I Bore Me

Nothing makes me feel more unoriginal or unintelligent than filling out law school applications.  By the time I click "Submit" I feel like I am throwing away money at a lost cause.

Like a Fine Wine

I know it is strange but the analogy "...like a fine wine, it only gets better with age" haunts me.  I feel that I always have to be getting better or I will end up bitter.  I don't mean to be trite.  In all reality, my experience has revealed to me that if I am not getting better with age, I am getting bitter with age.  I want to improve.  I am constantly reminding myself at work that if I stay humble and work hard, I will become a better paralegal.  If I let all the stress and nonsense get to me, I will stop getting better, I will get bitter and I will... well anything could happen.  If I am not working on my health and fitness, I don't stay healthy or fit.  I get unhealthy and fat.  If I don't keep challenging my intellect and my ability to eloquently communicate, I lose them.  If I am not focused on improving my finances, well...they aren't going to get any better.  Finally, if I am not chasing my dreams, I will end up with regrets and therefore bitter.  It is just the Law of Entropy in action.  If I am not maintaining and improving, I will deteriorate.  I want to age well.

Book Club

Book Club was a total success!  I am very happy. Dinner turned out okay.  I was worried because I haven't cooked dinner since I moved in with my roommates.  The company was perfect, the wine was delicious and the conversation was interesting.  My personal favorite interaction was after Hadlee gave a little synopsis of her book so far.  I told the group how even though the book is at a point where the main character is supposed dead by the other charcters (and the reader) she is not worried because the next chapter was called "On the Mend."  This was followed by a gem of a conversation:

Katrina Hope: "When I write a children's book, I am going to kill the main character.
Me: "Why would you do that?  I am not letting my kids read your books."
Natalie Hereth: "I will let my kids read your books Kati."
Katrina Hope: "Thank you Natalie.  My readers will say 'It made me sad but it really resonates with me.'"
Desiree: I would like to hear a 7 year old say "resonates."
Katrina Hope: My reader's will. 

Oh man.  I purposely picked people for my book club who would have varying interests and differing opinions so we could all learn and be inspired in some way but never in a million years did I anticipate that.  This is going to be fun. :)

Penny for Your Thoughts, Piano for Your Dreams

Today my boss was asking about whether I got my law school applications done.  I told him that I was waiting for one more Letter of Recommendation to be received but I hope to submit them tomorrow.  He said to me, “How about thinking this thought:  You could go to law school and just like I said in my letter, you would really benefit society.  I meant that, you would really make a difference.  You are just a really great person.  OR..OR (repeated for emphasis) you could save yourself all that stress and all that debt and just take up an instrument, because it is really about being happy and playing the piano really will make you happy.  And I can even buy you the instrument if you want!  You can stay working here, and you can start playing the piano.  I think that’s what you should do.  What do you think of that?” (not word for word as my memory is not that great but I got all the good stuff in there. : ) 

If I may be so bold as to simplify that interesting conversation, I think my boss offered me a piano in return for giving up my dreams.  ?  He never ceases to astound me.  Nonetheless, I am flattered that at the root of that strange proposition is a desire to keep me here and not lose me as an employee.  J  That is nice.

Scattered Updates

This weekend, it is on!  I am FORCING myself to sit down and turn in all my applications to Law School (as if I wasn’t already broke).  But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  Suddenly this week, I feel I have been forced back into my old life of activity.

This week has been a rough one.  I have been stuck in traffic or waiting for a late us 4 hours a day.  I have been late every day even though I leave my house at 7 to get here at 8:30.  It makes me a very unpleasant person.  I have had something going on every night this week and I am exhausted.  Starting my day at 5:30 a.m. and not seeing my bed until 10:30 when I collapse on it is part of a life I thought I got out of.  But here I am again. 

Today, I am going to rush home, get groceries, clean the house, and make dinner by 7 for the first meeting of my new book club.  Which I am actually really excited about!  I am interested to see how the group forms and molds into a unique group of people (that I already know are all fabulous).   Maybe the activity is good for me.  I was turning into such a homebody I was reminding myself of my reclusive Kelly uncles.  J

Okay.  That is all I have time for now.  Off I go.

Can't Stop. Won't Stop.

I am not going to say that the office being closed for a week due to a freak snow storm is a direct result of not celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but I am also not saying God wouldn't do that.  I choose my reality and to me it felt like a hug from Heaven.  Holy vengeance. : )

It also felt like a sign that I will have no excuses for not getting my law school applications in.  Law school applications are time consuming and difficult enough as it is but is is always a little harder to get on a horse you have already been thrown from.  I applied to 5 law schools 2 years ago and was not accepted to any of them.  It was devastating at the time but I picked myself up and got a job.  Now I have been in the legal field for 10 years and I have an excellent resume but I still have a dream and a goal.  It would be easier to accept my life as it is, but I have never taken the easy route and I have never played it safe.  That is why I have fallen on my ass so many times but I always get back up and in the end, I can count all my failures as success.  It is just who I am: a risk-taker.

However, I have had to be quite social since I am no longer living alone, I was locked in the house with people.  So I nearly lost my mind.  But then again, that motivated me to get things done.  It feels great that I have a clean house, an organized room, clean laundry, I am well rested and it is only Saturday morning!  It feels like a free weekend!

On another note.  I miss my little sister like crazy.  I guess you could say "I've grown accustomed to her face."  : )  Seriously though.  It is not that I miss her because I am busting my ass and need her back at work to lighten the load, I just miss the fun little moments we used to get together: a lunch with cocktails, a document run that includes Cafe Vita, or her silly relationship with the LLF Moose. : )

I have been doing circuit training with my roommate for 9 weeks now and I am finally starting to see some positive results.  It is crazy how hard it is to get my body in shape the older I get.  But I am not gonna stop until I get where I want to be.  I guess that is a common theme in my life right now.  I am not where I want to be in my life but I am not quitting until I get there.

December

I know I have been a bad blogger for the last month.  I hate December.  It just gets worse and worse as the month progresses and by the last week I just want to sleep until the next year.  Anywho…it’s over now and I am so relieved. 

What you missed:

1. My favorite older sister and her husband came to Seattle and I got to laugh a lot with them.
2. I took up scrapbooking.  (and I like it)
3. I am now in week 8 of my Spartacus training and coupled with my healthy eating, I am finally starting to notice some results.
4. My first boyfriend is in town for two months and would like to spend some time. (no comment)
5. My little sister made it to 25!!!
6. I am now the ONLY paralegal at my job and choosing to be optimistic (but also sprucing up my resume and keeping an eye out for job opportunities : )
7. This is implied by the last one but I know longer work with my little sister, which is kinda sad and lonely.
8. I read 21 books last year, which was not my goal but I think I still may have been more than any other year.  (I really don’t know, it was the first time I kept track.)
9. I switched health insurance plans.
10. I am currently trying to keep myself motivated enough to apply for law school.  My goal was to have them turned in by January 1, 2012 (oops).
11. I re-learned how to play cribbage.  Pretty stoked about that.