Touché Tuesday Advice Columns: Pranks

Need some Whitfield Awesome advice (about anything)? Fill out this form.

Dear Jen,
I would like to play a prank on my mother-in-law. She's really not a nice person. Any suggestions? She also lives in another town than we do, so it will need to be something I can accomplish long distance.
Sincerely, Cheerful

Dear Cheerful,

Most pranks I have been involved in where geographically convenient...forking, post-it-ing, hide-and-scare or old school tech convenient (like when caller ID didn't exist). Long-distance pranking is pretty advanced. If you are truly ready for this level of commitment, consider the following:

• Once a month, ship a large box of pork rinds with a note from the pork rind of the month club. 
• Schedule a phone call with a special message from wakerupper.com.
• Playboy gift subscription.
• Tell her that you are pregnant.
• Post her possessions on craigslist.

Sorry, I was gonna keep going but I'm too distracted by how great a pork rind of the month club would be.
♥Jen

My dear readers, tell me about pranks you've pulled.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

It's my 1/2 Blogiversary, y'all! When I started this blog 6 months ago, I wanted to be a combination of Elsie Larson and Zooey Deschanel. I wanted to be cute and quirky and post DIYs and thrifting adventures. I muddled through a few of these sorts of posts and quickly realized that my strength lies in snark. I'm more Bloggess than Beautiful Mess. Except without the cussing and dead animals. Or book contracts.

To those of you who stuck around through the awkward finding my "blog voice" months: thank you. To those of you who started reading more recently: don't bother going through the early archives. To those of you who are only here because you entered the giveaway and have no plans to ever read this blog again: I ain't mad at ya.

Now. It's time to announce the 1/2 Blogiversary Giveaway winner! I'm feeling generous, so I decided to turn one winner into five winners! It's getting crazy up in this blog. I assigned each entrant a random number for each entry they earned. Then I feel in love with that sentence and we ran away together. Then I used random.org to choose:

Grand Prize: Basket of Random Awesomeness Winner (1st # chosen) - Kacey
2nd Prize: two 8x10 surprise* WA prints (25th # chosen) - Anna
3rd Prize: one 8x10 and one 5x7 surprise* WA print (1st chosen 5x) - Erin
4th Prize: one 8x10 surprise* WA print (1st chosen 25x) - Kristin
5th Prize: one 5x7 surprise* WA print (1st chosen 3x in a row) - Chelsea

*I will choose the surprise prints based on your 5 likes (if you gave them) and your blog (if you have one). Might be something from my shop, might be something brand new...it's a surprise!

I'll be in touch with each of you for mailing addresses.

Touché Tuesday Advice Column: On Love & The Junior League

Need some Whitfield Awesome advice (about anything)? Fill out this form.

Dear Jen,
It's me, Billy, again. It's been a long time since I asked you for advice about dating my cousin. Now that you have had some time to think about it, have you changed your mind at all?
Love, Billy

Dear Billy,
Stop. Seriously. Our kids would have extra arms. No.
See you at Grannies, ♥Jen

Dear Jen,
I recently moved to a new town and joined the Junior League in an effort to make new friends. My first meeting is next week. I'm excited but a little scared. Do you have any tips on fitting in?
All the best, New In Town

Dear NIT,
Boy did you come to the right advice column! I have Junior League* written all over me.

1. Always wear pearls. Even in the shower (bathe in water that hasn't dripped off pearls, pfft).
2. Lean against walls and smoke cigarettes. You will look cool and carefree. Plus the wall will help hold you up since all you eat now is nicotine. 
3. If you have a job, quit. You're going to need to spend a lot of time gathering intel on other League members (intel is a fancy word for gossip).
4. If you have children, and you should, they are always someone else's problem.
5. Learn all the rules to games that old people play, like Bridge. But not Mahjong. 
6. Never eat pie made of feces.
7. Don't forget you're lacy gloves when you go out in public. This way folks won't mistake you for someone who does work.

