real women.

this morning i had a good laugh browsing through some old vintage ads...

(via retronaut.co)

it made me realize that advertising hasn't changed all that much...except now we are told the complete opposite...

and i feel as though it's getting worse...

as i typed in the word "thinspiration" in the search bar of pinterest, 2 thoughts came to my mind: 

1. girls have it rough.

2. does my future/hypothetical daughter have any hope at all?

this isn't a post about size. 

some girls are naturally thin, and some aren't. 

instead of labeling each other, we should try and celebrate 

what we have.

i myself (like many other women) have always struggled with self esteem. it has definitely gotten better the older and wiser i get, but ever so often i catch myself wishing for something more. 

i wish i had a smaller nose. 

i wish i had an excuse to wear a bra. 

i wish i had longer legs. 

i wish i could be satisfied. 

it's hard not to want perfection when every day we are bombarded with ads and celebrities that tell us we aren't good enough. we envy women who have been photoshopped and digitally sculpted, and even if we already know this, we still want to look and be like them. 

instead of idolizing these ideal women, i say we try to aspire to be real women, like these ladies:

ANGELA- sister, math professor, puts the chic in geek

-at 28, has a PHD in doing what she loves 

-has seen every episode of every star trek series 

-loves her soulmate, dylan 

-doesn't like her hips

but those hips just naturally gave birth to the cutest baby girl, kara

DIANA- big sister, logan's mother, and funny partner-in-crime

-loves to travel 

-defends her family

-knows how to laugh until one of us pees our pants 

-has gone through many trials in her life, from bullying in school, horrible first marriages, and having a 3-month premature baby

-but with all of this has made her one of the strongest women i know

LORRI- responsible for my birth, kick-ass cook, and eternal-forgiver 

-had 5 kids in 9 years, went to university, cooked 3 meals a day, worked odd jobs, and still managed to read me "the paperbag princess" every night

-has always believed in her children's potenial

-one of the funniest women i know 

-compassionate, non-judgmental to those around her 

-doesn't like the spare tire she's acquired from traveling so much this year

but her permanent smiley-face deflects it 

KATIE- old-fart lover, domestic bliss achiever, best little sister around

-loves changing old people's diapers

-has the best teeth and hair out of the bunch 

-bungee jumps with no fear 

-sweet, friendly, hard-working, caring

-unfortunately was endowed with the same cursed hips like the rest of us 

but nobody does a better booty-shake than she!  

the list could go on with the women i need to aspire to be: 

-my nana

-my grandma

-my mother-in-law 

-my aunts

-my sisters-in-law

-teachers, girlfriends, etc. 

and then there's the person you need to love the most...YOURSELF

-i wish i didn't have hairy arms (thanks a lot, dad) 

-i wish my profile didn't look like the man in the moon

-i wish my crooked teeth didn't match my crooked nose

but in grade 4 i stuck it to the man by cutting off the ponytail of a boy who was making fun of me. 

we may not be ideal, but we're real.

and you can't put a size on that. 

mother of the year.

mother's day is just around the corner, and what better time to reflect on the women responsible for our successes, or therapy bills respectively. take a look at this year's candidates for the prestigious award of

"MOTHER OF THE YEAR"

(photo via ableandgame on etsy)

will the winner be victoria beckham, who admitted to forgetting one of her kids at home? (phewf...for a second there i was certain that she wasn't human; no one looks that good after popping out 4 babies!)

or will it be jessica simpson, for naming her beautiful baby girl after a coffee brand?

or beyonce, for giving her child an equally entertaining name: blue ivy? 

(daddy's little girl.)

or what about past winners, like courtney love or dina lohan? (those are some pretty heavy shoes to fill.) 

nope, the real winner this year is patricia krentcil, a new jersey mother who got arrested for letting her 5-year old daughter use a tanning bed...

i don't know what's better...

the fact that she looks like she could work for willy wonka 

singing witty renditions about ungrateful children, 

or that she's from new jersey. (GTL FO' LIFE!) 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! 

cageography

do you ever stumble across an ingenius idea and wished you had thought of it first? 


seller jazzberryblue on etsy has done just that.

send him a favorite photo of yourself and for just $12 he will turn you into nic cage. 

