Amazing Shit I Pinned: Quote Style

It's that time of the week.  PINTEREST TIME!

But today we're gonna do it a little different. We're looking at amazing quotes and inspirational shit that I love on Pinterest. I'm sure quite of bit of this can be mis-quoted or not quite perfect, but it's the interwebs, where as long as you you kern it properly and put it in a swanky font, people will think it's genius.

So here we go!

I don't know if John Mayer really said this, but it is rather true.

This one seems to kick my ass quite often. Especially on the days when I'm struggling to focus.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

And a little extra.

Because I COMPLETELY missed yesterday, and didn't even have a moment to pretend like I was going to try, I have a bonus post for you today.

See, I take good care of you guys.

Because most of you spent a lot of yesterday crying and waiting and waiting and waiting for a post, today's extra is chock-full of amazing things that will make you smile:

First of all THIS. How is this not over your bed right now!?

Troubles of an Entrepreneur

ohmygodimdrowning.

Yesterday, with Ruby as my co-pilot, we made the drive back to San Francisco. Trips to LA are a love-hate for me...I hate them because they throw my entire life and routine off, and it takes me almost a week to get back into my groove. I love them also, because I have this "threshold of busyness" that I need to hit until I can be productive. Like, if I have 4 things to do on my to do list, I literally will do none of them. I will parooze Buzzfeed and chat on G-chat all day long. But if I have 76,59478,435 things on  my to do list....I WILL DO THEM ALL. It's like a bat signal or something. I see the list calling out me saying "Jenni... we need you!"And I grab my cape and get to work.

    

I'm bascially like a combination of these two. I feel like a chic superhero...I just probably look a little more like that guy.

OMG I Just Burnt My Hair!

hahahhahahahhaaaa. No doubt you have already seen this video that has been going viral since last week. (I mean at this moment it has like 5 million views...so if not, I'd love to introduce you to my good friend "The Interwebs"):

OOOOhhhhhhh, there's so many directions that we can go from here. And there's so much gold in that video it's amazing. And I. HAVE. SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

But instead of any of those fascinating topics, I am going to pivot and show you this spectacular amazingness that almost made me leave a tinkle trail.

Hahahhahahaahahahaa. I'm crying.

Happy Monday Y'all.

-J

Piles of Puppies

So sometime Wednesday, I felt myself beginning to be a human again. It was really odd. As fast as my cold/flu/hell-disease came on, it left just as fast. My fever broke, the weights in my face and skull dissolved, and around 10pm I was chasing my dog around the coffee table. Considering hours before I could hardly stand for more than 15 minutes at a time...this felt like a miraculous healing.

I went to bed that night after watching a little Downton Abbey (ahem, half of season two), and woke up in the morning feeling like I could conquer the world. I'd promised my good girl friend that I would take the next day slow, so I decided to start with some low-key cleaning.

As I showered off the 4 days of fever sweats (oh my god is so much grosser than anything in the world), I decided that I should drive to LA. I mean, I was supposed to be there working all week anyway. And if I got in the car that morning, I could be there by Thursday night - play catch up during the weekend, and return back to San Fran by mid-next week all back on track. So....it was kinda like taking it slow?

So I got out of the shower, called my husband shouted a quick "Hi, I feel awesome and I'm back on the road!" while towel drying my hair and throwing some chonies in a weekender.

An hour and a half later I was sitting on the 5 Freeway, cruise-controlled at 85, sipping a carrot juice and listening to the opening of "Memoirs of a Geisha."

(By the way, Audiobooks are an AMAZING way to get through road trips. I used to hate driving because I couldn't be bothered to waste the time when you could just pay a few hundred dollars to be there right away. Surprise, on a road trip you don't have to mess with people who have never seen airport security before and are like "what? I have to take off my belt!?" or sit next to annoying old women who keep asking you if you have any suitors (I swear I wish I was joking. That has really happened. Also yes, I just did a parenthesis inside of another parenthesis....and no, I don't know if that is allowed. Maybe you have to just count them and make sure they're balanced...like in algebra or like an Excel formula. You know, like math-writing. I might have just made up another field of study. You're welcome world.) (But honestly, if you know the answer you should leave it in the comments below so next time know I know how to punctuate). and by listening to audio books while roadtripping you can really put a dent in your reading list in like one trip. Driving is basically like your private slow-jet.)

Ok, so you're asking yourself...where are the puppies? What the hell? I wanted puppies!

I'm getting there.

Bleh.

Hate to do this. But today was also gross. I realized half way through the day that I have been sweating since Monday, and decided that it would be smart of I should finally take my temperature. Right up there at 102, which means I have mostly been running a fever for the better part of 3 days. Gross.

