What Would Jen Do

What a week!  First I update iTunes and my entire library of music was gone!  GONE!  I’m not as upset as I thought I’d be, and I still need to make a phone call to iTunes to see what the deal is.  fortunately for me most of my latest music was in CD form and I still have those.   somewhere.

My phone is dying and I apparently need a new one.

I got my oil changed yesterday and they wouldn’t rotate my tires because your best tires need to be on the front.  My best tires were already on the front.  Needless to say I need new tires.

My car registration is due.

Then there was all that work drama, that mostly got worked out. I’ll say I’m still peeved, and leave it at that.

1. Who has it easier-men or women? Feel free to elaborate!

In then end I think it probably evens itself out.  Aside from guys getting to pee anywhere they want, cleanly.    And then we have to give birth and have PMS.   So wait, I guess men have it easier.  Also when they get older they become distinguished and we just get old.

2. What’s the most scandalous thing you’ve done this week?

I said swear words loudly to my boss!!  oopsies.

3. Worst pick up line you’ve ever heard?

Can I take your picture?   Except that it totally worked and I married that guy.

4. Who’s your celeb crush?

Jesse James was one of them, but then he turned out to be a huge douche.

5. Do you feel comfortable talking about sex?

With who? My mom?  Hells no.

6. What’s your all time favorite movie?

Probably Shaun of the Dead.  Or Dawn of the Dead. Or Can’t Buy Me Love.

I guess I need a new phone, mine won’t charge past the 1st bar.  I just got a new battery so I guess it’s the phone.  I HATE PHONES.   I don’t use it, I only have it for emergencies.  And I don’t want to spend the money on a new phone either.

You’re not supposed to talk about your work on your blogs because it can get you fired, but I’m starting to not even care.  If you watch The City, my treadmill show, you’ll know how Erin feels about Olivia.   She gets whatever she wants, never gets into trouble, doesn’t do the best job, coasts thru.  Erin is constantly frustrated and no one will do anything about it.  Eventually she has to take matters into her own hands.   Today I am Erin.   and depending on how tomorrow goes, well…. I’ll just wait until tomorrow.

I am so thankful that my home life is top notch.  I couldn’t bear having to live in a house that I didn’t want to come home to.  All I ever want to do is come home to my house and my husband and my dogs.   If my living situation were less than ideal, I’d probably lose it.   There is enough other stuff going on in my life, I need a peaceful place to come home to.

Also beer helps.

And candy

I also need this shirt really really pretty badly

so on to the good, no matter how small it is, it’s still GOOD:

Doing another Bountiful Baskets this weekend, still splitting it with Cat.   Even tho it doesn’t seem like that much food, it really is.  And it’s kind of hard to use it in a week, we’re not ready for a whole basket each.

I am a season behind on Bones and just finished season 4 today and it had the crappiest ending ever.  Season 5 isn’t being released until October and I could only find episodes 13-the end on line.   But Cat also had the same problem and she sent me the link her husband found her for Season 5 episode 1.   WIN.   Now that I feel I have closure I can wait until October for the DVD release.

I am trying desperately to catch up on True Blood, fortunately for me it’s On Demand on my cable and I’m about 5-6 eps behind. I can probably catch up this weekend, because apparently something MAJOR happened (don’t tell me what it was) and now I need to know.

Also this weekend is a bday/graduation party for Cat.   I guess I’ll have to be social and mingle amongst humans for a few hours.

So back to my birthday.   Aside from the whole crazy drunk driver situation, it was a very good birthday.

The day of my birthday I ate free twice at two local places owned by the same guy. He actually owns three restaurants and you can hit all three for the birthday trifecta but I couldn’t swing breakfast on a workday.   I also got me some red velvet cake at lunchtime.  note to self, when you bring red velvet cake home make sure it gets its own box.  otherwise it tastes like the mini hamburger you also put in the box.

The hot stone massage I got was just ok.  Not sure if it was the massage therapist, the actual hot stone massage or the fact that it probably would have been better in winter, but i think i’ll pass on another one.   It did make me pretty tired tho.

Friday i made my husband go to golden corral at like 2:30pm. but it was so awesome, I ate everything in sight.   twice.

Saturday we went out for dinner to  a tiny little place in the middle of downtown.   It’s (pulled from their site) a charming re-creation of a neighborhood French bistro, but with a BYO twist.  the food there is TO DIE FOR.   I brought home the rest of my chocolate caramel tarte.  (it got its own box)

and then there was the zombie portrait. I know that’s not for everyone, but I really love it and it’s an original. It’s about 16×9 and i can’t wait to get a frame this weekend.

