for my lovely followers

My 2011 Favorites

Book: Bossypants - Tina Fey
Comic Book: The Walking Dead Issue 83
TV Show Drama: Game of Thrones
TV Series Comedy: The New Girl
TV Series Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Once Upon a Time
TV Series Documentary: Our America with Lisa Ling
Album: Camp - Childish Gambino
Song: Video Games - Lana Del Rey
Movie: Meloncholia
Actor: Ryan Gosling - Drive
Actress: Charlotte Gainsbourg - Meloncholia
Website: Hello Giggles
Videogame: Skyrim
Meme: Nyan Cat

Top 10 Guys I'd like to find under my Christmas tree

I am a happily married girl, but everyone has celebrity crushes and that's a wonderful & healthy thing. So even though I think my husband is the hottest, most wonderful, & patient man ever (because he absolutely is), this is a list of 10 guys I'd love to wake up to find that Santa Claus had left me under the tree. (In no particular order, except Jon Hamm, he's definitely #1).

Jon Hamm

If this one requires explanation I don't really know what to say except that you are undeserving of having the sense of sight.

Norman Reedus
BAMF. I've loved him since the original Boondock Saints movie. He's beautiful but rugged. No one's character can even get close to being as kickass as Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead. If they kill him off there's a good chance I'll stop watching because he is the only character on the show currently that I like at all.

Nathan Fillion
Caleb, Captain Mal, Captain Hammer, Castle, this guy's resume is a huge amazing nerd fest! He is really lovely to his fans, he interacts with people on Twitter, he's beautiful, and he's definitely one of the King Geeks. What I'm saying is Captain Mal can get it.

Marlon Brando - circa A Streetcar Named Desire
I know, I know, this one is kind of far fetched but Santa Claus is MAGIC! I have absolute faith that he can make this happen. While watching Streetcar I have really conflicting emotions because I think of myself as a feminist and his character is HORRIBLE but LOOK AT HIM.

Gary Oldman
He is such a great actor. You literally forget you're looking at Gary and believe him as anyone he is trying to be. He can play any part and he plays them all amazingly. Plus, look at him, he's really hot. I'd have to try really hard to overlook the fact that he's a republican but for that face I think I can do it.

Donald Glover
I fell in love with the entire cast of Community but there's just something so endearing about Troy. When I found out he did music I wasn't expecting much (I'm not a big rap fan) but I really love his music as well. My husband & I went to see him do stand-up and do a show last year and it was amazing.

Ian Somerhalder

My friend and I were discussing how unfairly attractive he is the other day. It's kind of ridiculous. I loved him on Lost but I just can't bring myself to watch Vampire Diaries.

Ryan Gosling
An exception to my "I don't really likes blondes" rule. He has done a lot of movies I don't care about and have never seen (Yes, I am talking about The Notebook). Recently he's started making movies that I enjoy such as Blue Valentine, Drive, and The Ides of March, thus the crush began.

Damien Rice
Who doesn't love a guy with a guitar? I'm sure after we broke up he'd write mean songs about me, but that's okay, it'd be awesome while it lasted.

The Doctor
This one is cheating because there's actually 11 doctors but I'd gladly take any version. If I had to pick I'd probably go with 9 because our personalities would be best suited for one another. Traveling all through time and space would pretty much be the most amazing thing ever! Plus, once the Doctor dies you get a whole new regenerated version of him!

The One Where I'm not a TOTAL Grinch...

Everyone knows I'm a Halloween girl, that's just how I roll. I see candy buckets, zombies, and skeletons and I get those warm fuzzies that most people get around Christmas time. I am not "a Christmas person", hear me out before you criticize though. I am NOT a total Grinch, I just find Christmas Spirit in different things than most people.

I have no desire to have an 8 foot tree taking up half my living room and stabbing me in the feet with smelly needles, I'm perfectly content having a small 3 foot tree with a ridiculous amount of ornaments and Star Wars characters on it. Yes, we decorate with Star Wars, we're a nerd family and we're awesome. I love that our Christmas tree is the same size as Alden's 3 foot stocking. I like my rainbow colored icicle lights because in my world everything is rainbow or glitter...or both.

