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It’s a Margarita Morning
May 17, 2008 by Jennifer Gniadecki
Yes, I’m a bad person and I’m having a Margarita (it deserves to be capitalized) with a friend at 10:14am. It’s less acidic than orange juice (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) Made with my new kickass frozen drink maker.
That reminds me - I like to blog about stuff I use and things that are part of my life. I think this weekend I’m going to set up a review blog. That way I have a special place where I can talk about stuff and not have to worry about corrupting the main blog. (By corrupting I mean make the BlogHer powers that be unhappy. I like BlogHer and their ads are the classiest I’ve ever seen…so yeah…not going to mess up that relationship!)
I just have to come up with a name. There are a few available contenders…we shall see.
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Update 1: Just got back from seeing Prom Night. Great movie if you like horror flicks and dead teenagers (which I do!) First movie in a long time where I kept jumping and involuntarily throwing my hands up to my face/head and then laughing at myself for doing so. Good times
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Update 2: Just finished tweaking/redesigning a theme for another friend’s new blog. Since she’s going to be wickedly anonymous I can’t give the link. Of all the genres in the world, she wants a fun little erotica blog. So…it’s no wonder she wants to remain private! She asked me to guest post. I blushed. I can be such a prude.
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Final Saturday Update: I’m going to walk away from the computer now, and spend a little time with my new Scrapbooking Kit that my friend D picked up for me at Borders. I don’t know why she always buys me stuff, but man, if it makes her happy I’m not going to twist her arm to stop. I did pick up the tab for sodas and popcorn at the theatre, so I’m not a total leach. It was funny, to get the popcorn and soda I almost had to get crappy with her while we were in line. In retrospect, that’s funny 
Image Source: elvinstar via sxc.hu
SitterCity and my Possible Salvation
May 16, 2008 by Jennifer Gniadecki
I keep talking about how nuts the toddlers are making me, and getting out once a week with my friend D just isn’t enough for me to keep it together.
That was before more and more writing assignments started piling on my to-do list (no, I’m not complaining, just putting it into perspective). I was a member of SitterCity last year and we used the service many times, with mostly amazing success. Even the sitters we did not consider a rousing success never made us feel that we were bad for leaving our kids with them, we just knew there were better sitters out there for us - mostly because we really lucked out the first few times and that poor fourth girl didn’t stand a chance (she was younger, too, really was quite a nice girl.)
I thought our membership had expired and didn’t visit the site anymore, until yesterday, when I received an email from a sitter asking if we were looking for help. I called my husband, let him know our account was active and we had a sitter that wanted to meet! We realized it’s been far too long since we’ve been out on a date and reminded each other how we swore we were going to go on weekly date-nights after he got his full-time job.
So a sitter falling into my lap was seen as serious not-coincidence by both of us.
The SitterCity site has been redesigned since I was last using it and the changes are for the better. It’s a simpler, more streamlined site and it’s really easy to find all the information about sitters you could ever need.
From Amazon-style "star ratings" with comments, to background checks and pictures, you’re really able to get enough information to feel secure in your sitter decision. Plus, they’ve all been really willing to meet before actually watching my kids, so I can get a feel for them and we don’t have that weird awkward moment when they first come in and you’re rushing to get out of the house and you have to do the whole nice-to-meet-you b.s. on top of it.
They also list religious preferences as well as if they’re CPR certified or have experience with special-needs kids. You can put up an ad for a sitter job and people can apply (a la Craigslist) or you can do a search and send emails or call sitters you feel you’d be a good match with.
I have my appointment with K on Monday night. I’m driving to her part of town because she’s nice enough to meet me for free, I figure it’s the least I could do.
Really, she used proper capitalization and grammar and punctuation in her emails, so I already have a good feeling about it. I’ll let you know how the meeting turns out.
I love summer. All the sitters are home from school and everyone else is bored and looking to make some extra cash. Yea!
SitterCity is also going to be our choice for finding a petsitter when we go to San Francisco for BlogHer in July. Cause yeah, they have petsitters and elder care people and…well…any kind of sitter you might need. I heart them. They’re also a local Chicago-based company, even though now they’re all huge and Internet based and International at this point.
You know what, you were just surfing the ‘net anyway…why not pop in your zip code and see for yourself!
