Average Jane

Category: Daily Life

  • Average Jane Catches Up

    Not a smoothie - but I'll take one.This is going to be one of those "throw it all in a blender and see what color the smoothie turns out" kinds of posts. It's probably going to be a gross brownish-green color, but it'll taste amazing and energize you. Maybe.

    What were we talking about? Oh, here's some of the stuff that's going on right now:

    My friend A Librarian is moving away. I'm happy that she's found a job that's exactly what she's been wanting to do, but I will miss hanging out with her and occasionally cat-sitting her cats. (Picture all the sad-face emoticons here.)

    * * *

    I'm doing a bit of blogging elsewhere this month. I'm the featured blogger for January on Kansas Women Bloggers. I believed they chose me because I live in Kansas, I'm a woman and I'm a blogger. Also, I watch my email like a hawk and I'm quick to respond when someone asks me if I want to do something.

    * * *

    My band has had a longer than expected break between gigs, but we're playing this Saturday night and debuting seven new cover songs that we've learned in the interim. I'm almost more excited that we're dropping seven duds from the set list, but it'll be fun to see some of our regulars react to the new material. Our bookings for the year are actually going pretty well. We have gigs on our schedule up through September right now.

    * * *

    At the end of the month I will be called upon to flex my Cool Aunt powers when I stay with my niece and nephew for a week while their parents are out of town. I was going to bring Toby with me, but because he thoroughly disgraced himself on Christmas Day, he'll be staying home with my husband, who may or may not keep him dosed with his daily thyroid medication.

    * * *

    I am going to do everything in my power to attend the BlogHer conference this year. It's the 10th anniversary and I was there for the first one (and the six after that). 

    * * *

    Okay, that's all I have time for right now. My husband is about to have band practice right outside my office door, so I need to take this opportunity to flee downstairs. 

    What's up with you?

  • Average Jane Shares A Life Hack

    I’m not saying no one has ever thought of this before, but recently I discovered something that makes it much easier to carry groceries in the hatchback of my car without having my reusable bags fall over and dump stuff all over the place. 

    As with many useful discoveries, it happened by accident the first time and I couldn’t help but notice how well it worked out.

    It’s ridiculously simple: just arrange your bags along the sides of your hatch area and drape the handles over the edges.

    Trick to carrying grocery bags in a hatchback

    Then shut the hatch so that the handles are caught in the hatch door.

    Handles in the hatch

    The bags are held upright throughout the drive home and nothing can fall over or out, even if you take a sharp turn or brake hard.

    Secure groceries

    Obviously you’ll need to decide whether you want your bag handles getting wet if it’s raining or snowing, but otherwise I think it’s a pretty neat trick.

  • Average Jane and the Bargain Aisle

    I find myself fascinated with the half aisle of my grocery store that they refer to as the "Dollar Store." It's full of random food items that they can afford to sell for a dollar or less, but everything is weird.

    There are products with tie-ins to D-list celebrities (and yes, I know Walmart carries Larry the Cable Guy food items as well):

    Larry the Cable Guy hamburger dinner & mac and cheese

    Items that are oddly specific:

    Fuji Apple Preserves

    Brands that are apparently from other parts of the country:

    Daddy Ray's Strawberry Bars

    Whatever this is:

    Peace Tea

    And extremely old brands that I had no idea still existed:

    White Rock Seltzer

    I can't help but wonder what quirk of logistics causes these items to be available outside their usual market areas and displayed for sale in my suburban Kansas grocery store. For a dollar, maybe someday I'll even buy some of them.

  • 10 Things You Don’t Know About Average Jane

    10I let myself get tagged for this meme on Facebook by Carl Bettis and I figured, why not make it into a blog post while I"m at it?

    I'm going to try to keep this list to things that I've never mentioned on the blog before, so it's going to be even more mundane than my usual fare, I predict. Here we go:

