Sep. 8: I’m a big fan

Yesterday’s blog challenge topic was so fun, and today’s (Day #8!) is really tough for me.

Who would you like to meet? Someone famous, someone passed, someone you are friends with but have never met?

A lot of geniuses and artists—the people I would think would be fascinating to talk to—are known to be (or have been) kinda asshole-y in personal relationships. I’m afraid I’d walk away from them feeling disappointed, and that would forever “ruin” them for me.

I’d be so starstruck to meet celebrities who are alive today—Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, women’s beach volleyball Olympians (that was for you, Loveliest Lori), Jesse L. Martin, Amy Sedaris, Justin Timberlake—that I’d make a complete idiot of myself. No thank you. But if I could choose some celebrities to meet just long enough to punch them in the face? It’d be a very long list of politicians and Kardashians.

I never knew any of my great-grandparents; it might be interesting to talk to them.

For the purpose of putting this post out of its misery, I’m going to choose Walt Disney as the person I’d like to meet, but I’d want to meet him early in his career just so I could knock the cigarettes out of his hand. I might also discourage him from making Song of the South. I believe Disney had much more magic to contribute to the world; stoopid lung cancer took him too soon.

What about you? How would you answer this question?

If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog and Lisa’s and Jenn’s and Sunshine’s too!) every day in September.

Apr. 6: “We must try”

Wow. I just wrote a very long and totally depressing post about cancer, prompted by the recent death of Roger Ebert. I walked away from it for several hours and then came back, read it over several times, edited it heavily, and finally decided it was best to delete the whole thing. Instead, I will share these Ebert-related items:

Fans admired his courage, but Ebert told The Associated Press that bravery had “little to do with it.” … “You play the cards you’re dealt,” Ebert wrote in an email in January 2011. “What’s your choice? I have no pain. I enjoy life, and why should I complain?”

I love that, rather than accepting credit for a courageous fight (which, of course, he has the right to do), he says anyone else would do the same thing under the same circumstances. And yet, there are people who would complain, spread their misery, and bum everybody out… which is part of the reason I deleted my original post.

Here’s the thing:

We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

I am inspired to find new ways to contribute joy, even in the toughest times. That’s really all that I’m trying to say.

Jan. 10: Questions of the day

What makes a person put an empty coffee pot back on the burner? You do realize what happens when you do that, don’t you? And you know that the smell of scorched coffee hangs in the air long after the coffee has completely burned away? Yes, it might remind me of my Grandma Saltmarsh’s house—she was Queen of Putting the Empty Coffee Pot Back on the Burner—but I STILL hate the smell of burning coffee.

Are you quite finished, PSY? Please say yes. Pretty sure we’ve had enough.

Why are some people are so threatened by the term “gun control”? They scare me. They scare me very much.

Sometimes I think I’m invisible when I’m driving. That’s the only reason people would pull into the street and make me slam on my brakes, right? Or go 15mph on a 40mph street? Or back out of a parking space without looking? I never think I’m invisible when it really benefits me, though, and that is downright unfair.

Fleas. Why they gotta keep coming to my house? I have made it a very unwelcome environment for them.

Do we really have to spend the next 6+ months hearing Kim Kardashian talk about being pregnant as though she’s the first person on earth who’s gone through the experience? Remember, if we ignore these worthless reality stars, they’ll go away…

The trash collectors in my neighborhood are jackholes. I know that isn’t a question.

Why WHY WHY can’t my breakfast be made of Powerberries?

If Victor hadn’t left the empty coffee pot on the burner this morning, this post might never have been written. You are invited to thank him when you see him next by doing something incredibly annoying. Please.

Jul. 31: July in review

Time to summarize July at the Manullangs’ house.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Independence Day. Quiet-ish celebration at home but-cept for a little bit of blowin’ shit up after dark.
• Relay for Life 2012!
• Darlene’s and Alec’s birthdays. The fam gathered at Darlene and Wellington’s. Fun was had by all, especially those who ate that cake Sonya brought.
• Victor turned older on July 29. We didn’t do a whole lot, but in two years: WATCH OUT. Big celebration for the elderly guy in my house!

