lurve

 ...i hereby resolutionize (yeah, it's a word.  deal.) to not gain a bajillionty pounds in 2010 because of my new friend.  I shall give away all baked goodies to friends and family.

a year in review

In 2009:
I gained 20 lbs
Got engaged
Planned a wedding
Spent a lot of time with the most awesome toddler on the planet
Lost 25 lbs
Got married
Gained every pound back a week after the wedding
went BACK to SCHOOL (eek)
Learned more medical terminology than I ever thought possible
Changed my name
Made some really awesome new friends
Learned a HUGE (and awesome) secret
Got devastating news
Reevaluated what's important to me
Lived well, loved much, and laughed often...

2009 was a TOUGH year for so many people--a lot of people (myself included) had to reconsider everything that's important and make some major life changes.  It was a year for friends and family.  Here's to many happy memories in 2010, and for surviving 2009!

I can't even think about going back to school.  The idea of forging headlong into spring semester gives me the heebie jeebies and I can't even begin to wrap my mind around the idea that break ends next Wednesday.  I'm somewhat enjoying the mind-numbing awesomeness from endless days spent babysitting and watching really (did I mention really) bad daytime television

I feel sort of like I'm back in high school again...

...And I love it :-)

why I'm MIA...

Nursing school is kicking my rear end.  Big time. 

Flashback

I found my old Xanga blog, and have slowly been importing those entries here. It's amazing to look back at years ago and laugh about the big, the small, the funny and the not-so-funny.

Wow.

I'll be moving them a couple at a time...i heart my TACA girls :-)

The words we live by

So many people have asked us where we got the script for our wedding ceremony, and I love telling people that we wrote the majority of it ourselves.  We've had several people ask us if we can use all or part of it for their own ceremony, and I could think of no higher compliment.  All I ask is that if you do use it or someone you know uses it, just let me know!

Changing Tides

Yesterday was such a weird day.  I woke up in a blah mood (mostly because of the weather), but nothing out of the ordinary.

We covered the domestic violence chapter in our Assessment class yesterday, and as I was listening, I kept remembering my own experiences with the ER on 8/14/05 and hoping and praying that I would be a more compassionate, more understanding, less judgmental nurse than that one I was (un)fortunate enough to have that night.  During class, I wasn't really upset, just very adamant that my classmates understood that domestic violence absolutely knows no boundaries.  There is a stereotype (thanks, Jerry Springer) that is portrayed in the media, and that stereotype is a death sentence if we as a society can't get past it. There is no one "type" of person that is a victim of domestic violence.  It could be an isolated incident, like mine, or it could be an ongoing pattern, but to have a specific picture in your head of what a victim looks like is dangerous, especially for someone who works in the health care industry. 

A New Addition!

The Walters Family got a little bit bigger yesterday--

 

This isn't Cooper  Cooper is a spazztard that won't sit still long enough to take a picture.  This is, however, the closest picture I could find!

Jake...not so fond of Cooper.  If looks could kill, Cooper wouldn't have lasted through the night.

Happy SEC game day!

I forgot I had a blog while I obsessed with myspace. But that's over now, so I'll post more regularly.

MRS. FRUITCAKE

So...

I'm now officially Caitlin Walters, as of May 9, 2009.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every person who made our day exactly what we hoped it would be.  The day was perfect, the weather was perfect, and everything played out better than we could have hoped.  We were married surrounded by our families and friends in a ceremony that absolutely reflected us and our personalities, and an evening of laughs and good times.

I'll be uploading pictures shortly (my time got cut in half--I started back to school last week!), but please ake a minute to upload your picture to our shared photo site if you were at the wedding!  I can't WAIT to see the pics from our photographers, either.  The sneaky peeky that we've gotten so far makes both us us happy, happy, happy!

for the many, many people who have asked for a copy of the script of our wedding, it's also up on the same site.  We wrote the ceremony with love, and we share it the same way.  All I ask is that you let me know if you're going to use part of it (or all of it!). 

Much love!

www.thewalterswedding.shutterfly.com

Password: walters

to the teachers

I didn't quite realize how many friends I had that are teachers.

