DO NOT scroll down if you don't want to see something sick!

Ewwww!! This was thrown to my aunt at the Mardi Gras parade we went to on Saturday. At first we thought it was fake and were all amazed at how realistic it looked. It has joints, ligaments and everything. Then, I thought I spotted a bone and decided not to touch it anymore just to be safe. Now, it is starting to stink. How totally disgusting!
Oh, and just in case you're still wondering....it's a chicken foot.

She's growing up so fast *tear*

Coca is officially a "big girl." Not only is she allowed to stay in the Living Room and hang out on the couch, on her blanket, while we're at work, but she starts Kindergarten on March 23rd. She is going to beginner obedience training for 8 weeks. Actually, we'll be going together on Thursday nights. I'm so excited.

I'm also off of work today and tomorrow and very excited about that, as well. Yay for Mardi Gras. Speaking of Mardi Gras, someone threw the sickest thing off of one of the floats on Saturday. I will post a picture of it later...gross.

My Summer Breeze Turned Into a North Wind

As the hair around my forehead blew ever-so-slightly in the breeze created by the fan, I fell asleep to the sound of Kent's breathing, which was, for the first time in months, not drowned out by the sound of the A/C or heater. It was fabulous. For the last two nights I've enjoyed sleeping in shorts and a tee and covering with just a sheet. It was warm and comfortable and it felt like Summer was on its way. I wore a skirt to work on Wednesday and bought some new strappy, black heels. I even contemplated putting on the Neutrogena tan this week. I am definitely ready for Summer (except for the swimsuit part - I'm never quite ready for that).

Even though I'm not in school anymore and off for the whole Summer, it's still my favorite time of the year. It's exciting...vacations, barbeques, my birthday, longer days, watermelon and West Nile.

Ahhh...Vacations. I never realized how much I absolutely loved going on vacation until I started working full-time. It was always great fun and I looked forward to them, but now, it's the pot of gold at the end of my yearly rainbow, it's the cherry on top of my year of Sundays, it's the flag atop my mountain of Mondays. I can smell it now...

Unfortunately, it's now 54 degrees! The low will be 43 tonight. I guess it's back to flannel PJ's, heavy blankets and the heater. Wah-wah. I know, I know, it's much colder in Denver...

You can make Jessica and Kent your friends for only $19.95; Act now and you'll also receive this FREE Handy Chopper!

As I've mentioned before, I'm not very good at making friends. I was reminded of my friend-making deficiency this Sunday. Kent and I are going to a new church now and are trying to meet some people. A married guy (with no apparent kids), probably about 3 or 4 years older than Kent, started talking to us. As he asked questions I went into the sales pitch. The "where I work." The "where I live." The "what makes me interesting." This is one of the two areas I completely fail when friend making. I'm no good at the sales pitch. I stumble on the words, sweat and have difficulty making eye contact. If I was selling crystal meth...maybe that would work, but not when I'm selling myself.

I also fail when it comes to closing the deal. I don't ask for phone numbers, email addresses or plan any follow-up visits. I usually just assume that I've failed to present myself as anything they'd be interested in and they will head on down to the next friend dealership along the highway.

I do however, have great customer service after the purchase has been made. Sure sometimes the line is busy, or there's a faulty part, but that's what recalls are for, right? The Jessica 2006 also comes with free tips on finding great deals on cute shoes and the latest technology in prank call making.

I Had To Burst My Bubble

I had this weird, white thing growing on my lower eye-lid. At fist I thought it was a sty. I was later informed that sties are red. Silly me. So, I thought it was just a little virus-like thing and it would go away on its own. Well, it had been, like, 2 weeks and it was still there. It was starting to get a little painful when I bumped it too. So, I decided to go to the doctor. All day long I was nervous, thinking he would have to stick it with a needle, scrape it off with a scalpel or zap it with a laser. All my worries were for naught. He took one look at it and said, "oh it's a pimple."

