Average Jane

Author: Average Jane

  • Average Jane Answers Questions

    I am fully aware that my vacation has turned me back into a non-blogger. Thus, I figured I'd steal this list of questions from Zandria, just so I'd have something to post.

    1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
    No, but my parents went out of their way to choose unusual names for us so we wouldn't have the same names as our contemporaries.

    2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
    I don't remember. It doesn't happen very often.

    3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
    Not really. It's gotten really bad over the years because I spend most of my time typing.

    4. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
    Gee, you think?

    5. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
    No, but I would consider skydiving.

    6. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
    Yes, none of the shoes I have with laces will come off unless they're untied first.

    7. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
    Yes.

    8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
    I really like cinnameg ice cream from Murray's, although I didn't get any this season. I'm also fond of mint chocolate chip.

    9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
    How they're dressed and whether they seem comfortable.

    10. RED OR PINK?
    I'd have to say red.

    11. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
    A BLT and some potato chips. It was way too long ago and I'm really hungry right now.

    12. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
    Distant traffic noise outside my window. It's very quiet in my office right now.

    13. WHAT DO YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT YOURSELF?
    I wish I had a more gung-ho personality. I'm a little too laid-back sometimes.

    14. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?
    I'm between books right now, but next on the stack is "Sin in the Second City" by Karen Abbott.

    15. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
    Yes, I'm severely nearsighted and astigmatic. I've been wearing contacts since junior high school.

    16. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
    The Tuesday and Wednesday episodes of "The Daily Show."

  • Average Jane’s Anniversary

    Fourteen years ago today, my husband-to-be and I (along with far too many family members) attended an important event here:

    Silverbellchapel

    It's the Silver Bell Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Yes, that's where I got married, wearing my mother's old dress and a veil I made from items I bought at a craft store (although you couldn't tell at all).

    Wedding2

    Look how happy I was – and it wasn't just because I was a size 5 and still had a discernable waist!

    Wedding1

    We still look happy in this photo taken back at the Mirage, but that's only because we're having our picture taken. By then, the beautiful shoes I'd bought to go with the dress were killing my feet, my blood sugar had long since crashed, and I was feeling Bridezilla-ish long before anyone had even coined the term.

    Fortunately, that was a temporary situation. Fourteen years later we're still best friends, looking forward to our traditional anniversary steak dinner at J. Gilbert's and planning fun things to do next year for our 15th anniversary.

    My husband stopped reading my blog a long time ago, but I'll still say it, "Happy Anniversary, honey!

  • Average Jane Finishes Her Shopping

    With the exception of one last gift for my nephew and a teensy accessory to one of my sister's gifts, I'm done with my holiday shopping.

    Too many family members read my blog for me to be able to say what I got, but I (mostly) adhered to the $25 limit we set and got some things I think people will really like. Or at least they're things that I like.

    The best thing about this year's shopping is that almost everything came from an online source. Words cannot express how much I dislike brick-and-mortar shopping at this time of year. It's really best for everyone that I did my gift-gathering at my desk.

    Now I just need to wrap everything before something gets tidied away and forgotten. I'm even considering putting up our tree, decorating it with just the non-breakable ornaments, and keeping my fingers crossed that the cats are capable of leaving it alone.

    How're you coming along?

  • Average Jane On Vacation

    It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't checked to see how much vacation time I have left at work, so I logged into our timesheet program and took a peek. I had 7.38 days left to use up by the end of the year. I don't know how I let that happen, but I'm sure it had a lot to do with the fact that most of my travel ended up being at least partially work-related (BlogHer and BlogWorldExpo spring to mind).

    Thus, I'm taking next week off, knowing full well that I'll be doing a lot of my regular work anyway, only from home. I'm also 100% sure I'll be going into the office at least once. Oh well, that's life in the 24/7 social media biz.

