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Half-baked Tuesday

May 3, 2016 by Jana 33 Comments

I have many thoughts swirling around in my head but none complete enough to make a whole post so let’s just throw all of them together and see what comes out.

I’m working on redesigning my site. It’s old and it needs a makeover. Badly. Like, it’s WAY overdue. But I’m lacking in the funds department so it’s a DIY situation which is fine. I’m using the color palette from my old site, probably sticking with the same font or finding a similar retro one, and I want a simple, easy theme because that’s where my skills stop. I have the main topics we’ll be focusing on but I’m stuck on a tagline. Any suggestions? P.S. This is why I’m not a copywriter.

Speaking of career options, you know my author coaching business that I started? Two thoughts: 1) I definitely need my Jerry Maguire moment when I get that one client who believes in me and wants to pay me and all that; 2) self-promotion is not my strong suit. I suffer HARD from imposter syndrome which does not lend itself to starting and growing a business. I’m definitely rethinking the coaching as a viable choice. help-me-help-you

The University of Washington posted an infographic to “help” the girls trying out for the school’s cheer team. I read it. It’s horrible. It’s WHY cheerleaders have the reputation that they do and while the team has since removed the infographic, damage has been done. If people want cheerleading to be taken seriously as a sport–which is it and it should–then teams need to stop doing shit like this. Just because a girl might not curl her hair or have a six pack or wear red lipstick does not mean she can’t tear up the mat. Also, body dos? A “toned physique”? Fuck you, University of Washington. Not only is that a vague and completely subjective statement, what are you doing to these girls? Way to promote completely unhealthy habits and rule out what I’m sure are some damn good athletes because they don’t look the way you want them to. So you can take your infographic and shove it up your perfectly toned asses. Cheerleading is about so much more than appearance and if you can’t recognize that, then maybe you should go fuck yourself. Because I’ll be damned if my 9 year old cheerleader catches wind of its existence. be wrong

On Friday night, the husband and I went to see Pearl Jam. It was surprisingly good, especially for me, a nonfan, and I do not regret going one bit. Glad we spent the money on the experience and congrats to the band on 10 sold out Philadelphia shows. They even have a banner in the rafters commemorating it. They only other artists with banners are Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen so they’re in good company. Which is cool. You know what’s not cool, though? Floors that are so damn sticky I actually lose a shoe to the stick. Like, my shoe stayed in place while I kept going. I’m seriously too old for that shit. Also, I’m too old to inhale secondhand weed smoke during a concert but maybe that’s another post.too old

So, one of the things I love about blogging is that bloggers love to help each other out. Which is why my friend Brynne from Femme Frugality and I have teamed up to help a blogger get to FinCon16. If you or someone you know wants to go but maybe needs a little help getting there, we’re giving away a free ticket. There’s an application process, though, so it’s not a lottery. You have to kind of work for it, and you can see all the details and access the contest page by visiting here. P.S. This is not an unfinished idea but rather a shameless plug for something I’m doing. #sorrynotsorry

What unfinished ideas are swirling around in your head?

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: opinions, random

Unsent letters

April 21, 2016 by Jana 24 Comments

Someone I know used to do posts like this and she doesn’t blog anymore so I can’t link to her blog and her hilarious posts but it’s still a great idea and I like letters so let’s send some, shall we?

Dear FitBit,

While I appreciate your encouragement, if I haven’t hit my steps goal by 10PM, please stop sending me notifications that I “only have 1029 more steps to go”. It seems like a waste of everyone’s time and also, we both know I’m not getting in the rest of those steps. Let’s stop pretending.

Love,

Jana

Dear laundry,

Go fuck yourself.

Love,

Jana

Dear people who send group texts but really only want to talk to one person,

Seriously?! Why do you do that? Is it that hard to take all the other names off or start a new, separate and private message? Because one of these days, you’re absolutely going to send something you don’t mean to. And while I’ll laugh and laugh then, for now, you’re making me hate my phone. I don’t want to hate my phone.

