such a slacker

so i haven't blogged in like a week. sheesh. i'm horrible at this stuff. but i'm really trying to get better, i'm just super busy right now.

i went to my last wedding of the year this last weekend! hooray i'm done! for a while anyway. i think the first one we have next year is in april. sheesh, you graduate college and everyone and their damn brother gets married. i added it up, you know. i went to ten weddings this year. TEN! i was invited to 13, but couldn't go to three of them. on two different weekends i was supposed to go to two weddings in one day. i mean, REALLY people. there's only so much time i have to spend at these things! :)

really though, i love weddings. and my friends erin and kyle got married this weekend. i LOVED it! erin was beautiful and everything was perfect. i served cake (or was a cake server/cutter person) and her cake was decorated to look like lace. i kept looking at it like, "that looks familiar." it was the same lace design as her dress! how cool is that?

i know, super cool.

anyway...kyle told me i should start keeping a book or something of what i liked and didn't like about all the stinkin' weddings we went to this year. i was like, "that's dumb."

and instead i planned out pretty much everything i want! :)

type A catie meets type B kyle. trust me, we are complete opposites.

anyway, what do you think about this? i'm thinking light grey tux for kyle, dark grey for the groomsmen. dark purple for the ladies with silver shoes and silver dresses for the candlelighters/little girls. then i'm going to have burnt orange, amethyst and white cala lilies for my flowers. here's some images for your reflection....(note that the brides' dress is the one i blogged about forever ago. i'm still obessed.)

oh, and that the engagement ring is tiffany's novo. i told kyle once that it's tiffany's or the answer is no. not true, but maybe it will scare him into it!



i also was thinking that because halloween is on a saturday next year that it would be SO COOL to get married on that day (our anniversary is nov. 1st). and then i had the brilliant idea to do little treat bags for the favor, only there is a candy bar and everyone goes and "trick or treats" for their candies. or an ice cream sundae bar would be awesome. with some pumpkin bowls or something. anyway...i'm getting a might carried away considering i'm not even engaged. but kyle thought it was a cool idea, too, so at least i'm getting somewhere!

aren't you lucky?

two blogs in ONE DAY from me! now that's luck. :)

just kidding.

i did want to post the pictures of my new car up here though. i put them on fb as well, so if you are a fb-er, you can view them either place!

hope your tuesday was amazing!

what adorable little town are these taken in?

well i'm glad you asked!

see my parents peeking at you?

i was at their house.

in goddard, ks.

and yes, it really IS that cute. :)

I got an "I Love Your Blog!" Award from Wonder Woman. I get to answer these questions in one word. And then you do!

1. Where is your cell phone? here
2. Where is your significant other? onaga
3. Your hair color? reddish
4. Your mother? kind
5. Your father? dork
6. Your favorite thing? love
7. Your dream last night? don't
8. Your dream/goal? love
9. The room you're in? living
10. Your hobby? everything
11. Your fear? death
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? marriedwithkids
13. Where were you last night? asleep
14. What you're not? skinny
15. One of your wish-list items? jeans
16. Where you grew up? goddard
17. The last thing you ate? leftovers
18. What are you wearing? clothes
19. Your TV? news
20. Your pet? cuties
21. Your computer? awesome
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? yup
24. Your car? new!!
25. Something you're not wearing? socks
26. Favorite store? target
27. Your summer? lazy
28. Love someone? forever
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? sunday

if you're reading this i'm sure i love your blog, so YOU get the award, too!

introducing the newest member of the shaffer/carpenter family

HOLLA! i finally got my new car! no more begging for rides, working late because i have to wait for julie to pick me up, etc., etc. i'm just glad i have a car actually.

and i didn't have to get a loan. because i have an amazing boyfriend that spoils me rotten [HA...right] and since he has money...that i never get to see, trust me, he wrote a personal check for it and i'm going to pay him back. he says he's going to charge me interest, but his mom won't let him. lol. (side note: sometimes it's nice to date a guy with a brother who's not married [anymore, but that's for another blog] and no sisters!)

but, of course, since i got it saturday, it's been dirty from kyle's dirt road, then i finally washed and and as luck would have it [or just becaue i live in kansas...] it rained today. so i don't have pictures of MY car, but to hold you guys over until i have time to take pics of mine, here's one that is almost exactly like mine!

