Report #07: Katie Allen
Talented Nepo Baby of All-Trades and Midwesthetic Lifer
⭐️Welcome to Guest Reports!⭐️
While I’m certain that every single one of you would have no problem receiving a steady drip of my ¢0.02 at a near constant rate (do not correct me ✋🏻) we must diversify! Interesting people have interesting things to report and I insist they share them with me us! I’d love to have more reporters. Not just writers, but creatives of all kinds. If you’re interested in reporting respond directly to this email or find me here or here
Today we’re talking to… KATIE ALLEN!
Katie is a woman of many talents and longtime friend of Midwesthetic… but I’ll allow her to introduce herself! Here we go 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
I’m Katie Allen. I am foremost a designer, illustrator, and seamstress but I am also a jack of as many trades as I can get my greedy little mitts on (and I did the Midwesthetic logo, so consider me Anna's nepo baby of sorts.)
R: Reading
Dracula. This is a reread for me but after the excitement over Robert Egger's Nosferatu I had to pick it up again. The first time I read it I honestly did not expect to love it as much as I did, thinking it wouldn't be much of a thrilling read since The Count being a vampire wasn't a surprise.
But let me tell you, even though this book has been referenced to death in all types of media the story absolutely sucked me in. It feels almost silly to be hyping up one of the most well known classic novels but considering a lot of people I know have never read it, I figure someone's gotta do it.
E: Eating
I recently revisited a childhood fav, Betty Crocker Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Mix.
For whatever reason, this mix has been a rare sight in grocery stores for years now, replaced by almond poppy seed (a major downgrade if you ask me). So when I spotted a box it was as if the clouds parted to reveal a beautiful lemon flavored ray of sunshine. I saved the mix for a snowy day and boy oh boy, they were better than I remembered. Having muffins on demand for the next several weeks (I froze some) is what single-handedly got me through the dreary cold months.
P: Playing
Page 7 podcast. It's a comedy podcast about celebrity gossip with hosts that don't actually care all that much about celeb gossip.
It's hard to describe the real vibe of the show, so it's better if I just tell you to give it a shot. They post two episodes a week so for me, it guarantees at least two hours a week of sunshine and giggling.
O: Obsessing
Around Thanksgiving last year, I was having the worst lower back pain I've ever experienced. It wasn't quite bad enough for a doctors visit, but it was bad enough to slowly kill my spirit.
Every day I was stretching my back to my best ability, alternating one day with tiger balm and the next with my heating pad (note: DO NOT use tiger balm and heat at the same time) but nothing was making a dent in the pain.
Then my angel of a sister told me to try foam rolling and stretching my glutes, as that’s what a massage therapist told her when she was having similar pain. 2-3 days of working my glutes and my back pain was totally gone. I've been keeping my glutes loose and the lower half of me feels 19 again. Keep the glutes loose !!!
R: Recommending
Let's bring back quiet time.
Recently I've noticed that it has become second nature for me to have "something on in the background" while doing pretty much anything; work, chores, knitting, etc. and I'm pretty sure it's, like, really bad for me.
Lately, I've been trying to stop having background noise just for the sake of it and only have something playing if it is something I actively want to listen to, and I gotta say it has been nice. I wouldn't say it has been majorly life changing, but I feel much less like a heavy over-saturated sponge at the end of the day.
T: Treating
Starting new projects.
A fatal flaw of mine abandoning projects in their last steps and leaving them almost finished. Usually I try to combat this by only allowing to start a new project once I finish an old one, but lately I have been throwing caution to the wind and starting new things willy-nilly.
Will all these new projects end up in my ever growing pile of mostly finished items? Probably. But unfortunately the satisfaction of reaching a destination is nothing compared excitement and mystique of beginning a new journey.
🚨➡️ If you were enthralled by this report follow Katie here ⬅️🚨
