CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE!!

Did you know the original house used in the movie A Christmas Story was auctioned on ebay in 2004, purchased for $150,000 by Brian Jones, a San Diego entrepreneur and fan of the film since childhood, and renovated to appear exactly as it did in the movie?! After spending $240,000 in renovations and stocking the house with props and replicas from the movie, the house opened as a museum and gift shop in 2007. Staff members give tours every half hour and maintain a well-stocked gift shop.

The house is located on 3159 W.11th St. in Cleveland, Ohio and welcomed its 100,000th visitor in August 2009.

A dozen of my favorite Christmas songs:

1. Rockin Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
2. Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
3. It Must Have Been Old Santa Claus - Harry Connick Jr.
4. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
5. Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby
6. Have A Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
7. Dominic the Donkey - Lou Monte
8. Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
9. Last Christmas - Wham
10. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
11. Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes
12. Christmas All Over Again - Tom Petty

My Top Ten Favorite Christmas Movies:
1. A Christmas Story
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (original cartoon version)
3. It's a Wonderful Life
4. Home Alone 1/Home Alone 2
5. Christmas Every Day
6. Rudolph (the clay animation version)
7. Elf
8. The Shop Around the Corner
9. The Holiday
10. The Santa Claus

Enjoy and Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!!

10 Truths

I haven't posted a blog in awhile so I thought this would be a good icebreaker and give me the opportunity (or obligation, hehe) to start blogging again.

I was tagged by Mr. Joel Alexander. Now it's my turn...

I must name 10 different HONEST things about myself. If I tag you, then you can do the same!!

1. My goals in life are to own a beach house and swim with manatees. (And become a successful photographer, of course).

2. I have an Associate's degree in French but I'm too self conscious to speak French in front of people... so I'm hoping to finally change that.

3. I secretly like getting poison ivy blisters.

4. I misinterpret song lyrics all the time but I usually like my version better, so I'll refuse to learn the correct lyrics in fear it will ruin my perception of the song.

5. I've always loathed bats and now I have every reason to continue loathing bats. If you know me, you'll know why... let's just say rabies shots + insane medical bill. :(

6. I own over 300 Archie comic books. I stopped collecting in 1997 or 1998, but I'll still buy pre-1970s issues if I happen to stumble across them.

7. I used to be anti-FarmVille (you know, the virtual farm application on facebook) and now I play it all the time. In fact, I'm probably harvesting my crops as you read this.

8. I have ALWAYS wanted to be a Roxy model.

9. I'm addicted to Pinkberry. There, I said it. Medium original with pineapple + strawberries + blueberries... that's my usual. :)

10. I have three tattoos and I want more. One will probably be an anchor.

Now I'm tagging...

Megs: http://wrapstar.us
Aaron: http://feaverishphotography.com/blog
Addison: http://loveaddsphotography.blogspot.com
Kate: http://flapperdoodle.blogspot.com

Have a great weekend, can't wait to read your responses!!

It's About Time

Have you ever noticed how many song titles are TIMES?! Here's a very eclectic playlist of songs with times as their titles...

Walking After Midnight - Patsy Cline
At 1 AM - The Subways
2 AM - Slightly Stoopid
3 AM - Eminem
3 AM - Matchbox 20
4 AM - Gwen Stefani
5:55 - Charlotte Gainsbourg
6 AM - Roots of Creation
7 o'clock News/Silent Night - Simon and Garfunkel
8:16 AM - 311
9 to 5 - Dolly Parton
10 AM - Sexy Lucy
11 O'clock Tick Tock - U2
Noon - Slot
Afternoon Delight - Will Ferell

Feel free to add more...

5 FRIDAY FAVORITES

Some of these sites have been among my favorites for a loooong time and some I've just discovered:

1. As you can see, I looove making lists. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this little gem. Such a simple and wonderful idea!!

2. Flickr is heaping with all sorts of talents but this has always been one of my favorite photo streams. Zalita makes all of those edible goodies in her shop "Cupcake D'lights" in Durban South Africa. Everything looks too good to eat!!

