Sunday, September 30, 2012

Sunday Social

Sunday Social
1. What do you miss most about being a kid? Summer's off! I also miss getting a spring break.
2. Did you have a nickname growing up? What was it? Yes, all of my family called me Jenny (a good majority of them still do). Now most people call me Jennifer, Jen or Jmo
3. What was your favorite thing to do at recess? Tether ball.

4. What did you want to be when you grew up? A dentist
5. What was your favorite toy? Dixie's Diner. It was a play set and so fun!


6. What is the funniest thing you did as a kid that your parents still remind you about? I don't know what was the funniest but I know that once I ran my tricycle up someone's leg that we didn't really know and the guys reply of, "Can you kindly get your child off my slacks?" made everyone laugh. 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Theater Thursday

It's Thursday and that can only mean one thing... it's Theater Thursday! This week's featured movie is, The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet stars Clint Eastwood as Ben Shockley, a Phoenix cop who's also struggling with alcohol. He's given the task of escorting a prisoner named Gus Malley (Sodra Locke) from Las Vegas, Nevada to Phoenix to testify in a trial against the mob. When Ben arrives in Las Vegas he's surprised to find out that Gus is a woman. 

From the moment that Ben tries to take Malley from Vegas to Phoenix she protests. She claims that there is a hit out on both of them and that they won't make it to Phoenix if he tries to take her there. Ben being a jaded cop, doesn't believe this prostitute woman whom he's just met and assumes that she's just not wanting to get transported. She also lets him in on the fact that she has incriminating evidence against a high elected commissioner who's corrupt. 

From the moment they leave the prison and are in transit to the airport, their car is ambushed and the driver killed. That's when Ben starts to believe that Malley might be telling the truth. Along the way to Phoenix they run into multiple road blocks and Ben begins to realize that someone he works with and trusts is the person who's dirty. He also realizes that he was given this task because they believed he would fail. 

Somewhere along the way, Ben starts to feel differently towards Malley and realizes he likes her more than he wants to admit. Will they make it to Phoenix from Vegas? Watch and find out! It's a great Clint Eastwood movie. 

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Just Call Me Martha

Want to know one good thing about moving to a new town and having no friends? It'll give you tons of free time to do all of the crafts you've been wanting to make! Since moving to Sacramento, I have finished five craft projects and I'm currently working on the sixth. In the months before the move, I had no time to work on craft projects so I'd see stuff on Pinterest, pin it and then forget about it. Now I'm finally working on those pins. And of course, I'm going to share them with you....

The first craft I decided to tackle was the easiest. I had seen this clothes pin wreath...
I really liked the idea of clothing pins as a way to hold up Christmas cards but I didn't want another wreath to just hang in one spot on the wall. So I decided I would come up with a Christmas card line. All I have to do this Christmas is hang a string up on two sides of the wall, attach the pins and wait for the cards to roll in. 

Here's what you need for the craft
Clothing Pins
Craft Paint
Foam Brush
Wire

You can get clothing pins and craft paint almost anywhere. I got my clothing pins at Hobby Lobby and I got 36 pins in a package which was more than enough.  I also bought a brush there. I got my craft paint at Hobby Lobby. I chose to do two colors, the obvious Red and Green.  As for the wire, I had bought a set of nails and screws for hanging photographs and it came with wire. You could use anything for your line including yarn, string, wire etc. 

Here's how my clothing pins turned out! I can't wait to hang them with cards this Christmas season! 
So then after I got done making these, I thought why not make some for Halloween? So I ended up making some and hanging up Halloween cards that I had got from Barnes and Noble. Check them out!
Obviously, I painted them black and orange. Instead of using a wire for these, I used a piece of orange yarn and it blended in really well with the cards. 

Do you like these pins? Well I have a ton of time on my hands so if you want a set and just don't have time to make them yourself then contact me! I'm making sets of 12 in any color combos for $10.00 including shipping in the USA. 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Mail Call!

I love getting mail! 

Not the bills but real, snail mail. Nothing brightens my day more than to get a letter or a card from someone in the mail. If you remember this post , then you know that this year I have sent out cards to family and friends/bloggers all year long. It originally started with Christmas cards then it continued on with Valentines Day, Saint Patrick's Day and Easter. After Easter I didn't know if they'd continue until later in the year but I decided to get a little creative and send out a Memorial Day/Summer card wishing everyone a great summer.
Then I moved across the country in August and sent out a Just Moved card. 
Now that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas is upon us, the cards will be going out again. There's just one little thing... a lot of the people that I've sent cards to over the year have sent me texts, emails, a card or something to let me know that their enjoying them. I appreciate that, it lets me know that they got it and that I'm not wasting my time and money on something that I'm hoping gives them a smile in their day. Soooo....

If you have received a card from me this year and would like to continue getting them can you let me know? Also if you haven't received any this year and want to then let me know and I'll add you to my mailing list of happy mail goodness! Leave a comment or shoot me an email and I'll get your address and add you to the list! During the move, I misplaced a few addresses so if you happen to hear from me asking for your address, then you know why! It really is fun to get snail mail! 