I miss the big huge Christmas bulbs like the one I ate that time when I was two years old but apparently they are "dangerous" or something so we don't have any of them. Seeing them does make me happy though...especially the blue ones (the color I ate). Jackass doesn't have crap on me! I was eating glass @ age 2! SIDEBAR: That might be what's wrong with me now.

I have no desire to have a Light Up Baby Jesus under a spinning disco ball in my front yard, an inflatable snow globe with a character suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy being pelted with snow, or light up reindeer that the neighborhood children will move into perverted positions when I'm not home.

Glitter and tinsel make me happy. I still love Hanson's Christmas album "Snowed In" and I don't care what anyone thinks. I still watch for Santa flying through the air in an unironic way because I swear I saw him a long time ago with my Aunt Mac while standing on my Papaw's front porch.

I am not one for the TV Christmas Movies that are all sappy but I love A Christmas Story, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Love Actually, The Grinch, and It's A Wonderful Life. It is not Christmas until I've seen them all.

It's also not Christmas until I have read my favorite Christmas books. I fell in love with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever when I was in the first grade. I still read it every year. As I've gotten older I've added two more books to my Christmas collection. Judith Viorst's "A Visit From St. Nicholas (To A Liberated Household)", and my very favorite Christmas book "Holidays On Ice" by my favorite author David Sedaris. These books are definitely not everyone's cup of tea but if you don't like my tea that's your problem.

Looking at this I realized I like Christmas more than I realized. It's no Halloween but I guess we can't always have it all.

And last but not least DOCTOR WHO has a Christmas Special every year, so that is always something amazing to look forward to.

I got bangs. I'm pretty excited about it.

ugh sick

I've mostly been doing schoolwork, housework, and watching movies. Here's what I've thought of them....

MissRepresentation - Everyone needs to see this movie.

Sleeping Beauty - Do yourself a favor and NEVER FUCKING WATCH THIS MOVIE. I kept waiting for something GOOD to happen but it was basically just 2 hours of absolute disgust. I felt gross after watching it.

Drive - Don't watch it if you can't handle gratuitous violence. I really enjoyed it.

Meloncholia - Amazing movie. Don't watch it if you're in a bad headspace though. It's heavy & not for everyone.

The Tree of Life - Another amazing movie but most people would turn it off. It's highly visual and musical and there isn't constant dialogue. I loved it but I love quirky non-linear films.

I'm going to go be sick and lazy now.

I only have a second to update...

Everyone needs to see this film.

list of things because i'm lazy

bullets because I'm too tired for paragraphs.

Things that are awesome:
• school is going well, I'm making As & Bs so far.
• my Pell check is here.
• Alden is doing great and thriving in school this year.
• Alden is getting two books a day from the library & reading them for homework & are are both absolutely LOVING it.
• I got a new dryer so no more waiting for 2 days for clothes to air dry.
• since I got a new dryer I can use my LunaPads again (PRAISE THE GODS).
• I've started making my Halloween costume accessories.
• I should be getting a new computer soon.

Things that are not so awesome:
• I keep oversleeping for some reason.
• I ate all the chocolate in the house earlier so now there isn't any.
• Alden keeps saying he 'hates school' which makes me sad.
• Alden is selling stuff for school and I HATE that crap.
• Not having due dates on assignments is annoying to me.
• I don't know what we're doing for Halloween. I usually plan LONG in advance but the thing we USUALLY do isn't going down this year. We have 3 invites but I don't know where to go and I'm holding out on committing to anything in case something better comes along.


anyway all in all things are pretty awesome.

blahblahblah

So I changed my major to IT/Web Design, I'm pretty excited. I am just truly a geek through and through and I need to be doing something that I like instead of something that I'm going to have to learn. Don't get me wrong, I still like the idea of cosmetology but I'm not exactly a quick learner and I don't feel like someone's head is a good place to learn. So I'll be getting my nerd on in school for the next year and a half, and then I'll be a professional nerd. YAY!

