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Just Jen
Careful with the pretty things

Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Gary in the dealership service department is an interesting bird, and he frustrated me overall. The handy guy whose name I didn't catch, in the parts department, well, I like him. He was helpful and used the sound "uh," a lot less than Gary.

I failed to mention last week that I did, in fact, purchase a vehicle. Unfortunately Carmax only had one key for it, so I'm having to get another made, as well as an entry remote. The good news is that they'll reimburse me the expense; I should charge them for my time.

So a new car and a weekend out of town where I couldn't even drive it; torture, I tell you.


Monday, April 26, 2004
These arrived today, and they are so freaking cute. It's fun when stuff arrives!


This weekend flew by ... we made a quick overnight trip to Cincinnati to attend Brian's brother's wedding. Cincinnati is really too far to just stay one night, if you ask me, but neither of us wanted to take time off of work since we'll be taking quite a bit of time very soon for our own wedding and honeymoon.

So yeah, it was a quick trip even though we ran into some delays ... like a delayed flight out on Saturday due to rain and "missing" our return flight because the airline had overbooked it. BUT we got there and made it to the wedding on time and back last night, so I can't really complain.

The flight delay really cut into the time I had to get ready for the wedding once we finally got to Cincinnati, so I had this brilliant idea for the McCs to drop me off at a local hair place. I figured it would save some time to pay someone else to wash and style my hair, and I had a SuperCuts or ProClips or something like that in mind. B's mother was pretty sure there was such a place right near the house, but when we arrived at the deserted strip mall, what we found was a barber shop ... with no women anywhere in sight. But I was desperate, so I went inside and learned that they had a woman stylist, who does ladies' hair, and she said she could get me in RIGHT THEN. I was game.

The McCs drove away, leaving me at the barber shop, and I'm thinking, "atleast there's one other woman in the building." There was not, however, one other person with whom I shared the same ethnicity. I figured I'd either walk out of there with the best hair ever or at least an interesting story to tell. Let's just say I've got the story.

The wedding was nice, but attending a wedding so close to our own stirred up some feelings. I thought I was going to cry just reading the program before the ceremony even started. Also as part of the trip, Brian popped this question to his brothers through out our stay, "So, how would you feel about being an uncle again?" It was fun watching the reactions but his brother J was the funniest. You could actually see wheels turning in his head as he racked his brain trying to figure out WHO could possibly be pregnant (for some reason, we weren't top of mind).

So that was our trip. I wish I could be more eloquent today, but I'm out of it.

We are getting married in exactly three weeks. Can you believe it??


Sunday, April 25, 2004
I got my hair did in a barber shop in Cincinnati this weekend, and I'm talking about a REAL, legit barber shop.


Friday, April 23, 2004
The blog world has been slow lately. Spring fever gots people outside, perhaps. Or maybe I'm crusty with a capital K. When's the last time you emphasized a word by saying, "with a capital ... ?"

It's Friday, but Fridays have lost their ability to energize because there's no such thing as down time right now, regardless of the day of the week. There's so much to be done, in every aspect of my life right now. It seems that I just keep adding things to the list though, instead of removing items.

I'm having a weeny lunch. While it'll sound all healthy, it can be attributed to guilt for having the bad breakfast I had. It was good, don't get me wrong, but white gravy is so fattening. Biscuits and gravy ... yum. Lunch = peeled baby carrots, snap peas, grapefruit. Yum? Yes, but a different kind of yum.

I'm eating late, and at my desk, because I had an errand to run on my lunch hour, which took much longer than an hour. So yeah, I had to go pick up my car title because the credit union never mailed it to me after I paid it off two years ago. A title is needed when selling a vehicle, which is what I'm doing.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

UPDATE (Yeah, because this is really important): This t-shirt is hilarious.


Thursday, April 22, 2004
I'm itchin' for a new car and have been for awhile. About a month ago, I test drove a Freelander. It's likely I'll test drive another this evening.

Yeah, while work is scary and everything, I'm frightening.


Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Work is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Seriously, I'm afraid some bad stuff is going down, which makes me fearful personally and professionally. I suppose I'll have to wait it out to see if shit hits a fan somewhere.

Yeah, I don't know what to do in the meantime, except hold my breath and remember that everything happens for a reason.


Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Reasons I'm happy today:

• Robin found her dress while in San Diego. THE dress she'll wear in our upcoming wedding. It's yellow with an orange and red flower on it, she said. It sounds perfect.

• I have a new bra that is supporting my new breasts to much satisfaction. (Support is necessary and underwire is bad, so finding a good bra is like uncovering hidden treasure.)

• It's my first day back from the weekend, and it's Tuesday.

• My hair is clean and my legs, shaven.

• It's 4/20, and even though I cannot partake in celebratory activities, I can still laugh about it.


Monday, April 19, 2004
I currently have nothing to bitch about. Because I've notified the appropriate authorities that I'm "under the weather" and am "working from home" today.

