I woke up this morning feeling rather refreshed and decided to make a blog post. Then I opened my site and it was broken. Well, not broken-broken, just broken temporarily. (Was it just me or was the internet kind of sickly today? First my blog died, then gmail died, and then twitter died. Of course, twitter dies all the time but the other two things were really bothersome.) By the time my site was back up and running I was no longer feeling refreshed and blog post-y. So I’m caving to your cries of “Shut up about the broken fridge and post some baby pictures!” It’s nice to know that no one cares about me anymore, now it’s all about Truman.

This kid loves to wave his arms in the air like he just doesn’t care:

I took him to Target and couldn’t figure out how to deal with him and a shopping cart. I ended up putting him, in his car seat, in the shopping cart, leaving no room for the crap I wanted to buy. I figured out breastfeeding with no issues yet shopping at Target with a baby is baffling my mind. Here he is before I piled him under boxes of cereal and bottles of hand soap:

Whitney came over recently and took some pictures of Truman for me. Here are two of the ones she took, the others are going on his birth announcement and they haven’t arrived yet, so I don’t want to share and ruin the surprise.

Who would have thought that jparks and I would make such a cute kid?

OMG, the Peach Pit! The theme song! The campy-ness! 90210, I am only 32 minutes into you and yet, I think I love you! You’re not Gossip Girl, but I saw a blowjob in your first ten minutes, so points for that! And you ran jparks off in 9 minutes, so bonus points for that.

Hey looky, here’s jparks after biking 24 miles and me after running 18 miles. The Golden Gate Bridge was behind us, but our big heads cover it.

So I roasted that chicken yesterday then realized that I have no idea how to carve it. Jparks and I basically hacked at it and it’s not yielding the best results. Seeing as how I planned on roasted more chickens in the future (it’s going to be a chicken genocide over here at Parks Place) I should probably learn. Any suggestions or tips?

Speaking of roasted chicken, the other day there was a guy on CalTrain eating a roasted chicken. Not a plate of roast chicken, not a sandwich, but a whole roasted chicken. With his fingers. I know we’ve been through this before, but dude, why? How do you walk into a grocery store, knowing that whatever you buy will need to be eaten on public transit, and pick out something totally ridiculous? A sandwich from the deli is acceptable. A whole chicken is not. Disgusting person. Sorry this is blurry, but a flash would have been too obvious.

Remember awhile back I twittered about the very expensive whiskey I was sipping? Here’s what it looked like:

Doesn’t it look extra fancy? No? I know. Shouldn’t it have gold flakes in it for that price? Oh, but then it would be Goldschlager and only 16-year-olds would drink it. For the record, the right glass is the $1000 per bottle whiskey and the left is the cheap $750 bottle. Bitches, that’s how I roll.

Now that we are back from Disney it’s time to download and sort through the 800+ pictures I took. The good news is that I won’t bore you by posting all of those pictures. The bad news is that not one of those pictures is of a tacky outfit. I know, it’s a sad day when a girl can’t go to Disney World and be assaulted by skanky outfits. I did see a few outfits that were picture worthy but they were all at Downtown Disney and it would have been way obvious that I was documenting the outfit. And then jparks would have had to fight the slut’s boyfriend and I really like jparks’ face the way it is. So, no pictures for you.

So I’m sitting here facing 800+ non-slut pictures from the trip and am feeling highly overwhelmed. The problem is that I had vowed that these would be the first pictures that I give the photoshop treatment to. That decision was made because I’ve had photoshop for awhile now, and have been so scared of it, that I haven’t even opened the application. Yeah, I suck. But photoshop is so big and scary. It’s got so many buttons to click. And I’m a pansy.

To help me get over this irrational fear I bought a photoshop how to book that a friend recommended. And that book was nice, but not quite the kick in the ass that I needed.

What is the kick in the ass that I’m looking for? I don’t think it’s a class because those are too expensive. I don’t think it’s another book, because the one I have doesn’t suck. I think what I need might be more of a tutor, either human or website based. Someone or something that can take a picture and show me what they would do to it. I’m fairly certain that having a hand to guide me through the scary “where the hell do I start?” phase would help a lot.

In my ideal world wide web there would be a site that allows you to submit a picture and then uses it to create a step by step tutorial working towards a final product. Does this site currently exist and I just haven’t found it yet? Please, TELL ME! Do you want to take the time to show me a step by step tutorial? Again, TELL ME! I would be your best friend and probably would make you cookies. Is there a good photoshop tutorial site that you love and you just know I would love as well? FREAKING TELL ME! I mean, please FREAKING TELL ME!

When you marry a first cousin your kids come out looking kinda strange:

We’ve asked doctors to separate the twins, but they all agree the operation would not be successful:

Her growth spurt seems to only have affected her eye. Maybe the rest of her face will catch up soon:

I gave jparks a Nikon D40 for Christmas because I am dumb. Before, when he had to use my D80, I could delete whatever pictures of me I wanted and the world would never get to see them. My only hope is that he won’t want to drag his camera around as much as I do. Or that I suddenly become very photogenic. Wish me luck.

Since September I’ve been a member of a flickr group called the Working Closet. We take pictures of what we wear every day and post them for all the world to see. It’s honestly more exciting than it sounds, I swear.

