The following voicemail was left on my phone this morning:

Hi Jen, Today on my lunch break I’m going to run to the house and grab the last box and drop it off with your sister. I’m just going to put it in her car, so she’ll be able to bring it back to your apartment tonight. I hope you enjoyed all the leftovers from dinner! Well, have a nice day and I’ll see you this weekend! Bye! Love you, pumpkin!

… Oh by the way. This is your mother.

God, I love my mum.

So this is the last day of NaBloPoMo. It’s been a good month. Thanks again Eden for organizing.

Before I go and leave you blogless for two whole days in a row (I can do that now!), I just want to post a final reminder about my holiday cards and desktops. Purchase the cards by clicking the shiny yellow button in my sidebar ($10 … 15 cards… in 3 days or less!). Get more info and the desktops from this much more informative entry here.

Enjoy the weekend folks!

Because I know you all care. Oh so very much.

It was suggested I try some over the counter sleep aids, just to give myself a nudge. Basically, I found out they are Benedryl without the medicine – just the sleepy factor. Took them Monday, didn’t appear to have any affect. Took them Tuesday, and while they didn’t make me fall asleep quicker, I did manage to fall asleep at a reasonable hour and only wake up ONCE during the night but was so incredibly groggy all yesterday. So my plan was to take them EVEN earlier last night to see if they’d kick in and prevent me from being the walking dead all day today.

Last night my friend Liz and I had dinner. After we returned back to my apartment so that A.) we could watch America’s Next Top Model together and B.) so that I could take the pills even EARLIER than I did the night before. Bonus that Liz is in the medical field and could actually witness what affect, if any, these pills were having on me.

Well I took them at 8:00 on the nose. She left at 9:30 and I was not sleepy in the least. In fact, I tried on three outfit options for today and modeled them all for my sister. And after just hung out in my bed.

Basically, my body hates me and nothing will kill the Insomniac Beast living inside of me. But I promised to try this for a week. So tonight, we’ll experiment again.

(Can you sense my HATE? Because it’s there. IN FULL FORCE.)

There are no words. Other than “WOW”. That’s it. Just wow.

Devoted Customer Upset Jimmy Dean Downsized Sausage 16oz To 12oz But Charges Same Price.

Warning: some of the (hilarious) language is NSFW.

Also, those of you who ordered holiday card gift packs (uh, can I say “THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!”), I shipped every order I received so far (like as in orders that came in as of 4:15 today). Depending on what lovely city you live in you should receive your cards in 1 – 3 days.

I’m feeling particularly festive today. In fact, I am wearing a holiday red three quarter length cashmere cardigan with rhinestone buttons – fancy! But I’m also whipping out the holiday goods a few days before December. So yay for you!

First up, holiday cards. Remember last year when I sold them? And after the holidays I had a clearance where I sold them for super cheap just to get rid of the last box and I was super psyched? Well think of how not psyched I was when my mother called me up a few weeks ago to ask if she could grab a set from the box I had stored at her house. WHAT BOX?

So good news for you, I am selling the rest this season for even less than the clearance price last year. $10.00 gets you 15 cards, 15 envelopes and includes shipping. Now that my friends is what we call a deal (for you numbers people, that’s like fifty cents a card). If you care to purchase some, please redirect your eyes to my sidebar. Right there. Where it says “Holiday Card Time”? Click the shiny yellow “BUY NOW” button and VIOLA! you’ll have your very own set. (Preview the image on the card here)

Next up, Holiday Desktops! What fun are the holidays if you can’t decorate? And when decorating, don’t forget your computer. You stare at it enough hours out of the day, it may as well be festive too. I created a bunch more this year .. I was feeling particularly retro when doing so, which you’ll see.

Some of the new ones:

View the whole set and get you own desktops here!

(I can’t believe after that blog title some of you are actually reading this.)

You know what’s awesome? And by awesome I mean so incredibly annoying you want to hurl your body off a cliff? Insomnia. Insomnia for no reason. Insomnia for no reason that has lasted for weeks on end (my best guess would be about 6-7 weeks).

I’ve probably mentioned my inability to have a normal night’s sleep in … oh every entry I’ve posted throughout NaBloPoMo so thank god for the textless Daily Photo which features no mention of my sleeplessness. HI NABLOPOMO-IANS, aren’t you glad there are only a handful of days left?!

