Wednesday randomments.

Wheeeee! Wednesday is here.

Here is a inside look of the VERY exciting life of Jen!

Boyfriend wakes me up with phone call at 6:00 am. I love his phone calls, look forward to speaking to him at all times…but 6:00 this morning, not so much. I had a hard time falling asleep last night…I was freeeeezing and could not get warm. Perhaps it was the wet hair? But 3 hours later, 3 blankets and a pair of pink fuzzy slippers later…I fell asleep only to wake up an hour later to a phone call : ) Baby, it’s cold outside! Brrrrr! And I am afraid to use the furnace, not knowing if the bill will be exorbitant like the first Allentown apartment. Ouch. Tis supposed to be 70 something this weekend though…starting tomorrow!

Tom and Jerry is on the tele while I blog…he he he. I love that cartoon. I am waiting for my Simba cat to get up and walk around on his two legs one of these days. Jetsons, Flinstones and Tom and Jerry. How bout yous?

I stepped in cat barf this morning. Regurgitated Purina One courtesy of Simba cat…I let him lick the last two drops of milk in my cereal bowl…by letting him I mean did not stop him fast enough. This means, even two drops, a upset tummy. My cats are not tolerant of people food…I also watched Sasha Kitten attempt a running leap on to the entertainment center…which failed. The remotes flew on the floor and Sasha stood up and acted as if he did not just fly through the air and bounce off a 4 foot tall piece of furniture. Fun stuff these cats. I love them to pieces.

Last night I went grocery shopping. I put a $15 budget in place. I bought potatoes, bananas, an orange, scallions, lettuce, zucchini and yellow squash, eggs, milk, cereal, two noodle packets, tuna fish, and sliced cheese. And at the last minute I saw a double packaged box of Nature Valley Oats and Honey granola bars and a *free* package of the new Nature Valley Trail Mix Fruit and Nut bars. Oh and golfballs. Free 3-pack of Top Flite XL-3000 Super Feel Golf Balls (why? I dunno…) Erin had a box of the Peanut Butter bars, they were $2.50. I figured if the 2 boxes were a bargain I would purchase, I wanted to try to new trail mix bar…smashed up in yogurt, yum! And when I was at Target on Sunday, overtired Sunday…I think I stood in the aisle staring at the many options given to the next generation of granola bars, for at least 10 uninterrupted minutes. So? I asked the cashier how much they were. She said $4. NOT REALLY A BARGAIN…well, it is if you care about golf balls, which I don’t, so the first person to respond to this blog entry asking for free golf balls..well, I will send them to you. Next week after I get my next UI check. ; ) So the granola bars. I say yes, against my better judgment and now push the budget up to $19. I am over $4. Erin kindly points out that she owes me at least $3 for her share of milk, potatoes, cheese…so I am back on track. Yay. Funny part of this story. I had picked up a giant yellow delicious apple and weighed it…put it in my cart and realized the one apple alone was $.85 and I could not afford it right now…at least the granola bar pleasure spreads out to about $.35 for 12 different pleasurable snacking moments. vs. one moment of an $.85 apple.

Poll for All Things Jen readers…newspaper? Online or paper version? I much prefer holding the newspaper in my hand to get my news. However when I do not leave the house in the morning, I do not get a chance to buy the paper….so I might have to subscribe. I prefer reading the news in the morning. Only at the other apartment, they delivered in the afternoon, after I have heard the news on NPR and Shredd and Regan and if I wake up late…on the networks. And on the computer I see snippets of stories. My style-read the paper in hand in the morning. Online doesn’t do it for me…and although I just bitched about the $.85 apple being too expensive, somehow $2.50 for the weekly paper is not a problem. Interesting how that works!

Why is Craig Kilborne on so damn late, late? I love him.

Apartment dwelling is going well. So far so good. I did not accomplish the kitchen yesterday as blogged. Instead I went to the other place and loaded up the remainder of my belongings and brought them home. I have my microwave still at the other place which I need to pick up today. The other project that occurred last night was making our main living room into, well a living room instead of a frat house mixmatched yard sale furniture frenzy. We had a futon sofa, two sofas, a loveseat, and 3 chairs all somehow placed in the room. Erin’s mom said “this is what I imagine a frat house would look like, even though I have never been in a frat house.” Oh how right she was…add the image of the colors…a gold chair, a baby blue chair, a baby blue and tan plaid couch, a pink chair, a futon with a navy blue cover and a brown and tan flowered couch. Picture perfect! (Slipcovers people, they do amazing things…we will pull the room together, just give us some time and money. ; )

The “I can’t believe I am not a dining room!” dining room now is home of the legless furniture. Papa N and Lil Brother borrowed the landlords saw, hacksaw? to shave the legs off of my very first Salvies couch from NC. And the loveseat, which used to have many buttons holding in the back pillow cushion, now is one large goiter. Sasha LOVES this loveseat. He sits on the top of the cushion and smooshes the goiter into the sitting space…too funny to watch. I am trying to get a photo but Sasha is camera goiter-loveseat shy. I think I will end up putting this piece in my bedroom. But for now they are in the other room…we have no dining room table…so we will be using it as the “inspiration room” complete with legless furniture, the computer, and the buffet table I am going to refinish someday…I am really excited to use the buffet table finally as my COFFEE bar…one side the cap machine one side my coffee machine…teas, cocoas, all things coffee will go here. Fun. And my red, blue, baby blue plaid and flower motif is likely to stay in this room, while Erin’s subtle Eddie Bauer classic blues and tan look will be in the other room. Two souls coming together, but separate, as one in the same apartment. : ) Fun.