So I’ve been uploading self portraits for a couple of months now and it’s become a running joke that I don’t smile. If I were a LOLcat I would be “serious regan does not approve“. And I have no good reason for why I’m not smiling.

The frowning started strong here:

Looked like it might start to turn into a smile here:

Diverted into sarcasm here:

And then went right back to pissed here:

I never really thought of myself as unhappy person, but these pictures sure do a fine job of making me seem like one.

So, because I don’t have enough freaking goals for this month (one blog post per day! A different pair of shoes every day!), I’m adding another one to the mix. I want to take one picture of me smiling. One picture! Surely that can’t be too much to ask.

Yeah, we’ll see how this goes.

Years ago I waited tables at Applebee’s and my manager always told me I didn’t smile enough. I always thought she was insane, but what do you know, she was right. Damn her. hmm, maybe my smile muscles are broken. Sometimes I think I’m smiling but it turns out I’m not. See, my smile muscles are broken. Or maybe I was born without any. Like a smile birth defect. I was born to be permanent gloomy girl. grumble.

I’m not a particularly girly girl, but I’m not really a tomboy either. I do have a few stereotypical girl traits though: I love shoes, walking around the mall even if I don’t need anything, and makeup. The shoes and mall thing make sense to me, but my obsession with makeup is an enigma.

On a daily basis I wear little to no makeup. We all know of my recent discovery of mascara and other than that I maybe wear a little chapstick or, if I’m feeling saucy, some lip gloss. Woohoo, a hint of color! I am a crazy woman.

But if I’m dropped into a Sephora than all hell breaks loose. I go into a trance and when I come to my senses again I’ve got a bag of makeup in my hands worth enough to feed a family of four for weeks. Maybe even months if one of the salesgirls has approached me offering help.

Last year Sephora offered a Blockbuster Palette that made me feel tingly in my special place but before I could order one, they were out of stock and I was left to mope about, lamenting the fact that I did not have one. damn you Spehora and your poor planning! You and Nintendo should get together and laugh over how you like to not meet the needs of society.

Well, imagine my surprise and excitement when they brought the palette back this year. With new colors! And a higher price tag! (figures. bitches.) I, of course, ordered one and then checked the tracking every day (multiple times each day) to watch my precious make its way across the country to my loving arms. Once it arrived I threw jparks out and the Palette and I had a few moments of alone time. It was all I was expecting and more.

I’ve had it for a few days now and I’m kinda a bit nuts about it. It arrived on Wednesday and on Thursday and Friday I brought it to work with me. Yeah, really. It sat on my desk and stared at me all day. My bosses asked what it was and when I exclaimed “Makeup!” and then opened it to show them, they just looked at me like I was a lunatic. And maybe I am because I’ve yet to actually use any of the makeup in it.

Right now it’s so pretty and new I can’t bring myself to drag a brush through any of it. I want it to stay perfect. I like looking at all of the little colors contained into their spots all perfectly untouched and fresh. I like how the lip glosses have perfectly smooth tops. And how the eye shadows haven’t been accidentally touch by a brush with another color on it, contaminating the first color.

I mean, look at this, doesn’t it make you a bit randy:

Seriously, I love it. And maybe tomorrow I’ll actually use it. Yeah, tomorrow definitely.

If you haven’t donated you really should, otherwise Lily’s feelings will be hurt. And we really don’t want to upset the world’s cutest chihuahua. Clicky ckicky

Thanks to Lauren, Whitney, and Carolyn for donating!

Once upon a time there was a boy and he was in lurve with a girl. They both had their own flickr accounts but when the girl posted pictures of the boy she only selected ones where he didn’t look bad. The boy, on the other hand, posted any picture of the girl that he could. He didn’t care if she looked bad, if her eyes were closed, or if every picture was exactly the same. He didn’t care if she begged him not to give those pictures to the public, the bastard boy still posted them.

One night the girl came up with a plan. “I have a bunch of pictures of my love on the beach and in ponds without his shirt on. I could threaten to post them and then he would understand why I don’t like it when he posts all those crappy pictures of me!”

Thrilled that she had come up with a way to stop the posting of unflattering pictures of her, the girl floated through the rest of her day. That night she laid down the law for the boy and he scoffed at her idea. Then he told his secret lover best friend “She won’t do it.”

The girl responded with a hearty “Not only am I posting them, I’m sending links to TONS OF PEOPLE!”

This, dear friends, is where the story turns into a picture book.

“I wonder if she really will post those pictures of me?” thinks the boy.

“Uh oh, I think she really is posting those pictures. Maybe if I flex my guns and show her I’m a sexy beast she’ll change her mind”

After recovering from a laughing fit over the boy’s “guns”, the girl continued to upload pictures.

“This picture is pretty identical to that other picture” the girl thought as she posted it.

“Sexy!” thought the girl.

“hmm, this picture of the boy running and jumping in the forest is best viewed at the large size so people can see his facial expression,” thought the girl but she posted it anyway.

And finally the girl posted the last picture of the boy, a closeup of him lounging on the beach. “Hmm, he seems to have forgotten to take off his sweater,” the girl thought.

As the girl finished uploading the pictures a great feeling of satisfaction washed over her. “HA!” she thought as she waited for the boy’s reaction…

I told you it was an awesome picture.