Alden goes back to school tomorrow which is both YAY! and BOO! Yay because he loves school and his friends. Boo! because I'll be bored all day and miss him like crazy until he gets home every day.

I've started my Fall Classes and so far so good. I'm taking MicroComputers and Math 1012. They have both been easy thus far but I know eventually the math is going to try to murder me. Math and I are not, and have never been friends. I have dyscalculia so math is like crazy hard for me.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a seminar to learn to program Alden's Communication Device that he's in a study for. He gets to use it for a month at home and at school and they'll videotape his progress. We're really excited about it. They were very impressed with him in his "before" video, he was making full sentences within minutes. We weren't surprised because he's a computer whiz and comes by the whole geek thing honestly.

I guess that's pretty much it, oh except for that I'm still not in Pottermore and I'm bitter.

Disney World!

We just got in from Disney and we had an absolute BLAST! Alden was great the entire time. When we got to the resort he actually thought it was Disney World because there were 30 foot statues of all his favorite characters, two pools, an arcade, a food court, and a shop. He was SO sad when we left but once we got into the park he was excited again.

His favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear Star Command ride in Magic Kingdom. The only ride he didn't like was Dinosaurs in Animal Kingdom, and to be honest none of us liked it. All for different reasons. It hurt Tim's back, it was too loud for Alden, Josh didn't like that the guy was screaming over the already loud dinosaurs, and Lynnda & I didn't like that we were being jerked around (quite forcefully) in complete darkness.

I think my favorite ride was probably Aerosmith's Rockin Rollercoaster. Josh and I rode it on one of the nights we got to stay late in the park (for staying in a Disney Resort) and I was SO scared. I ended up loving it. I absolutely HATED Soarin' apparently I am NOT a hang-glider.

He only needed his headphones a handful of times. We forgot them during Fantasmic but he just covered his hands with his ears and really enjoyed the show.

He used them during the Nemo Musical which he absolutely loved. So he sat through his first musical and his first movie in a theater. He used his headphones during it too, the Muppets had crickets chirping in their movie and for some reason he is VERY sensitive to that sound lately.

I had a headache the first day from all the 3D stuff but I really enjoyed it regardless.

Noteable things he enjoyed: Kali River Rapids, Star Tours, Fantasmic, Teacups. Those were the ones you could tell he was having the best time on (Besides the Toy Story rides of course).

The night of his dinner he absolutely insisted we go ride Buzz Lightyear again. So we ran to the other side of the park, rode the ride, within 5 minutes...ran back out, then had to pee and then we RAN back to the other side of the park and made it JUST in time.

He LOVED his character dinner, he jumped up and joined the Friendship Day Parade with Pooh and his friends, marching & clapping while going in a circle all over the restaurant. The dinner was seriously overpriced, but you CANNOT put a price on seeing your child participate in something like that, especially when they are not one to join in group activities! It was so adorable.

I think the longest we waited in line was maybe 5 minutes. That was for Alladin because they didn't have FastPass or disability pass. It was absolutely AMAZING. Sadly we didn't get to ride Pirates of the Carribean or Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Pirates was broken and Ariel was being updated.

That's all I can think of right now, I'm pretty brain dead from doing an 8 hour trip home today. I'm going to unwind with a glass of wine and catch up on some TV. I'll update more later if I think of anything that was particularly awesome (which it all was)!

Here's a breakdown of what we did in the parks. (more for me than for you)
Day One
Hollywood Studios
Toy Story Mania
Star Tours
Muppet Vision 3D
Met Handy Manny, Leo & Annie

Day Two
Magic Kingdom
Buzz Lightyear Star Command
Met Chip & Dale
Peter Pan's Flight
It's A Small World
The Magic Carpets of Alladin
Mad Teaparty
Snow White's Scary Adventures
Splash Mountain
The Many Adventures of Winne the Pooh

went swimming in the Fantasia pool


Hollywood Studios
Fantasmic
Aerosmith's Rockin RollerCoaster*

Day Three
Epcot
Soarin
Inoventions

Hollywood Studios
Toy Story Mania
Star Tours

Magic Kingdom
Character Dinner with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore
Buzz Lightyear Star Command
Wishes Fireworks

Day Four
Animal Kingdom
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Pangani Forest Exploration Trail
Kali River Rapids
Finding Nemo the Musical
Dinosaur
Triceratops Spin
Met Baloo
Everest Expedition*

Epcot
Illuminations

Disney or Bust!