(he specializes in bathroom shots taken with your phone)

jazzberryblue, you're going places! i can feel it.

click here to order your own cageography art

(*thank you, mom, for showing this to me*)

revenge is a dish best served smelly...

ben sometimes forgets that he's married to a girl. i occasionally long for the days early on in our courtship where barriers hadn't been broken yet. it's great that he feels comfortable enough to do certain things in front of me that one would only dream of doing in the privacy of their own bathroom (or car)...

but there has got to be limits.

last night, while we were sitting on the couch watching TV ben decided to fart, but instead of blaming the cat or the barking spiders like he usually does, he grabbed his favorite drinking cup and threw "said fart" right into my face. instinctively, i stood up and started to freak out.

"i am a girl, ben!" i yelled. "not your buddy, not your bro...but a GIRL!" 


sitting there pretty pleased with himself, he replied "can you remind me to wash that fart cup before i use it again?"


this morning, as i was still stewing about the unfortunate events that had unfolded the night before, i watched ben go into the kitchen and grab a glass from the counter. a smile came across my face as i recognized which glass he was about to put his lip around.

how does it feel to drink your own fart, ben?! 


(the maturity level in our house is off the farts charts.)

my backbone has a name, and her name is TRACY

i'm somewhat of a passive person.


(that's code for big, fat WHIMP in case you didn't know.) 


i hate confrontation, putting people in awkward situations, and showing my true feelings to anyone. i do stupid things like watch step up 2 twice in one night so i don't offend my friends, or buy mini-refrigerators  for my bedroom so i can avoid telling my roommate to stop eating all my food.

...and this past month has been no different. 


i recently started a new job and i'm really enjoying it so far. i seem to get along with everyone and am slowly learning my way around the office. naturally, there is some anxiety that comes when you're put in a new situation, but for the most part i feel at-ease in my current surroundings.

my coworker doesn't know my name, though. 


for the past two weeks, i've been known as tracy and instead of correcting her like a normal person would, i just go with it. at first i wouldn't respond to her because i really thought she might be talking to someone else, but as the weeks went by i realized that i was in fact, tracy. i have tried to drop subtle hints here and there like spelling my name really big on worksheets whenever she's around, or saying my name louder than usual when introducing myself to clients so she can hear.

it hasn't worked. 

maybe this can be a new beginning for me, though. maybe tracy can be the woman i never was! or the scapegoat i can start using when something goes wrong.

"that wasn't me, tracy did it."


and you know, it kinda has a nice ring to it.

sincerely, 


t.

save the 'jama for yo' mama...

wal mart shoppers across america are rejoicing over the latest trend to hit this season's fashion "it" girls...

i don't know what's better,

looking cheap on the street...

...or classy when you sleep.

(the ever-so-practical "suitjama" for the dapper man in your life)

(go to bed like a boss and get yours here.)

bruce: the hopeless romantic

we decided awhile back to wait until bruce is almost 12 months old to neuter him. we thought this was a safe decision since he is stuck in our apartment suite all day, and free of any girly-cat interaction.

for the past few weeks, though, bruce has been in love. below is video proof of said blossoming romance:

he takes a big bite of blanket, and lets the magic happen...

maybe it's the leopard-print. 

or maybe the softness of it. 

either way, our little bruce is in love.

an awfully awful day.

today was the worst. 

for starters, i had to get up at 6:30 this morning and didn't fall asleep until well after 1am. i hopped into bed around 10, but a "certain cat" decided it'd be fun to attack my face in 5 minute intervals, before i eventually kicked him out of my room. but, since this boob of a cat hates to be alone in the dark, he cried at my door until i let him in again. this cycle went on for a few hours, until i was at my wit's end and got up and gave bruce an entire can of fancy feast.

