i'm trying out a new blog site

sociologyofkate.weebly.com

check it out and let me know what you think.  :)

"maybe i should friend him on facebook?"

a year ago today i was sending my awesome friend carrie emails about how cool this new guy todd was after hanging out with him unexpectedly at trivia.  even though i had been on campus for 12 hours and looked like crap, i must have made a good impression, since he accepted my friend request and even responded to the email i sent him on my way to NYC to hang out with shelley.  before i knew it, we were planning our first date (october 22nd) and sharing witty banter via facebook email.  i'm not sure if either of us would have predicted that less than a year later we'd be sharing a beautiful apartment with two adorable kitties.  what i did know was that i thought todd was extremely funny, handsome, and intelligent and someone i wanted to spend more time with.  and i had this really good feeling about the potential relationship we could have.  :)

todd said something this  past weekend about how it's been a while since he's felt like everything in his life was working out.  i definitely knew what he meant.  it seems like in the past either my relationships were good and my career was insane or my career was good and my relationships were insane.  it's amazing to finally have both things being great at the same time.  sure, there are things i would change about my job if i could, but overall i'm very fortunate to be doing what i love.  and life with todd is really a dream come true.  i know that's corny and he might mock me a little for that level of cheesiness, but every day is better than the last.  there are so many things that i love about him and about our relationship together.  i'm so glad that he decided to come to trivia a year ago and that i decided to take a small step forward by making him my friend on the FB.  so many wonderful things have happened in the last year.  and i know that we have so much more good stuff to come.

i love you todd!

cha...cha...cha...cha...cha...changes!

much has changed since last i wrote.  after a very busy start to the school year, i'm happy to share that we are officially moved in and settled into the new apartment.  we suckered some friends into helping us schlep almost everything over to the new place the weekend before my contract started.  then i worked my hiney off to get my old apartment cleaned and things unpacked in our new home.  a week after we moved in, we decided to adopt two adorable kittens.  i have taken a bunch of pictures of them already, which you can peruse here if you need some virtual kitty therapy.  (it turns out hanging out with kittens for an hour is quite stress-relieving).  they are so sweet and fun and sometimes mischievous.  i think we were both surprised by how fast we became attached to them.  and they went from not liking each other to tolerating each other to playing-sleeping-licking-wrestling-meowing with each other very quickly.

all in all, these changes have been really awesome.  that's not to say that there hasn't been some stress at times.  after living basically on my own, with only brief periods of having roommates since i graduated from college, it is an adjustment to get used to sharing chores and expenses and even just free time.  but, it's a good adjustment that i wouldn't trade for the world.  it was weird moving out of my old apartment after having been there the longest amount of time in the last 10 years or so.  but joy i have living in this awesome place with todd is difficult to fully articulate.  there are moments when i'm so happy i get tears in my eyes.  like on our second night in the apartment when he was playing his guitar and singing songs.  or today when we sat on the couch with our sweet kitties, watching a movie, and drinking coffee.  life is good.  so very good.  :)

best move yet

those of you who have known me for a while have probably had the distinct pleasure of helping me move.  in fact, many of you probably have since i've moved something like 17 times since i graduated from college.  many of those were within the same town, but regardless, that's a lot of packing tape and boxes and heavy lifting.  if you feel like you've missed out on moving fun, fear not.  i'm moving again...and i couldn't be more excited!

todd and i made a decision a few months ago to live together.  we looked for apartments that were in an area of town that we like, allows cats, and that had at least 2 bedrooms.  happily, we fell in love with the second place we looked at.  it's owned by a friend of mine, who lives on the 3rd floor of the building (and his dad lives on the 1st floor.)  weirdly our good friends dave and carrie actually lived in the first floor of this house when they moved to dubuque.  it's an awesome place and i'm really looking forward to sharing it with todd.
this will be a first for me and though i'm a little nervous, mostly i'm so happy.  though the process of moving is stressful, i know that this is going to be really fantastic and there's so much i'm looking forward to.  i can't wait to get our kitties, to have a bigger kitchen, to be in walking distance of work (that doesn't involve walking up a giant hill), and mostly to getting to share my life with todd.

here's some pictures of the new place.  we move in starting on august 16th!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12657973@N06/sets/72157624557727944/detail/

time flies when you're having fun

unbelievably we have two weeks of classes left before finals start.  i can't believe how busy my schedule has been lately.  luckily there has been a whole bunch of fun crammed in between class prep, grading, and meetings. i spent this past weekend in cleveland meeting todd's family.  it was a great weekend!  cleveland has way more going on than i would have expected and the schmidt family is just wonderful.  :)  we went there to see todd's sister allison give a recital and i was totally wowed by her excellence on the piano.  the weekend was full of good food, good beer, baseball (which was also good), and fantastic music!  the 9ish hour car trip was also pretty fun..mostly.  :)

life has been busy lately.  i've been working on some paid research projects, catching up on grading, and preparing for the end of the semester.  hopefully this week will be as productive (but less stressful) than last week was.  i'm really looking forward to spending some time with my mom on saturday and sunday for mother's day.

i'm going to blame a cumulative lack of sleep for this post.  probably not too exciting, huh?  but in short...i'll probably be moving to a new house or apartment in the next few months.  my trivia team won a free trip to vegas (well...free rooms anyway).  and i couldn't be happier with how life is going!  :)  ankle deep in love as tom petty says.

hope you are all well my friends!

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more. --Erica Jong

this is a fantastic quote....and i find myself believing that it speaks a lot of truth.  that's probably especially easy to say today, when i'm feeling very happy and nostalgic thinking about the last 6 months.  half a year ago, todd and i went on our first date.  i remember feeling really nervous and super excited.  i bought a new outfit.  i was pacing around my apartment and i think talking to a few of you online.  i was a bundle of nerves.  i think i remained in that state for our first few dates actually.  :)  now, six months later, i'm very much in love and so happy that i get to share my life with someone so fantastic.  it feels like i've known him for much longer than six months...and it also seems like the time has flown by.   it's crazy how time works like that sometimes.

so, again i find myself on the couch very excited for todd to pick me up to go out for sushi (though not nervous.) i love you, todd.  thanks for all that you bring to my life...happiness, laughter, joy, interesting movie/music knowledge, hilarity...and love.  it sure is all that it's cracked up to be.

stymied by a title

i've been meaning to blog for a few weeks now but i could not think of a creative title.  i've consulted my brains, quotations online, and song lyrics by my favorite artists but came up short in all cases.  so i figured i should just get over it and blog.  title be damned!

this semester has been going really well.  classes haven't been too demanding so far.  i have been busy with third year review (which is over...just waiting on feedback) and i got a contract for next year, so i'm happy about that.  i've been wanting to get some scholarship done, but it still hasn't really happened yet.  there have been a number of other things work related that have popped up (like the opportunity to present at a White Privilege Summit this week) which have eaten up some of my time.  getting the dissertation published is on the top of my list right now once i get some to work on it.

things with todd are AWESOME.  we've been together for a little over five months and i'm so very happy.  i still find myself feeling amazed at how compatible we are.  i feel really lucky and blessed to have him in my life.  i could say more but suddenly my brains have stopped functioning correctly.  i'll blame all the love.  :)

this year is flying by already

it seems that teaching a january term course makes the start of the year go by rapidly.  i once again taught my Race, Poverty, and Hurricane Katrina class, which involves taking students to NOLA for a week or so.  it was an amazing experience.  i actually started a separate blog about it and have a few posts.  if you're interested i can send you the link.  the students were incredible and the experience there renewed my desire to keep teaching the course.  i was discouraged about it last year and didn't really want to do the trip or the class again.  i'm glad that i stuck with it, because i learned so much about how important our work and presence continues to be in NOLA. and the students learned so much.  i'm trying to figure out a way to keep doing the course or some variation of it next year.

we're in week two of the spring semester.  generally i don't really like the spring semester too much.  even as a student, it was hard to get motivated and to stay focused.  this semester though looks to be one of the lightest ones i've had in terms of teaching since i started.  i'm teaching three classes, all of which i have taught previously. i decided not to change too much, which was a good plan. and two of the classes have less than 10 students enrolled.  i have to be honest...i needed a semester like this one.  in december and january, i had to put together my portfolio for 3rd year review.  it helped me realize how much i've accomplished in a short time.  i've taught 9 different courses in the last 2.5 years.  six of those are classes that i've never taught before, so i feel like i really hit the ground running here.  it's been stressful, but also really great to get so much experience!  i'm feeling really good about the meeting that i'll have with rank and tenure in a few weeks.  my division chair gave me a lot of positive feedback when we met last week for a coffee.  in fact, she said that she's noticed that i'm different this year.  she said that she's noticed that i even walk differently and stand differently.  this was surprising, because it was the first time i've heard that comment.  but i think she's right.  i feel different.