catie's car stats
make: lincoln
model: ls
year: 2000
engine: v8 [!!]
exterior color: black
interior color: black [...and leather. YES!!]

i would go on and on about how loaded it is and how much i adore it, but i'll save it for when i have pics of my "real" car up here instead. :)

exterior of car. duh.

better view of the front.

this interior is pretty much the exact same as mine. black leather seats and a really dark grey carpet. wood trimmings...i wanted the metal ones, but we this car was too much of a good deal to pass up just because i didn't want the wood. :) i don't think it looks TOO old lady, but the wood adds a bit of old lady touch to it. :)

yeah, this is pretty much exactly like mine. i promise, it really does have a cd player, just for some reason the 2000 has it in the glove box. it's a 6 disc changer, so you have to take it out to load it. better for a passenger to do that i guess. :)

more pics/descriptions to come!

TAG, i'm it!

YAY! i got tagged by wonder woman. and since it's been forever since i posted, i'll do it now. :)




1. i drove last night to test drive a car...not a little bit either. i drove all the way to OKLAHOMA CITY (TWO HOURS....ONE WAY.) to test drive this awesome lincoln ls. guess what. they sold it four days ago. and i called four times to make sure they had it before i drove down. including about five minutes before i left. if you live in the midwest, don't ever buy a car from bob howard auto group in OKC. jerks.

2. i'm actually a non-partisain voter (if you can believe me). i just cannot stand george w. bush. or sarah palin. i really, really, really don't like her.

3. my favorite cd ever is still green day's nimrod.

4. i graduated college with 80 extra credit hours. that means i paid almost 10K more than i needed to in order to graduate. ouch.

5. i love sushi. like LOVE LOVE LOVE it. i once drove an hour out of my way to go to my favorite sushi place (oriental express in topeka).

6. my dog's name is nelson. as in admiral nelson. don't know who that is? go to your local liquor store. :)

7. as much as i like to talk all big and crap, i'm really quite non-confrontational. i always start to stutter (horrible speech impediment from my childhood) and can't complete a sentance. then i get really mad when an hour later i think of the perfect comeback.

and i tag...chelsea, junnae, leah...and that's it because wonder woman sent it to me. :)

so i told wonder woman that i would be blogging about wichita again. this was on monday. so, sorry guys, i'm a little late.

CATIE'S ADVENTURES IN RIDING HER BIKE TO WORK: DAY 1

for those of you that don't know this already, my car broke down on sunday. not all the way, mind you, just enough to where i didn't feel comfortable taking it to work. WELLLLL, normally i would just call my friend jules and make her take me (we carpool most days) BUT her birthday was sunday and i knew she was taking a few hours off in the morning so that she could spend a little more time with her boyfriend before he went back to manhattan (where he lives).

so, yeah, i decided that i would actually (FINALLY) ride my bike to work. i've been thinking/talking/blogging about doing this for a while and kyle just went ahead and talked me into it.

so sunday night i google the walking path to get from my house to my work. and here's what it told me to do.

Walking directions to 420 S Emporia St, Wichita, KS 67202

6.1 mi – about 1 hour 57 mins

8406 E Harry St Wichita, KS 67207

1.	Head west on E Harry St toward S Eastmoor St	3.4 mi
2.	Turn right at George Washington Blvd	0.6 mi
3.	Turn left at E Lincoln St	1.4 mi
4.	Turn right at S Emporia St	0.7 mi

420 S Emporia St Wichita, KS 67202

NOW...for those of you NOT from wichita. trust me, you do NOT want to be at the intersection of george washington and lincoln. like ever. not even in the middle of the day with a knife in one hand and a revolver in the other (do they even make revolvers anymore? i should look into it if they do.)

anyway...i digress. so, obviously, there is no way that i'm going to go to work that way. i'm not driving, excuse me, RIDING through the ghetto on my awesome schwinn bike in my work clothes so i can get robbed.

so of course, i think i know a way better way to get to work. so i go to bed nice and early and wake up on time and do my hair and make up and take off for my trek to work.

one thing - my front tire was flat. remember now, i had no other means of getting to work. none. whatsoever. so i hop on anyway and start riding down harry towards webb (NOTE: this is the opposite direction from my work, but the dillon's gas station is way less threatening than the philips 66 at harry and rock.)