My life these days is basically this:

Good Story Hansel.

This post has been really hard to get out. I literally have been thinking about it for the last 24 hours, and have not had any major "Ah-Ha" moments. Nothing that has jumped out of my mind and said "YES! Talk about that! That was awesome/hysterical/amazing/even-slightly-noteworthy."

It might be because I am still completely bedridden. I have been since Sunday night. We came home from a long day of being out-and-about, and around 8pm I felt like someone snuck up behind me and hit me with a baseball bat. In the sinuses.

Since then, and as I mentioned yesterday, my days have consisted of sleeping for long periods of time, waking up and deciding I feel slightly better, getting stuck in YouTube rabbit holes of Jenna Marbles or Portlandia Clips, and then like 3 hours later, deciding that I don't indeed feel better. Deciding that I still feel like shit. And then going back to sleep.  And then repeat, repeat, repeat.

Amazing Shit I Pinned

Ok everybody.... its that special time of the week! That time where I share amazing things that got pinned - amazing pins that make the world a better place.

I think this week you will see a nice theme forming. I stumbled across a new food blog I'm currently obsessed with (Good Things Grow). It's a perfect vegetarian/vegan food blog that makes me want to get in the kitchen and make all of the green things in the land...(she says as she shoves an ice cream sandwich in her mouth...)

So here we go:

Chocolate Coconut Milk Tart with Hazelnut Crust - Good Things Grow

Aaaaand as I am saving these images, I am realizing a theme.....

Brooklyn Blackout Cake - Good Things Grow

Family Dinner

I didn't miss it! Promise...it's late, but it's here! And it's still Monday, so it still counts!

I am sorry this is so late, but today I was in a drug-induced sleep most of the day. Yesterday evening, I realized that I am coming down with yet another cold, and promptly got into a Ginger-Infused-Sweat-Bath (yes they are as gross as they seem), and drown myself in Nyquil for the last 27 hours.

Sweating and sleeping. As much as possible. That's my cold remedy. 

It's disgusting, and it's success rate depends on how early into your symptoms you start it. 

But ok...not the point. And also gross. Moving on. 

Today, when I woke up from my 27-hour-drug-induced-sweat-sleep, I found this lovely article on my Facebook wall: 

A Professional Cook Puts Restaurants on the Back Burner

If you're not going to read the whole article, let me give you the Cliff's Notes:

• It's written by Samin Nosrat, who is kinda a big deal. She was trained at Chez Panise, and later moved to Italy where she worked with butcher Dario Checchini and chef Bendetta Vitali. She then spent five years as a sous chef at Eccolo. She's young and vibrant, and loves to teach cooking classes and write. Basically she's everything that's right with San Francisco's food scene.

• Her main point of her article is that it is important to eat together. It is so much less about the marrow stuffed squid, or the truffel dosa, and more about that amazing thing that happens when friends begin walking through the front door, wine in hand and the smell of onions and garlic in the air:

On the Importance of Curtains

I have been having this weird feeling lately - something entirely new to me, and it kinda freaks me out. Ok, it REALLY freaks me out.

I have this feeling that I want to put down roots. Like, live in one place for a while. 

See, to really appreciate this, you have to know that since I left the house at 18, I have moved about every nine months or so, until right before I got married at 28. Even though everyone knows moving is expensive, and a total bitch, I can't help it. Around the six month mark, I start to get itchy. And by 7-8 months, I can't wait to get out of there. Usually, if I'm in a 12 month lease, this means that the next four months go by painstakingly slow, while I scour the internet looking for the next apartment, the next neighborhood, the next kitchen, and the next walk-in closet.

I love change. I love the feeling of finding that perfect apartment, and imagining where your cups are going to go, and getting new bedding to break in the space.

But here's the downside. The places where Ive lived have a certain post-college quality to them. I mean, I get everything in it's place, and everything is unpacked, but my place usually looks a litte more like this:

Instead of looking like this:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hey Lovers and Friends,

Sorry that I missed yesterday - I was REALLY sad to have my first day with no posting. Yesterday we had a bunch of friends over for Family Dinner, and my house was chock-full of puppies and babies. And since we didn't have enough placemats or chairs, I was trying to be creative to find out how we can dine 15+ people in our 2 bedroom apartment.

Also, we're in the middle of redecorating our living room (I'll get more into that in a separate post), but I was running around all day yesterday buying a forrest. In trying to make our house look a little more swanky, we've discovered that SURPRISE, trees apparently make that happen in a big way.

See:

BOOM. Forrest.

