Category Archives: A day in the life

I’m Not Stalking You’s 5th Anniversary!

Posted on April 8, 2016 by funnygurl2

When I started writing on this blog, I barely knew what a blog was. I had been working for 12 years for the same company that was about to go out of business, leaving me jobless, and an infant that needed major surgery. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, although I was already well into my 30s.

Happy Birthday to INSY, Happy Birthday to INSY...

Happy Birthday to INSY, Happy Birthday to INSY…

In the intervening five years, I had a job for 21 months that I liked that progressed into one that I couldn’t stand to stay with. Now I have finally settled somewhere closer to home that I hope to stay at for a very long time. My young son actually had to have two surgeries to accomplish what one should have done, but today he is happy and healthy and annoying me on a consistent basis, as any growing child testing his boundaries should be. (Doesn’t make it any easier though.) My family lost a dog. We have struggled, but I think that glow up there might be the light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, and I wrote three books. And as I have said before, I don’t think I would have accomplished that if I hadn’t started emptying my chaotic brain out into this little blog first.

I welcome you to click on my comical categories or explore with the search bar my amassed collection of 520 posts. Don’t know where to start? Below are links to my most popular posts and some of my favorites.

And here is to the next five years. Make a five year plan, you say? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Most Popular Posts

Boxelder Bugs Must Die

Homefront

MicroMagic [Fine] Frozen Foods

Kiddie City

The O.C.

__________

My Favorite Posts

Dead Dad Movies, Part 1

Dead Dad Movies, Part 2

My Favorite TV Shows

Punky Brewster

Matthew Perry

And, well, since I’m feeling like anyone who is reading this post deserves a little gift, here it is. I have talked about it for a while. This is as close as you are probably ever going to get to seeing me karaoke Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby.” Don’t ask me why I feel more comfortable releasing this on the Internet to a bunch of ruthless strangers than I do a roomful of drunks who would forget me tomorrow, but I do. It is a public speaking anxiety thing, which is rendered temporarily ineffective when confronted with audio or visual equipment, rather than a physical crowd being present. Hence, the Communications degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting. Oh, and remind me to disable comments on this video.

This is a long time coming. Years ago, I bought the karaoke track of “Ice Ice Baby” off of iTunes to practice with. But I still had no words, and that version cut off the third verse, which is my favorite and the one I am best at. At some point in the intervening years I Googled the lyrics and saved them on my flash drive, where they have traveled around aimlessly since. I found a karaoke track with lyrics on YouTube and made a practice video one day. That seemed like only a few months ago, Christmas maybe? Nope. That was last APRIL! I had the idea that this may be a great stunt for INSY’s anniversary…then my mom brain took over and I forgot until like Monday.

So, I had to cram. I have been rapping the words to this song for 26 years—some of them being the WRONG words. Oy. It is hard to untrain myself. I will always say: “Falling on the concrete real fast” as “Fallin’ on the concrete grill fat.” Mmm…grill fat. Anyone hungry for McDonald’s?

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – THE CONTINUING ROMANCE!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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I <3 Koala Yummies

Posted on April 6, 2016 by funnygurl2

Koala Yummies have been around for a long time. So long, in fact, that their name has since been changed to Koala’s March. They are delicious filled cookies and used to be hard to find, but in recent years they are stocked in the cookie aisle of all major grocery chains.

They come in packaging shaped as a hexagonal prism. The shell of the cookie is thin and tastes a bit like a sweetened cracker. It has adorable pictures of cartoon koalas stamped on it. The inside has a chocolate fudge filling. They are made in Japan by Lotte, so they have a cute Kawaii appeal. (Kawaii means “cute” or “adorable”. Think Hello Kitty—it always makes me happy when I think about her!) Apparently the cookies are also available in strawberry, but I can’t recall ever sampling that variety. I usually only buy one box at a time as I tend to inhale them. But on the occasion I took this picture, I bought a family pack.

Koala's March, formerly Koala Yummies

Koala’s March, formerly Koala Yummies

I learned something from the Koala’s March website that I never knew before. Koala’s March supports the Australian Koala Foundation, a conservation group. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say whether buying more boxes will increase the support they receive or not. But, buy more anyway because they are delicious.

Koala’s are super cute, but if I ever have the means to support a threatened animal Down Under, I would choose the dingo because my dog looks like one.

My wild dingo, the first day we got her back in 2004.

My wild dingo, the first day we got her back in 2004.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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Blatant Product Endorsement: Phazyme

Posted on March 23, 2016 by funnygurl2

I have been meaning to write a review of this wonderful product for a long time now. Most of you have probably never heard of the medicine Phazyme. If you need this product, you will be sooo glad you are hearing about this now.

Phazyme is a GAS RELIEF MIRACLE!

You are probably saying: Gas, EW! TMI, stranger.

But we all overshare on our blogs, and sometimes it happens to be health-related. But how are we ever going to learn from each other if we never share?

While I was in college, I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

What is IBS?

PHAZYME-IBS

Is it a frowny face on your intestines? Not really. For me, it usually felt like my digestive system was trying to revolt and leave my body. It is a more sophisticated name than “chunky soup stomach,” which is what I had been calling it up until then (boiling, churning chunks in your stomach that have a gravy consistency).

