To comment or not to comment

Like Morgan, I’ve been meaning to write a number of different posts for awhile now, but for various reasons, I just haven’t. Various reasons include laziness, Parenthood, eating, and inability to put two thoughts together. Unfortunately for all of you, my ideas aren’t quite as motivating/prayerful/holy/awesome as hers…see vulnerability and patience. But it’s Monday night and I’m sitting here watching a super old rerun of Criminal Minds that I’ve probably seen 10 times, so I figured I’d try and knock one out. Plus it came to mind as I was reading through all the posts I’ve missed in the past couple of days. And now that I've got you on the edge of your seats waiting for me to reveal this elusive topic, I’ll drone on for a few more sentences and really get you excited. :) Hahah juuust kidding. Here.we.go.

What the heck is the proper etiquette for commenting on someone’s blog for the first time, especially if you’ve been following them for a few months without saying anything? Wow, that came out MUCH creepier than I intended. Hahaha let's ignore those paparazzi-like images popping up and just move right along before I do an even more splendid job of making myself sound like a real creep! But seriously…so many questions come up—

·      Should you put your own blog after your name to encourage them to check out the truly enlightening things you share or is that being too forward?

·      Do you have to let them know how you found their blog? And what if you don’t remember anymore?

·      How long can you continue to follow someone’s blog without commenting before you’ve just lost all opportunity to say anything without revealing that you’ve basically been stalking them due to references you make to posts from 5 months earlier?

·      Should you tell them it was nice to “meet” them at the end so that they know this isn't just a one time deal?

·      And finally, how many times do you have to comment on someone’s blog before you can start referring to them as a friend in everyday conversation?

So there you have it. These are the kinds of thoughts that keep me up at night… or at least keep me from commenting on your blog ;) Because we all know how annoyed we get when someone new comments on our blogs, right? That’s just the worst! Much worse than pickle juice in your eye. (The reference is somewhere in this clip…hahaha but it’s all funny so if you’ve got the time, you should just watch the whole thing!) So you can understand where all of these questions are coming from. You can’t just walk into these things blindly! (now would be a good time for someone to invent a sarcasm font. Hahaha).

Well I think I've done a fair job of filling my random-thought quota for the week so I'm off to rot my brain with TV and my teeth with ice cream. :)

Just Call Me Sleepy the Dwarf

I can’t seem to put two thoughts together this week, hence the almost complete lack of posts. Every time I try and think of a subject to talk about, my brain goes on scatter mode and refuses to stay on one thought for more than 7 seconds which makes it pretty hard to write about something without it sounding like this:

“I really need to think about the testimony I have to give for the kids tomorrow. What can I possibly have to talk about that they’d be interested in? Why do my eyes hurt so much? I’ve gotten 10 hours of sleep every night this week so there’s no way I can be tired. Is there such a thing as too much sleep? I really need to call H back but there’s no signal in my house. Why do we pay so much for our phones if we can’t even talk at home? I can hear Tubby snoring over the sound of the TV…she might want to get that checked out. Would a vet even do anything for a snoring animal? Wait, does anyone actually take their pet to the vet for that? I need to clean out that bowl from my pomegranates. How am I tired at 10:28…? I wonder if I could get out of sharing some sort of personal story at the retreat tomorrow. I really don’t like talking in front of groups. This Spongebob voice doesn’t sound like the normal one. What the heck am I going to write about?”

I’m sure you can guess why I wanted to spare you from that utter chaos. And since every problem needs to be blamed on something, I’ve chosen to attribute this particular conundrum to excess sleep. Last time I checked, I'm not an infant working on tripling my height and weight every few months, so my job shouldn't consist of alternating between sleeping and eating day in and day out, as much as I think I'd enjoy (and excel at!) that lifestyle. So why is it that all I want to do is sleep? I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve been hopping into bed around 8 9 each night and catching some zzz’s until 7:24. Some days I’ve even napped… :/ I don’t feeeeeel sick, but this just doesn’t seem normal. Yesterday I finally made an effort to beat my 6^th grade bedtime by a full 2 hours and my eyes mutinied. They’ve been threatening to pop out of their sockets if I force them to stay open much longer. I can’t even blame the sleepiness on over-exerting myself throughout the day. If anything, I’m under-exerting myself. Maybe my body is just in Snorlax mode due to my embarrassingly long exercise fast. I don’t know what it is, but I just thought I owed you all an explanation for my absence. Fortunately none of you have disappointed so I’ve been able to get my blog fix by commenting on your lovely thoughts :) I’ll try and do better next week.