i think part of the difference has to do with finally feeling more settled and comfortable in my career.  though i wish we made more money (who doesn't, right?), i'm very happy to be where i'm at.  and this year, with my colleague/friend/mentor on sabbatical, i think i've had the opportunity to spread my wings a bit.  it's hard to articulate, but i'm starting to really accept the fact that i'm dr. p, assistant prof of sociology.  there were times in graduate school when i felt like an imposter...that at any moment my professors and colleagues would realize i wasn't actually smart enough to be studying for my ph.d. and they would boot me out.  i think that same insecurity followed me in the first few years of my teaching career as well.  i'm glad that i'm moving past it though and feeling more confident.

that confidence is bouncing back in other areas of my life too.  i think last year, when i was trying to go on dates and stuff, part of the problem i was facing was doubts about myself.  i didn't feel like i looked good and it was taking longer than i expected for me to really trust in myself again.  my ego took a big blow and it definitely took some time to get over that.  i think some of that renewed kate that my division chair observed has to do with feeling better about myself...both professionally and personally.  i'm still trying to improve some things...like losing some more weight and working on finances, but overall i'm really happy with my life.  when todd and i first started dating, it was really difficult for me to believe that it was even happening.  my mind would tell my heart..."yes, you met a handsome, smart, hilarious man who really likes you," but my heart was just not sure what to make of that information.  i had hoped for a while that i would get set up with someone fantastic and there were times, especially last year, where i wasn't sure that it would ever really happen.  it is so great to be wrong about that now.  :)  it has happened and it's so wonderful.  i won't gush too much more, but suffice it to say that i'm a very happy kate.

anyway, that's a very rambling update but i've been meaning to write for a while.  so far 2010 is even better than 2009 was.  sure..it's only february, but i'm confident that things are going to keep getting better and better.  :)

A quick review of the Year of Kate: Good-bye 2009!

the beginning of last year was pretty busy, so luckily when i finally had time to review 2008 (in april), i wrote about the first few months of 2009.  so, i'm going to cheat and paste those below and add to the list.  :)

january 2009

• rang in the new year in milwaukee after some fun in chicago. viva the year of kate!
  
• turned 33...what the?
  
• J-term class to New Orleans and back
• took a mini-break to TX

february 2009

• spring semester starts and i'm not at all prepared for two new courses and stats. (lamented 8 a.m. classes)
  
• exhaustion from j-term lingers
• started the match.com thing again
  
• fundraiser for new orleans. the students did a good job though we didn't raise a lot of funds
• signed up for a gym membership
  

march 2009

• awesome spring break! spend a few days in dubuque with dennis and then the rest of the break in albuquerque catching up with friends i haven't seen in too long. this included some high quality time with my friend haley and baby kate (and dan too of course.)
• discovered how cool park farm winery is
  
• happy to get a contract for next year even if it didn't have a raise on it
• finished watching Six Feet Under series. wow!
  

april 2009

• conference in des moines. caught up with old friends, made some new friends, and had a great time connecting with my colleague
• iowa gets gay marriage!
• good times with dennis, erin, and brent at the casino on a random monday night
  
• fun easter weekend with mom that involved sushi, wine, shopping, and a champagne easter brunch

may 2009

• finished up one of the most challenging academic years yet
• celebrated with mom and dad for their 35th wedding anniversary
• started teaching what ended up being a very long and very annoying night class at the community college
• awesome camping trip with dennis
• welcomed baby alivia to the world unexpectedly.  congrats monica and patrick

june 2009

• went to see bob schneider in chicago with jen and jed
• went out for coleen's birthday and discovered pub quiz trivia at 180 main and met some AWESOME new friends 
• camping trip with the duhawk crowd
• started working part-time at park farm
• went to see Music on the March

july 2009

• celebrated July 4th with sara in college station and met some new friends
• had a fantastic trip to vegas with jody
• discovered how fun karaoke is on thursday nights at the yard arm (and met todd for the first time)
• got to hang out with my nephew luke in dubuque

august 2009

• traveled to san francisco for the ASA conference.  first time to the west coast and it was a great experience
• finished long and annoying summer class at the community college
• bought a new car
• went to the Iowa State Fair with mom and dad and dennis
• got together with high school friends for a 15 year reunion
• started the 2009-2010 school year

september 200

• trip to texas for labor day
• camping trip with dennis at little wall lake
• went to see Wicked with dennis and it was AWESOME
• caught up with duhawks at homecoming

