The Unclean

Have you ever heard the term "The Rule of Threes"?

I'm LIVING IT.

I started out the day waking up earlier than I wanted when Sean left without saying goodbye to me. Turns out, he was just outside trying to light our water heater. Good guy. He couldn't and I went without showering this morning. I feel DISGUSTING. I get so greasy when I don't shower. I sometimes take 2 showers a day because I work hard at the donut shop.

Anyway, my day starts out like that. Then I go to work and stuff there isn't working on the network and I have to start a different project in the middle of the one I'm already doing. It's fine, I go on.
But then I check my bank account to see if I have any money to buy a soda from the break-room. Nope. In fact, the organization who I have my student loan with took out twice the amount I thought it would. Turns out, it takes A WHOLE WEEK to just report that I paid. Note to self, don't forget that you already paid them. UGH. That's what savings accounts are for, I guess.

Then I get home, forgetting about the hot water problem and turn on the kitchen faucet. It pretty much explodes water and pasta sauce all over me. ULTIMATE SAD FACE. I make dinner and, during the course of cooking, I forget that the faucet is a **** and it scares me. In turn, I punch it in the face and now we have to buy a new faucet. ALL THE SWEARS.

Now, dinner has been done for 15 minutes and Sean just came home.
I need a chocolate. and a shower.
love, Ellen

G. Cloo and his Rag Tag Teams

I have exciting news. I've got an internship at a company called AtTask as a copywriter. I AM SO EXCITED. It's exactly what I want to do and it will help me qualify for real positions as a copywriter for any company even though I only have an Associates Degree.

Anyway, I'm sure by now you're wondering about the title of this post. In honor of my getting this internship, Sean and I went out to dinner at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries and then went to see George Clooney's new movie Monuments Men. To say that it was great would be an understatement. It was heartfelt and funny and just all around a great movie.

When Sean and I were sitting at dinner, we discussed the quality of George Clooney films and came to an incredible realization. In comes the title... Almost all of G. Cloo's movies involve him heading up a rag-tag team of misfits.

Case 1: Monuments Men. G. Cloo gathers artist of differing respects in order to save historical art pieces and preserve cultural artifacts during World War II.

Case 2, 3, and 4: Ocean's 11, 12, and 13. G. Cloo and Brad Pitt arrange a casino heist after rounding up 11, 12, and then 13 individuals of varying degrees of speciality.

Case 5: Men Who Stare At Goats. Jeff Bridges recruits G.Cloo in a company of men known as Jedi's for military use. Although, George is not the leader, he does teach Obi Wan the ways of the Jedi.

Case 6: Fantastic Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox (voiced by G. Cloo) leads a band of various wildlife in a revenge mission against three angry men.

Case 7: O Brother, Where Art Thou. George coerces a few miscreants with promises of treasure into assisting him in a jail break in order to retain his marital status.

And if 7 cases doesn't convince you... then you might need to re-think your life-style choices. Or, if you're so inclined, you may also include Batman and Robin in the list. I, however, would rather appeal to George Clooney's wishes to not be remembered for the film.

Mr. Clooney, if you are reading this, please continue to make such movies. These 7 are among my top most favorite films and my list is capable of expansion. Thank you.
love, Ellen

Under the Covers.

Dang, I'm clever.
Lately, at work the early morning bakers have been putting on a radio station that occasionally plays this song:

(FEEL FREE TO NOT LISTEN TO ANY OF THIS)

And automatically my face warps into something more like someone in the room let one rip rather than a song came on. Immediately, though, my mind jumps to something Sean gave me more than a year ago. 

You see, when we were dating, we'd gift each other mix cd's every once in a while and one of his last ones to me was a mix called "Mix Cover" and on it was the same song done by New Found Glory:

(FEEL FREE TO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE WEIRD VID)

And my mind sighs with relief. Since Sean and I have been married (so somewhere in the ball park of a year), I've been listening to a lot of New Found Glory. They have a neat album that has tons of covers called From The Screen To Your Stereo and it has tons of great covers such as:

(SAMEZIES ABOUT THE VID)

And "That Thing You Do", "Never Ending Story", and "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing". I highly recommend it. 

Some of my other favorite covers that I've more recently discovered include 99 Red Baloons by Goldfinger:

I love how it has the German part in the middle. CLASSIC.

Also, MxPx's 500 Miles:

It never strays too much from the original, but it's still fun and a little more upbeat. 

And try Cartel's Wonderwall on for size:

Great, right? So classic. 