You know what is the best part of insomnia? And of course by best you know I mean effing ridiculously worst part? Laying there in the taunting glow of my clock at 11:03, 12:34, 1:21, 2:54, 3:24, 4:16, 4:17, 4:18, holy mother of god it’s 6:23 and my alarm is going off in 20 minutes … you get the point. Welcome to my life as of late. Welcome to my morning. Right here. Right now.

You know what else RULES about insomnia? When you combine way too much sleeplessness with way too much tequila. You know what that equals? DO YOU?! It equals your friend coming up to you at a bar you are both at, having a two second conversation that NORMALLY would be – NORMAL, except combined with the aforementioned NO SLEEP and BOTTOMLESS GLASSES OF TEQUILA equals you crying (could I be any more of a stupid girl?). And her storming out. (And of course, as these things go, we are not actually mad at each other. In fact, I just got off the phone with her. For the second time today. Also she is probably one of the most amazing humans I know. Which makes the situation at least a little funny. To us at least. I’m sure the other bar patrons were all, “Um. STFU losers.”)

On a more hilarious note, the sleeplessness combined with tequila had me sneaking around the bar earlier in the night with a camera “hidden” in my hand, snapping “secret” photos of one of my friends who I haven’t seen or talked to in several years. Why was this funny? Because I was calling him Sasquatch. Picture that in your head. Really picture that. Now tell me you aren’t laughing. At me. Because, by all means, I truly deserve to be laughed AT.

(And just as a disclaimer, because we all know that my blog LOVES to get me in trouble because I often forget to blog the details of how things come to be: this person I was calling Sasquatch is not Sasquatch-like at all and is not the reason the joke started. Me standing there with a camera, with the flash off, stabilizing it on a table, hunched down, “sneaking” a shot of a person I haven’t seen in forever just to have a pic of him … THAT is the “Sasquatch” metaphor. NOT the person.)

In conclusion, the only thing worse than someone who complains day in and day out about not being able to sleep is someone who complains day in and day out about not being able to sleep and not DOING anything about it. (Sheepishly raises hand). I’m one of those people who hates having to take pills. Like one of those I’d rather take a nap than an Advil for a headache people (ANNOYING). Last night I tried some NyQuil because this is getting ridiculous. But you know what? Even though it says right on the box that it causes drowsiness and contains sedating antihistamines, those stupid pills made me even more restless and JITTERY.

I think if nothing else, the past few days have truly revealed the stubborn beast that is Jenny. I need to return to a normal functioning human being. I think that Sasquatch joke was just a foreshadowing of what I am destined to become. A comfy bed and over the counter cold medicines that MAY cause drowsiness clearly aren’t doing the trick.

Raises white flag. Starts waving.

Christmas is one month from today.

Once I pull myself back together I’ll have more thrilling things to post. Damn this NaBloPoMo.

It is exactly one month until my birthday. Good entry.

The night before any big holiday in my hometown (and probably in most cities and towns) is called “Amature Night” by local law enforcement. All the people coming back home and going out drinking … probably driving … possibly stabbing (Yeah we heard there was a stabbing at the nasty hole in the wall bar we ended our night in. While we were there. Any one confirm this yet? My hometown is roughly 75% class, 24% trash, 1% stabbing idiots.)

The night started innocently enough with a bunch of high school friends:

You may recognize more than me in that pic. Namely these two hotties:

Sarah and Caity, of Pink Shoe Diaries and To Be Announced fame. Yup we all went to the same high school. Actually I’ve known Sarah since 6th grade, and Caity since grade school CCD classes. It’s true, we’ve been wreaking havoc since the late 80s/early 90s.

We had a few cocktails at one mildly crowded bar and (foolishly) moved on to another piece of trash bar that was packed wall to wall mostly with people I never thought I’d see again ever.

I ran into my somewhat estranged cousin, which was actually nice. Families are crazy by nature. Mine is clinically insane. But I have to say running into Cousin Bob was pretty nice. Especially since he caught me up on all the other cousins I haven’t seen in years – like Cousin Denny. Who is now married with child! Denny is three months younger than me and when I was a tot I was CONVINCED we were going to get married. I know, gross. But this was way back when we were playing with G.I. Joes and Glow worms.

My high school boyfriend was there and looking as bulbous as ever. I was making my way through the crowd saying hello to people in my path and he gave me a LOOK (not in a nice way) and stepped away. Because it’s totally normal to be weird to someone you dated for three whole months more than a decade ago right? Maybe he’s being weird because he feels bad for cheating on me. With my friend. I always pick the winners.

