Yesterday was my dad's birthday - He turned 64. He has no idea I have this blog and probably doesn't know what a blog is as he was never computer savvy.

Here are some facts about my dad:

• Sometimes if his beer is a little warm, he'll put ice in it


• He was in the Navy for a while until he was the last living male relative in his immediate family and they honorably discharged him.


• He's retired, he was a machinist at a shop that built giant induction furnaces for many years.


• He likes to watch golf, play video games sometimes, and play with my nephew.


• He has smoked Salem menthol lights for years. He started smoking when he was 11.


• He is funny and makes fun of all of us. He coined the term "biglug" as nicknames for me and my sister.


• He is not very talkative.


• He had a once-a-month poker game when I was growing up. My mom went into labor during one of these games.


• He loves to go to the casinos in Atlantic City with my mom. He plays the video poker machines.


• I sit exactly like he does when I eat dinner infront of the TV


• He can grow very green grass and very large tomatoes.


• When I was little, I used to watch him shave. He'd put shaving cream on my face and let me "shave" with a comb.

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

Posted by jen at 07:49 AM |Comments (6)

I've posted before about us belonging to an organic farm. For the past few Sundays we've gotten a ton of tomatoes. So many tomatoes, I've made bruchetta, salsa, tomato pie, and just eaten the small ones by the handful. Good thing we both like tomatoes.

I do think that the Jersey Tomato is better than others. Here's our lot this week, heirloom, roma sauce, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes....

And what goes better with tomatoes than basil? We got lime, lemon and small leaf basil this week. Looks like I'll be making some lime pesto. Yummers.

Friday we saw the Trenton Thunder play and went to the bar afterwards with Mark, Heather, Jaime, Josh, and Phil. I love baseball game food! Here's Chris rocking a wife beater before the game on Friday.

So here's an interesting tidbit. On Friday I had lunch with my exboyfriend. We went out through college and highschool and were engaged for a little while. Chris knows him from college and was fine with me going. I mean it's only lunch, right? You might think it'd be weird or there would be drama but there wasn't. It was pretty low key and it was good to catch up since we were friends for such a long time. He's married now and lives far away. We do talk occasionally on email. It's interesting to see someone who I knew in one circumstance in his new circumstances. It's like when you see your old bedroom - you spent so much time there and it was home and now it's just a room. It feels familiar, in a very detached way. Anyway - it was a nice lunch and very drama free.

Posted by jen at 09:16 PM |Comments (6)

Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. Have Children
2. Write a novel
3. Find a job I like
4. Travel to Europe and Asia
5. Skydive
6. Learn family recipies
7. Learn to ride a bike

Seven things you can't do:
1. Ride a bike (see above)
2. Run for long periods of time
3. Make good gazpacho
4. Drive anywhere I'm unfamilar with without having a panic attack
5. rollerblade
6. Do the "teaser" properly in pilates
7. Do a headstand

Seven things you can do:
1. Calculate tips in my head
2. Interview like a champ
3. Make a great chicken pot pie
4. Dance at bars or clubs or weddings without embarassment
5. easily talk to most strangers
6. Knit and do most things crafy
7. Light a match one-handed

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex
1. Sense of humor
2. Have the same musical taste as me but not exactly
3. Thinness/slightly athletic
4. Likes to read
5. Liberal/open minded
6. blue/hazel eyes
7. if they "get" me

Seven things you say most:
1. Anyway,
2. So get this...
3. Get OUT!
4. Chris, are you listening to me?
5. Sorry I'm talking so much
6. You got that right sister/mister!
7. Can I ask you a question?

seven celebrity crushes:
1. Zack Braff
2. Brian from Queer as Folk
3. Jon Stewart
4. Peter Krause
5. Jack Johnson
6. Rhett Miller
7. Your mom

Seven people you want to take this quiz:
1. 7 people who have not already been taggged (JT, Anne Marie, Carrie?)

