dork

Stuff I Like Today

9 January 2012 / dork, meme, miscellany monday, pictures, positivity, ronni, Uncategorized

one.
Listening to my “Eleventied™” mix on my iPod.
This is the playlist that consists of all my favorite songs.
Some examples?
a. Anywhere Is by Enya (DUH)
b. Soul Man by Kid N Play
c. Cry Little Sister (Theme from The Lost Boys)
d. Addicted by Kelly Clarkson
e. Helena Beat by Foster the People.
f. We Belong by Pat Benetar
g. I Can’t Dance by Genesis
38 songs. 2.7 hours of listening AWESOME for moi.
Hey, I never said I was cool.

two.
Long, hot baths with a Lush bath bomb.
Especially the Dragon’s Egg bomb.
The bath bomb that keeps on giving.
It’s one of the slow release ones. It smells amazing.
It crackles!
AND IT HAS GLITTER.
It turns the water the most gorgeous, sparkly orange.
I love it.

three.
Demi Lovato is on the cover of my latest issue of Seventeen!
Don’t ask why I still read Seventeen.
Actually, I’ll tell you why.
I hope to be a YA author one day.
And I feel like Seventeen will give me some insight.
Or at least tell me what to avoid in my writing.

four.
Remembering that a year ago, Adam and I were at Disney World.
We’d eaten so much at Liberty Tree Tavern that we had to go into
The Hall of Presidents because we were too stuffed to move!
We’d eaten ourselves stupid.
I regret nothing.
And we get to do it again next month!

five.
My awesome houseguest is en route to my place RIGHT NOW!
She and her boyfriend are staying with us all week.
I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HER!

six.
Beef and noodles in the Crock-Pot.
It smells DELICIOUS.
Dinner is going to be great.
Yum.

seven.
Just getting word that
Make It Or Break It
returns to ABC Family March 26.
WooooooHooooo!
YAY gymnastics!!!

eight.
Feeling like myself again.
The fatigue has eased up.
My appetite is coming back.
I’m ready to do yoga again,
and I’m planning to go back tomorrow.

nine.
Not only did I have the most amazing brunch at
Bleeding Heart Bakery & Cafe,
but I found out some awesome news about a couple of my friends. 😀
I’m so happy for them!

[via]

ten.
My Disney Imagination candle.
It makes the place smell like
DISNEY!
and HAPPINESS.

What stuff do you like today?

Linking up with:

18 Comments

Decorating Sense

8 January 2012 / dork, pictures, ronni, Uncategorized

We interrupt this blog for a test of the dorkilicious dorkity dork system.

This is only a test.

One of the chores I hate the most is putting away my Christmas decorations. For one thing, it’s work, which sucks, but another thing, I’m packing away all my pretty things for another many months. See, I have a little secret.

I cannot decorate worth a damn.

No. Seriously. I really suck at it. Adam did most of the decorating that’s in our apartment. He did most of the painting, he hangs the art, he deals with the furniture. My contributions? Calendars and dolls, and my little corner with the desk. The only time I do halfway OK with decorating? Christmas. And that doesn’t get to stay up all year. It doesn’t matter that I play on Pinterest all the time, or that I am addicted to watching HGTV. I still have no decorating sense. Or class.

Just last night, I was watching a show on HGTV with my friend Jen. These rich people in Texas or somewhere–their entire first floor flooded while they were on vacation, so they called in this designer. Their tastes were definitely above mine. The leopard print carpet on the stairs? I totally would slide down that on my butt. The big horse statue/sculpture thingy? I’d climb on it and take a picture. I told Jen that if/when I ever became super, duper rich, my house would NOT look like that ’cause it’s just like me. I’d hope I wouldn’t be obvious “new money,” but that old, rich, dark stuff is not my favorite.

so not my style
[via]

Another thing I don’t get is people’s obsession with “outdated” this and that. I couldn’t care less if my appliances are stainless steel or not. If they’re functional (and the stove is gas), then I’m good to go. Granite countertops? Not necessary. I mean, yes, all that stuff is really pretty and it would be nice to have, but it’s not a deal breaker for me if I don’t have it. (And I don’t.)