Ben Folds does a great In Between Days:

This is one that gets listened to a lot when I'm in the shower. 

And you can never go wrong with a little Backstreet Boys done by Allister. 

Hah. So little. 

And to top it all off, the most creepy stalker song turned beautiful. You go, Copeland. 

I could put so many more on here, but I think this is enough. I've probably taken up too much of your time as it is. Still. I hope you enjoy. 

love, Ellen

#Oscars2014

I think I'm pretty smart and witty... so I'm live-tweeting the Oscars @elleohellen.
Come follow!

or don't. I won't hate you.

Internet Diet Update [or] "On Writing"

SO. I'm having a hard time because a lot of the people I care about are on facebook and I want to know what they're doing with their lives and I wanted to show all of them this:

My most lovely Mother-in-Law made this BY HAND for me! Her body and button-joints and hair and face and clothes and shoes and dinosaur are all hand stitched. How IMPRESSIVE is that?? She is so sweet and I love how much this little doll that I've named Karen resembles me. She has my same eyebrow shape I love her little hat and her fun sock monkey overalls (that really work as overalls, you can unbutton them and everything!) and her Dinosaur named Deeno...
What a great Mother-in-law I have.

I've been to facebook a few times but it hasn't been as excessive and I feel like I'm making strides here. I haven't been to any of the waste time sites I usually went to. I've found a few things on pinterest that I like. I've made dinner the past couple nights (besides tonight because Sean wanted to grill) and I sort of rearranged our living room and I've been feeling better about myself. I learned some new make-up tricks and my hair has been looking exceptional...  It's all been better.

Right now, Sean is writing his latest work which he is really excited about and I'm really excited for him. I think it's really important that he writes because I know that it's something he loves and I like seeing him write. He types a bunch and then reads me a chunk that he's proud of and I love it. Plus that gives me an opportunity to pull out my editing skills and give him a few pointers and stuff. We both can do what we love and it's excellent.

There's a little book exchange that opened up a block or so from our house and the ladies that own it are super sweet and fun to talk to. Sean and I have been there twice and both times we've stayed for about an hour just talking about everything. Sean gave them one of his books (which you can access here and here and here or just google "sean donner unlucky" and you'll have all the websites) and they're all excited to read it and host open-houses or things for his future books. Which is one of the reasons he's so excited about writing this new one.

Yay! What a great time.
love, Ellen

This is harder than I thought.

I might've accidentally already checked facebook once today. But I quickly realized that I didn't care about anything on there, really.

And now I'm watching taxi and finding a crock-pot recipe for dinner tonight. I might try taco soup or something. Or we have all the things for mac n' cheese but I don't think that's a stand-alone meal...

I need a break: My Internet Diet

I decided just a few seconds ago that I need to go on an internet diet. I'm going to (do my best to) cut out facebook, twitter, 9gag, iwastesomuchtime, slow robot, and what ever other mindless scrolling website that I go to too often. I'm going to cut back on pinterest and youtube. I'm still going to allow myself to do online jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles, and I'm also going to be online doing bills and researching stuff. I'll also keep doing online surveys that help me earn a little spare money.

I'll also continue blogging because it's a definite outlet that I can just relax and write down all my stuff.

I just have been feeling really useless lately. I just sit on the internet endlessly scrolling through page after page of ridiculous posts about stuff I don't really care about and not enough improving myself.

Instead, I will do things like
1: Clean and organize my house
2: Read a book
3: Do arts and crafts
4: Exercise
5: Learn how to cook better
6: Getting ready to move
7: Watch television and movies without  internet
8: Gardening
9: Practicing skills like photography and writing
10: Learning new skills and gaining new hobbies.

I needed to just set this all up for myself because if I didn't I wouldn't really do anything about my goal. I have a hard time sticking to things so I needed to set certain boundaries and allowances so I wouldn't go crazy. I was originally thinking just an internet fast and then I realized I still needed to pay bills online and I still want to blog and do crossword puzzles so I just cut out the junk.

It's just like a regular diet. You need to cut out the junk food if you're going to get anywhere and you need to have better snacks there in order for you to not turn to the unhealthy ones, which is why I made a list of "Insteads" that I can go to when I don't know what to do.

Plus my computer has been frustrating lately and the last thing anyone needs is that one more annoyance to fuel the fire. If you have any other good ideas of things I can do, please let me know! I'd love to hear them because I'm sure there's plenty of things I forgot. Thanks!

love, Ellen