*Everything I think I know about the Junior League may be derived from "The Help". 

Hope you're ready to be popular!
♥Jen

Dear Jen,
My husband wants to throw out/donate his Aaron, Kacey & Jen's Boozy Bacon Barnacle Scavenger Adventure Team Extraordinaire shirt. Granted, we are currently purging and packing for an unexpected move within 1.5 weeks of notification, and we have limited space for storage and things to bring with us. I feel like this shirt is sacred, and shouldn't be shared with anyone asides the Boozy Bacon Barnacle Scavenger Adventure Team Extraordinaire (BBBSATE for short), so I don't want it donated. But I can't even FATHOM the thought of throwing it out.

Is this grounds for divorce? How can I make my husband compromise with me so I don't have to leave him for good?

Please help me Jen, you're my only hope!
Kacey (BBBSATE Team Member)

Dear Kacey,

It's an age-old tale..."I thought I knew him. Then we married and he became someone who does not fully appreciate an Aaron, Kacey & Jen's Boozy Bacon Barnacle Scavenger Adventure Team Extraordinaire shirt." I blame society. There is just no sanctity in marriage any more. But I have been led to believe that men are good to have around for some things, like killing snakes and remembering to replace batteries in smoke detectors (note to self: it's been 8 years). Plus divorce is expensive and time consuming and it's almost time for the fall TV lineup. So, in effort to save your home from fire, snakes, and an overly full DVR, I suggest wrapping something fragile in the shirt. Like your husband's favorite beer stein. Then the shirt is packing material. It's useful. It's resourceful. It's still in your ownership. 

If this doesn't work, grab the shirt, smash the beer stein, use a shard to cut him and run. You can come back to Florida. We'll dye your hair in the sink at a shady motel. 

♥Jen

My two dads, Nathan Lane and Elijah Wood.

Someone recently sent me to the celebrity face recognition section of the internet. Because I enjoy wasting tons of time on the world wide web and want the tiny robots controlling it to tell me I look like Scarlett Johansson even after my ex-boyfriend said her head looks like an m&m studying the technology behind such applications, I stuck around long enough to enter no less than five photographs of myself. 

I got Monica Belluci (50% and 73% match) and Kiera Knightly (58% and 67%) twice. Obviously this application is right on target. Must be the same facial recognition software the FBI uses. 

And then I got Nathan Lane and Elijah Wood, 68% and 47% respectively. I can't look EXACTLY like Monica Belluci and look like these men. The only possible explanation is that Nathan Lane and Elijah Wood had love twins. Those love twins are me and Monica Belluci. I'm so mad at my "parents" that I could run away to Mobile via Pensacola like in that one movie about the adopted girl except I already live there. Plus running away sounds like a lot of effort. 
These are the types of family moments that I am sure I have missed out on:

Mom (Elijah) did everyone's hair. What she can do with a comb & hairspray...

Crazy Weirdo Ren Faire! Look at Tonya back there...always photo bombing.

At the family ranch! We raise flowers and kittens.

Which celebrity do you look like? Don't pretend you're too high-brow for this question and say something like "I don't know the names of any celebrities" or "I'd much prefer to tell you which Shakespearean character I most resemble". No one wants to hear that.

Touché Tuesday Advice Column: Cat Lady

Need some Whitfield Awesome advice (about anything)? Fill out this form.

Dear Jen, My vet recommended giving my cat regular baths for medical reasons. My usually sweet and cuddly fur baby turns into a ball of claws and teeth every time. Do you have any tips for making bath time easier on both of us? My bleeding arms thank you!
xoxo, Shredded, Milton

Dear Shredded,
I think your vet hates you. Did you go to high school together? Maybe bat your eyes at her boyfriend? 

Have you considered Xanax? How about oven mitts? Bubble wrap? Double-sided tape? A dog?

I'm assuming the medical reasons have to do with a skin condition if baths were suggested. If this is the case, perhaps you can try a cat lotion. DERMagic makes one that relieves skin allergies, dry skin, etc.