I'm single handedly keeping the United States Post Office in business. 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Theater Thursday

Welcome! It's Thursday and that can mean only one thing around here... it's Theater Thursday! On Theater Thursday, I chose one movie that's available out on dvd and review it. I think it's fun to do a new one every week and if you have movie that you love and think people should watch then participate. Grab my Theater Thursday button and join in! 

This week's featured movie is, Winter Kill
Winter Kill stars Andy Griffith as Sheriff McNeill, living in a mountain resort town that's economy is based on tourism. When someone begins killing off members of the community, the locals become fearful for not just their lives but what it could do to their economy. The killer is a sniper who's shooting victims and leaving a message in the snow with spray paint as his calling card. 

As the murders continue, Sheriff McNeill begins getting pressured by the town council to find the killer or he'll be out of a job. He's trying to find a killer in a town where everyone knows everyone and do it before he could lose his job. He's under pressure and doesn't know who to trust. Will he find the killer before it's too late?

This 1970's Andy Griffith classic is definitely worth watching. I should also mention that the made for television movie was so popular at the time that it was spun off into a show but eventually was cancelled before getting picked up by a network. You can find this movie on amazon and I believe it's still available on netflix. 

Monday, September 17, 2012

Lately (photo heavy)

When I got to Sacramento, I hit the ground running. I'm just now starting to slow down some and here's a few things that have been going on... I should mention I do a lot of crafting now. Anyways, here's a little bit of what I've been doing to fill the time. 
Putting a few pieces of furniture together.
Mowing grass. This made me appreciate Josh a little bit more since he's been mowing the grass all summer long. I can't wait till he's out here and be in charge of the lawn again. 
Making tons of yummy food! Top Right: Grilled/smoked hot dogs, maple bacon & eggs. Prepping cheese, baked macaroni and cheese. 
 
 Crafting! This one was obviously still in progress. Ceramic tiles and making them into coasters. 
Halloween tree! All of the decorations came from Michaels Arts and Crafts.
Trying to pick out a paint color for my tropical theme master bathroom. I'm leaning towards the shade Oasis. What do you think? 

A lot right? So that is what I have been up to lately. I still have a lot to do but as my mom likes to remind me, "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Theater Thursday

Welcome to Theater Thursday! Every Thursday here at Crazy Shenanigans, a film is featured. Usually it's nothing that is currently in theaters but is available on dvd, netflix, etc for viewing. I've been doing Theater Thursday's since I first started blogging. Lately, I've thought about discontinuing it but at the same time I love featuring a movie each week that someone may or may not have ever seen. If you'd like to join in on Theater Thursdays and mention a movie that you like and think others should watch, please feel free to grab my Theater Thursday button (located on the sidebar) and post about it!

This week's featured movie is, Magnum Force
Clint Eastwood is back as Detective Harry Callahan. This time he's out to find a San Francisco motorcycle police officer who's out in the city killing criminals. Harry doesn't know who it could be a cop or someone dressing as a cop? The killer is is loose in the city and this time he's determined to rid the city of major criminals. He's killed a drug king pin, a pimp and the list keeps on going. 

Once the pattern of criminals being killed is realized, Harry believes that the killer is a police officer. He doesn't know which of his friends he can trust. Of course his theory that it's a fellow officer doesn't win him any friendship points among his colleagues. In the face of a new police commissioner who's breathing down his neck, Harry realizes it could be all up to him to find the killer and bring him to justice. 

This is the second Dirty Harry film in the series. It's also by far the longest one. It's just as good as the first one so if you haven't seen it or haven't started the series. GET IT! 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Three Little Letters: DMV

On Friday morning, I got up early and headed out to the Department of Motor Vehicles. My insurance company had made an appointment for me and told me that this was the best route to go because the lines can get long. Um... I'm definitely glad that I walked into the building with an appointment because the line was out the door. No literally... people were standing outside in a line that's how long it was. 

I brisk by all the people in the queue and stand first in line under the Appointment Only line. I was quite pleased with myself. The dmv worker calls me up to the counter, checks my name on some appointment list and proceeds to give me 5 sheets of paperwork. Then he has me leave to get my VIN number verified around back. Sure, no problem I say! After about 15 minutes, I was back inside and really to get the show on the road. They give me my number and tell me to have a seat. I of course oblige. 

This is where I knew things were too good to be true. My number gets called literally maybe five minutes after I sit down. I'm handing the lady all of my paperwork and all of my verification things such as my passport, current drivers license, etc. That's when the other shoe drops....


"Where's your smog check certificate?"

My what?!? 

"In the state of California, you must get your car smog checked and have a certificate to verify that you've done so and passed."

But my car was bought brand new in 2009. Still.... need the smog check. Boo! Why didn't anyone tell me this BEFORE going to the dmv? The lady was really nice though and she let me fill out all of the paperwork and go ahead and pay the fees. Luckily, I had everything to register to vote and to get a new drivers license. This is the part that if I had a third foot, that shoe would have fell off.

