I accomplished things.

     Let's do a quick run-through of things I did/tried this weekend so I can convince myself I was productive despite spending large chunks of said weekend on the couch playing Skyrim. I killed a dragon and absorbed its soul, how much more productive can you get? 

I MADE YUMMY BREAD

     I had a hankerin' for some bread the other day (yeah, a hankerin'. It was intense) so I decided I'd whip up some apple cheese bread. When I did a quick search it seemed like most people were using quick bread recipes so I followed suit, mixing up the basic batter and just stirring in my shredded granny smith apples and sharp cheddar cheese before I poured it into the loaf pan. It was tasty, but not really what I was going for. It kind of tasted like dumplings? Luckily I really like dumplings, so it wasn't a bust or anything. It also didn't rise much at all, so it was much denser than I expected. I think I'm gonna try again at some point and tweak a few things; namely I want to try it with a yeast dough. 

I ADDED SOME SEMBLANCE OF PRIVACY

      I know, oooh, that's a nice big window, what a lovely architectural feature! And yeah, it is, EXCEPT. Except it's in my closet. Which kind of makes no sense because isn't the whole point of a walk-in closet to function something like a little dressing area? Well that doesn't really work if you can't easily put shades on the window because it's funny-shaped. I had a shade in there for a while just held across the horizontal line of the top panes, but it was ugly from the outside, and it broke/fell off constantly. To remedy this situation, I popped into Lowe's and picked up a roll of window film. Once I got it home it only took about a half hour to decide how to apply it (settled on ending at the top horizontal line again, partly for aesthetic reasons, partly because that's way easier to apply and cut) and get it completely applied. Between that and the sheers on the window I think there's a reasonable amount of privacy, although I still wouldn't stand in front of it with the lights on at night and hula-hoop naked, so keep that in mind if you're looking for window treatment options for your naked hula-hoop room. 

COLD. BREWED. COFFEE.

     I've been meaning to try my hand at making cold-brew coffee for a while now, but just got around to actually doing it this weekend. It's really easy; all you have to do is mix coffee grounds and water in a jar, let it sit overnight in the fridge, then strain in the morning and drink it over ice, mixed with whatever you usually put in your coffee (vanilla soymilk. Lots of it). It's so delicioussssssssss. Yeah, so delicious I just lapsed into Parseltongue. It has none of the bitterness that regular coffee can have, it's just smooth and mild and creamy and ughhhh I want to drink it constantly. The added bonus is it's a lot cheaper than buying K-cups for the Keurig. 

     I feel like that's enough trying and accomplishing for one weekend, so I'm gonna leave it there. Hope you all tried some new things and got shit done this weekend too!

Friday Favorites: Seemingly Uncorrelated Edition!

FAVORITE WEARABLE THING: FOXY JIMJAMS!

     I realized recently that I had a real problem because I have very few summertime pajamas. I have several cute sets for cold weather, but no shorts, really. I used to be able to just sleep in my underwear when it was really hot, but in college I lived in an apartment where the fire alarm was going off in the middle of the night all the freaking time because I guess people are too dumb to open a window before they smoke their pot (and it was always the potheads). So it got to a point where my subconscious just would not let me relax enough to go to sleep unless I was wearing something I could vacate the building in without fear of shame or ridicule. This has been Fun Facts About Jacki's Neuroses, thanks for tuning in. So anyway, the point is I needed some summer jimjams. These super soft shorts were part of a set at Walmart (it has a tank top with it, but that's in the laundry because I am a monster and I can't own a shirt for more than three hours without getting something on it), and they are my new favey faves. 

FAVORITE WATCHABLE THING: DOCUMENTARIIIEEEES!

     I was going through a patch for a few days where I was just itchin' to watch some good educational programming, so I burned through much of my Netflix queue of documentaries. I wasn't super thrilled with some of them (DEAR GOD DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE IMPERIALIST ASSHAT HOST OF THE ONE ABOUT CANNIBALISM), and in the end I came back to one of my all-time favorites: Life After People. This is gonna sound super dark, but I've always found that series to be kind of...soothing? I dunno, it's nice in a way to think that if humankind disappeared everything could feasibly just go back to normal and plants would grow over the highways and elephants would run around all "wassup bro I'm an elephant, Imma take a bath in this former water treatment plant and be delightful." But even if you're not a sad gothic panda like me who finds a post-human-extinction world to be a nice bedtime story, it's really interesting. I've already learned about invasive plant species, methods of fighting architectural failure in earthquake-prone zones, and how the Queen's corgis would do if left to their own devices (they'd be fine, don't worry). 