Is it actual submersion in water you're seeking or does kitty just need a little help cleaning? If it's the latter, try cat wipes. I use them once in a while with Pip. No, she doesn't run to me with the package of wipes in her mouth begging for a rub down but she doesn't hate them either. I've also seen dry/waterless shampoos for cats. Or maybe a sponge bath will do.

If you must give the cat a bath, play with kitty for a while to tire him/her out a bit and make sure kitty's nails are trimmed. Put a rubber mat in the tub for kitty to claw when stressed and run the water before bringing the cat into the room. Pre-fill a few small buckets for rinsing. You may still want to wear welder's gloves.

I have to tell you that I don't trust vets after an experience I call "Pippi's $1,000 Fart". I don't know what your relationship with your vet is, but I would do a lot of research on the medical condition your cat may have and whether regular baths are proven to help. I might even call other vets and ask their opinion.

♥ Jen

The music is pretty annoying but some of the cats are entertaining:


Pssst. Don't forget that I'm trying to give you things this month. Major people are entering. You want to be major, right?

HTML Basics for Bloggers #2: Let's Talk About Fonts, Baby

Visual editors are the bees knees. But there will come a time in your blogging life, if there has not already, that a line will appear out of nowhere or an image just won't align. It's like head lice at summer camp, there's no escaping it. Might as well learn a little bit about HTML. Each week in July, I'll be offering up a quickie lesson. Today, we're looking at fonts. 

Remember, tags go around text you wish to modify and almost always come in pairs, a beginning and an end: <tag>change this, yo</tag>. In the case of fonts, you use span tags and they look like this: <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-size: 16px;">The quick brown fox was, like, quick and brown.</span> You may add three elements to your <span> tag to change text: color, font-size and font-family.

Color: <span style="color: #ff00ff;"></span>See that crazy code? That's a hex color value. You may use the color value or color name. Google hex color values or html color names to find the code/name for more colors than you will ever need.

Font-size: <span style="font-size: 16px;"></span> I prefer to use pixels to set my font size. You can use other things like ems or xx-small through xx-large, but pixels are the standard for monitors (i.e. less likely to look wonky on some monitors).

Font-family: <span style="font-family: geneva;"></span> Be careful here. If a font is not installed on the viewers computer, the font will be substituted. It's best to stick to common fonts (or turn your text into an image if you wanna be fancy). You can also use a font stack <span style="font-family: geneva, arial, helvetica;"></span>. In this stack, if the viewer does not have geneva installed, arial will be used.

You can put all three elements together in one span tag! In your HTML editor, it would look like this: <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-size: 16px; font-family: geneva;">quick brown fox</span>. The span tag would make the text look like this in your visual editor: quick brown fox. 

Wanna change part of a sentence? You can! It will look something like this:
The quick brown fox was, <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-size: 16px;">like,</span> quick and brown.

Notice how the tags are put together in each example? Equal signs, quotation marks, semi-colons. These are required. <span style="color: #ff00ff; font-size: 16px; font-family: geneva;">don't forget to close it</span>.

Clear as mud? Start a new post. Open it in your HTML editor and play. Switch back and forth between HTMlL and visual to see how your code affects your post. You can always delete it without publishing. Don't be skerd. 

HTML Basics Sponsored by Whatever is Lovely & Noble. Stop by and say hi!

Crotch Shots Are So Last Year (or whatever year that was)

Waaaay back in 2007, ya know - the year Britney Spears came back, I coordinated a conference* that brought 120 top guns from [academic] economic development organizations to my town. And then I showed them my boobs. 

