Happy Wednesday!

Don’t forget, if you want to get in the running for a copy of Just Between You and Me, just follow the directions from Monday’s post. Winner announced Friday. As in my third day of school Friday. I’m enjoying your “must have” products.  A reader’s response reminded me that I, too, must always have a Pilot extra fine pen on hand. Always.  And a classical novel like War and Peace. The Russian translation of course. For a little light reading at stop lights. Okay, not really. But I do usually have aspartame-free gum.

Our first day back was great. The parents were great! The kids couldn’t have been any better had they stayed home (which my “Welcome Back” postcards specifically asked them to do…).  We have a lot of changes this year though. A lot that are pro-academics, a lot that are pro-student. But one of the changes? Are you sitting down? Teachers can no longer wear. . .flip flops. I KNOW!!!! I’m pretty distraught. We all are. It’s a devastating blow, and I’m reeling, guys. I’m just reeling. In fact, I’m so hurt I’ve decided to write some Flip Flop haikus to  minister to my fellow colleagues.

Flip Flops

Shoes of comfyness
You are cushy to my feet
And to my very soul.

Flip Flops II

My anger burns hot
As hot as flops are not hot
Cuz they are too nice

That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? You know who else wouldn’t like this new dress code restriction? Dogs. Like this one. Be sure and watch through the minute marker. It’s the funniest.

Have you seen this amazing dog?

Here’s a cat that’s not nearly as talented.

That is so my cat. Like “I know I’m supposed to do something here, but dang if I know what it is.”

Okay, I have to cut this short. I actually have today off, but we are moving my grandmother with Alzheimers to an assisted living home today. It is not gonna be a fun day. Say a prayer for us. We  are hoping she can stay in this awesome facility for a while vs. going straight to a nursing home. Alzheimers is yucky business. It does not make me want to write Pulitzer-worthy haikus.

This is the official first day back to school for most of Arkansas, so have a great day at school if that includes you! I will be dedicating my day to moving…and shoe shopping.

JEN

5 comments

Wow! You guys are the best. I loved reading all your fears. That’s right I just said your fears were madly entertaining. It did worry me though how many of them (and I mean like 99.9%) I agreed with. Maybe some of us would have shorter lists if we listed what we WEREN’T afraid of. BUT due to the big comment turnout, I picked three winners instead of two. And by picked, I mean, I used my handy dandy random number generator I got off the information super highway. The winners of Just Between You and Me are:

1. Lauren
2. Tammy (seriously–who said she felt this was her lucky day–I totally did not rig that!!!)
3. Katherine B.
Ladies, just email me (jen at jennybjones dot com) your mailing addys.  I don’t have the books yet, so you’ll receive them in 3-5 weeks or so.

Quite a few of you mentioned being afraid of your first day back at school, whether it be junior high/high school or college. Let me unplug from the sass for a moment and tell you that you have been prayed for today. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be the new kid. I never moved growing up, so I was one of those intimidating people you had to meet. But as an adult, I am constantly so jealous of the people skills movers have vs. those of us who inherited our friends because we all grew up in the same town. I have few “getting to know you” skills.  And believe me, walking up to someone and just staring is not effective. So for those of you who have had to move one or more times, I think this is one of the best things that could happen to you. You get skills that you are gonna totally need later in life. And for those of you who encounter newbies at your school, make an effort to reach out to the new folk. And not just the cute boy new folk. (Though by all means, you must extend your kindness to them as well, burden though it will be.)   I wasn’t Miss Kindness to newbies (or to a whole list of others, but that is a boring collection of information), and I regret that as well. As a teacher, my heart always goes out to those who don’t have buddies. Y’all don’t want to be thirty something and regret snubbing people in high school. That’s a wasted regret. A more worthwhile regret? Not eating chocolate mini donuts in mass quantities when your metabolism was still touched by angels.

