daffodils

Kacie once told me her favorite flower was Daffodils. She had talked about having them as the flowers at her wedding but I think she decided against them because the bright yellow didn't really go with the theme and the bridesmaids dresses. I was thinking about maybe planting some by the rock on River road on the side. I am not exactly the smartest at gardening. I have struggled keeping plants alive all my life. Even cactuses. Is there anyone else out there whom has advice on this? Or would want to help me plant them?

haiku

As a writer, Kacie loved Haiku's. I found this description of what a Haiku is on the internet:
"Haiku is a poetic form and a type of poetry from the Japanese culture. Haiku combines form, content, and language in a meaningful, yet compact form. Haiku poets write about everyday things. Many themes include nature, feelings, or experiences. Usually they use simple words and grammar. The most common form for Haiku is three short lines. The first line usually contains five (5) syllables, the second line seven (7) syllables, and the third line contains five (5) syllables. Haiku doesn't rhyme. A Haiku must "paint" a mental image in the reader's mind. This is the challenge of Haiku - to put the poem's meaning and imagery in the reader's mind in ONLY 17 syllables over just three (3) lines of poetry!"

I remember Kacie and I had found on Craigslist.org (a online classifieds page/ community forum) that they had a discussion forum for every city just on haikus. We were in awe at the haiku's that people were writing in. We tried to sift through some of the cheesy ones and find really funny ones. She was always trying to find humor wherever she could. This is a series of haiku's we found by someone on craigslist a few years ago. Pardon the bad language but they are actually really funny. Kacie and I laughed for hours about these. Both being experts at moving and living in tons of different apartment complexes we too had shared this authors dilemma many times.

Feb 25, 2006

Haiku ..1__
Turn off your fucking alarm clock,
Noisy alarm clock_
Reverberating through the_
Entire building__

Haiku ..2__
Maybe you didn't_
Realize just how loud it_
Actually is__

Haiku ..3__
It sounds like a big_
Fire engine..except, right_
Next to my eardrum__

Haiku ..4__
It's been going off_
This time, for twenty two minutes_
Are you fucking deaf?__

Haiku ..5__
Is it possible _
To buy a softer one? Or,_
turn it off sooner?

Remembering thes Haiku memories with Kacie, I decided to try and write some haiku's myself about different moments I had with Kacie... here goes

Haiku 1

Sharing a mirror
Getting ready to go out
Glazing lips with gloss


Haiku 2

Frying pan sizzling
I sat in the window seat
You wore your sweat pants

Kacie's Dream Trip

Nancy and I will begin today making plans to visit Jeff in Germany this summer. I get a one week vacation beginning July 1 and can use it any time during the remainder of the year.

Tonight, we are going to Barnes and Noble to get a large wall map of Germany and the surrounding countries. Also, we'll get some good travel books. We want to visit places that Kacie told Natalie that she wanted to visit one day.

Jeff will be a seasoned European travelier by then and will be a great tour guide.

Let's do this in Kacie's memory.

Natalie, are you in?

dream about Kacie from Grandma Haydee

Grandma had this dream not too long ago, and i am posting it for her.

Kacie was in a play. Her mother and I were trying to get a good look at her, but there were too many people in front of us. This lady came over and said, Come with me. She took us up the stairs and we could see her real good. She was singing and had on a black skirt and white blouse. We were happy we could see her so well. Then Anne came up and said she's like Annette, likes to be in shows. Then Joyce said that she and Tom had seen the show also (friends of grandma's).

I was so happy for Nancy and I to have been there to see her in my dream. She was about nine years old.
From Grandma.
p.s. I think of her every day. I hope I will see her often in my dreams.

Kacie dream

Had this brief dream about Kacie a few mornings ago, when I was waking up.

I remember I was supposed to meet her somewhere, and ended up meeting her at a restaurant, not sure where. But I saw her sitting there at a table and she was with my Mom laughing and talking. She looked great and seemed very happy. And at the table next to her was Natalie and a friend, not sure who. I remember Natalie's hair being real, real short.

