Nov. 30: November in review

Well, I really went crazy posting in November, huh? I have a good excuse for a quiet blog. Kinda.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

• Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday; this year I had a minimum of foodstuffs to prepare, AND got to hang out with some of my favorite peeps. Lucky me! I hope you found plenty of reasons to be thankful too.

 

Cousins: Presley, Jacob, Jack, Julianne, Katie

• Jack turned 13. Thirteeeeen! He behaves every bit like a teenager, so it shouldn’t be surprising. It just seems like only yesterday he was that goblin of a baby (warning: do not look directly at this photo—ye shall surely regret it).

• Ed and Sheila had birthdays too. I didn’t really celebrate them. Hopefully they did though.

i saw things with my eyes:

• We saw the local high school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. It was better than I expected it’d be.
• Jack’s football team lost in the first round of playoffs. As the game-time weather had become quite frigid, I can’t say I was very sad they came to an end. I felt bad for the boys, though. They worked really hard this season.

Jack and a few teammates with their awesome head coach

 

• The biggest, most excitingest event this month was definitely seeing Justin Timberlake in concert. Sherilee invited me along to enjoy the tickets she’d been given for her birthday. It was an incredible show, and I wasn’t even close to being the oldest person there. Yay!!

 
  
 
A selfie for our Christmas cards!

 

My neighbor took this pic from his suck-y seats. ;) 
You can see me and Sher way down yonder, waiting for Loveliest Lori and her sisters to arrive.
(When they finally got there, they passed right by us riff-raff and were ushered directly to the front row—WHATEVS.)
Anyway, I love this because it shows how flippin’ close we were to the stage! 
THANK YOU, AGAIN, SHERILEE, FOR LETTING ME ESCORT YOU!
AND BIG THANKS TO JANE, TOO—THE GIFTER OF THIS MEMORABLE EVENT!!

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WHY i HAVEN’T BLOGGED THIS MONTH:

I’m having my first open house for Dear Girl Jewelry on Dec. 2, and have been working like crazy to get it ready. I’ve made tons of pieces just for the show, which has probably taken the most time, but I’ve also had a bunch of orders from Etsy all of a sudden. All the sorting, pricing, and displaying is much more time-consuming than I anticipated. I’ve never done this kind of thing before, but because I insist it must be absolutely and completely perfect, I’m pretty sure I’ll have made myself completely bonkers by Tuesday at 6:30pm. Ugh. Wanna be there? Here’s the info (click to embiggen).

I’ll do my best to post more frequently in December, but no promises.

Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. It’s true.

 

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Christmastime! Enjoy it, unless you’re one of the assholes who gets all upset when someone wishes you a merry Christmas when you don’t celebrate Christmas yourself. Or if you’re one of those assholes who hates when people say “happy holidays” as though they’re horrible for suggesting you might not celebrate Christmas. I think the thing is, just don’t be an asshole.

Jul. 12: Some things

I’m a little scattered right now. Don’t judge.

I spent what seems like the entire day in the car yesterday. It was actually only about five hours of driving, but it felt like forever, maybe because I was getting important texts the entire time and could not respond to them appropriately. “Appropriately” is using proper spelling and punctuation, duh. Once I got home, it was more than an hour before I got caught up with life. No time to relax, though; it was off to Jack’s football camp two minutes later.

So, why was I in the car yesterday? I met my mom at our halfway point between Portland and Medford—beautiful Cottage Grove!—to hand over Katie, her friend Phoebe, and Oliver for a few days. The house is MUCH quieter without Oliver here.

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← Why is this woman smiling? My guess is she’s hand-drawn because no one could get a photo of a smiling mom at football. BECAUSE NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD SMILE AT FOOTBALL OR MAYBE I ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING THAT MAKES ME SOUND LIKE LESS OF A BITCH.

Jack is in football conditioning camp this week. Dina and I arrived at the same time and quickly decided we want to spend as little time as possible at football this year. It’s not that watching the games or practices are so awful (even though they are), it’s blonde, skinny other things. Don’t get us started.

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After a late dinner last night, I lay down to watch a little TV and quickly fell asleep. I woke up at 11 and pretty much went right back to bed. I slept until 6 this morning. If I could’ve slept later, I would have—this girl does not like 6am!—but that SVU marathon isn’t gonna watch itself.

My point: I’m flippin’ tired.

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I have two videos to share that are all kinds of awesome. The first is Justin Timberlake, who is currently my favorite funnyman.

Jill Shaw, YES, I will share him with you this time. ;)

 

And this one shows such amazing, natural, NORMAL behavior. If only more people were as open-minded and sharp as this kid.

The next generation? by satellithias 

I have five gazillion things to do today, and I need to stop putting them off. Don’t be sad.

May 22: Daybook

I think the Daybook is supposed to be a Monday thing. Meh.

Today…

Outside my window... there are things happening about which I’m not complaining... much. We had a beautiful few days of weather, and today we had some rain showers. ‘Tis okay, as long as the sun promises to return. Our yard came alive with new blooms last week, but it’s still got a long way to go. Come back, sunbeams in the yard!

This weekend, I… worked on getting my office better organized. Somehow, even with all my screaming and griping and cursing, it’s still the room where everyone dumps stuff, and it gets super-messy super-fast. Grrr. One huge task I actually completed was organizing all my PTO stuff into a file box. As co-prez, I sense I’ll be a bigger PTO nerd than ever before, so organizing that stuff is high priority.