A Thousand Words

Nothing like a 60-something minute Skype date with a beautiful friend to get you pumped about writing a post! And it doesn't hurt that said friend has an amazing blog which you should all read! I can't even choose just one post for you to feast your eyes on, so feel free to peruse the whole blog :) You're welcome.

Since I'm pretty sure my lack of pictures is going to start turning my few faithful readers away soon, I figured I better rectify the situation. Here are a few takes for your viewing pleasure--

View from the top of the Navy Pier ferris wheel :)

Does that apple seem abnormally large to anyone else...?

 

                 

Two of my favorite non-Disney classics! (or at least they were when I was a wee one...)

Phones with cameras keep us occupied for hours, aka Jordan being an excellent babysitter...

                                     
What my house looks like on laundry day:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C (and yes, those are glow in the dark Nightmare Before Christmas wall decals, thank you for asking) 

Chocolate chunks are so last year. Cows are the way of the future, people!

Check out this AMAZING bed head. Obviously, we're really enjoying it.

I found these in a box under my bed the other day. There are a few too many participation ribbons if you ask me. Though I did get a chuckle out of the fact that 6th place is brown.

What girl wouldn't take him back with a gift like that??

I was told to tell a friend about my accomplishment...feel free to set up an intervention anytime as I'm sure it's completely warranted...

In what language are these letter combinations considered words?? Also, if I were a robot, I think I'd have learned how to type out these strange hieroglyphics. That's what robots are for after all. And finally, why do they have to make it so hard to read? If the used normal font would a robot be able to read it?

Alright friends, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this pictorial journey. If you didn't, you're probably a robot.

Where are all the notifications??

I think Blogger owes you all a big apology. Or maybe the problem I'm about to express is only happening to me, in which case I'll wind up owing Blogger some condolences, but I'm okay with that. In the end, someone's gonna owe someone an apology!

What's all this ranting about you may ask? Comments. Now it may just be because I'm a noob that I don't already know this, but shouldn't I get an email alerting me to the fact that you've replied to a comment I left on your very amusing or very thought-provoking post? How are we supposed to dialogue if I don't even know you've spoken back?? I guess one way to do it is to write down every comment I ever make so that I can go back and see if there's a later response, but that seems very time consuming and semi stalker-like. I mean, don't get me wrong; I'll go down that long and winding road if I have to, but if there's an easier way, I'd be delighted. Maybe I'm just too used to Facebook where you get notifications for everything from status likes to farmville requests (>:-O). And on a quick side tangent, has anyone else noticed how creepy Facebook has gotten?  You can now see how many people have "seen" a post in a group and if someone edited the post you're currently looking at (which, by the way, seems to completely negate the whole purpose of being able to edit your wall post in the first place, but who am I to argue with the mighty and powerful book of faces...)

But back to the whole blog-post-reply-to-a-comment fiasco I was going on about. I just want to know if I'm getting a reply so I know whether or not I need to say anything else back! Sometimes people say more than just "thank you," and I'd like to be kept in the loop. But if that's not going to happen, then get prepared to see your page views start skyrocketing due to my return visits :)

And while we're on the topic, I truly appreciate all of the feedback you ladies leave me. I get so excited when I check my dashboard and see that I have new comments waiting for me. All of them put the biggest smiles on my face, and I thought you oughta know :) Virtual hugs for all.

p.s. Pictures coming tomorrow! I hope the anticipation doesn't keep you up all night ;)

Did I just hear my phone buzz??

Nope...that was just the TV playing tricks on me.

I feel like there's some sort of reference I'm not getting here...see Jen. And now see Erica. (Just to be clear, I do not mean that I've missed the whole hurricane-hitting-the-east-coast disaster. We may live out in the boonies, but I still get TV and internet. I'm talkin' bout the title. Pure coincidence? I'm leaning toward no. So fill a sister in!)

Completely off topic (wait, have I established a topic yet...?), but 30 Rock is on in the background and Jenna just said, "There's no 'I' or 'me' in America." Liz is standing behind her, shaking her head, and mouthing, "there's both..." Baha!

I had the opportunity to babysit on Sunday. At one point, I asked the little 3 year old if she wanted some fruit. She replied, "No. But thanks for asking." Too cute :)

And now for the meat and potatoes of this post. I probably should have decided what that was going to be before I started typing...hmmm...this very bright white page is not inspiring at all. I could probably spend some more time droning on about friendship woes, buuuut let's see if we can come up with anything else first. Got it!

