Author Archive

When I saw that I was supposed to put up a drink post for you ladies today, I was kind of, “Um. Shit.” Because in this house? Our drink recipes are mainly “Take booze, pour over ice. Enjoy.” Occasionally we get REALLY fancy, and it’s more like “Take booze, pour over ice, add a splash of  whatever soda/juice is in the fridge. Enjoy”

What can I say? Picky, we’re not.

Then it occured to me. Long Island Iced Tea. My favoritist drink EV-AH. I’ll admit that I have a loose definition of the fabled LIT. It usually winds up consisting of the left-over alcohol in the bottoms of various bottles that my cheapskate ass can’t just dump out.

But the FOR REALS delicious, and slightly dangerous(I say slightly dangerous, because there are MANY stories that begin with “After a couple LITs….” and continue on with “…then Jen did something REALLY dumb…”), Long Island Iced Tea recipe is very, very simple.

• 1 shot of triple sec
• 1 shot of light rum
• 1 shot of gin
• 1 shot of vodka
• 1 shot of tequila
• 1 oz of sour mix

Mix the above and pour over ice. Top your glass off with your favorite cola for that “Iced Tea” coloring.

A really yummy, and summer-y, variation (and one of my favorites!) is the Hawaiian Iced Tea. Start with the same recipe, but instead of soda, use pineapple juice!

After a couple of those bad boy’s you may find that Kim’s awesome BJ hints and instructions will come in handy.

So go forth, get your drink on and get ready to wow your man! And while you’re at it, don’t forget to enter to win the NEW K-Y KISSABLE SENSATIONS ~AND~ a K-Y YOURS+MINE lubricant!

This week, the girls over at GTT are wanting to know what we’d do with a $100 and the power of internet shopping.

Because I like the variety, the price and the whole dealing with only one shipping department thing, I would probably head over to Amazon.com first.

So first, I’d invest in a gallon of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. ($15) Yeah, slightly odd. But we go through that stuff like water. And there is NOTHING more aggravating than being drunk and wanting a snack, reaching for the Frank’s, and realizing you’re OUT.

So I still have $85. Good.

So I’d pick up the second season of True Blood, for $40. We’re on a free-TV-only plan (no cable or dish! The horrors!) right now, but I miss Sookie. And Bill. Mostly Bill. For the record though? In the books, I lusted fully over Eric. But for the television show, I think the actor (Stephen Moyer) they cast for Bill is more my type, physically.

~swoons~

Anyway, erm, where was I?

Oh yeah, $45 left to spend.

I’m thinking that after that vampire porn picture, I might need to pick up some KY Your’s and Mine lube. ($15)This stuff? Is awesome. Usually I weigh the fun of lube vs. the mess it seems to create. (Don’t tell me it’s never crossed YOUR mind!(please?)) But when the husband grabs this out of the stash? There’s no decision making. It’s game on. Every. Time.

And then I’d go buy Left 4 Dead 2 with my last bit of cash.

Because nothing tops off a night of spicy food, vampire porn and hot sex quite like hunting down zombies from the comfort of your couch.

Love and kisses,

My husband will tell you that I’m a bit of a penny-pincher at times. My wallet and I prefer to think of it as maintaining a mutually healthy relationship. I won’t take all of Wally’s  cash, and he won’t tell when I splurge on underwear that costs $10+ a pair.  It’s a win-win, to be honest.

So when I thought about BlogHer10 versus BlogHer@Home’10, naturally, I considered Wally’s point of view. He make’s a very persuasive case. Just look at his side by side comparison!

Ticket to BlogHer 2010: $298

Ticket to BlogHer@Home: $0

Hmmm….that’s a might strong start Wally! What else ya got?

Travel from my front door to New York: $540 (and that’s economy class, for chrissake. Wally wouldn’t even let me see first class)

Travel from my front door to my couch: $0 (also? no TSA agents or risk of being seated near someone obnoxious)

Staying at the Hilton New York for 3 nights: $1,143.08 (with roommate? $571.14)

Staying at my house for 3 nights: $0 (but the roommate is mandatory (but I’m allowed to get my freak on with him, so…) )

Cute Little Black Dress For Parties and Such: $100

Cute set of Pajamas for Partying via webcam: $20

Okay, Wally, I’m nearly convinced, but can you seal the deal for me?

Number of margaritas you can buy in a New York bar for $8: 1

Number of pre-mixed margaritas you can buy at your local store for $8: 4

Woohoo! I know where I’ll be this August. Right here at BlogHer@Home, partying on my couch. See you there!

So the topic this week is home projects/improvement, etc.  I’ll admit that I’m not very handy, but when the job needs doing, I can generally figure out a way to get it done. Usually.

AND I have no issue admitting when I’m in way over my head!