Awesome, I'm 26, finally done with zits and break-outs (most days anyway) on my face and now I can get them on my eyes! YESSSSSS!

He proceeded to try to pop it for me with his finger first, and then with a long Q-tip. He couldn't do it. He told me I should put hot compresses on it in the morning and at night before I go to bed and "work at popping it...I mean expressing it." Last night my eye-zit decided to take the advice of Madonna and express itself after I "worked at it" with a hot compress. It was very freeing. No more white bubble eye!

I know, I'm sick.

Prank Calls

I love to make Prank Calls. Yes, yes, I know...26 years old and likes to make prank calls. You may think its sad, but you're wrong. Its fun. I love to trick people with my voice. I can imitate an iffeminate man very well and it has given me many hours of entertainment. Here are a few prank calls from the vault:

(when Kent was working at the hockey store)
ME: "Hi, my name is Jason. How much are your hockey masks?"

(calling a friend's friend who was working at Victoria's Secret)
ME: "Hi, I was just wondering if you hire black people?"
GIRL: "yes."
ME: "Do you hire Indian people?"
GIRL: "yes."
ME:"Do you hire elderly people?"
GIRL: "yes." (now, a little annoyed)
ME: "Well, do you hire people who are a little bit woman and (in a deep man's voice) A LITTLE BIT MAN?"

(to many, many friends who lived in the dorms)
ME: "Hi, this is Wanda Butler from the Student Housing department."
PERSON: "Yes?"
ME: "You're ID card has an outstanding balance of $450."
PERSON: "What!!??"
ME: "Yes, I'll need you to stop by the housing office first thing tomorrow morning to take care of this."
PERSON: "well, that's stupid. I don't even use my ID card!"
ME: "Then there must be some error please stop by the office as soon as possible"
(they would continue to rant and rave about not oweing money until they said...)
PERSON: "Why are you calling students at 10:00 at night?"
ME: "Yes, well, we're very busy here. Please stop by in the morning." *click*

There have been many more, but I will stop here so as not to incriminate myself and reveal who it was that called you all those times. :) This is Old Nasty saying goodnight.

Save the drama for your mama and post!

It has been 7 days since my last posting.

Someone brought a HUGE box of See's Chocolates to my office. OH MY GOODNESS!!! They are so good and I cannot stop eating them. At least today I waited until after 12:00 to have one. Yesterday I started early. I just can't stop. Just when I think I'm done, they pull me back in.

I have been eating the gassiest foods lately: chilli, baked beans, sour kraut...poor, poor Kent.

Today I dressed for Summer. Wishful thinking, I guess. It was cold and so were my toes.

Oh! AND GUESS WHAT!! We're going to go to Festival International de Louisiane this year! Yay!! I absolutely love Festival International. I can get many hours of dancing in..oh so fun. Kellie and Gene, you kids should come in too. It's April 26th -30th.

And one more thing before I go...

Coca, my dog-child, escaped from the hallway one day while we were at work. I thought she'd managed to behave herself and even considered not putting her in the hall during the day anymore. Well, I kept smelling something funky while I was working on a vanity that I'm refinishing. It didn't smell like poop or pee...just funky. So, I finished what I was doing and got ready to go to bed. I reached over to turn off the lamp by the couch and saw that Coca had left a Tootsie Roll on KENT'S BRAND NEW RAIN JACKET! I couldn't help but laugh a little, even though I did feel bad for Kent. I told Kent about it, cleaned it up and went to bed.

A couple of days later, it was raining so Kent brought his rain jacket to work. When he came home , he set it on the floor in the Living room and went in the spare room to do his school work. Soon he heard Coca scratching on something. He walked in the living room and there she was..in her hump-back pooping position leaving a present on his jacket again. Poor, poor Kent, indeed.