That's it.
Its funny now how it seems everyone is dreaming again. It was brief, but it was great to see her again.

another visit to river road

I went for a visit to River road yesterday. It was probably the coldest day of the year, so far. I had a feeling there might be some ice on the river and I was right. I went to Kacie's rock and as you can see in the picture her initials just pop out before the ice. I thought it made a beautiful picture. In the last picture I am standing farther away. The small rock out on the left hand side is the rock where Kacie's initials are. If you notice in between all the rocks there is a circle in the ice in the water. It seems to have built some kind of barrier and all the water that is flowing down from the river goes into that circle and goes round and round in circular motion. I thought that was interesting because the river was not doing that before in that spot. I don't know if it has to do with the ice or the levels of the river. But it was nice to go visit. I didn't stay too long since it was so freezing but I thought I would share the photos with all of you. 

Love, Natalie

Two Dreams One Night

It's been a long time since I had a dream about Kacie but early this morning I had the following two dreams. Kacie looked just as she did that last night that we saw her.

In the first dream, Nancy and I were in my mother's living room. We were feeling very sad about Kacie's death, and then somehow we were transported back in time to just several days before she died. Kacie walked into the room and I told Nancy that she would soon die but she couldn't accept it. I then told Kacie that she would soon be dying because she had rejected the things that we had taught her and she had accepted the ways of the world -hook, line, and sinker. I told her that she had had too many boyfriends and she seemed to agree with me. Kacie told me that she knew of some girls that I went to high school with and that I had been a bad influence on them. I denied it and asked her to give me their names and she told me that one of them was named Dee Dee Skipper. She then took a cigarette out of her purse, lit it and smoked it in front of us. I then told her that I had found many cigarette butts around my mother's porch and I knew that she was a heavy smoker. She denied this and walked out of the house. I then opened a plastic bag that she had left behind and in it there were three bottles of vitamins that she had just bought. Nancy became very happy because she thought that Kacie was trying to improve her health but I told her that it didn't matter because she would soon die.

In the next dream, Kacie had died and Nancy and I were staying in my mother's house. We were waiting for Nancy's family to arrive and had dinner plans. They arrived early and walked into the bedroom as we were getting dressed. I was greatly annoyed and noticed that one of them was Nancy's father (who had died three months before Kacie) but he had red hair in my dream and brown hair in real life. We then walked into the living room and there were a lot of people seated there. Kacie was there and she was smiling and laughing. Nancy got excited and wanted to run to her but I kept yelling over and over again "she's not real."

Kacie dream

I had a dream with Kacie last night. All I remember is we were hanging out with some friends and Kacie and I were laughing and joking about how bad we used to argue.

"Oh i guess you think you cute then, huh?"

That phrase pretty much says it all. That was Kacie's latest favorite saying. she pretty much said that phrase atleast 20 times a day to different people. She would always say it in a ghetto voice. Kacie had her own language as we mentioned before and all of her friends or people she barely even knew were very quick to jump on board with it. i found myself saying it as much as she did. Since shes been gone I can't think of any times I have said it. I work with a girl named Elisha, who sometimes talks in weird voices and reminds me a little bit of Kacie sometimes. She said something to me in a weird voice today and without even thinking i just automatically replied, "Oh I guess you think you cute then, huh? is that what this is about? just go thinkin you cute and stuff." It seriously didn't even register in my brain I was realizing what i was saying after each word was said. It felt good to say it though and remember funny times with Kacie. Elisha laughed pretty hard when i said it too. This photo Kacie is making a funny facial expression that usually always went along with her voices... which made them even funnier.

"The Way We were"

When I was over Mimi's house on Gary and Nancy's recent trip they allowed me to take some of Mimi's old artwork that use to hang in her house. One of the pictures I took was a picture that use to hang in Mimi's bathroom. It is a line drawing of a interior of a bathroom. it has black and white checkered floor and the medicine cabinet on the wall with striped wallpaper. It is a very cute picture. it has little personal belongings drawn of whomever's bathroom it is. Written at the bottom of the drawing is " The Way We Were" Kacie always loved this piece of art. I remember her saying to me once how she thought the text/title of the piece was so cute. So when I saw this piece of artwork in the pile of stuff they were getting rid of I decided to take it and put it in my bathroom. When I was going to hang it I looked on the back of the piece of art and there is a sticker that says "Famous Ocean Gallery, Boardwalk & 2nd Sts. Ocean City, MD 21842" This is one of Kacie's favorite ocean city landmarks! I was really blown away.
http://www.oceangallery.com/
I will publish a picture of the piece as soon as I can.