Books I read this month:

• One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, by Jim Fergus. I loved this story, loved the white woman’s view of the blending of cultures.
• I started reading several books that I didn’t finish, either because they were totally uninteresting or simply not my thing. What a waste of time with those. Ugh.
• We met Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of The Shadow of the Wind, at Powell’s last week and I bought his latest book (The Prisoner of Heaven) and the one before it, The Angel’s Game. They are all part of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. So excited to go back to that place! He’s a very talented storyteller.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• I’ve been watching a little Olympics, but otherwise not much interests me on TV these days.
• I finally got the second season of Samantha Who? on DVD. I really loved that show. So much.
• Mirror Mirror. Cute-sy cute.
• It was neither a movie nor a TV show, but we saw Jersey Boys on its stop in Portland last week. I made the mistake of not checking the appropriateness of the show for 10-year-olds, and Jack heard more profanity in three hours than he’s heard in his whole life. Oops. Heh heh.

New recipes or restaurants we tried:

• No new restaurants; just returned to some of our favorites.
• No new recipes, either. Jack and I baked cookies today and I was instantly reminded of why I hate baking cookies. An all-day summer project involving constant use of the oven? No thanks. Come talk to me when you have a Popsicle in your hand.

Special or unusual purchases we made:

• Guitar strings to replace the ones that kept snapping on Katie’s new guitar.
• I floated again. Got kinda bored this time.
• I bought a LOT of polished river rocks so I could make one of these:

This month’s disappointments:

• That guitar string problem.
• Vic’s stay-cation. (I hate that word so much. No, I resent that word so much. We needed to get o-u-t of here.) It was nice having him home for a week, though.
• Football camps and practices started. Sorry, Jill, but for me, it super-sucks.

My accomplishments:

• I almost have all the glue off me after making the river rock doormat. For a couple days, I felt like Clark Griswold in this scene from Christmas Vacation:

• We got a good report from the oncologist on my 18-month post-treatment tests. I don’t think anything I did had anything to do with that happening, so to call it an accomplishment is awfully generous. Let’s just say it happened and it was a good thing. There.
• We organized our garage and took loads of stuff to Goodwill. Related: someone stole our stove—but it was our old one, so we didn’t care. Related: we got Katie to give up a bunch of stuff (though you’d never know it by looking at her room) for the neighbors’ garage sale. Related: I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And cleaned. I also cleaned.
• Another Pinterest-inspired project: these planners. The glass in the frames (I used two of these) makes a good dry-erase surface, and the scrapbook paper inside serves as separator between days. Every week I change the headings and write in the upcoming week’s stuff. These hang in the kitchen where everyone in the family can see them and now they are no longer allowed to yell at me for not telling them what’s going on. It’s working well so far.

• I got  my new laptop set up with minimum difficulty, and now I hardly even notice that it’s a different one. Whew. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still bitter that I had to buy a new one.
• I didn’t kill anyone, even though several people who crossed my path TOTALLY asked for it.

Anything else noteworthy:

• Pamela Ribon’s newest book, You Take it From Here, came out on July 3. My name is in it. I’m way more proud of that than I deserve to be. Acknowledgement or not, I loved the book and encourage all y’all to buy it.
• We got to hang with the Fukais for the first time in way too long. Val and I caught up on People magazine news, Vic and Chris enjoyed their new fire pit, Jack dressed up in a skirt with a parasol, and Katie got schooled by Val in a Nerf gun fight (followed by Val shooting herself in the face).

• We met up with Debi and Greg while they were in Portland last weekend. Greg got a new dress! Yes, some might call it a kilt, but I called it a dress. In Portland, he was not even given a second glance because in Portland, guys in kilts aren’t even a little bit unusual. Portland is so weird and awesome. Debi and Greg aren’t so bad either.
• OMG, OMG, OMG! Snoop Dogg changed his name. That’s noteworthy, right? Yahoo News thought so and put it all big and headline-like on my page. Yay???

