Curtsy Low

Some days just suck and you don't even realize it. Some days it is hard to be a girl. And no, that was a not a reference to Madonna or to the Madonna episode of Glee (which was escandaloso, no?). PMS-ing totally sucks. It sucks to be fine one moment and then be verging on tears the next. Self control = AWOL. Not to mention irritability levels that shoot higher than Justin Timberlake's trembling falsetto.

I was screaming at the TV last night while watching Gossip Girl's season finale. Yes, I know, the finale aired however long ago and I'm the last to see it. But how dare anyone presume to shoot Chuck Bass. Eastern Europeans think they are the you-know-what.

However.

PMS also gives license to my WHO-GIVES-A-______ attitude. Today I did what I have been procrastinating. I finally contacted a few men at work who intimidate me. El Presidente put me in charge of one of his pet projects (why he marked me for this task nobody knows, as a few individuals have oh so kindly pointed out). I was intimidated by these men because

1) I don't know them
2) I don't know anything about their specialties
3) I'm worried they will think I am an idiot because I don't know how to begin to ask about how their areas of expertise can help with this project

Honestly though, you know you're not meant for the business world when: after finishing part of a different project (with good results!) you bound/leap/skip up to your boss and with a final but tiny curtsy show him the finished product.

Today I thought, 'Who cares what they think of me? I'm learning. I can't be expected to know everything. But I can try to not curtsy.' And then I took the plunge, calling and emailing my way to a meeting request.

And then I came home and watched four hours of TV on Hulu. Bless this modern age where I can let the dumb things I do all day sink away in a good episode of 30 Rock. And thank you Alec Baldwin, because you are hilarious.

Let Me Tell You One Time

What is the cure for Bieber Fever? More Bieber? Or going cold turkey?

Because I am BURNIN' UP!

He's a cutie with a whole lot of innocence and a healthy dose of awkward. Adorable! And he's gotta be cool because he signed with Usher, right? By the looks of this video, they are homies 4 life.



Justin's got some moves (Usher = personal dance coach, remember?), sings love-y, respectful songs about girls and has girls HIS OWN AGE in his music videos. And he travels with his mom. No bump and grind. No poppin' bub in the club. No thug life for this teen pop star.

One more for your viewing pleasure. Just watch it and try not to smile.



It doesn't hurt that he looks like my little brother. Which means I've got the Fever in a non-romantic way. Get it straight people.

The Original Justin Bieber

vs

Ian the Bieber Impersonator (sorry about the pic quality, I had to crop one of his prom photos)

Too bad Ian can't sing. I think he could make some moolah on the side by impersonating Justin Bieber and singing at 12-year-old girls birthday parties. 

For the Unbelievers

Miracle of miracles, today marks the third time I've worked out in a week. I am feeling the burn. And the shin splints. Does anybody else itch when they exercise? I do when I'm out of shape and I do cardio. It's like fire ants are attacking my body. I have to stop running every little bit and scratch because I'm a wuss. People driving by probably think I have some irrepressible scabies.

I haven't exercised since November 2008. I don't even know if I was exercising before then, I just counted walking all day every day on my mission as exercise. I lost the weight I gained on my mission pretty quickly (no more daily steak and pasta), but I didn't exercise. Bad idea. My muscles atrophied. I get winded walking up the stairs at work, and I can barely push heavy wooden doors open. Seriously. It's pathetic.

So now I'm trying to reclaim my body and build some muscle. Quite a few of you who didn't know me a few years ago have said there was no way I could have been the chunk I said I was. I got fat because I ate junk food and hid pastries under my bed.

This is for you, unbelievers.

Eating paella in Valencia. The friendly blonde kindly lent me her pink sweater even though we both knew it didn't fit. She never said a word about how much I stretched it out.

In Avila with Meka. One of three full length photos of me the entire four months. And you can't even see my body for the coat.

In Barcelona's famous Parque Guell. Another one of the three full body shots.

Another Barcelona park. I bet you thought chin cellulite was impossible. Pardon the date stamp (incorrect as it is), I didn't know what I was doing with a digital camera.

