Come Back, Ellen!

One of my very good friends, Ellen, just left the United States to go teach in Korea for a year.  I cannot believe it will be a whole entire year before I see her again.  I am sad.  I am supportive.  But I am sad.  We have really connected over the past two years.

Ellen will point out here that I can come visit her in Korea.  If anyone would like to donate to the 'send Jaime to Korea' fund, please contact me directly.

Know Your Stuff

Remember, you can blame Jeannine for the someecards kick.

An Honest Question About Gossip

A while ago, I wrote this post about getting together about my girlfriends and how, occasionally, we have the bad habit of sometimes talking about 'the one who isn't there'.

Recently, my friend Jeannine (who is responsible for the 'someecards kick' this blog has been on) sent out an email to our group of girlfriends saying 'this made me think of our group of girls'.  My friend Laura replied 'Wow, this is sad.  Or is it normal?'

That is what I am wondering.  I'd love to pretend I'm innocent of talking about my girlfriends behind their back.  I am not.  It's not malicious.  Sometimes it's out of concern.  Or, at the very least, in 'harmless', goodnatured fun.  Is this the standard amongst all groups of girlfriends?  Is it that every group, on occasion, gossips about each other behind one's back?  Is this, in part, 'not being a good friend'?  Is anyone immune to the gossip bug?  Your thoughts?

Deep Fried Butter!

What is that on my fork, you ask?  It's deep fried butter.  And it was, let me tell you, delicious.  Not quite as good as deep fried snickers.  Or, if you're in a savory mood, deep friend bacon.  But it's yummy.  Please disregard the deep fried look on my friend and my faces.  

Does Absence Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

So, a little bit ago, my good friend Jeannine wrote a piece that she requested be posted as a guest-post.  Jeannine is an avid blog reader and commenter.  Also, often times throughout the day, I will email her being like 'uhh, what should I blog about'.  One day, she had an opinion on the expression 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'.  I thought it was quite blog-worthy because it fit the theme of this blog pretty nicely.  Here is her piece: I have made some small edits:


Absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder - because absence makes me think of all the random 'Omg! I just have to tell ___ about this!" moments; all the things you used to do together and whatever.

It doesnt make you go 'awww, I miss them!'  Well, it does for a second.  But then it makes you go 'that f****** a******!  Why is s/he so shady??  We totally could be sharing in this funny little moment right now.  But because they are a total f*****, we are not. 

I hate this about them, and this, and this.   And they never did this.  And why do all this stupid, weird, shady stuff.   What is that supposed to mean?  You suck.  I hate you.

Absence makes the heart grow to hate you.

Editor's sidenote:  Needless to say, Jeannine is a little more emotional and dirty-mouthed than I am.  

I think she had a good point, however, about the moments you think of something that makes you think of someone who is not there, and how he or she would totally appreciate the moment.  In somewhat recent history, there was a period of time when Jeannine and I were not speaking, and one of our mutual friends said something, ahem, lovably ridiculous.  I was rather frustrated I couldn't contact her on this matter to laugh at said situation.  It made me also wonder if there are times when some others out there had perhaps, saw something, thought of me, but couldn't/didn't say anything to me for one reason or another.

What are your thoughts?  Does absence make the heart grow fonder, or angrier, as Jeannine suggests?  

A Piece of Work....

So my friend Courtney is getting married, so we celebrated this past weekend at 'the paint your own 

pottery place' - Glazed Expressions.

the first steps

Laura's piece

regular blog reader Jeannine's snowman

hard at work....

inspired

after it gets glazed - the final pic will be up

Two Shoutouts!

To Ellen's group of friends, who were on the mass e-mail this past Monday.  Welcome to my humble internet abode.

Also, to a group known simply as "All Arms".  Only you and I know what happened at Redmond's that night.  

New Dancing With The Stars Contestants

Thank you Jeannine!

Follow Up to a Previous Post, Part Deux

My friend Jeannine's take - I think she said it best:

you would be in the hospital with alcohol poisioning if you were at the dem convention with all those Change signs and your drinking game