I WILL get the kitchen completed this afternoon. As soon as I stop this blog. Stop. Jennifer. Out. (ugh, did I write that?)

Selling my vote on Ebay?

Ah, the joys of living in a state controlled by the electoral college…my vote for president will not make a difference. Sad. Lil Brother went ballistic on me last night ordering that I MUST vote for Kerry, if I vote for Bush, he will cease speaking to me…”You can’t vote for that…that…warmonger.” Also he will order his wife not to speak to me as well. Hmmm. Coercion anyone? Nyah. I am quite excited for anyone who gets all ruffled up over things like voting…nerdy political Jen. I do have to say, when I see the President on TV or hear his voice…my stomach does not turn…I do not wish to throw things, start a protest, my blood pressure stays the same….I might not agree with everything he says, however he isn’t that God awful. I do not think Iraq is Vietnam…and that might be the problem Tim has with me, but this is not a one issue election. Balancing out those Republican interests vs. the Democrat interests. We will see…

So, who do I vote for? Hmmm. Tim thought I could offer my vote up on E-bay? Although any smart person would not buy my vote, realizing it won’t count anyhow…the gun-toting backwoods Cassadaga Jesus hicks can buy Bush…and pad my “Send Jen to Ireland” fund? Hmmm. Could work! Or I could get one of the women in black who protest every word that comes out of George W. Bush’s mouth…TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE…we need Kerry! Cause, yeah, he is so much better. Two heavily entrenched rich career puppet politicians. Which one to choose, which one to choose?

Nader? Is he actually on the ballot? Although could I vote for Ralph? I think I might actually actively abstain. Sign in, close the curtain and forgo voting at all…or not. We still have months to go…Although if Bush got rid of Cheney on the ballot, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ahahhhhahhaaaa! Perhaps that would be tempting? But if Kerry puts permasmile NC boy on the ticket? Ugh. Vomit. John Edwards. Pretty face, pretty bank account. And somehow has supporters all across the country who think he has clout. NOT AN INSIDER! Yep. I am all for getting new people into politics, but I loathe the very rich people, very very rich people who somehow feel anointed into higher office. Gee, I want to serve the public…I THINK I WILL RUN FOR SENATE…and now PRESIDENT! The one good thing about Johnny Boy is, he has no record to dance around. One term in the Senate? Please. Enough.

Post a Poem on Your Blog Day

Here is my poem in honour of Post a Poem on Your Blog Day. As seen..well lots of places…

The Daffodils
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

30 and more like my mom…

Good God. That will be the last time I put THAT in the heading, while I love Wanda as the woman who gave me birth, I usually do not find myself wishing to be more like her…I accept the parts of me that are already like her good and bad, but more like her? Yep. Something about growing old…I just found myself in the backyard hanging clothesline so when the sheets are out of the washer I can hang them up in the sunshine. Hardly the Urban girl mentality, eh? Even better…Lil Brother and Auntie Carroll will appreciate this one…I have a scarf on my head…NO NOT A RED BANDANNA, I do not sport *colors* but I do enjoy the occasional pretty bohemian scarf look…just paste a proud smile on me and move on people…oh and the bunny was in the backyard visiting too…

YIKES! Get me to DC soon…baby? ; )

Unemployment.

The Buffalo Niagara region TOPS the nation for the highest unemployment rate for March.

Guess who has the lowest rate? Washington D.C. region.

Alas. If only I could hang my laundry there…

Inspiration

from Page after Page by Heather Sellers

“To write you need so very little. You need an honest heart. And some paper. You need to approach your writing life just as you would a romantic partner, not as you would a discipline.

Are you doing a frenzied kind of scary dance in the center of your life to take up the emptiness there? Are you sick of saying you want a writing life, more time for writing, when you keep not doing anything about it?

Choose what you want to be in the center. Sit down, and quit thinking that you are the center. Make your center an inviting place. Stop complaining. If you have the energy and are practiced in the ways of love,put writing in the center just as you would a new lover, the love of your life. If you are committed already, take on writing as a lover on the side.

Let yourself be as passionately pulled to this lover as you would with an affair of the heart. Time will fall away. Love is the only way to create time. You will be happier and you will make the people around you happier if you “shut up and sit down.” Make it seem like you are at least choosing your own life.”

“Ambition. We get afraid of being successful because we are used to things the way they are. Change, even good change, is very scary. Would we be us anymore if you took our writing more seriously? No. We wouldn’t. It’s a little like death. Well, it is exactly like a death. New you writes more. The new you gets good. The old guy, the non writer wanna-be dies. We all say we want this, to be writers, but I can see why so few folks actually put the time in.

You have to be very fearless to change yourself. It’s not very comfortable. Ambition leads to different friends, different clothes, different habits, a different maybe unrecognizable you… Ambition is growth.

To be successful as a writer you have to imagine clearly and fearlessly what you really want. Do you really want to write a bestseller? Because you could. You could read dozens of them and figure out just how to do it. If you focused on this it would happen to you. You could read books on successful people and their habits. You could make yourself into this type of person.

But you would have to not be the person you are right now. “