The Material Girl: Why You Should Read Her Blog

I am beginning this new adventure of honoring those people whose blogs I read and have linked to my blog. I realize that some of you do not know each other, which is, in my opinion, a shame. If you'd like to be in the running for being honored on my very low traffic'd blog, please send me a picture of yourself, if you are linked to this blog - so I can photoshop you into a complete nightmare, and then tell the rest of the readers why they should be reading your blog.

This is my first "Honoring Post," and I would begin with:

The Material Girl


First of all, this is a FASCINATING person. I wasn't at all surprised when I received a photo from Katie first. She is a clown and loves crap like this. What a good sport!

Okay. So Heather and I knew Katie from when we lived in Flint, Michigan. We met her shortly after she and her husband began coming to our church. We were immediately drawn to her DRY sense of humor and her realness. I must say that I love creativity, but what is so cool about Katie was how she can take anything...empty toilet paper rolls, and whip them up into something worthy of hanging on your wall. She just has that sort of knack in her.

When she had barely known us at all, she was in our house, helping with design and decorating and sewing curtains and pillows. Cool ones! I also rarely saw Katie get worked up over her kids. She always seemed to be able to laugh at the very irritating things kids can do that make you lose your mind.

Okay, so that's all well and good. But that's not why you're here. Let's move on to the good stuff. Let me tell you why I really think she's cool. First of all, there are NOT ENOUGH people in the world who enjoy downright weirdness. I do. Always have. So finding out that Katie was also one of those rare and gifted individuals, perhaps even casting a shadow over my gift, was sheer bliss. Now, some people notice weird things, but there are a slim few who not only notice something odd, (like a stray, lone, white eyebrow hair in a pile of black ones) but who try to get different angles at which to view it, finding empty reasons to move around the person just to see it again. And then to psycho analyze the person with the eyebrow. "Do they know? Do they like it? Does their spouse mind it?" And at follow up encounters... "Yep, it's still there. I think it's longer, whiter, thicker. Should I tell them?"

Contrary to popluar belief (at least in my household) this is not a voluntary act. This is something in the DNA (as I'm sure only Katie knows) that cannot be controlled. Not that it ever should be.

I remember an evening at our home - we had some people over our house. Katie was there. Toward the end of the evening, everyone had left the get-together, except Katie and Jeff, and I kept smelling something....something odd. Something really odd. Stinky. Poopy. Anyway, I was wondering, "Did our dog poop in the house? Where is that coming from?"

Me: "Katie, do you smell it?"

Katie: "I do. What is that?"

Me: "I don't know. Smells like poop."

Katie: "Hmmm." And at that, with her coffee in her hand, she begins combing the area, with her nose. Smelling the walls, the floor, and then...

The Big Chair.

Okay, So Katie doesn't announce, "I've found it. Your chair smells like butt!" Instead, she gently sniffs The Big Chair cushion, looks my way, and points at it with a knowing smile as if to say, "Yes...here it is. This is what we've all been smelling."

So for the next 15 minutes or so, Katie and I talk about the smell.

"Who was it from? Who was sitting there? Did you see? Did you? Was it just gas, or were there other problems?"

And then, when the smell had begun to evaporate from our nostrils, we'd give it another whiff and continue our questions.

"How does that happen? Could they smell it? Will the smell come out? Or is The Big Chair forever contaminated?"

Whiff...talk...whiff...talk some more.

Heather and Jeff were given several pportunities to have a smell, of which they politely declined. But Katie...she understands that this is not something you pass up. That this is, in fact, good wholesome entertainment.

There are a host of other reasons to read Katie's blog, but this is why I read "MATERIAL GIRL." Because she's hilarious, creative, insightful and real. This person is ALIVE!!!

If you'd like to read her blog, you can find it listed on my "some people's blogs i know" column, under "Funny Katie."

Read on!