So we are leaving sometime tomorrow to drive part of the way to Disney. 10 hours is a lot of sitting/driving so we decided to break it up into two days of travel. I *think* I have everything packed (except things like toothbrushes etc that we'll need tomorrow before leaving). The iPods, portable DVD player, Nintendo DSi, and our phones are all charging right now so I'll have to grab them in the morning when I pack the daily essentials.

We've been buying cheap toys here & there to lay out every morning of the trip for Alden "from Mickey & friends" to find in the hotel room. Josh is out grabbing a few more right now. **Edit make that a LOT more things. He just sent me a picture and HOLY CRAP! lol

I tried to pack clothes are that are fashionable because I absolutely abhor vacation pictures where people look so touristy. I guess we'll see how well my fashion holds up in 10 years or so when Alden is looking back at them and most likely making fun of my clothes & hair.

Speaking of hair, maintaining this red is going well but I'm not exactly washing my hair like I usually do. I hate skipping days but it's keeping it a nice red color. The worst part is the cool water rinse. I HATE cold water but apparently it helps keep color better so I've been torturing myself with cold water. Totally worth it to be a ginger though!

I guess that's about it. It'll probably be Friday or Saturday before I update again unless I find a spot with free wireless near the hotel!

throw some glitter make it rain!

A lot has happened since my last update. I finally got my certificate in the mail so if I ever wanted to I could go take the State Boards to be a nail tech. That will probably never happen though because I hate doing nails.

I'm finishing up the summer micro-semester the next few days for a couple of my core classes. I'll be in Disney the first week of fall classes so I'm going to have to find a place with wireless in order to log onto my courses and make sure I don't get dropped.

All our Disney Planning stuff has gotten here and we have everything all nice and mapped out and our dinner reservations in place. It's going to be a blast! Alden is so excited!

I sold a bunch of stuff in the World's Longest Yard Sale over the weekend for a little extra spending cash. I'm thinking about getting another tattoo.

Josh's car is in the shop so he's having to drive mine which is kind of funny. I hope they make fun of him @ work because of my liberal, hippie bumper stickers. haha

I got registered for Pottermore & I'm anxiously awaiting my Welcome Email. I hope it comes sometime this week!

We went to see Ke$ha the weekend after my birthday and had an absolute blast. It was the most high energy show I've ever been to. Lots of fun! The best part was that we sprayed Josh with glitter and it will NOT come off his hat. He's nice and sparkley at work every day now! haha

We stopped @ Junkman's Daughter on the way to the concert and I got the most awesome boots ever. I'm obsessed with them. They were only $75. The ones I originally planned to get were not available in my size but I'm SO SO SO happy with the ones I ended up with. There are pictures of them (and the concert of course) on my Facebook.

That's pretty much it for now. I'm gonna go rollerskate around the house and then order a pizza.

the world is a rainbowwwwwwww

Rainbow Dash inspired nails & both my beautiful rainbow hoops!

blah blah blah

I've been learning new hoop tricks this week. I got my awesome new intermediate hoop over the weekend so I've been practicing with it a lot. It's lighter and much better for hand hooping which is what I've been working on. I've mastered the behind the back elbow pass and moved on to trying to do step ins.

In the middle of writing this blog my cousin just got engaged so YAY! We hooked her up with one of Josh's friends a little over a year ago and apparently now they're planning to tie the knot. That should make family holidays more fun for sure!

I'm starting to plan for my birthday parties. So far I know I'm having a party at my house with Rockband, hooping, and drinks all around. I'm also going to see Ke$ha the weekend after as part of my present. I've started making my wishlist and I'll post it here once it's finished.

