Average Jane

Blog

  • Average Jane’s Primary Source of Puncture Wounds

    Imgp0152

    Xena’s latest trick is hopping on my back while I’m leaning forward over the bathroom counter to put in my contacts. The word "No" is apparently not in her limited vocabulary.

    It would almost be kind of cute except that she uses her claws for purchase, and she really wants to stay once she’s up there. While bra shopping over the weekend, I discovered that I have no small number of scratches and punctures on my back and shoulders, thanks to her.

    Speaking of bra shopping (guys, you can skip this part), I’d been reading over the past couple of weeks about Suzanne and Monkey going for professional fittings and I decided it was time I did the same, even though they had mixed results.

    I went to Nordstrom because it was the only place I could think of that would offer bra fittings. It was Saturday afternoon, I happened to be dressed up because I’d been to a memorial service, and I hated to waste the chance to shop in a nice department store while not looking like a dirtbag who needs to keep her hands in plain sight for the security cameras.

    It turned out that the size I’d been wearing was wrong in both directions: the band size was too big and the cup size was too small. Of course, I’m sure that’ll change again the instant I get out and start exercising regularly, but it’s awfully nice to be this comfortable for now.

    We won’t even talk about the ridiculous amount of money I spent on two bras. I tried on different ones for what seemed like hours, and I was happy to fork over any amount for the two that fit and looked decent under a t-shirt.

    I don’t know where to go with this narrative after a digression like that, so I suppose I’ll stop here and get ready for work, shutting Xena out of the bathroom beforehand. Enjoy your Monday!

  • No Flowers for Average Jane

    Fail

    Behold the amaryllis I bought just before Christmas. I was so excited to plant the bulb and see the long leaves grow. I waited…and waited…and waited. Nothing else ever happened. Apparently I purchased an underachiever.

    If you’re puzzled about the caption, visit The FAIL Blog.

    Happy Friday, everyone!

  • Average Jane Parties with Bloggers

    I went to a Blogger Meetup after work last night that included:
    Ancillary Adams / Jim
    Frighteningly Uncommon Sense / Faith & hubby Leo
    General Blather / H-Train
    Gone Mild / Dan
    Hip Suburban White Guy / XO
    JustCara (who was gone before I arrived)
    Law School Bound / KC Sponge
    Ramblings, Rants, and Mommyhood Journal / Janet
    My Spyderweb / Spyder (I’m on ur blog, steelin ur links)
    Well Hell Michelle

    After a crappy start to the week, it was great to hang out with everyone, drink a couple of martinis and belt out some hard rock karaoke (AC/DC and Led Zeppelin songs I’m already doing in the cover band).

    I learned something about karaoke: the lyrics they give you are rubbish. Any basic Internet lyrics search will give you much more accurate lyrics than the random junk they were projecting onto the screen for the songs I did last night.

    Before all that, I did get my photo taken at work. Unfortunately, despite having brought makeup to fix myself up after yoga class, I was still shiny and pumpkin-headed. Photoshop can fix the shiny, but there’s nothing to be done about my huge melon. Still, I’m sure one of the shots will be good enough for the article in which it is to appear.

    I wish I could say I slept better last night, but I found myself wide awake at 5:00 a.m. I turned off all of my white noise sources and managed to go back to sleep until 7. Fortunately, I’m feeling perfectly energetic during the day, so maybe I’m just going through a phase where I don’t need as much sleep as usual.

    Speaking of sleepiness, if you’re a coffee fan and a blogger you might want to check out this offer from Joffrey’s Coffee and Tea Company. Sign up for their "coffee beta test" and you could get a sample of one of their flavored coffees, as well as a link from their site. Even though I’m no longer drinking the caffeine, I still signed up for some decaf because it sounds delicious.

    All right, I’m out of here. I need to get dressed and made up, and then stop by my credit union on the way to work. Enjoy your Thursday!

  • Sleep-Disturbed Average Jane

    I’m usually a really good sleeper, but for the last two nights I haven’t been able to turn off my thoughts enough to sleep restfully all night long.

    There’s been a serious illness and a death in my social circle this week, so I’m sure that’s where a lot of it comes from. However, other thoughts impinge on my sleep as well, most of which are completely non-urgent things that I resent having to think about when I should be slumbering.

    I learned last night that I’m going to have my picture taken today, so I found myself lying in bed pondering how I should fix my hair, how to minimize the damage to said hairstyle during yoga class, what I should wear, and where I should sit or stand to be photographed. Why couldn’t that wait until I was fully conscious?!?

    Even crossing a couple of items off my huge to-do list yesterday evening didn’t help.

    It’s a little early in the year for me to need a vacation, but I’m thinking I could stand to do something relaxing. Any suggestions?

  • Average Jane Sets Goals

    This is more for me than for public consumption, but I’m hoping that if I write it all down, it might make me eventually do all of this stuff. So, here’s a list of the things I’d like to accomplish or begin in the coming week:

    • Hook up my new iMac and transfer files to it from my dying G4. This involves cleaning off my desk, which is why I’ve had the new computer since last Thursday but still not set it up.
    • Buy salt for the water softener, furnace filters and kitty litter. I’ve been to the store over and over lately, but I just can’t seem to accomplish the purchase of any of these items.
    • Laundry.
    • Begin some kind of aerobic exercise routine. If the weather ever improves, I’m planning to do the Couch-to-5k program. For now, I’d settle for an after-dinner walk several times a week. I could also stand to take the stairs at work more often.
    • If the previous item doesn’t happen soon, I need to add: buy larger jeans. It can’t be good when eating a normal meal causes your pants to hurt you.
    • Recycle my big bag o’ junk mail. I could do this today, but I have to look through it all first.
    • Gather my tax paperwork and make an appointment with my accountant. I’m definitely getting refunds, so what am I waiting for?