I am in Love with Jerry Bruckheimer’s Classic Style
May 15, 2008 by Jennifer Gniadecki
Look at this fantastic partial list of amazing movies and television shows! (full list can be found at IMDB.com)
Sure there are some that were dogs, but classics like Con Air will forever stay in my heart…
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2009) (pre-production) (producer)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) (filming) (producer)
- G-Force (2009) (post-production) (producer)
- Eleventh Hour (2008) (TV) (post-production) (executive producer)
- "Without a Trace" (executive producer) (131 episodes, 2002-2008)
- "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (executive producer) (176 episodes, 2000-2008)
- "CSI: NY" (executive producer) (72 episodes, 2004-2008)
- "CSI: Miami" (executive producer) (141 episodes, 2002-2008)
- "Cold Case" (executive producer) (111 episodes, 2003-2008)
- "The Amazing Race" (executive producer) (4 episodes, 2007-2008)
- National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) (producer)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) (producer)
- "Close to Home" (executive producer) (44 episodes, 2005-2007)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) (producer)
- Glory Road (2006) (producer)
- National Treasure (2004) (producer)
- King Arthur (2004) (producer)
- Bad Boys II (2003) (producer)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) (producer)
- Kangaroo Jack (2003) (producer)
- Black Hawk Down (2001) (producer)
- Pearl Harbor (2001) (producer)
- Coyote Ugly (2000) (producer)
- Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) (producer)
- Enemy of the State (1998) (producer)
- Armageddon (1998/I) (producer)
- Con Air (1997) (producer)
- The Rock (1996) (producer)
- Dangerous Minds (1995) (producer)
- Crimson Tide (1995) (producer)
- Bad Boys (1995) (producer)
- Days of Thunder (1990) (producer)
- Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) (producer)
- Top Gun (1986) (producer)
- Beverly Hills Cop (1984) (producer)
- Flashdance (1983) (producer)
- Cat People (1982) (executive producer)
- American Gigolo (1980) (producer)
I swear, everything he touches turns into a seriously awesome drama with emotional hooks that get viewers where it counts.
I mean, the least we can do is forgive him for Kangaroo Jack, after all he has done for network television and film.
I Thought I Was Getting A Break
May 14, 2008 by Jennifer Gniadecki
Ok.
I was going to have someone over tomorrow. Actual company - the kind you make coffee for and chat with - no pressure fun kind of stuff. But it’s not going to happen (I hope I manage to email her before she reads this LOL) because I’m dashing this off before leaving for my great-grandmother’s house.
It seems my grandmother (not my great-grandmother, I know it can be difficult to keep up) is not feeling well, so she wants me to come over and spend the night to make sure nothing happens.
I don’t want to know what could happen just overnight considering all the grandmothers sleep until noon, but I can’t take the risk. So I have to go there and stay until the afternoon (when they wake up, you see, that’s morning to them) and then come back here at some point and since I need the car…well yeah…Randy is going to have to stay with the kids.
On the bright side, they have a computer so blogging and joy and love will commence tomorrow while everyone in the house is sleeping with me standing as work-at-home sentry to the aged and mildly insane.
I guess it’s not all that bad, I’m just … tired. It’s interesting, when I worked 9-5 all corporate-style I dreamed of taking personal days, vacation, I mean I lived for that stuff. When it came, when those magical vacation days or three day weekends were taken I enjoyed them so much, squeezing every experience possible out of them. Now I don’t have sick days or vacation days and can’t take mental-health days that are approved by some authority that isn’t me.
Being in control of my own life, while blissful, has it’s downsides. Don’t get me wrong, wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it’s just a different life than I used to have, and I think it is a far different life than I thought I would have.
Thank god, because my dream as a little girl was go get married to one of those juicy-hot men in suits that used to prowl around the Financial District of Chicago. I remember going to the Mercantile Exchange on an Economics field trip in High School. I didn’t want to come home. I wanted to go home with a stockbroker. You should have seen me prowl PJ Clarke’s back in the day LOL I was a sight to behold. (To make a long story short, if you think I’m brazen now…well…I’ve learned control since back in the day!)
Now? I’m happy that a new media and search marketing analyst comes home to me.
In case you missed it, that’s my husband’s job title. I could not be more proud of him. He worked so hard and searched so long to find something that was right for him, and now he is a valued member of a team. It’s pretty much his dream job as well as mine. Did I mention I seriously dig on my husband?
Well I’ve stalled long enough. Gotta grab the keys and its off to grandmother’s house I go….
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