When I watch those shows and I watch how picky people get over things, I kinda want to giggle. Adam and I have a pretty big apartment by Chicago’s standards, especially for what we’re paying. But it’s not *gigantic* or anything. It was hard for me to downsize, and we still struggle with storage space. I once lived in a 2300 square foot house, then I lived in a 450 square foot two bedroom apartment alone before moving here. I’m also a pack rat. Poor Adam. The sheer amount of STUFF that came with me overwhelmed him greatly. Poor guy. But we got it under control (sort of).

We don’t plan on moving for a while, but if we did, here are my must haves:

two bedrooms
two bathrooms
bathtub
air conditioning (this is more for Adam’s sake than my sake)
dishwasher
gas stove
storage
cat friendly
close to public transporation

Here are my “nice-to-haves”:

hardwood flooring
walk-in closets
basement
laundry
porch or stoop
close to downtown

And this list is my “it’d be cool if it was there but if not, I’ll be fine, and I’m certainly not going to pursue it” stuff:

stainless steel appliances
granite countertops
master bedroom that has its own bathroom
Jacuzzi soaking tub in that master bathroom
courtyard

So there you have it. I’d like to think I’m easy to please when it comes to living spaces, but I don’t know. I haven’t actually seriously looked for a place to live since 2006. And moving’s such a pain in the butt that I’m OK not looking for now. It’s when I watch endless House Hunters and House Hunters International marathons that I get like this, you know. Will I stop watching them? NOPE. THANK YOU.

this is more like it
[via]

And that was a random insight into my dorkiness. It really wasn’t a test. I just didn’t want you to panic.

You’re welcome.

7 Comments

Blasts From The Past (Many Pictures & Extreme Narcissism)

19 July 2010 / dork, pictures, ronni

A few weeks ago, I hooked my computer up to the scanner/printer/copier/fax machine/coffee maker/deep fryer/hot tub to scan some pictures. It’s one of those new(ish) Kodak ones that you put the really cheap ink in. Adam’s not happy with the printer, but who really is happy with their printer? I am VERY happy with the scanner, though. The easiest scanning I’ve ever done. No need to install bulky software. Just plop the picture in, push the button, and voila! So easy!

So, I went on a scanning spree. It’s time for me to thoroughly embarrass myself. Funny colors, creases, thumbs, and all. You will get the full enchilada of what happens when one digs out the big guns. Enjoy!

Little Cleveland Browns fan me. February 1977. I was two here. Had been for a couple months.

I was two here, and it was Easter. Obvi. 1977.

I was three here, and it was another Easter! Those curls were done with the magic of sponge rollers. You know you’re jealous. 1978.

I had just turned nine here. December 1983. Merry Christmas!

Me and my sister rocking out at my Aunt Lue’s house.

This was the first of many Baby Skates dolls I got. The legs kept snapping off for some reason.

Check out the retro Rainbow Brite doll my cousin Terri is holding behind me. I had just turned 10 here. Yeah, I was still playing with dolls. I STILL play with dolls. What?

Sixth grade graduation. June 1987. Mr. Trask, on the left, was the most awesome principal EVER. In my book, ONLY YOURS, I made him one of the teachers. Since OY didn’t sell, I plan to recycle him. It’s my way of remembering the best principal ever. First of all, he liked Mickey Mouse and wore Mickey Mouse ties (he’s wearing one in this picture!) and a Mickey Mouse watch. And he’d arrange for us to get out of class to eat popcorn, drink pop, and watch Mary Poppins. Or Laurel & Hardy. Do schools still do that sort of thing? Anyway, Mrs. Arnold, the assistant principal, is the one handing me something. She was the strict one, but she wasn’t mean. Her daughter, Jennifer, played violin and was SUPER talented at it. I am telling you all of this because, well, I need to somehow distract you all from the crazy dress I’m wearing.

