Pantsless

I've been flying by the seat of my pants all week. At least I think I have been. What does is really mean to fly by the seat of one's pants? Really. What kind of saying is that anyway? The visuals get a little silly.

Ok, I just googled it:

"Before airplanes had sophisticated instruments and flight control systems, and even today, planes are piloted by feel. Pilots can feel the reactions of the plane in response to their actions at the controls. Being the largest point of contact between pilot and plane, most of the feel or feedback comes through the seat of the pants. If you are “flying by the seat of your pants” your are responding to the feedback received."

So, wow. If I'm reading this correctly, and I think I am, I'm pretty sure my "fly by the seat of my pants" life just collapsed on itself. All this time I was wrong. ALL THIS TIME. Whew. Talk about a wake up call. Flying by the seat of your pants actually means you do what your butt tells you. Weird. And kind of funny. I like that so much more than what I previously thought it meant. DID EVERYONE KNOW THIS BUT ME? I guess that explains a lot of things about the world...

Anyway, I've been busy winging my crazy style life (Hey, winging it, where does that come from? Perhaps I don't want to google this one for fear of completely turning my "old sayings that I assume their definition but don't actually know" knowledge upside down). But, my friends, all this is going to change in about 30 minutes when I leave for Baja.

Yes. Baja. For a week.

I will be ATVing it up for 400+ miles in Baja for a week with just my camera and father dearest. It was slightly a last minute decision which made my previous understanding of flying by the seat of my pants applicable. But, that's not important now. What IS important is that I'm going to be in Baja for a week and no one can call, email, or txt me.

Don't take it personally. I love you. Every last one of you. So, so, much. You are the wind beneath my wings (aviation idiom day!). But, I just need some... space. 

I still love you.

Goodnight, {Caffeine} Moon

In bed, roughly 1:30am, this is my thought process:

Ugh, just fall asleep already. 

Please. 

FALL ASLEEEEEEEEP. You have so much work to do this weekend. 

Why are you awake anyway? You should be tired. It's after 1am. 

And you didn't get much sle... oh, wait.

{The caffeine}

You idiot. You had a vanilla coke. 

Yes. That delicious beverage you drank at Rubios with dinner. 

Yes. That delicious beverage that you HAVE to drink at Rubios with dinner.

There simply isn't a better marriage than fish tacos and vanilla coke.

But, oh, you are paying for it now. Suckah.

Stupid, sweet, sweet, amazing vanilla coke. 

The ruiner of my caffeine free lifestyle.

Bah.

They need to make caffeine free diet vanilla coke.

Mmmmm.

That would make my life complete. I'd drink one of those every day.

Ok. Maybe not everyday. I definitely don't like soda that much.

Just every time I had fish tacos.

Mmmmm.

Fish tacos.

I want to make my own sodas.

They have that soda maker at Sears I saw during Christmastime.

That would be cool.

Kate the Soda Queen.

I'd make a lot of delicious beverages.

I love delicious beverages.

I love ginger ale.

Oh and that sparkling blueberry stuff from Trader Joes.

Yes.

Wait.

Oh my.

{Ginger-Blueberry Soda}

What?

I must make this. That basically sounds like the best thing I can think of.

I must be a genius when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Oh gosh. Mmm. 

Ginger-blueberry. GINGER FREAKING BLUEBERRY.

The combo of two of my favorite flavors.

You must google this immediately.

Ok, maybe after you sleep a little.

UGH. GO TO SLEEP.

But man, ginger-blueberry.

That's going to be epic.

I think my appetite has changed somewhat since last night. I mean, ginger-blueberry soda still definitely has potential. Let's be honest. I am kind of a genius when I'm falling asleep. But I'm pretty sure when I was thinking about it, I thought I had the cure for cancer. It was pretty much the most epic thought I'd ever thought. Hah. So. Welp. I guess I'll keep you... updated... on that...

My Brother, The Argentine Wolverine

I've been waiting to post the details of last week until I had a little more solid information (not knowing concrete information was half of why last week ended up being so hard). But, tonight I got some hard evidence. But we'll get to that in a minute. First, I'll catch you up...

Last week was one of the busiest weeks I've had in a long time. Obviously I can't quite post what specifically made it so unnecessarily busy, but I'm a wedding photographer, so you can't probably guess. Don't get me wrong, I adore my brides. Sometimes though... 