october 2009

• went to st. louis to see my brother and his family
• discovered i'd gained some weight since the last health check i had in 2008. :(
• started running again.  :)
• went to new york city with shelley!!!!  
• surprised mom with tickets to see Wicked for her 60th birthday
• first date with todd
• hung out with my mom, my aunt deb, and my cousins ashley and kelli for mother/daughter weekend

november 2009

• went to see bob schneider with todd in madison, wi
• found out i got hosed out of going to ireland next year
• went to kansas city with mom for our Wicked weekend
• thanksgiving at uncle dave's house and at home!
• discovered that i had lost about 10-12 pounds by the end of this month

december 2009

• went to some holiday parties
• enjoyed canceled classes due to blizzard
• went x-mas shopping with erin in madison
• had one of the busiest finals weeks yet 
• took todd to m'town to meet the family for our christmas celebration
• enjoyed some of the newish holiday traditions (Holiday Inn with dennis and mom, x-mas eve at Jon and Deb's, candied bacon...)
• had an awesome gift exchange evening with todd 
• celebrated new year's eve with many fantastic friends in dubuque!

this has been a really phenomenal year.  i've met so many new people, visited new places, accomplished goals, and continue to grow at work.  this year also gave me the opportunity to get closer to old friends as well and i really feel good about where i'm at with my life.  :)  i do have some things i want to achieve in 2010 (less debt, more publications, continued healthiness, improved teaching) and i really believe that i will be able to get all of those things accomplished.  i think 2010 is going to be an even better year!!!!  i'll keep you posted.  :D

happy new year!

2009: the year of kate

so back in january, i declared that 2009 would be the year of kate.  little did i know that i would actually be correct in my predictions.  this was a fantastic year.  that's not to say that there weren't challenges, because there certainly were some.  but overall, i had a wonderful 2009.  i met new friends, got to travel to both coasts, and found love!   i'll post my traditional year in review, but for now i just have to express how grateful i am for such a wonderful year.  i have a strong feeling that 2010 is going to be even better!  much love to all my friends and family who contributed to this great 2009.

worst december photo project participant ever

again, i'm a bit behind on posting pictures.  i promise to do better next december.  :)  here are some shots from our traditional gathering at my aunt and uncle's house on christmas eve.  this was a fun night full of strong cocktails (thanks uncle jon), candied bacon and other yummy snacks, a gift exchange, and watching A Christmas Story.

my parents











mom with the best picture of my cousin ashley's husband ever.















crazy ladies

my cousin ben and the sombrero he wanted for christmas

hotties.  doy.

purple cowboy

i discovered this wine last night and it was very, very good and a perfect complement to watching White Christmas with Mom and Dad last night.  yum.

family christmas

it has become easier over the years for my family to gather the weekend before Christmas for our holiday celebration.   so i'm cheating with the december photo thing by posting several pictures from that.  :)  i got a little behind with posting these due to needing to submit final grades and traveling back and forth from dubuque to marshalltown.  it was a very fun weekend!  i think the kids had a lot of fun together and everyone got plenty of food and merriment.  i was especially happy to bring a special someone home with me this year (thanks again Todd for joining us!)

checking out what luke got.  

so excited!!

lovely little princesses

luke being silly in his new pajamas

my niece amanda who is going to be 18 in february.  unreal. :)

:)  

christmas tree

finally got this shot and it's not too bad. (and i didn't crash my car.)

busiest finals week yet

this week has been downright nutty.  i spent most of monday and tuesday grading stuff, updating grade books, and giving finals.  today i went shopping in madison with my awesome friend erin, which was really fun but also quite necessary since my family's christmas celebration is happening on saturday.  tomorrow i have two meetings,  need to give another final, and have presents to wrap and more grading to do.  then i'm hoping on friday i can finish up as many final grades as possible, make some treats to take home, finish up shopping, and then head to marshalltown.  i think i will definitely need a break after this week alone!  i still managed to take a few pictures with my trusty iPhone.

the first one was meant to demonstrate to people who don't live in the Midwest exactly how cold it has been lately.  it might be hard to see, but the frost on my windshield was on the inside of my car.  it was there in the morning and i'd hoped that it would be gone by the time i left campus at 4:00.  not so much.  if anything there was more of it.  the temperature also reads about 11 degrees, though it was colder than that with the windchill.  gotta love using the scraper inside the car.