There was once this girl who came to our school when I was in the seventh grade. She was so different. Not like the rest of us who were like fourth generation attenders of this junior high. And because no one–like me–talked to her, she had to sit at lunch by herself. Well, not exactly by herself. She would talk to the salt and pepper shakers. (Kids, once upon a time, the school trusted students with salt and pepper shakers and they were left on the table. Ketchup bottles could also be found. They were free, happy times.) When she moved on to conversing with the napkin holders, her reputation was sunk. Or was it? I personally had nothing to do with her. Her behavior was…unique. And I was of perfectly sound mind. Flash forward two years later, and due to constantly being thrown together and bonding over some really horrible band uniforms, a flare for homemade jokes, and dad stories, we were really good friends. She’s still one of my BFFs. And I remember being shocked at all we had in common. Those commonalities never included an inclination to talk to tableware, but whatever. Just goes to show you can’t always judge someone by first impressions.  Or by their affinity to Morton table salt.

Thanks to friend and fellow writer Danica Favorite and her Twittery tweets, I have discovered Dave Crowder’s Rockumentaries. It’s a great way to spend a Sunday night when you’re supposed to be writing, reading, preparing for school, spending quiet/reflective time with the Lord, perfecting my downward dog, or watching a Desperate Housewives rerun.

Here’s Episode III. I’ve watched them all, and I have to say Jack is my absolute favorite band member. He totally needs his own show. Or to at least a starring role on The Big Bang Theory.

Everyone seems to be joining Twitter these days. And sounding off about it.

Even Louie Giglio.

And I think we all know I would agree with Giglio about boring Tweets. They drive me nuts. I read one last month that read “I am buying shampoo.” I couldn’t hardly go to sleep that night because I was hanging over the cliff of “what could possibly come next?” by my very fingernails. I never got a conditioner selection update, which was a huge letdown.

Today I have real school. Not inservice. Not a meeting. But students. And their parents. It’s funny (and when I say funny, I mean maddening to the point I sprout a vein in my forehead), but parents can be the worst audience members. We have this back to school day where parents go to class alllll day with their kids. So I talk briefly about my class, tell them my most important rule (students must bring me cash daily I don’t accept late work/zeroes are written in my gradebook in blood), and then we do an ice breaker game. And what are some parents doing while I’m talking? Taking calls, texting, speaking loudly to someone next to them. I’m SURE they are just helping out by modeling what NOT to do, but it really makes my hand itch for a taser. The one I keep hidden in the back of my top desk drawer in a box labeled “extra markers.”

So let’s do another book giveaway. This is for a copy of the soon-to-be released Just Between You and Me. In the book, Maggie Montgomery always has candy on hand–Jolly Ranchers, SweetTarts, chocolate. What is a product you are dependent on? For example, I love L’oreal Extra Volume Collagen mascara. I used to be a die-hard Voluminous user, but after finding this stuff–I’m sold. And I have used Cetaphil soap to wash my face forever. My mom is a fan too. I always have some Burts Bees lip stuff on hand. Any products you swear by? Leave a comment and tell me all about it, and you’ll be entered to win a copy of the new book. And just a reminder, this is not a YA book. It’s appropriate for teens, but Maggie? She’s the ripe old age of 3-0. Ancient, right? ; )   You have until Thursday night to leave a comment. I’ll announce the winner Friday. If I have any strength left to blog. After my return to teaching and all.

Pray for me, y’all. I gotta be an educator today.
And wear heels.

JEN

32 comments

How is it Wednesday already? (Actually, how is it NOT Christmas break already?)  I have endured, survived, and championed my way through the first day of school. No kids til next week, so things are still pretty easy. Actually I am blessed with the best schedule EVER this year, so I have zero reasons to complain. About school anyway. So let me pick something else…

I am the take-it-home-and-then-try-on-take-it-all-back-later queen. Like right now I have 15 pairs of flats in my house. FIFTEEN. Is it REALLY that hard to make a ballet flat that you can tolerate longer than 10 minutes? I would think it would be the easiest shoe in the world to make. It’s not like a heel, where you have to take gravity and ankle joints into consideration. But every flat I try. . .AWFUL.  But how cool is this–Tuesday I tweeted about coming home to a big box of Zappos, and Zappos retweeted me!!! Zappos! My heroes of footwear! The people who are CRAZY to even let me shop there anymore because for every 40 pair I order, I only keep like one and return the rest. On their dime. It’s out of control.