FAVORITE THING TO SMEAR ON MY FACE: DUOCHROME, TWO TIMES THE...CHROMES!

     This is an eyeshadow color that was in my Coastal Scents 252 color palette, called Dark Goldenrod. One day a few weeks ago I was just kind of picking colors randomly and swatching them on my hand when I found this one and realized IT IS AMAZING. It looks kind of humdrum at first glance, but it's so pretty and interesting on. It's a duochrome color (even though it's not described as such on the website? But it is, trust me) that looks like a warm bronzey color on my lids when my eyes are open, but catches the light and flashes peridot green when I turn my head or blink. I ordered the full-size so I can have a nice reliable quantity of it, and ordered the same color for my mom, because she liked it so much she had to have it too. As far as quality goes, it's pretty impressive, especially considering it was only about four bucks. It goes on best with fingers or a flat brush; if you use a fluffy brush with this you will get pretty multi-colored fallout all over your face. But that's really the only downside. The biggest upside of course being that you get to look all shimmery and weird like a dragon.

Friday Favorites: A random sample of things from various technologies!

AKA let's look at stuff from my phone and what I've been playing on my tablet lately! 

     I had to take a picture to document that this is a real show that was on, because it's basically the pinnacle of television as an art form. Everybody else can stop trying, it's all downhill from here. You can't top that. You just can't. 

     Ditto for this headline. I didn't even read the rest of the story because I didn't feel like I needed to and there's no way it could even be a real story. This has to be a story they generated by picking words out of a hat. Has to be. This cannot be real life. 

This is the game I've been into lately. It's exactly what is sounds like. You start out as a reef shark and eat everything you can to grow into bigger sharks, eventually getting to MEGALODON. I'm sure it's not the point of the game or anything, but there's barrels of toxic waste and explosive mines and a bunch of random human junk all around the ocean floor and it makes me kind of want to eat all the people floating in their donut rings just because hey, humanity, stop ruining all the nice things like oceans. Team sharks 4eva.

    On a related note, I'm also really into the OCEARCH app, where you can track sharks and see where they're hanging out and stuff. Like, check out Genie, a 14 ft. white shark hanging out off the coast of Virginia. 

     What, you thought I was going to do a Friday favorites and not include some specimen of stunning baby cuteness? Nah bro, that ain't me. Here's a clip of Evie trying to decide if she likes applesauce or not. Spoiler alert: she totally does. 

Beach Essentials!

     As you may know because I can't shut up about it, I'm headed to the beach soon! With that excitement looming and my need to constantly overthink things, I've been putting some thought into what you really need at the beach. Here's some of my necessities (and I mean that in the way magazines do, where sure it's nice to have, but none of their "necessities" are ever like, Immodium). 

A CUTE SWIMSUIT, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY 

     I know most women hate trying on swimsuits with the burning fire of a thousand suns, but I actually don't mind it that much. For me personally, I'm much more likely to end up sobbing inconsolably in a fitting room when shopping for shorts than a swimsuit. Somehow it's easier to accept, I guess because it feels like everyone else looks and feels cute in shorts and I look like Squidward after he eats all the Krabby Patties, but everybody feels a little self-conscious in a bikini, so it's normal? (That's depressing, I'm sorry.) I mean you're essentially tying a bunch of fabric scraps over all your lady-dough, what do we expect to happen? Anyway, the point to all this is that I found a swimsuit top at Target the other day that I liked enough to try on even though I'd just had a big lunch at McAllister's (Southwest Turkey Melt and Mac and Cheese. Mmmmm), which is...extra braveness points, right there. It took a couple trips to the dressing room to find a bottom that I was comfortable in (one of them was a string type configuration with loops on the side and it didn't even matter if it was cute or not, I felt like I was diapering one of the babies putting it on with the sides like that), but I found one eventually. The top had a matching bottom, but it didn't have enough coverage for my liking, and I thought a mix and match look would be cuter anyway, so I went for the bright orange. The top and bottom were $17.99 each, so it ended up being a $36 swimsuit, which is a pretty damn good deal considering that top has actual underwire in it. It's legitimately supportive, which is hard to find in a swimsuit that doesn't look like you're meant to wear it to water aerobics at the senior center. 