All of these pictures are from when I lived in Spain in 2005. I was round, awkward, nerdy and had no style--personal or even tacky knock off American Eagle wannabe style. The three "cool girls" in our study abroad group all had ipods and trendy clothes that reflected who they were. But wait, don't start getting all Mean Girls on me because it wasn't like that. They weren't Mean Girls. Everyone was nice to each other and we all got along... even if I had the constant secret desire to punch my squealy Mid-western roommate in the head. Anyhow.

While the cool girls were transferring Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes from their Macbooks (was it PowerBook back then?) to their iPods, I had a case of cds heavy on Jimmy Eat World to play on my Sony Walkman with bulky Over the ear headphones.

In a chic Barcelona boutique I tried on an adorable button front floral top. The extra large didn't come close to buttoning. 'These Spaniards are tiny!' I thought to myself. Minutes later I watched the friendly blonde cool girl sweep my coveted shirt--size small--into the dressing room. She wore it when we went out that night. Later, we met a group of cute French boys on spring break. They all paired off, except me. I was the fat, ugly American girl.

I cried myself to sleep.

You get the point.

The infamous floral shirt that spawned weeks of self-pity and self-loathing.

The south of Spain...Seville or Granda, I forget. An arabic palace--maybe the Alhambra in Granada?

With drunk Scots who were in Biarritz, France for a rugby match.

Baby got back, in Biarritz again.

The fabulous Anabel, in whose home I lived, was an incredible biotch to me. I loved her. She didn't feel sorry for me when I felt sorry for myself. She made me get out of bed to go on walks when I feigned sick so I could sulk in her spare bedroom instead of going to class. After I came home Anabel sent me an email apologizing for being harsh. (I wish I could find pictures of her. Most of her wardrobe was custom made! She always wore this orange, crushed velvet blazer.)

So maybe I wasn't the fattest girl you've ever seen, but that's what it felt like. Even if you've never gained a lot of weight, or haven't been chubby your whole life, you know what it's like on those days you tear yourself down and are miserable for it. If not, you're not being honest with yourself.

It was a bleak life, criticizing myself day after day for the roughly three years I was overweight. This may sound stupid or fake, but every time I see a chubby girl now I want to hug her and tell her everything's going to be okay, that she doesn't have to be ashamed of herself.

Happy Weekend

Edible Excrements 

Personally, I would've gone with a vanilla-chocolate swirl.

Rug in Action

Le rug. 

We are still needing--need, need! Not want I say!--a real coffee table, side table(s), lamps, art to fill our frames, and some element of a dresser/storage/stand type thing that we can put a tv on. Who has the money for all that at once? I should look for a sponsor. 

 I won the work lottery today! Which means tomorrow there will be a new 21.5" iMac on my desk! And it also means I will be doing lots more work on it... And keeping the clunky PC at my side too. 

So. I know you've all been wondering what I got my mom for Mother's Day. Answer: Lady Gaga's cd Fame Monster, of course! Hey, before you go passing judgement, she specifically requested it! I'm not forcing my music taste on anybody. Yesterday I get a phone call from her and all I heard was "Caught in a bad roooommmaaance!!!!!!!" blaring from the speakers. Like daughter, like mother.    

Living Room Obsessions

I lusted over this until I could no longer have it!

Ok, so that's an exaggeration, but I did spend so many weeks on West Elm pining for this rug instead of actually buying it that it went on backorder. Until August 5. I couldn't even order it from a store! I'm an instant gratification kind of girl (Cue the The Fear) so I'm certainly not waiting until the end of summer to have my precious yellow rug. Drool worthy though it may be.

And so I bought this little darling.

It's just from Target, but it will do. Free shipping people! One week and $148 later I'm patting myself on the back. And I do love it in my living room. Pictures to follow. Perhaps some of you will chip in with ideas on what fabric I should get for the pillows I'm making. Yes, I'm making--sewing, even--pillows. Pick your jaws up off the floor now.

I guess I should be grateful I narrowly missed matching every other living room in America with that yellow rug. Backorder until August? As if.

Rogue Guest Post

Introductions are in order!

My name is Daniel Toone, and I go by Danny—not Dan. Dan is Jane’s dad’s name. And I am hijacking this blog.

Regardless of what Jane says, her last name is not Sroufe, but Toone. It’s my doing, and I’m proud of forever tagging her with an ugly and obnoxious last name. There is at least one benefit to her new surname: Now when people say her last name for the first time, they don’t sound like they’re trying to imitate a Yorkshire Terrier.

