*Deep breath in. Deep breath out.*

Can you feel it? The soft breeze dancing through you hair, mussing it up? The caressing touch of  the warm sun rays making you all at once feel sleepy, yet invigorated? Or maybe it's something more than that. It's the brown grass tinged with green. It's the skeletal trees with their tiny buds growing just that much bigger everyday. It's the singing of the birds waking you up in the morning, the scampering of a squirrel as he descends his throne, the smell of rain always present in the air.

Spring always holds a feeling of hope. Hope that the dark days of winter will finally let go of its hold on our minds. Hope that life will begin again, make us sane once more. Winter has the feeling of night. What we do and say doesn't really matter, because who will see it anyways? Winter, night--everything is done in secret, in a dreamland. Reality is a myth and no one follows the rules anymore. But with Spring comes the light and everything is real once more. Everyone and everything wakes up and realizes that there is something in this life worth living for.

I welcome the cold days that will most likely follow this one of warmth. Because I know that just around the corner are many days of warmth, growth, happy rain, and awakening. I begin to feel again, to defrost.

Day 05

A picture of your favorite memory.

Every year the 8th grade U.S. history teacher at our school takes a group of 8th graders to Washington, D.C. the week after school lets out. Anyone can go, it's kind of expensive so they do fundraisers all year long. I went my 8th grade year, and honestly, I loved it. There's about 80 people in my class and about 20 of us went on the trip, a bunch of my close friends included. We got on the charter bus at the middle school and traveled all day and through the night. (Sleeping on a charter bus is NOT fun. At one point I was stretched across two seats. The next thing I know I'm waking up and I'm somehow underneath the seats. I really don't know.) We spend the next three days none stop sight seeing. The White House, all the various memorials, George Washington's plantation, the Smithsonian (only two museums, it would be impossible to see them all), the Holocaust museum (so awe-inspiring, I can't even begin to describe it. If you ever get the chance, go), the Newseum, the Capitol building, Arlington, Congressional Library, and so much more I know I'm leaving out. It's none stop. By the time we got home I was absolutely exhausted.

The main reason this is my favorite memory is because it was kind of my first view into adult life, in a way. There were only two adult chaperones and neither of them were parents. It was also the first trip I had ever taken without my family. When we had finally gotten to the hotel I called my parents. Next thing I know, out of the blue, I'm bawling my eyes out. It totally came out of nowhere. I think I hadn't realized until then just how far I was from my parents. But that was the only part of the trip I had any homesickness. However, it was the first time I had ever cried because I also realized that I wasn't a little kid anymore. I knew that I was starting to grow up and become more adult and mature. (I say more, not completely.) I'll be honest I've cried at other times when something totally catches me off guard and I realize I'm on my own and my parents can't just come in and make everything better. I'll admit that it's scary growing up. At some point in the near-ish future I'll be completely independent and on my own. It's terrifying but also kind of exhilarating.

And I'm getting off topic... I also looove Washington, D.C., probably the most out of any big city I've been to. It astounded me that all those things we've heard about in history class happened here. All the those presidents lived here. It made history more real, not just some story of something that happened a long time ago. Besides all the history it's really pretty there. I love the rush of big cities and something about D.C. just had it for me. I'd really like to see D.C. when all the cherry blossom trees are in bloom. My friend went the December of 2010 and she said it was gorgeous. My family's taking our annual summer vacation there at the beginning of June. I'm so excited. My aunt Patti's going to come to and maybe my aunt Connie, uncle Tom, and cousin Aaron. (To be honest I'm not all that excited to go with the last three. I don't mean to bash them, I love them. But I just don't want to vacation with a bunch of people. Plus Aaron's younger and they'll probably expect Conor and me to babysit. Not happening.) My mom's cousin and her family live around there so we're going to visit them. So around June you can probably expect stories and pictures.

(Not sure what the 30 Day Picture Challenge is?)

