More resolutions...

Ah, the other resolutions...

I'm actually still working on them because I don't want them to be fly-by-nighters..

So far I have...

1. Mail the apron for Miss Vonlipi (and we even have which one nailed down so I'm getting closer every day. I'm thinking Monday.)

2. The crapgasmic food fest is over. Oh, what I time I had.

3. Keep a better handle of the thrifting so I am not buying things only to have turn around and sell them at a loss. There is nothing thrifty about that at all.

4. The clutter business. I have actually made a bit of movement on that front by listing somethings I've been 'meaning to' list on eBay and etsy for quite some time. Over the last few days I've been trying to gather and sort (or as the military says, divide and conquer) the things I have into:

A. Keep

B. Sell

C. Donate

D. Garbage

E. Dunno yet

And one more...

F. What was I thinking when I even brought this in my house?

Under F. is this Vintage Girl Scouts Brownie beanie I got a few months ago. See, my original thought was one of my son's friends would like it. She wears fun things sometimes but she put it on and my son was all, HAHAHAHAH! You look like a fruit!

And not the Un-PC calling someone that, an actual fruit because the beanie made her look very much like she was wearing a pumpkin on her head because of the...

Stem...



And they couldn't stop laughing at the stem she'd sprouted.
But I'm thinking they were really laughing at me.

So I leave the room and go, Oh, well. I'll eBay it, not
knowing they go for less than I paid. Fail. Huge fail.

This is the thing I totally want to avoid in the New Year because what in the world will I do with a hat that makes you look like you're sprouting a stem anyway?

The other things are really so much more mundane and I'm working hard to come up with a cohesive list...

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Ginger's New Year's Resolutions...

Ginger was in her muffin this morning
contemplating some New Year's Resolutions...



I won't pee-pee on the rug...




I will leave Tazzy alone...



Thank you, Ginger. I'd really appreciate those things..

Ginger?



Oh. I was mistaken...



She was contemplating the grilled cheese
and popped corn the boy was making for lunch.



Some things never change...

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Daddy-O Tazzy Napkins with Full FTC disclosure...

For Vintage Thingies Thursday with Colorado Lady I am
doing something I got in the mail yesterday!

Lynette from Crazed Mind wanted to send me something
and since she promised it wasn't a Dell Computer I said,
Wow! Thank you!

Yesterday I got my fabulous gift and decided to use it
for VTT because it's so Daddy-O Martini Lounge Retro!



Lynette sent me a set of cocktail napkins with these rockin' road
runners on them... but they remind me of Tazzy. Just look
at that head...



And this head...



Right?

And I thought those little borders were just
to hold the Tazzy napkins in, but nope...



They are actually little boxes of matches
which are totally Squeeee-able... And perfect
for me because I have this, um... thing...



About...



Candles... I think it's a sickness because I seem
to have two next to my kitchen sink, which seems
odd to even me. And while we're at my sink, see
that pot to the left there? Omg, made pea soup
last night and it sort of stuck so I left it to soak.

Know what it looks like in the
morning if you do that?




Like you put Frankenstein in a blender.
Not pretty.


*FTC Full Disclosure*

The pea soup was not provided to me by a company, it was provided to me by,
ya know...peas. Oh, and I enhanced the green color for your viewing pleasure.

Sheesh.

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Resolutions, resolutions...resolutions...

Normally, I don't do the resolution thing. Ever.

But I just realized I've put a (yet another) decade behind me and am feeling all, Whoa! Where'd it all go? Didn't I just graduate high school? And than I say to myself, Um - No get a grip that was your kid.

Than I run screaming.

And time seems to move, I don't know... Quicker or something. So I'm feeling the need to make some changes.

So here is part 1 - I have a feeling there will be more tomorrow...

1. I will mail out the apron to Miss Vonlipi within 5 days. There I said it, now I have to do it. Damn procrastination.

2. I have been on a craptastic food fest over the last few weeks and I haven't been to weight watchers. Ergo, no Wednesday updates because ignorance is bliss and also makes for some, really really tight jeans. So for any of you that thought I was having some sort of diet-perfection. Ha! No way. But I'm back on track and have been since the week-end and you will have Weekly-update by January 13th...

3. I love my vintage stuff but I have to be more careful buying. It's nutsy-cuckoo to buy something that I can't use but don't want to sell and than have to sell it anyway for less than I paid. I mean, really...What's wrong with me? I've been in that situation a few times already and I can't pay to thrift. That's just stooooopid and makes zero sense. Less than zero actually. It's like paying people to take the stuff I buy. Um. Don't think so...

No one who doesn't sew needs skatey-eight jillion buttons.

4. And along with #3 - I have to list the stuff that's just laying around because #4 is really about clutter. I have to really work on the clutter this year. Can't take it anymore. Nope. Can't take it.