Bring it, August. I’m ready for ya.

Feb. 13: Currently

Here’s what’s up.

Listening

… to utterly danceable Whitney Houston radio on Pandora. Whitney’s music was a favorite of mine through high school and a little bit beyond, and it’s sad that she’s gone. Listening to the really old stuff (her first two albums) brings back memories of unrequited love/lust, the long drive between here and Walla Walla, and late nights in the dorm.

(I like NOT to think about the constant play of “I Will Always Love You” after The Bodyguard came out. I loved the song and I loved the movie, but the hype was really much too much for even the hardcore-est of fans.)

Eating

… a quesadilla. Thank goodness all Katie’s birthday cake is finally gone, or I’d be shoving it in my face for the billionth time since Thursday.

Drinking

… water with MiO.

Wow, this is boring.

Wearing

… a hoodie, yoga pants, and slippers. Have I told you about my favorite slippers I got for Christmas? They’re warm and cozy, and sturdy enough for walks out to the mailbox.

Complete truth: they’re a little too warm sometimes. Also, I occasionally wear them to places other than the mailbox. Like, to school. It’s never intentional, really. I wouldn’t ever intentionally wear my slippers in public.

Complete complete truth: OK, sometimes it’s intentional. They’re very comfy slippers.

Feeling

… better after three days of antibiotics. I have another sinus infection, apparently. Everyone else in the house has had the same thing now, but I’m the only one who got sick enough for antibiotics. Lucky, lucky me.

… proud of my girl. Katie turned 12 last week. She’s a sweetheart and we adore her, of course. Here’s Katie at our family get-together:

A little embarrassed at the attention

Telling Jack to “stop singing like that”

More embarrassment

A bit of boredom (it’s a long song!)

Thinking up a good wish

Inhaling…

Got ‘em all in one breath!

“No, Jack, you can’t lick all the candles!”

Her response to “what did you wish for?”
(Gah. How is she already 12 years old?)

 

Weather

… is grey and a little dreary, but not too cold. It’s suddenly feeling like the transition between winter and spring, which is JUST FINE with me.

Wanting

… a nap, of course. I’m always wanting a nap. In the book I’m reading, Glinda calls her nap “a little lie-down with the shades drawn,” and I think that sounds so much nicer than “I’m lazy as hell and so very tired of thinking about all the crap I need to do.”

Needing

… to get out the door and run errands. I started at least three projects this weekend that are begging for completion, and I have a meeting tonight and deadlines tomorrow.

Thinking

… that pretty soon everything in our backyard will be inside our house. Lucy has access to the entire yard now, and every few minutes brings in a new discovery—so far it’s mostly been tree branches and stalks of bamboo, but there have been some surprises too, like a long-forgotten popped rubber ball, dirty plant pots, and rocks OMG the rocks.

Enjoying

… some calm before the chaos of the week takes over later today. Ah, peace.

I hope you find some peace this week too.

Nov. 1: I don’t get this.

Between trick-or-treaters last night, Vic and I sat in the living room doing what we usually do when we’re together: playing on our phones. (You’re envious of how romantic our lives are, I know. Everyone is.) I read random headlines to him while he played Words with Friends and mostly ignored me.

Me: “Kim Kardashian filed for divorce after ten weeks of marriage. Shocking.”

Him, not looking up from his game: “Her family makes the Hilton sisters look classy.”

Me, in a voice that got increasingly loud and complain-y: “I can’t stand these famous-for-nothing celebrities. No talents, no skills, nothing. But they show up at every friggin’ event in Hollywood so their pictures are on the front of every magazine and we’re supposed to care about them and their pregnancies and plastic surgeries and brief marriages and endorsements of every imaginable product on which their face can be plastered.”

Him, still not looking up from that damn game: “What’s the deal with the Kardashians anyway?”