i find feeding him until his stomach explodes settles him down quite nicely.

it felt like i had just laid my head on my pillow when my alarm went off to get up. i was so groggy i could barely open my eyes. (it didn't help that i had just gotten eyelash extensions and asked for the "obnoxious" length making it really hard to see, since my upper lid lashes somehow fused together with the lower ones overnight.)

anyway, i was tired. 

i slowly got up and went to the kitchen. i poured some cereal for myself and grabbed a spoon. which turned out to be a fork, but i was to lazy to care.

so i ate my corn pops with a fork. 


i finally pulled myself together to throw on some scrubs, untwined my porn star eyelashes, and went to grab my lunch from the fridge.

it turns out i put the cereal box in the fridge, and the milk in the cupboard. 


i walked outside only to find that it had snowed the night before. i turned on my car, and did the "ice scraping dance" until i realized that nothing was coming off the windshield.

it's pretty tough to remove anything from the windshield when you're using the brush-end.


i drove to work and was having a really rough morning until one patient said the nicest thing (i think?) to me. he turned to me after i finished cleaning his teeth, and said,

"you're top class, girl!" 


although it was more like "top clash" seeing as he only had 4 teeth left in his mouth.

either way, it made me think. this guy had no idea what kind of morning i had, and in his own little way he went out of his way to compliment me. i'm pretty sure i was half asleep while i cleaned his teeth, but apparently that was good enough for him.

i had a much better day after that. 


until...


i got home from work and was greeted by an entire roll of toilet paper completely shredded to pieces and displaced around the whole apartment, with a guilty kitten sitting in the middle of the mess.

i could have locked him in the coat closet for 3 hours again (i'm kidding...that was totally an accident) but instead i smiled and cuddled bruce, until he bit my nose and scratched me 'til i bled.

come on, could you be mad at a cat who knows how to use facetime? 

i didn't think so.

dear oscar, i'm over you...and other reasons why i won't be watching the awards this sunday

i love the movies!

from the simple and predictable kind, to twisted, mind-bending thrillers. every february i get excited about the oscars, and try to watch as many of the nominations as i can before hand.

but...2011 sucked for movies.

i can count on one finger how many good movies came out this past year: puss in boots.

(and i'm being completely serious when i say this.)

am i right, though? i have only watched 2 of the movies up for best picture, and they were both mediocre. the first one i watched was the tree of life, and i was really excited for this one since i had heard it had been written by a psychiatrist. 

after painfully sitting through 2 hours and 19 minutes of this film, i still have no idea what it's about. i dozed off for 2 seconds and woke up to dinosaurs fighting, and jessica chastain floating and dancing around in the air. its long, drawn out scenes were almost unbearable (like disney's fantasia...on LSD), and i'm beginning to think that brad pitt probably shouldn't be raising children.  i usually have a pretty good sense of figuring out the hidden message in films, but this one obviously wasn't meant to be found. after reading a review of the film, the writer said that people were either going to love it, or hate it (naturally) and it took 3-4 times watching the movie to understand it.

really? you expect us to watch this movie at least 3 more times? i'm already trying to make up for the 2 hours and 19 minutes that i lost! 

the other best picture nomination i saw was the descendants,  and i actually really liked this film...but not enough to warrant an award. i liked the story, which was originally a book, and since we lived in hawaii we were able to understand a bit of the history behind it.

i do think george clooney deserves an oscar for his performance, though. rarely do we see him portrayed as a passive aggressive character. he's always played the confident, almost alpha-male type, and i can't think of anyone else who pulls off that salt and pepper hairstyle as good as the clooneski does...for that he deserves a major award!

i read somewhere, though, that critics were saying the lady who played clooney's coma-toast wife should receive an oscar for her performance...and i'll give you a preview of her award-worthy work so you can form an opinion of your own:

  (no, lindsay lohan didn't make a cameo...but you get the idea. i'm sure it takes a lot of talent to
play a coma-induced patient for an entire film. no lines, no movement, nothing. groundbreaking stuff, right?)

 i know i probably should watch the 7 other nominations before i completely peace-out 2011, but i probably won't.  

they just don't really appeal to me. 

war horse for instance. i have never been a huge fan of horses. the last time i came into contact with a horse, it mistook my hair for hay and ate half of my scalp off. and hugo: if i wanted to see sacha baren cohen run around in a frenzy, but naked, i'd watch borat. and i think i've already seen enough of the help on pinterest to know what that's all about: 

"you is kind, 

you is smart, 

you is important." 

(just kidding.)

do you "play the part" on valentine's day?

february 15th. 

the morning after valentine's day where we either take advantage of the 50% off all chocolate in stores, or reflect on the night before spent with your lover (or the pint of haagen dasz you wedged in between your thighs while watching "must love dogs" on the w network...and yes, i'm referring to personal past experience).  

to each their own, right?


but for one couple from portland, their special day ended on a slightly unconventional note...

around 12:35pm yesterday, portland police got a call that a naked woman had been tied up and gagged and thrown in the back of a car.

"Nikolas Harbar, 31, told police he and his girlfriend, Stephanie Pelzner, 26, were participating in some role-playing for Valentine's Day. Pelzner said she was voluntarily naked and tied up, according to a police report. Officers arrested the couple on charges of disorderly conduct in the second degree. They were both taken to the Multnomah County Jail."

"'Role-play all you want,' said Sgt. Pete Simpson. 'But when you do something that is going to generate a 911 call you should probably do it at home.'"

(read the whole article here.) 

 

  at least "clive and julianna" waited until dark to get their role-play game on...

unfortunately (fortunately?), ben and i aren't nearly as adventurous as some. we went out to eat and ordered a heart-shaped pizza, which in return made us entirely too bloated the rest of the night, resulting in passing out at home at around 11pm. 

and it was perfect. 

we'll leave the role-playing to portlandia weirdos, and modern family.

FEBRUARY 11: A DAY TO REMEMBER

no...this isn't a tribute to the late pop-diva, even though i am deeply saddened by her loss! who can forget that one scene from the bodyguard where kevin costner cuts whitney houston's silk scarf with a crazy sharp samurai sword? or when he carries her out in the pouring rain?

it was one of the first movies that tugged on my little heart strings as a five year old girl...


that, and aladdin...

anyway...

february 11 was in fact my birthday before whitney houston died, and it turned out to be a pretty good day. ben made me breakfast and i got a sewing machine from him and my family (does anyone want to come over and teach me how to use it now??). i went and got a facial, had lunch with my family, and had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon (i had a rough go the night before and was exhausted...i would tell you but i'll spare you the details*cough*explosive*cough*bowel movements*cough*cough*). 

a few of my friends told me that turning 25 sucked for them. that your body starts doing weird things and reality sets in a bit deeper that you're actually aging. 

i, however, feel like i have accomplished a lot so far, and feel pretty good about this so-called aging process: 

-i have all my limbs still securely attached to my body

-i finished school 

-i still know all the lyrics to "nuthin' by a g thang" 

-i'm in a great relationship 

-i have no debt

-and i feel more content than ever

there are some things that 25 inevitably brings, though: 

-i have crazy alien acne, that apparently has no cure 

-it doesn't matter how many hours of yoga i do, i still can't touch my toes 

-i finally realized that the dryer wasn't shrinking my jeans (my butt was) 

-i still can't tell time, or count money 

-i haven't found permanent employment 

-and i can't even eat greasy popcorn anymore without getting *cough*explosive*cough*bowel movements*cough*cough*

i am definitely not the same girl i was 5 years ago, both physically and mentally...and i'm ok with that. i think of that 20 year old girl and i wish i could go back in time and tell her that everything was going to turn out alright...that she had nothing to worry about. but then again, my 30 year old self will probably be telling myself right now the very same thing in 5 years...

