Unnecessary Force: starring Cristobal

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!Chris is perfect for this role. For real, yo. I guess that's what teaching 8th graders in Chicago does to you...

Followin' the Crowd

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!
So everybody ELSE has jibjab videos... so I thought I'd share one of my own creations. Also, I have a family flick coming out soon, too...

My other Dreamboat

Maybe I could shoot for a Double-Whammy...




(PS to Noah: Why do I not have any pictures of your face looking at the camera on my computer?? I tried every single one I had, but none of them would work for my jibjab creations... see coming posts... At any rate, could you fix that for me?)

One of My Dreamboats

So lately I've been daydreaming about living on a houseboat. At least part of the year. I mean seriously... how fantastic would that be! Sunrises and sunsets out on the water! Fishing off the deck (okay, so I don't exactly know much about fishing, but I'm a quick learner)! The soothing rhythms of the water! Nature sounds without a CD! What's that you say? Your neighbor's dog wakes you up every morning at 5am with it's incessant barking? No problem! You're MOBILE without the stigma of being trailer trash! And there's so many varying degrees of it... it doesn't have to be a permanent situation, it could be something more dreamy (in my opinion), like this baby:

I mean seriously. How cool would that be? I'm feelin' the romance of it all already... happy sigh. What a dreamboat.

Some people...

Are just not worth your time. You don't have to feel bad about it. All the Katie G's (that one's for you, Lizzy) of the world should be routinely shunned and avoided.

How about that? Insensitive? Unchristian?

Ugh...

Okay, I think it's great to turn to the Lord in your time of need. But the last several weeks whenever I go on facebook, this girl who asked to be my friend who I haven't held a conversation with... ever... in my memory, and who I guess I went to the same highschool as (though I'm not even sure if we were there at the same time... I think our families went to the same church?)... asked to be my friend. So I said "OK" on facebook, because one of the few things I do remember about her is that she didn't have many friends and was incredibly volatile and depressive. That's all I know about her. So I made her my friend.

ANYWAYS she's got this saga going on where she broke up with this guy... and yeah. I hate to say it, but it makes me sick. Every time I'm on facebook it has another horribly awkward comment about her journey to emotional healing in the wake of this guy. One of her Favorite Activities on her profile is "kneeling at the foot of the cross, begging God to heal her broken heart." Maybe I'm just a bad Christian or something, but somehow I find this to be a huge turn off, particularly displayed on a public profile that everyone I know reads. I'm more into that praying behind closed doors thing. And not sharing grief with anyone other than good friends. Am I insensitive for being so put off by this?

New Hat

So my momma knitted me a new hat for my smoke breaks!! Well... she hates that I smoke. But she should have known that would be it's primary function...

Family Christmas Present Exchange (FCPE)

So since there's so many people in my generation in the family (brothers, sisters, cousins)... far too many to get everyone Christmas presents... we've traditionally always picked names to determine who we got a present for, and anything else was above and beyond the call of duty. So last year we started a new game where we didn't pick names, but each just got one present that we put "in the pot" so to speak. Kind of like a White Elephant gift exchange. Except you have the option of picking a new present from the pile or "stealing" one from someone else who went before you. Not really in the Christmas spirit exactly, but pretty fun.

At any rate, I'm determined to get a cool present worthy of being stolen during the present exchange, but need some inspiration. It's particularly difficult because I don't know what age, sex, interests, etc. to aim for. We're talking about gifts for an age range of anywhere between 19-32. Price range about $30. Any suggestions?

Update on the World Hunger Front (WHF)

A few more weeks of this and you guys'll need to have a dictionary to read my posts so you can look up every other word cuz my vocabularly's so extensive.

There are so many less hungry people every day thanks to me.

Resignation

After moving into my parents house several MONTHS ago, I've finally resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to be able to afford to go anywhere else for quite some time. Today I finally started unpacking the mini-mountain of boxes in the center of the room and transfering things into closets, shelves, and drawers. On one hand it's liberating- you know, being able to walk ACROSS the room instead of around it. But on the other hand it's really depressing. I'm getting settled in to my parents basement for a long, lonely, cold winter... in so many ways...

Cars and Craziness and Craigslist

Whew! I just bought my brother Matt's girlfriend's car because she's leaving for spain and it has a heater core that works and will last the winter.

And then I thought, "Shoot. I got to do something with my car because we don't have room for it in the driveway." So I put it on craigslist, here's the ad:

"1996 VW Jetta in running condition (I drive it every day), 5 spd, just had the clutch replaced last year, I think it needs new brake pads (they started grinding a little last week), one of the brakelights are out, trunk doesn't open, and the heater core has been by-passed. It's a california car and it doesn't have any rust. It drives fine and is good on gas, I'm just not mechanically savvy and can't handle another WI winter without heat. I'm looking for around $700, but open to offers. "

So then within half an hour I had 20 people interested, within and hour 35, and 5 were willing to come get it tonight and pay in cash.

