It's Been A Year...

Last year I decided to try and give up dessert for one year. I kind of figured it wouldn't last a whole year (since, let's be honest, who hasn't tried to give up sugar countless times?) but this time it stuck. It has been a whole year since delicious chocolate, caramel, sugary goodness has crossed these lips and I was excited to finally break that fast with a piece of Dulce De Leche cake from Extraordinary Desserts while on vacation with my family in San Diego this Christmas break.



The cake was delicious but too rich for this poor chocolate deprived girl and I could only finish 1/4 of it. I proceeded to eat it for breakfast or dinner or a snack the rest of the trip. I am happy to be back to desserts but the fast has helped me to transition it from the base of my food pyramid back up to the tippy top where it belongs!

Training Day

Ok, it was more like training week... but that's not the name of a movie. As I mentioned I recently started a new job. They flew all of their new hires down to San Diego for training. The days were long and jam packed but I learned a lot and had fun exploring San Diego by night with my new coworker/friends



I had already been working for a few weeks before going to training and had been working with a few accounts. While in training, I was able to close my first deal and celebrated... as is tradition, by banging the giant gong in front of my "classmates"

In other news... our training instructor shared this video with us and I cried, I was laughing so hard. Here you go...

Talk to the Moose

An ode to GAP commercials from Christmases past.



They just don't make them like they used to. Or do they? I haven't seen a commercial since the discovering Tivo and Netflix so you tell me.



In other news, I am now employed (and have been for about 3 weeks, hence my lack of posting). I am currently in San Diego for training. The thing I was most excited about for this trip was the gym at the hotel, I fantasized about it all day at the office (when did I start liking exercise this much?).

Say Goodbye To Sunshine*

I'll post about my life or adventures or things like that sometime soon... but for now, this is clearly the most important story.



Some woman is claiming ownership over the sun and wants to put a tax on all of those who use it. I think I'm going to buy the rights to oxygen and not allow her to breath just to stick it to the (wo)man. Crazy Spaniards... first giant tomato fights in the streets and games of tag with angry bulls, now this nonsense? (I still love you though)

* You probably thought this post would have something to do with winter or rainy weather in the Bay. Not so, readers. Not so.

Grease Sing-A-Long

Last night me and a bunch of friends went to a Sing-A-Long showing of Grease at the Castro Theater in San Fran. It's been years since I've watched this movie and I can't think of a better way to reintroduce yourself to an old favorite than to sing along to all your favorite songs with a bunch of strangers. Here's a little something for you folks at home to enjoy!

Rant.

I hate getting towed. I hate tow trucks. They are stupid. They charge way too much. The people are mean.



I had a great day in the city shopping with a friend on Saturday, but when we returned to the spot I had parked my car... there was no car there. We had to take a taxi to an impound lot and pay a $350 (ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?) fee to get the car out. I pulled out the best acting performance of my life trying to make the man feel sorry for me and bump down the price. No luck.

An Oldie but a Goodie

Back in the day I had this song memorized and used to laugh about it and quote it all the time. Ladies and Gentlemen allow myself to reintroduce you to Lazy Sunday...

And God Remembered Rachel

Lately when I go running, instead of listening to music, I've taken to downloading conference talks and listening to those instead. Earlier in the week I was running and this talk came on, which I really liked, hope you do too!

Jessica's Secret

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite products lately, Jessica Smith tested and approved.



Philosophy Miracle Worker: Use these pads on your face every night for a month. I got them at Nordstrom and they are kind of pricey so perhaps as a stocking stuffer or birthday present? They get rid of dark spots, redness from old pimples, and just make your complexion a whole lot better so going without makeup isn't quite as scary.



Morroccan Oil: I'm sure you've heard about it before and I'll say it again. This stuff is great. Put it in your hair after a shower and style. It makes your hair softer, shinier, and healthier without making it feel greasy at all. Get it at nice beauty supply stores like Trade Secret.



I hate hair. I've waxed, threaded, shaved, tweezed, and Nair-ed. This stuff works. It's basically like Nair except it doesn't suck. It gets rid of all your hair in 10 minutes, has an after cream so your skin doesn't get irritated, and it barely smells (and the smell is gone after you wash your hands). Buy it at beauty supply stores like Sally's.

White House Diary

We were wandering around San Francisco yesterday when we stumbled upon a huge crowd of people. When we asked what was going on, someone let us know that Jimmy Carter, aka former US President was inside doing a book signing for his new book "White House Diary". Naturally, we got in line and waited our turn to meet our first President! Please excuse my finger in the way of the picture and pay attention to the important things, how old Jimmy Carter looks and the crazy lady to his right.





Also, I wasn't about to go a single day more without visiting the Full House houses. So we went there too. Between seeing where Michelle Tanner grew up and meeting the man who solved the Iranian Hostage Crisis, I'd say it was a pretty full day.

If Everybody Had An Ocean...