the second photo is from my shopping trip with erin.  since we were going to be in madison, we decided to eat at one of our favorite restaurants...CHIPOTLE!  sure, we could have eaten some thai food or indian food or some other type of food that is likely better in madison than dubuque, but we opted for this instead and i'm glad we did.  it was yum-tastic and i had a coupon for a free burrito that i needed to use in 2009.  didn't think i'd be cutting it this close.  :)





finally, on our shopping trip we stopped in H&M.  i went to one for the first time when i was in san francisco and found very little that i would actually be able to pull off wearing.  the same was true this time.  not only did i feel not trendy enough (or young enough) to be in there, but then i saw things like the next photo which truly horrified me.  yes readers, those are elastic-waisted acid-washed jeans that are tapered.  if this style is back again, then i'm happy to not be trendy.  :)

okay, so these photos don't quite put me on schedule with the photo project.  things have been busy with grading (i'm finally done!) and our family christmas.  i'm heading back to marshalltown tomorrow though so should be able to catch up on blogging and photo posting.

another busy/fun weekend

hi friends who read my blog,

as the subject line states, i had another fun and busy weekend which meant i didn't get a lot of pictures taken.  though i should have taken some since i was at two parties on saturday.  ah well.  i did attempt to take a picture of someone's christmas decorations.  they have no less than 20 trees in their yard made of strings of lights.  i'm guessing there's a center pole and then strands of lights from the top are attached to the ground to make a cone.  (if that made sense at all...i'm not so good at the spacial thinking stuff.)  i wonder what their neighbors think of this every time i have passed it...especially because there are probably 8 different colors going on and they are concentrated in a moderately-sized front lawn.  regardless, my photo attempt with the iPhone didn't really work out and instead looked like trees were on fire.  i also attempted to take a picture of the huge tree on campus that has white lights on it while i was going down the hill, but that one also didn't work out and i figured i should be paying attention to driving.

for those two reasons i will be recycling some photos for today's post.

i posted this picture on my facebook page a while ago, but it's too fantastic to not highlight on my blog.  i saw this car in the parking lot of one of our local grocery stores and just had to take a picture of it.  it's cheetah-tastic.  (unless those are leopards...then it can be leopard-licious.)  please note that the interior is also covered with leopard/cheetah spots.  all the seats.  the steering wheel.  you get the idea.











this next photo is one of me sitting in the window of my rented room in austria.  i had a fantastic view!  my 9 months in austria were wonderful and i can't believe it has been a decade since i was last over there.   i really hope to get back to europe sometime in the not too distant future.  i've been thinking about applying for another fulbright and doing some research there.  if i do, i hope i have a view as good as this one! (don't judge my sweater vest.)

this last one is a picture i didn't remember that i had (which is a little pathetic because it's from october of this year.)  this is me and my nephew luke and niece cami when i visited them in st. louis for my brother's birthday.  are we cute?!  i can't wait to see the family at the end of this week for our christmas celebration!!

okay, back to grading for me.  i'm pretty sure all my posts this week will end that way.

this will be the last of the snow pictures...i promise

here is a picture of my car in the alley behind my apartment building after the big snow on tuesday night.  one of the things i love about my building is that my landlord hires someone who shovels back there, so i don't usually have too much concern about being able to free my car from snow drifts.  trust me non-midwest friends...this is a HUGE perk. 

the other photo is the view from my apartment window.

baby it's cold outside...

i'm using the below zero windchill as an excuse for not having a new photo to upload today.  i know, not the best excuse since people have been known to take pictures inside.  regardless, i'm out of energy to be creative, so i'm going to post an oldie.

this is a young kate eating a cookie while wearing sweet cookie monster slippers.  :) those are some awesome bangs i've got going on as well.  :)

photo project days 8 and 9

yesterday,  the weather channel and local paper kept saying things like blizzard warning, winter storm warning, and ominously "the strength of the storm gathering force in the plains could approach levels not seen in 20 or 30 years."  after consulting with some trusted faculty friends yesterday, i decided that holding my night class would probably not be a good idea.   we can finish what we were going to to last night during finals week and it just didn't seem worth it to risk of car accidents and twisted ankles.  (plus those of you who have been to my school are well aware of the giant hills.  it was tricky enough getting down one of the in the civic at 4:00 when i finally left and it had only been snowing an hour!)


all this is build up to yesterday's and today's photos.  once i made it home and felt the sweet relief of not having to deal with class for the evening, i made myself a yummy cup of hot chocolate.

this is what dubuque looks like today!  we got ourselves a little winter wonderland going on.  :)

told ya!

we did get some snow last night, so this is the view from my office today.  the weather channel and local meteorologists keep talking about blizzard watches in the next few days, so i anticipate a lot more snow in our future.