Really, I just need to recharge a bit. I've been terribly irritable lately and extremely stressed. And good things are creating stressful outcomes. For example, getting gifts, new things, is a blessing. A blessing that causes me to stress about where to put everything and WHEN are we going to have that garage sale?

And of course, there's the whole wedding approaching in about a month (a month from Saturday, to be exact).

I managed to fit into my gown yesterday and celebrated by eating an entire plate of Mexican food from Matzatlan in Denton. Mom and I ate there after the fitting, to re-live an experience that was once rather frequent when I was in college.

And that's that. Mother-in-law-to-be was here all weekend, so that might have something to do with me wanting to stay home today, too. I have the house all to myself; it's nice. Not that I didn't very much enjoy Mama Kay's visit; I did. Although I think my stressed-out, tense self frustrated her a bit.

At least I wasn't late to my shower Saturday, as all mothers and the hostess likely feared.

UPDATE: I slept from 11 a.m. until nearly 3 p.m. today. I suppose I was more exhausted than I knew, and I'm feeling better again. Hopefully it lasts for a while.


Saturday, April 17, 2004
I woke up with an overwhelming sense of forgiveness this morning. Weird, and un-blog-related.


Friday, April 16, 2004
Hands are interesting ... and I think you can tell a lot about someone by looking at his hands.

Stealing a term from Seinfeld, there was a girl a group of us always referred to as "man hands." She really did have man hands, with long fake nails attached to her fingers.

Then there are gay hands ... guys whose hands are too pretty to be man hands. Not all homosexuals have gay hands, so perhaps the term is slightly inaccurate, but you get the gist. I dated a guy with long, gay hands once (at least once), and I think men should have man hands.

Now, that doesn't mean girls should have gay hands. They're only gay hands if they are pretty and belong to a man. If they're pretty and belong to a woman, well, then they're just nice hands. See?

Feet are another story, but generally a person's feet have characteristics similar to his hands. It's like they match in a way, like you can tell they come from the same family, like hands and feet are brothers and sisters ... and speaking of family, you then get into siblings and how these characteristics are often evidently spread amongst true brothers and sisters.

I'm an only child.

It's funny, but B has the cutest stubby little hands and feet. Thick and small, and I love them. Hobbit feet, we say he has. And apparently it's a characteristic found in several Brothers McC; I've noticed.

This concludes my monologue on hands and feet.
Feet: They're what's for dinner.


Thursday, April 15, 2004
I just fired our Reverend. Is that bad?


I took a late lunch and got a manicure and a pedicure. It was one of those days, and the nail fairies weren't smiling upon me. I chipped my right big toe on the way back to work, which means I'll have to stop back by there on my way out.

One of those days, I suppose ... oh well, it's gorgeous outside.


Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Don't puke, OK. I'm not all that mushy generally, but lately songs like Kenny Chesney's There Goes My Life put a lump in my throat.

I know, sappy, sappy, sappy.

Except I still get an attitude about including brand names in song lyrics. That irks me. I can go from sappy to snappy in an instant, and I can thank the hormones.


The hardest part is going from eating whatever you want (particularly Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream) to eating the healthy crap. By comparison, the healthy food is just not pleasant. Low carb ice cream -- what the hell is that?

So yeah, that's the first step, and it's the hardest by far. Eventually you get so hungry that the bad stuff starts to actually taste good, and everything's easier from that point on. I mean, you begin to look forward to a glass of skim milk, and you celebrate with your 'stache.

I'm going to gain weight. I have already been gaining. In the three weeks between doctor's visits I gained five pounds. I'm supposed to gain a couple per month, but yeah, I've had cravings like mad. So I'm going to gain, and there's nothing I can do about it. BUT, I'm making the switch to eating only the healthy stuff. Besides, that's what baby needs, no matter that baby is sending signals to my brain in an attempt to access control and send me straight to the grocer's freezer in search of Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. No matter.

I have a dress, a dress that was purchased before we knew of our successful human creation, a dress that was purchased before these five pounds were gained, a dress that I WILL fit into come mid May. I will gain, but I will gain as slowly as possible.

Baby's going to be getting lots of sunshine as I strut around Maui in a 'kini. Yeah. I'm seriously amused.


Monday, April 12, 2004
I popped her one good. And she had it coming.


I need to quit worrying so much about what everyone else thinks. This is a fact, and one I've been aware of for a very long time, but it's especially true right now.

I'm tired. We had a really good, really productive weekend, but there's still more. There's always more these days. I was so close to not coming in today, but then I caved. I'll likely leave early.

So Friday we had carpet installed. Getting carpet, as a weekend action, is no small chore. One must clean out the bottoms of all closets, take all items off the tops of desks, dressers, bookshelves, etc., in preparation for the installers to move the furniture. Then you gotta put it all back.

This weekend we also: picked out tuxs for our wedding party; found our wedding bands; bought new bedroom furniture; had Easter dinner with the family.

