Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is my blog. I'm 25 years old, I'm a wife, lover, mother, friend, freelance writer, blogger, photographer, and so much 
Tonight my mom and I got into a bit of an argument. Early last week the kids and I were at her house for a few hours, and while we were there Alyssa asked my mom if she could spend the night. Since it was a school night, my mom told Alyssa she could spend the weekend instead. So Friday afternoon rolled around, and after the kids ate lunch, played for a while and had some quiet time, I helped Alyssa pack her bag and then took her over to my mom’s. Early this evening I called my mom to find out about picking up Alyssa, and we agreed that she would bring her over and stay for dinner. While I had my mom on the phone I asked if Alyssa could spend a night with her next weekend, since Danielle and Matt might be coming to visit. Instead of a simple yes or no she blows up and starts going on about dealing with my kids for three weekends in a row (she says three because I asked her to babysit for Dan and I on February 14th; I also offered to pay her for babysitting, and to buy her whatever she wanted to have for dinner that evening), that she doesn’t want to be dealing with my kids, blah blah blah. WTF? I don’t get her. She offered to have Alyssa this weekend, and I asked her a few weeks ago about Valentine’s Day and offers to pay. Believe me, my mom isn’t here very often, and the kids and I were at her house last week for the first time in MONTHS. I think she last babysat for us for about two hours last week, while Dan and I were meeting with our lawyer. Before then? Sometime before Christmas.
I made some kind of crack about not seeing the big deal about spending time with Alyssa and Ryan every now and again, especially since she has nothing else going on in her life, and she responded with some rambly response about not judging her, just like she doesn’t judge me, or voice her disagreement with decisions I’ve made, blah blah blah, just like she’s not judging me for the decisions I’ve made over the past few months, blah blah blah. I was so irritated and annoyed and just eager to get off the phone and not deal with her crap that I didn’t bother to ask, but I think I already know what it is that she’s talking about:
Jason.
For god knows what reason, she has an issue with my friendship with Jason. She lectures me about being friends with him, that it’s not appropriate to have a friend of the opposite sex, especially one who’s willing to do so much, there must be some deeper feelings involved (on his part; she didn’t accuse me of that, amazingly), blah blah freaking blah. She even insinuated that Dan doesn’t care or isn’t man enough to “take care of the problem”.
Nevermind the fact that Jason and I are strictly friends, we have always been just friends.
Nevermind the fact that Jason and Dan are also friends; the three of us are friends and the three of us do things together. Sometimes Dan and Jason do things together, other times Jason and I do things together.
Also nevermind the fact that my mom had not one but two male friends that she ran around with when she was married to my dad, and then again when she was single. She also cheated on my dad with one of them.
So let’s see, at least one person made all sorts of insinuations about Jason and I on Formspring, including that I’m obviously having sex with him, so why don’t I brag about that like I do about Dan? And my mom thinks it’s “inappropriate” and that we shouldn’t be friends, I shouldn’t hang out with Jason so much, Dan shouldn’t tolerate it, etc.
WTF, people? It’s 2010. Platonic friendships ARE possible.
On Friday I faithfully dragged my camera around me to record everything that I did all day. Of course that evening I wound up doing a few extra errands, so I got home late, and dinner was on the table late, so we all ate late, and went to bed late… but oh well. Friday was my DITL, and if it wasn’t a normal one, so be it. Here is the entire photoset, and here are a few shots from the day:
I could happily fall into bed right now, but Jason (yeah, him, the guy who just so happens to be my best friend — and Dan’s — but not my lover, as some would like to believe and insinuate. Yes, I have a guy around that I am not fucking. Amazing!) is here and in the middle of making homemade jalapeno poppers (one of my most favorite foods ever!), so I don’t want to be rude and run off when he’s been busy prepping and cooking. But damn am I sleepy. I’m full from dinner, which consisted of homemade pancakes (made by yours truly), bacon (made by Jason) and an absolutely divine egg, ham & cheese souffle (also made by Jason). My dinner consisted of three bites (one bite = one 1 inch pancake square) of a pancake and about 1/4th of a cup of the souffle. Not only was the souffle delicious, but it’s good for me: eggs & cheese are both high in protein. Did you know that two scrambled eggs have roughly 14g of protein? And depending on the type, just a one inch chunk of cheese can have up to 9g of protein. Sweet! Sweeter still is the fact that dinner was about an hour ago (we ate really late tonight, whoops!), and mine is still staying in my stomach pouch. 
I have my camera nearby, because I went to bed last night with my mind made up to do a DITL today. I almost forgot this morning, but then I sat up in bed and saw my camera sitting nearby, and off I went. It’s a bit of a pain dragging a big ass DSLR around, particularly if you go out, but it’s fun, so it’s worth it. I haven’t done a DITL since last March, so I’ve definitely been overdue for a new one. FYI, here are my past DITLs.
(Okay, I’m back. Dan is currently playing Guitar Hero, and he asked me to play a song. Apparently I’m hot when I’m rocking out with the guitar. 
)
I received three packages today from Eden Fantasys, which totally made my day. I completely fell into this whole sex toy reviewer thing, but I absolutely LOVE THE POSITION (no pun intended). Free sex toys = freaking awesome. And occasional giveaways on jenn.nu = also quite freaking awesome. So yes, three packages, which means three new toys. This weekend is going to be a fun one for Dan and I.