Me: “Their dad was a friend of O.J. Simpson’s and their mom is married to Bruce Jenner and someone thought those things seemed like a good premise for a reality show, and that’s turned into, like, eleventy more reality shows about their family. Also, Kim has a big ass that she frequently shows off and apparently people like to see. The bits they do on Saturday Night Live are way too accurate.”

And that’s when I stopped talking and realized I know way more about these people than I want to (which is, yes, almost nothing but THAT’S STILL MORE THAN I WANT TO KNOW). I hated myself for a little bit. If we stop looking, won’t these faux-celebrities go away? Can we just agree as a society that ignoring them is the best idea EVER? Because OMG I’m tired of them showing up in my “Breaking Showbiz News” as though they matter. If ignoring them doesn’t work, can someone maybe pay me a vajillion dollars for having no talent or skills? I realize that my ass, while big, is not the kind of “big” that people want to see more of, but COME ON.

Sep. 29: In which I barely mention school

I know I should post something just to say that yes, I am still alive. The problem is that I can only talk about school stuff right now and that means I will absolutely put you to sleep if you read this. Much as it might surprise you, I never intentionally set out to put you to sleep. So… here’s my effort to share things that are in no way related to school or school accessories:

• Vic and the kids are going to Seattle for the weekend. On their agenda: BrickCon and a Seahawks game. If they have garlic fries at Qwest like they do next door at Safeco, Vic is going to eat them and reek for days. Last week he posted on Facebook that he ate a bunch of garlic and then I told him he stunk, making me sound like the meanest wife ever. In my defense, though, he totally stunk.
• With Stinky & Kids away, I have a peaceful house to myself for the entire weekend. Bliss.
• My dear friends Deanna and Debi are going to be in town next week. They’re bringing their daughters and have invited me and Katie to join them. I look forward to seeing everyone and doing girly things.
• Do you know who this guy is?

It’s Nick Offerman.
You might know him better as Ron Swanson.
Also Megan Mullally’s husband.
Without that crazy hair and thick ‘stache… he looks so young.

• Parks & Rec is such a great show.
• (I just can’t get over that pic up there.)
• (You try to look away! You can’t!)
• OK, I tried. There’s nothing else left for me to say. I almost wrote about the digital cable TV channels I recently found. Yes, life so boring here at the House of Manullang that I started to write about what happens when I push the channel button on the remote. Sorry.

Jun. 29: Diana at 50? Really?

Is anyone else horrified that a respectable (?) news magazine would publish an issue with this Photoshopped cover?

The article is somewhat interesting; who hasn’t thought about what Diana would be doing were she still alive? I like to think she and Kate would be BFF’s, but mostly that Diana would be HAPPY. The strangest part of the article was suggesting she and Charles would be confidantes. Yeah, um, I doubt that very much.

But the cover photo is what really creeped me out, and not a little bit. I would guess that it’s intentionally not a very good Photoshop job—it is so obviously not Diana’s body, her head is proportionately small next to Kate’s, etc. This inside photo was in poor taste, too:

Oh, so today’s Diana would have a few wrinkles and an iPhone? Gotcha.

The whole idea is just weird and, in my opinion, has an awfully high creep factor. Is Newsweek that desperate to sell their magazine? If I didn’t read all my news on the Internet, I’d totally cancel my subscription right now.

Whatever, Newsweek. I, for one, do not approve.

Apr. 25: Prince William pics

Oh, I know. I said the REAL royal wedding would be taking place in Salem on Friday. I wasn’t lying about that. But you can’t deny the complete and utter royal-ness of this set of Prince William photos. Be sure to read the captions, because they’re almost as good as the pictures.

I don’t care if everyone’s tired of hearing about the minutiae of their wedding, I’m still excited for these two.

Mar. 1: Toddlers & Tiaras with Tom Hanks

Be sure to watch until the very end to see who wins.

 

Dec. 12: Sunday fun

I didn’t do my Friday post, and I didn’t make up for it yesterday with a Saturday post. I’m just not doing my blogging job very well right now. I’ve hardly spent any time on my computer over the past few days—too much holiday stuff to get done. I’m not complaining about being too busy, though, because right now everything is still Christmas-y and joyful and fun and until I get overwhelmed and whiny, you might just not find a lot to read here at Stuff Jen Says. How ‘bout this? I’m going to share some of the good stuff I’ve found on the ‘net in the past few weeks.

