Sips of Jen and Tonic

12 Days of Christmas- Day 7

I’m a sucker for Christmas traditions. Some people string popcorn and hang it on their tree. Some people sing Christmas carols. Some people attend midnight mass. I have fond memories of these lovely Tonic Family traditions:

Cussing up a storm as we try to figure out which bulb is causing the whole strand to blackout
Having tree sap stuck to my skin and hair for days after helping get the tree in the base
Waking up at ungodly hours because a tiny person in the house wants to get up before the sun does to open presents
My parents arguing because my dad forgot to charge the camcorder battery for the 900th year in a row
Feeling bloated and praying for a swift death after consuming too many sweets

Christmas 2009. This is me right before I “gave birth” to the cheesecake, rum balls and fudge I ate earlier in the day.

Continue reading →

Tags: christmas, christmas pickle, holiday traditions, humor, I'm pregnant with a food baby, it's awkward when your dad says he's gonna hide the pickle, jen and tonic, tree sap stuck to my hands for weeks

Comments 74 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, All About Me, Do Gooding

12 Days of Christmas- Day 6

15 Dec

I wanted to write this post last night while the feeling of yesterday’s events were still fresh in my mind, but I decided against it. I don’t believe in writing from an overly emotional place, and yesterday I had to take a step back. I needed to give myself time to process what had happened

Now I’m ready to take a breath, and type.

Earlier this week, there was a shooting at a mall in my area which left two people dead. As I’m sure all of you know, there was a horrific shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut yesterday which claimed many lives, most of which were children’s. Also in the news yesterday, a man stabbed 22 children outside a primary school in China. After hearing about these acts of unspeakable violence, my first thoughts were, “What the fuck has happened to people?”

I cried. For the victims, for the families of the victims, for the people who will forever be haunted by the events, for everyone who lost a little faith in humanity.

I used to be very cynical and pessimistic, believing that people will screw you over when given the chance. “The world is full of opportunists” I’d say, and I meant that. I looked at everyone as though they were a suspect in a crime they had not yet committed. Innocent until proven guilty? No way. Guilty until proven innocent. Continue reading →

Tags: austrian bus driver gives back cash, china school stabbing, connecticut shooting, cop gives homeless man boots, random acts of kindness, sandy hook, saskatoon mother and son, secret santa pays off layaway

Comments 55 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Do Gooding, Misc.

12 Days of Christmas- Day 5

14 Dec

One of the great things about being a kid is that you can ask for the most ridiculous crap for Christmas. You have no problems writing down that you’d like a laser gun, a pack of Big League Chew and a new baby brother. My list used to look something like this:

Dear Santa,

I’d like to marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas for Christmas. I’d also like a puppy. Can you give me bigger boobs? Bigger than the ones that jerk Jillian has. Oh, and some of those shoes that turn into skates because I don’t look like a big enough asshole normally.

Thanks,

Jen

As you get older, and the suckage of adulthood sets in, you start asking for more practical gifts. Now, my list looks something like this:

Dear Mom & Dad,

I need a new set of dishes and silverware. I also just ran out of my hair serum and face lotion. It’s getting pretty cold here so some winter socks would be nice. I also need towels and meatballs so a gift certificate to Ikea is handy. If all else fails, cash is good. That way I can pay off the loan shark who is threatening to bust my knee caps.

Thanks,

Jen

I can get that new Flippenflappen couch I’ve had my eye on

Continue reading →

Tags: beardo, christmas, humor, ikea, ninja cookie cutters, ninja turtle beanie, presents, rawr I'm a dinosaur, this unicorn mask makes me so badass, those skate shoes make you look like an asshole, vinderalls, wine rack bra

Comments 58 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Do Gooding

12 Days of Christmas- Day 4

13 Dec

Holy bananas, Batman! You people really love gorillas. Or pizza. Or David Harding. Yesterday’s post was one of my most read pieces in the last few months.

I realized when I wrote this post that we’re four days into my “12 Days of Christmas” series, and I haven’t really talked about Christmas yet. Who has two thumbs and doesn’t think to talk about Christmas in a series with the word ‘Christmas’ in the title. THIS GIRL!

I’m going places

One of my favorite things about the holidays is the array of things you don’t get any other time of year:

Eggnog
Pumpkin Spice Latte
Christmas Peeps
A tree just straight cold chillin’ in your house
Wearing pants with elastic in the waist without shame
The McRib Continue reading →

Tags: 12 days of christmas, christmas, giveaway, Hello to everyone reading these tags, I have two thumbs, I want to rub my body with sourdough bread, mcrib, poinsetta cocktail, pumpkin spice latte, sourdough stuffing recipe

Comments 96 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Do Gooding

12 Days of Christmas- Day 3

12 Dec

I thought Day 1 of this series was great, but Day 2 was even better! All of you brought your ‘A’ game, and I saw a lot of really cool videos for the first time. If I could, I’d buy each of you a drink, and then yawn and put my arm around you. Let’s face it, you want that too.

Moving on to Day 3…

I look a good challenge. I tried to get David Hasselhoff to tweet me back when Le Clown issued this Twitter challenge on his blog. I created and completed NaNoWriNO. I once outdrank a Russian gymnast in an effort to win $20 bucks and a blackened liver.

