Being Auntie Katie

My baby cousin got married this weekend (she is becoming a mommy in just a few months!) and her nuptials required my family to take a road trip! ! An hour or so after the 5 hour journey to Wenatchee, WA my hotel phone started ringing. I really expected it to be my mom so when Aidan's little voice greeted me I was really surprised. I've talked to Aidan on the phone, but he's never just called me and had a real point to the conversation. If it were up to me my littles would get trophies for every new accomplishment. [Story within a Story: You really should have seen me the first time Aidan wrote his name out without help. We were at Red Robin and I was pointing out his awesome penmanship to the people who worked at the restaurant. If you are going to be an Aunt, be a proud Aunt.]  

Anyway, back to my phone call, Aidan invited Joel and I to a Nerf gun war! I excitedly told Joel the news (Joel has Nerf fights at his job on the daily and tells me he will think I don't love him if I don't buy him new Nerf gun on special holidays) but I told him the what and he asked me when this epic war was going to go down. So I went back to Aidan to clarify, I guess he must have told me before because he put his mouth to the phone receiver and yelled a very muffled "AFTER THE WEDDING!!". Alright, we wouldn't miss it. He told me he loved me and we hung up. 

We put on our angry faces and fired orange poofs balls at each other! 36 bullets later, we made a mess and even more noise! My whole family joined in and we were all in our fancy wedding get up, which made it even more funny!

We only stopped the battle because there was a reception and dance floor calling our name. 

Both these kids out danced me, which, if you know me, is very hard to do. It was near impossible to take them off the dance floor for this small photo-shoot and the bigger one with our extended family.

I think it's fair to say that I'm a lot of things to a lot of people. I am a daughter, sister, girlfriend, student, employee, coach, etc. but being an Aunt is the most incredible adventure. I don't mean to offend any person that is a part of my life, but I can't think of any 2 people that have changed me so dramatically in the last 5 years. Spending time with my niece and nephew is like a breath of fresh air. They make me full on belly laugh every time I see them and they force me to slow down sometimes and make time for storybooks. They take me outside of my comfort zone and snuggle me senseless. 

I am not here to judge anyone and the parenting choices they make, but I feel like a lot of people go in to parenting without any experience. It's true that kids don't come with an instruction manual and there really is a million ways to do it and you can argue that all of them are "the right way", but I have legitimately spent time with children. I don't mean babysitting, though I think that is a great start. I mean diaper changing, waking up at 3 am to a bed wetter who is sobbing, bad dreams, sleep fighting, screen time struggling, healthy food option catering, rainy day boredom, long road trip complaining, child time. I've been peed on, puked on, poo'ed on, drooled on and bit, punched, kicked and heard the infamous "I hate you!!" and I still want children. Aidan and Madilyn are the best preparation I could have asked for. They have taught me so much, most notably my supreme respect for good parents. They have trained me to appreciate time and how quickly we all grow and grow up. I've learned not to blink. I don't want to miss anything.

These kiddos running towards me, arms wide open for a hug is one of the biggest perks of being me.

Love like the kids do - that one girl

My auntie song. 

HARPOON!!

My family is composed of storytellers. Sometimes we are guilty of over sharing or telling the same story over and over, but I could never see my family letting this story die. My grandma and grandpa on my dad's side made an almost yearly trek from their big plot of land in the middle of no where, Montana to my parent's home in Portland, Oregon. It's about a 10 hour journey and it is not lined with tourist attractions or decent restaurants along the way. When my grandparents were packing up the car my grandma began yelling from the inside of their house to my grandpa in the driveway, which I can only guess-timate was a decent 200 feet away from each other. My grandma was yelling things they still needed to pack or pick up before they began their pilgrimage to P-town. I imagine maybe "READING GLASSES" or "OLD COUNTRY CASSETTE TAPES" were probably on the list of things that my dear grandmother could not survive 10 hours without. After a few items my papa heard his wife yell "HARPOON!!" from his place by the Buick in the driveway. 

Confused and assuming he heard incorrectly he yelled back "WHAT?!"

She answered "HARPOON!"

At this point he is still thinking he can't make out what she is actually saying so he yells back even louder.. "WHAT?!"

and again he hears even louder still "HAR--POON!!"