    Wow, that list makes me want to crawl back into bed and stay there indefinitely. The fact that it leaves off a bunch of other stuff I need to do makes it even more painful.

    I guess I’ll head to the office and start working on that to-do list now. The rest will have to wait.

  • Average Jane’s Short Weekend

    My weekend started out in a healthy place with an 8:00 a.m. yoga class on Saturday. It devolved into pizza, beer and tiramisu by about two, and then I made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. I only ate two of the cookies. That’s good, right?

    That evening, we took the remaining cookies and went to a reception at The Zen Zone, not realizing that it would be snowing vigorously by the time we arrived. We hung around for an hour or so, then grabbed a quick dinner and went home.

    On Sunday morning, I started researching recipes to find something vaguely movie-themed that I could take to Piper’s Oscar party. I chose a Tres Leche Cake, which I renamed "I Drink Your Milkshake" Cake. It turned out great, even though I kept putting in tablespoons of ingredients that should have been measured in teaspoons (notably, baking powder in the cake and powdered sugar in the whipped cream).

    The party was fun and I ended up winning a DVD of "The Queen" for correctly picking (guessing) seven of the top award winners.

    Between my cake baking and my party attendance, we had a truly awful band practice for the cover band. It took more than three hours to get through two sets, and the recording shows that we have a long way to go before we’re going to be ready to play in front of anyone. I hope it was just an off day.

    Weekend Nap Tally: An hour-and-a-half on Saturday. None on Sunday. Sigh.

    So that’s my boring life right now. Let’s hope for something more interesting in the coming week.

  • Average Jane’s iTunes

    Since I’m sleepy today, I’m stealing this meme from Bea.

    Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

    How many songs total: 1240
    How many hours or days of music: 4 days
    Most recently played: Waiting for the Bus – ZZ Top
    Most played: Walk in the Shadows – Queensryche
    Most recently added: Possum Kingdom – The Toadies

    Sort by song title:
    First Song: Abacab – Genesis
    Last Song: 99 – Toto

    Sort by time:
    Shortest Song: The Hellion – Judas Priest (42 seconds)
    Longest Song: Give Up the Funk – George Clinton (15:22 min)

    Sort by album:
    First album: Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits
    Last album: 2112 – Rush

    First song that comes up on Shuffle: Airwaves (7" Version) – Thomas Dolby

    Search the following and state how many songs come up:
    Death – 1
    Life – 15
    Love – 60
    Hate – 5
    You – 100
    Sex – 6

    (There were a lot of duplicates, but I just put the raw numbers.)

    Anybody else want to play?

  • Average Jane Takes Pictures

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    I spotted this in the gutter next to my car when I stopped at a deli for sandwiches on Tuesday night before band practice. There’s a hospital nearby, so I’m guessing someone (a med student? an intern?) had an "Oh, shit!" moment upon returning from lunch sometime this week.

  • Average Jane Is Awake, Okay?

    Today was a day of unusually rude awakenings.

    It started in the wee hours of the morning. I awoke with the unwelcome feeling that the next time I moved my left leg, it was going to cramp. Of course, it did. I got a full-blown charley horse in my calf muscle that took several minutes of "Ow! Ow! Ow!" to let go.

    I’ve been drinking a lot of water lately, so I’d guess my electrolyte balance is off. I’ll get a banana from the coffee shop downstairs when I get to work. A little potassium should help.

    Once I managed to fall back asleep, the universe stepped up its campaign to get me out of bed. Our alarm system went off around 6:00 a.m. and vaulted us out of bed. It turned out that our kitchen window had come unlatched and must have shifted a teensy bit.

    So I’m up now. What next?

  • Average Jane’s Letter To Her Body

    Have you been following BlogHer’s Letter To My Body initiative? I’m finding people’s thoughts about body image fascinating. Here’s my letter:

    Dear Body,

    We’ve had a good run so far, and although I haven’t always treated you as well as I might have, I feel as though I’m starting to get a handle on how you work best.

    I’m especially sorry about the whole caffeine thing – you tried to tell me to quit, but I ignored you until neither one of us could take the suffering anymore. At least I figured out how much you enjoy yogurt and fruit for breakfast. Do I get any points for that?

    I’ve been trying to make a habit of other things you like: yoga, massages, chiropractor visits, and flat-soled shoes. I haven’t made you wear pantyhose in a really long time. I know I wore high-heeled shoes twice last week, but I swear we’ll take care of the aftermath in yoga class this week.

    Don’t take it personally when I’m a little dismayed at the measurement of my waist and thighs. I’m well aware that my DNA is responsible for that. I know my mother blamed hers on pregnancy, but as the child-free control group in my genetic line, I can disprove that theory once and for all.

    I’m not even really worried how I look carrying these extra pounds – I just don’t want to have to buy bigger jeans, because I’m cheap that way.

    Genetics are responsible for quite a few of the things about you that I might be inclined to complain about, but because they weren’t really surprises, it seems counterproductive to worry about them. You won’t find me "correcting" anything that was part of the standard package – well, except for the terrible eyesight I got from my dad.

    I know you could use more exercise, but as we’re both averse to spending time outside in the cold, it’ll just have to wait until spring. There’s a 5k and a 13-miler that I’d like to do this year, but I promise to train you beforehand. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to get back to three yoga classes per week.

    Now that I’m getting older, I must apologize for the times I was lax with sunscreen earlier. If I could go back in time, I’d tell my younger self to put sunscreen on her hands every time she went outside.

    I appreciate that you always bounce back despite the hours and hours I spend hunched over a computer keyboard or slouched in front of the TV. I’ll keep working on culling things from my diet that you don’t like and adding the things you do.

    Thanks for everything so far,

    Average Jane