In the midst of my week of insanity, I received the news that my brother serving an LDS mission in Argentina was sick. The diagnosis was appendicitis and he would be heading into surgery the next morning. We all spent the evening joking about Alex in some shady hospital going under the rusty knife of the local vet. You know, the stuff great mission stories are made of! Instead, our light hearted joking was replaced the next morning with a call from my dad saying "Alex has cancer".

Immediately, with my mind racing and still waking up, I thought of the 29 gazillion things it could be besides cancer and there would be no way Argentine doctors could know so quickly. They couldn't know, right? But they thought it was his appendix and it was a tumor! What else could be wrong with their diagnosis? Who are these doctors anyway? Why couldn't they just send him home to do the surgery? Tumors aren't always cancer! They can't know yet... it can't be cancer...

"Do they know it's cancer?" 
"Well, no, they found a tumor in his intestines." 

Some relief.

The next few days consisted of waiting for the little bits of information we could get, hearing ridiculous stories about how Argentine hospitals work, and simply... waiting. All my bride's needs seemed so small and insignificant compared to the thought of Alex on a hospital bed with tubes down his throat thousands and thousands of miles away, and yet I still had to cater every waking moment to them. While designing, editing, and shooting, the only thing I could think about was Alex. Once I caught my breath though, it didn't take long to realize how much of my burden was being lifted by someone else. 

My friends, life doesn't wait to happen at your convenience. But if you keep your mind out of the black hole of self pity, you realize the umbrella of blessings you're getting during your downpour of trials. 

And sheesh, was I ever blessed this week! Between amazing friends and delicious baked sandwiches, I survived a week that felt impossible. And tonight, Alex was able to talk to everyone via Facebook. It was the first time any of us had any sort of contact with him since Christmas (all the medical information was through the mission president and mission doctor up until this point). Here is the conversation I had with him:

7:51 Katherine

ALEX!! YOU'RE AN ARGENTINE MIRACLE!

7:52pm Alex

haha thanks sis I LOVE YOU

7:53pm Katherine

love you too dude! so glad you're alive and kickin'. GET THE HECK HOME!

7:55pm Alex

im tryin my hardest they say im healing ridiculously fast. im like a modern day wolverine

7:56pm Katherine

haha! love it! you have a crazy amount of people praying for you, and a lot of love being sent!

7:59pm Alex

i know i feel it sis thats waht is helping me so much

8:00pm Katherine

ah, i miss your like crazy alejandro, i can't wait to see you!

8:02pm Alex

me nither! im ready to be home im here and i cant even preach

8:06pm Katherine

haha, i thought you'd have the whole hospital converted by now haha, just kidding.

8:10pm Alex

well there are 2 nurses that i have talked alot to and one of them lives with a member and i commited my doc to goto church

8:11pm Katherine

haha! that's my bro! love it!

8:14pm Alex

haha yep yep i hope they dont just listen to me out of pitty

8:17pm Katherine

naw, i'm sure your healing has got them a'wonderin'!

8:23pm Alex

haha yeah i thnk so

8:32pm Alex

i miss food tho

8:33pm Katherine

yeah, we have to get you mass amounts of cafe rio when you get home!

8:36pm Alex

best plan ever, trash sounds good right now i havent eated since tuesday

8:39pm Katherine

haha, yeah that jello probably isn't too satisfying!

8:40pm Alex

haha nope but its better the the four foot tube that was down my nose

8:41pm Katherine

yeah, that doesn't sound like the most pleasant of things! Ugh. When do you get to eat food?

8:42pm Alex

i think they will let me eat like squash tomorrow?

8:42pm Katherine

ooo, squash... exciting... haha

8:43pm Alex

i know it im stoaked

"Modern Day Wolverine" I love it. My brother was supposed to return from his fully served mission tomorrow, but the guess the Lord needed him there a couple more weeks. We don't know exactly when he'll be able to come home, but we're hoping it will be around the first week in March. Either way, we all (doctors included) feel his speedy recovery is a miracle.

Excuse My Absence

This week has been...

*sigh*

Hard. Really hard. But I'm so incredibly thankful. Even for the hard bits.
 