ALSO SASSY SUNGLASSES

     I always like to grab a pair or two of cheap sunglasses before I go on vacation so that if I lose or break them, I won't be too upset about the loss. Granted, I pretty much exclusively wear cheap sunglasses because I can't be trusted with a small breakable thing that cost over $20 because when I inevitably break it, I will cry and embarrass myself. So there's that. But anyway, these two pairs are from Charlotte Russe, a store that I normally wouldn't even bother going in because I just wander around shaking my fists at the sky and muttering "why is everything cropped? In my day we wore whole shirts!" But since I was on a specific mission for accessories, I ventured forth and found these. The top pair is just a basic black wayfarer style, but it has a floral pattern inside the...arms? Is that what the side parts are called? I'm spacing here. It sounded right at first then I thought about why the hell sunglasses would have arms and how that would mean they're essentially hugging onto your face and that's SO WEIRD so now it sounds wrong? Let's just go with arms. Anyway, it's floral inside those things, and polka dots on the outside, so it's a teensy hop above basic. The heart-shaped pair I kind of tried on half as a joke, but Amanda said they work somehow on me because I'm a whimsical hippie weirdo or something. I feel it's important to note though that both pairs had a sticker on the lens that said they offer 100% UV protection, because sometimes with really cheap sunnies you just get tinted plastic, which doesn't actually protect your eyes and might even do more harm than good, since the tint tricks your pupils into dilating more and letting in more harmful rays than it would otherwise. So be careful! Sun safety is really important, guys. On that note...

DID YOU REALLY THINK I WASN'T GOING TO MENTION SUNSCREEN

     I don't have a picture to go with this because come on, you know what sunscreen looks like. I'm bringing buttloads of it. Skin cancer don't mess around, and neither do I. 

THIS FACE WASH BECAUSE IT IS MIRAAAACULOUS

     If you're looking to simplify things when you're gonna be traveling, I got your back. I'm not normally one to get excited about face wash because I have stupidly sensitive acne-prone skin so there's only like five kinds in the whole world that I can use without breaking out or getting all red and peely, which takes most of the fun out of it. This one though, I love. It doesn't irritate my skin at all, so none of that weird tight feeling like you want to stick your face in a bucket of lotion, and doesn't make me break out either. But the BEST part, easily, is that it takes off makeup like magic. Remember in Mulan when she wipes her sleeve over her face and all the makeup the nice older ladies put on her comes right off, including eyeliner and lipstick that was put on with an actual paintbrush? That's what this is like. So when you're going away and you don't want to bring a bottle of eye makeup remover or face wipes or anything like that to take off your paints at the end of the day (or if you just like to feel like you really got all the sunscreen and sweat and sea salt or whatever off your face), this stuff is amazing. Just lather it up in your hands then go over your whole face and closed eyes a few times, then rinse everything off. It's a really cool trick, and it makes my face feel all soft too, so in case I want to go around rubbing my face on people like a cat they'll be like "Oh my God what is wrong with y- hey, your face is really soft!" 

THINGS PEOPLE USED TO DO TO ENTERTAIN THEMSELVES BEFORE THE INTERNET

     There's wifi access where I'm going, but it's a family vacation, so we like to do actual family stuff and try not to sit around staring at phones and stuff the whole time. My family has always liked doing puzzles (I used to sit under the glass table at Massanutten, the mountain resort we've gone to yearly since forever, and find the pieces people were looking for by shape, because sometimes it's hard to keep my cover and pretend to be from this planet). I ordered two from Amazon and picked up a new copy of Scattergories, another family favorite, because our original box was in sad shape, all the paper and pencils were gone, and the categories were probably things like "USSR political leaders." 

THIS INCLUDES READING MATERIAL 

     I bought this book on my tablet kind of intending it to be a beach read, but I made the mistake of starting it, then I finished the whole thing that night because it was so funny. Like chuckling out loud to an empty room funny. So now I'm going to force everyone else at the beach to read it instead, which is almost as good. I also got some magazines and the first book in a young adult series on my tablet, because that's the best kind of beach read in my opinion. Maybe that'll turn up in a favorites post some day soon, who knows. 

MONDAY Favorites: GIF Edition!

     Since I was too sick to put together a coherent Favorites post on Friday, I figured I'd do something a little special and different and make today Monday's Favorites, now with 100% more GIF-y goodness!

FAVORITE #1: LOOKET THESE EARRINGS! 

Should I have put a seizure warning on this post? I mean I warned you there'd be gifs, right? 

     These gawgeous thangs were made by my amazingly talented Aunt Patti (you can go check out her Etsy shop HERE- right now everything is 20% off and the proceeds from any purchase you make go to Miracle Horse Rescue, which is a great charity that helps horses that have been abused or neglected. Tell me that's not a win-win!). I saw them posted on her Facebook page and immediately said "Oooh, those are cool. They would look pretty on my head." And they do! I love a happy ending, don't you? They fit perfectly with my whole "hippie archaeologist by day, benevolent but still kind of spooky witch by night" aesthetic, and they also happen to be the same kind of blue-y green-y gray-y color of my eyes in sunlight, which is exactly the kind of super-cliched character detail I'd have made fun of in my college writing courses, so yay nostalgia! 