It was the last day of the conference and we were experienceing red tide and tropical storm force winds. These are the trade-offs for living in paradise. I happened to be wearing a new shirt I had bought specifically for that day. It was dressy (shiny) and comfortable (cause I knew I'd be doing a lot of tear-down and pack-up). It also had buttons. Alllll the way down the front. Which is a totally normal thing for a shirt to have. Many, many shirts work this way. I was carting a ton of crap really important stuff to my car when the tropical storm force winds whipped up in just such a fashion to completely unbutton my shirt and flap it around like I was daggum Demi Moore. Two of my coworkers were with me. Countless other colleagues were inside the banquet room next to me. The one made of windows? Yep. That one. 

Just before the incident. Apparently we were all about poor lighting in 2007.

I tell you this so that you will understand why I had not worn a button-down shirt since 2007. Until last Thursday. I found a pretty and professional stripey button-down on clearance for less than $6. I told myself to get over the button incident. It had been five years. Surely button technology had come a long way. I bought the shirt and wore it to meet a VP of an organization I'm interviewing with. And I actually looked like an adult. I think. I usually feel like a child playing dress-up when I bump the business casual up a notch. Anyway, all the buttons flew off during the meeting and I showed the VP my boobs too!

Just kidding. I didn't flash anything but my winning smile during the meeting (and by winning I mean the one where you can tell that I'm wondering if this smile makes my double chin look fat). I thought things had really turned around for me in the button realm. The meeting couldn't have gone any better. I was feeling pretty fly. I stopped in Walmart on my way back to work. Just a quick run for ink and linen paper. I was checking out some sweet binder clips (that totally match my resume and work samples packet, what up) when I noticed that I felt awfully cool in the chest area. 

I shifted the ink and paper into one hand and touched my shirt with the other. Uh-oh. I felt that one of my buttons was undone. I looked down and cried out to my savior. My entire shirt was unbuttoned. In WalMart. I was all bra and bare skin with stripey curtains partying at the sides like it was 2007. I threw my items delicately placed my goods on the nearest shelf and buttoned up as quickly as possible. In case you aren't aware, trying to button fast is the best way to ensure that your buttons will not want to go through their stupid holes. 

And now I wait. Watching peopleofwalmart.com like a hawk.

*This conference was held in Memphis the year prior. Where I fell down the stairs.

Obsession Confession Sunday: She Calls Me Honky

5 Things I'm Currently Obsessed With:

1. Wrinkles. I turned 31 today and I swear I woke up with fine lines around my eyes that weren't there before. (Screw you, eye-creams, for always instructing us to pat, not rub. All that makes me want to do is rub it in!)
2. Batman. I heart Batman and I'm super excited for The Dark Knight Rises opening this week. He's been my favorite superhero since I caught reruns of the sixties television show during my childhood in the eighties. 
3. 41 Reasons You're Still Single (Huff Post). Have you read this article? You should. There are a few laugh out loud moments. Such as "You already have three husbands you are very devoted to. Their names are Aaron Sorkin, Jay Gatsby and Binge Eating" and "You had to read The Awakening in high school, and you never really got over it. Because that's what happens when you are in love, and it's the worst thing ever. You abandon your children, your lover leaves you via note and then you drown in a lake."
4. Aztec print. In jewelry. In clothes. In art. I want it. I need it.
5. Black Daniel. Catchy tunes with lots of talky parts. Can be a little odd but I like it. A lot.

Featurette Friday. Sorta.

I'm in the process of making the video I had hoped to feature today. It needs more work to bring it up to my pitiful vlogging standards, if you can believe that. In the meantime, enjoy two new unboxing vids. Made in the same dress.

Birchbox July 2012


Indie Gift Box

Haaave you met...

Let me introduce you to some kids that you ain't used to. Yep we bet that we ride bikes carrying bones and jordan 5's. Got every single color so just in case you wonder, my parties is always live, as a mother is for supper and in the summer when it's hotter then the oven, we the coolest kids we know. So you know we into something that involve doing something with a trunk to get that bass drum pumping. It's my party, so get up. If you don't you getting jumped. (This is from The Cool Kids - Bassment Party but it totally applies. Especially the getting jumped par. Ya heard?)