So the release date for Just Between You and Me is mere weeks away. How about we give away some copies? The book is about Maggie Montgomery, a thirty-year old woman who lives a seemingly fearless life. She travels the world as a cinematographer for a TV show and loves nothing better than to parachute out of planes or scale a mountain. But with one phone call from her father back home, her careful facade crumbles. In the novel Maggie has to face some pretty big fears she has, knowing if she doesn’t let go and truly surrender them, life is never going to be what it needs to be. The most obvious fear of hers is water. She’s not-so-secretly afraid of water. SO…this week’s question of the week is: What are you afraid of? And you don’t have to get deep and serious if you don’t want to. For example, I’m afraid of tons of things.

1. We know I’m afraid of plane rides.

2. And heights.

3. But I’m also afraid of getting a lunar eclipe and a solar eclipse mixed up and looking directly at the wrong one and my eyeballs burning out of the sockets like a zombie.

4. I’m afraid of vitamins that are unnecessarily the size of my fist.

5. I’m afraid of being by myself when I choke because I will never be able to throw myself against the corner of a table and will have to just lie down on the floor and patiently wait for death.

6. I’m afraid I’ll  use the incorrect form of lay or lie. Like for item number five? I had to look that up.

7. I’m afraid of I’m never going to find a picture/piece of art to go over my mantle. (speaking of excessive purchases and returns…)

8. I’m afraid of getting stuck in an elevator with Clay Aiken, Judge Judy, and a midget wrestler.

9. I’m afraid the fact that I cannot find a decent pair of black flats and have purchased over 20 is a sad metaphor for something else in my life.

10. Peas

11. Women who shower in perfume that smells like the stuff that I use to kill wasps.

12. How my family would fight over custody of my cat if I should pass on to the great catless beyond.

13. That someone might look close and notice where I’ve drawn a stick horse in the dust on my buffet table.

14. That anchovies and I will ever meet.

15. The things that come out of Dr. Oz’s mouth.

16. OctoMom’s reality show.

17. Britney Spears as the new face of Candies. That’s Candies–as in apparel for teen girls.

18. Stickers that don’t come off things you purchase. But you know they should.

19. Leg warmers redux.

20.The fate of the massive amount of Christmas decorations I stuck up in the attic about 6 years ago.

21. David Hasselhoff

I’m just getting warmed up! I could do that all day long! You have through Friday evening to leave a comment. I’ll announce the winners next Monday in honor of my first day with freshmen. Just let me know at least one thing that is scary to you, light hearted or serious. Whichever! Can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

In case you need some research help for your answer, you can always text these people:

Tee-hee. That makes me laugh. Have a great rest of the week.

JEN

62 comments

So. It’s Monday. And tomorrow I report back to school. I’m a tiny bit sad. Teaching is cool, but summer is the best. And as I say often, I do summer very well. I mean, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m just good at summer. When you get the back-to-school blues, there’s only one thing that can help…and that’s Carlton Banks.

Or maybe this one.

I’ve been watching those over and over, trying to get my happy on. Between that and the Fruit Loops, it has helped.

I saw Julie and Julia this weekend. It was pretty good. The first half was excellent. I fell in love with the first half. Meryl Streep was just phenomenal as Julia Child. And the movie has fave Stanley Tucci (who lost his wife to cancer just a few months ago), as well as Jane Lynch, now of Glee. She is not a wise-acre in this movie at all. I’ve never seen her as anything but. I vaguely remember watching Julia Child’s TV show as a young child with my grandmother, but I do not recall her being so full of life and joy as she apparently was. It was truly inspiring to see Julia’s positivity and sense of fun and fearlessness. And there were a few lines that if you didn’t know some back story, you wouldn’t catch it. If you see it, look for the dinner party scene in which Julia and her husband’s friends ask the husband if he was ever a spy. It’s funny given the fact that after Julia’s death it was revealed that SHE was a spy in her early years. Anyway, the second half…the second half was when I started remembering that this is a movie about cooking. And I don’t like to cook. And I had only eaten a brownie for lunch. And I was starving. And the movie is a bit longish. But cinematically it’s beautiful, and if Meryl Streep doesn’t win an Oscar (especially after being robbed for Doubt), then our world is cracked in the skull.