Which is good, because, clearly, past owners of my poor house fancied themselves to be Do It Yourself Wonders. I’m not convinced. Now, I’m not sure I can blame EVERYTHING on the last couple that owned the place, because the house is nearing 100 years old now. However, a good chunk of the DIY disasters that we’ve found are fairly recent.

Their projects have included ripping out floors, both on the second story and in the basement

patching over a door,

And installing a bathroom mirror in the half-finished laundry room.

Not pictured would be the live, uncapped wires we found in the basement, the “custom painted” outlet/light switch covers, the tangled mess of copper piping that is our plumbing, and the upside down full-length mirror (with stand!) that was screwed into the wall when we moved in. (I know, odd doesn’t quite cover that one!)

Needless to say, I’m really glad that the husband and the brother-in-law are fairly handy with the tools. Because I’m sure we’ll find more DIY that needs to be Undone!

Are you handy with the DIY home projects? What’s your best, or worst, DIY story? Share it in the comments!

A few days ago, a friend was complaining about one of her relatives commenting on her Facebook statuses. This relative had said some embarrassing things that were not appreciated. But unfriending her would have caused drama that my friend would rather avoid.

Thankfully, the powers-that-be over at Facebook anticipated delicate situations like this, and there is a solution. Which I’m now going to pass on to you. So that you too can hide your status updates, your posts, links and etc. from your mother-in-law, younger siblings, boss or Creepy Uncle Bob.

If you are having problems seeing the example pictures, clicking on them will make them bigger!

But first, how about a quick freebie? We all have that friend who just makes us cringe when their name pops up on our Facebook dashboard. But we don’t want to unfriend them, because of nostalgia, or it will cause drama, or whatever. What to do??

The Hide Button

Next to the name of your “friend” you will see the little Hide Button (red circle). Click that, then choose “Hide Friend’sName” from the options that pop up. Then you will see a little notice that says “Friend is Hidden.”

If you get the urge to un-hide someone, simply go to the bottom of your Facebook news feed, and hit the “Edit Options” button.

Okay, great. Now YOU don’t have to see THEM….but how do we keep THEM from seeing YOU??

How To Hide on Facebook From Your Mother-In-Law

In the upper right-hand corner of yourFacebook dashboard, find the Accounts drop-down menu, and select Privacy Settings.

Then choose “Personal Information and Posts”, and click.

Clicking on that link will take you to a page where you can edit who can see what on your Facebook profile. You’ll want to find the drop-down menu across from “Posts by Me.” Choose the Customize option.

That will pop-up the dialog box in the picture.

The green circle is around the drop-down menu that lets you decide if only your friends can see what you post, or friends of your friends, or everyone. Underneath that, you’re networks will be listed. If you check the box next to a network, everyone in that network will be able to see your posts.

Underneath THAT, you’ll see it says “Hide this from” followed by a box labeled “These People.” In that box, you’ll type the name(s) of whomever you are hiding from. (I’m not really hiding from PrincessJenn, but for our purposes, we’ll pretend I am) Then you just hit “Save Changes”

Congratulations! You can now virtually disappear, without causing a ton of drama. Use your new powers wisely, young grasshoppers.

Who will you be hiding from? Feel free to share in the comments!

Nearly every blogger out there has experienced writer’s block. Sometimes you have so  many ideas that you can’t get them down on paper(so to speak) fast enough.

Other times, it feels like you’re struggling just to come up with your first sentence.

What I want to know is what you do when you have a bad case of writer’s block. Do you have any tips or tricks to shake loose an idea? Do you simply give yourself permission not to write? How do you handle it?

I want you to go forth and think on it, then share your thoughts in a post, and on Friday, come back and add a direct link to your post.

See you then!

Oh StumbleUpon.com, you awesome provider of distraction, and enabler of procrastination….I think I love you.

So what is StumbleUpon? It’s kind of a database of sites that are rated by users, and then when you hit the Stumble button, you are sent to one of those sites.  You can also list your preferences, and see sites in certain categories. This also lets StumbleUpon to select from “like-minded Stumblers” when deciding what site to send you off towards. For more explanation, check out their about page.

If you’re interested in signing up, go to this page and register, or go to the main site and click the “Connect with Facebook” button (which only works if you already have a facebook.com account, just FYI) .

So you download your little toolbar and off you go! Your stumble button gives you a random site, and then you can give it a thumbs up (or down..or nothing!), share it on various sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc), view what other people thought of it, or leave a review!

This next part is actually my favorite. Say you’re reading a really awesome blog post. The kind that’s too good not to share. Just hit your little thumbs up button, and if it hasn’t been discovered already, you can add it to the StumbleUpon database! (Sidenote: It’s considered bad manners to only give Thumbs Up to your own content. But I bet you guys could have figured that out!)