I have ADHD. If you that don’t know what that means, I will explain. Hey look! A butterfly! What was I saying again? Oh yeah, ADHD. I have trouble paying attention to things. I can’t keep a stable train of thought. I tend to focus on whatever is most interesting in whatever place I find myself in. In some cases this is a butterfly. Other times it’s cute little babies. If a teacher is talking about a subject I already know about, I am probably paying attention to the loose thread in one of my socks, or calculating the market size of strike-anywhere matches in India on my phone’s calculator. And if you think my [insert random appendage here] is twitching for no reason at all, then you are right.

Oh, and if you give me a list of rules to follow, you better learn how to summarize that list into one single rule, or I am liable to stop paying attention and not follow any of them.

A lovely little fact about Jane is that she has OCD. Forty to 60 percent of the time she’s awake her mind is obsessively preoccupied about something. That something, for her, happens to be germs. Her life is led by a complex series of rules that help her cope with the multitude of germy objects that may afflict her.

So if you extend your hand to her, expecting a handshake, expect to get a quizzical look for about five seconds as she analyzes how many and what types of things you have touched since you last washed your hands. And then she will shake your hand. If you are lucky. However, if you have greasy hair, a wrinkly shirt, a zitty face, or visible grime anywhere on your body, don’t expect a handshake. She can conclude from this minute amount of evidence that you have not washed your hands within the last eight hours, and therefore your hand is a festering trailer park with germs as its gap-toothed residents. Literally.  

A romantic haiku that I wrote for Jane when we were still courting:

Two peas in a pod

ADHD, OCD

Man, our kids are screwed.

As you can tell, I’m both an irresistible romantic and an incredible poet. But more importantly, I’m a visionary. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, Jane and I had a little tiff. Usually when we have tiffs, we just call each other names like fart-knocker or poopdeck because I drive like an old man, or because Jane doesn’t realize that she has been in the shower for 45 minutes. This tiff was different. I had committed an unforgiveable sin. I put my pillow on the ground.

Pillows to Jane are like cows to the Hindu people. You always wash your hair, face, and neck, every night, before you lay your head on them. Pillows must never touch the outside part of the bedspread, as it is unclean (although the inside part of the bedspread is clean, thank heavens). And the most important rule of all: They must NEVER touch the ground. Any pillow which comes in contact with the ground must immediately be washed and sanitized by a lengthy high heat drying cycle before it can come in contact with the bed again.

In my haste to fall asleep after an exhausting day, I lay upon the bed (on the bedspread because I hadn’t taken a shower and was not permitted inside the bed), and I pushed all 50 pillows on top of the bed to one side. A pillow big enough to serve as a body pillow kept getting in my way so without thinking I threw it off the bed onto the floor.

A few minutes go by and I am awoken from my slumber by a growl. Or a shriek. I can’t remember exactly. But it wasn’t pleasant. Jane is pacing at the foot of the bed with a sickly expression on her face. Upon asking, “What’s wrong?” the look transforms into a raging anger that could only be rivaled by a Greek chick named Lyssa. I ask again, “What’s wrong?!” And she stomps out of the room nearly in tears saying “NOTHING!” Uh oh.

Apparently, because I know that pillows are more sacred than cows, any infringement of the rules for pillows was a direct and intentional insult, a personal attack meant to strike at the very core of her soul. I didn’t really know each and every rule by heart, so I apologized and I asked her what I was supposed to do when the pillows got in my way.

Now she is much calmer, and begins to tell me what to do. I hear her tell me Rule One. I hear her tell me the Rule Two. Once I hear her launch into Rule Three, I think, “I wonder if the per-capita GDP of Uganda is higher than Kenya after you account for purchasing power parity?” Okay, maybe I wasn't thinking that, but at the very least it was “Hey look! A butterfly!”

It wasn't long before Lyssa-face was back and I was barraged by a set of words that only the devil himself could have invented.

This is why I said I’m a visionary. At the time that I wrote my Haiku there was no way for me to know that our kids would be screwed. But they are. There is no way around it. By choosing to procreate at some time in the future, we have impaired the lives of our unborn children due to the genetic traits that are inevitably bound to be passed on. They’ll be born with a complex set of rules that will govern their lives so that they can be free from germs, and simultaneously be afflicted with an attention span that makes it impossible to follow rules.

