Jojo's Self Help Book Chapter Titles

This is the Valentine's card that louie bought for her husband. She took a photo and sent it to me by email. I put it in Photoshop, enhanced it and now I'm recycling it to my husband and that is going to be MY Valentine's Day card. I think it's so funny: "Thinking of You".....Brian will think so too since we don't celebrate V-Day. 

I often go back to a long ago post about a self help book that louie/Sarah and i were going to write and when i am running or can't sleep i think of titles of chapters that book. Just that. Only the titles. It's  more fun than actually trying to come up with the actual advice - i believe it was the actual advice that derailed our idea of the book. (This might seem weird to some folks who know me because i have an irritating propensity to offer unwanted advice to everyone. )

Anyway i came up with many of these chapter ideas a couple of nights ago at 3 in the morning and wrote them down in NOTES on my iPad. Then i got to thinking what we all came up with ideas for a self help book and then actually tackled them one by one, all of us offering our own advice? What do you think?

Anyway, here is what i came up with for starters: (Disclaimer: I mostly have no ideas for the advice just yet,  just the titles. So just make them up. Ask yourself: What do people need advice on most?)

1. What not to say at funerals.

2. Always use this alibi when caught doing something bad.

3. How to talk yourself out of a speeding ticket when you're not so cute anymore.

4. A better way to piss off an asshole without having to kill them.

5. Three easy ways to make your house look clean when it isn't.

6. How to write a sympathy card for someone you don't really know that well.

7. How to get over Writer's Block. (My idea on how to get over this i will list right now in case i forget later: Pull two cards from the Cards Against Humanity box and then start writing).

8. Extracting yourself from a boring person at a party without coming across as a douchebag.

9. The best appetizer to bring to a party when you're uncertain of the kind of party it is.

10. Respond this way when someone tells you a racist/sexist joke.

11.  Things you need to quit doing on Facebook.

12. Don't ever say this when talking about your child's accomplishments/mistakes.

13. How to compliment someone when you don't want to sound phony but also don't want to be mean.

Notes to Self: 
Word Count: 395
Weather yesterday: high: 61 degrees; low: 45 (broke record highs this week!)
Sunrise/sunset: 7:19 am; 5:31 pm (24 more minutes of daylight since last week's post!)
Book: My 3rd Kristina Riggle book this week: The Things We Didn't Say. After this it's back to Fall of the Giants
Longest Run: 43 minutes. My plantar fasciitis in my right foot is recovered. Left knee is still bothersome.
Number of cat photos hidden on Facebook: 3
Number of cat photos i shared myself: 2
Bad News: Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show
Good News: Mitt Romney is not going to run for President in 2016.

I'm just here so i don't get fined.

This is Frank Lloyd Wright's quote. Comes from a book "In My Humble Opinion"
that my friend Julie gave me a couple of years ago. 

Coming soon ....a new post.

I'm thinking about talking about what's trending in the news. I'll be back to add to it soon.


Next day: February 5th. In the News:

1. The only reason i remembered the date today was because my favorite Seahawk Richard Sherman had his baby boy today. Born on 2/5, (Richard Sherman is #25 in Hawk uniform). It makes sense that Sherman is my favorite player. Back in the day (the 1970s) i LOVED football and everything Joe Namath and even read his book "I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow Because I Get Better Looking Every Day". Recently i watched the NFL two part series on Namath and loved it. I also couldn't get enough of Muhammed Ali. Very similar styles. I have never gone much for false humility and love brash personalities who can back up what they brag about.

2. Speaking of the football and the Super Bowl, i am tired of the media (and various folks on FB) who are pissed off at Coach Carroll's call to pass at the one yard line. The Seahawks got to the Super Bowl because of gutsy calls like that. Plus the pass was good, that Butler dude looked like Richard Sherman on that play. It was amazing what he did. Had the play worked everyone would have called it a brilliant move.

