Since Katie’s agreed to let me horn in on her labor of love here (which, I guess, is now our labor of love) and bask in the reflected glory of her hard work, I feel I should at least introduce myself and make everyone’s acquaintance before I start cranking out posts about how much I love garlic, hate ‘chick lit’, yadda, yadda.  ‘Cause my mama raised me right…

So, greetings, new friends!

My name’s Erin, I’m 28, a Scorpio (if you’re into that sort of thing) and, while I’d love to divulge all the juicy details of my incredibly fascinating career, I don’t really have one to speak of just yet.  For the most part, my “career path” has been more of a loose term to describe the random assortment of desk chairs I’ve warmed when I wasn’t pillaging unsupervised candy dishes and daydreaming about what I really want to be when I grow up.

In fact, I’m writing this at work right now.  Don’t narc on me, eh?

Here is my work phone.  It has many complicated buttons that frighten and confuse me.  This concludes the tour of my cubicle.

Granted, my status as a professional benchwarmer might be changing here soon, but we’ll save that for a later post…

Where was I?

Oh, right.

I live with my husband of two years, Elliot (or, as I lovingly call him, “Chuckles”), and two neurotic cats.

The hubs has a ridiculous number of hobbies, including being a private pilot, and travels a lot for work, so I have lots of free time to revel in all sorts of shameful single behavior — hello, four hour Millionaire Matchmaker marathon! — and dream up home improvement projects for him to do when he gets back.

Our military background – me growing up an Air Force brat and the hubs serving 10 years in the Army – has saddled us with a nasty case of location ADD.  Which might explain why, about two months ago, we traded in a three-year-old mortgage on a nice, cozy 3 BR/2 BA rancher in the Dirty South…

…for a 700 square-foot, one-bedroom apartment above a noisy bar in downtown Frederick, MD.

Bold?  Daring?  Entirely ill-conceived?

All of the above.  But that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?

I enjoy good food, good books, good wine (and even mediocre wine), writing, being outdoors, 1930s slang, snarky celebrity gossip, and many other things that I’m sure will reveal themselves in due time.

But, even more so, I love, love, love new experiences – whether it’s tasting unpronounce-able foreign cuisine, trying my hand at potentially disastrous DIY crafts, or traveling to new places (hmm, foreshadowing, mayhaps?).

And now I love you guys, too.  But be warned, I’m a jealous, vindictive lover when scorned.

So, if you’re a kindred soul who craves a little adventure in life, is willing to try new things and capable of laughing off failures (and sharing them with us so we can laugh at you, too), and can appreciate – or at least tolerate – cheesy movie and song references, we’re going to get along just swimmingly.

And that’s me in a nutshell.

Help!  I’m in a nutshell!  How did I get into this bloody great big nutshell?

Hello, Austin Powers?  Anyone?

Better buckle up, folks,  ’cause outdated pop culture cliches are what I’m all about.

…to try and please me.  I love you just the way you are.

oooOOOoooo ooh yeah.

Sing it.  You know you want to.

I’m guessing you might be noticing a couple changes around here.  The site title, for one.  As sad as it makes me, this site will no longer be called Domesticating Kate.  You will be automatically redirected to domestiphobia.net from now on.

Why?

Most people who know me – okay, all people who know me – who read the site have pointed out that my name is not Kate.  My name is, and always will be, plain Katie.  Also, this will no longer be just my site.  I’ve taken on a partner in crime because frankly, this is a lot of work.  I love it, but other parts of my life were getting neglected.  Finally, I feel like this name much more closely depicts a “truer” version of who I really am.

We’re still in the process of adjusting the “about” section and other categories of the site, so you’ll understand more of what I mean as we progress.  Oh, and the “big news” is still to come.  Just workin’ out the deets’.

Let it be known that sharing the site is not the same as quitting a project.  I’m simply readjusting to meet my needs.

Capiche?

Hopefully Erin will get a chance to introduce herself later today, and then we’ll get back to the fun stuff.  I have been going through a lot of photos lately, so don’t hang up.

Here are some random Hawaii surfboards to tide you over:

And here they are all vintage: