In Search of Myself

Stopping the Blog Troll.

I am sick of blog trolls.  It needs to stop.

There is someone in Lombard, Illinois that has no friends and has nothing better to do with her time than be jealous of OUR friendships.  It's not our fault that we are close.  Get over yourself.  Stop being a bitch, and go away.  You are really pissing me off.  It's one thing to get an occasional snarky comment from someone who disagrees with a particular post.  But this woman is fucking STALKING our blogs, and that is sick. 

For the rest of us, let's do something productive about it.  Here is her IP address from her visit to MY blog: 69.210.242.192  The internet service she uses is through ameritech.net.

I would like for everyone to search their comments for this IP address to narrow down/weed out possibilities for who it is.  How to do this:

If you have Typepad:
go to the comment section of your blog.  List comments.  Under filter options, where it says "view comments where the," select "IP address" for the first box, then paste in this address and hit the "filter" button.  This will list for you if this person has ever commented on your blog, and we can weed out who it may or may not be.  If you find out who it is, fucking OUT them.  If through finding IP address of comments you see that they have commented under a different IP address, list that here so we can check the other addresses, too.

If you want to block this person from commenting on your blog:
in Typepad, go to the Control Panel of your account.  In the "overview" tab, under Control Panel Shortcuts, there is a "Block someone from commenting" link.  Click on this, type in the IP address, and hit "ADD."  If we all block this person from commenting, she can't keep pissing us off.  Of course, she can go to a library or a friend's house to comment, but that would just be fucking sad.

I personally think anyone who gets a mean comment from her should delete the comment.  We have the capability to easily do this -- leaving it up just lets the hurtful message be read by others.  What's the point of that?

I will continue to research how else we can track down this person -- we are NOT going to let her ruin what we have.  Bitch, consider yourself warned.

Let's cook.

Our weekend was absurdly boring: we did housework, we took naps, we just hung out.  It was nice.  Jake tested my patience a few times, but on the whole we had a good time together.  He's totally cracking me up lately.

He uses the little chairs that go with his desk to climb up on to reach things.  He pushed the chair over by the oven, grabbed an oven mitt, a cracker, and a mixer prong and was shuffling them around.  I said "What are you doing?"  He said "I cookin', mama."  I laughed at him and said "Well you really shouldn't play by the oven."  And he said "I big now, mama."  Ha ha!  How do you argue with that?

Jake's also been opening the fridge to look around -- which I am TOTALLY against him doing, but he's fast, and he's there and taking stuff out before I can intercept him.  Mostly he picks out yogurt or cheese, sometimes a hotdog.  Sometimes he just stands there -- like I always do -- wondering what there is to eat, wishing we had bought more at the grocery store, I guess.  Saturday he pointed to the top of the door and said "Cookies.  Make cookies, mama."  Luckily we have the place and bake cookies (is there any other kind?), so I made the 5 that were left.  (And the pack has actually lasted me a few weeks, we just make a couple at a time.)   It's freaking genius to sell the cookies that way -- who has time to make cookies from scratch anymore?  Ok, I might have had the time, but certainly not the energy.  And I DO know how to make cookies from scratch, mom and I used to do it all the time.  But you have to have all the ingredients in the house, in the right amounts.  You have to wait for the butter to get soft.  You have to mix everything together (which is hard, even if the butter IS soft.)  I can't always get the mixture the right consistancy, so sometimes the whole batch is ruined.  But damn, those place and bake -- you open the package and you're good to go.  Freaking genius.  But anyway, I made the cookies and Jake was pretty excited.  The next day he asked me to make cookies again, and I said "We made them all, they're all gone."  So he said "Buy more, mama."  heh.

P.S. Star Wars was awesome.  It really does answer all your questions about the original 3, and damn -- Hayden Christensen is HOT!!!  heh.

For Priscilla

  Hey girl -- this is the fastest and least complicated way I can think of to show you the pages I've made for you digitally this week (click on each picture to see it enlarged ~ then right click/save as to download the page to your desktop).  When I get paid next week I'll be putting in an order to get all my current digi pages printed (they're only $2 a piece!  sweet!).  Hopefully I'll crank out some more next week, too.  ;o)

For everyone else: I'm on my way out the door, seeing Star Wars with the hubby tonight (Nana, once again, is coming to the rescue and baby-sitting Jake.  I need to buy her something cool when I get paid next week, eh? Anyone have any ideas?)  Have a great weekend everyone!

Jen

P.S. if anyone is wondering, I got the elements for these pages at Shabby Princess' Shabby Shoppe; it's the Granny's Parlor collection.  9 papers for $3.50 ~ I can use them again and again, it's SO freakin' awesome!  She is such a wonderfully nice person, always quick with customer service, always answers my e-mails and is nice to me even though I'm crazy.  She has lots of freebies over at Shabby Princess, and elements to buy at the Shabby Shoppe.

Who's up for a Jake-ism or two?

*Before I start -- I put a picture up of the desserts I tasted/judged yesterday!  Scroll down!*

Ok, this first one's not funny, but the other ones are.  Jake bonked me on the head HARD on Sunday.  I still have a bruise, actually.  I was trying to make him take a nap (this was after church, a baby shower, and a piano recital -- so I picked him up from my mom's at like 2:30 p.m., he was almost ready for a nap and I was freakin' tired.)  He was fighting going to sleep and I was frustrated because I was so tired.  Lou had just laid down with us in the bed, and Jake was sitting up.  I told him to lay down, and he reared his head up and straight back -- landing just to the side of my eye.  It hurt really bad and I screamed and it freaked him out -- Lou picked him up while I dealt with the shock.  It felt like I'd been punched in the side of the head.  I think after the initial pain, Jake was more upset than me.  He was crying pretty hard.  Lou got me an ice pack while I let Jake lay back down with me -- he felt really bad and was apologizing the rest of the day.  He kept saying "sorry.  sorry.  hit head.  sorry."  I kept telling him it was ok, that I wasn't mad and that he just needed to be more careful, but he kept saying sorry.  I really hope that was enough to get him to stop doing it, though, because we've had problems with that before.  He goes head-first into everything -- literally -- and doesn't think ahead to what he's going to hit.  (And usually it's me.)

Jake's also really understanding the concept of cleaning up.  He's been singing the "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere . . ." song lately -- I asked my mom where he learned it, because we don't really sing it much at our house.  I said "And I know he doesn't watch Barney . . ." (I HATE Barney, ya'll.  For so many reasons that I don't have the energy to go into right now.  Barney just annoys the living hell out of me, and I always swore my children would never watch it.)  Mom got quiet and looked guilty and I said "WHOAH, does he watch Barney over here?" and she said "Well, it comes on the TV sometimes and the kids like it . . ."  Here I was, so proud that we'd gone 2.5 years with Jake never being exposed to the stupid purple dinosaur, and my own mother introduced it.  Sheesh.  I feel so betrayed . . .  Oh, but anyway -- Jake loves to walk around the living room with a cup of water, and sometimes he spills it.  When he does, he says "Uh-oh, clean it" and he goes to the kitchen to get a hand towel, trots back over and dabs up the water (not well, but he tries.)  If there's not a hand towel on the stove, he reaches toward the paper towels and says "Can't reach it."  (It's so cute.)  He tells me all the time to clean him off when he's done eating -- "Mama, clean it" -- and he's obsessed with washing his hands and brushing his teeth.  (Yes, I know this is a good thing.)  He's always sneaking off to the bathroom to play with the water (he doesn't get far without me, and our house is small so he's never unsupervised.)  He tries to brush his teeth with my toothbrush, too.  (Dude, he won't stop grabbing my toothbrush.  I'm going to have to hang it from the ceiling or something.)  Oh, and if he spills something on his shirt or he's just tired of wearing it, he'll try to pull it off and say "Needs washed."  heh.

~ ~ ~

I'm really interested in psychology . . . why people act the way they do, what their motivations are, nature vs. nurture, etc.  One concept I really think is interesting is classical conditioning.  (Don't ask me to explain it in a nutshell, I don't have the energy.)  Pretty much my version of it, is if Jake is guided to do a certain thing enough times, he'll start doing it on his own.  Or if I introduce a concept to him enough, he'll just internalize it.  (Yes, I brainwash my child.  Don't you?)  For example, whenever we see someone smoking, I say "Oh, that's bad.  Cigarettes are very bad," and he repeats "Very bad."  (No, I don't say this in earshot of smokers.  I'm not attacking them, I'm trying to make sure my son understand that smoking is disgusting and it's stupid to start.)  Now when he sees a smoker, he automatically says "Very very bad."  heh.  My mom has him trained to never go in the backyard without shoes and a hat.  Sometimes I forget and I'll start to take him outside to play and he'll stop, run to the bookshelf in the kitchen, grab his hat and put it on.  Smart kid.

So usually when Jake and I are in the car driving home from Nana's, we have a series of mini-little conversations.  It's a 12 minute drive from my mom's house to my house.  When I strap him into his seatbelt, I tell him to be a good boy and leave his seat belt on and I give him a kiss and I say I love you.  He's finally started to say I love you back, which is freakin' adorable.  Usually when we turn from Nana's road to the main road, he starts saying "Mama, miss dog," and I say "Do you miss Sadie dog?" and he says "yeah."  Then I say "I missed you while I was at work today, did you miss me?" and he says "yeah." When we drive by the big park, he always says some variation of "Park!  There.  Slide.  Play," sometimes before the park is even in sight.  Then at the stoplight by Walgreens (which is always long), we play peek-a-boo or I reach back to try to tickle him or we make animal sounds or talk about the cars around us.  And we have a game where I'll say stuff just to see if he'll repeat me.  I usually start with "I love you," then get silly from there.  My favorite to hear him say is "You're the best mommy ever."  It's SO cute the way he pronounces the words -- it sounds like "beh mommy eh-uh." And I always laugh hilariously when he says it, because it's so cute -- and he laughs because I laugh. 

So in the past few days, when I've told Jake I love him, he's responded with "beh mommy eh-uh," and he has a huge grin on his face when he says it, because he knows how I'm going to respond.  You know, I just might get him trained yet.  ;o)

Stressed about Desserts

Ya know how people say that stressed is just desserts spelled backwards?  Yeah, whatever.  My boss volunteered me to be a dessert judge at the [University] Staff Bake-Off today.  The problem?  Dude, there are like 15 desserts entered -- whatever decision I make is going to make one person really happy and 14 people very disappointed.  I don't need this kind of stress!!!

I'll update later to let you know how it went.  Urg.

~ ~ ~

Ok, that so totally sucked.  There were 17 entries, 3 categories.  (Pies, cakes, and "other.")  The three other judges each judged one category, so I just had to choose between their top choices.  (But yes, I did get to have something of everything I liked afterwards.)  The top three choices weren't all that impressive, and certainly nothing that *I* would have picked to win.  It was between a cocunt cake (dude, yuck), a shortbread cookie (bland and dry), and an apple pie.  I don't normally like apple pie, but this one was pretty good, so I chose that as the overall winner.  The two desserts that I REALLY liked -- one was a layered strawberry banana pudding whipped cream thing, one was a layered chocolate whipped cream crunched up Heath bars thing -- I didn't get to choose. THOSE were the ones at the end of the event with absolutely nothing left in them, those were the ones that everyone really liked. Sheesh.

*edited with picture!!!* the [university] "FYI" weekly e-mail thing had this picture in it, so I can finally show you my favorites!  The lady in the blue suit on the left is my boss.  The lady who won with the apple pie is at the end of the table in a green shirt and khaki jacket.  The strawberry dessert in the elevated cake dish was my favorite, and my chocolate favorite is in the bottom right corner.

My new camera . . . part 1.

I am the proud new owner of a Nikon CoolPix 5600.  I have yet to figure out all the settings and get used to the way the camera works (including just how hard I need to squeeze the button to take a picture and time it just right to get the smile instead of the eye roll afterwards.)

Last Wednesday (May 11th) after Evie's lesson (no more Wednesday night church baby-sitting for me!  They finally found a replacement!!!), I went to Wolf Camera.  I was there to just talk over my options with them.  After being told that there's no hope for my stupid broken Kodak, we started talking new camera options.  We talked for about 30 minutes, and I told the guy I was going to think about all of it and come back in a few days.

I settled on the Nikon brand because the D70 is my dream camera and I may as well jump in the Nikon pool and get my feet wet.  Also, the camera I chose takes the same memory card that I already had two of.  Lou bought me a 128mb card for Christmas this year (which I'm guessing was at least $50 or $60) and I have other one I spent $50 on -- I wasn't going to waste those.  Throwing those to the wind plus buying new cards for a different camera would REALLY put me out $200 if you think about it.  So I initially decided on the Nikon CoolPix 4600.

Monday (May 16th) after work I went to Wolf Camera and applied for in-store credit.  I talked it over with Lou and he said as long as it was MY credit and I was responsible about it, it was ok with him.  (I don't think that couples should run up debt -- even independently -- and not keep each other aware of all of it.  Regardless of keeping money seperate -- which we mostly do -- we're still in this together and my debt load affects him, too.  ANYWAY.)  As the guy was calling it in, I stood there trying to be nonchalant, hoping that I would get approved (I've been working hard since college to get my credit good), and approved for at least $400.  $400 would cover the cost of the camera, the 3 year warranty (I've learned my lesson about warranties) any maybe a little left for a new $15 camera bag.  (Jake thinks my old little $8 camera bag is his, and I'm tired of fighting with him about it.)

So the guy finally comes back from calling in my credit application, and he says "Good news, they approved you . . . for $4,000."  WHAT?  Smoking crack much?  Briefly a thought runs through my head that theoretically I could now buy the D70, as I have enough in-store credit to cover it.  But the practical person in me takes over and tells the dreamer in me that being able to pay off the camera in 6 months to avoid absurd finance charges is more important than livin' the dream.  But DAMN.  My credit can't be THAT bad if a store trusts me with a $4,000 credit line.  So I get the camera and the warranty, and I ask the guy "Now if I get this camera home and I decide I hate it, what are my options?"  And he said "We stand behind our cameras and you have a 10 day return period."  Which came in pretty damn handy.

Do you want to know the difference between the 4600 and the 5600?  Aside from a small mega-pixels difference, the major thing is the 4600 takes video, but not with sound.  You have to have the 5600 for sound to your videos.  Now why the FUCK would I want a video with no sound?  What the hell?  It didn't even OCCUR to me that taking videos WITHOUT sound would be an option for functions of a camera, so I didn't think to double check on that one.  I mean, the sales flyer for the 4600 mentioned video capabilities but it didn't say "HEY, that's video with no fucking sound."  So upon making that discovery once I was home, I packed it all back up in the box.

I went back to Wolf Tuesday after work and a piano lesson, only to discover they didn't have any 5600s in stock at the moment.  But there was a guy there who normally worked at the Wolf location at the mall on the way to my house, and he was pretty sure they would have one there on Wednesday.  So Wednesday after Evie's piano lesson I had to go to the freaking mall (I hate the mall) and pick up my REAL new camera.  They switched it out no problem, but it cost more -- the camera was an extra $50, and the warranty on the more expensive camera was another $45.  But whatever.  It's on my credit.  heh.

Dum dum da dum . . .

Lou is on vacation for the rest of the week.  Quick, can you guess why?

. . .

. . .

That's right, it's because of the Star Wars premiere.  He's going to the midnight show tonight (what, and YOU'RE not?  heh), and he will probably see it several times Thursday, then see it with me on Friday night.

I don't know if I've written lately about how much Star Wars stuff we have in our house.  It's more effective with pictures, which I just don't have right now.  Jake has two pairs of Star Wars shoes.  Two t-shirts (I really like the Yoda one.)  Oh, and let's not forget his handy dandy bedsheets (this is the best picture of them I could find online).  We honestly have most of the things listed on this page.  And we did end up getting Darth Tater.  Jake gets a kick out of the toys, although he doesn't really understand what Star Wars IS. We won't get into how many versions of each of the movies we own.   (Lou has his reasons for each of them, and I've finally learned with his movies and video games, I just don't ask questions.  And he's figured out the same about my scrapbooking supplies.  heh.)

(oh, and the title of this entry was supposed to imply the Darth Vader theme, not the wedding march . . . the Vader theme has been in my head ALL DAY LONG because I heard it on the radio this morning!)

May the force be with you.

Hee hee hee.

As always, props to Shabby Princess on the page elements (she's so totally my favorite designer.)  If any of you ever want to do something REALLY nice for me, you can get me a gift certificate to her Shabby Shoppe.  heh.

P.S. my nephew Chris left a comment on my blog!  Yay!  (see "Lil Chris on A happy little moment" under recent comments.)  Now I feel loved.  ;o)

Blog Stickers.

This entry is so I can image host these stickers for jenstrange.com (too complicated to do it there.  Typepad just makes more sense to me.)

BLOGGING:

 

FAMILY:

ATTITUDE:

A happy little moment.

Last week was hard for me because Jake was sick.  I'm happy to report he is on the mend and will hopefully soon gain back the 4 pounds he lost (luckily he started out at 38 pounds before he was sick, so he could afford to lose a little.  He's so skinny now, though!  He's 40 inches tall, looks like a bean pole.  And damn, I wish I could lose almost 10% of my body weight by hardly eating for a week!  heh.)

Anyway, last Monday night when Jake and I got home, I sat on the couch to finish folding laundry while Lou did dishes and cooked us dinner.  Jake was supposed to be playing with his toys, but he didn't feel good so he sat next to me on the couch and we watched Nanny 911.  I sat there thinking: damn, our lives are exciting.  ;o)  But you know, someone has to do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, and things like that are just part of life.  There's a calming rhythm to it if you let there be.  The best part of the night was when Jake crawled up in my lap and went to sleep within 30 seconds (very out of character, but he wasn't feeling very well).  I held him for 10 minutes instead of laying him back down immediately -- just held my arms around his little body and rested my cheek on his head.  Then I leaned back to look at him before laying him down, and I discovered a cute little mole on his right cheek that I hadn't noticed before.  ;o)  That was a nice moment.  It made me think of when people say enjoy the little things in life, because one day you'll realize they weren't so little.