Happy Birthday Joss Whedon

summer time and the livin's easy

It's summertime! At least for two weeks, then it's back to the horrible grind but until then I plan to pack loads of fun into my micro-summer.

It's been two days and so far I've started a new painting (the TARDIS), started watching Firefly (I'm on a Whedon-kick), began reading a new book, and learned how to do a behind the back elbow pass with my hoop.

Plans for the rest of the week include playing video games, learning a new song on my ukulele, giving myself a manicure & pedicure, and watching Game of Thrones (I know, I know! I'm tardy to the party!)

Anyway my point is that just because you're an adult doesn't mean summer has to be boring. Yes, you aren't going to have 2 months off but I bet you get at least one day off from work a week and you should use it doing something FUN! Use your imagination, you don't need a ton of money to do any of these things except maybe the video games but COME ON there is some game on your shelf you haven't played all the way through yet or have been wanting to play again!

random rambling

I am indeed alive. I've just been super busy lately. After Wednesday I'll finally graduate out of my college program. YAY! I'm so happy to be done doing freaking nails. I am reallllllly going to miss the girls I'm in class with though, they are all so awesome. I can't wait to go into Cosmetology in the fall. I have a bunch of courses I'm taking online during the summer too so I'm going to continue being really busy.

Last night Josh & I went to our local music festival and had an awesome time. The Machine played and they were the best show I've ever seen at the festival and honestly one of the best shows I've ever been to. For those unfamiliar, they are a Pink Floyd cover band and they are absolutely phenomenal. I used to go every single night and hang out at the festival and walk ALL OVER the entire downtown area to meet up with friends. My how times have changed. Now we just text each other & meet up, find a spot to sit or stand, and have a seriously overpriced beer or two. We usually go two nights and I think we'll likely go see the fireworks the night of the finale.

We're planning our Disney trip for this winter and I can't wait! It's going to be so much fun.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow which I am NOT looking forward to. I absolutely hate going to the dentist but I have a lot of stuff I need to have done & looked at, bleh. It's nothing even evasive, I just REALLY hate going to the dentist. Even cleanings freak me the hell out.

I'm going to color my hair again soon. I'm tired of the caramel color and want some red back in it for summer time.

I've officially lost 20 lbs since the beginning of the year. I'm still working toward getting the other I don't like off. I'm at a healthy weight for my height right now but I don't feel comfortable with my looks when I'm above 120. So I still have a little more to go.

I've shopped a lot recently and I can't wait to wear my new dresses and heels, I just haven't been anywhere to wear them yet.

I've just been challenged to a lightsaber dual by Alden so I'll update more later.

wow I'm bad @ updating.

Uh, yeah so I kind of completely forgot that this blog even existed. Ooops! Anyway here are some things I've been obsessed with...


This show's finale was this week but I highly recommend finding it be it online or in reruns. This hour long documentary show steps into people's realities that we often criticize and shows you their truth. It's very haunting and a great watch. The season was really short so it won't take you long to get through it.

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Another show that has stolen my heart is Shameless. It is NOT for those who do not want to see sex, cursing, people falling down drunk, drug use, or just plain chaos. So if you don't appreciate those things in your television viewing you can skip on this one. However, if you can separate dark humor on TV from the reality of these things and find them amusing you should check this show out. It also recently had it's season finale.

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Those of you who know me in real life know that I'm KIND of a hippie, not to the extreme or anything but I do prefer natural products and things like that. This is where it gets girly & menstruationy so if you are the type of person who is easily squicked out by those things then it'd be in your best interest to just skip the rest of this entry. For the rest of you, I want to recommend using LunaPads. The reason I haven't written about them before is that I had already written a review of them on my LiveJournal blog but since I have different readers here I decided to go ahead and reblog that entry for you over here.

Backstory
I've always had super heavy periods. I frequently missed school & work due to debilitating cramps that many people thought were fake. Luckily, my mother suffers from them too so she understood & would hook me up with the remote, chocolate, and a heating pad before heading out the door for work. Frankly I've always had to wear the gigantic diaper like pads for my entire period which I would have to change at least once every hour on on days 2 & 3. I can't wear tampons because I have a tilted uterus and so no matter how much I try they really fucking hurt and I feel like I have something shoved up there the entire time.