The Elephant in the Room

When we lost Kacie, a support group shared some information with us about grief
and also gave us a book of poems about life and what we are going through.
Since Kacie loved poetry so much, I thought I wound share this one with you because it reminded me about Natalie's comment about talking about losing someone close to you. The name of the poem is
The Elephant in the Room
There's an elephant in the room,
Its large and squatting, so its hard to get around it.
Yet we squeeze by with "How are you?" and "I'm fine".
And a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.
We talk about the weather.
We talk about work.
We talk about everything else...
Except the elephant in the room.
We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant as we talk together,
It is constantly on our minds.
For, you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all.
But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.
Oh, please say her name.
Oh, please, say "Kacie" again.
Oh, please, let's talk about the elephant in the room.
For if we talk about her death,
Perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say "Kacie" to you and not have you look away.
For if I cannot,
then you are leaving me alone
in a room
with an elephant.

Kacie at Lisbon Elementary

I just found this article online and it includes a picture of Kacie at Lisbon elementary. I can't find the actual picture that is mentions but I will work to obtain a copy. Here is what the article says and it is dated 30 October 1992.

"PHOTO; SOURCE: KIM HAIRSTON/STAFF PHOTO; Kacie New, 9, of Lisbon Elementary School and Mary Lee Acker of Columbia share a moment after Kacie and some of her classmates sang and read poetry at a senior Halloween party held at the Lisbon Volunteer Fire Department."

Here is the link to the Howard Sun archive article : http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/baltsun/access/113519536.html?dids=113519536:113519536&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Oct+30%2C+1992&author=Alan+J.+Craver&pub=The+Sun&desc=%5BHeadline+Missing%5D+Man+enters+plea+agreement+in+racial+incident&pqatl=google

a new year...

I was looking through the past blogs and it has been about a month and a half since I have had a dream with Kacie in it... that I remember atleast. Every night before i go to sleep I think about Kacie and hope that I will have another dream... for some reason it doesn't work quite like that. i wish I could control my dreams like that. I was looking around on wikipedia reading about dreaming and lucid dreaming etc... I came across this...

Dream recall
Dream recall is simply the ability to remember dreams. Good dream recall is often described as the first step towards lucid dreaming. Better recall increases awareness of dreams in general; with limited dream recall, any lucid dreams one has can be forgotten entirely. To improve dream recall, some people keep a dream journal, writing down any dreams remembered the moment one awakes. An audio recorder can also be very helpful.[24] It is important to record the dreams as quickly as possible as there is a strong tendency to forget what one has dreamt.[25] It is suggested that for best recall, the waking dreamer should keep eyes closed while trying to remember the dream, and that one's dream journal be recorded in the present tense.[24] Describing an experience as if still in it can help the writer to recall more accurately the events of their dream.[citation needed] Dream recall can also be improved by staying still after waking up.[25] This may have something to do with REM atonia (the condition of REM sleep in which the motor neurons are not stimulated and thus the body's muscles do not move). If one purposely prevents motor neurons from firing immediately after waking from a dream, recalling said dream becomes easier. Similarly, if the dreamer changes positions in the night, they may be able to recall certain events of their dream by testing different sleeping positions.[citation needed]


Losing Kacie made 2008 the hardest year of my life. I still struggle to accept things and find myself in disbelief at times. I know it has been a really hard year for everyone else too. During this time of year I usually find myself analyzing my life and looking back at things, thinking about things I want to change... I wish I could have done things differently so that Kacie was still here. If there is one thing I have learned this year its that this world is a crazy place. You never know what is coming at you next. I think all of us have underestimated our strength until now as well. And I know that I was not this strong just by myself. I needed all of your guy's help this year.... and everyone else needed everyone too. Grieving sucks... it really does. You have no idea how comforting it can be to come to this website and unload some of my thoughts to all of you whom were very close with Kacie. I struggle talking about Kacie with other people who did not know her well. I feel as if my grieving is a burden on them and that they are tired of me talking about it.... or maybe not that they are tired of it... but I can sense there discomfort and lack of knowing what to say back to me. Sometimes i don't even need anyone to say anything back. I just want someone to listen. Thats why it is great that I can come on here and talk with all of you. It really makes my day when someone posts a new blog thats some funny story... or something i remember too.