FAVORITE #2: I'VE BEEN EATING THIS STUFF LIKE CANDY, IN THE MOST LITERAL WAY POSSIBLE.

Mmm, snake-oil -- I mean Vitamin C....

     By which I mean "sporadically, whenever I see the bottle sitting around and think "Oh, I could go for something sour." You know me and my immune system are not seeing eye to eye right now, on account of it being a good-for-nothing layabout and all, so I decided I'd try this stuff and see if the "blast of vitamin C" makes me feel any healthier. All I've noticed so far is more like a blast of powdered citric acid, but I'm cool with it. They're kind of like giant soft Sweet-tarts, except ostensibly less horrible for you. I don't know if I believe it will make me any less likely to get sick, but the placebo effect kind of brings back that teenager-like feeling of invincibility, like I couldn't possibly get sick, ever ever again, so I'm all for it. 

FAVORITE #3: THINGS TO PAINT ON MY FACE! 

Skin is so weird looking up close. Especially when you're the color of the mooooon. 

     When I found myself at Ulta again the other day (found myself there. As if I have no idea how I got there. I just woke up from a fugue state in the middle of Ulta. Yes, that's it exactly), I picked up two liquid eyeliners from Jane cosmetics. I already had the gold one, which is amazing, and I needed a new black liquid eyeliner because the 20 I already owned were all drying out. But it was 2 for $10, and they're normally $8, so I had to get two, and the second one I picked was this one, called "metallic nude." It. Is. So. SHINY. This was actually what gave me the idea to do a GIF post, because a static picture alone just was not doing justice to the shininess. I also like these eyeliners because they have an actual brush tip, not a felt tip. I know a lot of people like the felt tip because it's easier to work with, but I don't like that they dry out, and also I kind of like how a tiny little paint brush makes me feel like Mulan in the Disney movie when I use it.

     Here's what the black eyeliner looks like, in case you are interested in the nuances of black eyeliner (I mean, I am, but I'm interested in almost everything). It dries matte, so it has a 60's velvety feel to it. I also have the metallic nude on my inner corners. 

Do you like how I just told you I have blue-green-gray eyes and very pale skin, then closed with a gif where I look tan with almost brown eyes? Sorceryyyyyy!

     I don't find it hard to work with either. I mean it's not a beginner's eyeliner, for sure, but it's not so runny that it gets in your eyes and makes you look like a tiny squid swam across your sclera. Too far, people who are weird about eyeballs? Sorry. 

     
     I hope this GIF-tacular post makes up for the fact that it's on the wrong day, and I also hope you all had delightful weekends full of all your own favorites! 

Friday Favorites: I stink so goooood Edition!

FAVORITE VIDEOGAME: LEGO THE HOBBIT!

     First, a confession: I haven't seen either of the Hobbit movies, and I never finished reading the book. I got about halfway through it and then lost interest because the writing style was...somehow not as magical and descriptive as I had expected it to be? I dunno. Also there's no girl characters, and I ain't about that life. But I do plan to see the movies someday, in the same way that I plan to have a cool little cottage in the woods where I can grow flowers and cooking herbs and let the local children think I'm a witch, by which I mean I have taken no action to make this plan a reality beyond thinking "yeah, someday." But whatever. You know I love me some Lego games. They're super therapeutic because they're not particularly challenging and you get to run around smashing stuff all willy-nilly and collecting shiny things, which is basically all I ask for in a pastime. 

FAVORITE CONSUMABLE: DISCOUNT EASTER CANDY!

     Having bulk quantities of candy around the house after any holiday whose traditions dictate the exchange of sweets is one of those little things that make me proud to be an American. Oh, what's that other countries, you think we're fat and stupid? Well this stupid fatty just got like ten pounds of Cadbury mini-eggs for a nickel, who's stupid now? 

FAVORITE ONLINE PURCHASE: I'M A SEA GODDESS, IT SAYS SO RIGHT HERE

     I ordered a set of five choose-your-own perfume samples from this Etsy shop called Alkemia last week. Most of them were a bit of a let-down for me, and I'm not sure if it's because I just have crap taste and picked samples of things that I don't actually like, or maybe I was smelling the carrier oils in the samples or WHAT, but 3 out of 5 of them had a note of...bathroominess? To them? I'm doing that upward inflection because I have zero confidence in my abilities to describe scents. I've gotten many a strange look when trying to explain to someone that I don't like a particular popular perfume because it smells "newsprint-y" to me, in a way that reminds me of my dad fanning me with a newspaper while I had a bloody nose in the lobby of the church we went to when I was a kid, and I'm allergic to newsprint, so the paper made me sneeze and it was a mess. So...bad vibes, is what I'm saying, I guess. What?

