miss idaho.

I'm leaving for Peru tomorrow morning! Early, early - which always send the good kind of butterflies into the pit of my stomach.

My family time was too short, but super cozy with a delicious Christmas Eve meal, Meg's homemade mint chocolate ice cream I ended up inhaling and a late-night Christmas taco craving. (all food related...)

Also, working Christmas Eve will make you super, super thankful for family. I literally could not drive home fast enough.

The reality of living out of a backpack for three weeks is starting to freak me out - so, my goals for the trip in order to increase my accountability:

pack light.

take pictures.

balance. (especially when it comes to my infamous careening emotions).

easy-going, go-with-the-flow.

a bloody mary on the flight. walker is dubious this is even possible, but I swear it is and I always thought it sounded so glamorous...

machu pichu!

inca trail!

ceviche!

sunsets.

sunrises.

embrace crazy hair, the absence of a mascara wand and getting really sick of the skint amount of clothes i pack.

dancing.

daily pepto bismal intake.

come home with a tan.

romantic.

keep in mind that this is exactly what i've always wanted to do and exactly the person i want to be doing it with and how extremely blessed i am to get to do it.

best of 2010.

In the spirit of (Best of 2009) and my love of "best of" lists...

p.s. I want to read all of these. I have a thing for long-form magazine articles.

p.p.s. The New York Times year in photos.

Best Band I Saw Live: mumford & sons. whoa.

(i also saw avett brothers, pavement and sufjan so that's say'n something).

Best Ever: scuba diving in the great barrier reef.

Best pinch-me i'm dreaming Moment: seeing an opera in the sydney opera house.

Best place for a weekend you want to model the rest of your life after: portland.

Best people to do it with: paige and kelly.

Best Tailgate: the grove at ole miss.

Best Pet: walker's sister ashton's bunny ellen. bunnies as puppies.

Best Movie: scott pilgrim vs. the world was a wonderful surprise. inception.

Best person to drink wine with: colby wedel. specifically knarly head's old vine red zin. in her house that i've lived in for almost an entire year. again, whoa.

Greatest Accomplishment: finishing war & peace/running lake hefner/a one-year anniversary.

Best Realization: how good eminem actually is - the man raps likes he'll literally die if he doesn't. how much i don't like being broke.

Best Eats: little red bike cafe in portland, oregon! rolando's in fort smith, arkansas! cjelina in venice, california! the gates in kansas city, missouri! personalizing my pizza every night at the wedge (hello evoo, goat cheese and arugala)!

(places in oklahoma city i really want to try in the coming year: ludavine and cafe antigua).

Best Music: mark ronson, kanye west, the national, punch brothers, drake, nicki minaj, B.o.B., spoon, arcade fire, big boi, janelle monae, sufjan stephens, vampire weekend, the black keys

Best Songs: what part of forever, cee-lo green. tighten up, the black keys. teenage dream, katy perry. lost in the world, kanye and bon iver.

Best Music I Do Not Like: ke$ha. best coast (uggg get out of bed already!). local natives.

Best Television: i'm kind of really loving the real housewives of beverly hills right now. modern family. true blood. dex. boardwalk empire.

Best thing I had always heard was good, but never really took people up on until this year: planet earth. a cheese log. hawaii.

Best Read: the elegance of the hedgehog.

Best News Story: live coverage of the chilean minors rescue - rarely can news be so heartwarming.

Best Fashion: carine roitfeld retires from french vogue - what an icon. madewell goes online. blake lively.

Best Cookie: ricotta cheese cookie at cafe 501 - thanks for moving closer to me.

Best Beauty Product: clarin's sunless tanning lotion.

dr. suess was so brilliant.

It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

(Dr. Suess, How The Grinch Stole Christmas).

vintage christmas.

It's like Christmas is this fleeting feeling you get glimpses of, moments where it's in your hands and warm in your heart before it slips from your grasp.

Maybe the key is not to force constant cheer, but be open to these sweet moments of brevity.

...and send well wishes and greetings out into the world.

worth a watch.

...mostly because I love funky dressing little kids and my Dad says the little girl in this reminds him of the way Meg used to dress when she was that age.

Man, you should have seen Meg back in the day - she was a fearless little gypsy in floor-sweeping Mexican skirts.

Also, I want a loft apartment I can ride my bike around in.

extravaganza '10.

