"every little nest needs a bird...pop goes the world..."

FLASHBACK october 2011
i'm visiting queenie and tbird in cali. my phone starts blowing up with notifications. people are inviting me to play "family feud". i check it out and i get hooked. i invite queenie. she invites bird. we spend hours...on the patio...out in the cold...playing each other. and laughing at our answers. 
FLASH FORWARD february 2012
i'm sitting in my house...relaxing by a warm fire. my phone starts blowing up with notifications. people are inviting me to play "draw something". i am terrible at it. drawing pictures on my iphone. my fat fingers getting in my way. then it dawns me...DO IT ON THE IPAD!!! i am an AMAZING artist!!
FLASH FORWARD august 2012
i'm sitting around my house...planning our big move. my phone starts blowing up with notifications. people are inviting me to play song pop. i am a musical GENIUS!! jamie will tell you...i know everything there is to know about music, movies, pop culture. my head is full of useless information. no one can beat me. people beat me. no. seriously. people. beat. me. at song pop. not often...but it happens. mostly because they hit me with horrible categories: modern rap and modern country. since i don't listen to either one, i'm playing blind. nay. i'm playing deaf. there is the occasional song i've heard...most often, i'm just guessing. 
i have some advice for beating your opponent in "song pop":

#1~when you pick a category, pick one you know. don't pick one just to throw your opponent off. what good is it if you don't know the genre either?

#2~use your earphones. you want all your attention focused on the game at hand. your musical reputation is at stake here. you don't want to accidentally hit guns 'n roses instead of hanson just because you have the good music on in the background.

#3~try to listen to the lyrics and not focus on the singers voice. some of these songs are not the original artist. i have lost many games because i was too busy thinking "cheap trick does NOT sound like that!".

#4~it's better to listen to a song all the way thru, and be sure you know it, than to take a wild guess and get it wrong. if your opponent gets it right, they take a huge jump in points and you are almost guaranteed to lose that round.

there you have it. my useless information of the day! happy poppin!!!

                    

 

^sometimes you win...sometimes you lose...sometimes it rains^

"all my life...you are a friend of mine..."

FLASHBACK 1981

betsy and i have been friends since 6th grade. we are in and out of trouble. constantly. then it happened. the kind of trouble you don't get out of. the kind of trouble that causes my dad to tell her dad we can't be friends. why? because betsy is, in fact, "a bad influence" on me. 

FLASH FORWARD 2009

betsy and i reconnect after 28 years. it starts off at a "girl's night" that kicked off when we all found each other on facebook. betsy says "do you remember when your dad..." blah blah blah? NO!! what happened?!!! we have no idea. here's what we know: we had gone to king's island; there may (or may not?) have been boys involved; and the first time we ever **ate sandwiches** kim was involved. so we've come to this conclusion: kim is the bad influence. it doesn't even matter that she wasn't involved in the "forgotten debacle of '81".

FLASH FORWARD today

september is "women's friendship month". there is something amazingly special about a woman's friendship with other women. we take on so many different roles for each other: mother, sister, cheerleader, therapist...bad influencer... 

celebrate your female friends this month... awwwww heck...celebrate them every single day...

      

 

^birds do disneyland^

                                                                  

^girl's night^

                      

 

**"eating sandwiches: a how i met your mother reference. if you don't watch, you'll never know!!**

"if there's a rock n' roll heaven...well you know they've got a hell of a band"

FLASHBACK september 18, 1970
"purple haze all in my brain...lately things don't seem the same..."
jimi hendrix died today. official cause of death: asphyxiation after an overdose of sleeping pills. he was 27 years old. 
FLASH FORWARD october 4, 1970
"freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."
janis joplin died today. official cause of death: heroin overdose. she was 27 years old.
FLASH FORWARD july 3, 1971
"there's blood in the streets up to my ankles..."
jim morrison died today. official cause of death: reported heart failure, though no autopsy was performed. he was 27 years old.
FLASH FORWARD april 5, 1994
"i feel stupid and contagious...here we are now entertain us..."
kurt cobain died today. official cause of death: *suicide by gunshot*. he was 27 years old.
FLASH FORWARD july 23, 2011
"and in your way in this blue shade my tears dry on their own..."
amy winehouse died today. official cause of death: alcohol poisoning. she was 27 years old.

the 27 club. to join this club you must be 27. you must be a musician. and you must die too soon. 
there are 44 members of the 27 club today. i know. i just KNOW. heaven has one hell of a band!

