Eating pims and wearing wellies

In the BBC today, they revealed a proposal being putforth to start teaching "Britishness" to kids in the UK. They left room for comments after the article. Most were very dry and dull. Comments such as "What is Britishness anyway?" and "What a silly idea" and "needs to be clearly defined before teaching".

Until the very end of the comments section. Get a load of this guy:

"Britishness": Getting drunk and kicking peoples head in while shouting Eng-ga-land! Eng-ga-land! Eng-ga-land! and being miserable 24/7s while complaining about anything and everything.

Heh heh.

I dedicate my 100th post to the Evans Family. Especially Elizabeth.

Meet AJ and Jen.

They've come a long way since their high school sweetheart days.
This was Jen and AJ at church last month:
Just kidding. It is them in seminary years and years ago. As you can see, neither AJ nor Jen are much of morning people.
Which brings me to my next point. How are my sister and her husband supposed to handle the baby they just had today!!!!
The funniest thing about the birth of Elizabeth, besides the fact that her feet were sticking straight up when she was taken out of Jen's belly, as if to say "Here I am, let's get this thing going!", was that Jenny was late to her own scheduled birth! Elizabeth was probably thinking her mommy was so silly, maybe thats why she was so punctual and prepared for removal from the womb.
Well, Elizabeth was born around 11 AM on 1-23-07! A healthy 7 lbs., 2 ounces and 20 inches long! And she surprised us all with her full head of dark hair! She is so beautiful and healthy, as is her mommy.
Now for the fun.

Who do you think Elizabeth looks like?
AJ?


Or Jenny?


Here is Elizabeth!!!

Preciosa!


Naptime already.


Mommy and baby E.


Love the mohawk. What a stylish baby!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! We love you!!

Proud to be American.

I was at the grocery store this afternoon and overheard this conversation between a small child and his mother.
Mother throws a jar of marshmallow creme in the cart.
Boy: Mom, what's that?
Mother: It's marshmallows.
Boy: Yeah, but whats that stuff at the bottom?
Mother: Uhh...that liquid stuff? I...well...I guess it's corn syrup. Yeah, it's corn syrup.
Boy: Well, what is it?
Mother: What is what?
Boy: What is a marshmallow?
Mother: Well...it's like...I think it's...I don't know. I know it's creamed something.

Creamed Something.

LADY, IT'S NOT CREAMED SOMETHING, IT IS GRINDED UP HORSE HOOVES MIXED WITH CORNSYRUP AND SUGAR!!!!

This is whats wrong with society today. Nobody knows what they are eating, they just know that it tastes amazing and are passing this biased knowledge onto their progeny. Ugh. Coming from the girl who grew up on a steady diet of velveeta and chipped beef sandwiches.

Let's cry it out together

Today was a long day. I left my house at 7:15 and didn't return until 6:45. I only logged in 7 hours of work, but was actually gone for a total of 11.5. Please, God, let these next two weeks pass like vacation weeks so I maintain partial senility.
When I got home, I found the house pleasantly empty. So I heated up some leftover curry and couscous and plopped down on the couch for some good entertainment via the telly. I ended up on the True stories Channel, where all the movies played are based on actual events. I watched Not Without My Daughter, starring the captivating Sally Field. The movie is about this American woman who somehow ends up in an Islamic marriage with some Iranian bastard and they have this cute little girl. Well, the marriage ends up being a very abusive relationship so Sally Fields tries to run away, but her husband watches her all the time, follows her every move. If he finds she did something inappropriate he hits her! In front of the child!

I'm pretty sure this movie debuted on the Lifetime Channel. It had that "I'm a woman overcoming extremely dificult circumstances" ring to it. I don't watch the Lifetime channel. The reason for this is the same reason I should've never turned on Not Without My Daughter. I cried thru the ENTIRE MOVIE. It's just that it is so hard for Sally to live and she is so isolated in a community where a husband rules with an iron fist and basically you are married to the culture, not to a human being. At one point, I was eating a cookie (another thing you do when you watch Lifetime movies) and I was like choking on the cookie because of the crying. My goodness, Julie, get it together!
Last time I watched Lifetime, it was a movie about a girl in her 20's with breast cancer. It was a Friday night and I had plans, but I ended up cancelling them and getting sucked, involuntarily I might add, into a night of hysterical sobbing and bouts of depression.
Why does the channel for women just want to make them cry all the time and look so gosh damn wussy? Men must be involved in this somehow...

Fortune Cookie

Today, my boss gave me her fortune cookie.
Oddly enough, it said "Your life gains the stability you desire".

Strange because she just offered me the job full time. And this past weekend we found a house to move into. And I have 4 dates set up for this week.

Julie=stablity.

That's too strange.

Julie=stability for the next few days. Yes, thats more like it.

babbies. small and large.