Happy New Year. love you guys. keep posting.

threading

Kacie and I discovered eyebrow threading/ waxing some time ago. We always went and saw Daisy at the JCPenney salon in Columbia Mall. She was amazing. She was from India where the threading technique originated. Kacie wouldn't go to anyone else.

work out clothes

does anyone else remember kacie's workout attire? I recently joined a gym and can't help but laugh thinking about the things she use to wear to the gym. She use to always wear capri length sweat pants with brown and orange striped socks or some other socks pulled up with her brown and orange new balances or saucony tennis shoes. She also had a grey pair of tennis shoes i believe she switched to later. 

christmas in china.... well not really.

I remember Kacie and Mimi use to always get Chinese food on Xmas day from a takeout spot near Mimi's house. Sometimes I think they would dine in when Mimi was still driving. I also remember one year Kacie and Jeff took Mimi out to a restaurant downtown somewhere. What was the place, Jeff?

Lip venom

Kacie loved lip gloss. She also thought that her lips were too small so she was always buying lip-plumping lip gloss. She loved lip venom and some other brands. I never really liked the stuff it always made my lips burn but she liked it.

12/11/2008

Kac, Things are just not the same without you.
Love
Mom and Dad

in response to a difficult project

Well.... well... well.... this is quite the task. I am not sure about Kacie's work history prior to moving back to Maryland. However... I can tell you once she moved back...

1. Roots Market  Clarksville, MD

2. Origins Columbia Mall- Kacie and I worked here together and we quit together at the same time too.

3. Riverside Coffee shop- Columbia, MD & Ellicott City, MD

3. Babysitting (haha) Lisa might know exactly where these were. She watched kids for several different families and I remember one of the kids was autistic. Kacie use to tell me some crazy stories about that one.

4. Midevil Times- Arundel Mills Mall

5. Bed Bath and Beyond- She quit this job on the first day.

6. Secret Shopper- Kacie did this job for a while. Going around shopping and then filling out surveys online. It ended up not being really worth it for the pay.

7. In Texas she had a couple different jobs Jeff would know these- Twin Sisters resturaunt? An advertising agency

8. Nordstrom

9. Claratin sales rep

10. Monoprint or monograph I think it was called. This was the job she was suppose to be a project manager and they mislead her. It was the last job she had. 

I am pretty sure there are some more I am forgetting.... I will have to think about this one for a while.

Places she lived.... (after moving back to MD)

1. Chatham Garden Apartments- Ellicott City, MD with Shannon (then Shannon moved to Utah briefly)

2.In between Chatham and MeadowLane she spread her time out living at Mimi's house and Jeff's apartment in Catonsville

3. Meadow Lane Apartments- Catonsville, MD- First lived with me after I moved out Lisa moved in with her

4. Another lapse living with Mimi briefly I think

5. Chatham Garden Apartments again- this time she had the place to herself. They didn't allow pets. After trying to have Margo and them finidng out she had to give Margo to Vince. Then she tried getting a ferrett which they also found out about even though we put tint on all the windows. I believe they told her she had to move out because of her animal problems.

6. perhaps another move in with Mimi

7. Townhouse in Columbia with Larissa and Kathy- correct me if I am wrong Larissa but didnt this only last a couple months??

8. Mount Ridge Apartments- Catonsville, MD- with Larissa "Roomates! Roomates!"

9. San Antonio, Texas

10. My Apartment in Sykesville, MD- Main Street

11. Mimi's again for a few weeks

12. Her own apartment in Sykesville, MD- she was there for about 6 months roughly. I decided to move to the city and so Kacie decided to move too and save some money.

13. Back to Mimi's house. 

I am pretty sure this list is accurate in chronological order... However exact years... I am not sure about all that. If anyone remembers something else or differently please chime in.

A Difficult Project

Nancy and I have been thinking about this one. Let's try to put together a list of all of the places that Kacie has worked, starting with the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island. I hope this website is big enough. And let's do it in chronological order.

And if that isn't difficult enough, let's put together a chronological list of all the places that Kacie has lived!!!!!

Natalie, you're gonna have to be our main resource on this one.