FYI—I love Campbell’s Chunky soup. And consuming Chunky soup doesn’t give me chunky soup stomach.

IBS is the medical term for “eat shit [-ty food] & die.” Once I stopped eating my mom’s fried dinners every night, I began to recover a bit of “regularity” and start leading a semi-normal life again. (Regularity makes me think of Jamie Lee Curtis. I got to hear her sing the Activitia in person. Here is a picture of me with her. I bet SHE doesn’t need Phazyme.)

Jamie Lee Curtis and me

Jamie Lee Curtis and me

 

But the official definition of IBS? You have tummy troubles that we cannot find an explanation for.

This leads me to gas and Phazyme. IBS gives me gas. And on many occasions, it is the kind that does not leave the body. It just stays inside and is so painful all I can do is roll around on the bed in agony. I wish that I could thrust a knife into my gut and release all the pressure, like a big balloon. (I have always wondered which is worse, gas pain that painful or labor pains. As I never had a single contraction while I was pregnant for my son, I guess I will never know.)

So, I tried Gas-X. Not much relief. I used to get some relief from Riopan, but it is no longer made. Tums/Rolaids give no relief.

I don’t even remember how I heard about Phazyme. I think someone must have recommended it to me. Maybe the doctor (although I hate to give doctors credit for anything). The first pharmacy I asked at had it, but only in infant drops. Then I did find it and…

HALLELUJAH!

Phazyme packaging

Phazyme packaging

 

It helped! I buy the maximum strength 250mg simethicone dosage, so I can only take two pills a day. Usually I take one and wait several hours. If the pain is really bad and persistent, I will take a second one. It seems to both eliminate lot of the gas/pressure, and also shows it how to exit your body, rather than hang around—sort of like the Mucinex commercials do for mucous.

And that allows me to pretend to lead a normal life. Many days Phazyme allowed me to go to work and appear normal, easing the pain and pressure enough that I could walk upright and not scream out in pain. It also allowed me to get my pants zipped up at my desk. I am sure all my former coworkers were unknowingly thankful for that.

To sum up: Got gas, get Phazyme. I like to buy the blister packs, then I can always have one with me and not worry about the fast-working softgels getting crushed. Never leave home without it. And ibuprofen. That is some good shit too.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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The Riley Sisters Mix

Posted on March 10, 2016 by funnygurl2
Aw, don't the girls look so good all together?

Aw, don’t the girls look so good all together?

I started writing The Wind Could Blow a Bug with only one song in my head. But as I continued the series, I found country songs, both new and old, helped with my inspiration. While I was raised on country and have always had a fondness for it, I hadn’t listened to it in probably a decade or more. I think when Garth retired, maybe I did too. I don’t know if my country-based stories lead me to the music, or the music fueled the books. Either way, it happened. (By the way, seeing Garth live in concert was part of my reconnecting to country as well.)

Here is my playlist for The Riley Sisters Mix with annotations (some minor spoilers included), followed by the YouTube playlist. Most of these songs give me the good music neck tingle.*

Kick the Dust Up – Luke Bryan: This just makes me think of the Tucker boys romping around the dirt roads of Oakley. It sets the vibe. Plus, Luke seems like a good old boy, which is why a minor character by the name of Luke may appear in Book 3, as well as a character named Blake…

Boys Round Here – Blake Shelton: Take a little ride to the river? Does that make anyone else think about Wade taking Miley down to the pond for a little skinny dipping?

Speakers– Sam Hunt: This song is damn sexy. So is Sam Hunt. This makes me think of Wade and Jane parking on the night of her high school graduation.

Play It Again – Luke Bryan: This is the first song that began my country music resurgence. While it doesn’t correlate exactly to a scene in the book, it seems like an experience that could totally happen between Wade and Jane.

Got Me Wrong – Alice in Chains: You might think this song doesn’t fit with the rest, and maybe it doesn’t, but it fits Jane’s story. When she is getting over her depression in college and hears a song on the radio that just speaks to her heart? That is based off of real events, and this was the real-life song for me.

John Deere Green – Joe Diffie: For the end of Book 1 and Wade’s wedding proposal to Jane; and of course Josh and Kiley and the water tower in Book 2. Oh God, I just teared up thinking about the water tower scene.

I Knew You Were Trouble – Taylor Swift: Josh’s song.

Ticks – Brad Paisley: This song is one long pick-up line that Josh would totally use on Kiley, if given the chance, and she would totally fall for it.

South Side of Heaven/What I Got – Mezcla featuring Michael Raymond-James: MRJ is the semi-inspiration for Josh Tucker. It only seemed right that since this was available on YouTube that his gravelly voice should be included in this collection.

Honey Bee – Blake Shelton: Sweet words I can picture Josh trying to woo Kiley with.

Love Me Like You Mean It – Kelsea Ballerini: I confess, this whole song is included just cuz I like where she says “Boy with your hat back, um I kinda like that.”

Red Dirt Road – Brooks & Dunn: Nothing specific, but provides an overall feel of growing up in the south that I hope my book captures some tiny 1/1000th of.