• If you’re not anti-hilarious-cartoon Loveliest Lori, you’ll enjoy this 3-D Perry the Platypus Christmas ornament. (I love you dearly, Lori, but you really should give Phineas & Ferb a chance.)
• Suspected terrorists vs. the average person. This made me chuckle.
• Not sure what to get for the man on your Christmas list? Here are some ideas that won’t help you even a tiny bit.
• See that box on the left that says “Twitters that made me LOL”? You should scroll through and read some of them beauties. There are some very funny people saying very funny things out there on Twitter.
• Sunshine shared this and I love it:

He’s charming as can be, no?

• This isn’t funny or even all that interesting, but I love the new engagement photos of Prince William and Kate. His natural smile is so much like his momma’s.
• New York designers say these are the colors for the upcoming season. Who knew? (And Erin, I can’t believe you “swoon” over any one of them. They’re colors. Silly girl.)
• One of the reasons I dislike Céline Dion is that this parody is remarkably accurate in the way she behaves in interviews (here’s a short example of the real thing). Tracey Ullman is one of the most underrated actresses out there. For a real kick, watch some of her other videos on YouTube. So funny.

ha.

• We went to IKEA the other day, and I found the Christmas décor there kind of disappointing. A lot of it looks like 4th of July décor to me, which I think is weird because Scandinavians don’t celebrate the 4th of July like we do, right? They have some fun star ornaments, and I love their strings of lights, but there’s an awful lot of blue in most of their SNÖVITA line. Meh.
• Some people bug the hell out of me.
• (Wow, how’d that sneak in there? That has nothing to do with stuff I’ve found on the Internet at all. Hm.)
• Our niece, Presley, got a new kitty! She might just be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Meet Cookie:

• Sunshine told me there’s all this fancy wish list stuff on Etsy now, and you can see what your friends want and they can see what you want and OMG I can’t imagine what could be better except maybe if y’all buy me everything on my list twice.
• I was thinking that the new Jack Black/Jason Segel Christmas Jam would be a good last-minute addition to our Christmas CD, so I downloaded it and was all happy until I realized the mp3 has the same content as the video. In other words, there’s talking on the song, and I hate when people talk on songs. Bummer.
• Did you see Community this last week? Clever.

I’ve got a CD to finish, letter to edit, labels to print, gifts to make, soup on the stove, a HUGE etsy wish list to create, and an ornament exchange party to go to this evening. T’will be a good day.

Jul. 16: IDCEAYWTPFriday

It’s Friday, and that means you get a post called I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday.

• All day yesterday I kept thinking it was Friday. It felt like a Friday to me, and I had to keep reminding myself it was Thursday. And even then, when I went to bed last night I thought, “Hm, I’m surprised Sherilee didn’t post her Friday Night Grateful Moment tonight.” Of course, there’s nothing wrong with there being TWO Fridays in one week, so that’s what I’m doing today: enjoying my second Friday.
• (I know, I make no sense at all.)
• I had the weirdest dream last night. It involved my grandma, Debi and Deanna, an ex from college (he was running the college cafeteria in my dream!), my mom doing some weird medical treatment that required her to wear prairie skirts so the IV bags wouldn’t show, and me. The odd thing was that it seemed REALLY real; nothing was so far beyond normal that it was unbelievable. Dreams like that are always a bit disturbing to me, and this was no exception… well, one exception: Jim Nabors was Grandma’s doctor. That wasn’t disturbing, it was just funny. To me. I don’t think having Gomer Pyle as one’s physician would be anything BUT disturbing.
• A new iPhone/Droid app that I really love is Springpad. It lets you keep all kinds of different lists, notes, etc. and, ideally, will replace all those loose notes you keep. You can make reminders by taking a photo or scanning a barcode—that’s one of my favorite features—and create notes about restaurants, various products, books, movies, music, etc. that you want to try. It automatically syncs with your online account, so you have access (and a backup) to your lists wherever you are.
  