    Here's my partial to-do list for this weekend and next week:

    • Insulate the basement windows with a combination of shrink wrap, fiberglass insulation and weatherstripping depending on the location and function of each window.
    • Try to get my Outlook data exported from my old PC so my husband can wipe the hard drive and  use it for something else. Not too hopeful about my chances of success.
    • Be awake for service calls from Nebraska Furniture Mart (fixing our broken couch) and Culligan (fixing our leaking water softener). 
    • Buy groceries, sunglasses to replace the ones I lost at our last gig, and some lipstick in a decent color.
    • Empty all the tubs o' crap in my home office left over from our remodel, um, two years ago.
    • Start clearing all my stuff out of our guest room, which will be remodeled the week after next.
    • Go through the freezer and figure out what's making it so full. Make meals from some of the contents; probably throw a lot of it away.
    • Finish Christmas shopping, mostly online if possible.
    • Put up the Christmas tree in the bay window of the studio, unless it seems like too much trouble or it'll be in the way.
    • Blogger/Tweeter dinner on Monday night. Soroptimist holiday party on Wednesday night. Work holiday party on Friday afternoon. Blogger meetup on Friday night.

    Now I have to take copiously-sneezing Velvet to the vet – I hope before she has a chance to give her upper respiratory infection to all of the cats. Have a lovely weekend!

  • Average Jane Regains Her Camouflage

    I finally got tired of having black hair with blue highlights, so yesterday I had my new hairstylist knock things back to a uniform dark brown shade.

    The blue was fun while it lasted, but a year-and-a-half (give or take) is a long time for me to stick with one hair color or style.

    Now I'll be able to walk around in normal society and no one will be the wiser about my inner weirdness. Nah, I think it shows anyway.

  • Seven Things About Average Jane

    Breanne tagged me for a "7 Things About You" meme, so I figured I'd do it now.

    The rules are:

    • Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
    • Share 7 facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
    • Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
    • Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

    So here are seven things about me that I don't believe I've ever mentioned here before:

    1. When I'm in an elevator by myself, I like to stand at the very front, right in the middle, so that I have the cinematic elevator-opening experience where I can step right out as soon as the doors open. I imagine it's probably a little startling for anyone waiting for the elevator on my floor.
    2. I always thought I was going to grow up to be a veterinarian, but I changed my mind after spending the afternoon at a vet's office and watching him perform surgery. However, I have no problem swabbing blood from incisions and other post-surgical tasks at the low-cost spay and neuter clinic where I volunteer, so perhaps I made that decision too hastily.
    3. Even though I know it would be physically uncomfortable, I'd like to go on an archaeological dig someday. It would no doubt take the form of archaeological tourism, but I still think it would be cool.
    4. One of the biggest cooking mistakes I ever made involved a frosting recipe from the Mickey Mouse Cookbook when I was a kid. It called for confectioner's sugar and I made the incorrect assumption that "confectioner" was a brand – not a type – of sugar. Thus, I used granulated sugar to make a huge batch of buttercream icing that ended up having to be thrown away.
    5. Now that the world has switched over to e-mail, I kind of miss writing letters and notes on stationery. I should write more thank-you notes, just to keep in practice.
    6. One of my favorite things about reading books is the way they restore my attention span to normal. When I spend too much time online in lieu of reading on paper, I get to where I can barely sit still through a meal or an hour-long TV show. After I've made it through a book or two, I feel much more calm and patient.
    7. I almost hate to admit it, but I'm really enjoying Facebook lately. I particularly like all of the new commenting functionality.

    I hate to be a big giant rule breaker, but it's a quarter to 10 and I really don't feel like digging up the blog URLs of seven people to tag. Thus, I'm throwing this open to my entire readership. If you decide to do it, leave me a comment. Thanks!

  • Average Jane’s 30th Post in 30 Days

    Whew, I'm glad that's over with! I made it through my third annual NaBloPoMo, but it was far from easy. I do see the value of returning to my weekday posting schedule, but I'd like to have the weekends off again.

    The new post that got the most traffic this month was my throwaway one about applying vanilla extract as a perfume while baking. I know why – it's because J-Walk Blog linked to it. Thanks, John!

    As usual, I had traffic spikes on Thanksgiving and the day before as people found my various recipes via Google searches. Apparently there are a lot of people who need my help making dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and other seasonal goodies.

    I can't think of anything pithy to say in summary so I'll just wrap this up and enjoy the rest of my evening. Goodnight!

  • Average Jane Wastes A Day

    The good news is that I had a lot of fun staying up late last night. I went over to Spyder and Kanga's house with A Librarian and we plunged into the middle of a marathon of Lord of the Rings extended editions, watching until the third movie ended close to 1:00 a.m.