It's a Sad Thing

Some of you may know that I'm not very good at household chores. By "not very good" I mean I don't really do them unless someone is coming over. There are some things that are necessary, of course. I clean the bathroom - toilets, tub, etc and I vacuum. I also cook dinner every night and, thankfully, Kent does the dishes (which would be my reason to not cook).

There's one area where I have continuously failed my entire life. Clothes. I don't like to wash them. I don't like to fold them. I don't like to put them away. I just like to wear them and then throw them on the floor. It's been like this for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would shove them under the bed when I had to clean up. In college I would shove them into laundry bags and suitcases. As a me, now, I shove them into the closet.

Well, I managed to get way, way, way behind on laundry. I hadn't done ANY in about a month and a half. That equals more than 63 pounds of laundry (that's not even all of it - there's still some blankets and sheets). How do I know how much our laundry weighs? Because we broke down and brought it all to a laundry service. AND IT IS AWESOME!!! We drop off the clothes after work one day and then pick them up the next day after work. They do a super job, too! The clothes smell fresh and I've never seen anyone fold so neatly. They even match our stuff up! They put any matching pajama tops and bottoms I have together, they put pants all together, t-shirts all together, tanks all together, towels all together...you get the picture. The best part about it is that their prices are reasonable (for a laundry service anyway - you pay by the pound). Of course, the place is a hole in the wall and I wouldn't go there alone, but no big deal. What's the harm in getting mugged as long as my clothes are clean, right?

Unfortunately, our budget will not allow this type of behavior to continue. So, I've vowed to keep up with the laundry. Colored clothes go directly into the washer now and whites go into a small basket. The other 3 laundry baskets will no longer be used for laundry. So far, so good.

I cannot, however, make any promises about my closet. I think I'll always suffer from closet avalanches and mad searches for the "other shoe" at 8:00 in the morning. It just wouldn't be right if I didn't. Besides, what would I do with all that extra time in the morning not spent looking for my shoe? Eat breakfast at home? That's proposterous!

E-Lazy

I check my email everyday. I'm just not very good at deleting the ones I don't need.

Welcome, Jessica! You have 1523 unread messages:
Inbox(715), Bulk(808)

Shopping List

1. Here's something kind of weird. Actually, I can't decide if it's weird or cool. It's called Jelly Bath (you have to watch the informative video to get the full effect). I am not sure if I'd want to bathe in it or not. I think I would have to take a shower afterward to wash the jelly off. That would be, like, rash city in my armpits if I didn't rinse well.

2. I watched the beginning of The Biggest Loser the other night. It's a new one where the competition is between three or four families of four. They all work in restaurants. In the little intro video they show to introduce each family they talked about how it's a "nibble" here and a "bite" there and they taste things all day long! I worked in a restaurant and never once, not even one time, did I "nibble" food. That's just kind of unusual, I think. Maybe I just never noticed people nibbling though. It sems like that would be against the rules, don't you think?

3. I love Lipton Diet teas. Not the lemon - ack! gag! barf! I absolutle LUH-HUV the Diet Peach tea and the Diet Raspberry tea. Oh, so tasty and the fruitiness covers up the dietness.

4. This is the first time I've watched Beauty and the Geek. It's pretty good so far. I like Joe and Brittany! Go girl and geek!

5. Finally, I have officially met the laziest person on the planet. I don't think she'd step out of the way if a meteor was headed straight for her because it would take too much effort to do so. One day I'm going to throw a rock at her and test my theory.

A product I've had in development

Coming soon to high-end electronics stores everywhere...

Smells Like Shopper Spirit

I had a fabulous time shopping today! I had the day off so I met my mom and Laura at the mall of Louisiana and spent 6 hours shopping. It was wonderful. I got some UH-MAZING deals (one in particular - I got a suit, which is super cute and not at all stuffy looking, for 95% off!). I absolutely love when the clothing seasons change. Stuff gets marked so cheap! It's so exciting for me.