      Anyway, back to the good perfume. The one I did really like was called Sea Goddess. The website says it has a bunch of fancy things like "saline aquatics" and junk in it, but to me it just smells like a beachy floral, but not old-lady floral at all (not that that's bad, I have a hand lotion that smells like Social Security in a bottle and I don't even care, I put it on every night). It's not going to be my forever-and-ever signature scent or anything, but it was only twelve dollars and it's definitely going to be my "this summer" signature scent, so that's an accomplishment. And they sent two new samples with my order, one of which still had the icky smell I don't like, but the other was really interesting. It's called "Mist Becoming Rain," I believe, and I immediately gave it to my mom because it smells like her interests: fresh and outdoorsy, kind of like you just watered the garden where you grow your arugula (it has kind of a peppery smell, I didn't just pick arugula out of thin air).

SURPRISE FAVORITE: I WENT INTO A TRADER JOE'S AND DIDN'T RAGE-TWITCH AN EYEBALL OUT!

     It's not that I have anything against Trader Joe's as a corporation or anything, my prejudice is based entirely on the fact that their parking lot is like the nexus of all assholery. It is a spawn point of assholes. Every time you've ever been cut off in traffic or tailgated, it's someone on their way to or from a Trader Joe's. They are born in the Trader Joe's parking lot, they go out into the world to spread misery and strife, then they come back to Trader Joe's at the end of their long lives of hooliganery to die. This is known. The one near me is located in an itsy little shopping center next to Ulta, and every time I have ever had the misfortune of finding myself at Ulta on a weekend, the ENTIRE parking lot for the WHOLE shopping center is taken up by all of Trader Joe's rudest minions. I can tell that's where they're going because they'll take the front spot at Ulta, then get their reusable sustainably sourced shopping bags and their aluminum water bottles full of spring water charged with "healing positive ions" out of the trunks of their Prius's and start hiking across the lot. All this I could forgive. I understand sometimes a store ends up in a shopping center whose parking lot just can't keep up with demand. But they are the single rudest identifiable subset of drivers I have ever had the misfortune to observe. They steal spots from people, don't observe any sort of common courtesy at multi-way stops, don't yield to pedestrians, honk at me if I yield to a pedestrian in front of them because how DARE I put ten more seconds between them and artisan-shelled fair-trade pistachios! Basically they suck. 

     BUT. The other day I realized I was running out of jojoba oil, which I use as moisturizer because I have idiotically sensitive skin and if I put normal-person moisturizer on my face-suit I basically become Professor Quirrell, clutching at my burning face screaming "What is this magic?!?" I usually order it online but somehow I had approximately none left, and it takes a while to get here. So I googled, and Trader Joe's seemed to be the only place I could buy it that day. Thus I ventured in. 

     I did end up actually getting it, but the surprise favorites were the two other things I found once I had braved the dreaded parking lot (which is kind of a pun, because they did have a white guy with "dreads" working there). The coconut body butter I bought because it looked like it would smell delightful (I have great purchase-justifying skills), and because there was an old guy who picked up two tubs of it as I was perusing and I thought "hey, he doesn't look too dry and crackly, it must work!" (told you). Then I picked up the "espresso pillows" waiting in line, because the fact that they call them "espresso pillows" cracked me up with how high on the pretentious scale that hits. You couldn't just call them espresso bits, or pieces or something? There's not even anything particularly pillowy about them, they're crunchy for God's sake. I dunno man. It's a weird place. 

     POINT BEING (I'm so sorry I just wrote three paragraphs about Trader Joe's, I just have a lot of feelings. About everything, apparently), the espresso ~*~pillows~*~ are tasty and the body butter is straight-up delightful. That is all. 

BONUS FAVORITE: THIS PICTURE FROM MY PHONE WHICH SHALL SLAY THE MASSES WITH ITS ADORABLENESS

     I don't even have anything to say about this, I'll just leave it here without comment to counteract the Homeric Saga I wrote above. 

Friday Favorites: Super Incohesive Edition!

     Since last Friday's favorites post was kind of a weird one, I thought I'd do a normal one this week. But then I remembered nothing I do is normal, so this ended up just being a jumble of things that I found really, really, disproportionately amusing. 