Love,

Jana

Dear drivers who pull out in front of me when absolutely no one is behind me and then drive painfully slow,

I hate you yet I feel compelled to understand your thought process. What makes you think “hey, no one is driving behind that lady in the filthy black car but I’m totally going to cut her off at the last minute instead”? I’m not even kidding that I want to know so then maybe we can come to an understanding and I won’t feel compelled to shout more obscenities than usual. 

Love,

Jana

Dear kids’ toys packagers,

Do you hate parents? I’m thinking you must as there is no other explanation as to why you make toys so damn difficult to open. So if you could, I don’t know, maybe make it possible to open a toy without the use of scissors and the brute strength of a professional football player, we’d appreciate it.

Love, 

Jana

Dear Facebook, 

Why is it that you show me all the memories I truly don’t give a fuck about but that one time I was really funny and want to use that status in a blog post instead of using a new thought because words are hard is impossible? If you could fix that so I could recycle my creativity, I’d appreciate it. 

Love,

Jana

Dear Amazon,

Before we start, let me just say how much I love you and your 2 day shipping and all that jazz, including the storage locker pick up option. But I think maybe we need to have a conversation about geography. A storage locker 20 miles from my house is not “nearby”. You know what’s nearby? The fucking fulfillment center on the other side of town. The one that takes 10 minutes to get to. Also, why are lockers not there? It’d make a shit ton of sense if they were. We should discuss logistics. Call me. 

Love, 

Jana

Dear that one piece of hair that makes me feel a spider is crawling on me,

Fine, you want to fuck with me. I get it. Maybe I don’t wash or brush you as much as you’d like but trust when I say it’s for your own good and has nothing at all to do with my laziness. BUT. Why you gotta do it when I’m driving? Don’t you realize I’m on the lookout for shitheads who cut me off, animals crossing the road, and fighting off sneezes? I don’t have time for your games when I’m operating a car. And there’s also this–I’m not that great of a driver to begin with. Why make it worse?

Love,

Jana

Dear flies,

Get the fuck out of my house. 

Love, 

Jana

What unsent letters are you sending today?

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: random

Jana’s Bad Day Recovery Plan

April 7, 2016 by Jana 17 Comments

Do you guys know the Limp Bizkit song “Break Stuff”? Yes? No? Think you do but you forgot? Pretending not to because it’s a Limp Bizkit song?

Totally understand that last one.

Regardless of how you answer the question, though, here’s the first verse:

It’s just one of those days
When you don’t wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sucks
You don’t really know why
But you want justify
Rippin’ someone’s head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract
Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker
It’s just one of those days

That was my day yesterday. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong including an unexpected trip to get my daughter’s finger examined (middle finger, of course, because she’s my child. Except mine would get hurt from overuse instead of tumbling). Fortunately the finger isn’t broken (thank G-d for small miracles) but all the other things sucked a fat one.

Days like yesterday throw me for many days to come because I am a creature of routine and habit and to-do lists. I need organization and structure in my day, at least during working hours since the rest of my day is subject to chaos and when my working hours are destroyed, it’s hard to get myself back together.

I mean, I do eventually get my shit in check, mostly thanks to my foolproof 12 step plan:

Step 1: Overuse the word “motherfucker”. Scream many other expletives. Mostly at people who can’t hear me because the last thing I want is a rumble. I don’t need that Sharks vs. Jets shit in my day.

Step 2: Call the husband. Talk nonsensically and bother him at work for about 30 minutes.

Step 3: Avoid problems by scrolling through all the social media.

Step 4: Declare I hate my life and sketch out a plan to run away and live in a tiny house in the mountains away from everyone except my dogs and cat.

Step 5: Call the husband again. Repeat Step 2

Step 6: Eat dozens of Cheez Its or chips or something else bad for me. Seriously contemplate getting drunk in the middle of the day.

Step 7: Realize getting drunk in the middle of the day is, in fact, a terrible choice. Praise myself for making one good choice. Use it as a gateway to calm the fuck down and start refocusing.

Step 8: Put on a good playlist and sit for a song or two to center and get in a good place.