3. Harper Lee's new book - I'm excited to hear this news of her long lost sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird  being published, but i'm not getting my hopes up. When i Googled to find out more, i read that her attorney sister, who protected Harper Lee who was blind and deaf and losing her memory, died a year ago. There was an article a couple of years ago in Vanity Fair  about some scumbag trying to take advantage of her failing health by getting the copyright to her Mockingbird book. So i have some trepidation about the sequel and that it may not live up to the expectation. There must have been a reason that book was shelved. Her mystery was that she never published another book. And I doubt she would have agreed to what is happening now.

4. Speaking of books. American Sniper is also in the news for not being all that it is cracked up to be. Immediately i thought of Million Little Pieces and the Jessica Lynch, the soldier's story. I do want to go see the movie anyway. And yes, i believe Jesse Ventura. It's not difficult for me to believe that Chris Kyle would make himself sound like more of a bad ass than he was.

5. And more on the subject of embellishment or untruths: I am dismayed to find out that Brian Williams 'misremembers' the story of being in Iraq and his helicopter was an hour behind the one that got hit with a rocket, only it was reported that he was in the one hit. I LOVE Brian Williams!  How could he do this?

Notes to Self:
Word count: exactly 500, unless i edit! (not counting notes)
Sunrise/sunset: 7:31 am / 5:19 pm (We have gained one hour 13 minutes since my last post, which was over a month ago).
Book: Fall of the Giants (just getting started!)
Project: In anticipation of our remodel and dumping stuff i just burned every cd we own into iTunes (i had missed many), donated probably about 150 of them and alphabetized them in two boxes.
Lastest iTunes purchase: Andrew Duhon. (He reminds me of Amos Lee.)
Looking forward to: BOWLING starts Feb. 17th!
Not looking forward to: Moving everything out of our house so we can redo our floors.

Random Ridiculousness

I like blurry photos of myself. This is in Florence last June. 

Besides those stupid Facebook tests which tell me what a loser i am, there are other stupid links you can find. Why, i ask, do i need to know these things? Here are just a couple of those link titles along with other random stuff on my mind:

1. 18 Celebrities Who Don't Drink. Why the shit do i care? But you know what?....I almost clicked on it, just so i can feel better about not wanting to meet them.

2. I also almost clicked on 33 Terrible Movies That Had Really Terrible Names. Without even going there i can already tell you that the movie (one of my favorites too!) on that list is going to be Shawshank Redemption. Can y'all think of any more without cheating?

3. Trending on Facebook right now is Donna Douglas -(Elly May from Beverly Hillbillies) died. At the age of 81. HOW can she be that old? Was anyone else shocked to know she was that much older than you?

4. What is even weirder is that Elly May is trending and Mario Cuomo's death is not!

5. My cousin Todd posted a photo of my second ex-husband Don and his son DJ (who was probably 4 or 5 at the time) on my FB newsfeed. Not sure why he posted it since I took the photo. It feels a little bit weird having it on my timeline but i left it because i am friends with DJ (so i shared it with him) and most all of Don's nieces and nephews. DJ's mom just died last month (Don's first wife - he never married after me). She was a year older than i am. No funeral, but i did send cards.

That life seems like a really thick book that i read a long time ago that i can't quite recall the plot but just remember that it was difficult to get into and finish.

6.  I know this is stupid but i have never gotten a flu shot. Not ever. I am not afraid of needles, having been stuck with them for 34 years of allergy shots. I am afraid of how medicine seems to make me sicker sometimes. I have had bad reactions to sulfa drugs, many antibiotics, ambien, vicodin, whatever anesthetic they give you when you get a colonoscopy, etc....

But the biggest reason is that when when i was 2 years old i had to get a typhoid shot because my military father was being stationed in France for two years. The reaction to that shot paralyzed my legs for nearly a year. We thought i might never walk again, there is a name for it but i can't spell it. I'm thinking about getting one though because i babysit Baby Brady often.