These gals are on my sidebar this month and deserve your love...

Yours Truly
Get to know Chelsea, a proud Vancouverite on an adventure living in Auckland, New Zealand with her boyfriend. She also creates awesome blog designs and has amazing style. Check out one of my favorite posts about weekend vacationing.

Allena Mistral
Stop by and see Allena, a student/crafter with a passion for many different things. She blogs about things she loves and life outside of work and school. Check out one of my favorite posts from Allena's Motivation Monday. 

Where in the World is Kacey
Follow Kacey outside of Kacey's Kitchen. She is currently living in Oklahoma and planning to move overseas to Okinawa Japan with her husband and their cat. Check out one of my favorite posts in which Kacey shows you how easy it is to travel.

The Nerd's Wife
Don't miss Arena, who married a nerd! She has since learned lots of things about flanges, Star Wars and video games. Check out one of my favorite posts full of nerdy Father's Day gifts (some of which I want for myself).

Stuff I Love
Pay Cat a visit as she works to create an environment where her readers can foster relationships with one another and writes review, recipes, tutorials, scriptures, anecdotes and more! Check out one of my favorite posts in which Cat goes back to 1984.

Whatever is Lovely and Noble
Catch up with Stephanie, a newlywed and lover of Yeshua as she takes each day as it comes and learns what it means to be a disciple-maker first, a sister second and a wife third. Check out one of my favorite posts on happiness. 

And don't forget my 1/2 Blogiversary giveaway. Because everyone wants to be a winner.

Touché Tuesday Advice Column: On Flirting

Need some Whitfield Awesome advice (about anything)? Fill out this form.     

Dear Jen,
I am a guy in my late thirties just getting back in the dating game. I'm nervous about approaching women. Can you suggest a few pick-up lines that might work on women over 30?
Sincerely, That Guy

Dear Guy,
I sure can! I'm a woman over 30 getting back into the dating game (staying home and looking at cats on the internet counts as being in the game, right?). Try these lines:

1. Now lemme take ya out, buy ya new appliances.
2. Don't you just love Wes Anderson films?
3. I have zero ex-wives, zero children and I very much enjoy cooking and doing laundry. 
4. Hey girl. I'm willing to work out like Tom Hardy and carry you around in a papoose.
5. I love your blog.
6. I wish I could catch up on Real Housewives but I'm always so busy sweating in the yard in my worn out jeans and cowboy hat.
7. Oprah. Am I right? (You'll quickly know if you should go love or hate on this.)

♥ Jen 

P.S. Please, please, please don't listen to Mystery, The Pickup Artist. When a grown woman sees a grown man wearing a feather boa, she immediately thinks, "oh snap, that dude escaped from [insert mental institution here]; don't make eye contact". 

HTML Basics for Bloggers #1: Bees & Head Lice

I'm super late with this post. There will be two HTML posts this week to make up for the lack there of last week. Please forgive me.

Visual editors are the bees knees. But there will come a time in your blogging life, if there has not already, that a line will appear out of nowhere or an image just won't align. It's like head lice at summer camp, there's no escaping it. Might as well learn a little bit about HTML. Each week in July, I'll be offering up a quickie lesson. Today, we're looking at basic tags.

Tags go around text you wish to modify and almost always come in pairs, a beginning and an end: <tag>change this, yo</tag>. Give these a try...

• <strong>bold</strong>
• <em>italic</em>
• <u>underline</u>
• <s>strikethrough</s>
• ^{superscripts¹} 
• _{subscripts₁} 
• <p>paragraph</p> don't want it left aligned? try <p align="center"> or <p align="right">
• <blockquote>might wanna use this for quotes or whatev</blockquote>
• <br /> single line break
• <hr> horizontal line
• <h1>headline</h1> (h1-h6 available with 1 being largest and 6 being smallest)
• <a href=“http://url.com”>Link to a site on the innerwebs.</a> (<a href="http"//url.com" target="_blank" will open it in a new page!)
• <a href="mailto:emailaddress@provider.com">email link</a>

Here's a HTML/WYSIWYG splitscreen. (Click to view larger.)

