This is how I’ve been spending my summer days.

A pile of library books and running around with Edie outside. She digs in her pool and tries to eat the water.  Then she proceeds to roll in the only small patch of dirt in our yard because she loves me THAT much.

She’s lucky she is cute.

This past week has been a rough one for me. I feel like I hit that wall and just need to get it out. Because if I don’t I might just burst.

I’m frustrated.

I can’t do anything because I’m broke. I can’t afford gas to get the hell out of the south side to go see my friends. And I’m not really el accessible so it’s hard to get around unless I drive or take the Metra which is super annoying. I can’t go out and grab dinner or drinks. Some friends were in town this weekend and I just couldn’t go hang out. It was a bummer.

The job situation is rough. I go on interviews and send out resume after resume. I’ve been hoping I wouldn’t have to go the retail route but it looks like that is going to be my next step. A very temporary solution hopefully.

I’m really trying to be healthier and get in shape. I have it stuck in my head that by doing that, things will fall back into place. I know it’s not the case and it probably won’t happen but I’m going to keep these feelings and use them as motivation.

I’m just kind of emotionally spent at the moment both with work and my personal life. I just need something to go right. Anything. I don’t want to blown off anymore. I don’t want to be second best. I want to be happy again. I want to be excited about what I do. I need some stability. All I want is to be wanted.

Truly a legend who changed the face of music.

He will be missed.

Rest In Peace

I’ve decided to participate in the 20SB Looking Back Blog Carnival this time around. Why? Mainly because they are giving away free ice cream but also because it’s funny to see myself when I first started blogging on OHL. I was a Judgey McJudgerson back then and really nothing has changed!

Here’s one of my first entries. It can be found here.

***

I was having a discussion with my sister about things that should be illegal in regards to fashion. I’m talking huge don’ts. I consider these major fashion offense. Please feel free to add your own fashion don’ts or to contest my own rules.

1. Crocs. Are you a doctor? Are you on your feet all day that you need to wear shoes made out of foam? Yes, I am sure they are comfy but who honestly walks into a store and says, “Oh wow! Look at the those cute shoes!”. No, I really doubt you do. They are not cute. Not even a little bit. Please stop wearing them.

2. Logo tees, all over print and saying tees. Shirts that scream a brand name are not necessary. There are much more fun things to buy that don’t literally brand you. All over print was cool like 2 years ago. Now you can throw anything all over a hoodie and people with buy it. Tees with sayings on them, yeah, not witty or funny. If you need your shirt to be funny to get attention, that does not say much for your glowing personality.

3. Victoria Secret PINK. Not so much the items, more the girls who decide to wear a full on PINK sweat suit. PINK sweat suit because are too lazy to get a regular outfit on, but still have enough time to do their hair and cake on the make up. I have to admit, I do own PINK items but I most definitely DO NOT wear them out in public to the mall or to school. I really just like the little dog, to be honest.

4. Fake designer handbags. I know some handbags are ridiculously priced. Not everyone can afford a $1200 bag, I know I can’t. But if just HAVE to buy a fake bag, please at least let it be a good fake. And don’t wear your replica Stam with your ratty tee shirt or sweatpants. It just makes it all the more unbelievable.

5. Ugg boots. Ugg boots are practical if you live somewhere it gets cold. Wearing Uggs with your denim mini is just ridiculous. Throw leggings on under the mini and you will make me flinch.

6. This is the most important rule of all. Listen closely. LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS. No, I’m sorry, they are not pants. Leggings under skirts or dresses are also not cute but not as bad. Big shirts and leggings are gross. Metallic leggings, print leggings, latex looking leggings, lace bottomed leggings, THEY ARE NOT PANTS. THEY WILL NEVER BE PANTS. STOP WEARING THEM AS PANTS.

Linds, take note. Leggings = not pants.

As you can see there is a little review tab up in my header. Basically when I’m offered cool stuff, I review it and share the love with you guys! I’m currently doing two review programs through BlogHer and wanted to make sure you knew about them because  you can win awesome stuff!

First, I participated in the EA Sports Active 30 Day Challenge. You can read about my trails and tribulations of it kicking my ass. You can also find out how to win one of 5 copies for yourself! And dude, not many people have entered yet so you have a good chance of winning. It ends June 29th so hop to it!

I was also asked to try SmartFood. You can read about it’s yummy deliciousness here and enter to win a $100 Visa giftcard so you can buy me presents… I mean, buy yourself presents. For that one all you have to do is let me know how you spend Girls’ Night In!

There you have it. Two awesome giveaways.

Go enter now at my review blog!

I am a shameless lover of celebrity news. I know exactly what Britney is up too. I’m up to speed on my Jonas Brother / Miley fueds and love affairs. What’s up with Grey’s Anatomy George and Izzy next season? I can tell you. Lindsay Lohan is following around Sam Ronson like a puppy? Old news but can you believe she still thinks leggings are pants and is making money off that?

Basically I’m on top of my celeb gossip game. It’s kind of sad but kind of AWESOME.

But what I don’t do is Perez Hilton. I think is a fame hungry idiot. Yeah, everyone talks shit about Britney’s crazy or whatever but when you feel the need to start outting celebs and being an all around douchebag, I’m over it.

It seems like yesterday Perez got his. will.i.am from the Black Eye Peas got all in his face because Perez was running his mouth on his ridiculous ad infested web site. Whatever, no biggie. But then will.i.am’s manager decided to punch Perez in the face a few times.