    1. I can't stand to look at pictures of decorated fingernails (that's my top unfollowed thing on Pinterest), yet I always keep my toenails painted.
    2. Home decor and home improvement projects are among my favorite things to plan. If I could afford it, I'd have my house razed and rebuilt from scratch.
    3. Given the time and an open agenda, I would happily do nothing but read book after book, all day long and into the night.
    4. Objectively, I know I plan and do an awful lot of stuff every day. However, I still feel like I'm fundamentally lazy.
    5. My next big life goal is more food and energy self-sufficiency. I'm going to start with stepping up my gardening next year and I hope to eventually work my way up to solar panels someday.
    6. I have absolutely no interest in posing for a "pinup" photo. A lot of my friends have had them done and they look amazing, but I just feel like they're not for me. This is despite the fact that I get photographed a lot in the context of my band.
    7. Another thing I don't envision myself ever doing: running a marathon. Someday I'll work my way up to running an entire 5K instead of alternating running and walking. That's probably as far as my running ambitions will ever go. However, if you're running a marathon for charity, I'll be happy to donate.
    8. What's the secret to life, the universe and everything? For me it's yoga. There's nothing like it to tune up my brain and make me feel strong and pain-free. Yet my practice consistency is abysmal and I have a terrible time maintaining routine class attendance. Talk about self sabotage.
    9. Seeing my niece performing in plays over the last couple of years has made me ponder the idea of auditioning for community theater myself. However, although I'd be fine with any singing that needed to be done, I'm pretty sure that my inability to convincingly deliver a line of dialogue combined with my innate lack of dancing ability would swiftly put paid to that idea.
    10. Despite my long history of enjoying the hair metal of my youth, I have decided that I'm tired of Mötley Crüe and would be fine never hearing any of their songs again.

    Photo credit: macca

  • Average Jane Starts Her Holiday Shopping

    I know. I'm surprised, too. Usually I cram in all my shopping in December—not on Christmas Eve like a guy, but close enough to the mark that I sometimes buy too much because I'm slightly panicked.

    This year I started picking up things here and there in my travels and in addition to my regular Amazon orders. I need to drop off gifts for three needy kids at my Soroptimist meeting tomorrow, so that spurred me to action as well.

    That brings me to wrapping paper. I got a pitch email from a company called Minted a couple of weeks ago. They're an online stationery store that features the work of independent artists and offers a lot of customization for their truly lovely paper products, including holiday photo cards and my favorite, wrapping paper.

    I happen to have some nice black and white photos of my husband and me taken earlier this year as part of the Roadway Studio Project, so I'm excited about getting some of them incorporated into a gift wrap design. Here's a look at what I've put together so far. The dotted lines show the areas where I've customized.

    Wrappingpaper

    I've included some pet photos as well because…it's me. I'm also considering getting the recipe design customized with one of my cookie recipes.

    For the last several years we haven't exchanged gifts in my family except to get presents for the kids. This year my aunt urged us to go back to a more traditional holiday celebration, so that gives me about a dozen people to shop for if you include a couple of friends with whom I generally exchange gifts. It's actually kind of fun, but I can guarantee you won't see me out on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.

    Disclosure: In exchange for the mentions of Minted and links to the site, I have been offered store credit.

  • Average Jane Wants To Hibernate

    I'm just so cold...I hate to be that guy who complains about the cold weather, but I'm going to anyway. It's just so cold everywhere I go! My office is freezing year 'round, my house is horribly drafty and I can't seem to keep my hands warm in my car, even with gloves on.

    Fortunately there are solutions.

    I keep two blankets at the office. There's a grey knitted blanket that is big and warm but too linty if I'm wearing black. That's when I switch to the smaller fleece airplane-style blanket. Sometimes I wear them around the office like capes. I'm not proud.

    At home I wear a robe pretty much all the time. I have three to choose from, each more hideous than the last. There's the pink fluffy one that adds 40 pounds to my apparent weight, the pilly green and blue argyle one that I got at a clothing exchange, and finally the blue chenille one that makes me look like I'm wrapped in a big towel.

    Whether I'm in clothes or pajamas, you'll find me wearing one of these robes on top in the fall and winter. Yes, I wear them out into the yard while I'm walking the dog. If he starts taking me up the street, we have an ugly robe fashion show for the neighbors. Again, not proud.

    Speaking of the dog, he's the reason I have no complaints about the temperature in my bedroom. As soon as I get into bed, he jumps up and paws the covers until I lift them up. Then he curls into the hollow of my chest and stomach and falls asleep for the night. It's like having a dog-shaped hot water bottle under the blanket with me.

    So I have most of the solutions I need, but I had to get my annual complaining out of my system anyway. And if you can think of a way I can warm up my cold nose, let's hear it.

    Photo credit: Melinda Shelton

  • Average Jane Fails NaBloPoMo


    Knock, knock, knockin' on failure's door.Well, yesterday got the best of me and I forgot to do a post.

    Here's what I was doing instead:

    • Sleeping later than I should have.
    • Working all day.
    • Punctuated by a doctor's appointment.
    • Running errands for my dad, who has just been released from the hospital and can't drive for a bit.
    • Chatting with an old bandmate who came by the house to sell some drums to my husband.
    • Going to dinner with my husband.
    • Watching "Sleepy Hollow."
    • Feeding and taking the dog out as needed.
    • Going to bed on time.

