Getting Domestic

That’s right friends, I think the day is coming in which I will be a fully domesticated lady. I should probably preface the next few statements with the disclaimer that it’s not like I lead some transient, dirty bachelor lifestyle. My air hockey table does not double as my dining table - I don’t even have an air hockey table but I wish I did, my socks are clean and there are no insects inhabiting my home. I just haven’t been one of those girls who immediately upon getting her first apartment was throwing dinner parties and decorating it to match the pages of Home and Garden Magazine.

Perhaps it’s that my 25th birthday is just days away, perhaps it’s that my friends are all hunkering down with boyfriends, engagements, marriages and what not, perhaps it’s just that I am seeking out a change of pace and it’s coming in the form of nesting - it’s most likely a combination of all three.

All I know is that I have done the following domestic things in the last couple weeks and instead of being creeped out when I make this list, I’m actually okay with it.

Domestic Activity #1: Grocery Shopping. Usually I am a big fan of popping into the local organic, healthy living market/store and grabbing a couple small things for meals - but in the past two weeks I have gone large scale full on pre-made shopping list grocery shopping. I’ve since gone days without going else where but my kitchen for meals and I like it. I have been planning in advance meal contents and packing leftover cartons as well. Big things people, BIG things.

Domestic Activity #2: Serving Dishes Purchasing. What started with a friendly request to bring some champagne flutes to a bridal shower turned into a serving dish movement with a trip to Pier 1. I went in with the plan only to grab the flutes and then there was a large table of recycled glass serving dishes and bowls. Recently I went to a cocktail/appetizer event and I realized that I didn’t have serving dishes for transport so I bought some - and they were on sale. Although I have resisted the urge to go back to Pier 1 for more goods - but I’m expanding my domestic items. Now I just need to break the seal on the crock pot I got for Christmas.

Domestic Activity #3: Looking for Artwork. I am the worst person about putting artwork, pictures frames, etc. on the walls. I always intend to “get to that” portion of decorating and then never follow through. Well I recently spent a few hours perusing artwork at a number of places and am debating between a few options.

So as I look down the barrel of my pending birthday in the next few days I’m seriously thinking about committing to domesticity. It’s scary but I suppose that’s the nature of the beast as you get older.

But I don’t even like cats!

I am a dog person - plain and simple. I had a cat as a kid, appropriately and creatively named: Tabby. She was the second and for the most part last pet I had in my youth and I so badly wished she was a dog. I even had a hot pink rhinestone harness and leash for her in the hopes that maybe she would want to go out for a walk one day. No such luck friends, cats do not like to be walked. True story.

With that being said I do have many friends who love them some cats. I’ve been known to review their cat selections on the Humane Society adoption webpage but nothing major - like I said I don’t like cats.

What I do love however are LOL Cats! Fantastic. Some of my co-workers are also fans of the LOL cats and many a LOL cat get passed around the emails amidst the actual work.

Here’s my favorite of the week:

I sent this especially to The Sox Fan and later realized that black and orange cat, that’s The Sox Fan. And naturally that orange cat is totally me. It’s better when you really think about it and realize that truly summarizes us. The Sox Fan, being serious and unamused and there I am doing something wacky messing up the vibe he’s putting out. So awesome.

So friends, if you also heart the LOL cats, feel free to send those along and I too will add you to my distribution list.

The Power of a Skirt

I will be the first to admit that I do not come across as a super girly girl. I don’t own a great deal (read: any) pink clothing, I don’t really own pastel colored clothing. I stick with the basics, black, browns, a bit of red here and there and greens. Pretty standard and while I do consider myself to be fairly stylish my personal style would never be called “girly” - it’s more classic or contemporary. I do, like most young women enjoy wearing dresses and an occasional skirt - who doesn’t like getting dressed up every so often?

I used to work for a company with a really strict dress code. I’m not talking about suits only. I’m talking about a 30 some odd PowerPoint slide deck detailing what is and is not acceptable for office attire. Some of my favorite details of the dress code included: no chipped nail polish on fingers or toes, no dark nail colors, shoes must cover the toes or the heels (if your toes are showing your heels have to be covered) just some of the craziest rules I have ever heard of. Crazy.

So when I moved jobs I was able to shed the bland Banana Republic suit hell that was my life for an extended period of time and start wearing jeans, hoodies and a much more day to day realistic clothing approach. I thought at first it was too good to be true. I wore dresses for the first 4 days of my job - then I finally broke down and wore jeans.