Because of me getting sick we never got to go to France and my dad had to go alone. My mother still blames me for that to this day i think and it's probably the main reason we never got along.

7. My dad was movie star handsome in his 20's and 30's but kind of unaware of it which women would love. Because he was only 25 years old when he left for  France for two years without us, my sister Kelly and I use to talk about having a half brother or sister in France.

8. New Year's Resolutions. I am still keeping mine from 1980 about running and i think that is good enough. I am done with trying to be a better person. Like the Facebook tests, it just makes me feel like a failure.

I just want to be healthy, happy, and around good grounded people and help out people when you can. That is what religion is to me.

New Year's Resolutions probably would work better if you made them on your birthday.

9. for ummagumma, wherever she may be.

Notes for myself: 
Sunrise/sunset: 7:57 am; 4:32 pm (YAY! 15 minutes more daylight since last post! )
Hi low temp yesterday: 39 degrees / 23 degrees low. (I love it when it's cold.)
Book: The Bone Clocks and The Secret Place
Project: Picking out new kitchen tile, organizing floors to be refinished, getting rid of popcorn ceiling.
Word Count: Too many i know, but i don't give a shit.
Longest run: 38 minutes (left knee a problem now).
In the News: see #4 and Air Asia plane crash from Singapore

Random Christmas Musings....with photos.

My great niece Kendall and nephew Brady who are 16 and 14 months old are getting little jean jackets for Xmas embroidered by me. Last name on the back and initial on the front. 

I embellished a trim on Brady's jacket and finished Kendall's while watching bad TV today. Funny the Louvrak one, made while drinking wine is more centered and better than the Bearden one drinking cranberry juice!

Sarah/(louie louie here) got this race car set for me for Brady for when he comes over. It's so cute and a learning toy too! Thank you Sarah! Can't wait until he gets to play with it. 

I made photo garlands for all of my nieces and nephews and will add to the garland each year about 10 photos that i take in the next years for the babies. This one happens to be Kylee's (formerly known as Modern Hippie who is now 25 years old.) 

1. Drink and Sew: Today Sarah/louie and i sewed at her house for hours (while drinking some good Ghost Pines red blend wine.) I embroidered and she made pajamas for her sister in law. We used to do this back in the 1980's when we made our own clothes. Great Christmas kind of day!

2. Christmas Tree RoadKill: On the way over to Sarah's house i saw a small Christmas tree kind of smushed on the side of the freeway and it even had the stand attached! And i thought WTF? Did it just fall out of the back of someone's trunk or off their car roof? How funny if they didn't notice. But not so funny if you were the car behind them!

3. Open 24 Hours?  And on my way home i noticed the Bikini Barista on South Tacoma Way (certainly not the best part of town) advertised that they were open 24 hours a day. Hmmmm.... who needs espresso all hours of the day? Can you imagine having your daughter come home telling you she got a job there?

4. Husband in the Doghouse: My husband bought a weird contraption so he can water the tree from above but i always thought it was stupid because you still have to bend down to make sure you didn't overflow the tree stand. (AT least you should do that, right?) So it never made sense to me. And guess what? It overflowed. I was looking for a box under the tree yesterday and noticed it was all wet when i pulled it out.

So we have this corner of our maple hardwoods that are all lifted and damaged from the water and discolored. Needless to say i was not happy.

5. Bad Omen? My Nephew Brian came over to help me lift the tree so I  could mop up the water underneath and move it to another spot and we broke my glass ornament that my friend Jackie gave me when we got married, a vintage car with 'Just Married' on the back. (When Nephew Brian asked me if it was special I lied and said no. ) And though i was not mad anymore by the time Husband Brian came home feeling very guilty,  when i told him about the ornament "Ohhhh, that probably means we'll get a divorce now." lol.

6. The Upside: However, i do think our insurance may pay for redoing the finish, and since that is a huge undertaking we may as well go ahead and re-tile the kitchen. So it might end up being a good thing.

