8/30/2006

Family is so important to me.

I can remember when I moved back from college and into my parents house again. It was like going from "Hey, I just earned a degree" back to 8th grade where my parents asked why I wasn't in bed at 8:00pm. I could not move fast enough. Get me to Brian. Then, we got married, and I packed up to move to the Husker Nation. Can I just tell you, how much of a change I've felt towards my family? My sisters? I'd take a bullet for them, just for fun.. that's how much I love them. They are all totally cool and I'm appreciating them. And My mom and dad. Seriously. I'm obsessed. I miss them so much and love going home to have talks with dad and see mom almost pee her pants because me and Laura are making her laugh so much.

Love our big family.
Love all our goofy traditions.
Love all of our personalities.

So, while Bri and I were home this weekend, we got a call from my Aunt saying that my Gramma had passed away up in Chicago. The brown-haired Gramma for all of you guys playing at home. She was 90. I still remember how when she turned 85, my dad made her a necklace out of an 8 and a 5 that were actually huge iron adress numbers that were supposed to be hung on the front of your house from Home Depot. Dad strung them on a ball bearing chain and made her wear it while she opened presents.

I'm in the kind of family where I could call a cousin in a second and it's no big deal. I know everyone well. Even though we are the only part of the family not in Chicago on both sides, we are close to them all. And I'm a little sad for my dad. Makes me really think about my parents. So, we're leaving tonight for the Chi. Going to do our thing and celebrate Gramma.

Then, we're flying out of Chicago on Friday to Minnesota to meet Joe up for a little Head Automatica concert and maybe some cheeseburgers at the Convention Grill and probably some really nice pictures on my little Fuji camera.

Think good thoughts about the fam, my flights because I'm terrified, and Pluto.
Because I think it's just rediculous that it lost it's status as a planet.

8/25/2006

Thank goodness it's Friday.

8/23/2006

It's been busy, dudes.

Like I feel like I've worked 67 days in about two days.
Make sure to check out the October issue of EM in Border's everywhere.
And do me a favor and move it to the front of the display. Right in the middle.
This issue's got a lot of love in it.

Well, let's see..Holly and Jon came into town this weekend for a great time. I love it when they come and visit. We ate a lot, painted the town if you know what I mean, went to that zoo of ours, and even shopped at Hot Topic. It felt a little weird, I'm not gonna lie. We also played a mean board game one night. And went to Chipolte three times because, alas, there isn't one in St. Louis. Oh! And we got Holly registered at BB&B. We owned that store.
The best weekend, now go on and move here.

I am thinking this blog needs a makeover, stat. Does anyone know how to use InDesign or Photoshop or for the love of God, anything, like even paint, to make me a cool new header? I might even buy you a car.

Brian cut his finger so bad yesterday at work that he had to get like four stitches.
It looks like some Boy Sout tied like a neat little row of 14 square knots on each stitch. He's so bad ass.

Well, I don't have a lot much else to say. I think this oughta sum it up.
(Previously recorded, 2 years ago in St. Louis. Many thanks to the Dangerous Minds soundtrack.)



Sidenote: Me and Brian love us some Rockstar: Supernova. I can't help but wonder, if I was on the show, how would the wardrobe lady make me look like a hard rocker. You know what? I do know one thing. I wouldn't sing R-E-S-P-E-C-T and dance around like an aerobics instructor if I was chosen to be in the bottom three.

8/15/2006

Heyyyy brother.

Just remembered that I'm highly in love with the new AFI album.
I mushed some of their lyrics together to create a masterpiece of deliciousness:
Warn your warmth to turn away
Here it's December, everyday
This is a FALL!
This is a long way down..

Spend some time walking the line.
One more time steal my breath,
I'll feed you the sky,
I will show you how.
Oh, you should see..

Am I beautiful?
Am I usable?
I have been waiting for you
Biting as you taught me to.

I might have to add Davey to my list of lead singer man crushes.
He might be confused about his gender with the makeup and all, but I'd lick his face.

So this weekend me and Jana headed out on the open road to explore Minnesota. It was my first time, and basically I'd love to move there. Cooler weather, houses so cute that I basically just ran up to them and started humping the walls, nice neighbors, perfect old shopping on 50th and France, and the headquarters of Best Buy.