It’s a really great tool, not just for discovering new content and info, but also for sharing things you’ve found, and encouraging fellow bloggers.

So give it a try! And come back and leave a link to your profile in the comments. We would love to see what you are loving:)

(And if you are interested, you can find me there as ThePsychobabble)

So it’s Friday! Our assignment this week was a brief introduction of you and/or your blog. Bonus points for linking to your favorite posts. And there is still plenty of time to play along! Just write, publish and come back here to link up!

Be sure to check out the other links along the way; this is a great chance to get to know the people you’ll be partying with at BHAH10:)

Dearest friends,

As much as I love to run my mouth (and trust me, I do!), I’m running out of things to tell you about myself. So I’m going to cheat and take the easy way out give you the opportunity to get to know each other! Yay!

This is how it will work, I’m going to give you a question, and a few days to write up a post. You’ll write said post, answer the question, come back here on Friday, and add your link to the Mr. Linky we’ll have set up.

This first question is both an easy one, and a hard one. Easy because you won’t have to write a ton. Hard because it involves self-promotion, and I know that for some of us, that’s anything but easy!

So for our very first question, your job is to Introduce Yourself!

Yes, I really am taking the easy way out! But what I’d like for you to do, is just give a short introduction to yourself and your blog. Tell us what you are about. For bonus points, link us to a few of your favorite posts that you’ve written, either on your site or elsewhere. Remember to come back Friday to add your link, and to check out what other attendees have written!

I’m really looking forward to getting to know you guys before this August. I think it will make BHAH10 just that much more fun!

Lots of love,

Hello, and welcome to Twitter 101, with your resident unqualified social! media! guru! Be sure to pay attention, as I am assigning homework at the end. ;)

So a few posts back, we looked briefly at joining twitter, and of course, you all rushed out and signed up immediately, right? Let me have my delusions, people!

And then your resident social! media! guru! left you hanging. *ahem* Moving on….

Now that you have a twitter account, you’re kind of wondering what the bloody heck you should be doing with it, no?

What should you be writing, or “tweeting”? Should you be promoting your own blog, and how often is it okay to link to it? Who do you follow? How do you GET followed? Who is @BJBritney and why does she keep offering to send you naked pictures?

All of these are very compelling questions. Let’s start with what you should be tweeting:

Anything you want.

TaDa! You may leave tips in the jar there.

What? Not helpful enough? *sigh* Alright. FINE….

Yes, you can say anything you want, and you should ABSOLUTELY be yourself! That being said, you might want to keep a few thoughts and uses in mind.

1)Think Before You Type Everything you say is at least semi-public

You can lock your twitter stream, so that only approved people can read your tweets. But you can’t control who those approved people might e-mail or tell your tweet to, make sense?

2) Be Original ReTweeting is awesome and annoying

Awesome in that it’s a good tool to spread a link or message that you really enjoyed. But if the vast majority of tweets coming from you are just things that other people already said? You’re going to see followers start to jump ship. Why follow you when they could just follow the people who said it in the first place?

3)Promote Your Writing/Store/Project, but you don’t need to do it 20 times in one hour.

Twitter is a great way to alert your readers (or buyers) that you have posted new stuff. But if you flood their twit-stream with your links, you risk annoying the heck out of them. Which is the opposite of what you wanted to do, right? Personally, I try to limit my linking to 2-3x per item. I aim for AM, PM, and then either one late night, or one the next day.

4)Seeking/Giving Support Twitter has been a virtual support network for many going through a hard time. To be honest, for me, this is one of the biggest draws.

It may seem silly now, but after using twitter for awhile, and connecting with people over it, you’ll find yourself tweeting about your craptastic day, and getting teary-eyed from the virtual hugs and supportive-ness being sent your way. And you, in turn, will see a frustrated tweet from someone, and have this urge to reach through your computer and make them feel better. It’s mind-blowing.

5)Don’t Take It To Personally If someone doesn’t reply to you, it’s likely not because they hate you ever-so-much, it’s more likely they’re busy, or missed your tweet.

As strange as it may seems, I have actually seen people complain that some big name blogger and/or celeb didn’t respond to their tweet. Never mind that the person is question has approximately 200,000 people following them, and @-ing them at any given time…

Okay, I think that’s enough to think about for today. If you have any questions about twitter that you’d like to see answered eventually, or any tips/hints you’d like to add, please leave them in the comments.

In the meantime, you see that Mr. Linky below? That’s for your homework assignment. I want to hear what/why/how you use twitter. Do you use it for keeping track of friends? Promoting your own projects? Is it your support network? Go write it down, post it and then come back and link up so we can see what you’re using twitter for!