Previews are my favorite part of movies though. I live for them. In fact, if I can’t get to the show in time to catch the previews, I don’t want to go. There’s something magical about seeing something “coming soon,” something that is two minutes of the best clips they’ve got. I might’ve posted this clip already, but Gilmore Girls fans, Alexis Bleidel is back in Post Grad. Looks pretty good.

They showed this preview before Julie and Julia, and I was all teared up. School related or struggling kid movies ALWAYS get me. Check out Blindside, starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. I think it was on Natalie Lloyd’s blog where she said she hated fake Southern accents. I TOTALLY agree. I think every God loving Southern girl does. And sometimes the accent can be pretty true to a specific region, like Sandra’s in the preview, but because you KNOW she has a twangless voice, it’s just too much. Who cares about accuracy–tone it down just a bit for tolerability.

Love Happens with Jennifer Aniston looks good.  And it has Aaron Eckhart in it, which is a plus. I disliked him to the point of continuously laughing out loud at his role in The Dark Knight, so I really want this movie to be solid for his sake and for Jennifer’s. Team Aniston needs a home run. And Aaron? Well, he just needs to be in a movie where he doesn’t have a dangling eyeball.

Then there’s Open Road with Justin Timberlake. Um…I dunno.

I’m glad to see J-T in a movie–especially in the lead because I think it’s about time he tested those wings. He is simply THE BEST guest host on Saturday Night Live. But Britney’s movie was Crossroads. And this one? Open Road. And both about–road trips. I think the dual roadness is a bad, bad omen. He should’ve avoided.

So interesting article on Self magazine’s September “body confidence” issue. You can read it HERE.  I’m so sick of air brushing, I could barf cellulite. This Self article popped up the same week pictures of Twiggy, new model for Oil of Olay, showed some serious Photoshopping. Check it OUT. That is some good moisturizer… And in case Self is wondering what to do with the rest of Kelly’s arms they erased, maybe donate the extra flesh HERE?

For those of you digging 500 Days of Summer, which I have yet to see, check out the dance video they created. Kinda cute.

Last weekend I saw Wicked with my lovely mother and aunt in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you ever get a chance, you HAVE to see it. This was my second time to catch it, and it still blows me away. I thought the book Wicked was depressing and dark and disturbing. So it’s crazy that the same author could take his work and flip it so much and create this play. I mean it’s night and day–the difference between the two. The musical is happy and beautiful and funny and just freakin’ brilliant. It’s the back story of The Wizard of Oz and explains what happened before Dorothy showed up in town. Why is the Wicked Witch wicked? Or…is she? Why is Glinda the good witch…or is she? NOTHING is what it seems, and I love that Maguire can full the sheet off of any story like that. So many story elements that just make you think “OH MY GOSH, how did that guy come up with that? It’s perfect!” Maybe Gregory Maguire watches Carlton Banks for inspiration too. . .

Okay, I must go. I have to spend my last day of freedom doing glamorous things like laundry and cleaning. Because nothing says celebrating the final day of vacation like Tide and Endust. Have a great week! Wednesday…Just Between You and Me giveaways.

JEN

12 comments

Congrats to Alexis for winning books 1-4 of the It’s All About Us series. Alexis, email me (jen at jennybjones dot com) and let me know where to send the books. And thanks to everyone for playing along. I think that was one of my favorite blog questions!