FAVORITE #1: MY PLANT IS GROWING! 

     Real talk, I was like 97% sure all I was going to get out of this was a delicately dressed jar of dirt, so this was a big surprise. Especially because it popped up preeetty much overnight. I was watering my other (already well-established -- I think it's from a cutting of one that's older than me, but I'd have to ask my mom to confirm that, and she's asleep, and it's my blog so...we're just gonna pretend that's right) plant a few days ago when I glanced over and OH HEY, A PLANT. It felt right at the time because it was all nice and springy and we had the windows open, but now that it's 27 degrees again it feels a little out of place. Whatever, it'll make sense again in a day or two, and I'm pleased with the little bit of spring hope it brings to my desk.

FAVORITE #2: I HAVE THE SEXIEST MOST INTRIGUING ARMPITS!

     So I was standing at the deodorant section, staring at all the possibilities and getting so overwhelmed that I was starting to think about just not buying anything and running off to live in the forests like the smelly ape that I truly must be, and eventually I started wantonly grabbing things and smelling them. None of them really spoke to me, but this one smelled decent enough (read: not entirely like straight-up baby powder. I mean whatever, baby powder is an ok smell, but I don't want to smell like a baby, damn it, because that's a weird thing for a childless person to smell like. What am I supposed to be hiding a baby in my armpit?). But then I looked at the label and knew I HAD to buy it. Because SEXY INTRIGUE. That is the actual name of the actual scent of this actual product that you can actually buy. A stick of chemical compounds designed to hide your sweaty smelly armpits to keep everyone from noticing your bodily processes. Called SEXY INTRIGUE. I laughed out loud, alone in the aisles of Target. That is exactly what I want, Degree. Really gonna complete the whole "sexy intrigue" look I rock when I'm dragging my sweaty sun-block drenched ass around in the sweltering heat of summer. People will walk past and murmur to their friends "She looks pretty rough right now, but how about those sexy intriguing armpits, amiright?" That is exactly what will happen. BRILLIANT MARKETING, GUYS. (I may make fun of it, but in the end who's the sucker who bought it anyway?)

FAVORITE #3: WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING IN THIS PICTURE!

     I snapped this picture because I was sitting on my bed reading about pottery-firing methods of ancient Japan on Wikipedia because I have no idea how to have fun like a normal person and when I looked up for a second it took an abnormally long time for my brain to figure out what I was looking it. It looks like somebody snuck in and pasted a mural of a nice dusky horizon on my window, then when I opened it I revealed the black abyss of a cold indifferent universe lurking behind. In reality it's just a weird illusion of there being a hilly pasture over there that pulls the horizon right up to where my window ends. I mean, the picture is just an illusion. The cold indifferent universe is real. Sweet dreams, kiddos!

FAVORITE #4: I'M REALLY JUST ADDING ONE MORE IN CASE YOU FOUND THAT ENDING TOO SOBERING AND NEED SOME CHEERING NOW!

     This was Bess's face the entire time my mum was vacuuming the other day. The other cats all ran away  but Bess is too lazy, so she just sat there and stared at me like "Getting real tired of your bullshit. Trying to get a solid twelve hours of sleep here." And yes, I am that person who talks for their cat and laughs hysterically while taking twenty pictures in a row of them. It is what it is. 

A weather "event?" What, like a gala or something?

     So here we are, east coast friends, once again on the cusp of a weather "event" that's going to bring cold and snow and ice and misery upon us. Oh well. I'm trying to make the best of it -- if nothing else it's a stellar opportunity to wear all my sweaters at once -- but I must admit I'm not looking forward to another round of winter weather. Mostly because, here at least, snow isn't a pretty winter wonderland thing where it's all fluffy light pretty snowdrifts and junk (I feel like that's a thing in Canada? I dunno, I've never been to Canadia-land. I'll ask a Mountie next time I meet one. Also, did you know that Mounties are actually totally badass? Like they'll chase you straight over the border into the States and shoot you down with a submachine gun if you try to flee after, I dunno, stealing a moose or whatever? Fun fact). Here it might be pretty snow for a couple hours, tops, but there's always a layer of gross slush and ice underneath that just makes it treacherous to try and get anywhere and mucks everything up with gray ice-goo.

Shit, weather.com, you ain't messin' around, huh?

     But the bright side of a weather mess like this is it's a great excuse to stay in bed bundled up like a burrito all day. Unless you have a job that won't be closed due to inclement weather and you have to trudge out there no matter what to keep society from falling into chaos -- like working for the power company, Dad -- in which case, sorry that you have to do that, but thanks for preventing the collapse of our nation's infrastructure, I guess! I work from home though, so here's how I'm getting ready to spend a few frosty days indoors. 