Speaking of sex and all things related to it, I got my period on time this month (unlike last month — it was nearly two weeks late!), but it only lasted three days. And while it was moderately heavy and somewhat painful, it was nowhere near as heavy or painful as it usually is. And then there’s the fact that my period only lasted for three days. Normally I have 6-7 days worth of “fun”. So that was a pleasant surprise. I don’t know if the shorter, easier menstrual cycle was due to weight loss, nutrient deficiency, protein deficiency or a combination of all three, but I’m not complaining! Think of the money I’ll save on tampons!
The jalapeno poppers should be ready for the deep fryer soon, and that excites me because the sooner they’re done, the sooner I can try one (they’re bound to be tasty, seeing as how good they smell even uncooked), which means the sooner I can go to BED. It’s just Ryan and I this weekend (and Dan, obviously, until he leaves for work tomorrow afternoon and again on Sunday afternoon), so I want to make the most of the time in terms of getting work done. And getting a good start on work this weekend means getting a good night’s sleep!
I get my stricture taken care of in exactly two weeks, and I can’t wait. I’m just so tired all of the time. Seriously, last night I went to bed by midnight, and I slept until 11:30am today. And I napped yesterday, and the day before that, and I’ve been getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. I go around all day feeling tired, yawning, fighting the urge to nap, etc. It’s ridiculous. Earlier this week I received my bariatric vitamins order, and I’m using alarms on my phone to make sure I take the vitamins religiously (they’re quick-dissolve capsules that must be taken three times per day), in the hopes that having a more than adequate amount of vitamins and minerals will help a bit. Keeping food down continues to be iffy, and today I threw up part of a nasty protein drink, and a while later I threw up water. Blah.
But still, I have absolutely no regrets about the surgery. I’m currently hovering around 243.5, which officially makes me smaller than I was when Dan and I met (I think I was around 250 – 260 then). He keeps remarking about feeling/seeing my hip bones, ribs, collarbones, etc., or he’ll just randomly go, “when did you get so SKINNY?” and it’s flattering and mind-boggling at the same time. This whole quick weight loss thing really screws with you. I don’t think I feel like the 331 lb. person I was last spring, but I do still somewhat feel like the 286 lb. person I was right before surgery. But the numbers, the way my old clothes fit, my new clothing sizes, and random things like the car seatbelt rubbing against my collarbones all tell a different story, so it’s all good.
Right now I’m curled up in our recliner with Leah and my laptop. The TV is on, but since I’m not really paying attention to it, I might as well turn it off. I’ll probably go to bed soon. Tomorrow Alyssa has preschool, and then she’s going to Grandmom’s for the weekend. My mom likes having her company, and having a little girly-girl to spoil, and Alyssa loves spending time with Grandmom and being spoiled, so it’s a win-win situation. Ryan loves having me all to himself, so I know we’ll have a fun weekend filled with story time, arts and crafts, lots of R-Y-A-N spelling, train track setting up and tearing down, and plenty of Cops watching (don’t ask me how Ryan got into Cops, but he obviously did somehow because he goes around singing the theme song!).
I’m also going to take advantage of the one-kid-only weekend to jump back into Demand Studios. I’ve spent the last two weeks doing product reviews (speaking of which, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of two more toys! Whee!), paid posts, giveaways, SEO & backend work, and then I spent the last two days going through emails and cleaning up a lot of stuff on my laptop. I miss DS… and I think I need to go find new assignments, as I’m pretty sure the ones I had reserved expired. 
Do any of you have any exciting weekend plans?
Despite the crisis of not having jenn.nu for approximately 30 hours (did I mention that I checked my GoDaddy domain manager list on an hourly basis yesterday, early this morning and this afternoon?), I managed to continue with my life. I wrote out nearly three weeks worth of future-dated product reviews for In My Bag, and spent quite a while weeding through my email. Oh, email. Let me tell you, I have a bad habit of holding onto every single email I receive (minus junk and comment notifications and the like). Between yesterday and tonight I reduced my Outlook data file by approximately 45mb. I’m not sure how many individual messages that breaks down into, and I don’t think I want to know.
This morning I volunteered to be a parent helper in Alyssa’s preschool class. Not so much by choice, but by a feeling of obligation, since I volunteered in Ryan’s preschool class the week before Christmas, and felt like I owed both Alyssa’s teacher and Alyssa herself. But grrr… after Alyssa’s behavior this morning, I don’t think I’ll be doing that again anytime soon. For god knows what reason, she was a flouncy, huffy, prancy little drama queen for the whole 2.5 hours. I deal with her bitchiness (oh yes, I went there) at home, the last thing I want to do is deal with it at her preschool, too. But I did what I do at home — ignored most of it, and encourage her to get over her hissy fit and move on — and continued with aiding the teacher and the other parent helper manage 13 five year olds. Yes, 13. Dear god, I don’t know how preschool teachers do it every day. The energy. The noise. The chaos. Holy crap those kids are cute, but they effectively powered down my uterus for the rest of my life. Baby urges? Those suckers are definitely a thing of the past!
So it’s barely 11:00pm, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I guess that’s what happens when you’re up every single day between 7:30am and 8:30am! I’m waiting for some episodes of House to transfer from my networked external drive to a USB flash drive, and then I’m shutting down my laptop, taking out my contacts, and curling up in bed with Dan and the remote.
Psst… I get my stricture fixed in exactly two weeks. Thank god! The constant deprivation of protein and general nutrients is sapping all of my energy, and throwing up after most meals is getting quite old. I shouldn’t have to feel “accomplished” if I keep a meal down, dammit!
P.S. Google Chrome? So. Very. Sexy. And fast! And extension-friendly! I made the permanent switch, and you should too!