My Hectic Week

I know this might not technically be "very soon" according to regular time, but in Kate time I think I'm doing pretty good. Last Tuesday was the WYSE Sectionals at EIU. EIU's about an hour and fifteen minutes away, so we had to catch the bus before school at like 7:30. Not too bad, that's usually when I leave my house in the morning. We did terrible, everyone kind of expected that though. My friend Caleb finished 3rd in computer graphics, so he'll go to the state competition at the U of I. One plus was the guy sitting to my left. He was very good looking. (Maybe that's why I didn't do so good? I try to give myself more credit than that, it was hard. But still. I'm only human. Plus the guy on my right was annoying. He'd get done super early and just stare at us. I don't care if you're a genius, that's no excuse to be rude.)

We got done with testing around lunch time. So we went to the food court in the student union for lunch. I saw my cousin Kelsi there (she goes to college at EIU). I didn't get to talk to her for long, unfortunately, because the band members had to get on the bus to go back to the college in our town for the band festival. Which, I have to admit, sucked. We played last so, of course, everyone had left. My grandparents came, though, and my mom, too, since she works there.

Mass band

On Thursday we had the all county mass band. Basically what it is is 7 bands from the same county all get together at one of the high schools. In the morning the honor band (about 50 students) rehearses with the guest director. We eat lunch and then the rest of the bands come (about 250 including those from the morning) and rehearse all afternoon. We eat dinner, get changed into dress clothes, and have a concert at 7. The way our band director does it is he takes volunteers to do honor band. Except this year there weren't enough to picked people. I was picked. Yaaaay, not. Because of this I played for pretty much 12 hours straight. This is extremely tiring, more than you would think. The guest conductor was kind of a jerk. He kept throwing mini-tantrums. Of course, you know how they are, so at the actual concert he was Mr. Personality. The good thing was that the girl sitting next to me in honor band was hilarious. She was so sarcastic, we bonded over the fact that neither of us wanted to be there.

Now we get to the good part of my week. The St. Patrick's Day Parade! As you may or may not know St. Patty's day is March 17. Well our town, like most, has the celebration the Saturday before. My family is of Irish heritage and takes extreme pride in it. (We're not like recently descendant, our family's been here since the Civil War. But hey, we're still Irish!) My dad also belongs to the local KC Hall (he's one degree from being one of the head honchos) and so about 10 years ago they approached him about organizing the parade. And, of course, he jumped at the chance. My dad looooves St. Patty's Day. So the month before we spend our time contacting groups and sending out messages to papers about finding people to be in the parade. This year we had 55 groups enter (well over 900 people) and since the weather was so nice (it can get iffy) a lot more showed up unannounced.

A company downtown has a massive parking lot so they let us use that to organize all the people. We break it up into 6 sections. A bunch of my aunts, uncles, spouses, cousin, my brother, mom, and I all volunteer to help organize. The KC Hall pays for us to have breakfast, so we all have breakfast at the Downtown Cafe at 7:45 and get ready. It gets so chaotic when people start showing up. My mom and her friend Sue guard the entrance and tell people where to go. And then the various family members are split up between the sections and tell the people in what order they go. A local Verizon store loans us walkie-talkies and the park district loans us 4 golf cart. It's chaotic, but fun.

Bagpipers at the KC Hall

The fire engines and police cars always lead the parade. Well one of the firemen asked my dad if he had anyone who wanted to ride. That way we could tell them to slow down if there was too much of a gap. My dad told my aunt Mary and me that we could do it. (Originally he asked my cousin Michael and me, but Michael, Conor, and my cousin Aaron were taking a golf cart in the parade and throwing candy.) It was so much fun! We waved and I even got to make the siren go. Basically all my childhood dreams came true. (I sat up front with the driver, who was middle aged. My aunt sat in the back with others. The other young, hot firemen. Not fair Aunt Mary. Not fair.) Then when it was over we went down to the KC Hall for the big celebration. We ate lunch, there were carriage rides, and of course anyone over 21 got drunk. Typical St. Patrick's Day, but it's my dad's favorite day of the year.

