Janae Says...

Last night, my friend Brittany invited me to get pho with her and some of her friends. It was my first time, and it was delicious. I had chicken pho, which I guess isn't "real" pho, but it was really, really good. It was fun to see her and give her her birthday/Christmas presents. I came home and slept really well although I was worried about my cat. I actually was pretty anxious just to hear them call and tell us, "OK, we relieved his constipation. He's eaten something. He's doing better. Come pick him up." So this morning I texted my friend to make sure we were still on for lunch. She asked if we could switch to breakfast. That was OK with me. We had a great time talking at Peppertree Cafe. It is so fun talking with and feeling comfortable with people you haven't really talked to in a couple of years, especially when you live so far apart and have such different lives. I still connect with her and feel so much love and connection there. It...

It was only two hours of being home before mom and I couldn't stand it. It was overwhelming. It was pungent. It was sickening. It was the couch. The boys had been living with the couch for several months while my mom was away. She insisted she could clean it with Nature's Miracle treatment. One whiff of that thing would straightaway tell you otherwise. It had absorbed cat and dog urine repeatedly. It was lain on by dogs. Every time I walked by it, I started to involuntarily gag. It was that bad. So mom made her executive decision: the couch had to go. The adventure began. As Jake and Jared headed toward the couch to start moving it out, Jake yelled out, "What the hell?" He pointed toward the pillow on the arm of the couch. It was leaning against the wall. There was a brown, stinky pile on top of it. Jared slowly pulled the pillow off to take it outside, trying not to let the droppings fall onto the floor. It didn't work. As Jake started to move the c...

I mention every year that I don't know why I make a list of everything I received for Christmas. I know that Christmas isn't about the things. I'd still be a happy girl if I got nothing! I really would. Even just Christmas cards or letters would make me happy. So it's not about listing the number of things or how many material items I got. I guess it's a way to account for everything. Maybe to make sure I make full use of it all and to show I'm grateful for all of it. Also it makes it easy to do thank you cards. :) From my parents: A tri-core pillow for my awful sleeping positions 4 sports bras 2 pair of workout bottoms A Zumba DVD pack   A mezzaluna chopper A collapsible salad spinner A stainless steel serving set A candy mold 21 Day Sugar Detox Pajamas that say "I know I'm not perfect but I'm so close it's scary" 2 Victoria's Secret bras Forever 21 socks Remember the Titans DVD Cinderella DVD Black flats Scrapbook s...

I saw { this article } going around sometime last week, called "21 Women on the Simple Act of Chivalry that Men Don't Do Enough." Honestly, I still haven't read it. Don't worry, I will before I finish this post. The thing is, I don't have to read the article in order to make my point. Does anyone besides me feel like men get criticized a lot ? I see memes get passed around about "cute things girls wish you'd do," and all this other garbage. And I see more of them attacking men than I do women. That is, if I disregard all the jokes about how women don't make sense or don't know what they want (cue the "it's not that simple" clip from The Notebook ). I've heard multiple times throughout my life that if you want to encourage good behavior, you have to proportion your positive to negative comments at 7 : 1. I was curious if that was actually the case, so I found { this article } that suggests a 5.6 : 1 ratio. I don...