Remembering Extravaganza '09...

Well, my team's gingerbread house won again!

We went with a Christmas gala/fashion show at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art theme - the dangling licorice from above represents a Dale Chihuly sculpture, duh.

The other team (losers) went with a well-constructed bakery.

The contest was weirdly competitive this year, our game of Dirty Santa was super dirty and between jobs and crammed schedules our numbers were down and preparation was rushed, but I still came away with the same feeling of well broken-in love.

I just love us.

* Also, prepare yourselves for better pictures (sans random date on side I can't figure out how to get rid of) from now on, because my overwhelmingly-wonderful-at-gift-giving boyfriend got me a camera for Christmas! Eeeps!

via text.

Walker: What are you up to today?

Kate: papa, spin, wedge, wine.

Walker: Thats a Kate

happy kate.

Home.

Making lunch with Meg, goat cheese on toasted ciabatta and butter-soaked brussel sprouts.

Borrowing her boots.

And a walk through Arrowhead Valley in our beloved Anne Taylor Loft leggings.

Do ask, do tell.

Black Swan.

Christmas tips.

My best friend getting engaged (!!!).

Getting Kelly Sheline's Christmas CD in the mail.

Christmas Extravaganza 2010.

One of Walker's professors discussing the Magi on Diane Rehm - the kind of thing we can get easily pumped up over.

The Little family's Christmas cookie platter.

Booklist:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami.

Confessions of An Art Addict, Peggy Guggenheim.

I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron.

The Human Stain, Philip Roth.

And even still, I just can't wait to get away with my boyfriend. The 27th, the 27th, the 27th...

(Image Garance Dore).

And then I can't wait to come home to put together a life that doesn't feel so start and stop.

now, just pretend everyone here is an alien...

After watching the season finale of Dexter the other night (for some reason I really want Julia Stiles' career to succeed and it was a really good season, though not the best), my boyfriend made a comparison of Dexter to the classic movie Coneheads - how it's fascinating to watch people try and function in a world they don't understand, emulating the people around them to react/act in the ways they think they're supposed to.

It might be a good way to view reality.

From this perspective, it makes the rules of a society quite laughable - and maybe a little bit more bearable...

And since we're all just trying to adapt as best we can, taking cues from those around us - maybe this makes others around us just a little easier to understand.

So when the world's got you down and you're feeling mass produced, paperwork crazy and creatively stifled - play Walker's game: sit in a restaurant and pretend all the people in it are aliens pretending to be humans. Hilarious. Especially when it comes to utilizing utensils.

nancy myers interiors.

I'm obsessed with the bakery set in It's Complicated. If I ever own a bookstore, it's looking something like this.

I'm not a big fan of Nancy Myers films - but I get why they exist. And her interiors are always so open and gorgeous and to die for.

the shawnee, oklahoma christmas parade.

behind-the-scenes shots of Walker and William's beloved tradition of walking in the Shawnee Christmas Night Parade and about as Christmas-y as I let myself get.

...the wide-eyed, genuine excitement of children encountering a semi-believable Frosty and/or Grinch is pretty miraculous. You can almost here bell rings and angel wings.

summerwinter.

My cousin's new supper club blog: SummerWinter.

Beautiful. Wish I was in Venice.

p.s. Querida Oklahoma.

still twenty-three.

i threw my bestfriend a surprise party last week for her 24th birthday. i decorated with giant gold “24” balloons and made everyone wear party hats. she was so surprised!! she wrote me a thank you note the next day saying “i fell asleep in my party dress. and my pen. and my bangles. annndd my makeup. oh, birthdays.”

via cutie tumblr: hello hello!

all of the lights.

New favorite Christmas tradition:

Driving around looking at the lights in Nichols Hills with Walker, drinking our Starbucks hot chocolate and Saturn Grill pecan sandies and blasting Kanye West's new album (so so good and invigorating).

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy cover art by George Condo. Honestly, I like it and applaud Kanye for trying it out.

Listen to All of the Lights while driving through the Chesapeake trees - I guarantee tingles.

life is short/you're capable.

look at your watch now

you're still a super hot female

you got your million-dollar contract

and they're all waiting for your hot track

(Gwen Stefanie, What You Waiting For).

and politically.

Congratulations Senate, you just decided to spend $700 billion on the top 2%.