In upcoming lessons, we'll look at images, lists, tables, changing fonts, troubleshooting and more! Any requests?

HTML Basics Sponsored by Whatever is Lovely & Noble. Stop by and say hi!

Kreativ (no, really)

I got a blogger award, y'all. It's no Oscar, but it's still pretty cool for someone doing the thing you do to say "hey, I like how you do it too". So I accept.

We all know that along with great power comes great responsibility. My responsibilities with this award include:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog.
2. Answer 7 questions about yourself.
3. Provide 10 random factoids about yourself.
4. Hand the award to 7 deserving others.

Bev over at Black Ink Paperie bestowed this award upon me. Thanks, Bev! 

I answered the 7 questions in a video that might also include a staring contest and songs from my dining room floor:



10 Random Factoids about myself: 

1. I rarely wear pants at home.
2. I once cried over onions on a cheeseburger. (Rough day.)
3. I enjoy the Steve Harvey morning show.
4. I play the flute.
5. I would really like for Tom Hardy to carry me around in a papoose.
6. I eat a lot of Slim Jims.
7. I love that Aziz Ansari kayaking commercial way too much.
8. I have a reoccurring bruise on my ankle. 
9. I like to wait a few minutes before turning on the AC when I get into a really hot car.
10. I sorta have a thing for presidential serve-ware. 

And now for the hardest part...hand the award to 7 deserving others. It's hard to narrow it down because I am a big fan of so many bloggers. The gals in the following list have great blogs plus they are super nice.

1. Kacey of Kacey's Kitchen and Where In The World Is Kacey 
2. Erin of Eef Etc and Indie Gift Box 
3. Angie at AmarieBeauty
4. Chelsea from Yours Truly
5. Chris over at Chubbette Tales
6. Rosie at Craftbotic
7. Colleen from Paisley Boulevard

Tell me about your favorite blogs. I'll check 'em out.

Bonus!  I did a little digging and found that a blogger in Norway created this award way back in 2008. 

Ballin. Shot callin.

Hope everyone had a super 4th of July! Even if you are in a country where the 4th of July is just another day. During my 4th festivities, I won first place in a dessert contest! Considering the cooks I was up against, I'm feeling pretty major right now. 

I wanted to make a speech but they were all "take your ribbon and shut your pie hole." Or maybe I was accidentally in the wrong place and didn't even hear the winner announcement and later somebody started to sing "there she is, Miss America" and I was thinking to myself weird, but so very true and everyone should sing when they see me when that same someone noticed my I'm thinking things face and said "you won the dessert contest, dummy." (Except she didn't say dummy. I know you were thinking it, Carrie.) So, I'm giving my speech here. Now.

<lots of waving and kiss blowing> First, I'd like to thank my parents for always allowing sugar and butter in my face our home. My parents couldn't be here with us today because they have gone on to a better place. Colorado. Thanks mom and dad! 

I'd also like to thank Pinterest for teaching me that regular pie is a joke and real women make tiny pies in cute jars and stick flags in them. 

To Elmer's Glue - I wish I hadn't used knock-off glue to make the tiny flags to stick in the tiny pies that I had made in tiny jars. That junk took hours to dry.

To the contest judges - the Benjamins I slipped you prior to the contest must remain a secret or I swear You guys! Really. <make a heart with my fingers>

To my sister, Sarah, I sure am glad we didn't roll backwards down that hill into that car.

Thank you. I love you all. Autographs are $5.

How was your 4th of July?

Touché Tuesday Advice Column: On Rituals

Need some Whitfield Awesome advice (about anything)? Fill out this form.    

