo' (the slave in the back) 30% of her tips that she owed them and it was only $19.00, so she gave them $20.00 to be nice. Well when she counted her left over tips she had $115.00!!!! Ya. She felt really bad because she knew she didn't earn that much so she gave the expo another $20, but still. Out of the $135 that the expo rightfully earned they only got $40. I'm not saying that wasn't very nice of the server but the system that we are using is ridiculous! And what makes me even more angry about the whole situation is that if she only owed the expo $19 out of everything she made, that means the people I worked with walked away making bank because one owed me $25 and one owed me $19. One of the other expo's turned in her two weeks notice after working once and I'm still trying to convince myself to stay so I can pay my bills. I am supposed to work tonight and I just want to quit on the spot and walk away. They can even keep their $18 dollars they owe me for the last three or four weeks of work.

Hey Y'all!

Hola Chicas!! I thought I would drop in a little note to say hello to my favorite friends. Today I'm feeling very spiritually stuffed (and physically starving cuz we haven't had dinner yet). Conference was great and I am proud to report I didn't sleep through any of it, except I did read through a little part on Saturday :s It was a really good book, if thats counts for anything. Well, as for the rest of this weekend, Sarah already told you that we didn't do much. We did go to Manti on Friday night so I guess that counts for something. Yesterday we just listened to conference. It was kind of funny though because me and Sarah had to go to the store and you could totally tell we'd been watching conference because it was about 3:00 and we were still in our pajamas with no make up and a hat on... Although I have to say we are a couple of beautiful chicks in our pj's :) (don't take that wrong, we are pure and innocent as can be!)
This week is spring break and I cannot wait!!! I don't know what we will do of course, but hopefully we can make it fun. I think I should go work out some of my school preparation stuff in Cedar but Mom and Dad are not supporters of that idea at all unfortunately. I don't know what they expect me to do when I have to leave permanantly for school, talk about seperation anxiety- but what can I say- I'm their favorite daughter of course they would want to be with me all the time!!! But anyhow, I ran out of things to say so, until next time!! I love you all!!
-Kate-

Dud Of A Day

So I've looked forward to this day for a couple weeks, a day off form school. However, it turned out to be a dud. Not only is it snowing, my Mom is sleeping, and Katie is reading, and I refuse to do my homework on my day off. So I have sat on the couch and eaten cinnamin bears and taffies and now I'm out of ideas. So here I sit bored to tears....alone....with nothing to do. I've waited all winter for Spring and now it's here, or suppose to be here. Yay I never thought it could be so thrilling. Why does it have to snow anyway? Can't it just rain a little here and there and we can skip the whole snow part of the deal. Oh if only! Well if you have any ideas to cure my depressing mood, anything will help. Just don't tell me to watch Twilight PLEASE!

Your long lost sister has returned!

My dear sisters I wanted to inform you that I am back from my vacation to love land and now complete with all my dreams coming true, i now have more time for you... Jk You know I love you even if I have been quite busy with stuff... Well what can I say? Married life is awesome, you should try it sometime...( in five or ten years- Kate and Sarah not now) Kevin and i are so happy! I couldn't imagine life being this good. Thanks for all your love and support! Love Mandy

What's wrong with this picture??.... EVERYTHING!!!

Here's the scoop. I have been working at Mickelson's for the past six or seven months for a meesley $2.13 an hour. I was already getting ripped off but at least I got tips right? Well get this. Now I'm getting $2.13 an hour, I do everyone else's sides, fill their orders, clean their tables, and do whatever else they can think of that no one likes to do, and the best part?? I only get 30% of the tips. Yep you heard me. They sit people down and tap their orders into this computer thing and I do the rest and they get the dough. What is wrong with those people's brains?!?! That is not right, and not fair! I have some serious issues with this issue and you better believe those people are going to get a piece of my mind that is usually reserved for me and me only. I don't see any sense in this situation at all and apparently I'm not the only one because when I was working the cook told me that even the people in front from the night before didn't think it was fair and didn't like it. If its the people who sit there why someone else does their work and then they get paid for it and they have a problem with it you know something is seriously wrong. So, as of now, I'm looking for work. If you have any suggestions and it pays over $2.13 an hour (preferably more) let me know, I'm willing to consider anything!