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADE PICTURES WILL NOT BE SHOWN HERE. EVER.
Just saying….

Here I am in ninth grade honors biology, working on my science project. I still remember my hypothesis: If a fruit juice is fermenting, then it is giving off heat. I won third place. I also remember breaking a mercury thermometer. Go me. Like my double watches? I was STYLIN’.

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. I was too obsessed with Joey McIntyre to worry much about real boys. My earrings are Lifesavers, though. Rock on.

Remember how I was too obsessed with celebrity boys to care much about real boys? Yeah, this is another example. Hmm, Homecoming or Mario Lopez? The choice was easy. I brought him a Homecoming flower that I’d spritzed with my Love’s Baby Soft Rain Scent perfume. He said it smelled good. October 1992.

My senior picture.

YAY! Graduation from John Adams High School. Class of 1993!

I lived in the Stadium Scholarship Dorm, but it would have been more accurately named the Stadium Work-Study Dorm. For a reduced cost (and a GPA of 2.8 or higher), the residents took up a lot of the work that would have normally gone to pay staff. For example, students worked cafeteria shifts, janitorial shifts, planned social events, and so on. After one or two cafeteria shifts, I was lucky enough to get clued in regarding an office shift. Here I am, on duty!

This was during college. Not sure if this was freshman or sophomore year–I started on an off-quarter, so the years kind of overlapped for a while there. Still, the point of this picture is to show you how into Mickey Mouse I was. There’s Mickey Mouse all over that room! I wish I still had that vest. It’s pretty sweet.

YEA! I am out of the dorms and living in Harrison House Apartments (which is completely something else these days). This is autumn 1995.

This was right after I was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic through RCIA. April 1996. I was a devout Catholic for about six months before backsliding. Oops. I no longer practice, but I think some aspects of the faith are beautiful.

Another desk job at my place of residence. I picked up some shifts at the Harrison House front desk. It was… interesting. Strangely enough, the graveyard shift was the most interesting. I was still very Catholic then. See the Eucharist necklace I’m wearing?

July 4, 1996. I’m really into the spirit! Ha!

Me on the balcony at Crystal’s Castle hotel in Pompano Beach, Florida, December 1996. Going to Southern Florida the week before Christmas was surreal. To be outside in the warm, sunny weather, playing on the beach and whatnot. Then going inside a mall and seeing Santa and candy canes and Christmas trees. People decorated their palm trees with strings of lights. It was very cool.

Oh, how I miss that flat tummy. And those pants were probably a size 0 or 2. *sigh* June 1998.

Virginia Beach, September 1999.

OK, so that’s a bunch of pictures of me from the 20th century. I also plan to do a major Aidan Blast From the Past, because I found some really adorable photos of him that I’d love to share. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my post. I’d love to see some of YOUR blasts from the past!! 😀

1 Comment

Feeling Kinda Zen…. (Pictures, Long)

14 May 2010 / authors, body and soul, books, dork, living in chicago, pictures, yoga

O hai! I’m on my way to Schaumburg! Look how excited I am!!!

With the exception of a headache, I feel pretty good today. I went to a new yoga class today, Mindful Vinyasa, and it was really amazing. It’s getting to the point where my body craves yoga practice, and if I skip one for any reason, I feel all knotted. AND, apparently, I have bad dreams! Last night/this morning, I dreamed that I went to class and went to unroll my mat and it was all ripped apart! Eeek?!

Fortunately, the are 57 classes that I can always make up if I have to miss. 🙂

I’ve been practicing yoga in this classroom/studio setting for more than a month now, and already, I’m stronger in some ways. Weak in others, but that’s the beauty of yoga. We’re all different. Everyone has their own practice, and it’s OK not to be perfect all the time. Such a refreshing view to have (and a hard one to learn in this competitive society). So, I plan to continue practicing and learning and growing. Plus, I meet the most incredible people there. Even if we only touch lives for a brief moment, it’s a gorgeous moment.

