Send your own ElfYourself eCards

...and then I walked through the Lincoln tunnel*

Dear Blue Bunny,



I have often found myself enjoying your ice-cream which still seems to sell an actual half gallon for a fair price, unlike two of your unnamed competitors. Being an individual who does not consume chocolate products I am always on the look out for sans chocolate ice cream flavors that do not involve some kind of fruit combination. I am a fan of the classic vanilla bean with real bean specks, Ben and Jerry's Cinnabun, and the seasonal Pumpkin and Peppermint. So you can imagine my surprise and complete joy when I came across your Peanut Butter Cookie ice cream. How I have dreamt about a cookie ice cream that didn't involve chocolate! I have wanted ice cream makers to have "brown sugar cookie dough" ice cream and "Golden oreo cookies and cream" but there doesn't seem to be the market for it. I must admit that peanut butter cookies did not find their way into my mental idea pit, but upon seeing it I marvelled at how they hadn't before!


I quickly purchased the ice cream and thought of little else until I was finally able to scoop some into a bowl and partake! Oh it was exquisite, pure peanut butter joy that my tongue has never before experienced from a carton. But then...then I came to what I will refer to as, the cookie chunk. It has been years since I have had cookies and cream ice cream, but I feel most ardently that the cookies within that ice cream are softened, for they must be to match the softness of the ice cream that encapsulates it. The cookie chunk however has had no softening. To be fair I feel certain that the cookie chunk on its own is marvelous, probably best warm, but never in my life have I ever had a peanut butter cookie that hard, and within the gentle folds of the ice cream? I shudder to think that in someone's mind they thought a consumer would be delighted to find in the midst of their soft ice cream a veritable land mind of potential tooth breaking cookie chunks. Some say that they must be frozen, that is why they are so hard. However, I have tested this hypothesis, I have left them out at room temperature, but nothing seems to change these hard hearted cookie chunks.

Do yourselves and me a favor, soften the cookie chunks! As is, I find it is as though you have concocted peanut butter flavored rocks! I would very much like to continue my purchase of peanut butter cookie ice cream, but I find it goes against every moral fiber of my being to purchase it when it houses such abhorrent little chunks. Please write when the cookie chunks have been sufficiently softened and I would love to do business with you and your peanut butter cookie ice cream once more.

Sincerely,



Lildonbro
Confection Connoisseur

The House of Fug

For those of you who don't know I'm house hunting again...did I already say it on this blog? If so, I'm sorry for repeating myself. This is the house I am going to go look at on Monday morning.

I try not to get emotionally attached with the houses before I see them, the last one was such a disappointment. It looked nothing like the pictures and said nothing about the indoor swimming pool (i.e. the flooded basement). The other realtor said to not freak out because there will be a little water in the basement, she did not say that I could baptize grown men in the depths of the murky water. She also didn't mention that the washer/dryer hookups are located beneath that water, so...good luck.

Not having an exact location in mind where I will be living in a year I find it incredibly easy to imagine what it will be like to live in this house (this yellow house, not the pool house). That's a bad thing really, it's getting emotionally involved with a house I haven't even met. It's akin to crushing on a boy that you know nothing about. He looks good on the outside and from a distance, but until you walk through and see for yourself what he is really like you shouldn't let yourself get too involved...you shouldn't but you can't help yourself, you make him better then he is in your mind. No matter how many times you do that and tell yourself not to anymore, you still do it...frustrating.

But we'll see, maybe I will fall more in love with this house on Monday morning, maybe I'll walk through the doors and have to work incredibly hard not to let my feelings of abhorrence show on my face. Who knows.

We'll see.

If I ever get out of here I'm getting my eyes lasered*

It snowed. It really snowed. I had my doubts because well, this is Virginia and I haven't seen it snow this close to Christmas since I was a kid. I had yesterday off, which is good because I was able to get my errands done. I was driving around and thought all the traffic was due to Christmas shopping. Apparently I'm not really in to the whole, know what's going on around you bit.