NEW INSULATING SHADES! 

     Hey look, a solution to all my complaining about how cold my room is! These replaced the room-darkening pull-down shades I had before, and it's a massive improvement. They keep my room noticeably warmer because they're honeycombed, so there's an extra layer of air pockets to keep warm air in and cold air out. It used to be that you could step across the threshold into my room and instantly feel the drop in temperature, like a ghost lived in here with me. Now it's much closer to the temperature of the rest of the house, and I can sit at my desk over by the window without fear of losing fingers to frostbite now! The added bonus is that they're not room-darkening, they're just "light-filtering." I consider this a plus because I don't like to wake up in a dark room, and my room faces west anyway, so it's not like the sun busts in here at dawn. I need the light to be able to come in and help me cobble together some semblance of the Circadian rhythm I seem to have been born without. With these shades I can keep them shut at night to prevent all the heat from getting sucked right out the windows without having to sacrifice the morning light. Yay! 

THE HEATED BLANKET THAT I PROFESS MY LOVE FOR EMBARRASSINGLY OFTEN!

When I first got this, I hooked it up that night and without my contacts in, I could swear it went up to 11, Spinal Tap style. I was crushed when I realized it just said H for "high" or "hot" or "hell yes" or whatever. 

     I know I talk about it more often than some people talk about their children, but I seriously think I have become a person for whom a heated blanket is a necessity. This could be because I have the cold tolerance levels of a 95 year old chihuahua, but whatever, it's amazing. There's nothing cozier than pre-heating your bed while you take a shower, then climbing in like a human hot-pocket to combat the after-shower-shivers (serious condition). 

THAT WORK THING I MENTIONED I DO!

     This weather event, be it snow/ice/raining men, will at least be productive for me because I just picked up two new books to edit, just in time to keep me from going crazy if I get stuck in the house! I've been editing a lot of research papers and citation lists lately, which is still fun because I get to learn about things I otherwise wouldn't (and even citations can be kind of fun because it's basically just rearranging and formatting things according to a set of prescribed, if somewhat arbitrary, rules, which is supremely satisfying to anyone with a slightly compulsive personality), but I always get extra excited about editing stories. I mean, getting to read books for a living is kind of a dream gig, yeah? 

     I hope if you're in an impacted area you're all keeping warm and entertained however you so choose, be it working, catching up on a month's worth of missed sleep, or marathoning all the Harry Potter movies! 

     

"I'm fighting a great and powerful evil right now...sadness."

     Title quote is from this comic, which is amazing and applicable to my life much of the time, so... do recommend. 

     Anyways, I'm feeling really down today and couldn't come up with anything to post about, so here is a hodgepodge of things off my phone that I thought may appeal to a variety of interests. 

IF YOU LIKE GROSS THINGS

    Then here is my gross blackened bruise from where I keep running into the pointy dangerous corner on the footboard of my bed. Amanda drew a lightning bolt on it to make it look more badass. 

IF YOU LIKE CUTE BABIES

     Then enjoy this picture of my niece lookin' fresh to death in her shopping outfit. 

IF BABIES AREN'T YOUR THING

     Then have a cute dog picture instead. 

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING SNARKY

     Then you'll appreciate this picture I took ages ago of a brilliantly honest description of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

IF YOU WANTED TO BEAR WITNESS TO A WEIRD CONVERSATION THAT MADE ME CHUCKLE

     Then you can peruse this one, but before you ask, I don't know what turning history off and on actually does, it was just me accidentally hitting buttons with my big meaty paws. So no, I'm not a time lord, unfortunately. 

That's all I got. The rest of the pictures on my phone are all various iterations of babies, cats, and food.  

Friday Favorites: TV Binge Edition!

     I guess I kind of gave away the nature of one of this week's favorites right in the title, but so it goes. Let's do this! I present to you this week's favorites. 

SHOW I'VE BEEN WATCHING OBSESSIVELY

     I started watching Elementary this week because Jen has told me several times over several months that I'd really like it. I knew she was probably right, given that I'll watch any show that's a variation on a Sherlock Holmes theme (except the Mentalist, because the lead in that looks too much like Gilderoy Lockhart and for that reason alone I simply can't deal), and that if she likes it I probably will too because we're basically the same Lego minifig, just wearing two different snap-on hairs. But I have to be in a certain mood to start a new show, so it took me a long time to get around to it. Part of that is it has to be when I know I have a few days free, because I cannot be trusted to start a new show without binge-watching every season in a span of days. I can't help it; I do the same thing with books. Put it off for months and months, then read an entire trilogy in a few days. Anyway, I'm enjoying that this version of the Sherlock theme is less depressing than the BBC version (which I do love, but come on, my heart still hurts), and that Watson isn't such a sad-sack (again, I love Watson. I do. But it's nice to have a version where Watson isn't quite as much of a tragic puppy). 