I know that my sister Jenny, who is large with child, does not want anyone in the delivery room besides the necessary peeps. Like the doctor, her dula, and that one guy - AJ. Well, when I start popping out the chillins, I want you all to be there. Well, not all of you. Just my sisters. Cause random guy reading my blog, you are not allowed to see. Gross.

metro-sexshual

Today on the metro, I was "that guy". You know how you always see people who make a scene on public transit? And you always say to yourself 'Man, I would never want to be that guy'. Well.

I was running down the escalator, scurrying past all the silly ladies who wear their heels on the metro (hello--its sneaker time!) and I had my iPod blaring in my ears on a Muse song that really got me fired up to be in fast mode. So I'm running onto the metro and as I'm getting on...the doors shut on my backpack. And I scream. And the doors reopen and the metro voice says "Doors closing, please stand clear of the doors" and then they shut again, this time with all of my person inside. That was right after I ran into the girl in front of me and screamed, "Oh geez! I'm so sorry! I was stuck!".
Then I look around and EVERYone was staring at me. So I lowered my volume and the train was absolutely silent. There I was making a bloody fool out of myself, screaming and yelling and getting myself stuck in the door. Then I had to ride with those people for the next half hour.

Everytime I see somebody run onto the metro I always laugh at them while others shake their heads in disapproval. This time, I was the fool. Funny thing is: if i wasn't listening to my iPod, I would've heard the annoucement: "Doors Closing!" But I didn't. I'm getting rid of my iPod! As soon as the iPhone comes out! 2007 is the year of techno-savvy Julie!

The problem with trendy clothes is that the minute I get comfortable enough to wear them, they are no longer trendy.

Charlie Brown has nothing on my Christmas...

Remember the time when you would wake up on Christmas morning and everything was new and bright? Every present you opened was like finding a goldmine, whether it was a pair of socks or a new bike. Slap some wrapping paper on anything and it is instantly appreciated. Being a child and spending Christmas with tons of people just felt...right.
Well this past Christmas (yes, like 2 weeks ago) I was basically all alone. When I say basically, I mean that my mother and I spent the holiday together. Yes, just me and my mom. All alone. Christmas Eve and day. What were we possibly going to do that would entertain both of us and keep me pulling out all my hair from the sheer madness that comes from being with your mom for more than a few hours.
So we thought about it.

Mom thought about it.


I thought about it.


Then...we had it!!


We would go into DC for Christmas. An old fashioned Christmas at the Mayflower Hotel.
The Mayflower is a quasi-famous hotel in the city which has historical significance in the eyes of many politicians and DC's elite. Inaugural balls are held there on every Inauguration Day. Harry S. Truman lived there. JFK ran the halls as a child. J. Edgar Hoover lunched there daily for twenty years. It is a very posh hotel, full of people with old money. The halls are decorated with gold cherubs, and high ceilings line the hotels entry way. It is seriously gorgeous.


We had yummy breakfast in bed on Christmas morning. We exchanged presents in the morning. Watched the Christmas parade on TV. It was great fun, I'm so glad we treated ourselves to some luxury Christmas treats!

We went back to my mom's house and cooked up a fabulous Christmas veggie dinner. Butternut Squash on ravioli, Asparagus, Rice pilaf...


And we made a delicious Danish Kringle. It was mouth watering. Like a coffee cake donut sent from heaven.


Yum! What a fabulous Christmas!

Long days and dreamlesss nights

My days are long and filled with arduous tasks such as driving...riding public transport...collating...emailing...more public transport and more driving...then menial tasks that fill up my night.
Sounds like this is driving me crazy, but it really isn't. In fact, I think I am just pretending it is driving me crazy because thats what you do when you work, right? Complain about the commute. Talk about your worthless job. Congregate around the water cooler for office gossip. I am so excited to start being a water cooler girl. I already broke into the scene today. I was invited to lunch my some coworkers and we discussed pros and cons of being an office worker. There were many references to TPS reports and lackeys named Dwight. I loved every minute of it. In fact, I'm starting to think that the only reason worth working is the fun people you are around and the lunch hour. Is that true?

So I am busy being working woman.

I am also busy decorating the bedroom downstairs. I'm nearly done. I just need to find some curtains, a table, and a lamp and I will be inserting my design into the historical society of room redesigningness. Seriously Jenny, you wouldn't even recognize it. Probably because its no longer stale-cracker-laden, nor does it smell of old sweaty socks.

Today I went shopping and spent too much money on a haircut. I thought -- hey if this guy is foreign AND wants to charge me a lot of money, he must really know what he's doing. He did. Oh, did he ever. He knew that my "mid-twenties career girl" look needed to be replaced with "newscaster-on-the-local-channel" look. Blech. I thanked him profusely for my instant gain of 10 years and proceeded to pull hair back in ponytail, ignoring the hairsprayed locks that so desperately wanted to stay put.
So the moral of the story -- people who do the news pay a lot of money to look so silly.