Even though Ginger adores hot laundry fresh out of the dryer...



It's still messy and if I'm being honest...I leave it way
longer than she's interested in it.

I guess it's time for the first declutter fest
of this decade...



Let the parade of garbage bags commence
as the Declutter fest of 2010 begins...

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The first Hey, New Jersey's not ugly...

I'm late posting today. I listed a bunch of things to sell,
woke up late...Washed my hair. I don't know. I guess
I'm just all turned ass backwards today.

It feels like I'm posting tomorrow!

Practically.

I decided to do my first NJ's not ugly post



And I know I post a lot of 'down the shore' pictures
and by the way that's what the NJ beach is called so
if you don't call it that everyone will know you
aren't from NJ.

If you ever want to impersonate
some one from NJ and you say, Let's go to the
beach. The jigs up.



Anyway, this is one of my favorite pictures and
it wasn't even taken down the shore. It was
taken out the car window... Okay, okay... I was on the
way down the shore but no where close yet.

I'm not even sure where I was. But it
screams 'happy place' to me. And my
blood pressure drops like 80 points
just looking at it.




This is outside my front door with the sun
setting - so see, I don't even have to
move much to find something not ugly.

Which is really appealing to me.


Another thing I love about where I live happened two nights
ago. So, I leave my house and it's like 2 freaking degrees and
the storm door locks behind me. And I'm in my bare feet with
no coat on and pretty much screwed.

So I called 911 and had the police help me break into
my own house. Now try that in Los Angeles...
I'm thinking the dispatcher would have
hung up on that 911 call - Um - could you help me
break into my house, please? Or sent a car to
investigate. So yeah.

The only downside is what I need to replace
as a result of breaking into the house
...but whatevs... I was freezing.

Next!



I love the quirky little motels that dot the Jersey shore.
Actually I love the quirky little motels that dot NJ period.
I think maybe I will start taking pictures of some of them
because they are so crazy fabulously odd. This one seems
like it should have a Bruce Springsteen song playing in
the background, always. Something about that sad vacancy
sign. I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling all oddly
nostalgic for high school or something.

Anyway...

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Retro Tuesdays Salute to the Housewife Headache...

MckLinky at the bottom

I made a new stamp for today that I hope
looks like a migraine to you...



It sure looked like one to me. In fact, I'm
afraid to look at it very long.

There's always a lot of this business in 60's and 70's ads.



Which is really hard to fathom because they are talking
about all the stuff millions of women do everyday - plus work
full-time but you know, I guess they were more delicate
flowers than I am... Ahem.



The ad's a direct shot at Valium because it says
Anacin doesn't make you depressed or groggy.

The main idea is woman simply can't take the
repetition, man! And it's "understandable" ... Um,
big of ya. But Anacin (Ta-Da!) "makes you
feel better all over - and able to carry on."

Apparently.



So what are these tension inducing
repetitive things she's doing all day?

Is she deployed overseas?
Preforming open-heart surgery?
Working 65 hours a week in a thankless
job with a giant doody-face for a boss?

No.



She's folding laundry...



Going somewhere...And hey,
everyone looks clean and well dressed.
And no one is even fighting about
who got to get out of the car first.



Grocery shopping... Again, looks quiet to me.
No running screaming in the aisles because
"But I waaaaaaaaaaaaaant gummy toilets!"



Making dinner... There's two clocks in this picture.
Oh, the stress, the horror... Geeeze, take
a clock down already.



Eating said dinner with what
looks like some mad-polite kids
if you ask me. And I see one meal here.
Not a meal for one kid who won't eat green food
and the other kid who won't eat dry food...

Know what's really weird?
Looks like the same woman with
entirely different kids.



Okay, Anacin. You have me here. I would
run screaming for you after about 3 minutes of this.


I think the hey day of the housewife headache was
probably the 60's. Getting into the 70's woman were
starting to work more and with woman's lib this kind of
ad was starting to look condescending and reflected
badly on the companies (Gee, ya think?) so they went
in other advertising directions.

Personally, I thought there were some other pretty
horrifying things in the 1970's magazine that ad came from.

These, for example.



The gilly tie. In migraine inducing colors,
worn with contrasting colored socks.



Hmmm, glad they specified that the chunks were of a cheesy origin.
I would have made a lot of guesses.

Cheese wouldn't have been one of them.



And um, these patties which also seem so confusing they
needed clarification. Seems they came with a little red
plastic sign that you could use when bringing these
patties of chunky awful to the table.

So when your family said, What
manner of all that is holy are those ?

You could point to the little red
plastic 'fresh roasted beef' sign...



I've got to be honest though.
Ever since they came out with these...