After a few hellos and snapping some photos, I claimed a corner with my friends Jeannie and Diana and we just watched the action going down (this is apparently when the stabbing allegedly happened. We didn’t see anything, thought we did hear there was a fight. But like a fist-fight, not a STABBING fight.)

The bar closed shortly thereafter and we came outside to this:

There were 8 cop cars total which at the time we thought was excessive. And by “we” I mean me and my sister (and our friend Michael).

My sister and I hopped in my car about 1:15 am and decided to play a tasty prank on my dad (also a cop) (but who has been out of state for the past few days celebrating Thanksgiving with his wife’s family).

My sister called him, told him she had been arrested and that this was her one phone call.

I think if he could have, my father would have jumped through the phone, bailed my sister out and then slapped her for being so stupid. But the jig was up when the two of us starting laughing hysterically.

I have a feeling that prank was the reason he shut his phone off for the entirety of Thanksgiving Day and didn’t talk to either of us. Whoops.

Either way the night was a blast. But I definitely got my fill until at least next year.

Go Wamps!

I’m actually posting this while lying on the ground under my the desk in my father’s empty house (my mother doesn’t have internet and my father is in New Hampshire with his wife’s family and his wireless router has gone missing) because THAT’S how dedicated to this NaBloPoMo thing I apparently am.

Per usual, my Thanksgiving is small, just my mom, my sister and me. The holidays always kind of bum me out because I don’t have much family around to celebrate with. I made the drive from my mother’s down the street to my father’s to post this and literally was weaving in and out of the parked cars that lined the streets. For some reason that made me miss having big family holiday gatherings.

Wow what an uplifting entry.

Well I will tell you that we are having quite the spread for the three of us. I am excited to eat it. I’m thankful for the family I am celebrating with so I’m going to hurry up and post this and get back to my mom’s.

Have a lovely Thanksgiving and enjoy your food, families and friends. :)

This morning I woke up at my normal time, but instead of going straight to work, I reversed my commute and headed over to my doctor’s office. Because, let’s face it, nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving” like getting a flu shot.

So my doctor is really cute and thinks I’m still 5 years old because she will always try and start up a conversation JUST as she going to give me the shot. You know to distract me.

So she’s prepping my arm, winds up, and goes “So how’s your scoliosis?”

“My scoliosis? What?”

“Um, yeah. You’ve had mild scoliosis for ….. oh EVER.”

Ok news to me. THANKS. But let’s go back in time for a couple of funny and also applicable stories.

About 5 years ago I was having really annoying lower back pain. Five years ago I was 21 years old. Five years ago I shouldn’t be having issues that someone three times my age should be, so I went to the doctor and saw the nurse in her department.

That conversation went a little something like this “My back hurts sometimes.” “You’re fine.” “No really.” “No really yourself. You’re fine.”

Ok FINE.

A year after that, every once and a while I would still get weird pains. And it was annoying. So back to the doctor I go.

This time I tell them I refuse to believe I am fine. DO SOMETHING.

So they’re looking at my back, at my abdomen and the same silly nurse says “What are these scars from?” “They’re from my double hernia operation …” (cuts me off) “That’s where your pain is coming from. Your scab fell off.” WTF. “Um, nurse, I wasn’t finished. I had that surgery when I was two. THAT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO. And ‘my scab fell off?’ Really. That doesn’t even make sense.” “Oh well. In that case, you’re fine.” “Um do you READ my chart?” “Want some muscle relaxers? They’ll help.” “No. Idiot.”

So basically I never went back again for the back pain. Never so much as mentioned it again because they’d probably tell me I’m making it up. And then finally nearly a decade later my doctor validates the pain tells me “OH IT’S YOUR SCOLIOSIS.”

Seriously? WTF. A little heads up … oh, when I was BORN would have been nice. I could have milked this for all that it’s worth and now I’ve lost out on almost 27 years of milking! Luckily I haven’t been in any pain in about a year … which is not so coincidentally when I started regularly doing yoga. Which happens to be the recommended treatment suggested by my doctor.

So who wants a date with the scoliosis freak? Oh btw, did I mention I was told last week that I need braces?! Again!? (I’m NOT getting braces again.) I just keep getting hotter and hotter people.

Thanks DAD. I know this came from your side of the family. Don’t even try to argue this one – you all have messed up bones. You owe me some yoga classes, jerk.