I recently read a post David Harding put up about his P izzaBoxDrawcember contest, and knew I had to enter. You need to click that little link to read the full story, but let me summarize the rules here:

Order a pizza
Ask the pizza making wizards to draw a gorilla throwing dice on the pizza box (other drawings acceptable, but I tried to keep with the original theme)
Leave the fate of your drawing in the hands of a pizza pusher

I like pizza. I like gorillas. I like David. I like winning. NO BRAINER. Continue reading →

Tags: contest, david harding, garlic jim's, giveaway, gorillas throwing dice, humor, Oregon, pizza, pizzaboxdrawcember, Portland

Comments 80 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Challenges, Do Gooding

12 Days of Christmas- Day 2

11 Dec

Hooked on Tonics, you are magnificent beasts! Yesterday was a very successful first day for the 12 Days of Christmas bonanza.

Recap:

I discovered new bloggers, and I hope the rest of you did as well by reading through the comments section
@Freshly_Pressed took notice of the recommendations everyone sent
Madame “Midas Touch” Weebles managed to get A Smell Press Life Freshly Pressed!

Basically, we're taking over the internet

Basically, we’re taking over WordPress.

Big ups to everyone who participated! I apologize to those without a Twitter account as you weren’t able to fully participate, but that’s what the other 11 days are for! So what is today’s challenge? Continue reading →

Tags: 12 days of christmans, calahan, contest, freshly pressed, giveaway, Madame Weebles

Comments 145 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Do Gooding

12 Days of Christmas – Day 1

10 Dec

Some of you may not know this, but I am quite the crafty little devil. I am a huge DIY (do it yourself) junkie, and I love upcycling things I find at thrift shops or garage sales. I always had tons of creative ideas floating around in my head, but it has only been in the last few years that I’ve acted on them.

Some of my projects include:

Chalkboard coffee table

Liquor glass candle holders

Taj Mahal

I tried to make a lot of my Christmas gifts this year. I’ve got a clutch, a vase, picture collages and a few others things in the works. I prefer giving personalized gifts because I think it really conveys how much I want my presents to be better than everyone else’s. Continue reading →

Tags: 12 days of christmas, contest, david hasselhoff, diy, freshly pressed, giveaway, humor, phonics by tonic, three wolf moon

Comments 110 Comments
Categories 12 Days of Christmas, Do Gooding

Caffeine and Christmas Cards

6 Dec

I wanted to publish this post yesterday, but couldn’t because of a monkey on my back. Not an actual monkey as they can be volatile and rip your face off without warning. Let me take you back in time so I can explain…

Caffeine and I have had a tempestuous relationship. Growing up, I thought coffee tasted like chalk. My mom and her relatives would sit around the table while the kids came around like waiters, bringing them their liquid crack. When I wasn’t acting like a slave, I was sneaking little tastes here and there. I vowed never to drink it.

Photo by Julius Schorzman

Then college happened. It was the late 90’s. It was Seattle. It was cold. I was tired. Starbucks stores were on every single corner. I was like one of those vulnerable people who fell into a cult, only I was worshiping baristas. Continue reading →

Tags: ALL CAPS RAGE, caffeine addiction, christmas, christmas card, drug dealing bear, hooked on tonics, humor, jerkasaurus rex, ketamine, my mom treated me like a coffee slave, WTF is up with Justin Timberlake's pube head?

Comments 109 Comments
Categories All About Me, Hooked on Tonic

NaNoWriNO: The Conclusion

30 Nov

NaNoWriNO Day 30

Topic: THE END!!!!!!

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I must confess, I am kind of sad NaNoWriNO is over. It felt a bit like running a marathon. The first week started off pretty easily, and I was overly confident about the challenge. The second week got slightly more difficult, but I managed to power through it. The third week I basically wanted to die. This last week seemed to be relatively painless because of the endorphin rush, or maybe because of all the drugs I do.

Were all of my posts great? Hell to the no. Did I put forth effort so that nothing was a total waste of internet space? You betcha.

Let’s break down my NaNoWriNO experience, shall we? Continue reading →

Tags: blog challenge, dinosaurs riding sharks, Hi iRuniBreathe!, I'm so sleepy I just drank mayonnaise, my breath smells like cat litter, nanowrimo, nanowrino, speaker7, this is as close as I'll get to running an actual marathon

Comments 89 Comments
Categories Challenges, NaNoWriNo

Beyond The Apocalypse

29 Nov

NaNoWriNO Day 29

Topic: 2013 and beyond

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There’s this guy on WordPress named Le Clown. Haven’t heard of him? Consider yourself a (wo)man alone on an island because he’s kind of a big deal. He put up a post a couple of days ago talking about his plans for his blog in 2013, and graciously agreed to let me steal his idea and talk about what I’ll be doing on Sips of Jen and Tonic next year.

Of course, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here. If the Mayan calendars were correct, we’ll all be dust on December 21st, and any plans we had are going to explode into a fiery oblivion. What a downer those Mayans were. I’ve always had a problem with authority so I’m simply not going to let the apocalypse affect me.

Let’s start off by talking about what my plans were for 2012:

Money
World domination

All I wanted to do was make it rain

If my bank account and social status are any indication of how I did, I’d say that I didn’t meet either of those goals. On the plus side, my credit is now good enough to get a real cell phone instead of a prepaid one. Finally! A phone that isn’t endorsed by every drug dealer in the city.

Continue reading →