Jen’s Blog

So it’s a gray cold icy day, and we didn’t have to out. A little bored maybe, a little cabin fever.

We just watched the wonderful Bette’s “The Divine Miss M”. It is outright impossible to be indifferent or cranky while you’re listening to this woman. Listening watching chuckling and maybe cuddling too - she encourages all of these kinda behaviors.

She may or may not be your taste - she may not be your *only* taste - but she can’t be beat.

Now that’s an entertainer

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was just surfing, not working - but this close to Christmas, (1) if people are ordering from me, they’ve done it already, and (2) it’s been busy (yay!), and (3) I’m tired. So I was surfing I ran across a “Style 2008″ summary thing over at style.com, and out of curiousity peeked at it.

Going out on a limb here - I am so not a fashionista it’s funny. I wear tees and jeans, or shorts, most of the time. Most of my daytime clothing decisions are “can I wear a shirt the birds have chewed on (and will again), or do I have to go Out”. But I do appreciate true style, and love wonderful craftsmanship, and beautiful things are, well, beautiful. And I ran across a “new” designer that, based on one garment I’ve seen so far, is going to be heads above a lot of her competition:

Victoria Beckham. Yep, you heard me right - a “celebrity designer”. But take a look at this:

It’s gorgeous. It’s classic - and classy. And it could even be worn, wow, by somebody older than 21. Well, if that somebody has kept in shape.

I’m going to check out more of her work. I think she might have more creds than a lot of people gave her credit for

I will bet you a nickel - hey I’ll bet a lot more than a nickel - that if this place can keep their prices anywhere near where they are now - this is going to be THE company of the new year. Or new decade. Whatever.

It was mentioned on a forum somewhere (sorry can’t remember where) - as a place to get cute tees, tops, leggings, little dresses, for unbelieveably low prices, and it’s an American shop so you’re supporting domestic biz, and not a sweatshop, etc etc. I will have to be convinced it’s not a sweatshop cause the prices are so low - but I did go check it out. And if you like cute girly tees (not baggy stuff) and tight little dresses (hello twenty somethings) this place looks fantastic. 

Four cute tees on sale for $20?  Are you kidding? I may order something just to satisfy my curiousity.

It’s http://www.americasbasics.com/. Worth checking out?

I am thanking my lucky stars tonight (by the way, if anybody knows where that saying comes from, I would really like to know).

It’s cold around here (KCMO). We’ve been lucky though. No ice storm - and even the bird vet sent out a warning a couple days ago, to let people know what to do if they lost power…we were expecting an ice storm. Only a few inches of snow. Not a lot of ice. And we’re tucked in warm for the night.  

We put plastic over the windows, added weatherstripping, all that stuff - yes we meant to do it a month ago. And there’s a small but measureable difference in here - it’s warmer. And maybe the heating bill will be a smidge less because of it.

All the little things you (we) do when you live in a cold-winter climate. And I know it sounds corny - but I am acutely aware right now of the troubles we are NOT having. We have power. We have heat. We have (mostly) cleared roads. There are a whole lot of places - in this country, not to mention around the world - where these are absolute luxuries.

“Rich” is a relative term, isn’t it?

We took a (sort of unexpected) Thanksgiving trip to visit family out east - and since we had a bad experience boarding the birds last time we went away (well the birds had a bad time, that is) we decided to take them with us. After all, they’ve ridden in the car before. After all, they have a smaller traveling cage. After all, we have lots of room in The Truck to put the big cage in the back. How much trouble could it be?

Come on, you don’t want to ask that question. But you know, for all that it made everything more complicated (no long stops without a heater on… one of us always stays with the truck… where to put them when we GET there)(we stayed three different places) - and that doesn’t even include the fact that you cannot travel through Kentucky or Tennessee, or New Jersey or Connecticut, with Quaker parrots in the car, because Quakers are illegal for some totally stupid reason in those states, and in at least two of them they will KILL THE BIRD RIGHT THEN if you dare to sully their roadways with a Quaker (don’t get me started) –

and have you ever tried to drive from Missouri to Maryland without going through Kentucky or Tennessee? Or from Maryland to Rhode Island to Massachusetts, without going through New Jersey or Connecticut? Yeah, you can do it, but you’re adding a lot of miles….

And even in spite of all the above - you know, it went pretty well. The birds got pissed at being stuck in their travel cage for hours at a time (and they do let you know it) - and we did have to accommodate them a lot. But they fared much better than if they’d been stuck with strangers for a week (yes we did it all in a week), and they loved the attention they got when we arrived at Destination 1, 2 and 3…

So we’re going to do it again at the end of January. We think. Maybe.

You wanna see a pic? Here you go.