I went over to my parent's after my errands and hung out with my sister, who decided her children need some kind of toboggan (which for some reason makes me think of Tobias the never nude*) so we braved it and went to Wal-mart...we went to Wal-mart at 4:30 on a Friday when they were calling for several feet of snow. I didn't know until that moment that I was harboring suicidal thoughts. On the way there we passed a certain point in the mall (probably where Santa's little workshop was encapsulated with fake snow and vertically challenged men and women dressed as elves) and the heaven's opened to release white, powdery snow. By the time we sat through each stop light at least twice and made it through the parking lot to find a spot the snow was coming down pretty thickly. We didn't find a toboggan, or a scrapper, but I grabbed some essentials such as double stuffed golden oreos and frozen pizzas. Then we headed back to the house and the snow had accumulated pretty quickly.

I took this picture after about an hour of snow. Takes me back to college, ah Rexburg, how I miss thee. I drove home under the speed limit the whole way, which is impressive but I think the imminent danger of spinning out in the snow kept me cautious (thank you I-15 for that thrilling and absolutely pant wetting experience).

The problem for any pet owner...mostly just dog owners, in the snow is that most of them who haven't had much experience in the snow find they don't trust the stuff. I mean, their backyards are literally transformed, it's super white, bright, and releases little time bombs of freezing cold moisture that latch on to every inch of your pet that it can. So...understandably they'd rather hold it then go out into the snow. Such is the case with my dog. He had to go to the bathroom last night but refused to leave the porch, in fact, he refused to go on the porch but I pushed him out the door, quickly closing it behind him. He stared pitifully (like poison, pitiful, pathetic*) up at me for a few moments, then he glanced at the side of the porch he jumps over to escape the yard, I could see in his face he was wondering if it would be worth it. Jumping was taking a big chance, he had no idea if this white stuff was just in our yard or if it had attacked the world he knew beyond the gate. He slowly started to walk over, trying to call my bluff, which he did. I opened the door and he came running back in. Then, this morning he needed to go (because he held it all night) and I took him to the door. Still nothing, he wouldn't go.

So I got bundled up, walked him to the door and I went on the porch first. Of course I took my camera with me. He stood in the doorway looking like this for a couple of minutes...

Finally I cheered him on until he came outside and went down into the yard.

He kept holding up his back leg to try and keep it from getting wet...why that one leg, I'm not sure, but it was funny to see what my dog would look like if he were a tripod. A few minutes after we came back in he had to go out again (remember, he held it the whole night). So I took him to the door but didn't go out with him...I had to give my dog a pep talk, seriously. I reminded him that he's done it before and he can do it again. He finally ran out the door, followed the path he had already made in the snow, did his business, ran back (as a tripod) to the porch, tried to jump over the snow covered steps onto the porch and slide right past the door. He stopped just before the barricade on the porch and then made his way to the door. It was like watching an intense action scene on a movie!! Not really, but I wanted it to sound cooler then it was because I found so much entertainment in it.

I absolutely love being snowed in. It's makes being lazy acceptable.

Taking a chance on an unknown kid*

Addendum to my nicknames: Donbron (most guys at church), D-money (work), and The Brow (Amber)...happy now? :P

Onward blogger!

Tuesday night I did one of the best things I could ever do, I indulged Elaina Monster Truck Butterface in one of her crazy desires. Mentos and coke.

Then Chris taught us fire breathing.

In case you were wondering about Chris's outfit it's because he didn't want to get his clothes dirty...he doesn't just walk around like that.

Elaina got pretty excited about it and wanted to try it out too.

The flash made her face too white, but hopefully you can see the cornstarch damage.

Thus ends this chapter of the adventures of Butterface.

What's in a name?*

Ah Sawyer, the king of nicknames, how we wish we were as clever as he. But alas, we do not have multiple writer's comprising our wit. Le sigh. Now on to the blog.

This past weekend was the ultimate weekend of nicknames. Four young women were privileged to receive new and mean names.