Things I have to think about at home that never crossed my mind at school:

1. I've got a little less than a quarter tank of gas left. Better fill up before I go home or I may not make it home and back to the gas station since the nearest one is 20ish minutes away.

2. I'm hungry. Order a pizza you say? I can't--no one delivers out here.

3. How many MB of data does watching this YouTube video use? (and the answer is always 'how the heck would I even go about figuring that out??) Yeah....unlimited high speed internet doesn't exist out here so no catching up on TV shows on Hulu or watching that funny/cute/horrifying video making it's way around Facebook. Apparently Comcast doesn't think it's worth their time or effort.

4. I wonder which church has mass today. There are 3 Catholic churches within a 7 mile radius but none of them have mass every day.

5. I better make a list of every single errand I need to run because I won't be going back into civilization for a few days.

6. How long has it been since I've actually talked to someone? (At one point, I think it was 3 days because my mom was gone for the weekend and I didn't have anywhere to go. I finally broke the fast by talking to the girl working the Dairy Queen drive-thru...)

7. If I sit on the edge of the chair with the phone tilted at a 34 degree angle on the right arm, I get one bar of signal. However, I lose it if I switch to the left arm.

8. I wonder if this light breeze is going to knock our satellite TV out like it did last week.

9. As we're baking cookies, "oh shoot we're out of butter!" "Well, put the partially made dough in the fridge and we'll finish it tomorrow after we go grocery shopping."

10. You mean I can just leave my clothes in the washer or dryer and no one will move them?? Or if they do, they'll move them to the proper place?? (aka the dryer or my bed :D)

11. Where are all the other 20somethings?!

As always, thank you for not judging the randomness that is my thought process and have a wonderful night :) Oh! And sorry for the lack of pictures lately--can't risk going over our allotted data usage again. I'll try and steal some internet from Barnes and Noble the next time I'm there ;)

Does anyone else do this?

I've decided to take a break from all my deep thoughts about friendship for a day. Please hold your applause until the end. So today I'm going to mix it up and tell you about some of the weird stuff I find myself doing. Hopefully I'm not the only one ;)

1. I put my pants on the same way every.single.time--left leg first. I tried to do it right leg first one time and almost fell over.

2. Sometimes after reading a friend's Facebook status, I post something on their wall about it instead of commenting on the actual status because I don't want to get 138 notifications from all the people who will eventually find the gem of a status.

3. I get reeeeaaally excited when I see that little red 1 at the top of the page when I first pull up Facebook. However, my joy quickly turns to rage when I find out that it's a farmville request.

4. I feel like I'm tempting fate every time I eat spaghetti while wearing any color shirt that's not red or black.

5. I live on a dead end street in the middle of nowhere, but for some reason I still find myself putting my turn signal on when approaching my driveway. Safety first, right?

6. Our garage is like 5 steps away from our house, but I'd rather stagger under the weight of two fully loaded grocery-bag-filled arms (and end up with a bag of chip crumbs) than take more than one trip from car to house.

7. I can never seem to leave a normal voicemail where I don't sound like a 12 year old boy going through puberty struggling to ask a girl out, so I've stopped leaving them and just assume the recipients of my calls will see they missed it and call me back.

8. There's a field behind my house that we use as our personal compost pile. I hope the farmer doesn't mind the old orange peels and moldy cottage cheese.

9. I've decided it's okay to go to movies by myself.

10. I put my seatbelt on before I start the car because I don't like the dinging noise reminding me to put it on.

11. Upon finding a new blog to read, I can't decide if I should go back and read all her past posts or just start reading from the point I found it. I mean, if she's been blogging for 5 years, how will I ever catch up on every post??

12. I feel like I know more about what's going on in the lives of the women whose blogs I follow than I do with my own friends in some cases. Something doesn't seem quite right here.

13. I always get too invested in TV shows and books, so it amazes me when people tell me they don't like one or the other. What do those people do for entertainment? Talk to actual people?? That's just preposterous.

Welp, that's probably enough for one day. I'm off to finish watching Hocus Pocus :)

Tidbits

A collection of funny goings-on.

1. I was talking to my friend the other day about my failed attempt at running. (I think I made it 60 steps before deciding to turn it into a walk). Ever the encourager, she says "just try getting yourself to make it to the next stoplight next time." While a thoughtful suggestion, I deemed it near impossible since there aren't any stoplights within a 10 mile radius of my route...