It’s pretty much been jeans, khakis, cropped jeans and long shorts for the last 7 months straight. For a few occasions I have busted out dress slacks and a dress here and there but like I said, I’m reveling in my new found dress code happiness.

So this week when I was in the middle of the great laundry cleaning of 2008 and thought it was going to be a sunny day I did something I haven’t for a while. I busted out the mid-length skirt. Nothing crazy - just a slightly longer than the knee flowy red and black skirt with a black cardigan and cute sandals.

Within 3 minutes (not kidding) I had 4 comments on my skirt. Not just women noting, “hey, cute skirt” but dudes…yes, dudes “you’re wearing a skirt” or “nice dress…skirt…thing”. Apparently I’ve been wearing jeans for so long this skirt incident was a shocker to people’s systems.

Who knew a skirt could cause such a scene? I would normally be a little concerned or self concious about the whole thing but when I slipped into my jeans again this morning I realized I didn’t care, because I could be stuck wearing a suit.

Mosaic Fun

Yes, I used this mosaic fun time tip from Mego to distract me from what is turning into graphic production hell. Long story, but let’s just say this, I can’t wait for this show to ship out. If something can go wrong, it will, and as of right now, it practically has.

Anywho, mosaic magic time:

Meme rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker and post to your own blog or flickr page!

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I don’t think any of you can figure out the answers to mine by the way. If you do, well then I guess we’ll work out a fantastic prize.

Savvy 6 Part 3

A lot of time has passed since I last blogged. Mostly because of work related events, long days, longer nights, big events, Starlight Parade winning floats - standard busy work for an average individual. So in an attempt to break back into the blogging world here’s the Savvy 6 Part 3.

Recently I dug out my 20GB iPod from college - the huge white one with the two-tone screen - the original before Mac got all slick and tiny. The Sox Fan sent me a link to download a program to link your old iPod to your current iTunes and therefore allowing the transfer of all those fantastic albums to once again be part of my mainstream music scene. Kudos to The Sox Fan for this find. So you see this round of Savvy 6 is new and improved - supplemented with some great mix tape albums and music that wasn’t at my immediate disposal.

*Trust me, this summer, blogging will once again be the new black. It will be monumental. Just you wait and see.

“Here You Me”- Jimmy Eat World
I always thought this to be a romantic song - maybe it was being in college and getting all swooney when boys would play guitar around me. I’m a girl, I can admit it - boys playing guitar and the idea of some cute shaggy haired boy writing and performing a love song is about the most romantic thing I could think of in college. I do now wonder if the song is about death, this latest listen makes me wonder…well, that and what happened to Jimmy Eat World?

“Anticipating” - Britney Spears
This was my favorite Britney song freshman year of college - Spring term. I can still remember having dance parties to this in the dorm room I shared with Blondie. It has that great poppy light vibe that made me want to have fun, run around campus with my dorm mates giggling and filming  a crazy night tour video. I miss this Britney - cute, somewhat innocent, super fun - just the kind of girl I would be friends with versus be scared she would run me over in some drunk driving incident.

“How to be Dead” - Snow Patrol
Ah yes, another song that will always be linked to junior year of college and a boy. All the good ones link back to boys, or traumatic events…which sometimes are the same. At the time I remember the dedication of this song to me as something strange - I didn’t really get it at the time. Having stepped out of the situation I can see it was a sincere, emotional and while not superbly pretty an honest gesture. It’s a great song. This is also one of the few songs that when I look at the lyrics I literally can not pick out my favorite two lines. And that is really saying something…I’m choosy like that.

“Dead on Arrival” - Fall Out Boy
Yes, I think it’s strange that the last two songs have “dead” in the title. This is one of my favorite running songs - it has that great beat that makes it easy to launch into a workout that releases pent up tension. Favorite line: A rivalry goes so deep, Between me and this loss of sleep over you. And yes, this is from early pre-MTV Fall Out Boy…I am that hard core. Okay, not really.

“Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” - John Mayer
Before John Mayer got all creepy and dated half of the female celebrities in America he was a musician I adored. I still love his music and this song was my favorite off of the Continuum album. Granted this song is about a break-up it’s actually most fitting for most of my relationships. Best line:

I was the one you always dreamed of
You were the one I tried to draw
How dare you say it’s nothing to me
Baby, you’re the only light I ever saw

“Sweet Emotion” - Aerosmith
This is one of my Top 5 songs. EVER. Maybe it’s the fantastic intro, maybe it’s the high school friends and great times it reminds me of. Maybe it’s the fact that both my dad and I can relate to music by Aerosmith and other classic rock artists. I don’t know but I love this song and when you are as big of a music geek as I am it’s pretty damn hard to be in the Top 5. Plus, this song always puts me in a good mood and I somehow always end up rocking out to it.

Blast from the Past

OH friends, where to begin. Clearly I have been on a blog hiatus. I haven’t had a great deal of time and to be honest I haven’t had a really any inspiration for blog topics. Work is busy and hectic and much like any office job after spending a solid portion of my daily existence staring into a computer screen the last thing I really want to do when I get home is pop on my laptop and delve back into that neon light yet again.

I’ve really not been up to much as of late, I read three books in 2.5 weeks - from topics that included a romantic love story involving time travel (for my book club…go ahead…laugh…yes, I am in a book club, one that I helped to start and NO this was not my suggestion), one about Vegas and MIT card counters, and one sarcastic tale of a girls quarter life crisis where she runs away from her stable guy, job and frankly her life. (For the record I was not the author of the last one…crazy, I know).

Besides reading and working I have been busy over-analyzing my personal life, making rash statements, being a brat and a general pain to be around - so all in all I’ve been a total peach.

Today I was cleaning through a pile of files from when I left my former job and came across a thumb drive that I hadn’t seen for long amount of time. My curious nature set in and I popped it in. WHOA there trip down memory lane - among other artifacts from my college computer included on this thumb drive was a folder of what I guess post-college graduation I determined was music that had to be taken off my old computer. Mostly Glen Philips, some early pre-signed John Mayer, Jimmy Eat World, The Roots, Lisa Loeb and Dire Straits.

For some strange reason I have the hardest time expressing my emotions, feelings and train of thought when it comes to really, well anything beyond giving others advice, my opinions or work. When it comes to my own life I am clueless. Clue. Less. As of late it’s resulted in a number of long, drawn out and hard to follow “conversations” with The Sox Fan. When I added all the aforementioned historic J-Dub life music/college soundtrack to my iTunes tonight I could remember exactly how I felt at the time where this music was integrated into my daily life, I could remember what I was emotionally going through and now that I guess I am looking back on it I can know what I “should” have done or what was a bad idea for me in dealing with life. I found it partially alarming that the only way I am able to gain insight into my life was through music I used to listen to 6 years ago…so I’ll be shifting my energy to analyzing this new revelation.

Book Store A.D.D.

I like to think of myself as a free-thinker. I attended a liberal college in a town where May Day riots and legalizing marajuana parades are frequent and not really seen as odd. I’ve owned birkenstocks and while I can’t allow myself to go more than a day without a shower I do have a pretty laid back go with the flow view on some aspects of my life. All this is thrown by the way side when I enter a book store.

Disclaimer: This over-arching revelation of my life extends beyond book stores to Target, Best Buy, well really most stores…but books are the prime example for simplifying this in this blog. Go with it.

The Sox Fan is a consumer whore. He’s open about it. For example, we were watching television and he was sucked into the Pasta Hut commercials. The man feels an urge to test out Pizza Hut’s new menu expansion because their commercial shows hidden cameras capturing pleased customers eating Pasta Hut food in a nice Italian restaurant setting and not knowing the difference. He is aware of his ability to be sucked into consumerism and he’s okay with it.

I feel like I should be morally opposed or should feel some sort of angst when marketers attempt to suck me into their products (granted this may or may not have been the field I studied in college and may or may not have something to do with how I make my lively hood) but I realized this weekend while at the book store I’ve been sucked into the vortex. I know how it started, it’s those damn “Buy 2 get one free” tables. I always find one book I’ve seen around or heard a lot about that I want to buy. Then I feel like, hell, I should take advantage of the deal and I pick out another book. Then I need to pick out one to be discounted…and so the cycle continues.

Plus, I’ve created this habit where I like reading the books before I see the movie. Totally geeky I know, but there truly is a difference and I have to admit often times the books are better (or make more sense) for when the movie leaves gaps a.k.a. Into the Wild.

These tables of multi-book offers also lead me to find authors I like and then suddenly I need to buy all their books just because I enjoy them. Being in a book club also is not helping this situation for me either…more books to buy.

Some people might say use the library, curb your spending. Well here’s the real root of the issue, I rarely have a list of books I want - in the most consumer way possible I’ve become reliant on the book store to supply me with displays and specialty tables to identify books I might end up reading. And in the final real seal the deal clincher I compulsively not only go to the book store but I always buy something. Always.