Contestant #1 - Elaina "give me as many nicknames as you can" D (last names restricted since this is a public blog). Elaina just received the nickname of Monster Truck not even a week ago, but on Saturday night she received the name of 'Butterface' as in the "We like everything about her Butterface" origin.

Contestant #2 - Anne "I never had a nickname' B. Anne was crowned with the name of Sweet Spirit.

Contestant #3 - (That's me!) Jessica ' I lost count of the nicknames' Donbro. After incorrectly quoting Mean Girls fourteen million times in a row (It's not "that's the fugliest skirt I've ever seen' it's that's the 'ugliest f-ing skirt' dang it) I unwittingly resurrected "Fugly" amongst my friends and am now known as "Queen Fug."

Contestant #4 - Caitlin 'I wanna chill with you guys' B. Sunday evening Caitlin got a little jealous that Butterface, Sweet Spirit, and I were calling each other by our new negative names and wanted in. It took some time, but Elaina came up with Dumps - short for Dump Truck.

It got me thinking about nicknames though, especially when Elaina 'monster truck' 'butterface' e-mailed me the next day and was like, "Can my new nickname be L.A.?" It brings up two important questions.

1 - How many nicknames can you have?

2 - Are you allowed to give yourself nicknames and if so, do they really stick?

I've had many nicknames in my sordid past. Paduka, D, D-lite, McCormick, etc., now Queen Fug. I don't know if I have ever tried to give myself a nickname, though I have tried fruitlessly to initiate the usage of 'D' here in Virginia (I guess you can even take a nickname you received in college but can't implement it on the home front). I just feel like you can't really give yourself the nickname and expect it to stick, I think because it's something you really want to happen, so by natural law - it doesn't. I feel like a nickname is started by a friend and then it catches on because that friend likes the nickname so much and keeps using it, sometimes you don't even like the nickname. You think I was all about being called Queen Fug?? Not really, but it has quickly grown on me...mostly because they call me a queen.

I've lost where I was going with that.

It twas, SOAP posioning!*

I just stapled my sweater. There's a reason, though I don't know if it's considered a good one. I woke up late this morning (not my reason), I mean "work starts at 8:30 and it's 8:55" late. So I grabbed a skirt and a sweater and got dressed as quickly as my groggy mind would allow. I called the boss and the coworker to let them know I'm a horrible person and headed into work. Luckily I live 10 minutes from work so no big deal. I get to work, jump right in, want to sit at my desk and cry because for some reason I am hating this time of year right now. Then I go to the first floor to go to the bathroom because the first floor bathroom is usually unoccupied and I don't like to run into a lot of employees when I rolled out of bed (this happens from time to time). I looked in the mirror for the first time because I feel I should start looking decent some time today. That's when I noticed the hole in my sweater, up by the neck. It's a turtleneck so I attempt to cover it with all that extra fabric but the fabric won't stay, as though my sweater is trying to embarrass me. Someone comes into the bathroom so I head upstairs and try to fix it in the third floor bathroom. It's not going to work. I note the time and when I'll be able to go home for lunch and attempt to sew the hole shut. I figured if I just stay at my desk it won't bother me, but I figured wrong. My fingers kept going to it, imagining the hole a lot bigger than it was and I tried to think what I could use in the meantime.

I stared at paperclips, wishing they would magically change into safety pins, but alas, they never did. I tried to tuck the lips of the hole under each other, but they wouldn't stick. So in a moment where I was clenching the sweater with my fingertips, willing them to merge back together I looked upon my stapler and a thought occurred to me. I grabbed the stapler and tried to stick the bulk of it down my neck so that the fabric would be between it, but the sweater was too thick and how do you play that one off should someone walk by? Finally I squeezed the fabric and fed it through the stapler until I was certain it was in there and then I stapled it. One staple. I used the turtle neck part to cover up the staple, which happens to catch the fabric nicely and keep it in place (I don't really know because I haven't looked at it, but in my mind this is working out perfectly). I think it will hold until lunch.