In other news...I'm afraid to walk past the bats during the night. They live at the EJ stadium one block over from our house. So, when the three of us go walking we hear them all sqeaking and it freaks me out. I think they're going to bite my ear when I'm not looking. So I feel like I have to watch the stadium the whole time we're walking past it. They only sqeak when it's dark. I can't wait until the days last longer. Eeeeek!

It's not just the rich and famous who have a life coach.

There are two names that I frequently call my dog, whose real name is Coca Cola (aka Coca). I call her "Cokes" and "Pooch." Sometimes I slip up and accidentally call her "Coach" It ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS makes me laugh because I'm in trouble if she's my coach. I think she'd coach me to pull all inner soles out of all shoes. She'd also make me run stadiums.

Today I was sanding down a vanity that needs to be refinished. Unfortunately I was not wearing my hair in a ponytail and, yes it's true, my hair got caught in the motor of the sander. Fortunately it then shut itself off. I don't know if it has a automatic shut-off method that senses when the user is having an incredibly dumb moment, or what. I pulled my hair out of the sander and all is well now.

I also got the hiccups today. Thank you, Kent. The ONLY WAY I get hiccups is from laughing alot and Kent made me laugh because he laughed really loud in my face. It makes me laugh just thinking about it now (sidenote: my hiccups are absurdly obnoxious and I hate them).

Nite!

Which one really happened?

1. My former boss (from the job I quit in October) called me today. He said the properties did, indeed, sell and they're closing the office (just as I suspected they would, which was one of the many many reasons I quit). He said the new management company asked him to join them and he was calling to ask me to come back and work with him. (Just some background here...When I quit, he said I was the best person he ever worked with and the most honest. Anyway...) It would just be him, me and maintenance guys. I said that I'd need some more details as I began thinking about the fact that it would definitely pay more than my current job. He wanted to meet for lunch next week and discuss it. As I turned it over in my brain while he continued to talk, I remembered what a life of misery I led working for him in the past. I decided to just tell him that I'm happy where I am and I'm not interested in changing jobs for the 3rd time since we moved to N.O. He tried to convince me that it would be a good opportunity and they'd pay me more than I was making when I used to work for him. I stuck to my guns though and told him no, AGAIN. This time I mentioned that I did not want to work in a Satellite office again and that the company I'm with is big into education and promoting from within. I thanked him for considering me and told him that I considered it a complement. I also told him that if I had any friends in N.O. that I could recommend, I would do so. Then we hung up. Done.

2. My former boss (from the job I quit in October) called me today. He said the properties did, indeed, sell and they're closing the office (just as I suspected they would, which was one of the many many reasons I quit). He said the new management company asked him to join them and he was calling to ask me to come back and work with him. (Just some background here...When I quit, he said I was the best person he ever worked with and the most honest. Anyway...) It would just be him, me and maintenance guys. I told him I'd rather work in a dungeon cleaning the toenails of dead men. Then I explained how I dreaded everyday I'd see him and would pretend to be on the phone when he'd walk in the room sometimes so I wouldn't have to talk to him. I then wished him good luck on his life long aspiration of wasting valuable company time and pushing his work off on other people. I also said if I see any suckers I'll send them his way. Then I hung up my phone and smashed it into thousands of pieces, which I flushed down the toilet, so he'd never, ever call me again.

Give me one moment in time

Today I've been reorganizing and de-cluttering our house. At the same time I've been gathering items for a garage sale. I haven't made it to my closet or dresser yet because I know that will be the most difficult. The thing is, the way I remember stuff is by what I was wearing. That may sound shallow, and maybe it is, but that's how I figure out what year it was or how old I was when something happened. It's the thing that sticks out in my memory. So, since my memories are stuffed with all my old clothes if I got rid of them would my memory suddenly become deflated?

Yeah, whatever, it's really not that big of a deal.

The bigger reason I don't want to get rid of clothes is that I will eventually wear them all! When I get rid of something I always miss it. What if I lose weight? I'll need the small clothes. What if I gain weight? I'll need the big clothes. What If spikes grow out of my back? I'll need the t-shirt with holes in the back. Most importantly what if that other striped sock comes back to find his long lost love? I'll need to make sure she's here to greet him.