I can hear it now: “Hey look Daddy! It’s a dirty butterfly! Keep it away from me!!!!”

Love our troops

Hilarious. Anything Gaga goes with me.

A Weekend Affair

Lisa and Benson got married. It was a lovely time. Imagine shades of purple and gray, over the top floral arrangements, and a sweeping view of Utah valley. 

Here they are.

Here is a shot of Lisa's dress...and of Miles, of course. The daddy-daughter dance got emotional because supposedly, Lisa is the favorite of five daughters. But I like Miles. I don't think he'd choose favorites. When I got stranded at the Stauffer home in Kennewick, we sat on the couch and watched The Green Mile while Bobbie's sisters offered me Coke after Coke after Coke.  

Bobbie in the flesh. Sisters wore gray.

It just wouldn't be a Stauffer party without some Mountain Dew. This Dew was owned by Bob.

Awe sisters! But let's be honest, I really only took this shot to immortalize the Rainbows Bobbie was wearing. Too much Dave influence! 

Denise! Holy Mother of the Bride in all her glory! I love this woman. Quirky, fun, and real.

Happy wedding guests on the way out. 

Couples date to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point the next day. My ripped aunt Laura got us some free all day passes when she ran the half marathon (with another aunt and a cousin) that morning. 

It was also a Bobbie-Dave PDA Festival. Bless them, they're engaged.

Dave the Horticulture Buff revealed that tulips are edible, so Danny gave it a shot. Not so tasty without sugar, it turns out.

Funny little girl with a parasol. We saw her two hours later still toting that thing around!

Not tulips, but these daffodils were definitely some of my favorites.

The Easter bunny makes a come back.

A hill of interesting bathtub water fountains.

"Reunited and it feels so good!"

Fish eating whatever scum the humans tossed at them.

 That hill nearly killed me. To the gym I go! (Okay, we all know I don't really mean that.)

Smooching in the greenhouse. Oh my.

Bathroom Drama

I despise using the bathroom at work so much that I avoid going until I'm about to pee my pants or worse. There are simply too many women sharing the two restrooms on the second floor. It consistently smells like an overgrown, dirty vagina is looming over each stall. I can't take it! I can't handle that decaying, sour scent! I don't want to smell somebody's dirty vagina. C'mon people, you must know that you have to wash it every day, right? Not just a rinse, but a thorough washing. Go pick some up some vagina cleanser and make a habit out of it.

To make matters worse, three of the eight stalls are handicap stalls! If you don't know what that means, allow me to explain:
1. The cracks between the stalls are big enough for everyone to see you doing your business
2. Only the overweight women use them, and generally their business, and smell, is worse

I'm about to discriminate and I don't apologize, but let me preface this complaint: There are quite a few obese women at my work and the ones I know are lovely people and we get along well. However. In my experience of having to use stalls after them, their smell is more pungent; their splatters and grunts louder and more ferocious. I'm unsure if it's because of the excess folds of skin and fat that they're unable to reach down there to wash and wipe efficiently or they just don't know that it smells. As far as the grunts and splatters, I'm thinking that their higher food intake (hey, you gotta eat to maintain that weight!) produces a much higher output, if you will.

I'm not saying I think obese people should have a bathroom specifically for them. I don't want to quarantine them for Pete's sake! But I do think another bathroom is necessary to spread out the high traffic. I know I'm not alone on this because in a recent conversation with several other women, we realized we all try to use the ONE stall that has the air freshener above it.

My last grievance: talking on the phone while in the restroom. How incredibly inconsiderate to the person on the other end and to others in the bathroom with you! Don't fool yourself, the person on the line heard everything you were doing and that flush! It's an invasion of privacy for others using the restroom, no one wants their bathroom activities broadcast to all the world. Nor do I want to be subjected  to your private conversation with your doctor about your bladder infection/foot fungus/lactose intolerance. Just last week I overheard a girl advising her sister on what to do now that she had cheated on her husband. Nothing is so important that it can't wait until you're done in the bathroom.

Maybe I'll print this off and submit is as my formal complaint to HR. Also, I don't think there is anything wrong with the word vagina. So many people are scared of it! If I could, I would be a part of The Vagina Monologues.