7. A Special Priest: My friend (fellow Gumbo YaYa) Catherine (Cat) P. from Facebook, who bombs my wall with cat photos mailed  me a book of her recently deceased very special progressive priest's homilies (His name was Father Skeehan). I wish i had known such a priest in my growing up Catholic years. I just started it but I can see why he was important to her and why she organized help for him on Facebook as he was dying. Appropriately, it starts with The Christmas Season. Too bad he never got to meet Pope Francis.

What do y'all have going for the season so far?

Brady's mom Adrienne sends out a photo about every two weeks of her son to a few family members. Here is the one from this week. He is sitting in his "man chair". He's the happiest baby i've ever known. 

Notes to Self: 
Book: The Paying Guests (LOVE it!)
Sunrise/Sunset: 7:52 am ; 4:22 pm
Temp hi/low: 46/35
Longest Run: 43 minutes (Foot MUCH better!)
In the News: :(   .... all of those children killed by the Taliban at the Pakistani school. 132 children.
:) news = Hawks beat Niners.
Word Count: 555. (not counting notes and before editing).
Number of Stupid Facebook Tests I Took This Week: 3:
Are you OCD? ;  What Should Your Favorite Color Be? What is Your Dream House? (I'm in the low end of the top tier for OCD; blue; Exotic cottage.)

Clearly i have too much time on my hands!

Testing 1-2-3

I have been trying to troubleshoot blogger because I'm hearing folks often have trouble with Comments section. I have checked all the settings about allowing everyone to post and turning off moderation and the proving you're a robot. Then it mentioned that the template might be causing it.

And yes, this template had been customized. So i reset it using the instructions and changed how comments look. You will notice if you post one. It's a different look that i don't like as well (blogger warned me about that too) but it might work better.

The 'proving you're not a robot' button is turned off but on my end still shows up. However I just ignore the box and posted and it showed up (on the previous post).

i do know that all of this works better if you are using a Google account. But if you don't have one or don't want to log in to it then just continue to post anonymously and add your name to the bottom. I will continue to check my spam box to make sure nothing goes in there and to allow you to post that way if it does.

I don't really know what else to do. :( ....hope it works. If you are reading, i would appreciate if you would post a test comment so i can see if anything is fixed. Let me know what happens.

Worst comes to worst, i may have Brian help me switch to WordPress. And if that doesn't work, i think i'll just quit blogging and start using Facebook as kind of a blog instead.

Thanks y'all for being here.

Thanksgiving Randomness

Photo from last week at the Vashon Island beach house. One of my favorite spots in the world!

1. In the News: Ferguson. You know what? I don't think there is a way a white person can talk about Ferguson or any similar event that won't make them sound racist or trying to hard to not sound racist. So i only put this here for historical reference. 

2. Looking Forward To: A smaller Thanksgiving with my nephew Brian and his wife and Baby Brady, my parents, and my brother Troy. I can't believe how excited I am to watch the Seahawk's play San Francisco. In past years i was always so irritated about football on T-Day! 

3. Good News: It was scary to do but I cut many inches off my hair! It's not easy making it look as good as the stylist though cause it's so freaking curly. It boinged up without the weight of my hair. I have so much of it. 

4. Discovery: Bruno Mars on SNL! I knew OF him, but not his music. What i really love is his performance. That man can dance - just like Michael Jackson. He even looks like him and dresses similar. Better than Michael because he doesn't have the weirdness....plus he's alive~! 

5. What I Might Do: Take up yoga. I'm not a good candidate for yoga because i'm the furthest thing from anything that is meditative or new age. But maybe that is why i need it. Plus i continue to hurt and i know it's from not stretching and running for so long. Besides my right foot, now my left knee (probably because i favor it) is giving me trouble. 

