And now for something completely different...

• Turning 30 was not so bad after all. As I told Kim on Twitter, it really just means that my next major birthday is 33 (when I celebrate the end of Prohibition). The actual celebration was very low-key: my friends all left town, my coworkers forgot (they normally decorate cubicles for office birthdays), and Abe and my parents decided my birthday was too close to Christmas and Thanksgiving to think of creative gift ideas. It was kind of perfect.
• My main job life in general is making me insane in the membrane. It seems like every time I think I finish a project or goal, said project/goal sprouts two more heads. (Too bad it was Hercules, not Achilles, who slayed the Hydra. Hardy har.)
• I have an unhealthy obsession with Raising Hope. Watching the show is usually the high point of my week. Abe loves it too. I don't think we've had this much mutual appreciation for a TV show since Arrested Development (or maybe earlier seasons of The Office).
• Speaking of television, for the past two weeks, almost every TV show I watch (I only watch comedies/dramedies for the most part) has made me cry. Is that normal?

Mom! and Glee!

Dear Internets,

I have been very non-posty lately, for which I apologize. I really have no excuse, except that I'm once again working 191 hours a week. Yay early retirement? One can hope.

My mom's birthday is tomorrow. She's always complaining that I don't spend enough time with her, so this is what I'm planning on doing for her gift:

"Year with Jane in a Box" - I am decorating the outside of the box with "Sad Little Mad Little Mom" cartoons (a cartoon character that I made up when my mom and I went to Ecuador)

Inside the box, I'm putting a pretty little day planner (it helps when your mom's birthday sort of matches up with a school year) and wrote in a date for us each month. I'm also putting in a little wrapped gift to symbolize each month's plans.

September - year with Jane intro (journal, pens, and camera to document the year)
October - take my nephew to dairy farm for a haunted hayride (a little cornhusk doll wearing a Halloween costume)
November - puzzle night (500 piece puzzle; we have always done puzzles together & tried to trick each other into letting the other put in the last piece. Nerds forever!)
December - 29 birthday candles and a little letter about how I will have been lucky to spend 29 years with her as my mom
January - cedar fever survival kit (benadryl, hot tea, logic games book)
February - take my nephew to the Children's Museum (a little fake admissions ticket)
March - shopping at the outlet malls (Dr Scholls inserts for her shoes)
April - hiking/picnic at McKinney Falls (bug spray)
May - Mother's Day movie night ("What's Up Doc?" - we both love that movie.)
June - Market Days in Fredericksburg (still trying to think of a little gift for this... any ideas?)

July - cooking together (little heart-shaped measuring spoons)

August - bowling (socks)

What do you think? I think she'll like it, but who knows.

Have a great weekend!
Jane

P.S. This is unrelated, but I really like that show "Glee." I can't decide whether it will be a guilty pleasure or a show I actually admit to watching. I just think it's the most amazing thing in the world when people can sing and dance and be attractive.

If I had a nickel for every time they said they'd wrap the storyline up in a movie

Dear Internets,

Is it possible that I am some sort of angel of death for quality television programming? I begin watching a show from the first episode (I think that's the key) and fall in love with its characters and quirky originality. Critics rave about the show, I set my DVR, choruses of angels and bluebirds sing.

Then the network brutally axes the show mid-storyline, offering vague promises of "a movie or comic book that will tie things up," and I never hear anything again.

RIP Pushing Daisies. (And Veronica Mars. And My So-Called Life. Etc.)

Love,
Jane