But you know what? I don’t feel sorry for him one bit, not even after watching his tear filled video claiming violence is never the answer.

He’s right that violence is never the answer. What pisses me off  about this whole situation is that Perez decided he wouldn’t be intimidated. And to show he wasn’t afraid he decided to call will.i.am a “fucking faggot” because it’s the “worst thing a thug would ever want to hear”.

Really?

An openly gay man and supporter of equal rights is going to call someone else a “faggot” to degrade them? Way to promote hatred and intolerance toward your own community. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

I’m incredibly interested in how Perez will clean this up and try to make nice.

EDIT

After GLAAD urges Perez to apologize for his anti-gay slurs, he hits back with:

“I am saddened GLAAD chose to victimize me further by criticizing me for how I non-violently dealt with a very scary situation that, unfortunately, turned violent. While I doubt I will get an apology from GLAAD, nor do I expect one, I would just hope people know how difficult it is to intellectualize a situation and think rationally when a thug disguised as a musician is screaming at your face and intimidating you. I am just very fortunate and grateful that nothing more serious happened to me.”

Someone should hit him again for his stupidity.

I’m a designer’s worst nightmare.

I will badger you and be quite annoying. Send you multiple emails if you don’t answer me. I’m very vocal about my thoughts. I can definitely tell you what I don’t want but find it hard to describe what it is I do want. Because I don’t know, I just know I don’t want that.

I am incredibly picky. I like things to flow nicely. To match. I want this there and that here. Move that slightly to the left and up a couple inches. No, that font is hideous. Yes, I’m sure I don’t want a graphic of a size two, red head because that doesn’t look shit like me. I don’t like cartoony stuff and hearts all over the place. Hawaiian flowers? Really? I’m in Chicago.

I like simple and clean. Give me a great font, some color (but not obnoxiously full of color), good theme and I’m happy.

Anyway, I needed business cards since I changed my URL and email address. The most important reason I needed them though was the branding of my other cards didn’t match my newest design.

Yes, I’m that girl.

I bitched about it for weeks because my designer disappeared off the face of the earth (maybe because I annoyed her to death) and BlogHer is coming up. Branding, branding, branding, wah wah wah.

Then Danni came to my rescue and took my design, modified the font and now I have new cards. I got them printed up and they came on Friday.

I love them.

And I didn’t even pester her to death about them.

Now that is what I call progress.

(I’ll be putting together an ‘Etsyify Yourself for BlogHer’ post this week for the shopping blog. I’ll let you know what you need and make sure it’s super cute and handmade too!)

I have a confession to make.

I forgot to return something to the library and racked up some fines. I did this like two years ago and sort of forgot about it. Yeah, I’m that person who takes things out and forgets about them and ruins shit for everyone.

What can I say? I’m a bookstore girl.  I like the newness. No creases the spine. Pages sticking together because no one has turned them yet. The bookish smell. I’m a big fan of books on my bookshelf that I can keep and not have to give back.

I’m stingy like that.

But I’ve think I have learned my lesson. Now that I’m a broke ass, I can’t feed my book buying addiction. I’ll be hitting up the library and checking out (AND RETURNING!) books like normal human beings. Maybe even movies! Did you know the library has movies? I always assumed they only had older movies and not current ones. Why? I don’t know but I did.

(You can stop laughing now)

Anyway, I made a last minute trip to the library to bribe them pay them off so I can get my book borrowing privileges back. The thing is, I wasn’t prepared. There are always tons of books I want but if I don’t have a list with me, my mind goes blank. Because I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, I turn to Twitter.

Twitter to the rescue. Barely a minute passes and I see these start pouring in my reply page. There were more but my screen cap could only be so big.

This right here is exactly why I love Twitter.

I love the real time aspect of it. I post a question and seconds later, I have responses. Should I have posted about it on here, I would have to wait until the post hit the feed readers before I would get responses. Instead, 20 minutes later after browsing the shelves now knowing what I was looking for, I walked out with four books by authors that were suggested.

Twitter: it’s like magic.

(Twitter HQ, I get credit if you copyright that tag line. Share some of the millions love.)

Now, I need two things from you all: 1) follow me on Twitter – @jamielovely and 2) leave some book suggestions in the comments.

While watching So You Think You Can Dance? I managed to catch a commercial for this new show Fox is coming out with called More to Love. Maybe others have heard about it before but it’s news to me.

FOX is setting out to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes with the new inspirational dating competition series MORE TO LOVE. Executive-produced by Mike Fleiss (“The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette”), the unscripted series follows a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women. Each week, the husky hunk will wine and dine a group of curvy women to determine if they have more love to give or if they are truly more than he can handle. When the size of competition narrows, he will have to decide if one full-figured lady will become his true love.

“This is a dating show that sends the right message about embracing and loving yourself no matter your shape or size,” said executive producer Mike Fleiss. “When you are comfortable with your own body, you can really allow yourself to be open to the possibility of finding the right person to love.”

Hold the fuck up.

So if the only size that matter’s is the “size of your heart” then why do you have to have a separate dating show for us “average” folk? Curvy girls aren’t allowed to date The Bachelor now or even men that are thinner than them? They have to date the “single average guy with a big waist”? Is it because Fat People need to stick together? If you’re that “comfortable with your own body” then why limit yourself to who you can date by their weight? Maybe cast some real women on your other reality dating shows besides size two women because all of America doesn’t have plastic boobs and tiny waists.

This is officially the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

Thoughts?