...not to mention avoiding a decision on the DREAM Act.

Blah.

the home bar.

Maybe it's because I never saw so much as a drop of liquor in my own home growing up, but my grandparent's bar area transfixed me as a kid: a pool hall appropriate stained glass lamp hanging above, mirrored back, mini fridge stocked with fizzy water and Coke, jars of olives and onions, cocktail swords, rows of beautiful multi-colored bottles...

All so forbidden and mysterious.

So it's no wonder I dream of having a subtle bar area in my own home some, more grown-up day. (Even if a wine cellar would be more appropriate to my own tastes).

A vintage tray table tucked into a corner, an eclectic mix of well-designed bottles on display - as opposed to thrown at the top of kitchen cabinets, frat boy style.

(I also love perfume bottles and makeup vanity displays, but that's another post).

Blame Mad Men, James Bond sets or the holiday season, but this look has definitely caught my eye.

Images via Andy & Kate Spade's home profile, Domino Magazine, Cupcakes and Cashmere and Hallie's (theta!) beautiful home profile.

for thursday.

Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego.

(Vladimir Nabokov).

for wednesday.

...everyone I met

wore part of my destiny like a carnival mask.

"I'm Bartleby the Scrivener," I told the Italian waiter.

"Me, too," he replied.

(Charles Simic, St. Thomas Aquinas).

all i want for christmas.

This month has been affectionately dubbed "No Spend Decem" by Walker and I in anticipation of our upcoming trip.

However, Christmas in my family has never exactly meant anyone hits paydirt with the gift-getting.

I think my parents have always held the philosophy that they are forced to spend money on big things for the three of us all year, why glamorize it for one winter morning.

Instead, it's more about the quirky things my mom stuffs our stockings with and the homemade popsicle stick things we give them in return.

I'm not complaining at all - trust me, I have never once in my life gone wanting, I don't have to get caught up in holiday consumer hysteria and that warm, fuzzy Christmas feeling is always present. Plus, I have good stories: "Kate, it's a mug that says Whatever! on it - you're always saying that!" (Not to mention the fact that my sister recently got a box of instant mashed potatoes for her birthday).

It's just that it's a foreign concept to me that you would ever get something you really, really wanted on Christmas. Or, for that matter, give someone something they really, really wanted.

...but this philosophy has never stopped me and my sisters from magneting our hopelessly extravagant personal Christmas Wish Lists to the family fridge with baited breath and fingers crossed.

In some warped fashion I feel I really do need Santa to bring me a new bike and laptop and television (yeah, our house got broken into Friday night...). Oh, and Ray Bans and an iPhone and an iTunes giftcard so I can guiltlessly buy KJ103 radio hits to run to (currently loving Kylie Minogue's Get Out Of My Way), sushi for dinner every night and Nora Ephron's new book I Remember Nothing. And me being me, I dream about clothes and shoes - though don't even attempt to pick something out for me without my full, detailed consent.

Or the early gift of an all access pass into the world of Art Basel Miami.

But honestly, I'm so content. Cider beer, Sooner victories, Twilight nights, Christmas parade, wedding dancing, old people, phone conversations, broken Spanish happy.

Repeat the sounding joy, I feel much more Christmas-y than usual.

goal: post every single day until christmas.

My concept of commitment was
to take all you could give.

the world may have moved on to christmas, but i'm not done dwelling on thanksgiving yet.

thankful for drinking wine with my grandmother in a shopping mall restaurant at 2pm, laughing until tears roll down cheeks at our absolute inability to be bargain shoppers. i guess my inexplicable aversion to the sales rack is genetic.

thanksgiving apropos.

happy kate'sgiving.

it includes: chips & queso, shrimp, side dishes as stars of the meal, the shaving of the walk, smashing 'the brain' pumpkin, roof climbing, winning a variety of jack daniel's merchandise at lost ogle trivia, seeing everyone from high school at speakeasy and ending with pie.

Aaron Copeland's Hoedown as theme song.

thanksgiving.

I wanted to be a rain salesman,

carrying my satchel full of rain from door to door

selling thunder, selling the way air feels after a downpour,

but there were no openings in the rain department,

and so they left me dying behind this desk -- adding bleeps

subtracting chunks -- and I would give a bowl of wild blossoms,

some rain, and two shakes of my fist at the sky to be living.