But the forrest is unrelated to my post for today. Focus Jenni focus. We really need to get the main stuff because I have a shit-ton of things to do today.

This year I am in charge of the V-Day plans. Usually it's my husband who does epic things involving lots of surprises.  One year we had a champaign cruise, with dinner and dancing just a few days after  he pulled off a ridiculous evening ending with him asking me to marry him. I cried the entire time on the boat because I'd thought after the engagement-bonanza that we wouldn't do anything for Valentine's Day, and we'd just order Chinese or something. And then Steve walks in and is like "CHAMPAGNE CRUISE. ROMANCE. AGAIN."

I realize in typing this, that this has happened several other times since then, and we've had birthdays or anniversaries where I am oddly begging him to stop giving me vacations, jewelry, spa dates, etc. because I am literally too overwhelmed.

Do you see what I am up against!?

On top of that, you know what doesn't help? I SUCK AT THIS STUFF. I'm a horrible gift giver. I'm not creative, or even thoughtful most of the time. When I try to be thoughtful my mind goes totally practical..."sock are romantic right?" I'm not awesome at making plans either. I don't have a dinner reservation for tonight, which I am realizing might be a big mistake.

But my hopes hang on one single thread. This year, I am giving him an awesome gift.

I am in the process of making him something so so cool. (yes, currently making, as in not finished. As in I need to finish this post so I can get it done in time). I found this somewhere on Pinterest, so no I didn't make this up all by myself. Remember, I'm not good at this stuff. I have to steal ideas.

I'm making him....A RESTAURANT PASSPORT.

Eating is one of our biggest hobbies, and living in a city that is known for it's restaurants can be dizzying. We almost feel guilty for going to the same place more than once.

But this passport can change all of that! It's a list of  50 or so of the best restaurants, and as we go to each place, we "get a stamp in the passport." AND with 50-some on the list, and 52 weeks in the year, that leaves us with plans for EVERY DATE NIGHT FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. Oh my god, I am so romantic I die.

Because I love cartoons, each page has a cute little cartoon map (yay!) as well as information about the restaurant, suggestions of what to order,  a spot to record what we thought of it, and pages for pictures. 

So...I'm on page seven. And need to get to fifty before too long. So I need to get moving. I'm writing this whole thing in sharpie, so I'm hoping that I don't pass out from the fumes and Steve would come home to find me face down in a pile of restaurant reviews. But at least he would be like "OH MY GOD, THIS BOOK IS AMAZING!" and then he would burst into tears because he is so touched at how much I love him, and was willing to pass out to prove it.

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

-J

Amazing Shit I Pinned.

I love Pinterest. It's like a hoarder + a foodie + a voyager + fashionista + a pro photographer  + an organizational freak all got together in a big website-orgy. I mean, where else can you find perfectly photographed-every thing all organized into boards, poised and waiting for you to hoard them? Le-sigh,   it is but perfect. 

So here is some things that I pinned that I CANNOT GET OVER.

1) This Beet Quinoa Burger. I had an uh-mazing one in Portland and now I am obsessed with recreating it.

2) This little reminder.

3) This hysterical Meme.

4) Aaaaaand also this one.

5) These Cat Pasties. The fact that they exist makes the world a better place.

6) These baby duck booties.

7) This Korean Wing recipe.

8) Aaaaaaaaand finally, this hysterical shirt featuring Shrodingers Cat.

Your welcome.

-J

Ps - if you're not already using Pinterest at least an hour day, you might want to think about your life and think about your choices.

Let's Catch Up Over Brunch!

This weekend in Portland was out of control - it was a blast in all of the best ways: there was a lot of booze, a massive amount of food, and so much laughing that I don't have a voice this morning.

We were late to our flight on the way there because one of my girls got wasted while packing and got kicked out of her cab to the airport because she "had a bad energy going" (Seriously that shit only happens in San Francisco...in NY  a cabbie's bad energy would probably just enjoy the company). Five minutes into being in Portland we realized that I had left my brand new iPhone 5 in the shuttle. Classic Jenni. I also ate an entire twenty-four inch pizza much later that night to celebrate getting my phone back (turns out the shuttle guy found it and left it at the front desk of the hotel. People in Portland are WAY nicer than I am...I would have just stolen the phone).  And of course, on the way back to the airport on Sunday we  ALMOST (literally as they were closing doors) missed our flight. But we're fuckin' airport ninjas, and managed to get everyone and all of our checked baggage onto the flight with us.

The whole weekend was classic shenanigans.

But here is the amazing thing that I realized about this group of girls that I love oh-so-much. They are not the "Catch Up at Brunch" type. They are not the girlfriends that want to go out to drinks to find out what you have been doing since the last time you went out for drinks.