This weekend, we did some family things: on Friday night we played poker—well, Katie watched the Disney channel while the rest of us played poker. Jack had a bad night, and he was really bummed. In our last hand, I went all in, even though I didn’t have anything, and so did Vic. Jack won the hand, and he was the happiest little guy EVER. It was so cute, I didn’t even bother explaining side pots and all that; we just let him have everything. We acted all angry that he beat us and were all FINE, THEN YOU CAN CLEAN UP THE CARDS AND CHIPS. Sneaky, huh?

Today we went to the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We all really liked it. There were several fun action sequences that got me a little sweaty-palmed, and overall the movie was better than I expected it to be. We give it eight thumbs up.

All the talk about pirate movies this weekend reminded me of how Jack used to be obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean. He was five years old, I think, when he “read” the DVD cover and said, “See, it says ‘Pirates. Of. The. Carrot. Bean.’”

Also, this weekend we… were not raptured. Huge surprise.

I am thinking... that I am NOT ready for school to be out. There are only 12 school days left. I haven’t even begun to plan the kids’ summer activities and I just know they’re gonna be bugging me every day: I’M BORED! I’M HOT! I WANT TO EAT! So demanding, those kids.

I am thankful for... my friends and how they make me chuckle. Today April texted me when we were at the mall and said “Does your friend Val have a green and white lightweight jacket? We’re at Nordstrom and see someone who looks like her in your pics on Facebook.” I texted Val to ask if she was at Nordstrom and freaked her out a little. She said that yes, she was shopping, and I said my friend April saw her and I think that freaked her out a little more because she doesn’t know April. Unfortunately, April was on a very short shopping trip, so we didn’t get to meet up. We stalked Val to Jamba Juice though.

I have to say that the first time I remember ever seeing Val, I immediately knew who she was because I recognized her from Sunshine’s Facebook photos. April’s really not creepy, Val, I promise!

I am creating... piles of things to take to Goodwill. It’s such a good feeling to fill up the trunk with donations, or better yet, the back of the van. I went through kitchen cupboards and filled up the empty boxes our new dishes came in, so I’m getting rid of as much stuff as I added. Yay me!

One of my favorite things… is when Justin Timberlake hosts Saturday Night Live, like he did last night. He’s right up there with Alec Baldwin as BEST HOST EVER, at least in my mind. Every episode he’s in is so, so funny. LOVE. Watch it here if you want.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Work, a party, a trip or four to Goodwill, hopefully a date with my girls.

Here is a picture I gotta show you: This is the Google street view of my mom’s house. At first, I thought it was probably from before my mom lived there, but then I recognized Erin’s car in the driveway and Erin’s husband and Erin’s dog. I guess if we know the date Erin and Kevin visited Mom, we can pretty well pinpoint when the Google camera came down her street.

I’m so disappointed; there’s nothing exciting on the Google street view of our house. It’s obviously autumn, and this was done before we tore down our front porch rail and re-landscaped our yard. Booooring. Pouty/yawn-y face.

Want to blog your own Daybook? Here’s the info: The Simple Woman’s Daybook.

Mar. 29: Day 9 of music meme

Day 9: A song you can dance to

I dare you not to move while listening to this one. Just don’t waste your time watching the video—it’s incredibly stupid.

Sexyback, by Justin Timberlake

Because I find “funny” very often converts to “sexy,” I gotta share another reason I love this song: because Justin is one hilarious guy. Whether you believe me or not, watch these. I dare you not to laugh.

Here’s the uncensored version of “Dick in a Box”—not for little ears.

And some very funny Saturday Night Live sketches:

Justin Timberlake parodie Beyonce by Nouvelobs

June 21: Suck it, Deepak

Katie and Jack are gone for the weekend. Vic and I decided to work on another house project or two—this party’s coming up soon—but last night was our free night. We went to a movie. In a theater. I know, I can hardly believe it also.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a first-run movie in a theater, much less on its opening day. With my purse chock-full of Hot Tamales, we went to a late showing of The Love Guru, starring Mike Meyers.

If you did not appreciate the Austin Powers movies, do not see The Love Guru. You will hate it. If, however, you have a decent sense of humor and a little extra patience with excessive fart jokes, you will enjoy the movie.

There are plenty of celebrity cameos and stars from The Daily Show. Loads of winks to other movies. Silly sutras and Indian names. Gratuitous pop song performances on a sitar. A urine mop fight I will, unfortunately, not soon forget. And did I mention the excessive fart jokes? But in spite of its thin plot and general silliness, we loved The Love Guru. It was entertaining. Or maybe it’s been too long since we’ve watched a good comedy.

Oh, and I am more in love with Justin Timberlake than ever, I think. He is surprisingly funny, and he’s got to be a good actor, because how else could a person’s devotion to Céline Dion be that believable?

Jan. 31: SB XLII preview, sorta

I'm no Pepsi fan, and the game of football is the suckiest suckfest of all suckfests that ever sucked. I do enjoy Super Bowl commercials, however. And I really ♥s me some Andy Samberg teamed up with Justin Timberlake...

Jan. 8: Married, but looking

I already mentioned my infatuation with that yummy little Justin Timberlake, right? Yeah, I know I'm almost 40 and he's... um... younger. But the heart wants what it wants!

So the other night Vic and I were watching TV. A commercial came on for that new movie Justin is in, and I said, "Look, there's my Justin!" Vic turned to me and said, "Didn't you go to school with his mom?"

My next husband will know better than to say such evil things.