...and so forth. 

(my new sewing machine...if my grade 9 home ec teacher could see me now!) 

(a gift from my brother in-law nathan...a signed book by bill nye, the science guy!)

(ben made me a carrot cake, which is my favorite, and spent 30 minutes picking out all the raisins in the cake mix 'cuz he knows how much i hate them...that's love right there, people!)

(and i ended up winning our apartment building's february draw: popcorn, scented candles, and the blockbuster hit "ghost"*)

you can't escape growing old, 

but you can certainly have fun doing it!

*ok...there were only 3 people that entered the february draw...and one of them was ben...so the odds were in our favor either way.*

who knew the doors to heaven were SO exclusive...

 
a couple of weeks ago, i came across an ad on kijiji for an opportunity for a dental hygienist to go to costa rica on a humanitarian trip. this is something i have always wanted to do, so of course i quickly replied.

then things got a little weird.

i received an email from a guy named "brad" from a church organization (which isn't weird, they do these sorta trips all the time, and brad's a pretty common name, right?) saying that i needed to go to the website for the trip and fill out an application form, and that he was delighted that i wanted to be involved. i wrote back and asked if ben was allowed to come too, and he replied of course, the more the merrier! 

so i go to the website, and while filling out the application form i noticed they wanted me to complete a "prayer roll" which would consist of a list of people who would be praying for me to go on this trip. now, i have nothing against praying, i myself am quite fervent in my prayers (i have been praying for a c-cup sized bra for years now) but i had never come across such a thing as a "prayer roll" and i really was only going to do hygiene work so i crossed that section out and faxed my application in.


i get a call last night from a "ken" saying he received my application form but was wondering why i crossed out a few sections. i told him that i understood they were a church group, and i respected that, but that i didn't think some of the application form applied to me since i was specifically going to do hygiene work. he then asked me if i had any religious history, and i said yes. he asked if i was affiliated with his church, i said no, and then he asked if i understood that this was an evangelical humanitarian trip and that a lot of it would consist of missionary work. i said i perfectly understood that this was a church trip and that i would respect and even participate in anything they wanted me to do. i have always had an open mind to different religions, and thought it would be an interesting experience to see how theirs differ from my own beliefs.

ken said he would get back to me later that week.

this morning, both ben and i received emails from ken saying that our application had been rejected. it went something like this:

"In reviewing all the applications recently sent in  preferences were given to fully completed written application forms.Because of your interest in humanitarian mission work I would encourage you to search for organizations in the Lethbridge area where you can plug into a local team."

you can imagine how good we were feeling about ourselves. we had been rejected...for a humanitarian trip...

a trip that we were planning to pay for ourselves, and render our services...free of charge? 

it's just like the one time i saw an ad in the newspaper that said the local animal humane society needed volunteers to come and play with the animals a few nights a week. i quickly applied and set up an appointment to meet with the woman in charge. after our meeting, the interviewer told me that she didn't think i would be a good fit for the animals, but thanked me for my interest anyway.


(i probably should have skipped the story about the one time we accidentally let our cat eat speedy, our beloved pet gerbil.)


...or the time i applied to become a member of the "big foot society" and even said i would love to be a part of their next "hunt". 

they never contacted me. 

feeling a little hurt, i sent ken a quick email back:


Thanks Ken, we appreciate you letting us know.

I think for future reference though you need to be more descriptive on your Kijiji ad in letting people know what exactly you're looking for. We were willing to pay our own way and make arrangements so we could meet for some of the projects that are planned. Who knew you could get rejected from a "humanitarian" trip?

Regards,

Sara.

is it wrong for me to feel slighted? would i have gotten a different answer if i had filled out the prayer roll? should it really matter what religion you are, or aren't?

a part of me wants to go on the trip anyway, set up camp right beside theirs and advertise "free copies of the golden compass with every cleaning" just to stir things up...

but now i'm thinking i'll just go to costa rica to tan and surf.