For as much TV as I watch, I am almost always continually a season behind on say 30% of my shows. This is so I can watch as many as I want in a row on DVD without having to wait for a new one to start up next week.  some new shows i don’t even bother to watch, just put them straight into save in my netflix dvd queue.    Lots of major networks only let you watch the last 5 on line and that’s a pain in the ass if you aren’t up to date.  ok so now that i’ve given you a lesson in the best way to utilize your time watching TV, my actual point was that I was actually 2 years behind on The City.  Which is actually the entirety of the show.   This is the show I watch on the treadmill.   Unfortunately I am almost done with it, and I have no idea when season 3 starts.    And my actual real point was that if you watch that show, which you probably don’t. I want Kelly Cutrone to be my real life friend.

Because she said this

really … who gives a f**k about her opinion? No, she’s dead! She is f**king dead! Because I’m gonna f**king come up like a shark underneath a glass bottom boat and f**king whip the s**t out of her.”

This is my favorite wedding picture.  Minus my moms arm over there.   I have it hung up all over the place and this is the one I put into my wedding announcements.   Since we were only ‘engaged’ a couple of weeks and had a very small wedding, we went straight to announcements with a picture enclosed.

It’s even over there <——- on my sidebar.

It’s no secret that I have a probably slightly unhealthy obsession with zombies.  Not all things zombie, i have my standards.  There are a lot of crap/stupid zombie movies out there.    My favorite ones are Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead (old and new) Land of the Dead and the 28 days/weeks later movies.     I have a large zombie movie collection as well as a zombie fiction (or is it?) book collection.

About a year ago I came across an artist who could do beautiful things with your existing photos.   He hand creates his interpretation of whatever photo you send him.

And this is what my husband got me for my birthday!

zombie wedding

I filled out a police report.
we were on our way to my b-day dinner when this guy cut us off pulling out of a neighborhood street onto the main road in front of us.  we both ended up turning right at the light and he ended up behind us on that street when the lane he chose merged into our lane.   then like out of nowhere he seriously almost rammed us twice from behind, it was like the movies.  like he sped up and then slammed the brakes.  the section of road we were on was down to 25 mph and he probs did about 50.

so we get over a lane because this guy is crazy cakes and now we are in the lane next to him and he’s basically swerving into us.   we pull off the road and call the cops.  as we are talking to them someone else is calling them about the same guy. because they saw him almost hit us and then drive over a median.  so this good Samaritan follows him to a panda express where he parks terribly and gets out of the car with his 7 year old kid!   It’s now a felony if you get a DUI and have a minor in the car with you, you can just expect to go to jail.

while we’re having dinner the cops call us back and ask us to come down and identify the car.   we do.  we see the guy and my husband effing knows the guy.  not like they are best friends or anything, but still.  it’s not like we live in a tiny town.

The driver was ‘impaired’ that’s all I know, but apparently very impaired.

the cop that we were talking to about all of this is the same cop that breathalyzed our friend at his bachelor party earlier this year, just for kicks.  he was working as security at the bowling alley and they got him to breathalyze my friend and the cop even remembered that!

Today is my birthday!!!!

I’m working from home today and my husband cooked me breakfast and brought it up to me at my desk!  HOORAY!  today is off to a great start.

The Philosophy stuff I ordered over the weekend with my b-day gift card finally showed up yesterday.   It was delivered to the wrong house on Tuesday and the tracking showed ‘left at front door’.  just not my front door.   After talking with customer service a few times, the driver was able to backtrack and picked up the package at a house on the next street over.   The cul de sacs off the main neighborhood street have street names with similar letters. this happens all the time.   i think whoever lives at that house should have brought the package over, just like we did last week when we got someone elses package.

my whole birthday revolves around food.    i swear i do not have food issues.   Today we’ll be going out for a birthday dinner, tomorrow another birthday dinner at my beloved Golden Corral. and then Saturday dinner out again, but Saturday is more of a belated anniversary dinner since there were circumstances on our actual anniversary and dinner never happened.   Cold Stone also sent me a coupon for free ice cream for my bday, and Borders books sent me one for free coffee or tea.

If I’m feeling productive i’m going to try and make a chocolate cake from scratch for myself as well.    I’m not very good baking cakes and could use the practice.

I’ve also taken tomorrow off from work and will be getting a hot stone massage in the afternoon.   I can’t wait.

Welcome to Way Back Wednesday with The Adventures of Goober Grape & Monkey Man, The Life of a Sippy Cup Mom!, The Scoop on Poop! and The Nerdy Katie!

This week is all about your first car.  I didn’t start driving ‘legally’ until I was 21. I didn’t have a real desire to get my drivers license until it became pretty much a necessity. Plus I couldn’t afford a car or the insurance so I just took the bus to work for about a year and saved up some money.    I didn’t have any credit at all when I went to buy a car and had a really hard time getting a loan.  Most people buy their first car for cash after they’ve found the car of their dreams on a street corner with a for sale sign in the window. But I didn’t have that kind of cash saved up and needed a car, so financing it was.

My first car was a 1994 Geo Metro.  If you click on that link it takes you to Edmunds and it shows that the trade in value is $135.  I’m not kidding you when I say that if I could find another one of these for under $500 that ran, I’d buy it.

This isn’t my car but that’s what my car looked like, down to the color.   It cost me $6000 but with the high interest rate from not having credit my payments were $155 a month.  My insurance was $160 a month.   I bought it in September of 1995.

I later refinanced and my payments were $75 a month!  that’s how high my interest rate was.

This car was pretty awesome for being a death trap.  It had three cylinders, couldn’t make it up a hill going the speed limit and would shake if you hit 75 mph.  You also couldn’t idle at a red light and run the AC because the car would shake and threaten to stall out. No AC at red lights in AZ in the summer is not a good idea.

but it got excellent gas mileage.  back in the 90′s getting upwards of 38 mpg was unheard of.  It only had an 8 gallon tank and that was back when gas was 99 cents a gallon. (this makes me sound really old) so i could get a lot of gas into it with the change I found on the floor of my car.   I used to get so pissed because you could get things free with a fill up but a fill up was considered 10+ gallons.    Tires cost about $20 each,  the doors automatically locked when you hit 3mph and didn’t matter if you went that 3mph in reverse, they still locked.    My AC completely broke in summer and the door handle on the drivers inside busted on more than one occasion, but it was still under warranty so everything was fixed for free.

I got this car to nearly 100,000 miles and it was still going pretty strong but I was ready for something new.   so I got my next car which was a one year old used 1998 Chevy Cavalier.  that one cost me $9,000 (talked down from $11k)   I  got that car to over 100,000 miles before I traded it in for my brand new 2008 Mazda 3.  So yes, i am just about 36 and have only had 3 cars.

I keep cars a long time because I don’t like change and I also am pretty stingy with my money and don’t like spending it on cars.   If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’m just trying out that thing where you can write something and then tell it to publish at a later time and date.

1.  Do you think mustaches are sexy?

I don’t really care about facial hair.   I mean I don’t have a real opinion on it.   My husband sometimes has  a full beard or a goatee, he’s never clean shaven.   But never just a ‘stache, maybe he should try that .  Anyway, if someone can really rock a ‘stache, i think it’s awesome.

2. What’s the last concert you’ve been to?

Kid Rock.   and it was OMG awesome.  It was a small music festival and the VIP tickets were just $100 and that got you a couple of free beers and access to the VIP section which was technically a general admission area at the front of the stage.  We pushed our way up to front row, a guy we were with almost got into a fight because of it and then I think Kid Rock sweated on me.

Here we are waiting for him to play, we were there hours before he went on, I think we might have been drunk. that’s me in the middle and Cat on the right.  We also know the creeper behind us, he’s not the one that almost got into the fight.

you can’t tell because of the demon eyes, but he’s looking right at me.   RIGHT???

Then his shirt opened up and Cat and I made noises that sounded kind of like Fuh fuh fuh fuh

3  What was your favorite 80′s sitcom?

As previously stated I love television, picking a favorite show is like picking a favorite child.   High on the list is the Cosby Show.

4. Were you named after anyone?

No, but I don’t think many of the tens of millions of other baby girls named Jennifer in the70s were named after anyone either.

5. When you buy new clothes, do you wash before wearing?

Mostly, sometimes I think about how many people probably tried that on and how they were probably gross people.

6. If you didn’t blog, what would you do with your spare time?

read a book

7. What is your favorite department store?

Does Walmart count?

8. If  you were to get Laser Hair Removal..where would you get it?

Probs my legs.   I forget to shave them a lot.

My friend Cat and I did the Bountiful Baskets this morning.  There was a bit of confusion (probably only on my part) when we got an email that said YOUR PICK UP TIME MAY HAVE CHANGED.   when I signed us up there were two choices for pick up 7am and 7:30am.  i went with the 7:30am.   then suddenly on the website there are 3 times.  7, 7:20 and 7:40.    so we just showed up at 7:30 and it was no big deal.    Everything in the basket was basically stuff I was going to buy today.  Cat got the lone cantaloupe and basket of strawberries.   I got the celery.  but we both got bananas, tomatoes, nectarines, carrots, blueberries and bell peppers and maybe something else i can’t remember.

Last night I randomly looked in my spam folder in email.  normally I just delete everything that is in there without looking because i don’t need a larger penis or  rolex watch or viagra.   and that’s all that’s usually in there.  but i saw an email from Philosophy and opened it because i love Philosophy.   And it was a b-day E-gift card from my mother in law!  HOORAY.   I went straight to the website and spent it.   I ended up with these 3 in 1′s  (shampoo, shower gel, bubble bath)

calm me (it’s lavender scented)
pineapple coconut
red velvet cake
vanilla birthday cake

Philosophy stuff is an indulgence I would never purchase for myself.

The dogs are currently on a partial raw diet, stew meat on top of a little bit of dry food.  Voodoo, the big one has turned savage now.   Any plastic baggie you take out of the fridge he assumes is full of steak for him and he follows you around all cracked out.   We’ve only been doing it about a week but it seems like they are a little more feisty.