Today I tried to break the spending mold. For the last few trips to the book store I’ve seen books I wanted that were not on these glorious discounted tables and I took the time to write down their titles and today I successfully sought them out on a discounted book seller site. I did this because I noticed that with a certain monetary level of purchases there was free shipping. Free shipping and cheaper books, I’m sold.

The only issue to contend with than was my need for instant gratification. Well guess what friends, when you’ve got a stack of 10 books in your kitchen that have accumulated over the last handful of trips to the book store you can mentally wait out the 3-5 business days for the shipment of 3 new books to arrive.

I know I am a geek, but look at it this way, my addiction could be to something illegal or painful to those around me - and if this addiction leads to people calling me a geek but no bodily injury or fear of being hauled off to jail well, I think I’ve got a good thing going.

Except for that whole consumer dependency compulsive A.D.D….

Raspy Voice and Being Lindsay Lohan

I survived The Vegas. 6 days, 1 large corporate event, my first business travel with the new company - I made it. We had awesome rooms - suites actually - at the Palazzo, the newest hotel on the Venetian property complete with sunken living rooms, 3 plasmas - including viewable from the shower so I could get my SportsCenter fix while waking up. It’s hard to know where exactly to begin in re-capping this event but I’ll gloss over the main points.

1. I drove a white Ford Econoline 8 person van around the airport, The Strip and throughout the neighboring Vegas areas. It was huge, hard to handle and being that I am all of 5′ 3″ I could barely be seen over the massive steering column. I picked up staging dudes from the airport, I drove to New Mexico and back (practically) getting all sorts of random shenanigans including $700 in printer ink cartridges. I had to park that bad boy in only one small section of available “oversize” parking spots in a hotel parking structure which was hell enough and led to at least one violent outburst on the steering wheel. Large van = lame.

2. I never slept for more than 4 hours a night. Tops. As an editor’s note: the 4 hours maximum I mentioned may have only been obtained on one of the nights I was gracing The Vegas with my presence. Oh and those small number of hours I was sleeping - well, that was after having been on my feet running around like a crazy person for 16+ hour work days. I love frantic frazzled working.

3. I entertained a celebrity talent. I was talent wrangler and even though I get nervous around strangers and people I don’t know (true story, most people just can’t tell because I cover my nerves with pointless but witty banter). I collected him from the airport, we had dinner together backstage, I provided color commentary and observational analysis about the event thus far to him. He mentioned a quip of mine while performing. I think we’re homies.

4. Dealertainers. Yes, dealers in casinos dressed and lipsyncing on stage to their songs. This was of course a rare gem I experienced at the Imperial Palace…a place I never again plan to visit because I found myself there for at least 3 nights in A ROW. (Not my choice). My favorite dealertainer = Fake Billy Idol. He really went all out for the look and clearly took pride in his performances on the main stage, but his fist pump was weak. One night after a few J&C’s I was walking back from the restroom, saw him and said “Hey Fake Billy Idol” to which he replied in a pathetic, defeated tone “Fake?”. Yeah, FAKE. Dude, you are not a Billy Idol impersonator in a show, you are a dealer to touch screen electronic roulette tables. Rebel Yell is not your authentic work.

After my LONG adventure into Las Vegas I came away with a raspy, old woman smoker voice/cough. It partly is the nasty cold but I know it’s also all that time in smoky casinos and especially in the Palazzo property and casino where they pipe in the most overwhelming and musky fragrant floral old lady perfume. It seriously burned through my sinuses. Sick.

When I got back from Vegas I knew I was tired but when I literally went to bed and did not emerge from my bed and wake up for 17 hours I was a firm believer that Lindsay Lohan and those other teen beat queens are not lying when they run away to a resort because they are suffering from exhaustion. I was wiped out and my body was not having it. It probably didn’t help that I drank virtually no water, rarely ate  and lived off orange gatorade and J&C’s for 6 days straight on no sleep…oops.

I’m back, still hacking up a little of the vegas that lingers in my lungs but getting back to 100%.

Dear Vegas, I still love you. But we need to have this trial seperation until I am healthy and mentally ready to take you on again. I’ll do my best to adhere to my 3 day maximum rule in the future. Thanks for the good times. xoxo, JDub.

A little life update

It was brought to my attention that my blogging frequency has slowed a bit. Apparently there are readers that I’ve been neglecting. Here are some of the reasons for why my blogging has slowed down:

1. Work has been crazy busy and after stressful/busy days in front of a computer I max out and can’t get myself to blog at night. Simple solution you say: Blog from work - ugh, I wish I had that kind of time.

2.  I’ve turned the nerd-o-meter to full blast and have been reading much more frequently. What used to be right before calling The Sox Fan/going to bed reading it’s now become weekend wake-up lay in bed reading until mid-day or post work/pre gym reading. I also have a stack of books on my kitchen counter I’m planning to read. I don’t cook much so the kitchen is a perfectly natural place to store books in waiting. Don’t judge me.

3. I signed up for Netflix. After hearing for over a year how magical it is to some of my friends lives I decided to give it a shot. Mostly because I was ill and didn’t want to physically go to the video store, set up an account at the location closest to my home and I know I would forget to take them back or they would be out of what I wanted to see when I went in. I have to admit I do miss the instant gratification from picking a movie from the shelf and bringing it home. But what I don’t miss is going to the store, finding a movie and then dealing with the defeat when they are all out. Plus, I love getting mail. Love it.

4. I have a backlog of magazines that are not getting processed/read as quickly as they need to. I for some reason have to take a magazine to the gym when I do cardio. It’s usually US Weekly - before you judge let me note this - they are the perfect length for an hour of cardio and are mindless so I don’t have to worry about getting really engrossed into an article only to mis-step and hurt myself while falling of a machine. Anywho, between the US Weekly’s I compulsively buy at the market and the two subscriptions I have there is also a magazine stack in the kitchen.

So there, in the midst of being more scholarly and athletic my blogging has suffered. My bad.

Although now I am using my blog as a way to procrastinate on packing. Ugh - I hate packing. Back when I was traveling every month for the old company I was a pro, I could pack a bag for a week internationally in about 15 minutes. I’m a little rusty these days - the first step tonight will be unpacking my suitcase from my last trip to Vegas…oops.

That’s right friends, I’m headed back to Sin City - this time I will be there for work. I think there might be time to fit in some shenanigans  - the number one story I think will be me renting and driving a 15 passenger van on and around The Strip. Yikes - think good thoughts.

Damaged and Lip Gloss

I will admit it. I watched every episode of Making the Band 4. I had to know what was going on with the girls, the guys, the hookups, the drama of that many people in one house. I felt this strange urge to know whether Dawn and Q were going to make it and whether Diddy was going to lose it on Aubrey O’Day. I don’t really know why. I didn’t buy Danity Kane’s first album, I didn’t watch Making the Band 3 at all.  But there I was - recording episodes and giving re-caps/analyzations of the their antics with my friends.

During the course of watching the show, which follows both the guy group - Day 26, the girl group - Danity Kane, and the solo artist - Donnie, that make up Diddy’s proteges I was able to hear tidbits of songs off their new albums and suddenly I was smitten with “Damaged” by Danity Kane. I love it. Little known fact - well maybe not little known but I do tend to keep it a secret I suppose - I like pop music - I like the catchy beats and mostly I like music that allows me to dance while flipping my hair a lot. If you’ve seen me out dancing or just hyper somewhere with loud music you’ve seen this sweet dance move. (I know right now there are readers nodding - acknowledging my rowdy hair flipping dance moves.)

Anyhow, back to the point. “Damaged”. So fitting for my life but I think what I really like about it is that it really is a sad topic but the bass and fast tempo keeps you optimistic. Very tricky Diddy…very tricky.

While I could write a long blog about being confused, sad, frustrated, angst ridden and the other whatnot that is so quaintly my love life I think it’s time to lighten up life a little here in blog land. Plus, what better to lighten things up then discuss the single item that might be returning me to the giddy girly happy love life radar.

Lip gloss.

I did a little retail therapy this weekend and picked up some sparkly, spring toned MAC plush glass. Magic in a bottle. I’ve never been much of a lip gloss/lipstick wearer. I think this is partially because I just don’t really think through that final step and previous dudes I’ve dated always expressed their annoyance at lip products. But let me tell you this, not only does lip gloss really polish off a complete look, it really just is fun and makes every girl feel just that extra bit girly.

Since venturing into the land of daily lip gloss wearers (Day 3 was today people) I’ve received quite a few compliments and from what I can tell a little bit of flirtational vibes. I could be wrong, and I’m always the most cautious and usually last to know when someone is expressing an interest in me but there could possibly be some interesting developments on the JDub front.
Plus, lip gloss is the perfect compliment to a fun new dance song and of course my signature moves.