The Next Chapter

Hello All!

I thank you for continuing to follow my blog. I apologize for the lengthy hiatus I have taken from my writing. This blog will remain online but I have opened a new chapter to my blogging exploration. Please follow the link below and check out what’s new and exciting in my writing adventures. I invite you to read and even follow my entries if you have found my last blog entertainIng. I promise many more good times to come!

http://hollywoodmakeitorbreakit.wordpress.com/

Tackling Tinseltown

XO,

No longer so Anonymous

 

App-solutely!

When the iPhone first came out I really wasn’t jealous at all when in reality I just didn’t know what I was missing. I had my Blackberry which did all I needed it to do without any of the fancy bells and whistles. Eventually, my daughter killed my Blackberry and since I was due for a free upgrade I was “forced” to buy an iPhone. My husband had one, so I figured I’d bite the bullet. Not only was it user friendly, it had all these wonderful “apps” aka applications. And who’s not willing to download something free?

So the few that I’m gonna single out today really threw me for a loop. First was Trip Tracker. With this app you can put in all your trip info like confirmation numbers and flight numbers and the app pulls up all you need to know such as flight times and whether the times have changed such as delays or schedule changes. On a side note, some airlines will take the bar code off your phone as a boarding pass to scan. Not sure how TSA feels about that!

Then the other that I absolutely love is the Starbucks app. As long as you have a registered account you can keep track of everything from store locators to card balances to rewards. My favorite part is that not only can you keep track of your card balance but you can also scan your phone to pay! You tap the “pay” button and the barista scans the bar code on your phone and it deducts it right there. Yes, I’m easily amazed by technology. Never forget your cash or Starbucks Card in the car again!

So what’s your favorite app? I love recommendations.

 

XO,

Anonymous Girl….the real one.

 

Rain, Rain Go Away….

Growing up in Northwest Indiana I have seen and driven in my fair share of horrendous storms. After all, I did live in tornado alley and spent many times on my knees with my head protected by my hands during school tornado drills. If you’ve done this,you’re always grateful you wore pants that day instead of a skirt.

Well, this evening was no exception. My friend and I drove to pick up my husband from the airport from Indiana to Chicago Midway. There were caution of rain storms, but I made sure to check his flight status for any delays. He was actually expected to be 10 minutes early. Well all of that changed once we go there. On the way to the airport there was no rain or lightning but when we arrived I get a text message from his sister that she had gotten a Facebook message (communication in the 21st century, huh?) from him saying that the storms were so bad he was being rerouted to Indianapolis till further notice. What?! I did not want to drive back to only have to turn around and drive to the airport again; we’re talking a minimum of 45 minutes here. So I keep checking the airline status hoping for some updated information. In the meantime the rain starts then the lightning and it’s really coming down. Well to make this part of the story short, he eventually lands. He says it was one of the scariest flights he’d ever been on, the turbulence was so bad!

Now, the worst is still to come. We head home, there’s rain but nothing I hadn’t driven in before. Then we get on the highway and about halfway home we get hit by torrential downpour. I’ve driven in some pretty bad rain but I have never seen anything like this in my life. Rain was coming in sideways, I couldn’t see the lines in front of me or whether I was driving straight on the highway. I had slowed to 20 mph as semis flew past me at 50mph. If I had stopped I was afraid I’d be smashed by one of these 18 wheelers. As we drove further along, it was like we drifted into this green haze where the wind and rain was swirling around us. It was so scary. I had to grip the steering wheel so hard so the wind wouldn’t push us into the next lane and the rain was coming down in sheets that my wipers couldn’t keep up. Not to mention the pounding of the hale! It was very possible that we had driven into the outskirts of a small tornado. I will never forget a storm like that. But as you can tell, we survived!

(We tried to record it but must’ve pressed the record button twice. The above video is pretty bad weather but not nearly as bad as tonight, so just imagine worse!)

 

XO,

Anonymous Girl….the real one.

 

Words With Friends

I am totally obsessed with this game. My husband somehow started it first, probably by seeing someone post it on Facebook. Then he got me to join and it’s pretty much been all down hill from there.

If you’ve never played, it’s basically a version of Scrabble where you can play opponents online, but as a leisurely pace. So you have to wait for them to make a move before your next turn. Sometimes this can take a matter of minutes, other times a matter of days. It’s smart to keep a few games going at once if you’re constantly playing otherwise you’ll find yourself impatiently waiting for the screen to refresh. The great thing about this game that differs from the original board game is that you don’t have to challenge your opponent on words you don’t think are valid nor do you need to have a scrabble regulation dictionary nearby. The game will tell you when a move is acceptable. Which may be seen as an easy way out since you can keep trying tiles until you make a word. Although this has helped me learn what words are acceptable to play. Like all other apps, this one is more than usually distracting and I find myself playing it at every spare moment, sometimes when I shouldn’t.