I went to the library today. Got out a bunch of awesome ones, but before I read those, I’m going to finish Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti. I had the pleasure of meeting her Wednesday evening at Anderson’s Bookshop in Downer’s Grove. (I just have to say, that if I ever move from the Chicago area, I will miss Anderson’s a great deal.)

Anyway, getting to Downer’s Grove SUCKED. I swear, it’s rush hour ALL the time in Chicago. Still, once we got there, I got to spend hours in a bookstore and eat yummy pizza in a cool-looking pizza place, so that was cool. And meeting Susane was such a treat! She’s hilarious and so much fun! I love how candid she is. Here are some pix from that night:

Me and Susane. Isn’t she so pretty?? Pictures don’t do this woman justice, just sayin’.

Susane loves her some cupcakes, so when someone brought her some, she was totally thrilled:

AND then Susane shared them with us!!!

They were red velvet and totally yummy!

This week was busy. Not that I can remember WHY, but it was. Yesterday, we headed out to Schaumburg so Adam could do an Author Event. It was interesting. The Schaumburg Township District Library, though? OMG. Amazing and awesome. Five star. I didn’t know libraries had a rating system but apparently they do (and Columbus Metropolitan is a five-star library too, but I’m not surprised by that at ALL). This library. People. It’s crazy. Bright and welcoming. Board games and computers and books and books and books. NEW books! And the best part is that they let Chicago library card holders borrow books as visitors. 🙂 It’s like Heaven on Earth for me. I wish it was next door to me. I took out books last week when we were there for a different Author Event type deal that Adam was filling in for, and returned them yesterday. Today, we went to one of the Chicago branch libraries, which is five million times more pleasant than going downtown to Harold Washington, where I rarely feel welcome at all.

So… how awesome was Betty White on SNL last weekend? I hadn’t watched SNL in years, but I made an exception for this. She was hilarious! I was also very excited to see the return of some of my favorite SNL Ladies, Molly Shannon and Maya Rudolph especially.

Flowers are blooming like crazy all over the neighborhood:

And this is on the ground on the way to the yoga studio. I don’t know.

Hmm, what else?

· Adam and I have been trying to eat better, thanks to watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. This result of this is that there are snow peas in the house almost all the time. And BEAN SPROUTS! And clementines! I try to eat something raw every day, even if it’s just a little bit. Less processed, more real please!

· In 25 days, Aidan will be here for the summer! Woohoo!

· Still enjoying the new Doctor, even though some of the episodes are a great big cup of wtf.

· I am sooo behind on emails, game requests, etc. I’ll get to them. Eventually.

· I’ve been going through and editing the categories/tags on my old entries. Unfortunately, I thought (wrongly) that the updated entries would simply update on LJ. Oh no, the cross-poster cross posted the entries AGAIN. So I have doubles of a lot of my LJ entries from before 2010. It’s a PITA to go and individually delete thousands of LJ entries, so they are just going to be some doubles in the archives.

· Adam and I can’t take Aidan to Disney World this year, so of course I’m getting all kinds of emails from Disney Destinations with all these fantastic deals! They’re driving me crazy. If only I could get a huge, crazy windfall….

· Excited about … well never mind. Adam interrupted me to tell me something and I forgot. :O

That’s all for now. About to watch some Molly Shannon and chill out. ‘Til next time! 🙂

Comments Off on Feeling Kinda Zen…. (Pictures, Long)

Right Then, It’s On

16 October 2008 / cats, dork, happy, shopping, work

I’m surprised my brain is even functioning enough to write this post. But here Iam.

I am currently in the middle of a seven-day work week. I went in on Sunday, and I’ve been at work every day and will work Saturday as well. Yesterday, I was so exhausted and sick-feeling that I went home a couple of hours early, and those extra few hours of sleep REALLY helped. I figured that if I didn’t rest yesterday, I’d be crap for the rest of the week. This morning I felt back to normal and worked a regular day with no problem. Tomorrow is Friday for most people, but honestly, I don’t really know which day is which these days anymore.