Posted by jen at 10:28 AM |Comments (3)

I've managed to not get any work done and it's 10:30. Whoops.

So in high school and college I was way into poetry. I wrote a lot and tried to get stuff published. I had a teacher that wanted me to be a poet for a living and I ignored her wishes because I didn't want to end up living in a cardboard box after college. I still have writing aspirations and an appreciation for poetry. We'll see - but I think a sidepage of my old poetry would be fun.

Anyway - if you, like me, were a poetery nerd (and you have a sense of humor that's a little off) you will find this hilarious. Drew's website (Not that I know him personally) is really funny if you work in an office. I think anyway.

Happy Friday - go get pissed!

Posted by jen at 10:29 AM |Comments (3)

We're doing this ridiculous reality-TV-based team building challenge thing at work and I had to give myself a digital "Extreme Makeover" for it. Here's me as Foxy Cleopatra.

I'm apparently willing to go to any extreme for my team. The prize - an ipod shuffle for each team member. So far we're in first place - lets hope we win.

Posted by jen at 10:56 PM |Comments (7)

Chris is watching soccer right now. Chris is a big soccer fan. Soccer makes me tired. But I must say that after five years of sort of watching it, I have taken an interest in American soccer. Well a little. I like to do color commentary and make fun of the player's names. For instance, there's a player named Peter Vagenas (pronounced "Vy Anus"), and there's Jason Kreis (I like to shout "Jason CHRIST!"), and there's Amado Guevara (Fun to say fast "amadoguevara, amadoguevara).

Anyway - I think soccer is cool. They have cool scarves for fans.

Here's Chris at the Trinidad & Tobego v. the US game in Connecticut last week.

I also like American football. And I'm happy that football season is soon to be underway. Of course, I am a Philly fan which makes me one disappointed football fan by the end of every season. Even when they make it all the way to the superbowl...

Anyway - here's another "boy" subject. Our friend JT chronicled Chris' bachelor party weekend on his blog and it's quite amusing. Check it out: Part One and part two.

Posted by jen at 08:54 PM |Comments (2)

And the tap goes drip drip drip drip drip drip

Okay, so it's acutally 11:20 on a SUNDAY night - but if you get the reference, then holla! You totally get me.

So today at the farm I picked a black sunflower for me and one for Heather. Both of which quickly wilted in the hot car on the way home. When I got home I cut the stem, trimmed the leaves and put it in fresh water. It stayed wilted, so I put it facing a sunny window and forgot about it. Just a few minutes ago I walked by and it looks like this (except in the dark before I turned the light on):

Notice it's no longer wilted AND no longer FACING THE WINDOW. The flower turned itself around. FREAKY! Sometimes plants totally bug me out.

This weekend has been a mellow one - time to catch up on the final wedding details. More in the extended entry if you can stomach it.

Continue reading "10:15 On a Saturday Night..."

Posted by jen at 11:19 PM |Comments (7)

I loved Sex and the City when it was on. I plan on watching all the DVDs some day when I have more time. I missed a bunch of episodes in the first few seasons but was a faithful viewer for seasons 4 - 6. Do you remember the episode where Miranda gets into her "No Excuses" skinny jeans? Well, today I got into some skinny jeans that have been in the back of the closet for a while. A combination of half-assedly following weight watchers and stress from my upcoming nuptuals has helped me get into them. Really into them. No roll of fat bulging over the top - no sucking it in to button them. No pain when I sit. This will forever be known as skinny jean Friday.

Of course, there are degrees of skinny jeans. In my closet there are three stacks: Fat jeans, Regular jeans, Skinny jeans - oh wait - four stacks - and There's-No-Way-I'll-Ever-Wear-Those-Again jeans. I'm about 99% sure every woman has these same piles.

I am also 99% sure this is a woman-only thing. I told Chris that I had my skinny jeans on today and I don't think he quite understood the importance of it. Men don't have skinny jeans. That doesn't seem fair...