    Even though I stayed up until nearly 2:00 a.m., I still woke up at 7:00 a.m. That was my first mistake, but one that's easy to make when you have a young cat in your room trying to crawl up your nose to get your attention.

    I went and volunteered with The Animal Rescue Alliance for a while in the morning, but didn't stick around long because they had plenty of help and I was tired (what a surprise!). My biggest potential good deed for the day was sending my sister a cell phone pic of a cute bobtailed kitten there. She's already put in an application to adopt it.

    Once I got home, I surfed for a while and ate an entire box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for lunch. It wasn't long before I crawled under the fluffy fleece throw on our couch and fell asleep with cats piled all over me.

    My husband eventually woke up and I transferred myself to our real bed…and then slept until 7:00 p.m. Yikes! I really did NOT mean to do that.

    Now I'm fated to have another late night whether I like it or not. I just hope I can break the cycle enough that it doesn't mess me up when I go back to work on Monday.

    How was your Saturday?

  • Average Jane’s Big Feast

    So Trillian woke me up at 6:00 a.m. yesterday, just like every day. She actually wakes me up about every three hours all night long, but the six o'clock wake-up is the one that sticks.

    My husband had been sleeping on the couch for some reason, so I transferred him to the bedroom and we did a cat exchange so that Xena would be shut in the room with him and Trillian could roam the house free of the threat of being viciously hunted down and pummelled.

    As I checked my e-mail, I went over my Thanksgiving cooking plans in my head. I'd been brining the turkey since the morning before in a mixture of apple cider, brown sugar, kosher salt, fresh ginger, garlic, cloves, bay leaves and orange slices. I figured it would need to cook about four hours (13+ pounds x 20 minutes per pound) with the stuffing inside.

    After a few hours of surfing and reading, I started to get bored, which caused me to accelerate my food preparation. Even though dinner wasn't until 2:00 p.m., I went ahead and poured off the brine, rinsed and stuffed the turkey and put it in the oven around 9:30 a.m. At the same time, I started my dinner roll dough rising.

    As long as I was in the kitchen anyway, I snapped the ends off the green beans and steamed them, then peeled and cut up the potatoes and placed them in a pot of water to wait for the time when I'd need to start applying heat. I mixed up the ingredients for cranberry sauce in a pan on the stove and prepared the brie I would be later be baking as an appetizer.

    I know this sounds like a meal plan that would make Martha Stewart proud, but the reality is that Murphy's Law was in full effect. The rolls were tough – and I don't know why. I severely overcooked the turkey. The mashed potatoes were really dry because we barely had any milk. I hadn't bought enough green beans, so the green bean casserole was way too soupy and there was only enough for everyone to get a scant spoonful.

    Did I mention that I managed to shower myself and the kitchen with red wine right as I was starting to serve the food? The white shirt I was wearing is now officially a dust rag.

    Still, everyone complimented me profusely on the dinner. We had a nice time sitting around drinking champagne, wine and coffee, chatting and catching up. The cleanup was so easy that all evidence of the meal had disappeared by early evening (except for some wine stains on the edge of the counter that I noticed this morning). Oh, and there's an extra pumpkin pie in the refrigerator.

    I'd forgotten how much I enjoy having people over for dinner. I think I'm due to throw another dinner party soon.

  • Average Jane is Thankful

    Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. who's reading this.

    Here are some of the things I'm thankful for:

    • My husband
    • The rest of my family
    • My friends, both IRL (that's "in real life") and online – yes, that includes YOU!
    • The cats, even though they're making my life difficult right now (I'm talking about you, Xena)
    • My exceedingly cool job
    • Our house, which keeps getting closer and closer to the way I've always wanted it to be
    • Music in general and my band in particular
    • Books
    • Comedy and humor in all their forms
    • The delicious food we're having today

    I have several hours before I need to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven. After that, I'll clean the kitchen and living room, prepare the green beans to be steamed and eventually made into a casserole, peel the potatoes and get them ready to cook later, remove the rind from the brie I'll be baking with pecans and brown sugar to serve as an appetizer, and cut up the apple for the cranberry sauce. Oh, and retrieve the utility table from the basement and clean it off so I can set it up as soon as I've confined the cats to their various rooms.

    Have a lovely day!