The upside of all this working are the following things:

It’s nice not to have to worry AT ALL about money for the next several weeks. And all the frugal living I’ve had to do the past two years has really helped me not lose control of my spending. My biggest splurges this month? Some clothes for Aidan and my Disney Photopass CD, both of which I snagged at substantial discounts. I still take my lunches to work (except for the occasional McDonald’s treat), still reread books at home or get them from the library.

The people I work with are generally pretty great. The permanent employees are used to this fourth quarter madness and most of them take it in stride. They buy us lunch when we work on the weekends. The guys have a great sense of humor. I mean, anytime someone says “moot” and five or six people all start going “moooooot” like cows–that’s just my kind of place. Not only that, but they don’t look at me weird because I love Disney so much. In fact, I know of at least two other people there who are fans, and someone brings his/her lunch in a Disney World bag every day.

The culture of the place is one of the best I’ve ever worked at. Not only is there the Tuesday and Thursday popcorn, but I can listen to my music, and I’m pretty much to the point where I can get through entire days without having something pointed out to me that I missed or just didn’t know yet. I can wear jeans every day, and my “boss” has an Obama paper doll on her office window, and his clothes get changed often.

Did I mention that I know ahead of time what the sales are? Yes, that’s pure WIN. Not that I shop a lot, of course, but it’s nice to know. I am getting ideas of Christmas gifts for people.

The downside is:

No weekends, or very short weekends. I’ve pretty much accepted that I’m going to be working 6-day weeks until Thanksgiving. TGIF means nothing to me now.

I keep DREAMING about work and those ads. Other people say it’s normal, so I don’t feel like much of a freak, but still. I often have to force my mind to go other directions at night.

I haven’t had time to read a new book in weeks. So I just re-read old books. Now I’m going through the Casteel series by VC Andrews. I might skip the last two, though, and go to the Dollanganger series.

My room is a hot mess. I WANT to clean but I just don’t FEEL like it. I figure life will return to normal soon enough, so I’m not too worried about it. Except when I’m trying to find stuff. Or when stuff constantly gets knocked over.

Our Internet connection has been iffy again. Adam finally broke down and ordered a NEW service which will be active Monday night. I’m looking forward to stable Internet again.

Why are people so resistant to change on the ‘net? Flickr has a new homepage and people are in an uproar about that. The new Facebook–oh Lord. People lost their minds. I happen to like the new pages, and I’m getting used to the new iGoogle in the meantime. Good times.

The other night, I went on an online shopping spree. But the only thing that I actually paid for that night was Aidan’s clothes. I got him $100 worth of clothes from The Children’s Place for $26. The Photopass CD had been pre-paid. I also FINALLY dipped into the $45 worth of Amazon gift certificates I’ve had for months to preorder a couple of CDs, a DVD, and a book.

HOLY CRAP. The water heater guy left his sweatshirt here by mistake and Helena just peed on it. WTF. She pees on our bed every chance she gets and she tries to sneak in our bedroom just so she can pee on the bed. Lucy at least had a reason to keep peeing everywhere–she was sick. But Helena is just being a bitch and I’m getting annoyed by it. Ironically, she’d been taken back to PAWS in the past because of the same problem. But when we first brought her home, she used the litter boxes with NO problem at all. I don’t understand the problem. And I don’t understand why our vet charges effing $300 to look at a urine sample. Besides, she’s perfectly healthy, doing her billion windsprints all morning, and she poops in the litter boxes and pees in them when the bedroom door is closed or random sweatshirts are not on the floor. And she eats like nobody’s business. I don’t understand the peeing, though. It’s obviously behavioral, but I don’t know anything beyond that.

Anyway, I guess that’s all for now. I need to take a bath and then get ready for the bed that is not made, incidentally, because Adam was washing the sheets and comforter AGAIN because you-know-who peed on it. Again. Sigh.

Til next time.

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

Comments Off on Right Then, It’s On