Earlier in the week, me and some friends watched the 1987 cult classic "North Shore"
(check it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093648/). I had never seen it before and it was love at first viewing. You could imagine our excitement later in the week when we found out that Santa Cruz's annual pro surf competition, The Coldwater Classic, was happening this weekend. With the countless viewings of Blue Crush in my lifetime and having lived on Oahu's North Shore, I couldn't believe this the first time I'd been to a real life competition. It was awesome.



Watching the pros got us pumped up and we put on wet suits and caught a few waves of our own. The boys go surfing pretty much every weekend, but since this was my first time they were nice enough to give me some pointers and take turns babysitting me. After a lot of paddling I finally was able to stand up, here's a picture of me hanging ten! Ok, just kidding this is one of the good guys... but I really did stand! I can't wait to get back out there soon!

Don't Be Evil

The Church of Self-Actualization is laying the smack-down. Since my brother in law works at Google, I thought I should warn him and his fellow Googlers about the slanderous advertising that is occurring right down the road on El Camino Real*.



*The opinions expressed by the Ananda Congregation do not represent the views of this particular blogger and have merely been posted for informational purposes.

My Life Is Average

If you haven't already checked out www.mylifeisaverage.com, please do so. Here's a recent favorite of mine.

"My sister asked me to keep my nephew busy while she went to the store. We played hide and seek. An hour later, my sister came home and saw me running in and out of bedrooms. She asked what I was doing. I said that Zach disappeared. She didn't believe me so she started dinner. She opened up the pots and pans cabinet and found Zach. Sitting there patiently, he asked "On a scale of one to Osama Bin Laden, how good was my hiding spot?" Zach's five."

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

I've realized that I have the potential to start my very own non-mom, mom-blog with all the pictures and stories I have accumulated hanging out with my 2 1/2 year old nephew. Since his mom does a pretty good job on the mom blog front, I've decided to go in another direction. You guessed it! Today I will tell you about my adventures with Percy Jackson*.

This week we visited Mt. Tamalpais, home to the Titans: enemies of the Greek gods, mortal threat to human kind, pretty much all around bad guys. They live on Mt. Tam and are led by the Atlas, who is forced to hold up the world on his shoulders. Here are some highlights from our quest**.



We wandered the Muirwoods forest looking for tree nymphs to aid us on our quest.



We traveled through secret tree tunnels in order to enter the Titan's secret lair undetected



Finally, once we reached their lair, Percy's dad Poseidon (god of the Sea) helped us to destroy them by channeling the power of the ocean.



Then we had a victory meal back at Camp Half-Blood. Hurray!



* I realize that 9 out of 10 of you have no idea what I'm talking about. Feel free to ignore this post.
** I also realize that those of you who do know what I'm talking about probably still want to ignore this post. Feel free to do so. Sometimes unemployment gets really boring and I'm forced to think about things like this to entertain myself.

It's A Hard Knock Life

This is what unemployment looks like...

What's My Age Again?

You may be asking what all these fabulous people have in common? Then again, you might not be. It all depends on how smart you are or how well you know me. Yesterday I turned 23 years old, I have been waiting for this year my whole life. For one whole year, no matter what, I will be #23. This year I'm out to prove Blink 182 wrong (I'll let you figure this one out). Let the year of Jessie commence!

I Love You Spot Conlon

Recently I added a Newsies Radio Station to the ranks of my Pandora playlists. For those of you who have never watched this glorious Disney-based-on-a-true-story-musical, I say shame on you. Me and my brother spent a good part of our childhood watching Newsies. And by watching I mean rehearsing the dance moves and acting out the fight scenes. Pay close attention at 3:58 for our favorite move.



I rediscovered this movie with some friends back in high school one rainy Saturday afternoon. Just as this scene in the movie began playing on the screen, I told my friends about how me and my brother used to practice the dancing (specifically the pelvic thrust part) all the time when we were younger. At this moment, my college age brother ran into the room, proceeded to reenact the dance and then ran out without saying a word. Dear Scott, Newsies screening/rehearsal and perhaps a few rounds of DDR sometime soon?

Dear Hippie Moms,

Underwear doesn't count as a swimsuit. Especially your kind of underwear. And your children are definitely too old to be running around butt naked in public. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your families spend the day at the beach doing all sorts of weird things and wanted to take pictures of you, but realized this might have seemed a little bit creepy.

Subtext: I went on a day trip down to Santa Cruz on Friday and enjoyed some sun, sand, ocean, and some pretty weird people. In addition to the beautiful view of the ocean I had from my spot in the picture below, I also watched old bearded Indian men meditate and light all sorts of funky smelling incense while chanting. All in all, I can't wait to go back to the beach again soon!

Third Generation Beatlemania

"Standing There" - Andrew Buskirk

My nephew may be a bigger Beatles fan than I am.

We had a little recording session in the studio last week

when I got to watch him for the day...

I Left My Heart in San Francisco...

The first time I ever visited San Francisco was on a business trip with my dad, I was eight. As always, I was traveling with my favorite stuffed animal, a Gund puppy. It won't surprise most of you to hear that I lost this stuffed animal on the trip. I was beside myself with grief and my dad decided to teach me about the song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and then told me to change "heart" to "Gund puppy" and sing the blues about my loss. Here's to some more fun times in San Fran!