Step 9: Examine my initial to-do list. Prioritize and determine what needs finishing or attention immediately. Decide to work on that in the short time I have left during the day. Make a new to-do list, realizing that nothing I do is actually urgent and if it has to wait a day or two, the world will survive.

Step 10: Berate myself for overreacting. Berate myself for berating myself. Take a detour from work to eat more Cheez Its. Berate myself for that but tell myself that Cheez Its eaten while in the midst of a terrible day don’t count. Fill up a huge glass of water to cancel out the Cheez Its. Bring it upstairs because real work gets done in the office, not the living room.

Step 11: Sit down at the laptop. Remind myself that everyone has bad days, has unproductive days, and anyone who says they don’t is a big fat fucking liar.

Step 12: Accept all that happened, get over it, and move on.

Bonus step: Complete one task, no matter how small. Call it a good day.

The best part is, if you guys need it, my plan is totally free for you to use! It’s not foolproof and doesn’t always work but it’s mostly useful. Especially if you throw a nap or a few solid of hours of Netflix into the mix.

How do you guys get on track after a bad day?

P.S. There’s no podcast episode in the post today BUT you can listen via your favorite podcasting app! iTunes approved us!

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: lists, random

A list of things I can’t stand including thinking of post titles

March 24, 2016 by Jana 16 Comments

Just about two years ago, I wrote a confessions post about some pretty substantive things that make my angry. As I’m suffering from minor writer’s block/idea deficiency and also I’m already in vacation mode (we leave for Boston in less than a week!), I decided that it’d be a good idea to update that list except with really small petty things that annoy me rather than things that are major or important because that’s how I’m feeling right now. It’s also an accompaniment to this post about all my pet peeves which made me realize I should do a post about all the things I love so I don’t always come across like a curmudgeonly old man.

So, here’s a not at all complete list of things I hate (also known as major first world problems):

  • Oranges and all of its related orange-citrus brethren.
  • Horses. Keep them away from me, please and thank you.
  • Hangers that are all askew and face different directions. Not to mention when they’re mixed with wire hangers.
  • Punctuation abuse. Especially on professional signs. Guess what? If you say you’re “licensed and insured”, we’re not doing business.
  • Seeing someone in a movie or on TV and not being able to remember where I’ve seen them before.
  • Thinking of titles for posts.
  • Typing in a password and being told it’s wrong even though I know it’s right. And while we’re on the password subject, being asked to change it every few months or so. NO, M&T Bank, I don’t want to do that. I can barely remember this one and now you want me to have a new one?
  • Bad handwriting on feedback forms. How can I fix what’s wrong if I can’t read what you wrote? (I don’t have a problem with bad handwriting in general. Just when I need to read it).
  • Finding a movie on HBO and coming in halfway and then wanting to record the next showing because who wants to start a movie they’ve never seen in the middle only to find out that this is the only showing. WHY YOU TEASE ME, HBO?
  • Realizing a dog who’s not my dog has shit in my yard and the lazy ass owner didn’t pick it up. It’s all fun and games until someone steps in dog shit and tracks it in the house.
  • Speaking of dogs, why does my dog wait until I’m actually and finally comfortable to whine at me that he needs to go out even after I’ve just let him out and he chooses not to do anything except walk around and bother the cat?
  • This little piece of my car door that won’t attach to the rest of the door and flaps in the wind when I’m driving.
  • The term “hack” as in “life hacks”, “productivity hacks”, “cooking hacks”. Can’t we change it up with “shortcuts” or something else? I also hate the terms “solopreneur” and “lady boss”.
  • That iTunes will not let me change my user ID. Fuck you, iTunes.
  • Bad people like the Duggars getting second chances. Look, I’m all for giving second chances but not in the manner that they’re getting. I felt the same way about Michael Vick. He did his time, paid his penance, whatever you want to call it, and he totally deserved to be given a job and all of that but not in the manner that he did. If you do something as bad or reprehensible as the Duggars or Vick, then you should not be put in a position where people use you as a role model. Yes, you can argue that they deserve adulation because they reformed but let’s be honest, have the Duggars truly reformed? Have they apologized for all the hate they’ve spewed or the hypocrisy in which they’ve conducted their lives? Have they adjusted their beliefs after seeing the damage its done to their family? No, they have not. So maybe thrusting them back into the spotlight with millions of dollars and paid vacations and all that jazz is blatantly wrong. And shame on TLC for giving it to them. And shame on me for writing about it and giving them even more attention. (You sort of knew this rant was coming, right?) But I still fucking hate them.
  • The Oregon Trail app no longer works on my iPad.
  • Being told I need to drink wine. No. I don’t like wine. I will stick with my beer.
  • Fees attached to buying concert tickets. Really, they’re expensive enough. Why do I need to pay an extra $40 billion in processing fees? And what exactly is a “processing fee”? Sounds like a scam to me.
  • Website design. I need to design two websites as well as a complete makeover for this one and while I’m good at content, I’m terrible at design and I can’t afford to pay someone to do my designs. Awesome for me. But thankfully Fiverr exists so I can get a few things done there for cheap until I can afford something better.