They are the type that send you this email:

And within fifteen minutes, this reply comes:

Followed by this:

And then this:

This entire email chain took place over a couple of hours. Not days, or end with "let me check my schedule and get back to you," they just send email confirmations of their tickets.

This made me have a moment where I realized the difference between the people we "catch up" with, and the people we make plans with. Most of brunches involve eggs benedict and me telling people about my life - what I'm doing, what my plans are, where I vacationed. Making plans are the people that I'm going on vacation with.

It's subtle, and nit-picky, but I think it's a differentiation that a lot of people don't see. Or I'm totally late to the party and telling you what you already know and you're sitting there thinking "I am wasting my life by reading this. Thank you Captain Obvious."

Anyway all I'm trying to get at is how freaking lucky I am. Lucky to have stumbled into a group of girlfriends that are like a group of wild cats - loud and crazy, who snort when they laugh really hard, and don't judge me when I do things like meow insanely loudly instead of sing lyrics to songs I like. They pick up on the little things about me - like when I've had too much to drink I can't sleep and it helps if someone massages my face right around my sinuses. Or when they buy me presents they know that I have a really hard time dressing myself, so they buy me plain things in solid neutral colors to prevent an overwhelmed outfit meltdown. They oblige my inner fat-kid, and while driving past my favorite Dim Sum restaurant and I start whining, they pull over and are like "Yeah, sure, we can eat dinner again."

I feel extremely lucky that our men have formed a sort of man-support-group to share secrets about how to handle us when we all get together - because God knows that if it weren't for that I might find Steve in a corner rocking back and forth and foaming at the mouth.

I think even most of all, I feel lucky to have found all of them so quickly after moving to the city in the first place. Most of the time, it takes months or even years to find friends you know you're going to have for life. Four days into my new job, the company sent us to Vegas and put us in charge of running a conference with an unlimited budget. Lots of booze, 72 hours of no sleeping, crazy work deadlines, and unlimited spending cash. It was like a recipe for life-altering friendship. And the insanity has never stopped.

So my Monday wish for you is this: get out of your brunch plans. Stop meeting over cocktails. Go make a list of super fun shit and experience it together. Drink a little more than you plan, and when you feel the urge to be responsible and stay in to do laundry, put on your rally pants.  Send your email with a confirmation number.

-J

Happy Friday Y'all

Ha - I'm not southern in the least. And I never say y'all. I just think it sounds kick ass when  someone is wishin' you a happy friday. Kinda like it was this girl:

- Ok never mind  I was going to leave you a Jessica-Simpson-esque image, but if you google "Nice Southern Girl" you just get a bunch of naked girls in cowboy hats. Ma bad.

So today I'm leaving for a girl's trip to Portland! Hell yes!

I have never been there, but I am expecting that I already love Portland. It's like this beautiful little place where hippies rule the world, and the food is excellent, and the arts&culture scene is alive and thriving. Basically, it's like San Francisco without all of the insane housing prices. I love it already.

I'm imagining it will be exactly like what they show on the TV:

And since it's a girls trip, it's going to be full of a ton of awesome shenanigans.

Like this:

And maybe some of this:

Lots of this:

And of course there will be this:

Only to be followed by this:

Hopefully not too much, but most likely this will happen:

Suffice it to say that I'm stoked out of my mind and it's going to be a crazy fun weekend.  So as you're finishing out your Friday, I'm wishing you a work day that's light, a lunch hour that's suuuuuuuuper long (and maybe involves a cocktail), an early irish-exit (say around 3pm?), and a weekend that starts with you saying something along these lines:

Ok, see you Monday.

Love and fairies,

jenni

Six Impossible...what?

So let's get the first things out of the way here. Cause we're all thinking it...and I know you've asked your computer screen already. I'm going to just put it out there. And I might even use some visual graphics, so you'd better be excited.

Where did "Six Impossible Things" come from? Like, what does it mean?

Well boys and girls, it's from a movie. A moderately bad movie. It got 2.5 stars on Rotten Tomatos  if that tells you anything. Of course, it was a Tim Burton film staring Johnny Depp, so that roped in some people right there.

Anyway, there is a theme in the movie, where Alice returns to Wonderland and the characters don't really recognize her because she has lost her "muchness." When first she came to Wonderland as a young girl, apparently she had balls and everyone really liked that about her. Then she grew up, learned that the world can be total shit sometimes and she learned to to be cautious.

There is a scene where some bad things are happening, and of the villain (The Red Queen of course) just so happens to have a dragon monster that is going to eat everyone. And this dialogue goes back and forth between Alice and the Mad Hatter:

ALICE: But this is impossible.