  Here’s an example of how it can be used: Yesterday Sherilee posted a yummy recipe on her blog, so I copied it into a note, grabbed the accompanying photo, and now when I decide to make it, I have a shopping list all ready to go.
  
  Even better? Springpad’s phone app and its online version are free. Even if you don’t use the phone app, you can use the online version and you should. So says I.
• Our Internet service is back on at home. I don’t know how long the modem was unplugged, but with the recent office move, I shouldn’t be surprised that things didn’t go back exactly the way they should have. I still can’t get the kids’ desktop to connect. I don’t know what the deal is, and right now I really don’t even care. I’m just relieved to be able to use a non-iPhone Internet connection.
• By the way, Starbucks’ wi-fi is waaay convenient.
• I watched Season 1 of Flight of the Conchords this week. Loveliest Lori got me interested when it first started airing on HBO, and Debi let me listen to a soundtrack when we hung out last month. I knew I needed to fill in all the gaps by watching the whole series. Thank goodness there are only two seasons—I spent a LOT of time with the DVDs this week. The show is hilarious—very quirky and fun.
• Funny how everyone’s making such a big deal about this Mel Gibson thing. We all knew he was a jackass, didn’t we? Why is this news?
• You know what’s awesome about Almond Joy bars? They’re totally health food! Coconut, with all its fruitiness and fiber and vitamins, and an almond, bursting forth with protein and whatever else makes nuts good to eat. See? Health food. So says Dr. Jen, the overweight nutritionist.
• I was getting warnings that my hard drive was full, and I needed to do some cleanup. Last week I used Duplicate Cleaner to free up nearly six gigs of hard drive space. The program finds any duplicate files and then lists them all; you can then select which ones to delete, or set criteria that will select them automatically. I was able to compare my hard drive contents to my external drive (which I primarily use for backup) and it took a long, long time, but it did the job. Overall it was a tremendous time-saver and space-restorer for me. Git it.
• Talking Carl, one of the iPhone’s top selling apps, is all just super silly fun. Our favorite thing is to make Carl burp, because he opens his mouth HUGE and then just a squeak comes out. Anyway, this video made me LOL.
  
  
  
  
  
• We’re doing the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life this weekend. It goes from 10 am Saturday to 10 am Sunday and is supposed to be quite the party all night long. I got the schedule today and found that Victor and I weren’t assigned to any time slots, so maybe we’re not really participating after all. I need to make some phone calls, huh? Not that I’m so eager about staying up all night…
• Last night we watched Deadliest Catch from Tuesday. It was the episode when Captain Phil dies. They’ve been leading up to it for the last few weeks, but the way it finally happened at the end of the episode was truly heartbreaking to me. Phil’s oldest son called to tell the younger one that their dad had died. That’s exactly how it went when our dad died—Kathy called me. She doesn’t remember much of the phone conversation, but I remember every word, where I was standing, what time it was, what I did right after we hung up… It was a moment I’ll never forget. As horrible as it all was, there was something very special about having my big sister give me the news, rather than Dad’s wife or someone that cared even less about Dad.
  
  Anyway, this video is the sweetest moment between Phil and Josh, his oldest son. It’s kind of a killer, but as tender as they come. I don’t know for sure when it was filmed, but they showed it as though it was the day before Phil died.
• If you have a new bathroom rug and you wash it with your towels, you should expect to find the rug fluff on your body for many hours after you’ve dried off using your clean towels, even during a meeting later that day with an important client. Don’t ask me how I know this, and on a totally unrelated note, do you have a lint roller I can borrow?
• In case you didn’t notice, I’m feeling kinda bossy today. It’s just that I’m so full of it! And by “it,” of course, I mean GOOD IDEAS. It would be disgraceful of you to suggest otherwise.

Jack and I are going to see Despicable Me today. Smell ya later, losers. Um, I mean, people who aren’t going with us.