Raised On It – Sam Hunt: This is the song that sort of bridges my growing up in a farm town in Michigan with the Rileys and Tuckers growing up in Oakley, Alabama. I totally know about “sticky quarters”; I used them as the basis of a whole paper on Rites of Passage in college.

Ride to California – Paper Tongues: Miley, making her way out to Hollywood at all costs where she believes are all her dreams are just waiting to come true.

Celebrity Skin – Hole: Miley’s walk of shame the day after she meets movie star Mark.

Party in the USA – Miley Cyrus: Fish out of water, or walking the Hollywood walk in the wrong shoes.

City of Angels – 30 Seconds to Mars: Oh God, I just love 30 Seconds to Mars and Jared Leto. This song is all about Hollywood being life-changing, for good and bad.

The River – Good Charlotte: Ya, I love Good Charlotte too; had to work them into here somehow. This song is all about how Los Angeles can eat you alive, as it does Miley.

Holy Toledo – Crystal Bowersox: This is Miley sitting on her couch back home depressed in her flannel cupcake pajamas and being a day overdue for a shower. A song about looking for redemption.

Blank Space – Taylor Swift: I actually think of this as being Mark’s point of view. What an a-hole 😉

Skr Boi – Avril Lavigne: Travis’s song. And I love Avril.

The Climb – Miley Cyrus: Miley Riley climbing back up out of the hole she found herself in upon returning to Oakley.

 

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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What I Learned This Week – 3/6/16

Posted on March 6, 2016 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that you can go home again.

Especially if that home is the “painted lady” where the Tanner family resides in San Francisco.

I binge-watched Netflix’s Fuller House this week. I was a fan of the original: on my list of Top 10 shows, it probably comes in at 10.5. If you have hung around me or my blog for any amount of time, you know by now that I am a big fan of cheesy 80’s sitcoms, so I am the target audience for this resurrection. Was it lightning in a bottle? Well, no. There are rough edges and things that can be improved. But the many critics who spent their time panning it WASTED their time. I guess they got a paycheck out of it (which I won’t get for my review). They bashed it as “nostalgia culture”. Um, hello… I freakin’ LOVE nostalgia culture. It is so prevalent that Entertainment Weekly caters to it with at least one article every week. But before there was ever an announcement that Full House was coming back, the audience was already decided. It would be loyal fans of the old show who didn’t mind seeing that the characters had, in fact, aged, and a new younger audience brought up on cheesy Disney sitcoms, which were crafted from the mold of the original TGIF anyway.

Recently, I was at my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday party. I found myself in the same room with three other women from my same high school graduating class. It was familiar, but in a new weird way. I used to spend eight hours a day in school with these people. And while years and years had passed, essentially they were the same people I had passed everyday in the halls or sat next to in French (or Art) class.

The women of Fuller House.

The women of Fuller House. I think there is lots of TV magic happening here, with spanx and extensions, but they look fabulous.

That is exactly how it felt to watch D.J., Kimmy Gibbler, and Stephanie as adults and mothers on Fuller House. Sure, they were different. But it was like a weird high school reunion. Except now Stephanie, played by Jodi Sweetin, is set up to be the “cool, hip aunt”, filling in for the former cool, hip Uncle Jesse. And she is great in the part. Although I can’t help but remember that in real life she is a recovering meth addict. It makes me happy to be able to see that she is winning that battle.

If you loved the old show but aren’t interested in watching a reboot, then just watch the pilot. It is like a Tanner family reunion, and the one episode that contains the highest concentration of stars from the original run of the show. No, there is no Michelle. But even though she was a highlight of the original run, I really didn’t miss her here.

Future episodes rely heavily on guest stars and the aforementioned nostalgia. There is dancing and music from both New Kids on the Block and Dirty Dancing, unarguably two of the best things to come out of the late 1980s. Now that I mention it, there is A LOT of dancing on this new incarnation of the show. Here is what else I learned this week from Fuller House: As a woman, mother, and member of Gen X, I am apparently not dancing OR DRINKING enough. I will have to remedy that soon.

The men of Fuller House

The men of Fuller House

While the children were a big draw in the original run, the new batch of children are only agreeable. The romantic leads for the women actually make the show. D.J.’s coworker Matt Harmon (John Brotherton) and Kimmy’s soon-to-be ex Fernando (Juan Pablo Di Pace) steal all the scenes they are in. By the end of the season, you see where D.J.’s competing suitors, good ol’ Steve and Matt could have the beginnings of a beautiful bromance.

You will see some things in this full house that only time has allowed to appear in this reboot, such as men dancing with (and kissing) men and women dancing with (and kissing) women. I fully believe D.J.’s middle child is already being written to be set up as the gay child.

I have heard that a season 2 of Fuller House has already been greenlit. Probably because it got a large audience, because Netflix subscribers have already watched the stale movies and first-run TV series that are already a full season behind what the networks are airing.

Welcome back Tanners, Fullers, and Gibblers.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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Posted in A day in the life, Childhood Reminiscing, Entertainment Worship & Review, What I Learned This Week and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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