i fill up with air (the dillon's lady gave the air to me for free, so i was in a good mood.) i had decided at this point to take my bike up webb to douglas. surely douglas will be a good one to ride town, RIGHT?!?

wrong. i get there. guess what? there are no freaking sidewalks on douglas until you get past EASTBOUROUGH!! what. the. heck. what kind of town does that? i realize that most towns do have a town inside of them (eastbourough is a town in the middle of wichita full of dumb rich people who think they are better than everyone else. sorry if anyone is from eastbourough, but you should just be part of wichita, it's really stupid that you aren't. and i hate your cops.) anyway.

i've decided that wichita is the worst bikeable city in the entire united states. it really wasn't that bad of a bike ride once i got to where there are sidewalks but SHEESH! throw me a bone here. i'm trying to make the world a better place and you people make it hard for us to do that.

so yeah, the next time i ride my bike to work, i'm packing heat and going through the ghetto.

fo shiz.

today

what a normal day today was. so normal in fact, it was weird...

i woke up on time [GASP!] and i never wake up in time. in fact lately i've been sleeping until 7. my carpool picks me up at 7:30. so needless to say i've been doing the cheat hairdo [figure 1] for a while. and i still have to do my make up in the car. haha. so anyway, i did my hair the "real" way...aka i blow dried my hair and actually straightened it [see wedding photos for illustration].

so then julie [who i carpool with] picks me up right on time and i'm actually all ready to go and we get there uneventfully. it's only a 7 mile drive. not much adventure to be had on that drive.

i walk in and actually remembered we had an all staff meeting today [double GASP!] i walked in five minutes late last month [did i mention they are monthly, probably not...] and was very proud i wasn't late this time around. i make it through most of the morning in the normal fashion, i'm working on some new schools [the GODDARD schools, actually. how cool is THAT!? see figure 2]

julie emails me and is like, 'hey, let's get lunch at playa azul.' and i'm all like, 'fo shiz, that sounds great.' [i really did type that. i'm sure carol, the 75-year-old who's job it is to read through our emails and make sure we don't say anything "wrong" found that humorous. sometimes i used rap language just to see if she'll say anything to me. she hasn't. yet.]

so then i walk to lunch to see julie [she drove, remember? and playa azul is right next to her work. like RIGHT NEXT to her work.] and encounter many construction workers [awesome. not.] the new wichita dowtown arena [figure 3] is being built right next to wear i work. and of course it has to be in between where julie works and where i work. anyway, i make it without too many cat calls and we eat lunch. cheaply. because mexican is always nice and cheap and they have an amazing ala carte menu there. and then i have her drive me back to work because if i walked, i'd be late.

normal day for me so far. afternoon goes by and nothing too out of the ordinary happens, krystil [my boss] and i complain about work and other stuff. she's not that much older than me, so we actually have quite a lot in common. and she's funny. like hilarious. and we have similar upbringings, which i always find make for interesting conversations.

julie picks me up and we book it home because she is throwing a bachelorette party for renee, this girl we went to school with and she works with. i'm invited. i should tell you that i was the only one invited that DIDN'T work with the rest of them. uncomfortable. just a little weird. and this lady that she works with has "adopted" me into their group of interiors people and krystil [my boss, remember] cannot stand her. i don't mind her, but if she's done have the shit krystil says she has done, i would trust her with a nickel...no, make that a penny, of mine. seriously.

anyway, i make it through the party unscathed [and happy because we ate good food and then played catch phrase, which i LOVE LOVE LOVE] the party probably only could have been better if we played apples to apples. even more love.

julie and i then take our dogs for a walk, just like every night. i come home and talk to kyle on the phone for a while [well, i talk, he watches tv. but that's normal for us.]

and now i'm blogging. does anyone else feel weird when their day goes EXACTLY as planned?? i mean that NEVER happens to me, so i guess i'm a little weirded out about it.

goodnight everyone!

figure one: this is somewhat like my natural hair. kinda.

figure 2: home sweet home.

figure three: 3D model of the wichita downtown arena. GLA [where i work] is part of this goodness. but just the parking lot. :) nothing cool really.