There are also cheater apps that can find combinations of words that yield the highest score. Which my husband tried out on me with telling me. And it just so happened to be one of my highest scoring games and it was making me mad that he was beating me by 200 points! Eventually we’ll both bore of the game, but until then I will have to find some creative words that have “z” or “q.”

 

XO,

Anonymous Girl…..the real one.

 

Hangover 2 Review

So if you’ve seen the first Hangover you know what you’re in store for. Some ridiculously raunchy guy humor with antics that only a bunch of immature men can get themselves into. I think it was a good idea for them to keep the format as the original Hangover because as an audience member this is what we expect. Although I was curious how they’d end up on another bachelor party after they knew what happened the first time. There were some really great stuff Ken Jeong as usual and of course some grossly inappropriate but hilarious stuff from him. Ed Helms, no matter what, seems to get the short end of the stick especially with a tattoo on his face and Cooper, as always playing the dick is still a good piece of eye candy for the ladies. I’d go see this movie again, probably on DVD. I thought the ending was not realistically believable but everyone likes a Hollywood ending. And if you haven’t seen this movie there’s a surprise at the end! Enjoy!…..not the most elaborate review, but I’m not a film critic either.

 

XO,

Anonymous Girl….the real one.

 

Douchiness

1. Douchiness

n. – doo-schee-nehss – The quality of being a douche or douche bag; used when an act is flagrantly lame or reconfirms an already existing suspicion that an entity has douche-like attributes; typical of a person or thing that doesn’t command respect.

So I’m a type of person that doesn’t personally enjoy saying bad things about people, but this must be said. Have you ever been around someone that just brings the worst out in you? Well, sadly this person is my mother’s boyfriend. And I’m sure she likes him, but she really only keeps him around for convenience otherwise why else would she put up with the crap he says.

My mom is a divorced single mother that works two jobs to keep a roof over her head and my brother. Her boyfriend doesn’t even have a job and manages to stay afloat by taking odd maintenance and yard work jobs. Now he does keep up her house and makes dinner, but I don’t think it gives him the right to act like a jerk and act like he owns the place. He is basically a very negative person that is unhappy with his life and never has a positive thing to say and complains about everything. He is insecure and criticizes everything when there is nothing redeeming about him.

Let me break it down on the crap I had to listen about over my vacation:

1. He bitched about my mom going to a mandatory work meeting – he has no job so he has no right. Its at 8am so he thinks its stupid, when in reality he says this because he thinks my mom is out flirting with some guy. Really? At 8am?! I’m sorry I’m not getting up to go on any date that early.

2. He wants to throw away packages of hotdogs we just bought for the graduation party – he opens the fridge and wants to know who bought this “crap.” And we should just throw them away now because no one is gonna eat them. First, he didn’t buy them so its not his money and second, its a party, someone will eat them. And this comes from a person who eats processed lunch meat!

3. He comments on my bra – I left my bra in the bathroom on accident and he walks past my room and says “that’s a fancy bra you have in there.” Gross! He’s dating my mom! Yeah he may have said it jokingly but it’s extremely inappropriate. If someone feels uncomfortable, then its wrong. I’m sorry, that’s creepy.

There are more instances, but it just annoys me to go on about it. These are just a few highlights of my vacation. I really wish she would get rid of him. And he has the audacity to tell my mom he doesn’t like her family. Well, in case he hasn’t figured it out, we don’t like him either.

XO,

Anonymous Girl…the real one.

 

Bringing Together Old Friends

Sometimes, the fact that I live far away from all my friends and family is a good thing. Every year I visit Chicago, maybe one to two times, to see my family for the holidays or during the summer. It’s hard being away from them since I have a baby and my mom doesn’t get to see her very often. Even my best friend lives in Northern Indiana and I often reminisce about our summers together. Especially, the summer we ate an entire 5 lb tub of cookie dough. That probably sounds gross but it was so good!

Anyway, I usually keep in touch with friends on Facebook and let them know when I’d be visiting. I ask them to catch me up on people I haven’t talked to in awhile and often they haven’t talked to them either. So when I arrive for my visit, all of my friends and college acquaintances get together for a mini reunion. And even though they live in close proximity of each other, they hadn’t seen each other since the last time I was in town, so it’s wonderful that I’m able to bring them together to catch up.

This most recent time, I invited my friends over for my brother’s graduation party and we enjoyed some food, laughter and a fun game of Scattergories. Things can get pretty heated over ridiculous answers and I miss the friendly combative banter. It’s good to have old friends together again.

 

XO,

Anonymous Girl….the real one.