Posted by jen at 01:11 PM |Comments (6)

Oh yes, this blog has stopped even pretending it's about anything other than my wedding. Sorry folks. Here's the cake we're having. The florist said a lot of brides have picked this cake and I'm totally fine with that. The Gerbera daisies are my favorite flower and I didn't feel they were appropriate for my bouquet, but I do think they're good for the cake. It's going to be a chocolate fudge cake baked in Khaluha with a raspberry filling.

Last night I made picture frames for the table numbers...they still need work. I also made a halo for my flower girl's head. It's cute, with silk fall flowers on it. I don't think it looks bad, even with the silk flowers. I'll post pictures of both later.

That's just the beginning of the wedding craft nonsense - I still have to make a ringbearer's pillow and a flower girl basket. Why don't you buy it all? You may ask...Well, for one I actually like making all this stuff. And B - the nice versions of these things are expensive and the cheap versions are UGLY.

Here's my flower girl, Jessica

Posted by jen at 09:05 AM |Comments (7)

You can see my bridesmaid Jackie's photos from the bachelorette party if you click the Flickr link below. They got all out of order when I uploaded them. If you click individually and don't do the slideshow, you can see my comments.

Bachelorette Party Pics

Posted by jen at 08:56 AM |Comments (5)

I got tagged for this by Stacy and Josh. I am supposed to tag more people, but I think this has made the rounds pretty good so far...Uh - I'll tag JT, Mary Frances, and how about - NotScarlett Sarah and Diblastic Christine. I'm not sure if you all got tagged, but oh well - there you go! Oh, and you can tag 5 more if you want.

Continue reading "I'm it."

Posted by jen at 04:26 PM |Comments (2)

This Saturday was my bachelorette party and I have funny stories to put up on here - but it being EVIL MONDAY - I have too much work to do right at the moment. I promise a full update with pictures (if my friends can provide them) soon.

Highlights:

• Traditional Bachelorette party adult novelty items such as a fake bouquet with light up penis (as if star wars was a porn), penis straws, veil, condom earrings, and coupon book of embarassing things I had to do. Oh yeah, and my friend got a free porn for buying so much crap, entitled "Delores Clitoris."
• Shot guy at club pouring liquor from the bottle into my mouth on the dancefloor and missing halfway through - thereby dousing me with mystery red liquor.
• Giving up on partying anymore at 2AM and asking the drunk bus driver to take us to a diner. Eating cheese fries and a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. Yummers.
• Waking up at 10am the next day to find that all the girls had left and cleaned up for me. Yay girls!
• I will say that I was amazingly NOT hung over on Sunday. But unfortunately Friday night I slept on my neck funny which led to it hurting by the end of the night on Saturday. I woke up at 4AM with a hangover (Somehow gone by the time I really got up at 10AM) and a horrible stiff neck that I still have today (I fell back asleep at 6AM). A full Sunday of heating pads and I still had to plug in the heating pad at work this morning. Ugh. It's still better than waking up with a hangover on Sunday.

Happy EVIL MONDAY Biznitches!!

Posted by jen at 08:21 AM |Comments (5)

Okay, as you all know I'm on this DIET for the WEDDING that I talk about non-stop. Anyway - I found these Weight Watchers ice cream sandwiches in the store. I got them home and they were really good and only 2 points. They were the same size as a normal ice cream sandwich - let's say like a Jack and Jill. When I went back to the store I saw a comprable (fat/calories/etc) box of ice cream sandwiches made by Popsicle. I was excited when I got them home becuase I enjoyed the others so much.

When I opened the box I got the shock of my life! (okay that's a little dramatic) These ice cream sandwiches are only low fat/low cal/low everything because they're teeny tiny! Here it is next to my remote for scale.

Look at that! What a freaking scam! Of course it's only two points! It's only two bites! Gah!

I'm not a huge ice cream person - but I do enjoy a novelty ice cream snack once in a while. I used to buy a strawberry shortcake or chocolate eclair ice cream bar at lunch all the time in elementary school for 35 cents. Ah - those were the days.

