just because

it is the most gorgeous of fridays and this weekend is going to be full of straining and grunting and possible lung collapsing (read: 3m halfsie on sunday)... so how nice to look at that sweet little flower telling us all to have a happy day.

signing off... but a full report to come on monday!

sem

no you're not, no you're not, no you're not

it was a good run. i successfully dodged the incessant "you don't watch american idol?!?!?" ghats from friends, family, and strangers on the street for the past five years, but have finally given in and started watching again. don't get me wrong- i love the show and will always remember where i was the night kelly clarkson clinched victory and belted "a moment like this" with confetti fluttering around her, knowing the world would no longer be the same for any of us. then before i realized it, we were on to another season and it was no longer a fun, tuesday evening chuckle, but a freaking four-hour minimum weekly commitment. so being the trailblazer that i am, i bucked up against the fox's mind-melting, brain-hypnotizing, life-monopolizing powers-that-be and quit watching just to spite them.

but petikei and ellen have pulled me back in and i have got to say with utmost sincerity that i have missed simon cowell and life is better with him in it. he makes me laugh almost as much as tracy morgan. i love how he gets so annoyed and has no patience for any of this, even though he's getting paid $2,100 a second for sitting in a chair and drinking coke for days on end. he is the whole package and in honor of me re-joining society, i am posting my favorite moment with him so far. his british accent and out of control analogies could not be more spot on and hilarious and i love him.

i did it

if you'll notice, i have a new little blog icon to the left of this post. i've fought it for months because i just didn't get the hype. but after taking some time to scroll through for myself, i am now a believer and will forever be.

i love the pioneer woman.

"ree" as some people refer to her (because i think that is her first name), is this really funny lady that has lots of hobbies, but i am mainly interested in her recipes.

so hop on over and take a look. it's 2010, why not?

sweet poison

i think it's fun that a lot of people set new year's resolutions. i never really have, mainly because i know i'll make this huge deal out of it and when i decide i'm bored/tired/annoyed with the whole bit, i'll quit, then feel like a big, fat failure. soooooo, why not just not set yourself up for that beating? good idea.

however, 2010 is already chalked full of surprises. first and foremost being that i have a new year's resolution. sitting at santa rita the weekend after christmas, my overly-observant friends noticed that i had just ordered my fifth diet coke since we'd been there less than an hour. nbd, right? i mean, it wasn't my fifth,

say, shot of whisky, or my fifth large bowl of queso- get off my back. things could be way worse. then one of my friends, cheryl, started telling me about a lady who was diagnosed with throat cancer recently, after never smoking or being around a smoker or any of the suspect situations that would lead to that awful disease. apparently this lady's "thing" was diet coke. she drank it non-stop her whole life. now. clearly i cannot say for sure this lady got the big c strictly from, um, pounding one diet soda every 10 minutes when she's out eating mexican food, but it did get me thinking that maybe i need to take a look at exactly what diet drinks do to me.

the major culprit in these drinks is the aspartame. i've heard for years now that aspartame is this deadly chemical that is pumped into basically everything i eat/drink, but my main problem with quitting my consumption of it is 1) it's in everything i eat/drink and 2) is the government really going to know all this super secret intel regarding the fatal drug aspartame and just sweep it under the rug and watch people slowly slip away and DIE from it?! i just cannot imagine it being that dangerous and yet still being allowed to be used. naive? i choose to think it's more me being pure of heart.

essentially aspartame is a man-made, zero fat, zero calorie fake sugar that is put into things making it taste as though there is real sugar. anytime you see "sugar-free" anything, you can bet your new hunter rain boots there's aspartame in there. the biggie for me is clearly diet dp, but i also drink crystal lite peach tea like it's the nectar of the gods and that has aspertame in it, too. so does orbitz gum. most likely so does your light & fit yogurt. and your skinny cow ice cream sandwiches.

