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Thank you, Kurt Sutter

December 16, 2014 by Jana 5 Comments

Hey Kurt,

Can I call you Kurt? I feel like I can. You don’t seem like someone who goes by “Mr. Sutter” but then again, maybe you are and if that’s the case, then please pretend I started this by saying “Hi, Mr. Sutter” or “Dear Mr. Sutter” or something else formal.

I’ve been tossing around the idea of writing this after I watched the finale of Sons of Anarchy (as an aside, thanks for punching me right in the heart AND stomach with that one) but it seemed kind of weird, me writing you a letter on the internet for all the world (or more likely, my 14 readers) so I waited and then I thought about it some more and I realized that weird is right up your alley and here we are.

I know you’ve heard this countless times but it bears repeating: Sons of Anarchy is one of the best shows on television. Ever. Period. I never thought I’d find myself obsessing over a motley, violent gang of bikers led by Lloyd from Undeclared but I do. Daily. Still. And when anyone asks what shows I recommend, SOA leads the pack along with Friday Night Lights and Freaks and Geeks (I know. These shows make no sense as a group. On the surface. How they fit together is a discussion all by itself), and I thank you, along with the creators of the other two shows, for changing not only the way I watch television but for changing my expectations for what makes great TV.

I’m pretty sure other shows I watch from here on out are screwed. It’s a good thing I’m no one of significance instead of a TV critic.

I digress.

So, in addition to forever altering TV for me (and thousands of others, I’m guessing), here’s a few others thank yous I’d like to throw your way:

Thank you for being fucked up enough to create the idea of SOA.
Thank you for being open with all your addiction and career struggles and for continuing to bust your ass until you got hired to write for The Shield. I love that you were around 40 when that happened. I’m nearing 40 myself and I can’t tell you how much inspiration your story gives me.
Thank you for your temper, your Twitter tirades, and your ability to apologize for them when necessary.
Thank you for using cast members from The Shield on SOA. There’s something oddly heartwarming about seeing those familiar faces, even if they get blown up by landmines or sport boobs bigger than mine.
Thank you for turning the idea of what makes a good person on its head. I’ve long believed that doing bad things doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. Jax proved that (even if he couldn’t see it himself).

But most of all, thank you for the seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy. Jax and SAMCRO will take up space in my head and heart for years to come and, much like I always wanted to know if Mr. Vernon did, in fact, know that Barry Manilow raided his wardrobe, I’ll always wonder what happened to Abel and Thomas and if Jax’s actions and choices achieved the desired outcome.

I know there are rumors of prequels and sequels and if they come to fruition, I’ll watch them with the same fanaticism (and maybe some skepticism) I did SOA. And if not, that’s okay, too.

I’ll just keep making up the stories in my head.

I like to think you’d approve of that.

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Our family Christmas to-do list

December 15, 2014 by Jana 14 Comments

I’ve discussed my favorite things about Christmas (recently, in fact. You can check that out here if you’d like). I’ll admit there are a few things I’m kind of Grinchy about, like Christmas music and the whole Santa thing is still weird to me (although I’m pretty good about it I have a confession: I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to know better because keeping up the charade is exhausting) and by this time of year, I’m 87% sick of Christmas movies but I do my best to fake it until December 25th because of the child. It’s still magical and awesome to her and I have found that a little bit of faking it goes a long way in retaining the Christmas spirit when really all I want to do is punch an elf in the face.

For myself, I try to focus on things like the smell of Christmas scented candles, 24 hours of A Christmas Story (another confession: we never actually get through a full showing of the movie. Over the 24 hours, we watch the whole thing. Just not actually at once), working on projects and crafts with my daughter, and enjoying the fact that my husband actually has some time off from work. And then there’s the little part about opening presents because, let’s face it, that’s pretty awesome.

In addition to all that, we have a whole family to-do. Here it is:

We try hard to get everything on our list done each year, and while I’d like to say that it evolves every year, it doesn’t. However, for next year, I’m going to attempt to add “mail holiday cards” to the list. I’m horrible about it, my husband is even worse than I am, and while we always intend to send cards, we never actually do. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

For those who are interested, you can find how we make elf donuts here and how we grow candy canes here* (it is this time of year, I send an extra big thank you to Pinterest because I would not know what I’d do without it).

Also, here’s a song that’s on our Christmas playlist. This is the kind of song I can get behind.

*note about the candy canes: in the link, she grows cookie pops from tic tacs. I use green and red jelly beans, and buy the mini candy canes for the “in-between” stage before they grow to full sized ones. It takes a few extra days but it’s fun for the kid. Also, I don’t use the poem.

**There’s a typo in the to-do list image. The correct title is The Muppet Christmas Carol. My bad. #toolazytofixit

What’s on your Christmas to-do list?