Lights, Camera, Jaron

I may or may not have posted in a while. And by "may or may not" I mean not. What can I say? I'm a slightly busy girl these days. And by "slightly" I mean insanely. But, that just means I'll have lots of eye candy and very little word rubbish to post in the next week or so. For now, here are some quick shots I took of my filmmaker pal Jaron. He was kind enough to let me play with his delicious new lights last week. We didn't have much time, so think of these as workshop shots. And by "workshop" I mean don't judge me because I know they're not perfect so just wait until you see what I can really do with these babies. 

Retro Smetro

So. Some people like it, some people hate it. Either way I'm on a retro post processing kick. And I thought this picture from a shoot last weekend was cute. 

My Friends Are Cool {1}

I have awesome friends who challenge, teach, and inspire me. So, I decided I wanted to highlight these brilliant people on my blog in a little segment I like to call "My Friends Are Cool".

{Trust me. Segments are fun. Be excited.}

For my first entry in the My Friends Are Cool portion of my blog, I would like to direct your attention to Nick Stephens. I formally met Nick about three and a half years ago. Technically I met him previously to this, since he was friends with my older sister, but we didn't start our own friendship until I became his neighbor after moving out post high school. At first, I was insanely intimidated by Mr. Stephens. His art is so choice, not to mention his fabulously decorated home. But the more I got to know Nick, the more I saw that controlled, yet passionate artist I could naturally relate to. Soon, as I grew into my own artistic shoes, my immature shyness was replaced with mutual respect and friendship. Below is a photo of him in front of one of his pieces that I took soon after we met...

His abstract work excites all those little creative bits in my brain that make me love the world. I crave it. I adore it. I cannot wait to decorate my future house's walls with it. The textures, compositions, colors, mediums, and personalities that make up his art have pushed me more than once in my own artistic endeavors. He doesn't have any examples of his furniture on his site yet, but let me assure you it's just as beautifully creative. Love it. Looooove it. See how giddy I'm getting just talking about his art? Nick Stephens is fabulous. And he's my cool friend. Chiggaty check him out:

http://www.nickstephensart.com/

We Do What We Need To Be Free

{Sometimes it takes a shotty 2:30AM poem and some Damien Rice to let go of a 3+ year soul sucking burden masked as a friendship. Ah, I feel so much better. Goodnight my lovelies!} 

Casino Jack and the Sundance Kid

I'm a big fan of film festivals, indie movies, and artistic towns with character. And about this time every year, slightly over an hour away, there just so happens to be an event that incorporates all these things. Yes, my friends, Sundance. And thanks to my pal (and my pal's pal), I finally got to see a movie there this year.

The film we saw was a documentary called Casino Jack and the United States of Money. It was about (drum roll please) corrupt politicians.

{Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. Did I hear that right? Corrupt politicians? No!}

So the subject matter wasn't anything new and inspiring, and I think the director could have used less partisan storytelling, but it was somewhat informative and more importantly... it was SUNDANCE.

Even through the pretentious air of rich yuppies and bearded film students, I was so happy to be there.

I was happy to sit in the theater drinking my overpriced water. I was happy to ride the shuttle with the filmmaker standing in front of me. I was happy with my friend's boldness to keep talking about the movie with the filmmaker in front of me. I was happy to walk in the crisp, bitter, January night air down Main Street. I was happy to see the Banksy street art on a dumpster. I was (especially) happy with the delicious pizza we had for dinner. And I was happy to be up after 3AM knowing I had an early shoot the next morning because I knew I was at Sundance.

I find it funny that when returning from the festival, it is hardly asked "what did you see?", but "who did you see?". Sundance is an independent film festival, not a celebrity stalking festival. I've never been one for star gazing. I'm far more interested in hearing what filmmakers have to say about their labors than I am in maybe seeing an annoyed celebrity dodging gawking locals. Just because someone is famous doesn't make them interesting to me.

{That being said, we're pretty sure every limo that passed by had Zooey Dechanel, Daniel Craig, Casey Affleck, and Natalie Portman in it... just because deep down we knew if we saw any of them in real life we would suddenly take an interest in star gazing.}

Give a Million Bucks in 10 Seconds Flat

Invisible children is an incredible charity. And Chase bank is giving away 1,000,000 to said incredible charity IF you go to the link below and vote! In 10 seconds flat you can help change the world. Everyone, please, please, please, go and vote Invisible Children right now! I have seen first hand in Africa what they are doing, and I promise (unlike most charities) they are doing it RIGHT.

{plus $100,000 will go straight to Haiti!}

VOTE HERE for INVISIBLE CHILDREN:

Images from Uganda this summer: