Perpetual Calendar

I seem to steal from every blog that I read, but I think of it more as 'free advertisment'. I love, love, LOVE this idea. You can customize it to fit so many places. One specific to the kitchen, one for the classroom, one for the nursery, one for the office...the list really goes on and on.

Here's a little 'how-to' courtesy of Little Brown Pen.

Cupcakes

I like to bake cupcakes. I really like all things cupcakes but I especially like to make my own. I took a cake decorating class at my local community college a couple of years ago and have been hooked ever since. I promised to post some of my work and above is a collage made up of some pictures I had on my computer. Out of all the cupcakes that I have made....

...these have been my favorites. I think it is a pretty close match, if I do say so myself.

Leave Me

I have been thinking lately...I don't remember the last time I cried. This little film took care of that in four minutes. (from Le Love)

Making Lists

I know, I know. It's not yet November and I am already thinking of my resolutions for next year. I haven't yet gone through the guilt that follows the overindulgence of Christmas, how come I am making them now? There are resolutions that have come to mind and I don't want to forget them. After looking at my list, I think that this is the first time in all of my adult life that 'lose weight' or 'lose (fill in the blank) pounds' hasn't been on the list. I have resolved to be more healthy next year in mind, body and soul. I have made this list early in the hopes that I will adopt some of them now so that when the new year rolls around the list won't seem so overwhelming.


New Year’s Resolutions for 2010


Mind:

*Read a book a week
*Learn to sew
*Start writing book
*Start keeping diary
*Make effort to learn new language

Body:

*Maintain a consistent workout schedule
*Drink at least 64 ounces of water a day (Water Math: Take your weight, divide that number in half. Drink that number in ounces of water everyday)
*Start taking yoga classes
*Only drink alcohol once a week (limit to only one glass of wine a day)
*Limit inflammatory food intake (including sugar)

Soul:

*Open a savings account
*Go to church at least twice a month
*Limit television watching to no more than 2 hours on a work night
*Take 15 minutes a day to pray, meditate or reflect
*Become more organized in ALL aspects of my life (home, financial, work, ect.)

I'm Back

In an effort to save a little bit of dough, I cancelled the internet and the cable at our house about two months ago. I know, I know....how in the world did I manage??? I think my husband had a tougher time than I did, I think I managed just fine. It made me learn to appreciate things that I had forgotten about. I crocheted more, I read more, I spent more time with my husband. I took on other projects like researching for a book that I might try to write and reading my bible more. It forced my husband to watch the entire run of The West Wing and the first two seasons of Mad Men (two of my absolute favorite shows). Not having the internet made me focus on myself more and not so much on what everyone else was doing. I feel that I am much more in tuned with my goals and ambitions and feel much more prepared to make them happen for myself. All in all it was a pretty good little experiment and experience.
If it worked so well, why did I cave and get cable and internet again? I have to say that I honestly needed it. I got a brand new job! Woo hoo, yay me! I have to be able to communicate with my coworkers because I will be doing tons of work at home late into the night.
I'm back. I will try to start updating again and might throw out more about what is going on in my life, then again I have a feeling that I will be extremely busy and might start slipping. I will try my hardest not to let that happen.

Love Today

You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there." -Bob Marley

--from Le Love

My birthday has come and gone but Christmas isn't that far off...

Things to add to my wish list. I'm just sayin'...

These can be found HERE

I have had my eye on these for awhile now.

These I found today!

They can be found HERE

For those that don't know, I love all things cupcakes and especially love to make them. I have a gazillion pictures of some of the ones that I have made (one day I will have to get some up here). I couldn't imagine that they could be any more fun to make, that is until I saw these two items. I am not above having my friendship bought. For somewhere around $35.00 I will gladly put it up for sale.

Just Jenn Rants and Raves: Down Through the Chimney...

I was alerted to THIS blog by my good friend Andrea. She thought that I would like it and when I reached THIS post, I knew she was right.

Ever hear of the 'Dear John' letter?

Ever hear of the 'Dear John' letter? I think this might be the modern version. I laughed so hard. I think it is because I once knew a girl that was this crazy and I have known several guys that something like this has happened to.

Thanks I *Heart* You

Objectum Sexuality

I am a very open and accepting person. I do not judge and I strongly feel that one should love whomever they please and it really isn't anyone elses business. Let me clarify that, as long as the two are of consenting age, of the human species and are unrelated. With that being said, I simply cannot wrap my head around this one. I mean, uh, hmmmm..... um, yeah....

Mad Mad Props

I have one lil friend (Mrs. Rose Red) out there in the blogging world that found my blog and had sweet things to say. Because she was the first and because she was nice, I wanted to give her a shout out and mad props.
Check out her musings at The Adventures of Rose Red

Mad Mad Men

In my inbox today:

Etsy Finds: Release Your Inner Mad Man
Which one are you? Peggy, Joan, Betty or Don?

Is anyone else as excited as I am for this Sunday??

For the occasion, sip on this:

Old Fashioned
2 ounces bourbon whisky
Splash of simple syrup or one sugar cube abd just enough water to dissolve the sugar
2 dashes of **bitters

Place sugar (or syrup), bitters and water in an old fashioned glass. Add 2-3 ice cubes and whisky. Garnish with and orange twist and cherry.

** A muddled orange slice can replace bitters. The cherry can also be muddled at the bottom of the glass.

....or my favorite as you should have guessed by now...

Gin and Tonic (or as I like to call it, Jen and Tonick)

A gin and tonic is a highball cocktail made with gin and tonic water, usually garnished with a slice of lime or lemon and often served over ice. The ratio of gin to tonic water can vary considerably, from a glass of gin with a splash of tonic to one part gin for every five parts tonic.
In some countries, gin and tonic is marketed pre-mixed in single-serving cans.

Season Premier Sunday August 16, on AMC at 10:00pm!!

(both recipes courtesy of Wikipedia)

Signs

If you are NOT the romantic type, this might be a waste of your time because it is twelve minutes long...
If you ARE the romantic type, this has to be the sweetest thing ever. It melted my heart

Tossing and Turning

I have been battling insomnia again (obviously)....it sucks. I wish that my stress wouldn't manifest this way. I wish I was like those girls that lose 30 pounds because their stomachs refuse to hold anything when stressed....God, I wish I was one of those girls. Instead I am quite the opposite, I get to be fat AND exhausted....how did I ever get so lucky?

I would like to think that when I am tossing and turning it looks somewhat like this.

Writer's Block

I have always thought myself a terrible writer, maybe I just wasn't creative enough to come up with smart metaphors like the ones listed below...Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays...(Thanks Snopes.com)

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy that went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formally surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like
when you are on vacation in another city and Jeopardy! comes on at 7:00pm instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field towards each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36pm traveling at 55mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19pm at a speed of 35mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resebled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long that it had rusted shut.

19. Shots ran out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan might just work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pionte and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When he spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26. He eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to a wall.

The City by the Bay

From where I live, San Francisco is a little more than just a stone's throw away. Growing up it was THE place to go for day trips. My mother would pile my brother and I in the car, crank up the soundtrack to Top Gun (or The Talking Heads or Billy Joel's Greatest Hits), and tell us that we were going on a 'secret journey'. Only one time did this 'secret journey' turn out to be Disneyland, every other time it was San Francisco. Every time that she tried to pull this past us we knew where we were going by the time we reached the 120 in Manteca. We didn't mind though, both my brother and I loved going to San Francisco. We loved it so much that we both moved there at the end of 2003 and became roommates. I only stayed a year. My brother is still there five years later. I look for every opportunity to go back. My favorite way to get there is to drive halfway and take BART in the rest of the way. I park my car at the Dublin/Pleasanton station and for less than $12 can get to Union Square and back. Toll for the Bay Bridge is $4 right now and seems to go up every year (in the last five years it has gone up $2). That, added to the gas to get there and then have to worry about parking, BART is a godsend. I hadn't been back in a few month's (since I met my bestie and his boyfriend in the city for the tranny pageant, that could be an entirely different post) so when my long lost friend said that she was going to be in San Francisco (by way of Portland, Oregon) I seized the opportunity to make the trip.


When I was 19 I packed up and moved to the OC to bunk with my distant aunt and cousins that I had only really seen at Thanksgiving. I love them all dearly but it was an adjustment that I never really made. I only lasted a year there as well. While I was down there I attended Fullerton College and threw myself into the theater program. At the time they had one of the best programs in the state at a community college level. The year before I got there, three of their students got accepted into Julliard. Fullerton really did have some tremendous talent and I loved every minute of it. During the winter break, the college hosted a Playwright's Festival. It was more of an intensive playwright's workshop. I signed up for it because I could earn three college credits for 10 days of my time. I participated in readings as an actor but my favorite part was contributing as a dramaturge. Dramaturge was a fancy way of saying that I was the one that held the catch-all job. I made the notes for the playwright, I read lines when needed and I called lines for the actors if they got lost. The playwright had done an adaptation of Moliere's Imaginary Invalid. It was during this particular workshop that I met my long lost friend. By the end of the of the festival we were best friends. I was only down there for another six months after that. When I moved back home we exchanged a couple of letters and a phone call and that was it. We completely lost touch. We found each other again through Facebook and decided to meet for dinner. I hadn't seen her in 11 years. By the time we sat down to eat it was if no time had past.

We had dinner at Millennium on Geary (in the Hotel California, yes that really was the name). It was a vegetarian restaurant. I was a little hesitant because the only other time I had eaten at a vegetarian restaurant it wasn't very good. I have to say, Millennium was exceptional. I had the lobster mushroom risotto. The 'lobster mushroom' is not seafood. It is the name of a coastal mushroom that has a slight seafood taste to it. It was sublime. As good as the meal was it couldn't compare with the dessert. We shared the Mocha Midnight (or something like that) and a sorbet pallet of chocolate, strawberry and root beer. Wowzers! The evening was lubricated by the free champagne the bartender sent over. I didn't know that places did that anymore. I felt like I was in a movie.

It is nights like this that reaffirm my love and devotion to the city by the bay.

This is where I went to dinner tonight...

...it was so good and I am not even vegetarian. More on the evening later.

Allow Myself to Introduce....Myself...

This may or may not be a little too much information but I thought that I would give you some idea of who I am and what better way to do that than through a generic social networking survey!

001. What is Your Name?
Jen and Tonick

002. How old are you?
Not old but no longer young

003. What is the link to your website, blog, or myspace?
The Sour and the Sweet

General
004. What is your height?
Short

005. Do you have any siblings?
Yes, a younger brother

006. What is your eye colour?
Grey

007. What is your hair colour?
Blondish

008. Do you wear glasses or contacts?
Nope

009. Are you right handed or left handed?
Right

010. Do you have any piercings?
Just my ears

011. Do you smoke?
Once every other blue moon

012. Do you swear?
Occasionally

013. Do you get along with your parents?
I do

014. Your heritage
A complete mix

015. Your fears
Those that I love dying suddenly

016. Goal you would like to achieve this year
Move, become more environmentally concious, get a fabulous job...

017. Most overused phrase on an instant messenger
LOL

018. Best Physical Feature
My eyes

019. Your bedtime
Late

020. What time do you arise in the morning?
Late

021. First thoughts waking up?
Why did I sleep so long?

022. Do you shower daily?
Yes


This Or That?
023. Bright or dark room?
Dark

024. Chocolate or vanilla?
Chocolate

025. Dogs of cats?
Dogs

026. Pepsi or Coke?
Diet Pepsi

027. McDonalds or Burger King?
Neither

028. Winter or Summer?
Summer

029. Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea?
Lipton

030. Cappuccino or Coffee?
Coffee


In the last month have you...
031. Drank alcohol?
Yes

032. Gone to a mall?
I currently work at a salon there, so yes.

033. Eaten a box of Oreos?
Oh no

034. Eaten sushi?
Sadly no

035. Been on stage?
Nope

036. Been dumped?
Nope

037. Gone skinny dipping?
Nope

038. Stolen Anything?
Nope


Have you ever...
039. Laughed for no reason?
Of course

040. Been caught doing something you weren't supposed to do?
Yes

041. Been in love?
Yes

042. Fired a gun?
Yes

043. Been drunk?
Yes

044. Been called a Tease?
I don't think so

045. Been beaten up?
Only emotionally

046. Traveled abroad?
I was lucky enough to make it to London. Other than that does Mexico and Canada count?

What was the last....
047. Furry thing you touched?
My pup

048. Thing you've said?
I am not sure, it has been a few hours

049. Song you've listened to?
Crystal Ball-Pink

050. (Who was the last) person you've spoken to on the phone?
My husband

051. Movie you watched?
Ferris Beuller...I think that I already answered these questions

052. Thing you were doing before this?
Watching Jeopardy!

053. Time you cried?
Yesterday

054. Song you've sang?
Easy Silence-Dixie Chicks

055. Time you looked at the clock?
Just now, wow it is very late

056. Food and drink you've had?
Diet Pepsi was the last I drank

057. Flavour of gum you've chewed?
Berry

058. Shoes you've worn?
My tennis shoes for my workout

059. Store you've been in?
The SuperWalmart


Favourite...
060. Planet?
Earth

061. Age you've been so far?
24

062. Season?
Autumn

063. Number?
7

064. TV show?
I am OBSESSED with Mad Men

065. Flower?
Violet, it reminds me of my grandmother


Random...
066. How much cash do you have on you?
Little if any

067. What's a word that rhymes with 'door'?
More

068. What T-Shirt are you wearing?
One of my husband's work shirts

069. What brand of shoes are you wearing?
None

070. What did your last text message say?
I am not sure

071. What were you doing at midnight last night?
I think I was on the computer

072. What's your current desktop picture?
A picture that I stole from another website because it moved me

073. What's a word that you say a lot?
Sheesh

074. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Periwinkle

075. How is the weather right now?
Very warm

076. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Smile

077. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
I no longer have to worry about that

078. Can you do a headstand (not using a wall)?
I doubt it

079. Who would you like to see right now?
My grandfather

080. How many pillows do you sleep with?
2, if I am lucky


081. How do you want to die?
Old and asleep in my bed

082. What do you want to be when you grow up?
That is a very good question

083. What country would you most like to visit?
Italy

084. How many CDs do you own?
I am not sure. Most of my music is on my computer

085. How many things, in your past, do you regret?
There is only one thing but I am getting over it

086. Do you think you are attractive?
I do most days

087. Do you believe in yourself?
I do most days

088. Do you want to get married?
I am

Now It Is Time To Post....

Well, almost. I have been tweaking this blog for a couple of weeks now (I have gone through several versions of what this page should look like) and have finally decided on an end product. I hope that all that visit enjoy their time here. I don't consider my life any more interesting than the next person but I am thinking that the appeal will be that I will be completely relatable. I will try to be consistent in updating this blog. Ok, I think that my language is all over the place on this post. Let me regroup and get back to you.