(John Engman, Work).

my own office. appointments. meetings. schedule. heels that click. suit that fits. hard work. money. morning coffee. sharp. success. capability.

waves. weekends. tacos. sand. bikini. sunflower bouquets. barefeet. stretching. farmer's markets.

city. public transportation. crappy apartment above a thai food restaurant. disco naps. silly secretary job you can make just enough to scrape by with. light up dance floors. loud music. bright red lipstick.

back to school. learning. loans. cross-legged reading on a bed in an oversized university t-shirt. nighttime coffee. binge eating cheez-its. future plans. future anxiety.

five hippie, happy kids bouncing on couch cushions. fall leaf piles. a golden retriever. breakfast around a huge kitchen table. housing mortgage. paper hearts. popcorn ball recipes. goodbye freedom.

a writer.

change the world.

jet set. passport. bloody mary's in airport bars. chic bangs. art museums. all white apartment. sushi. happy hour. magazine articles and reviews.

scholarly. quiet. campus. preservation. pursuit. frozen in time. mothballs. bookshelves, butterfly collections, black and white movies. travel grants. research grants. published. walk to work down tree-lined paths. ivory tower.

oklahoma city thunder. the room with the wood floors. banging out the door for a run or spin class. waitress. cold pizza. wine. boredom. anxious. indecision. in love. a four week countdown to South America. and incapable of seeing anything past that.

(life, just fall into my lap).

simile.

"...but now her smile was fragmentary, it clung to her lips like cake crumbs."
(Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's).

san pellegrino, wedge pizza, almond joys.

Please bear with me, I want to recommit myself to this blog and write, write, write, write, write, write. and write.

(Kick in the pants to write more inspired by reading Mary Karr's Lit - which my boyfriend bought me at one of the best bookstores in the world, Square Books, in Oxford, Mississippi).

(Though I can guarantee I won't ever get sick of posting my beloved Sartorialist pictures).

oxford, ms.

i think that i still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop
with the front yellow and pink in the evening...
like a light in the midst of darkness.
(vincent van gogh).

what would we be without wishful thinking.

I'm obsessed with M. Sasek travel book illustrations.
And pretty much everything else Kate Spade draws inspiration from.

Wilco's entire Ghost Is Born album.

The White Stripes, Ugly As I Seem

The National, Mr. November

p.s.
I wish I had something insightful to say about the recent elections. But I don't.
It depresses me to think about how much government has the ability to get done and just doesn't. And that goes for both parties.

time warp.

So after one of my coworkers raved about a Lyric Theater production of Rocky Horror Show, Walker and I decided to catch a midnight performance.

...it's kind of a tradition that Walker and I see creepy, Halloween-esque things there (on our first official date we saw a performance of Sweeney Todd).

And if you haven't been to their new theater in the Plaza District, go! It's a seriously awesome venue.

Neither of us had ever even seen the movie before, so we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into.

In a nutshell, it was really, really, really, really fun and scandalous and almost impossible to describe. But I'll try.

Costumes were encouraged, so we went with face paint and black caterer vests. And we thought we were awesome.

But garters, platform heels, lab coats, cleavage, huge hair and feather boas were more the norm. Unless you're going as preppy Brad and Janet.

Basically the audience is the key to the campy experience. There are so many dirty jokes, talk-back lines, props, hand gestures and nuanced comebacks that it's hard to keep up. And of course, everyone has to get up and dance to the Time Warp.

The best part was sitting by this 11-year-old boy who was yelling the most way too adult for his age, funny, spot-on comebacks with absolute confidence. He was with his mother and we guessed that she'd probably taken him to a million Rocky Horror productions. Now that's a childhood worth writing a novel about.

We also got a really yummy drink called "The Rocky" which definitely added to the experience.

I would put seeing Rocky Horror live on a To Do Before I Die list. Unbeatable.

And just in general, never be afraid of counterculture. You'll totally miss out.

p.s. Glee's Halloween episode theme is Rocky Horror. We couldn't have timed this more perfectly.

what you need:

love.

a blue beach.

a neon bikini.

white summertime dresses.

a tan.

board games.

a messy bun.

a hunter green convertible.

layered necklaces.

front porch chairs.

vacation.

via Miguelina's 2011 Honeymoon Collection.

I do realize I'm posting this just in time for fall weather. Ha.