The bedroom furniture is being delivered this week, conveniently while B's mom is here and staying at the house, so someone will be home to let the guys in. I'm glad she'll get to see the new stuff, the new carpet, the new paint, the new patio furniture. Man, we've been busy doing a lot around the house. I guess some of that is because we're staying in the house after we get married, as opposed to getting a new place. And with the babe on the way, well, I want to get as much as possible done NOW. I just wish I had more energy. About one more week of this, and I should start feeling a lot less cruddy and "more like a normal person" again.

So is this where the blog "jumps the shark?" I suppose we'll see.

Did you see the Easter Sunday paper? We're in it, along with our pals J&C. Too much fun.


Thursday, April 08, 2004
B visited me at work today, and we ate in the cafeteria like two funny little people.

I've had a tummy ache most of the day.
"Cool Relief" TUMS are yucky. The fruit flavored win the contest.

I'm working from home tomorrow on Good Friday. I have a doctor appointment and then an appointment for some folks to come lay some carpet. The house will be a mess once again, but the result should be nice.


Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Is it wrong to want "Rose In Spanish Harlem" played on classical guitar at one's wedding?

OK, something more like this for the ceremony.


Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Seriously, this post from April 1 is genius, and it's genius in the way that she wrote my very thoughts, which maybe makes me a Diet Coke person and not so much of a genius, but you know what I mean.

Unfortunately, I'm on to caffeine free now; I simply have no choice.


Monday, April 05, 2004
I'm tired and lack motivation. I suppose the one thing that I want to think about, the one thing does not bore me and does quite the opposite, is the upcoming wedding. It seems like there's A LOT to do still, and I have a hard time concentrating from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Yeah, and I want my new carpet now.



Sunday, April 04, 2004
Today, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said, "Titties & Beer."


Friday, April 02, 2004
8:30 a.m. -- Scheduled briefing I've been busy preparing for gets cancelled
9 a.m. - 11 a.m. (+ overtime) -- Trade show wrap-up meeting
11:30 a.m. -- Meeting with the Super, which I hope won't last longer than about 15 minutes
11:45 a.m. -- I am wrong; B waits in the parking lot while I'm STILL in meeting
12:20 p.m. -- I escape the building, jump into the car and head to Texas Motor Speedway

1:40 p.m. -- Various incidents involve parking nazis threatening to summon the police if a) B doesn't reverse the car and go the other way, as we do not have access to the lot we're attempting to enter b) get out of the intersection he is blocking or c) yeah, more of all that
1:50 p.m. -- I nearly have an anxiety attack (this is not like "taking the cone" at Chris Rock)
2 p.m. -- Ann meets us on the outskirts of the Speedway and provides the passes we will wave like the American flag at the parking nazis as they reluctantly allow us to enter the VIP area
2:15 p.m. -- We hop in the cart that will tote our asses all over the Speedway and head to the suite to meet my father and wish him a happy birthday. I strongly desire a beer but refrain from indulging.

The rest of the day is peachy. B tries to get me to get my picture taken with J. Gordon, but I'm not so into that and convince him to take the photo without me in it. We use the "HOT" passes to go to the garage area and watch all the freaky fans. We go back to the trailer to meet long-lost relatives. Later, we finally leave.

B does not wish to go to the track tomorrow (I'm secretly glad), but we'll return for more on Sunday. After all, that IS race day.


Thursday, April 01, 2004
Cake Flavors
Layers: lemon
Filling: lemon curd
Icing: white butter cream
Add fresh strawberries inside

Cake Structure
Columns: yes
Tiers: 2
Platform: silver


There's a little exercise going on for the next three weeks. I was going to say, "I should explain that there's a little exercise ...," but then I decided I don't have to explain.

I chose to anyway though, not that anyone will follow.

Oh yeah, and my income tax return is lovely, lovely, lovely. It will cover the expense of new carpet in the house.

The boys and I shall go watch our B pitch what I'm sure is to be another winning game of softball this evening. I shall cheer for him and JV; Dexter will bark with enthusiasm; Cooper will stare at me while I cheer.


No. 1
Narcissism like the Friedmans
or perhaps not ...

In 12 months the world has changed, in just 365 days.
In 52 weeks, she’s everything of a different person.
She even smells different,
but who am I to say so?

Remember when we’d grab drinks after work
and she always showed, never one to miss a party?
She hasn't been seen when stars are shining,
though there’s something different about her eyes …

… a speck of ash, a portal to another land, a pulsing drum beat
hinting of life within her, larger than ever before.

The changes, did they begin with the subtlety of an approaching sunset?
We lost her like a fallen eyelash
whose absence went unnoticed for days
only to be discovered later
on an abandoned counter.

And we stood,
inspecting,
wondering how she could have escaped,
and when there was time to plan,
and why we weren’t there to notice
and make a final wish
before blowing her off shaky fingertips,
launching her follicle shell into night air?

The truth pleases us least of all,
knowing that she launched herself,
glancing back just once to laugh satisfactorily
and wiggle her peeking tongue.