Dear Jen, I've been reading up on "lifestyle rituals" and think maybe I need to add some to my life to help keep myself on track. Do you follow any rituals?
All the best, Curious

Dear Curious,
The term "lifestyle rituals" makes me feel weird inside, but let's do this. A few of my rituals that you should definitely adopt probably not adopt for yourself:

• Starting my day rituals:
• After waking up and before getting out of bed, I grab my cell phone off the nightstand and check my email. This is a terrible lifestyle ritual. Don't do it. 
• Next I open Google Reader and check all the new posts of my favorite bloggers. I do this until I can't not urinate. 
• I finally get out of bed, urinate, brush my teeth and turn on the shower. My cat and I have lived together for 9-ish years. So she has watched me take roughly 3,285 showers. She still freaks out. Every. Time.
• After exiting the shower, I sit on my bed and hold the freaked out cat for a few minutes before getting dressed. (I wear a towel - I don't sit around in the buff holding my cat because that would make it weird). 
• Driving rituals: I text, read more posts from my favorite bloggers, check instagram, take photos, put on my makeup, sometimes change my clothes, follow all traffic rules, yell at other drivers and sing really poorly well. These probably don't really count as rituals.
• Work rituals: I spend a lot of time thinking about how great it would be to not have to work and sometimes I do some things. I'm so productive that I don't have time for rituals at work.
• Evening rituals: My evenings are always different depending on what projects I'm working on, how late I stay at work, whether or not my fave shows are new, who is playing live music, etc. They often involve chicken. Wednesdays are different - I go to a Bible study group. We eat a lot of bacon. Again, not rituals. 
• Ending my day rituals: 
• I ask the cat, "ready for nights?" and we both head to the bedroom. Unless I stay up really late, then she goes to the bedroom before me. I still ask "ready for nights" though. 
• I always consider not brushing my teeth before bed. Always. I don't know why and I fully realize it's gross and odd and I always brush my teeth anyway. Always (mostly because dentures give me the wiggins). 
• I always think about removing my makeup and applying a night-time moisturizer before I bed. I never do either of these things.
• Rarely, because I'm dumb, Sometimes I remember to take my pill that helps me breathe because I'm too lame to just do that completely natural thing that keeps us alive. Mostly Other times I wake up a lot needing my inhaler. 
• Weekend rituals: 
• I don't sleep late but I always stay in bed for a really long time on Saturday mornings.
• Sunday is church day. I go to there.
• I visit my parents and siblings. I live very close to my parents and siblings so this is no bigs, just the way it usually turns out. 

I feel like this answer went downhill really fast and now I owe you a present or something. But you made me tell the internet about the rather odd relationship I have with my cat. So we're even.

♥Jen

Do you, readers, have any rituals?

Pssst. Don't forget that I'm trying to give you things this month. Major people are entering. You want to be major, right?

A call to the men of America & that one time I fell into breakfast

I thought a lot about embarrassing moments this weekend after becoming embarrassed for the men of America. I tried to go the movie theater but it was more crowded than I had ever seen it. Because of Magic Mike. As I told you Friday, I ain't dead in the loins yet. I get the appeal of a stripping Channing Tatum (still having a little trouble with the appeal of greasy old Matthew McConaughey). 

Men of America, what are you not doing for your ladies? I know what you aren't doing for me. I've dated an odd variety of you over the last 15 years and am currently single. But those theaters weren't filled just with ladies like me. Dudes, strip for your ladies so they don't have to act like 14-year-olds at a Bieber concert thus ruining my single-girl Friday night in the dark with my pretend Hollywood friends. (And you thought this wasn't all about me.)

So instead of seeing a movie, I replayed my most embarrassing moment in my head. It's been six years - I'm over the horror; feel free to laugh. I used to attend an annual national conference for work. I had served as the association's webmaster for several years and was on the Board of Directors during the year of my moment. I tell you these things to illustrate that people knew who I was. Remaining anonymous was not an option. Breakfast was served each morning in one of those weird buildings that you enter thinking you are on the ground floor but you are really on the third floor or so. Of course breakfast was on the real first floor, right off the stairs. As in, you had to descend the stairs into breakfast. You probably know where this is going (especially considering I gave it away in the title of this post).