3. Kewlest worldwide art project idea: A Home For Alice. People from all over the world send a Polaroid picture of their house (along with a little text about why they feel at home there) to Alice who displays it on her blog. The entire collection has already been displayed in a few galleries across the globe AND... "At the end of the project, all the best pictures will be collected to become a book, that will relate the whole adventure." AWESOME.

4. Lately I've been obsessed with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. There is nothing more romantic than a TRUE Hollywood love story that lasts a lifetime. You can watch their story here.

5. Zooey Deschanel + Joseph Gordon Levitt = 500 Days of Summer. August 20th can't come soon enough!!

My New Years Resolutions

1. Give five strangers one sincere compliment per day.
Preferable in person but if I don't come across five unique individuals in a given day who are deserving of a sincere compliment, I can either give an insincere compliment or find someone online to be the recipient of a sincere compliment.

2. Be more social.
Sometimes, OK -- most of the time, I tend to be a bit reclusive. It's much easier to spend the evening in your PJs watching a movie than it is to go out somewhere... but you don't new people that way.

3. Celebrate every holiday.
Last year I worked on Thanksgiving; skipped out on Easter; didn't do much for Valentine's Day and didn't dress up for Halloween. This year I am going ALL OUT. Decorating, baking, carving vegetables, even celebrating the weird Holidays, you name it. I want to be borderline sickeningly festive.

4. Je voudrais améliorer mon français.
Translation: Improve my French. I have an Associate's degree in French but you'd never know it because I refuse to speak the language aloud. I want to change that. I also want to build my French vocabulary.

5. Plan/have one photo shoot per week.
I need to start pumping out stellar photographs on a frequent basis (especially now that I own some lighting equipment)!! I want to get paid for taking photographs (other than my etsy shop) and I want to arrange photo shoots with people outside of my comfort zone.

6. Make one good female friend who lives within 5 miles of me.
HA!! This one may be the hardest of all. I have been living in southern California for two years now and I have yet to make a good female friend in LA. I want to find someone I can just randomly call and invite over to have a craft night or watch a movie or go to the beach!!

7. Switch to all natural products.
I've already started to use natural toothpaste (Tom's) and the most delicious-smelling natural shampoo and conditioner (Hugo's Naturals) and the best natural face wash (Aubrey) on the planet. Now I want to use handmade natural soaps and try to find decent natural make up!!

12 DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS!!!!

have you finished you finished your holiday shopping??? i'm almost done!! i'm glad to be going home to spend the holidays with my family and friends but with temperatures in the 20s and 30s... i think i am going to freeze. :(

My Top FIVE Favorite Christmas Songs:
1. Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"
2. The Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping"
3. Lou Monte's "Dominick the Donkey"
4. Harry Connick Jr's "Sleigh Ride" ("It Must've been Old Santa Claus" is a good one too!!)
5. Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby"

My Top FIVE Favorite Christmas Movies:
1. A Christmas Story
2. Christmas Every Day
3. Home Alone
4. The Grinch (the animated version)
5. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas... Happy Hanakakah, Happy Kwanza, or nothing (if you are a Johovah's Witness)!!!

cat butts and rent-a-cops.

today, i had an audition at a place i found while browsing craigslist. i went on whim. last night i went to Staples and asked for 4 prints to be made (3 photos, 1 to be copied twice) to use as headshots. of course the guy behind the counter was too busy to make 4 copies, so he asked if i could pick my photos up the next morning. i accepted, begrungingly. i get to Staples this morning and the woman explains there were no instructions so there's three of every photo and of course all of the photos are badly pixelated/stretched out/badly cropped. she attempted to fix them, but i had no time to wait around, so i bought two crappy copies of the photo i wanted to be printed twice.