I don't care if you hate me, but I only took one picture. And only needed to. It was our first stop:

Sweet mother of lamb, this is an excellent shopping location. We were slightly in a hurry to make it to J's Aunt and Uncle's house, so in true Super Market Sweep fashion, we tore through that store without a care in the world.
And pretended the things we were putting in our cart were free.
Granted, this store is cheap, so don't give me a lot of sass when I show you this:



I mean, I SCORED. Some of it was soley for the day that we move into a house, because I know I don't have an ounce of room right now in the little APT. Some of the stuff you see is stuff I got from assorted cute stores around Edina, MN.
I am full-on obsessed with anything paper or card-ish. I even introduced her Aunt to the local Paper Source.
It was so righteous, it wasn't even funny. I got my paper on.

Oh, and our stupid trash can that Brian hates broke last week, so I gladly picked up this cute one:

Oh heck yeah. The trash will probably jump into that trash can because it's so cute they want to go in there that bad.
I mean, look at that precious lid.

So, we'll be going back to the great state over Labor Day. This time I'll be with Brian and Nick Cage. Should be another interesting round. As for now, I'm going to make a mean egg salad sandwich for my lonesome and then catch the flick "Step Up" with my friend. Yeah, it's the one where that male-model-of-a-boy has to start dancing or something because he gets in trouble in the community and he meets the girl. Typical dance movie that I'm adding to my arsenal.

8/09/2006

photo courtesy of probably the coolest person you'll ever meet: Courtney "Hoops" Campbell

Hey party people. Another hump day in Nebraska. Hump-a-lish. God, I'm glad it's Wednesday already. It's a great thing because on Friday, Jana and I are booking it to Minnesota for a weekend of shopping, girl time, and her Aunt and Uncle's cute house formerly featured on HGTV. I think it's just what I need and plus, I get to add another state to my repitoire. Maybe we'll also go to the Mall of America. I, I don't know if we'll have time. Never fear, I'll be documenting the trip with my digi cam. Did I mention we get to raid IKEA? Look out huge store, we're taking a mini van up there and we are taking no prisoners.

This weekend was one for the books. We went out on a double date to Jamz with Jana and Matty (my new fav because he scored us cheesy hy-vee shirts, IMMEDIATELY.) After I licked my plate clean, we came back home and made Ted come over. All of us walked it on over to one of the tents for the Cox Classic (Large PGA Tourney here of all places). It was a ball of fun, but probably the walk home was even more. Ted did a triple walking puke and when I was trying to cut through the small space between my apartment sign, I got one foot over and the other landed and I lost all balance, falling directly on my back into a stick bush. Yes. No fluffy branches of evergreen. Sliced the hell out of my arms, but the best part was, I knew I was going down. I just kind of rolled into it and said, "Oh no." all in slow motion and just layed there in it. Glad I could give everyone a laugh, but that stickbush won the fight.

Sunday Jana woke us up at an illegally early hour wanting to know if we wanted brunch. When it was more suitable for humans to be out and awake in the light of day, we went and I face planted into a mini-Denver at LePeep.

That night we watched V For Vendetta. Might I say that it was downright excellent. Rent it immediately.
A titch weird, but good weird. Just a well put together movie.

Sunday, me and Brian and the Janster went to see the Ricky Bobby movie. What a piece of crap waste of money. I love me some Will Ferrell, but I will fight you if you say this movie was good. He tried too hard, it wasn't developed, and little kids shouldn't say the F word every second of the day. After the show, Jana and me shopped a bit, I raided Archivers, and we visited the new JCrew that just went up. I'm pretty sure I drooled on a couple of their blazers?

Yesterday I purchased THE LAST KISS SOUNDTRACK. Beep, beep, back the truck up. I don't know if I've shared the movie trailer with you all. (Here it is) Guaranteed it will be the best movie of our time. Totally relateable on every level, it is. The soundtrack literally made my head explode. I will be burning free copies at anyone's request.
And don't bother showing your face in this town if you don't think this movie would win a gold medal at the olympics.

Update from the trainer: Jenny's losing inches. I'll be painting on my bikini in no time flat.