Well that was nice and long. I promise the next one will be short, and soon. Soon in normal time, not Kate time. Have a good week!

Day 04

A picture of a habit you wish you didn't have.

No matter how hard I laugh my eyes always water. To the point that I'm basically crying when I laugh. I don't even know how many times I'm sitting there laughing about something and someone walks up and goes, "Oh my God, Kate! What's wrong?! Why are you crying?!" And then I have to go on and explain how I cry when I laugh. Which makes my friends laugh because they know how much it annoys me. Which makes me laugh because when other people laugh I can't help but laugh to. I laugh pretty easily. It's gotten so bad that I now wear almost all waterproof make up. I don't want my make up to always be running, but waterproof make up is impossible to take off.

(I'm not sure if this is actually a habit? I mean it's not really voluntary. Obviously I'd stop it if I could. But my other habit is picking at my cuticles. I tried to find a picture on Google, but that was a mistake. The pictures were so gross, I couldn't share that one with you guys.)

(In case you hadn't noticed I'd like to point out my pink/red eye. Last spring I got sick and then after that my eye got all blood shot and was constantly irritated. It got to the point where I couldn't wear a contact on that eye. It was so gross. And of course I got made fun of. All the time.)

Well, my friend's texting me about the trig homework so I better go do that (why do I always post when I should be doing my trig homework? Literally, the only times I blog are when I have trig homework to do). Oh, and I have some other things I want to blog about. So that'll happen very soon!

Day 03

A picture of the cast from your favorite show.

I think that Gilmore Girls will forever be my favorite show. I remember watching it for the first time in like the fifth grade and loving it. At one point I wanted to be exactly like Rory and then grow up to be exactly like Lorelei. And, of course, who didn't love Luke? Honestly, how could you not? The plot is just real enough to possibly happen in real life, but not quite. All the lines are witty and funny. The show makes you want to live in a town like Stars Hollow. Which, come on, let's be real, there probably aren't very many towns like in the world. All the small towns I know aren't like that. I pretty much grew up watching this show, and I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to be like Rory and Lorelei. Except the whole stealing a yacht and dropping out of college thing. Oh, or get pregnant while I'm still in high school. I'm gonna try real hard not to do either of those.

Show Me the Money!

(I could really use some right now...)

Top 2 Things You've Learned About Money

1. Impulse shopping is not a good idea. I'll admit this is a pretty obvious one. But it's probably one of my worst habits, I just can't help myself! Nothing's more exciting than finding a random little trinket that you can't live without. It's worse when I go shopping with my dad because we're both impulse shoppers. We practically encourage each other. But I can't even describe how cluttered my room is because of this habit. I've got so much useless crap taking space in my room, it's ridiculous. If you didn't plan on buying it, it most likely won't be of any use. Therefore, you've wasted money that could be spent on more practical things. (However, I do acknowledge the fact that impulse shopping can be fun and okay in some instances. Like if you're on a trip and find something that you probably won't at home.)
2. Being frugal isn't a bad thing. Again, a pretty obvious one, but I think it's super important. Both my parents are accountants, so you can imagine the type of household I grew up in. Well, my dad isn't exactly frugal... He loves to spend just as much as I do, which is a lot. But my mom keeps a type grip on the check book. She's probably the most frugal person I know, if not the most frugal in the world. It use to annoy me so much when she wouldn't buy me things that I really wanted or we had to by the cheaper brand. But now that I'm older I understand a lot more. Because she's so frugal she's able to by us nicer things for holidays or birthdays. Also, we've gone on a family vacation every summer for as long as I can remember. Which isn't cheap. But because she's so frugal we've been able to do this, and I'm grateful for that. I've had some of the best times on those trips and I really do believe those experiences have brought us closer as a family. Things like that are really only possible from saving your money. Oh, and bills. Never forget the bills.