FOOD I SUDDENLY REMEMBERED IS REALLY FREAKING DELICIOUS

     Lindt white chocolate truffles (I'll pause here while you imagine the sound of a choir of angels parting the clouds on a dreary day, because I don't know how to spell that sound. I picked up a bag of these the other day because I just thought "Oh, haven't had one of these in a while!" and OH MY GOD IT ISN'T EVEN FAIR HOW GOOD THESE ARE. Granted I'm biased, because white chocolate has always been my favorite chocolate (yes, I know technically it's not even real chocolate. Whatever, don't tell me who to be). But what I really want is the one this guy is whipping up with a maniacal look on his face on the back of the package. You know, the one the size of my FIST?

IMPROMPTU ROOM SWITCH-UP THAT I THOUGHT I'D HATE BUT DIDN'T

      Yeah, so... I have a glowing headboard now. See, the other day I was sitting around, being Pinterest in human form, and decided I wanted to incorporate the whole "white string lights behind a sheer fabric" thing that I see everywhere online, lookin' all pretty and junk. I grabbed some lights from the attic and my summertime sheer curtains, then set about holding them up and laying them out in different configurations waiting for inspiration to strike. It occurred to me that a sheer, lit-up headboard could be kind of cool. So I strung the lights on, then started having doubts. It was looking a little...dorm-room-esque? But once I threw the curtain on there and turned on the lights, I decided I actually really like it. It gives a nice ambient glow that's enough to, say, plug in my phone or see the buttons on the tv remote by, but it's not quite so bright as to prevent me from getting sleepy, like a reading lamp can be. Obviously I unplug it before I go to sleep at night, because it is too bright to sleep in, but it's nice for that wind-down time before I'm ready to get serious about sleeping. The lights are the LED kind that are designed to stay cool so you don't burn your house down with a Christmas tree, so I'm not worried about any fire hazardry there. As for that curtain, it's literally just tossed on there right now, so if I decide to keep this set-up I'll figure out some way to make it look more polished. Right now though, it's just a fun little change. I may keep it, I may not, but I'm enjoying it right now. 

Friday Favorites: Sick edition!

     As you may know, I've been dealing with some sort of horrible cold/flue/sinus issue all week long. Since I know there's a lot of colds and flus and various plagues swimming around out there right now, I thought I'd share some of the things that have helped me deal, in case anyone finds themselves in a similar situation. 

1. Two words: Heated. Blanket.

     I know I've said it before, but the importance of a nice heated blanket for the cold months in general, but especially during cold and flu season, cannot be overstated. When you're feverish and have chills so violent you think your skeleton's gonna jump right out of your body, there's nothing like cranking a heated blanket all the way up. I'm feeling a lot better now, but during the worst of my bout of illness, when I was basically just a shivering incubus of viral plague, I crawled back into my bed and turned it up to high after spending the night praying for the sweet release of death on the bathroom floor, and I swear that as soon as the heat hit me it soothed my broken body and toasted the chills right out. I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up a few hours later I felt approximately a trillion times better. It's the closest thing you're gonna get to a power-up in real life. 

2. Along the same lines: flannel PJs. 

     I've been living in flannel jimjams all week (they're from Kohls, in case you're wondering where you can get flannel jammies with Scotty dogs on them -- I also have the same pair in blue plaid). They're so soft and warm and delightful. I always thought I'd hate flannel pajamas because I'd overheat, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the shnuggliness. 

3. Entertainment: Lego Marvel Superheroes.

     Look, I know this isn't exactly high-brow entertainment, but you know what? Sometimes you want something intellectual and enlightening, and that's when you go watch the King's Speech or something, but sometimes you want to make Captain America punch a Lego velociraptor until it explodes. And for those times, this game is delightful. I really like the Lego videogames in general; they're easy to play, satisfying because you get to smash practically everything, and they have a sense of humor smart enough that it doesn't make you feel like you're playing a kids game (even though you kind of totally are, but whatever. Grab your happiness where you can). I've especially appreciated it this week because I could handle playing it even when I was taking cold medicine that dialed my reaction time and problem solving down to slow-mo. 

     So those are the little things that have gotten me through a week of germy grossness. I hope you all are staying healthy, but if not, I hope you're finding solace in little things too!