    Those aren't excuses, just reasons. I'm just going to proceed from here and try to get in 29 posts this month instead of thirty. 

    Photo credit: 4rilla

  • Average Jane Comes Back

    Frisk Band at Mission BowlSorry to drop that last post and then just disappear. For anyone who only follows the blog, it probably seemed like the next post was going to be from some relative of mine you've never heard of saying, "And then she died."

    Actually, I'm fine. I figured out what was wrong with my body chemistry and got it straightened out. I feel a lot better now, but I'm just very distracted.

    My band has been playing every Saturday night lately, so that's taking up a lot of my free time. Yet I've managed to clean my house, read a bunch of books and go shopping a couple of times. I even finally put up blinds in my bedroom just shy of the two-year mark after the remodel. Curtains are next.

    I keep wanting to write blog posts but then I think about how I never wrote my vacation posts and it felt as though I was supposed to do them first. Well I've gotten over that. I'll throw some trip posts in when I get to them, but I'm not going to let the blog languish just because I don't have time to sit down at my home computer and pick out photos and themes.

    On my to-do list is to make a photo book of the trip to give to my dad for Christmas, so that will be the natural time to write those posts. When I get time for that, I'll do both at once.

    In the meantime, I have lots of stuff going on. More gigs, including one this weekend that includes a Halloween costume contest. I'll be wearing my Star Trek original series science uniform. I have my Sundays pretty booked as well: a tour of three winerys this week and Caffeine Crawl next week. My sister is going with me for both of those, which will make them extra fun.

    So enough of the radio silence. As fall is settling in, I miss writing. NaBloPoMo is coming up (the real one in November, not the newfangled every month thing) and I'm considering posting every day just to get my chops back up.

    And how are you doing?

  • Average Jane’s Doldrums

    This is how I feel all the time right now.

    I had the best intentions when I posted that I would start writing about my recent trip. I really meant to, but ever since I got back I have been extremely busy at work and exhausted in the evenings. My wakeup time has been getting later and later, and when I do have some time to myself, I mostly just want to lounge around and read.

    So it's not that I don't want to tell my stories and share my photos, it's that I'm just too tired and unmotivated. It feels like work, and right now all I want to do is rest.

    My band is booked every Saturday this month and the first Saturday in November. Last Saturday I found myself walking the line all day between getting some much-needed housework and errands done and reserving enough energy to perform and stay up late. On Sunday, I slept a total of 10 hours and barely got anything accomplished unless you count finishing a book.

    It's all very annoying. My husband keeps getting irritated with me because I'll promise to fix dinner only to change my mind once I've gotten home. One afternoon last week I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot after work for about 15 minutes trying to summon the initiative to walk in and shop. I finally mustered up the energy, mainly because it seemed like such a waste of time to get that far and go home empty-handed.

    I think it's safe to say that something is wrong with me, but I can't really hazard a guess about what it is. I suppose I'll be plunging back into world of blood tests and tentative medical speculation again, which is the last thing I wanted to do to finish out the year.

    In the meantime, I'll try to drag myself along with healthy food and a judicious amount of caffeine. And naps, lots of naps.

    Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

  • Average Jane’s Lazy Saturday Morning

    I woke up a little before 6:00 a.m. today and I just caught myself thinking, "I don't have much to show for the four hours I've been awake so far."

    Then I stopped myself because first of all, how much stuff do you need to accomplish on a Saturday morning when you're still in your pajamas? Second, I actually do have quite a bit to show for that time.

    Since I got up I have:

    1. Fed all of the pets.
    2. Caught up on Dice with Buddies and Words with Friends.
    3. Corrected and printed out the lyrics of the song I needed to learn for today's band practice. I also sang it several times and put the lyrics file on my iPad.
    4. Sung the song we learned at our last practice, just to make sure I still have it down.
    5. Packed up the foster kittens' food, extra litter and Lysine treats.
    6. Seen the kittens off to their next foster home where they will have more socialization time before they go to a pet store.
    7. Taken the dog out a couple of times.
    8. Washed the pots and pans from last night.
    9. Made dipping sauce for the summer rolls I prepared last night, as well as a batch of hummus.
    10. Washed dishes again.
    11. Loaded and run the dishwasher.
    12. Made myself a breakfast shake.
    13. Spent a reasonable amount of time on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

    If that's the wrong way to spend your Saturday morning, I don't want to be right.