Now, to fully understand why I can't write this without laughing out loud to myself in my empty living room, you have to understand Parker men. They are the Ferrari of anger management. I'm not saying they are angry all the time, but when they do get angry it is 0 to totally pissed off in .6 seconds. I'm talking vein shooting out of their forehead, shaking with rage, the most obscenities you could string together in a sentence, Pissed. Hell hath no fury when a Parker man gets heated. 

So my grandpa is yelling repeatedly into the kitchen which already means he's already boiling over, but he continues to  pack the car and he can only think to yell back again "WHATTTTT?!"

I believe this went on for several more sequences until my grandpa stormed into the house and my grandma said "CAR FOOD!!!" making him feel foolish that he thought she was saying harpoon the whole time.

...for the record my grandparents or any member of my family has no interest in killing whales, that I am aware of, but to this day we find any excuse to yell "HARPOON!!"

I used my lunch break today to buy "harpoon" for Joel and my weekend road trip. 

My sweet tooth got the best of me and Target is my weakness in general. I managed to buy/pack some veggies though and it actually worked out on the road. 

I wandered the Target aisles in no rush and that's when my grandma and this funny story popped into my mind and stayed there.

I lost my amazing Grandma Teri to cancer when I was in middle school. Its hard for me to remember the good times because I remember her being sick so vividly. Luckily, my family has infinite memories to share, and this one we are treasure even though none of us were there in person. Personally though, I remember her singing, and answering every Jeopardy question correctly while simultaneously reading a romance novel. I remember her handing me donuts and milk through the sliding window between the cab and bed of the truck on one of those 10 hour drives. That same road trip my cousins taught me how to flip people off and none of the giggles from that family story would have existed without her. 

I know that now. 

She was so impressive and was never given enough credit for making so much effort to keep her family together. 

This is the song she knew all the words too.

Love your grandma. -that one girl.

Driving Lessons

I'd just like to start out apologizing before I have something to actually apologize for. I was born boy-crazy. I've been telling boys I was going to marry them since I was 5.  I never phased out of it and I stopped apologizing for it a long time ago.

However, when Joel and I kissed everything changed and all of that crazy all-over-the-place obsession, infatuation and lust became concentrated on one man. He isn't perfect, in fact he is the most perfectly flawed human being on the planet. Today, will be the first of a long line of frequent posts and shout-outs (and possibly some all out bragging) about Joel. See, I've purposefully made this man the center of my existence. If my life were a solar system there would be two suns and everything would orbit around both of us and pale in comparison in every characteristic. He is the greatest man I've ever known and I will toot his horn until the day I die. 

So, here we go.. 

Joel Steven Brunello, is not a patient man. He will admit he's not. He doesn't wait well. He tracks his 2 day Amazon shipping, he gives Netflix about .8 seconds to load an entire movie before checking the Wi-Fi connection and he is the grand grill and microwave master strictly because it is faster. He is a firm supporter of instant gratification and does not accept any inefficiency of time.

But, Joel is a teacher. He respects a persons ability to learn on their own time and will never rush the process. He steps into a zone and I don't recognize him. He is committed to the task and has such a soft and approachable way of communicating, without arrogance and sounding like he is talking down to you.

Today, we took Miss Holly, his baby sister, on a driving lesson. There were a few rough patches. To be fair, Holly is new to driving and has never driven Joel's car before. ( I have every confidence that she will master driving very soon) At one point though, I thought we might head into a garage door. So in my mind, Joel is already filling out insurance forms and I don't know how or why he isn't yelling. There is adrenaline coursing through my body, but not him. He gently reaches over and pulls the wheel towards him while explaining that hard turns are going to require her to crank the wheel a lot more. This is the same guy who rage quits video games when they start to lag (probably a bad example because I am beginning to think this is very common practice) but the point is that he surprises me. Not because I know him backwards and forwards and this side of him baffles me, but because its rare to see a human put themselves aside so naturally. 