my audition/interview went well (it's been so long since i had to interview for anything!!) and luckily i didn't have to drive far. i was asked to do a cold read which went well but my best acting occured after the woman told me the cost to find me an agent would be $319.00 and i pretended to still be interested. i asked if they would find you multiple agents and was told that California law prohibits you from having multiple agents... so $319.00 to find ONE agent. and of course "it would be beneficial to take some classes to brush up on my commercial reading skills..." for $385.00. uh, i doubt it. the worst part is... DJ Tanner's (Candance and Kurt Cameron's) MOM works at this place!!!! there were little book marks on the front desk promoting her NEW book "A Full House of Growing Pains." (could the title be more lame???) hey Mrs. Cameron, for one low cost of $385.00, i'll help you come up with a better book title. ;)

luckily only 45 minutes of my time was wasted. after i got back to the apartment, andrea and i headed to the mall where we found some great sales and bought 80's style wrist warmers to wear to 80's night tomorrow. :) andrea bought chanel perfume and some cute work clothes. i bought a top that was on sale for $3.99!! and a funky green elephant necklace for $4.60. andrea also bought rick some cat butt coasters for "putting up with jena and andrea all week." they're pretty hilarious. my favorite has to be the Persian cat butt:

when we got back to the apartment we ate vegan soup on the balcony and listened to the Foo Fighters. then we took a series of photos that reveal little quirky "secrets" we have. (look for them on my flickr soon). rick met up with a friend in santa monica. andrea and i ate dinner late. and i was forced to watch Grandma's Boy. (*rolls eyes* that movie is sooo NOT funny).

after best friend back massages, andrea and i went in the hot tub... only to be kicked out 15 minutes after we got in by:

unfortunately we simply complied but here are...
10 things we thought to say to the rent-a-cops after the fact, in response to their question: "excuse me... do you know what time the pool closes?!!"
1. no, but this sign might be able to tell you.
2. can i at least finish peeing first???
3. yes, that's why we're not in the pool.
4. yeah, well at least we have cat butt coasters!!
5. no habla inglais.
6. are you guys brothers??? or are you just both bald and ugly???
7. hey, would you mind taking our photo for us???
8. "your shit's weak!! your shit's weak!!" (quote from Grandma's Boy).
9. aw, you guys are dressed up for halloween already?!!
10. "this is the only relief i've had from my constipation all week... are you going to spoil for me now?!!"

i *heart* east coast summers.

for those of you who don't already know, i'm back in my home state enjoying time with family and friends. my mother rented a little bungalow and we are at the beach until saturday!! we really lucked out considering we never saw the house before we rented it. the house is small and dated, but it's nice!! my cousin and his fiancee stayed here a few days, their friends stopped by and spent the night on sunday and my friend lindsay visited for the day. we took some AWESOME polaroids and the photo you see above.

few moments of my trip so far:
visiting my grandmother; shopping for angels without faces; my cousin's 3-year-old daughter jumping off the diving board like a pro; my mom's bonko; winning the booby prize (thanks to andrea); poison ivy on my arms, shin, ankle and stomach (it's alright because i sorta like poison ivy); andrea singing to avril lavigne's "girlfriend" hahaha; roxie the vegetarian dog; my mom and i saying "we should get tattoos!!" at the exact same time; being on "vacation time," which means eating dinner at 10 pm; not being in a phone mood (sorry rick!!); the beach; polaroids with best friends; old ladies staring at me and lindsay while we were taking advantage of the self-timer; photo booth refunds; playing scrabble with my mother; swimming; crackhead whore heads; quoting "fear and loathing in las vegas"; being the only sober person able to make a beer run and driving stick without stalling; not showering; probably being the only 22-year-old on the swingset at 8 pm on a tuesday night, hahaha. more to come!!

i love east coast summers!! i've really missed the warm summer nights, the lightning bugs the beaches and the utz pretzels!! california may have a lot of nice-looking beaches, but they're pretty dirty and the water is cold and i always feel like the sand is dirty. :( so i am swimming in the atlantic every chance i get!! i love the ocean. the only thing cali beaches have going for them are the sunsets. next summer, my mother and i want to rent a bigger, four-bedroom house with rick, my cousin and his fiancee, lindsay and her man, and my mom's beau. renting a beach house with a bunch of friends is something i've wanted to do since i was in high school so hopefully this plan will materialize!!

pssst... did you notice the link to andrea singing to avril lavigne?!! hahaha. if not, here it is:

songs i remember liking when i was younger...

we're talking 1989-1994.