So then I thought, "Shoot. I think I may have way underpriced my car." So I changed the listing to $1500. But at this point I'd already been in contact with the 5, and one of them in particular was this young married guy with two little kids desperate to get a car so he can get back and forth to work and not lose his job. He'd tried for 5 different cars in the last two weeks and all of them had backed out at the last minute for a higher offer. And I'd said I'd sell it to him before I realized I could get more. I thought I was lucky to get $700. But then after that, I had a number of people interested in it for $1500.

So I call this guy back and tell him about it. I tell him I hadn't realized what the bluebook price is and subtract all the expenses and then that I have this offer. He's sad and tells me if I should do what I have to do because he can't match that. So I tell him, "Look, I want to sell this car to you. I know you need it. Can you meet me at a more fair price for it?" He says all he can afford is $900. And I've agreed to it.

Now I'm waiting for him to come. I feel a little, no, A LOT, like an idiot given that I have NO money and I could probably get the $1500 if I held out... and $1500 happens to be the magic # for what I need to be able to go back to school next semester. Then I think about his adorable little girls crying and calling "Daddy" in the background. And I think about how hard it is for him to support his family and get to work without transportation. And I think about all the times when the donation basket was passed to me in church and I didn't put anything into it. And yeah. So I've decided to sell it for 40% less. I cringe writing that percentage. The salesperson in me rages and breaks things.

But I think it's the right thing to do. Time to trust God.

I'm just not html savvy enough...

I have literally spent hours on those nerdy "how to" websites trying to figure out how to decrease the margins on the layout and add a third column with no luck. I can't believe I'm trying to figure out enough html so that I can use a template that requires me to use less in the long run. Is that a little backwards?

Sidenote: if I have to look at that stupid "you have the wrong tag ending" error message again, I'm going to break something...

I'm going to erradicate World Hunger!

... without spending a dime.

This site is brilliant:
Increase literacy --> Decrease Hunger

(Also, please note the new "free rice" banner on the sidebar for future convenience, compliments of phil's younger, more html-aware than me sister.)

So it's really easy to post stuff from YouTube. Who'd a thunk it.

But this one was just too much. It's an (anti) meth commercial. I don't know where they air such things, but...



My sociology professor was laughing about this ad today in class. Drugs are, in fact, a societal issue. Not to be laughed about. And furthermore, Drugs are bad. Very, very bad.

Although... the PSA people apparently think they keep your house clean. So how come all the meth addicts I knew had trashy pigsty homes? I feel lied to...

Suggestion for Those Learning a Language... Ground it in reality.

Ha ha! See? It's all about practical applications of what you've learned...

(Disclaimer: Max actually found this and posted it on facebook first. Buuut most of you kids either don't use facebook or don't know Max, so I figured I'd further it's distribution cuz it makes me laugh. Double Disclaimer: Max cusses a lot.)

On Sleeping In

Somehow after years and years of making this same mistake, I still am able to delude myself into thinking that if I let myself sleep in on the weekend I'll get more done later in the day. It is just not true. See, not only have you wasted the high-impact hours of the day where you can get the most done, but you also wake up feeling groggy and blah, so you just aren't very productive. How can I be so fully aware of this after the fact EVERY SINGLE TIME, but still manage to be so utterly convinced as I shut off my alarm that this is 'for my own good.' Seriously. I gotta find a way to stop lying to myself in the mornings on the weekend...

Breaking News

So three years later I finally deleted my previous blog from before Phil made me his partner on this one.

Took me long enough, eh?

I don't know why this makes me giggle so much... why am I so delighted by coolly deviant children? It's so... evil...

Peer Pressure

Yeah! Woo-hoo! Alright!!

So after a few weeks or morbid depression and spontaneous bouts of crying, I appear to have snapped out of it for a bit. Rayna called a bit ago with a proposition. Apparently she's organizing a competition for a bunch of mutual friends (including one, possibly two of my ex-boyfriends, oddly enough) where we're each betting $20 that we can lose more weight than any of the other of the participants over the course of a month. Weigh-in is November 10th; contest ends December 10th. Nothing like a little peer pressure to get you riled up, right?

I feel so much more cheerful now! God, I love some friendly competition...

head in the clouds

I can usually tell when I'm getting a little too zoned out or lost in my thoughts while driving. As the owner an operator of a manual vehicle who often drives other cars, I somtimes forget what kind of car I'm driving and get confused. This results in stomping desperately around for the clutch, even hitting the gas in leiu of a clutch, hitting the gas and break at the same time, forgetting to put the car in park, or stalling out because I forget I need to put the clutch in. None of this really happens very often, but I must have been particularly lost in thought tonight, because I had three such occurences just driving to church and back. I'm thinking about getting stickers that say "Manual" or "Automatic" and putting them at the bottom of the windshield of each of the cars as a little reminder. Or maybe just one that says "Wake Up."