When I began college I declared a Mathematics major. I wanted to teach. I wanted to contribute to society and the objective nature of math and I always got along. After running about 3 dance practices I realized I'm absolutely awful at translating whats in my brain to words. I'm lucky with dance and when all else fails I just have play "Monkey see, Monkey do", but I still feel flustered and lost sometimes and when I am frustrated with myself its easy for people to feel like they might be the problem. I think that makes me jealous of Joel's patience, because I have so little with myself sometimes. I can wait in line for a roller coaster for hours while Joel just gets anxious and thinks we can use our time better, but I could never teach someone to drive. I would kill us both and the driver would think it was all their fault. Teaching isn't for me and I will hopefully live vicariously through him and his career.

Lastly, 

Holly has said she looks up to Joel, but I think Joel is equally lucky for her.

New song I'm loving and it seems wildly appropriate:   

Love you -that one girl

New Shoes

What is it about new shoes? Seriously, I don't mean to sound so materialistic, (I know we are trying to get to know each other and I'm attempting to put my best foot forward) but seriously, SHOES!! To be honest, my day was shit. Someone I absolutely adore is hurting and I woke up to a fight that wasn't worth having. I was ready to roll over in bed and waste the day watching daytime television, before I even ate breakfast. I didn't though and I'm so glad these new sneakers were waiting a whole week in my closet to make my day, today, when I could appreciate them the most. I am both blessed and cursed with smaller than average feet. These were on clearance in the kids section and I decided we were solemates and handed over $39.95.

I am guilty of feeling the need to take a picture every time I have a "new shoe day". Its not the day that I buy the shoes- its the day I put them on and start singing Paulo Nutini. It's like no other fashion piece. First and most amazing, is the fact that they always fit. Can I get an Amen?! They both set the mood for an outfit and complete the look. I can decide to wear my cowboy boots to the country bar and match the outfit to them or put on the clothes and two different shoes and demand that mother, boyfriend or brother pick which of looks best. 

More music. More love. -that one girl.

I'm Katherine Jayne Parker.

Its so stuffy though. I don't identify with it, except to say that it represents my mothers obsession with Old English everything. She is one short step away from dipping her french fries in Mayonnaise and because of her constant love of classic English literature and nowadays Sunday nights with Downton, I live my life with a label shared by Queens and an original Hollywood scarlet who everyone my age has never heard of and assumes she's the sister of Audrey. No pressure, right?

But the truth is that my mom is the Queen, but that is a long and treasured story for a future rainy day post. I'm trying to introduce myself here.

After, what I refer to as, my identity crisis I decided to cut it down to one syllable and went with "Kate" but it didn't take very well. So I'm still in this identity crisis and its leads to just a few thousand nicknames and people just not using my name at all...not okay.

However, I know who I am, you can decide what you want to call me.

This is me tonight, staying up way too late, per usual.

The name of this very humble blog comes from my theme song, written and sung by the amazing Brett Dennen. I have this theory about people and I truly believe that hate only comes from a lack of love. Love is my Superhero. It comes to my rescue every day of my life and I pursue it diligently. I'm not speaking of romantic love (though I've been chasing that since I was three years old). I'm speaking of the inexplicable joy that human beings are capable of. In this cosmic universe of bouncing atoms and random mutations and adaptations, we are driven by the instinct to find and keep love. You could debate this is a psychological need to have a witness to our life or purely an evolutionary need to keep our species going. You could break it down into human chemistry and discuss how its all just our brains tricking us consistently. The truth is though, we need oxygen. We need a whole lot of hydrogen and half as many oxygen to share their electrons. Proteins. Carbohydrates. And fats and sleep. But our search doesn't end with just the things we need to survive. We don't get up to go to work so that we can have just those things. We don't volunteer or study, snuggle, parent or do the laundry in a journey to find just what we need.  We aren't happy with  those bare necessities. We need people and passions, pets, touch and things to feel whole. We need to feel loved and give love and without it, we are trapped. So, love will come set her free. I believe in God, the world and myself enough to believe that there is an infinite supply of love out there for me to find and it will make me more, myself.

I fall in love every day, mostly with people, but also with things, ideas and dreams. With dance moves and ice cream flavors, cut off sweatpants and simple conversations with strangers. Everything from deep philosophical arguments to the poop jokes that my niece uncontrollably laughs at. I find myself with a constant reminders that this world is beautiful. I hope to share them and my struggles here, with you, if you'd like.

enjoy my song.. I have weird taste in music. 

More theories and more love to come.

-that one girl.