so i've done a little research, really just wanting to find out why it's so bad and what it does to us. from multiple sites, i discovered that when aspartame enters your body and gets into the small intestine, it converts into formaldehyde (remember science class, kids?), which then converts into formic acid, which is what ant sting venom is made up of. and then it wrecks havoc on everyone's systems differently. the laundry list of symptoms can be found here... quite a few, huh? there are so many and who knows if your struggles are due to aspartame consumption, but maybe it would be worth it to try not to put it in your system for the next month or two? see what happens?

i've been off the stuff for the past two weeks and i think and dream about diet dr. pepper every night, but guess what? i swear my skin texture is better. crazy, right? and i haven't had trouble with my contacts blurring up. and i'm not as bloated (tmi). and oh my gosh what if this cures my cankle?!?!?! only time will tell. but i swear i'm convinced it could happen.

the other thing to note is that a lot of us drink diet cokes because we don't want the calories. well one of the huge side effects of aspartame is a craving for sweets. so you end up drinking zero calories of toxins, but going and having a

dozen tiffwiches to make up for it. when they tested the chemical in rats, the ones with aspartame in their diet were heavier. go freaking figure.

i am no expert. and am not real sure about any of this. if you want to know more, i'm sure you can buy about a billion books with plenty of scientific details and facts pointing to how everything in our country is tarnished and poisoned by something and we're all going down together unless our meals start consisting of 75% raw, organic veggies. but i thought i'd share a little of what i'm doing to cut down on at least one thing i know isn't benefiting my health in the least. and, lucky you, i found just the graphic to really drive the point home...

good stuff

"i discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life can open up into extraordinary vistas. taking your children to school and kissing your wife good-bye. eating lunch with a friend. trying to do a decent day's work. hearing the rain patter against the window. there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that. all the more compellingly and hauntingly... if i were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything i was trying to say... it would be something like this: listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." -listening to your life, frederick buechner

i'm too dead dog tired to write anything else, so you'll just have to wait for my riveting entry about the hidden dangers of aspartame and why i'm giving it up in 2010. but i couldn't not post that quote. man, i'm not good at listening. funny thing is that it's really not that difficult of a task. i have a feeling we're staring a year for the record books in the face, so here's to listening and loving and not taking our moments for granted.

and also here's to humidifiers. please work your magic tonight by taking away my hacking cough so i can stop popping ricola cough suppresants like candy because i just saw they have aspartame in them and therefore i've already broken my resolution.

the big 5-0

well guess what. jimbo is "fifty yeahs old!" today.

clearly there aren't words to describe my dad and who he is to me,

so instead, i've decided to post a couple of pictures i found the other day.

reading "frosty the snowman" to josh and i.

really excited to be hugging.

i made parenting super easy for my parents and

never gave them any reason to want to twist my neck in two.

(p.s. there was a family discount if you bought multiple pairs of glasses

in the same size.)

happy birthday, dad! here's to fifty more...

i love you so much,

sem

merry christmas (said in a whisper)

what do you think it says about me that wham's classic holiday hit "last christmas" is my favorite song during the month of december?

regardless, it just occurred to me as i was driving around with it on repeat this morning that i have never seen the music video for this song. this is a shocking revelation because i get quite a thrill from music videos and pride myself on knowing what's going on in the world of video countdowns. (aka: my little ked-wearing feet couldn't run fast enough to my bff's house every day after school in 5th grade to watch "informer" get #1 video on mtv for six straight weeks and i still watch vh1 and cmt top 20 every weekend. how else are we supposed to stay informed, i ask you? my hobby did take a brief hiatus, however, during my high school years. my dad saw a snippet of some "inappropriate" snoop dogg drug-pumping, gang-busting something or other and put a parental block on mtv for four years. so naturally, one awesome, God-shining-down-on-me night when i was a freshman, my MASSIVE SENIOR CRUSH came over to, um, study and he immediately turned on the television to mtv and saw that you had to put in a code to watch it and his hysterical laughter still gives me nightmares to this day. thanks, dad.)

well. aren't i feeling chatty. without further ado, here is the official music video for "last christmas" released in 1984. pure genius. consider it my christmas gift to you and yours.