This week is Osteogenesis Imperfecta Awareness Week, which is a huge mouthful to get out! And you know, I'm not a big fan of Awareness Days and Awareness Weeks, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to teach you a little bit about the disease I have, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or OI for short. WHAT IS OI? Osteogenesis literally means “the formati[...]
The Insights, Antics, & Experiences of Katherine Klimitas
Osteogenesis Imperfecta Crash Course: Facts, Myths and How It Shapes My Life
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Taking the Plunge: Inside Painting with OI
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Don’t Set New Year’s Resolutions, Set Stepping Stones … I’ll Show You How
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“Be courageous and be brave, and in my heart you’ll always stay forever young.” -Sir Rod Stewart
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What are you lookin’ at?
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Art is something I can ACTUALLY do.
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When I was in grade school and high school, I had an art teacher who emphasized the importance of learning the fundamentals of art while also developing your own style and artistic process. Robin didn’t necessarily spark a lot of creative desire in me, but she taught me many invaluable lessons that have allowed me to become a successful artist. She[...]
Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution on January 1st only to break it less than 2 weeks later? We’ve all been there. And then what? Do you go back to it and start over, or do you just say, “Oh well, no resolution this year,” and continue on with your life? I’m definitely the all-or-nothing type of person. Once I break my resolution[...]
I love live music more than almost anything else in the world. Although it’s a lot about the music, it’s not JUST about the music for me. It’s the interaction you have with the performer no matter where your seats are. It’s being brought together with fourteen thousand of your closest friends by a few lyrics and a melody. It’s being immersed in[...]
Growing up with two parents who were veterinarians, I shared my home with a variety of animals. From the day I was born, I was taught to treat our pets, whether it was our Maltese named Teddy, our cockatiel named Charlie, or our tarantula named Celeste, with compassion and respect. I quickly realized that, like people, every animal (wild or domesticated)[...]
A couple years ago by a random stroke of luck, I met and later worked for Rod Stewart. He picked me out of the crowd of 80,000 at New Orleans Jazz Fest and invited my friend and me backstage. We met him, his band, and his family over a glass of wine (we turned down tequila shots). I was completely freaking out, but my friend had enough forethought to han[...]
It’s no secret that I get stared at A LOT in public, not because of my stunning beauty, but because of my short stature and 400 lb wheelchair. Most of the time it’s by kids, which doesn’t really bother me because they obviously haven’t been taught how to be around someone who is physically different. Adults…. that’s when I get frust[...]
In a way, art kind of won by default in my life. It was pretty clear that I was not going to be able to live out my life-long dream of becoming a killer whale trainer (I really loved Free Willy as a kid), so I went to plan B - art. I took a liking for art of any kind at just five years old when my mother bought me my first watercolor set. Altho[...]
With the holidays fast approaching, as cliché as it sounds, I find myself thinking about all the amazing people that are in my life and how lucky I am to have them. Right now, I have the best employees/assistants anyone could EVER ask for. I’ve been thinking about writing this blog for a while, but it wasn’t until I had all three of them in my house at[...]
For those of you that have been following my blog for a while, you might remember one I posted a couple years ago about how involved it is for me to get a new wheelchair. My chair has a lot of custom pieces to it, and it is very, very expensive (more than most cars, in fact). There are only a few companies to choose from when buying an electric wheelchair, a[...]