Here's my and the momster in front of my new house in Palo Alto! I had braced myself for something a lot older and grosser in a neighborhood that had couches on the lawns, so I was super excited when I saw my new place!

I've had fun exploring Palo Alto's downtown, big pretty houses, and Stanford' campus. This pictures at the top of the Dish, basically Stanford's version of the Y that overlooks the whole area. L-o-v-e it.

Although I'm new, I've had fun reuniting with the couple of people out here I already know, and meeting some new friends through them too. I've found myself singing the theme song to "Full House" a few too many times in the last couple of days and hoping that maybe if I put myself in harms way, Matthew McConaughey will magically appear to save the day. I'll keep you posted!

Dear Utah,

I will miss you're big, tall, snow capped mountains...

but for now I'm trading them in for some rolling golden hills!

I'm going to miss this little baby tot and her parents and grandparents a whole bunch, plus lots of long time Provo friends who decided to be lame and not follow me on this new adventure.

but I am excited to be a bit closer to this little guy and his parents, not to mention a few old friends and hopefully some new ones!

Me and Momster reached Palo Alto tonight after a day full of driving (12 hours to be exact).

A few of our life lessons from the road:

1) Brian Reagan is still as funny as ever

2) The book "Eat, Pray, Love" is complete trash

3) Reno, Nevada is complete trash.

In other road trip news... picture this: We had just driven over one of many hills, the sun begins to set, San Francisco Bay comes into view, when the radio begins to play Journey's classic "Lights" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pODfbLv2nOo&feature=related). Fate has spoken.

It's Back!!!

If you've spent much time with me recently, you would know that I have fallen into a deep state of depression over the sudden disappearance of my favorite website... This Is Why You're Fat. I spent a few hours researching this anomaly and could not figure out what what had caused some sick person to take away something that had given me so many hours of pure joy! Despite efforts to heal the cracks in my heart with new websites I'd discovered such as Food Porn Daily, Cupcakes and Cashmere, or Bake-A-Rella, I was inconsolable. None of these poor excuses for food blogs could come close to the sheer joy that was the Bacon Lasagna, the Donut Hamburger, or my personal favorite... the Bacon Turtle.

Imagine my surprise today when I typed in my beloved website's address (as I routinely do) and it was back and better than ever! Eyes can't imagine the amazing(ly disgusting, gut renching, heart attack inducing) creations that the restored This is Why You're Fat contained for me. Go ahead, peruse, fall in love like I did, feel like throwing up, but then don't look away, because you can't, it's just too glorious. It's back!

Bouquet of Newly Sharpened Pencils

Today is an historic day. For the first time in 18 years, I did not have a first day of school. No first day of school outfit. No wondering what cute boys would be in my classes. No ten pages syllabus that made me break into cold sweats imagining those nights staying up til 4 am before a research paper was due. No more meeting up with friends on campus for lunch. My career as a student has finally come to an end. All day I kept thinking that maybe I could just go up to BYU anyways? Maybe grab a wrap in the Cougareat? Wander around the library? Take a nap on the grass? I was able to restrain myself today by running errands for my working-mom and planning dinner (how did I go from 0 to housewife so fast?) but I can't promise I won't be having a premature college-reunion later this week.

I thought I would share some memorable first days of school from my past.

1) 7th Grade: Every girl knows that the first day of school was the chance to wear your my stylish new outfit and show off to your friends just how much cooler you had gotten over the summer. This hairstyle reflected what I believed to be the pinnacle of cool 90's style. Behold.

Luckily my mom and brother's combined ridicule made me question myself enough to take it out and thus avoid being made fun of the entire year for my hair (I'm sure there were still plenty of other non-hair related reasons to make fun of me).

2) Freshman Year of High School: My high school, Millburn High School was nationally recognized for the terrible hazing that goes on. I was able to experience this first hand. All freshman girls had to wear a red shirt the first day of school so that the senior girls knew who to target, I like to draw a comparison to Spanish bull fighting here. We were passed out a list of rules we were to follow for the year... one of these rules was "Don't use such and such bathroom, waterfountain, row of gym lockers". Let's just say I used an off-limits bathroom on the first day of school. Big mistake. Those senior girls were mean! The movie Dazed and Confused was their inspiration, this clip should give you an idea:

Senior Mean Girls

3) Junior Year of High School: I decided that I need to do a little eyebrow grooming before the first day of school. Rather than just use tweezers or go to a salon and get them waxed... I decided I would try and wax them myself. Big Mistake. Huge. Luckily I have no pictures to show you.

Hope the rest of you had a great first day of school or had fun reminiscing like I did! In the words of You've Got Mail...

"Don't you love the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies.

I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils."

Real Life's A Trip Too

I've decided it's time for me to start using this blog more often, not just as a pseudo travel journal for myself and a way for my family to make sure that I haven't been stolen by human traffickers while I'm abroad. So start checking back from time to time and hopefully I'll have some funny stories to share. Love, Jess.