6. What I'm Thankful for: 

• That everyone of my friends and family are healthy; 
• My great nephew Baby Brady who has made it possible for me to be a grandma without having my own kids; 
• Retirement so that i can spend time babysitting, reading, cooking, and not worrying about insomnia; 
• My husband; 
• Music - as i type, i am listening to Christmas Blues on Pandora One. I LOVE Pandora One, i have said this before, but it's the best $5 a month i've ever spent;
• Books and more book; 
• Living in the Pacific Northwest; 
• Having enough money to do stuff and buy good quality, and still save but not so much that i ever take it for granted; 
• Jon Stewart; 
• The Seahawks
• That I am not an only child. 

What are y'all thankful for? 

Notes about posting comments here: Try a few things. First be sure you are logged in to your Google Account. I understand to get your name to stick on blogger you might have to click off the box that says Keep Me Logged In. PCs seem to have more trouble here than Mac computers. Not sure about other devices like phones. I know i have trouble with my iPad sometimes posting. 

If all that fails just post anonymously and add your name to the bottom. I might have to check my spam box more frequently and open it, but that's okay. I will try and figure this out further. I hate talking to myself but i'm not ready to quit blogging just yet. 

Notes to Self: 
Sunrise: 7:32 am
Sunset: 4:26 pm
Temp hi/low: 50/38

What I do ....

I took this photo over a week ago. Skinny Enchiladas from my new cookbook!

1. I'm cooking more. I'm not a super adventurous cook, but i do like cooking. Movies like Chef (watched it for the second time last night) inspire me and sometimes i read cookbooks like novels.  These chicken enchiladas were so good!

2. I buy 'hanging around the house' clothes. Recently i bought a couple of pair of Zella capri pants. Now that i found those underpants that don't show the VPL i'm all about the yoga-y pants. They are like magic underpants!

3. I watch reruns of Friends back to back. I never watched Friends regularly when it was on. It's shocking to see an episode and find out it was 1998 when it feels like it was only 5 years ago.

4. I research everything. I have spent days researching custom entertainment centers and Smart TVs. I've made drawings of the furniture design and met with my cabinet makers. And finally i settled on a Samsung 50" Smart TV. It was ridiculous the time i spend online making these decisions.

I am also researching tile patterns for my kitchen.

5. I check Facebook about 50 times a day. I'm considering going on another hiatus just to see if i can get more done around the house.

6. I babysit. (Often.) When i was quite younger and knew I didn't want children I used to say i wish i could figure out a way to have grandkids. And then my favorite nephew Brian (Troy's son) had a baby boy and they don't have a grandmother around to help out.  I'm in love with this happy little guy.

7. I read. Lately i have been reading about four books at once and not finishing any of them. Except i will finish Close Your Eyes and Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian. Though it's not upbeat because it's about an orphan and a nuclear meltdown. 

8 I run. Still having foot issues which i don't think will go away unless i give it up. But i am determined to keep at it. 

9. I fret about aging. I hate my skin and my hair and my eyebrows. 

10. I bore myself. But I mean that in a good way. I am going back to work at my old job for about 6 weeks starting next week. I went in to the office for the second time since i retired last April to get oriented to what is needed from my replacement as she has hip replacement surgery. I could actually almost feel my blood pressure rising in the 3 hours i was there as stuff swirled around us. So yeah, i kind of like being bored and boring right now. I'll get past it after awhile and get busy. 

I read somewhere that retired people should not commit to anything for one year. And i'm going to take that literally. People are surprised that now that i have so much time i have done nothing politically. They might even be sort of mad at me, but i don't care. I don't plan to stay this way, but for now, i'm good. 

Notes to Self 

Word Count: 540 (not counting Notes)

What I hope for: My one brother Scott got the job he wanted! I hope my other brother Troy (who i just helped with a resume) gets the one he applied for. 

What I'm looking forward to: Going to Seattle to have dinner at my niece Ashley and her fiancé's place. 

Sunrise yesterday: 7:52 am

Sunset: 5:55 pm (Daylight savings time is over tonight! 

Temp: 56/40

What I'm procrastinating about: Once again, my photo album of our Italy trip!