In other food related news - we have an abundance of tomatoes from the organic farm share so I made tomato pie.

Looks gross but tastes great! See Chris thinks so!

It's a Paula Dean recipe from the Food Network. Her stuff is neither low points nor low cal, but high in mayonaise content. The recipe sounds gross but when you make it, it's really good. A real good way to use up extra tomatoes.

Posted by jen at 10:55 PM |Comments (14)

I have had bad allergies for the past two days. Today I took a sinus pill and now I have medicine head. I always think of that drug commercial on TV that had the cartoon guy with a balloon head that would float off his shoulders when he took medicine. That's how I feel.

So no knitting has gone on lately since the tank. But I've had a lot on my mind:

1.) Should I get my tattoo re-inked? I have a butterfly tattoo on my shoulder that's kind of faded and I'd like to get it re-inked and add something to it. I got it in college and I think it'd be great to get something else added now that I'm getting married - like milestone markers kind of. Nothing I get could be so awesomely knitting related or fun as this or this!

2.) Wedding wedding wedding. Where to go in Napa? Which is a better song to walk out to? How will my dad handle the father/daughter dance? What gift do you get a 4-year-old ring bearer? Etc, etc.

3.) The two P's - Pilates and points. I've been doing a lot of pilates at home and still amd trying to do Weight Watchers. All in the name of no back fat sticking out of my wedding dress.

4.) Knitting - Does my secret pal hate me for only sending two gifts? When will I ever come up with time to buy her another? What will I knit next? Should I just stop knitting til after the wedding? Blah Blah...

5.) Work - I don't like to talk about work on here. But let's say it's also been occupying a lot of my thoughts.

But when I take my sinus pill - all these thoughts go away and are replaced by a pleasant euphoric blankness. Thank you sinus pill. Thank you.

Posted by jen at 11:11 AM |Comments (5)

There is my Summer Tank from The Yarn Girl's Guide to something-or-other*! I am half asleep because it's Monday morning and I meant to post details about this tank last night. It knit up really fast and I think it's okay, but I'm not in love with it and probably won't wear it that often. There. I said it.

But other than that it was easy and fast and maybe I'll wear it once or twice before the summer's out.

This weekend was nice and super lazy. Yay for super lazy. We did go out for yummy Indian food on Friday and then just sat around Saturday and I watched four Queer as Folk episodes (up to season one disk 3 now). Yesterday we went to the farm and picked a million green beans and I went to my mom's while Chris played Frolf** and rode his bike. A blissfully wedding-activity-free weekend for once!

*Please note in this picture my hair is back and washed because I showered. Despite my last post.

**Frolf = Frisbee golf

Posted by jen at 07:43 AM |Comments (5)

The lack of interesting fodder for this blog continues. I'm willing to go to great lengths to have something interesting for you BigLugsters to read. So I thought I'd confess something to you. When I was a wee Pacific Islander growing up in central New Jersey I hated taking baths. I'm sure every kid hates taking a bath, right? I had really long hair that would tangle and I hated getting it wet and having someone brush it out and yank my head back. I hated getting soap in my eyes. I mean I felt clean, why did I need a bath? Well I eventually gave in and got into the habit of showering every day, and buying multiple bath products (can't trust a girl without some product!).

But I have a confession to make...

I still hate taking a shower.

Don't get me wrong - I do shower every day (maybe even two if I evercise at night), but it still feels like a waste of time to me. Shower time is time I could be knitting, or making some kind of list for something, or shopping, or reading Star Magazine, or reading your blogs - you get the idea. If those days come where I end up needing two showers a day for some reason, like taking one in the morning and then exercising and taking one at night - it kind of bugs me.

There, I said it. Don't worry, I smell really nice in person. Don't let it ruin your image of me.

Posted by jen at 08:39 AM |Comments (10)

What did I spend half an hour doing this moring?