2. My grandma used to refer to herself as "Aunt Carol" to one of her children because she didn't want people judging her for having 2 kids within a year of each other... I wonder if Mrs. Duggar has the same fear.

3. Today my mom was staring at our obese cat and admiring how easy her life is. I believe she ended her envy with something along the lines of "it's a shame it's not attractive to be as fat as Tubby." I couldn't agree more, especially since I'd like to have dessert for after every meal.

4. We got our cell phone bill in the mail today. Upon opening it, my mom asks, "Did you recently develop carpal tunnel?" Apparently I only sent 200 texts this month compared to her 900 and my sister's 1000. (She may have been referencing the one time I sent ~8000 texts in one month...don't ask me how I did it. I still don't know).

5. Should I be worried about that top blue line there...? I'm a little scared to even click the link.

6. I got this email today. I should probably send the money, right? I mean he didn't even have time to put in any periods, so it must be urgent.

Welp, l thought I had more gems than that, but it doesn't look like you'll be getting anymore today. For more entertainment, google image "smiley baby." You won't be sorry :)

What a weekend

It turns out that if you wait a couple day between posts, you're likely to have more funny things happen to you (or at least there's an increased chance that you'll actually remember humorous events occurring). Who woulda thunk it?  Here goes!

1. Before mass started yesterday, a mom was trying to get her son to go up and be an altar server but he didn't want to. First she tried bribing him. Then when that didn't work, she tried telling him that she'd make church last 2 hours instead of just 1 (I wonder how she got the power to do that). Unfortunately for her, that didn't work either (he was probably just as skeptical as I was). Finally she made a last ditch effort and went with the guilt trip "well if you won't do it for me, then do it for God." Whoa! Bringing out the big guns. But alas, the boy didn't want to do it for The Big Guy either. (Though something must have tugged at his little ol' heartstrings because 30 seconds before Mass started, he walked up to the altar and performed his duties). 
2. I went to the fridge for some milk the other morning. I only found it after I moved a pitcher of sangria, a bottle of Baileys, and a box of Franzia. We've got our priorities straight here.
3.  After telling my mom that I was giving up coffee for a couple months, she asked me why I wasn't giving up something like chips. Or peanut butter M&Ms. Well thanks for the support, mom, but what are you trying to say...?
4. While discussing the intricacies of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" and other quality TV shows, my sister asks my aunt if she watches any of the competition-like reality shows. She said no because she "prefers her reality tv to be talentless."
5. I got a graduation card from a good friend in the mail today. The first thing I noticed was that she had crossed out "Happy Birthday" and written "CONGRATULATIONS!!!" Best.Card.Ever.
6. As you may have noticed (and it's kind of hard to miss), I really like making lists. 

I really thought I'd have more to say...better luck next time I suppose. 

Baby Blogger

How to write your first blog post if you're me:
Step 1--Make an account! (I checked that step off over a year ago. Sometimes I procrastinate, but at least I'm not alone. See!
Step 2--Figure out who's likely to read your blog (in my case, probably 3 people so I need to set the bar pretty high).
Step 3--Read your friends' blogs to see how they started out (proceed to spend the next 2 hours reading blogs...)
Step 4--Smile to yourself as you think about how great your friends are.
Step 5--Stop smiling to yourself because you're not the only one in the room and people begin to wonder about you after awhile.
Step 6--Find your way back to your own blank post.
Step 7--Overanalyze each and every idea you're considering because it's likely that your blog will make it all the way to the Queen's eyes and you wouldn't want to disappoint.
Step 8--If you're having trouble with step 7, google "how to write first blog post" because Google knows all.
Step 9--Get serious about this whole writing thing. After all, you probably don't have 5 hours each day to spend on your blog. (Unless you're jobless like me, in which case you actually do).
Step 10--Decide on the "direction" of your blog. I chose south because I don't think I'd enjoy weather that's much colder than Illinois.
Step 11--Stop thinking and start writing!

So there it is, my first blog post. I'm not quite sure it accomplished anything so here are some funny pictures...

Every single time I go to the bathroom, these appear under the door.

Me and my shadow ;)  (not sure why the grass is two different colors. Blame it on the lack of rain)

Fields as far as the eye can see.

What more could a girl ask for?

Inspiring messages a la Lincoln Park Zoo

Cirque Shanghai stunts!

 What you can look forward to in future posts:

• More lists
• More ramblings
• More links
• More pictures
• More direction

I can't promise an update every day (mostly because I'd probably bore you with the lack of news), but I'm hoping to check in pretty often. Here's hoping for interesting events!

-J