Linking up with Megan and friends for Music Mondays

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Friday favorites: Child’s birthday edition

December 12, 2014 by Jana 8 Comments

We have a special guest poster today. She’s not a blogger, although she has posted before and she often makes an appearance in my posts because without her, my source material drops by about 50%. She’s also lucky she’s cute because if she wasn’t, there’s no way I’d endure the endless drives to cheer practice, the endless loop of Nickelodeon shows, and the constant barrage of questions at inconvenient times.

Then again, I probably would because she’s my daughter and I love her and I really don’t know how I got so lucky to have such a great kid.

Having a kid with a birthday in December presents a whole host of challenges. Some of them are financial (I once talked about how we deal with that, although I probably should go back and update that post); some of them are logistic. It’s hard to organize a party in the middle of everyone’s holiday plans and it’s even more difficult to get people to remember her birthday is a completely separate entity from Hanukkah and Christmas. Given all of that, we make sure we do everything we possibly can to let her know her birthday is important to us and on that day (which, this year, falls on 12/13/14 and she thinks that is just the coolest thing ever), we make it all about her, even if it intersects with Hanukkah (which, this year, it does not. Last year, either. So that’s been nice).

As part of that, I’m letting her share with you some of her favorites rather than me droning on for another week. FYI: she thought my additions were hysterical and had a phenomenal time reading the sentence that has the word “shit” in it repeatedly.

Favorite part of December

Erica says: My birthday!!!

Jana says: I was glad when she was born, too. Mostly because being pregnant sucked. But the end result was pretty good.

Favorite birthday present

Erica says: My American Girl doll!

Jana says: No shit. It’s all she’s talked about for the last two months.

Favorite family birthday tradition

Erica says: Getting to choose everything!

Jana says: I regret the day we instituted this as a family birthday rule. Although her taste is getting slightly better. And pizza is delicious.

Favorite part of Hanukkah

Erica says: Getting the gifts!

Jana says: That’s my favorite part, too. Lighting the candles is merely an exercise in how not to set myself on fire; the symbolic and tradition part of it has become secondary.

Favorite Christmas food

Erica says: Turkey!

Jana says: There’s cookies, fudge, candy canes, hot chocolate, and all kinds of stuff filled with sugar. And my child picks turkey? What the hell? How have I failed so badly?

Favorite Christmas movie

Erica says: Charlie Brown Christmas.

Jana says: She should have responded with “A Muppet Christmas Carol”. I clearly have work to do. I blame my husband for this response.

Favorite family Christmas tradition

Erica says: Baking stuff for Santa.

Jana says: It is fun. I’ll agree with her on that one.

Favorite part of Christmas break

Erica says: Not having to get up early!

Jana says: That’s nice, as is not having to pack lunch every day. Or snack. Or remembering to fill a water bottle. Or even getting dressed.

I’m going to end this post by sharing a few pictures of the child. They have been approved and endorsed by her.

Thanks for hanging out with my daughter today! She’s glad you stopped by so you could learn a little bit about her. She wants you to have a great weekend and come back and visit her mommy on Monday.

Linking up with Amanda

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Random acts of thought

December 11, 2014 by Jana 35 Comments

Christmas is very soon. Hanukkah is even closer. And you know what’s before all of that? My daughter’s birthday. I’m a 100% unprepared for all of it. It’s making me anxious and sad and annoyed and nervous and I really need to get my shit together if I’m going to pull off anything decent in the next two weeks.

Here’s what else is going on:

- I am an emotional wreck over the series finale of Sons of Anarchy. The beautiful disaster that was Jax Teller and SAMCRO is no longer. I’m struggling with the fact that it’s gone and if you watched the finale, please let me know if you’re still reeling from it, too. We can start a support group.
- While we’re talking about shows ending, I’m pretty sure the networks are conspiring against me because almost every show I like to watch is ending this year. But I did just read that Jesse Plemons (Landry from Friday Night Lights and Todd from Breaking Bad) is going to be on Fargo so maybe I’ll try that one to fill the void.
  He’s the guy in the middle.
- On the plus side, with all the shows I like to watch not airing anymore, I’ll have a ton more free time to read the 80 billion books I have on reserve from the library that have all come in at once. I have literally thousands of pages to read. I can fortify an entire city with the amount of books stacked on my nightstand.
- That fact makes me think I need an e-reader. I have the Kindle app on my iPad but I can’t access the Kindle store on Amazon, rendering that part of my Amazon Prime subscription useless. I don’t like wasting money, and I really don’t like not being able to access something that would give me books. But I have no idea which version of the Kindle to buy. TOO MANY CHOICES.
- You know what goes well with books? Coffee. I don’t really drink coffee but I do drink tea. Lots of tea. One of my favorites is chai tea. And I’ve figured out that if you put french vanilla coffee creamer in chai tea, it’s extra delicious. I found a homemade version on Pinterest. It’s 3 ingredients: 1 can sweetened evaporated milk, 1 1/2 cups milk, and 2 tsp vanilla. Use fat free milk (both kinds) for a lower fat version. You can read the full instructions here.
- Remember how I said that John Krasinski would make the perfect Lincoln if Rainbow Rowell’s book Attachments was made into a movie? I changed my mind. Jason Segel would be better. Or Ryan Hurst (I told you I wasn’t over Sons of Anarchy). I recognize that they’re older than Lincoln is supposed to be but they can pass for younger.
- I need a new tagline for my blog. Please leave any suggestions in the comments. There’s no prize for winning except my everlasting gratitude.
- Speaking of prizes, congrats to my friend Revanche from A Gai Shan Life for winning the Amazon gift card giveaway!!! Also, she has some of the best tweets ever so make sure you go and follow her (that’s not part of the prize package; that’s just a personal endorsement because she cracks me up daily).
- Have you been following along with me and Nadine on Instagram and our #inthedrawer challenge? If you haven’t, here’s some of what you’re missing:

- I’m currently obsessed with this song and video. It is everything.

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow. My daughter is guest posting. You won’t want to miss it.

Oh! And if you didn’t already see it, I’m guest posting over at Life According to Steph so you should go read that, too, because two posts from me in one day is definitely better than one!

Linking up with Kristin and Joey for Stuff and Things

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Creative ways to give back during the holidays (and all year)

December 10, 2014 by Jana 20 Comments

With the holidays being in full swing, there’s a major push to give back. And that’s not a bad thing at all. Giving back, being charitable, helping those who are less fortunate is always good and keeps with the spirit of the season. Doing so at the end of the year means that those organizations can start the new year with (hopefully) all they need. If you’re unsure of what you can do or if you need ideas, Lynsey over at Eternally Wanderlyn listed 10 ways you can give back. But if nothing on her list seems like something you can or want to do, here’s a few alternatives, not just around the holidays but throughout the year:

Workplace donations

This is one of the easiest ways to give back throughout the year. If your workplace participates in a United Way campaign, consider having money pulled from your paycheck each payday and have it sent directly to an organization of your choosing. I did this when I worked and I truly didn’t miss the $10 per pay. Sure, it wasn’t a huge amount, but it was something and it was literally the easiest way to help an agency whose mission I believed in throughout the year.

If your job hosts a food drive or coat drive or something similar, consider bringing in a donation. You have to show up to work anyway. Taking along a can or two of food or an extra coat to drop off isn’t a big inconvenience.

Use your skills

Everyone is good at something and every organization can use someone who has a specific skill set. For instance, if you can sew, consider sewing pillowcases for the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge. If you’re good with money, consider working with an agency that helps people learn to budget. Maybe social media is your thing. Find out if a local organization needs help managing their Facebook or Twitter. If you blog, use your platform to bring attention to a disease or cause. There are dozens of ways to use what you’re good at to help.

Mentor

This can fall under the scope of volunteering but rather than just showing up somewhere and helping wherever you’re needed, you’ll work directly with a person or a small group of people. You can do this anywhere–at work, in a school, at your place of worship, at a shelter for pregnant teens, or any number of places where there might be others who can benefit from your guidance. If you think you don’t have any special insight to offer, trust me when I say that you do. There are plenty of people who can learn from what you know. And sometimes, they just want someone who won’t judge them to talk to and spend time with. You can do that.

Event based volunteering

I think many people are put off by the idea of volunteering because of the time commitment. And they have a point. But what if you gave your time every now and then, and you gave your time to causes that have a special meaning to you? For instance, you can offer your time at a Meals on Wheels event, taking tickets or staffing an auction table. Or you can organize a Relay for Life team or spend some time helping at Habitat for Humanity or find something in your area that gives back to local organizations. Where I live, we have something called Big Ball. It’s a 24 hour softball/kickball marathon and all the money raised goes towards helping people in our area. It’s only once a year and from what I hear, it’s crazy fun, too. Consider something like that.

Be creative

My girl Kerry has lots of ideas for how you can give back creatively; you can check out her ideas for inspiration. But really, when it comes to giving back and helping, it’s all about what you can do. And if you can’t do much, well, that’s okay, too. Maybe funds are tight and you don’t have a ton of discretionary money but you find a few dollars and use them to buy a bag of food for the local animal shelter. While you’re at it, why not go through your towels and sheets. If you’ve got any you want to get rid of, bring those to the shelter along with the food. It might not seem like much to you but to them, it’s a lot.

It’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you keep the giving spirit you have now throughout the year. Because it’s the middle of the year when nonprofits and charities need it the most.

What do you guys do to give back?

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Thank you, Kurt Sutter

Our family Christmas to-do list

Friday favorites: Child’s birthday edition

Random acts of thought

Creative ways to give back during the holidays (and all year)

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