And I didn't realize how much love, care, and patience they put into what they do. 

Even the worst of my teachers growing up ("y'all are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready for the streets, go partay late at night and sleep through my class...."  sorry.  I digress.) spent hours preparing lesson plans and having the background knowledge to get through the class,

And the best teachers---they're the ones that made going to school worth it. Mrs. Ritchie, Mrs. Moore, Sra. Skidmore, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Threadgill, and even Father Williams for senior seminar (oh, Irish Lit and Drama, how I loathed thee...but listening to your really old records was pretty awesome. And having class at an Irish pub even awesome--er.) ...it was so obvious that these teachers absolutely loved what they did, loved the subject they taught, and they put their heart and soul into what they did. 

So here's to you, my awesomely awesome teacher friends.  I hope that the kids you teach enjoy your classes as much as I enjoyed some of my favorites.  I hope that the kids you teach one day look back on you as I do some of my favorites, and that, in later years, those kids come back to visit you at school.

Thanks.

it was fun when WE did it

Ooooh, being a child.  Everything is exciting, and different, and new, and fun.

Or a disastrous mess!!

 

If my mom has ever sat down with you for more than 15 minutes, you know that the highlight of my childhood "disasters" occurred when I was about 2.  Mom noticed that the house had gotten too quiet, as is often the case when a child is doing something that THEY think is great fun, but obviously something they shouldn't be doing. 

In my case, I had discovered eggs.  More specifically, I had figured out how to open the refrigerator and was systematically pulling out a single egg, holding it above my head, and laughing with hysterical glee as soon as it inevitably "splatted" on the ground.  I had repeated this process about 6 times before my mom found me,  the eggs, and the slippery, icky mess on her floor.

Well, history has a way of repeating itself.

Today, the house got quiet, as happens when Miss Makayla gets involved in something she shouldn't be.  When I found her, she was painting the floors, the dogs, herself, the fridge and the oven with butter.  The big, giant, got-it-on-sale-at-Winn Dixie tub o' butter.  She was steadily eating butter with one hand and swirling it around with the other.  It was in her hair, her eyelashes, her ears.  It was a giant greasy mess on the floor.  It was all OVER BOTH dogs. 

oooooooh, childhood.  Payback's a bitch.

disaster in the making

I am unexpectedly turning into my worst nightmare.

When we first started talking, it was a simple thing--a short and sweet ceremony followed by dinner, drinking and dancing the night away with our closest friends and family. 

Then...oh, then...I actually started the planning.  And I realized that even the simple things are far more complicated than I imagined.  Just the ceremony, dinner, drinking and dancing with our closest friends and family is turning into a way bigger project than I imagined--caterers, photographers, djs, table arrangements, flowers...it's just a crapload of stuff that i want to quit thinking about.  I was all about a short engagement, mostly because we already live together and just want to be married already, and even if we had planned for 3 years from now, I still would have put everything off until 4 months out......which is exactly where we are now.  But I'm finding myself drowning in giant white dresses with butt bows and a mile of tulle and organza and styles that i didn't even know existed.  (Mermaid?  That's a fishy woman-thing that fits in with unicorns and a yetti, not a dress.  Apparently, I was wrong about that.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly looking forward to May 9th, but I'm slowly losing my sanity in the process.  I want to wave a magic wand (one with a big blinking star on the top) and everything magically fall into place and not have to spend eleventy thousand hours on the phone calling everyone from here to Taiwan. I want everyone whom I love and who loves me and everyone that JW loves and who loves him to magically show up without having to address and send invitations that cost more than a small country that people (except for those crafty scrapbooky people who actually have an artistic bone) are just going to throw away.  I want centerpieces to magically create themselves and food to just show up.  I want to not have to call Meg and Emily 4000000000 times with everything from a crisis to shoelaces. 

And most importantly, I want to survive this without JW taking a blunt object to the back of my head.

I know that once the vendors are set, I'll be in a better position that doesn't involve this much stress, but I'm ready to be there already :-)

Oh, and those big white dresses?  Found it :-)

BIG NEWS!

I'm GETTING MARRIED!!!

May 9, 2009 :-)