I struggle a bit with social anxiety (but am also an attention whore - it gets weird up in here; here being me). I had to psyche myself up to walk into a room full of colleagues chowing down on cold eggs and pastries because I knew that everyone would watch me walk down the stairs. That's just what people do - they turn and stare at the person entering the room. You do it too. One morning I lost my footing and rolled/bounced down two flights of stairs, laptop and notepad tumbling after me. The landing between the flights was just a short-lived reprieve. I kept going. I didn't stop until I was flat on my back in front of the breakfast buffet. 

Everyone stopped eating. Everyone stopped talking. All eyes on me. I stared at the ceiling as seventeen hours a few seconds passed until a nice Indian man ran over to pick me up and hug me. Don't give me that "why does he have to be Indian?" crap - he just was. Picking someone up and hugging them after they've fallen down stairs seems like a super nice thing to do but for the love of all that is right in this world, refrain! That person is in pain and your hug will just make it worse. I only suffered some pretty amazing bruises. Nothing broken. Not even the laptop. I got to answer the question "are you okay" at least one billion times and relive the incident for people who didn't see it but certainly heard about it for the remainder of the conference. Pretty sure the conference attendees now find me unforgettable. 

Your turn. Tell me a story...

This is what I hear every time Matty Mac opens his mouth. At least he looks like he showered. 

Oh snap! 1/2 Blogiversary Giveaway

Obsession Confession Sunday will be back next week. I just had to get this in your brain pan on the 1st day of July...

Have I mentioned how terrific I am at putting together random packages? It's my fourth greatest talent. In honor of my 1/2 Blogiversary and my love for you fine folks, I'm putting together a rand-o package full of wrapped surprises for one lucky reader. I will announce the winner on July 25 - the day that marks 6 months of Whitfield Awesome blogging.

It is very likely that the random package will include things like beauty products, accessories, art, stuff to read and/or weird vintage items. If a dude wins, I'll keep everything for myself send him a gift certificate and a picture of someone else's boobs and draw another winner who will most likely be a lady. 

Recent packages of randomness for making others feel awesome, yes.

How to Enter*

1. Follow Whitfield Awesome through Google Reader, GFC, Bloglovin, HelloCotton, Blogger, etc. Leave a comment letting me know how you follow. 1 entry for every which way you follow.
2. Follow @JenOsaurus on Twitter. Leave a comment with your twitter handle so I'll be sure to count you! 1 entry.
3. Tweet about it. Each time you tweet something with my twitter handle @JenOsaurus and the phrase "WhitfieldAwesome.com Giveaway", you gain an entry. You may tweet this 5 times. Well, obviously you may tweet it 5 times per minute every minute that you are awake if you so choose. But you'll only receive 5 entries maximum. (You don't have to leave a comment telling me that you tweeted. Though you can if you want to.)
4. Mention the Whitfield Awesome giveaway on your blog. Grab the button below and place it somewhere on your blog - in a post, on the sidebar, whatevs. Leave a comment with a link to your post/blog. You'll get 5 entries!
5. Leave a comment on this post telling me 5 things about yourself. I'll be gathering items all month but will leave a little room to add a few things after the winner is announced. I will take the 5 things about the winner into account when adding the last few items to the package. You will receive 1 additional entry for this comment.

Update 7/3/12: You don't have to separate each entry into different comments. You are certainly welcome to if you so desire. The more comments, the more popular I look.

<a href="http://whitfieldawesome.blogspot.com/2012/07/oh-snap-12-blogiversary-giveaway.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj613/JenWhitfieldAwesome/Giveaway.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

*Entries accepted through July 24, 2012. If you unfollow after the giveaway, I won't hunt you down and take the prize back. But I will get revenge. Someday. Somehow. When you least expect it.

P.S. Yes! Readers outside the USA are eligible. You kids are so worth a little extra shipping cost.