Let’s end this on something I don’t hate. Another episode of The Armchair Librarians! This time we talk about finding time to read and assorted other topics because reading rabbit holes are easy to find when you’re me and Steph. A few things: one, this is one of the websites I need to design. Two, there’s a terrible echo towards the middle and end of the recording that makes it sound like Steph is in a bathroom even though to my knowledge she isn’t and I can’t edit it out so we apologize for that. Three, I finally figured out how to get this thing in iTunes so it should be there next week. Four, we have a few tweaks we’re making to the quality of the podcast so look out for those in upcoming shows (read: not this one or the next).new_logo_edit

 

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: confessions, lists, random

The Fourteen Commandments of Me

March 10, 2016 by Jana 16 Comments

I totally stole borrowed this idea from Steph. At least I think it was Steph. Maybe it was Erin. I honestly cannot remember so whomever originated this idea, thank you. 

One thing I can always say about myself, even on my worst days, is that I’m confident in who I am. I know what I believe and what I stand for, and while I’m open to hearing all kinds of view points and being persuaded and encouraged to think about those differing opinions, I’m pretty unwavering in my fundamental beliefs.

I call those the Fourteen Commandments of Me (okay, fine, if I’m being honest, I just came up with that moniker but we’ll pretend like I’ve always used it). Some of these are also similar to a list I made for my birthday last year so if they seem familiar, that’s probably why.

Here they are:

  1. I do not care what you do for a living or how much money you have or don’t have or how big or small your house is. If you’re a good, kind, and decent person, we’ll get along.
  2. Puppies, beaches, books, and naps can fix most bad days.
  3. People’s reproductive choices are none of my business. Have 10 kids, have zero kids. Not for me to judge. Same for marriage choices. Marry who you want. It does not affect me at all.
  4. Your budget, your business. My budget, my business.
  5. Use manners, proper grammar, and don’t be an asshole in traffic.
  6. Support your friends and family in their endeavors. And remember that success is not a limited resource. (Unless they add you a Facebook group without your permission. Then it’s fine to walk away).
  7. Always make time to read, for my family, and play with my dogs.
  8. Go somewhere new every year.
  9. Put your phone away when paying for a purchase, at the dinner table, and when you’re driving.
  10. Embrace your flaws as well as your strengths.
  11. There is always room for improvement.
  12. Quality over quantity, especially when it comes to friends. Two caveats: pizza and chocolate. Lots of bad pizza or chocolate is still better than no pizza or chocolate.
  13. Never feel guilty about anything that makes you happy.
  14. Respect people’s beliefs and opinions, even if they’re different than yours. Don’t force what you believe on anyone else. Unless they want to vote for Donald Trump. Then by all means, try to convince them otherwise.

How about you guys? What are some of the rules you live by?

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: lists, random

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Jana

I'm Jana ...

A book reading, nail polish wearing, binge watching, music loving, dog owning, reluctant cheer mom.
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