Someone I don't know

After visiting a friend of Brian's blog and reading a "bathroom etiquette" post, I was so inspired to share a bathroom story of my own:

I was at Trinity Church in Lafayette for a Christmas service. I could hardly make it through the service because I'd just had a big drink before we went there. As soon as it was over I rushed to the bathroom. I opened the door and, unfortunately, ran into someone I knew. It was a lady from Zachary, a notorious talker, whose daughter and husband happened to go to Trinity. I tried to just say hi and move on but of course she wanted to chit chat. Luckily I was able to tear myself away and head into the stall. She, however, continued talking...blah blah blah, whatever. I was already annoyed that she was still talking to me while I was on the potty. I grab some toilet paper and as I look up at the door I notice SHE'S LOOKING AT ME THROUGH THE CRACK BETWEEN THE DOOR AND THE SIDE OF THE STALL!!!! As if talking to me while I'm in the stall wasn't enough she has to watch me through the crack!! It wasn't like she had her eye pressed to the crack or anything. She was standing about 3 feet back but looking at me none the less. So, I came out of the stall and decided polite chit chat was no longer necessary and excused myself from the restroom. Now that's bad bathroom etiquette. What a weirdo.

Happy Birthday Little Baby

Today was our child's birthday. She's one year old today. She actually shares a birthday with my grandpa and an aunt! Here are some pictures from her "party."

One sick puppy

I am sick. Phlegmy cough, snotty nose, fever and all. All the makings of a Norman Rockwell Christmas. Well, not quite Norman Rockwell, with the snot and everything, but nothing will spoil my Christmas fun. It started off good on our ride to Zachary last night. Traffic wasn't too bad at all.

It's been a tad difficult to shop for Christmas this year. Everything around us, except Best Buy, closes at 7PM so that gives me about 1 1/2 hours after work or Saturdays. But we battled the Saturday crowd last weekend and got it done. I like Christmas shopping though. Even though it was crowded, I had a great time and we got alot done! It is not a chore to me.

Here's something kind of off the subject...Low rise pants...I and most other girls are wearing them now. However, I would like to make a suggestion. I am rather tired of seeing random girls' plumber impersonations. Please wear longer shirts or bigger underwear. No more crack in 2006.

Coca the Christmas Pooch

Surprise! You're in trouble!

So, part of my job is that I have to inspect the work that was done after each contractor works in the vacant apartment that I'm getting ready for a new person. Yesterday I'd gone to walk a couple of apartments to check out the paint job that was done. The first one was fine...just smelled a little weird. The second one took me by surprise:

I stuck my key in the door and unlocked the deadbolt. As I opened the door I saw three Hispanic men in crouched positions, moving quickly to stand, all with their hands on the floor. At first I said, "oh, I didn't know the carpet was being installed today?" Then, as things continued clicking in my brain, I realized that there were no carpet laying tools in there and that apartment wasn't getting new carpet anyway. I soon recognized the man in the red shirt as one of the guys doing our sheetrock repairs from Katrina damage. As I surveyed the scene even more I realized they all looked a little sleepy (especially one, he looked like the sandman beat him with his sack of sand).

Those guys were SLEEPING! Sleeping on the job!

So, now I'm alone in a vacant apartment with three men who I've just seen doing something they could get fired for doing. I decided not to tell them that I knew they were sleeping because well, I was alone in a vacant apartment with three men who I've just seen doing something they could get fired for doing. They went into some schpeel about the "W" building and the repairs and blah blah blah...I guess he wanted me to think they were sitting in there having a meeting about the "W" building. Whatever. So, I got them out of the apartment and then did my little inspection.

Of course I made sure their supervisor was well aware of what happened and gave him a description of the guys. He assured me it would not happen again.

Busto!