I never quite trusted burgers again.



And as you can see in a different ad (bottom right...)



Those things were made by General Foods. Which
sort of added to my paranoia.

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Book Review - Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?

Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?
The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby

By Clair Mysko and Magali Amadï

When Claire Mysko, the director of an eating disorders organization, and Magali Amadï, an internationally renowned model teamed up with the goal of educating woman and raising awareness on eating disorders they found it was the stories the women shared with them, and not their program that was the main event. Everywhere they went woman shared personal dieting stories, confessed painful secrets, or told of their exasperation at friends who weren't eating enough.

In time, Clair and Magli went from single to married and from un-pregnant to pregnant. Magali’s weight (normally an off-limits topic) was casually chatted about, but not just hers; baby weight was big news. From the tabloid bump watches and career-focused pregnancy op-ed pieces to which celebrity got back in shape the fastest after giving birth. But nothing real. Nothing about how woman really felt about the changes in their bodies and the bodies themselves, before, during and after pregnancy.

When I was asked to review on this book I said yes even though I’ve been post-pregnancy for, Ahem, quite some time. But when I looked at the title – Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? (The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby) - I wanted to read this book, very, very much.

Back in July I started a diet after writing about how I was Sweating like Fat Elvis. What motivated the diet was, in large part, being at my delivery weight. And to be honest, being at delivery weight was embarrassing enough at my delivery... But with my kid being eighteen and all, being there again was so beyond embarrassing that the light from embarrassing wouldn’t reach my Fat Elvis body for about eight hundred venti-giga-jillion years.

My point here is... Pregnancy is defining for woman. During, before and very, very, long (apparently) after they deliver.

Clair and Magali interviewed over four hundred woman (and men) about their biggest body concerns before, during and after pregnancy. There is a lot I found I could relate to, even now. They point out the irrationality of comparing yourself to celebrity pregnancy photos (and celebrity photos in general) because of the effort, staff and technology that goes into creating them (And they are a creation!) You'll get the “uncensored truth about everything from milky boobs to pre-baby bikini waxes.” They could go on Saturday Night Live with the chapter on bikini waxing… There is a lot of frank discussion in the book and Bravo! to the chapters 'Let’s Talk About Sex' and 'The WTF Files - Dealing with all the dumb, stupid and insensitive things people say' ( I would have found this most helpful in dealing with my doctor who said, “No, you’re just fat.” In answer to my question, “Is my baby going to be big?”)


What Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? does better other books of its kind is in how it talks about woman and their pregnant bodies; and how it allows woman to talk about their own bodies. And feelings. Reading this book was like listening to a friend. The information was so varied it’s impossible to cover everything in a review but the topics ranged from when to take pictures of your belly, to is it okay if the dad doesn’t want to watch the birth, to pregnant woman with eating disorders.

Obviously, this book is about pregnancy but underneath it's healthy dose of humor it's about finally making peace with ourselves and our bodies. Perhaps the last chapter, The Legacy of Body Hatred: Breaking the Cycle, makes the best case for healing. It is this last chapter that goes to the heart of why healing is so important; the children are parenting now, will parent someday or the children we aren't parents to, but love. I'm not sure we ever hurt ourselves in a vacuum, although it's something I've rarely thought much about.

The healing we do, the love we are able to find for ourselves is as much gift to our children as it is to ourselves.

TLC Book tours asked me to do this review and provided me with a copy of the book.

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Hey, New Jersey's not Ugly...

I've been taking much better pictures lately. Not because of anything I'm doing but the camera is so much better. So much for the talent vs. equipment argument... Not that that is doing much for my self-esteem but whatevs...

I've decided to do a (regular) New Jersey Photo Feature because people seem to think NJ is um, ugly...and crowded. Go figure.

And I get it.

It's the 9th most populated state but only the 47th biggest. I'm guessing if those facts were reversed our car insurance rates would be a whole lot better. If you're wondering about that stat, NJ is always at (or near) the top of how much we pay for car insurance. The specific amount ....is thousands of dollars and I'm so not kidding. That's if you have no accidents. If you have accidents the answer is many, many (many) thousands (if you can get insurance).

And for those of you who live in the big middle, square, low-densely populated states who think I'm just being funny about the thousands - No, I'm not kidding.

So yes, we have housing that looks like this....

Because we have, ya know, lots of people.... And things like this...



This...



And more than our share of these...



The problem is people think that's all NJ is and miss the charm.



Mmmm, and this...



Lovely...



Don't forget Bruce (The Boss)



And c'mom.... This!



That might be the best picture I've ever taken.
And it was in NJ not Waikiki!

So I want to do something regular featuring lovely photographs
taken in NJ and call it... I don't know yet. Any ideas?

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