8/04/2006

Oh my freaking sweet Jesus.

I just finished the season finale of THE HILLS and I cannot believe that LC chose that moronic chin-strap growing beard boy over a Vogue internship in Paris. Are you SERIOUS? I mean, I don't think a thousand beach houses with wicker furniture could make me want to touch a hair on Jason's face. Sick. This pisses me off.

8/01/2006

HOLY CRAP. My sister's engaged.


to Jason. So her new last name will be Ray. I know she got engaged last night because on Sunday night I was blowing up balloons on Sunday for about four hours. That's a lot of air from my tiny lungs.

So somehow Kris forgot that she's supposed to always be 12 and at home with Mom and Dad doing cartwheels because she goes to gymnastics at Eagles, where if Mom was nice that day, we'd each get a grape Welche's pop from the outside vending machine.

Oh man, but I'm really happy for her. I wish I lived closer so that I could basically hug her to death. Just let me address the invitation envelopes, Kris. Cause your handwriting looks like a doctor's combined with a 5th grade boy's.

Moving on, this weekend was also great for other reasons. Friday night we booked it on over to Kansas to visit Montie and Liz and the dogs. We had a nice relaxing night. Liz and I talked/watched bits of Sportscenter and the original Omen movie while the boys made out on the patio.

Saturday morn we awoke for my noon haircut. I got like 3 inches off, cut off those dreaded layers and my lady gave me some bangs that I just don't pull off quite well, so they are like plastered behind my ear and I look like the worlds biggest douche. Then after the chop chop, we drove it on up to Lawrence where we met Jones-Coleman and Jas Face. (I mean, Dr. and Mrs. Doolittle.) Steph is about 5 months pregnant and she is skinnier than me/an envelope. So, I'm seriously thinking about sewing my mouth shut. Brian got jealous of their house, and we drove in the heat to Jeffersons. We dined on fried pickles and talked of memories past. Like when Jason had a blog. Seriously, they win the medal for the best couple on this globe. We shopped on Mass for a bit, before my skin started dripping off and onto the sidewalk.

At this point, Steph and I try on ridiculous (and tight) shirts on in Urban Outfitters. While pulling shirt number three over my head, my diamond earring post pops off, I'm careful, but lose the damn thing forever. I practically dusted the entire dressing room looking for this shiny thing. I had all of these alternative/emo employee people on their hands and knees looking for this thing because it was important to me. Brian gave me the earrings on my 21st birthday, right after we started dating and I've literally worn them every day since then. But that's cool, cause some Lawrence student will try on a shirt and BAM! have a new diamond, too.

So, later that night we met back up with Montie and Liz, Jared, Joe and company, and a girl who was so large, that her boobs were launching out of her bra/undershirt thing. And she was wearing a black top hat. Taylor was not not in attendance, so we all thought it was appropriate to fill up his voicemail. I contributed an MC Hammer rap.




Seriously, even though I was sweating through my shirt, I had the best time. I never laugh as hard as I do when I'm with these guys. Oh, and we ate dinner at 75th Street Brewery. Can you say warm soft pretzel for dinner? Accomplished.




And then Sunday I ate a bagel (for the love of God) and we booked it on home to OP so I could spend some quality time with my family. And to use my oxygen supply on balloon blowage. Oh, and me and Laura and Steph literally drove around the neighborhood 60 times, just for the purpose of belting out a sweet duet off the RENT CD. I was Roger, Laura was Mimi. Then I made her let me be Mimi, and she did her best Roger. I swear to God, if you don't own this two disc compilation, I will make it go into your collection and then I will flick you in the eye until you say you love it so.

I seriously have the best sisters in the world.
And a sweet Mom who laughs so hard she makes the highest pitch noise and wets her pants.
And a sweet dad who brings back awesome Amish cinnamon rolls from Yoder, Kansas.

And that, minus a day of hard Monday labor at the Pris, is my weekend in a nutshell. Me and Brian have also been seeing a bevy of movies. Pirates, Dupree, etc. Both average. But like us, we manage to spend 15 minutes in the lobby, in front of 60+ movie patrons, entertaining ourselves with the cardboard fun.



Signing off,
Jenn