Buying tickets to see these guys:

Ween is playing the House of Blues in Atlantic City in October. We saw them maybe a year ago at Penn's Landing in Philly and it was a great show. The venue at the House of Blues is supposed to be pretty good. Rock and Roll. This has been a pretty dry summer for me as far as concerts go.

I am so totally boring right now and have nothing to blog about. My apologies. I could do what I've seen a few of you do and post a recipe I made up recently. I don't time or measure my cooking so this is all a guess. And you may hate it, but hey, it's something to write, right? Right.

Continue reading "I am the Ticket Master!"

Posted by jen at 04:19 PM |Comments (4)

Okay, who's tired of hearing about my wedding hair, and my wedding this, and my wedding that? Me too. Unfortunately there's not much else going on with me right now. So I figured I'd do this meme I've been seeing on the web lately. Stolen directly from Kiddo.

What stickers do you have on your car?
None! I will not spoil the virgin paint of my VW Beetle. But I used to have a couple on my civic in high school. I loved those French Kitty stickers you could get out of quarter machines.

How/where did you meet your last bf/gf?
I think you've all heard this before. Chris and I went to college together before we started dating. I was aquaintences with him and we had mutual friends. Then I seduced him after we graduated.

What do you hear right now?
My Tivo tivoing "House" on Fox.

If you could have a drink of anything right this second, what would it be?
Orange vitamin water.

Does anything hurt on your body right now?
I'm a little full. My stomach is gurgling.

What's your job position called?
Program Manager.

What size shoe do you wear?
8 and a half

What are you wearing right now?
Jean shorts and a pink t-shirt. I am the epitome of fashion.

Do you own a camera phone?
No! I wish I did! There were many a time when it would've come in handy. Like the whole Diego incident.

What's your significant other's birthday?
May 20.

What's your Mom's favorite band/musician?
The only musician I have ever heard my mom talk about is Ricky Nelson.

What's your Dad's favorite band/musician?
I'd say Elvis all the way. We had a velvet Elvis in the den.

What was your highschool's mascot?
I don't remember...um...have to look it up. Ah yes, the Lancers. I guess our mascot would be a lancer on a horse.

What's your favorite alcoholic beverage?
A Cosmo, or an Allergash with a lemon.

What's the next concert/show you're going to and when?
The Decemberists are coming around in October - I might go to that.

What were you doing at 9 pm last night?
Laundry? Watching TV and researching my Napa trip I think.

What's your favorite Starbucks drink?
That's easy - Venti or Grande Soy Latte.

Do you exercise as much as you should?
Um - no, but I've been spending more and more quality time with Mari Winsor and her pilates.

Did you attend your High School prom?
Yes I did - mine and my boyfriend's. He was a year ahead of me.

Posted by jen at 09:00 PM |Comments (3)

Flow it, Show it;
Long as God can grow it, My Hair!

Okay - that's just a little music from "Hair" for you. I had my hair and makeup trial this weekend. Chris says he doesn't want to see what my hair and makeup looked like so I have to do pop up pictures for you.

My hairstylist is a genius and I love her. I showed her a picture and she did it exactly like I wanted. When she was done she passed me over to the incredibly emotional makeup artist. She put base, and shadow and glitter on me all followed by her exclaiming, "Yes! I love it! It's fabulous!" People were staring. Then she put lip gloss on me and exclaimed (I swear), "You're Jennifer LOPEZ!" Apparently, I looked like J-Lo. I think everything looked fabulous and my head expanded to three times its size with every "You look so beautiful" that I heard in the salon.

Here are a few pictures to show you the results. I thought I looked a bit whorish with the makeup in person - but when you look at the pictures it's actually really subtle, which is great. I thought the hair was too loose, but I kept it in all day and even slept with it and it was still fine in the morning (super hair).

hair.

Back of my hair.

Picture I took by accident.

Like this, but with more clothes.

Posted by jen at 03:06 PM |Comments (10)