MAD HATTER:  Only if you believe it is.

His words spark a memory of her father. As if automatically, she whispers a quote her father used to say to her when she was a little girl.

ALICE: “Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.

MAD HATTER: An excellent practice...

Of course as good story telling would have it, Alice is destined to face off with this monster at the end of the film, and she is the only one who can save Wonderland. Because it would just be too convenient if there was any other way. But that brings us to this scene here, which I am going to ask you to actually watch:

So by the end of this clip I am literally in tears. Sobbing. Like an F-ing baby. Right now I am writing from my shared office, and I cannot even press play on this without totally looking ridiculous in public (ok so who am I kidding... me looking ridiculous nothing new. But still. Grow a pair Jenni).

Maybe it's because this whole year has been like Wonderland to me. I moved to San Francisco, and have learned to ride public transit with the local confidence of a person whose look of bordum says "I know which way the outbound train goes, and I never miss my stop." 

I got a job working at a marketing company where I was in charge of stuff that someone with my experience should never be in charge of. I learned the job, grew in the job, and then decided to leave the job because it wasn't big enough for me. 

I said things to my husband like "I wish I could write a book." And then I quit my job to do just that - be creative, design, take photos, and write. I applied to get a masters in writing, and could be going to grad school in the fall. I started my own marketing company this year. 

So yea - when she starts counting through her list of impossible things, it hits me. Big time. I feel like every day when I get up and go into my new shared office where I work on my projects, it's like sitting down to tea with the Mad Hatter and asking him if he wants one lump or two. 

So the name of my blog is deep, and cheesy for DAYS, and emotional, based on a movie that most Burton fans would consider a total sell out. I would feel dumb about it except for the part where I reminds me that I'm fucking Shera Warrior Princess, and it doesn't matter what the world thinks of me, I work hard every day and kick the shit out of my dreams. 

Now go take on the day,

jenni

...impossible...

Yesterday I stumbled across a blog from a gal that I went to high school with. We were somewhat close then, and now we remain connected through typical online social means (AKA, we mutually stalk each other. Or at least I stalk her. Hopefully she stalks me back. That way I don't totally feel like a creeper). I realize in writing this that actually know very little about her real life.

But then something magical happened. She wrote a post. She went to Facebook. She wrote: "Hey, new blog. Loveyoumeanit." And I read it.

And then I drooled envy all over my keyboard. For like...an hour.

She will admit, she is not an awesome photographer, and sometimes not even a very good blogger. Her template is simple, her content is varied, and her images are good-not-always-great. But there there was something so so so excellent about her blog. She writes in it. 

Mind. Blown.

Pouring over her pages felt like a total kick in the ass. She didn't wait until she got the column formatting issue cleared up with the template designers, or spend one-hundredy-billion hours picking just the right combinations of fonts and color pallets...she sat down and wrote every single day.

Sometimes being a marketer/designer/lover-of-perfect-things has major downsides, such as letting your projects die before they are ever born. I have been in the weeds of creating a blog for over a year, finding this really awesome template (really, it's pretty), and then the template broke and I tried emailing support to see if they could help me, and some girl named "The Web Princess" sent me like four pages of technical math problems - and those are really bad for my self-esteem.

My Interweb-Genius husband tried to help me, but it got complicated and I feel bad asking him to be my personal technical assistant, because normally he's attending or speaking in conferences about keeping the molten core of the Internet spinning so we don't all die.

I tried to do it myself. And then I saw something shinny. And then I blinked and nine months had gone by. Meanwhile my high school friend is practically getting a book contract from a publisher.

I have learned a lesson from stalking my high school friend. And for that I say thank you. Thanks for reminder that we don't always get the magazine-life that we think we need. Sometimes all you need an ugly-ass template from 1990 and bad font that no matter how you try to hack the HTML they just don't want to be designered and the letters keep yelling at you, "Nooooo...we like being comic sans!"

Oh, also some spell check. I totally NEED spell check.  I am warning you RIGHT NOW, that if you are going to be a reader of this blog, get used to some spelling problems. I'm not good at it. I didn't know the difference between lose and loose until like a year ago. I just spell checked "designered" to make sure I spelled it right...and then remembered I made that word up.

But really, I am trying. Promise. So don't judge me.

Let's not lose sight of the important fact here: I AM BLOGGING AGAIN. If this is the post you have been waiting to read for a long time, or if you think this is the best news you've heard all week, feel free break out into celebration. I mean it is 2 o'clock in the afternoon, but it's never to early for some sparkles.

Please Drink Responsibly,

jenni