                         

 

                            

 

*my middle child insists this is not the case. he says it was murder. there is no evidence to support his stance. i repeat: there is NO evidence!!*

FLASHBACK 1972

"cause he looks a lot like me...he looks a lot like me...a lot like me"
when i met queenie (on the school bus. when we were 6.) it was like looking in a mirror. blonde hair. blue eyes. same name. weird. we were twins. we could fool people. we could even fool our parents. a little bit. my own grandfather saw queenie, at the shopping center, and was mad that i was at there without them knowing. if you can fool your own grandpa...well...nuff said!
FLASH FORWARD 1980
kathy and i don't really look alike. at least, we don't think we do. okay. we are both blue-eyed. we are both 5'4". we both weigh 100 lbs. we are both blonde. but kathy is strawberry blonde. i am golden blonde. yet people can't tell us apart. what is UP with that?
FLASH FORWARD august 2009
queenie steps off the plane. what?!! why is she 6' tall? we don't look anything alike. and all this time i was certain my doppelganger was on the west coast.

i use "doppelganger" a lot. and people always ask me what the hell i'm talking about. well. a doppelganger is a paranormal double of a living person...they say everybody has one. usually, your doppelganger is evil. so, i guess i'm sort of using the word in the wrong context. i don't care. i love that word. i love the idea that everybody has a twin. whether or not they're evil. or paranormal. 
i have run across a lot of doppelgangers in my life. the earliest one: everybody in school (i. mean. every. body) thought my mom was florence henderson. it had to be the shag haircut both were famous for. had to be. which one is the evil twin, you ask? well. lana will tell you it's florence. and, history will tell you, that the rich and famous usually got that way by selling their souls to the devil. evil. but me. what do I think? yeah. lana's the evil one. i've heard her on the phone with telemarketers so i KNOW what i'm talking about. 
have you met your doppleganger? has anyone ever told you they saw you at the mall, grocery, airport, and you hadn't left your house in a week? and which one is the evil one? you or your doppelganger? 
                        

 ^me and kat:not doppelgangers^

                    

 ^my parents have doppelgangers for sure!^

^jamie and vincent d'onofrio: doppelgangers^

^noah and phillip phillips: doppelgangers^

^kat and gaga: doppelgangers!!^

FLASHBACK 1970 something

"i got a nikon camera...love to take photograph..."
my grandma had a polaroid camera. i think everybody did. she always took the same pictures with that camera. my parents standing side by side...my lil bro and i standing in front of them. sometimes we had our dog with us. most the time we didn't. the main differences...jeff and i were taller. and my mama's hair. omg. my mama's 70 something hair!
FLASH FORWARD today
everybody thinks they are a photographer...no one takes the standard family photo. nope. now we set up poses we saw on pinterest. poses set up by professionals that knew what they were doing. but we have iphones and instagram. why do we need photographers?
i still say hire a professional for those important photos (weddings, senior portraits, etc), but if you insist on being an instagram photog here are some tricks:
1~take the pic with your phone's camera and the upload to instagram (instagram does not have the zoom function you want for a great shot)
2~use the lux feature (the sun in the lower left corner) it brightens and enhances your photo instantly.
3~play with the different filters but don't feel like you ALWAYS have to use them. sometimes a no filter shot is awesome enough.
4~don't forget to hashtag (#) your photo so that people that might like it can view it.
and last, but not least:
5~don't set yourself to private. like i've said with twitter and pinterest, the whole point is to share your story (thru pics) with the world.

below: no filter (left) instagrammed (right)