*Martika - Toy Soldiers (probably the first music video i remember seeing)
*Mr. Big - To Be With You
*Spindoctors - Two Princes
*Mariah Carey - Emotions
*Amy Grant - Every Heartbeat
*Cathy Dennis - All Night Long (i remember not be allowed to listen to this tape)
*M.C. Hammer - Too Legit
*Tom Cochrane - Life Is A Highway
*Charles And Eddy - Would I Lie To You
*Gloria Estefan - Turn The Beat Around
*Harry Connick Jr. - the entire SHE album
*Wreckx-N-Effect - Rump Shaker (my cousins refused to remind me and my friend jennifer what the lyrics were because we just kept singing the chorus).
*Dee-lite - Groove Is In The Heart
*Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman
*Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do (first CDs i bought)
*TLC - Waterfalls (first CDs i bought)
*Billy Joel - River Of Dreams

brings back memories............

a moment of personal reflection.

hmmmm...


my boyfriend and i have FIVE blankets on our bed... and we live in southern california. are we wusses or what?!!!

SONGS STUCK ON REPEAT:
*CCS - Music is my Hot, Hot Sex
*Firewater (featuring Jennifer Charles) - Bad, Bad World
*Richard Ashcroft - I Get My Beat
*The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You
*Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running
*Incubus - Dig

hot and bothered.

today reached 99 degrees!! (and some say global warming is a hoax...) the mystery of the closed-library has been solved. rick and i drove to the library only to discover it was closed. this is the third time this has happened to us. once was on president's day tho... apparently, as we discovered today, the library is closed on mondays. DOH!!

i am loving daylight savings time... the extra hour of sunlight has already proven to be useful today when rick and i played tennis. we got there late, when the sun was just shy of setting and stayed until about 7:00. i haven't played tennis is over a year and rick hasn't played since sixth grade... so needless to say we were a bit rusty. regardless, we managed to have fun. i wouldn't let us leave until we successfully hit the ball back and forth ten times. we got twelve!! we plan on playing again tomorrow if we aren't too sore. if i want to play again, i will also have to pop this lovely blister i got from hanging on the monkey bars yesterday when rick and i walked through the park. ye-ouch.

we finally finished watching Sybil. it seemed like a long movie (i can't believe it was originally a made-for-tv movie!!) but it was REALLY GOOD. sally field is one of my favorites. for those of you who aren't familiar with the movie, Sybil is based on a true story of a woman suffering from multiple-personality disorder. while we were watching the movie, rick noticed a scene was shot in the Ambassador Hotel which happens to be where 311 shot their album cover for "Evolver." the sad part is The Ambassador Hotel, a historic 500-room hollywood resort in its heyday, was torn in february 2006. los angeles seems to be infamous for reinventing itself and renovating, but unfortunately the city has no respect for the preservation of historical sites. despite protests, the city opted to demolish the hotel in order to build more schools although there is ample space in the surrounding areas. while destroying the site, the builders discovered methane gas, so the schools can't even open. this will only add to the $270 million budget. and so this discovery inspired me to create...

FIVE REASONS WHY I DISLIKE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
(beside the fact that it is far from my family).
1. smog/pollution.
2. TRAFFIC.
3. constant contruction and building/lack of respect to historical sites. A LOT of kewl places simply don't exisit anymore :(
4. THE HEAT. the sun is nice and all but not when it's burning your skin off while you are sitting in traffic.
5. overall wastefulness. (ie. sprinklers that face the pavement/street that are actually only wetting the cars that pass by).

FIVE REASONS WHY I LIKE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
1. the weather. as rick says, "california has two seasons: summer and not-so-summer."
2. LOTS to see and do.
3. career opportunities, especially in the creative industry.
4. palm trees. no lie... i am obsessed with those gangly trees!!
5. my strong, indescribable affinity to the area... perhaps a magnetic force at work?