Loved reading your comments and favorite books of 2009. I should’ve picked one of your books to read instead of the one I read last night/this morning. It got such good initial reviews on Amazon, and it’s a good author, but…UGH. ICK. GAG. YAWN. And normally when I dislike a book within the first fifty pages or so, I’m done. But I kept reading thinking it would pick up any moment. It did not. It’s sheer crappiness kept me up ’til 2:30 a.m. And then a friend (now ex friend) called me at 7:45 just because, waking me from my Icky Book Hangover, and that call combined with wasting my life on a bad novel= I started my Friday ticked, and OF COURSE had to go to McDonald’s for the antidote in the form of tea and a breakfast burrito.

So this is my last Friday of summer vacation. I’m really trying to get a good attitude about this. But that may require more fast food, shoe buying, and ice cream. I’m hearing of students and teachers in other states ALREADY back at school. WHAT IS THIS SUMMER ABUSE? That is insane. It’s early August!  Where is Jesse Jackson when you need him? Al Sharpton, did you hear about this? Greenpeace, fly your your Rainbow Warrior flag because this is a crime against our planet. Bill Clinton, load up on a plane and intercede once again! Anyway, teachers and students back in school, you have my deepest sympathies.

Speaking of Bill, did you guys see the two kidnapped journalists land in America this week? I totally got misty eyed watching one reporter’s four year old daughter. She was so excited to see mom “returning from work,” she couldn’t stand still for a second. And then I teared up again when Lisa Ling’s sister made a statement and said they were mentally preparing for 12 years of labor camp, then got called out of their cells.  They walk into a room and immediately see Bill Clinton. CAN YOU IMAGINE? It’s like I was there when she was talking. I don’t care how you feel about Democrats, Liberals, or presidents who make the entire male species look like Deuce Bigalow,  if you were facing the horrible unknown in a psycho Communist country run by a man who uses nukes for chess pieces, you would PASS OUT with giddy love for William J. Clinton. I thought it was such a strange, interesting story. I don’t write the darker stuff, but I couldn’t help but think, what if this was a novel? What if THIS had happened instead of THAT? What if they had been gone longer? What would that do to their marriages? Their family ties? Their mental states? Their faith? Their highlighting roots?

Have I posted the trailer to Whip It? (Stay with me, this blog is rated PG today.) If I have not, OH MY GOSH. I found this about a month ago, and sent it to a ton of people. (Oh, unintentional marketing, you get me all the time!) I hope this is as good as it looks.

I think the release date is a tentative October of this year. In the words of the Beatles, let it be. Let it be.

So I’m starting a new book. But beginnings are really hard for me. So is the middle actually. Okay, and endings. But beginnings? Wow, tough. Overhwelming. Scary. It’s kind of like waking up one day, packing a few belongings in your car and just driving to a new state to live. You know nothing, no one,  no direction, and all you do have are the Golden Arches, yoga pants, and the occasional Starbucks to keep you company. What are things in books you don’t see but would like to? (Reminder: Today’s blog is brought to you by the letters P and G.) For example, one reader friend has mentioned to me that she’d like to see home schoolers in a book. I think that’s such a good suggestion. There is a home schooler in the third A Charmed Life book. And while she’s a really cool girl, she’s not the main character.  Probably time a home schooler got to be center stage.

I’ve said this to the point of making people gag, but I’d love to see more vamp books in Christian fiction. I am really excited about Tracey Bateman’s upcoming vampy release Thirsty. Love that title and cover. And then there’s Eric Wilson’s Jerusalem’s Undead trilogy. But so far, the vampy business has not hit inspy YA. Maybe we could have a home schooled teenage vampire?  Call it Fieldtrips and Fangs? Home and Howling?

In our imaginary suggestion box, I’d also submit that I’d like to see more humor. In everything. Secular books. Christian books. TV. Church. Jillian Michaels workout videos. The DMV. So what about you? What is missing from fiction lately these days for you?

Okay, I have a dessert get together with a friend, then it’s time to watch Julie and Julia, where I will stare at the screen in confusion over the J’s mutual passion for something called cooking.

Have a great weekend. Next week…the first giveaways of the vampire free Just Between You and Me.

JEN

14 comments