Before buying Lunapads I'd seen them advertised before in places like VaginaPagina, BUST Magazine, the book CUNT, and various other places. I'd been to the site to see what it was all about. I first heard about them a few years ago & I'm not going to lie, I was a bit grossed out. Recently I decided to break it all down and weigh the benefits of LunaPads vs Disposables...there is actually a page on their site that does just that here.

Here were my personal reasons:
-If I only use my LunaPads for one year then I've saved $90 (that's how much extra my pads cost than the kit I bought). I spend approximately $200 a year on pads because I go through 2 boxes each month.
-I am no longer contributing via disposables to landfills.
-No smelly trashcan for a week out of every month.
-Better for my body since they put all kinds of chemically treated stuff in disposables.

Those were the initial benefits I came up with. I can now add to those:
-LunaPads don't seem to hold that "odor" that disposables do.
-My underwear has not gotten a single bloodstain since switching.
-I can stack as many liners as I need to and just peel them off as the day goes on.
-If I'm really in a pinch I can flip the liner over.
-Really absorbent.
-Super cute patterns. (I got the Psychodelia)
-I keep forgetting I'm wearing them (which I guess could also be a con if they weren't so absorbent).

Now I want to address the questions/comments I've gotten about them.
Q: Ew, you wash it and then wear it again?
A: Do you throw away your panties that get blood on them? If you're anything like me you wear those during your period...over & over. So how is that any different?

Q: So you have to carry around bloody pads?
A: I just stick mine in a waterproof baggie, put the baggie in my purse, & throw them in the washer with my underwear when I get home. Again, to me it seems just like the underwear thing.

Q: That is just weird.
A: This is how women used to roll. Where do you think "on the rag" came from? They used rags, seriously.

Q: What does Josh think about all this?
A: Josh is always down for saving money. His mother is probably the biggest feminist I know and she raised him to know that periods aren't anything gross or weird. He's been buying pads for years and said it's just like buying toilet paper to him. It's totally not a big deal.

Anyway I am incredibly glad I purchased LunaPads & will be buying more in various adorable patterns over the years. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments.

(No one paid me to review these products etc.)

P.S. I've been using the site monthlyinfo to track my periods for over 2 years now, I really recommend it. It's always within 2 days of being right for me and it keeps track of ovulation so I know when to stay away from Josh.

Tactile Tuesday Week 3

Hey, welcome to another week of Tactile Tuesday aka"stuff you need to check out because it's great".

This week I want to talk about my favorite gadget. Barnes & Noble's Nook. This ereader holds 1500 books by itself on it's 2GB of memory. If you need room for more you can get a 16GB memory card and it will store up to 17,500. This is of course strictly speaking of books. If you load it up with audio files and photos it will hold less. That's another great thing about it. You can listen to music or audiobooks. I don't have the attention span for audiobooks but I know some people who really seem to enjoy them. I have around 120 books on my Nook right now waiting to be read, after I read them I can delete them and get more books. It's like a never-ending bookstore that you can hold in your hands.

If you like Sudoku or Chess they are both included on the Nook. I don't care for either and exclusively use my Nook for reading. I have used the internet on it a couple of times but I have terribly clumsy fingers and I had to retype everything about a billion times before I got it right because of the small touch keyboard.

I can't imagine not reading for an entire day. I'm pretty sure that would be hell for me. I need to read and I need to blog. I have to escape my world and go into the book world. I have to purge my thoughts onto the page and get them far away from my mind.

If you love reading and do so frequently I suggest looking into an e-reader. Not only are they small and handy, they have the capacity to keep you reading for years without deleting a single book. They are also environmentally better because you aren't reading paper books anymore. I have only bought a few books since I got my Nook and that was because they weren't available in ebook format. I love books, don't get me wrong, I have a bookshelf completely full and stacks of them all over my bedroom, but having my next read in my hands without having to do anything but flick my finger is amazing.