So we get everything ready for me to set up a new drivers license. I pay my little fee. They tell me since my current license isn't expired that they'll waive the driving test. I pass the vision test and they say that I'm ready to get my picture taken. Then the nice lady who's been helping me verbally slaps me in the face with, "You'll be taking the written test today. It's 36 question and you can miss six. You also get three tries. Good luck and follow the arrows to the room over there."

Um.... hello cold sweat

I was praying and praying that I wouldn't have to do the written test. When I was 15 and took the written test to get my learners... I failed. Three times. Yep..... I know. 

I'm 28 years old. Do you realize how long ago that was? 13 years ago! Who remembers the actual answers they want for those tests? NO ONE. So I continue to have my freak out internally and smile on the outside. I whisk myself over to the testing room, get handed a number 2 pencil and begin. Five minutes later I'm handing the guy my test to be graded and biting my nails. He marks three on the first page. Not good! He looks up at me and goes, "well you've got a 50/50 chance at the moment!"

Thankfully, I only missed one more on the back for a grand total of four. Woohoo! Passed! Now I get to patiently wait for my new license to come in the mail. Now if you're thinking the day at the dmv ends there. Oh no kids, this show isn't over. I had to go get my car smog tested and then come back to the dmv without an appointment time. Luckily, the dmv guy at the front desk honored my earlier appointment and gave me an appointment time slot. I can proudly say, I've got my car registered in California and new tags on my car. It took five hours total for me to get everything done. 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Sunday Social

It feels good to be back to regular blogging again! This week I'm linking up with Ashley for Sunday Social! This week it's all about blogging!

Sunday Social

1. What is the name of your blog and how did you come up with it? Crazy Shenanigans! Living and Working through life, one crazy adventure at a time. I came up this this name because I'm always into some kind of crazy shenanigan. 
2. What do you love the most about blogging? I love the friendships that I've built with people all across the world. I also love the fact that it allows me to keep in touch with friends and family that I don't interact with everyday. 
3. What are your 2 favorite posts you've written? This is a hard one. I've been blogging for a few years and it's hard to narrow it down to just two. I'd have to say anything that has to do with vacations, Elvis Week 2012 and the holidays. 
4. What is something you'd want to tell someone just starting out in blog world? Just be you. Don't worry about people following you. Don't worry about sponsors. Just be you. 
5. Biggest blogging learning experience you've had? Not everyone is nice. 
6. Give us 3 blogs we NEED to be following that you love. I follow some really great blogs but three that I try to never miss are... 

Check them out! Their all really funny, smart, clever and great bloggers! 

Friday, September 7, 2012

Road Tales

While I'm still unpacking boxes, (yep... there's still tons of boxes to be unpacked) I thought I'd share some snapshots from the drive across the country and around the house. Once everything gets unpacked, I'll take some after shots of the house so you can see that I have real furniture and such. Ha!

When we set out to make the cross country trek, we decided to take the western route over the northern route. We figured it would be easier to cross that part of the country with a moving truck easier than it would be to cross huge mountains through Utah, Wyoming, etc. The drive through Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas wasn't bad at all. It wasn't until We began going through New Mexico and Arizona that it really started to heat up. When we hit the desert going into California, I thought we would die from the heat. We even had to stop because we were getting too hot. I truly learned what the term, "swamp ass"meant. My clothing was soaked in sweat. My pants, my shirt... drenched.

Now... with all that being said, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I drove across the United States. I got to see parts of the country that a lot of people never will. The sky was amazing during the day. The desert while hot was really breathtaking. We didn't have any bad weather and when we did, we had already stopped. It was definitely an interesting ride...
I also learned that Texas really does love steak. When we stopped at the Big Texas Steakhouse in Amarillo, they were offering anyone who could eat this 72oz steak and it's sides in under an hour the meal for free! I didn't even tempt that one...
I couldn't even eat that thing in a week! How about you? 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Theater Thursday

It's Thursday and that can only mean one thing... it's Theater Thursday! This week's featured movie is, Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry stars Clint Eastwood as San Francisco, homicide detective Harry Callahan. He's been a detective for years and he's learned how to catch the culprits. He's a take no nonsense type of guy and is known is known among the other cops as THE cop. 

Harry is on the hunt for a killer who's calling himself Scorpio. Scorpio is terrorizing the city of San Francisco by randomly selecting one person a day to kill until the city meets his demand of $100,000.00 His first victim in a young woman. The next day he vows to kill either a Catholic priest or an African American. When Harry is able to stop the killing, Scorpio becomes even more crazed. 

Scorpio kidnaps and buries alive a young girl and the time is ticking on the city to pay the random. Harry feels that he can deliver the ransom and possible catch the killer at the same time. It's all going to come down to Harry. 

This is the first movie in a five movie set. It's a great box set and Clint Eastwood does some good acting. If you've never seen this movie or this box set, then you definitely need to watch it. Plus the classic line, "Do you feel lucky punk?" is spoken. 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

San Francisco Bay

A few days after moving into the house... 4 days to be exact, Shayne and I decided to head over to San Francisco for the day. Luckily, SF is only about 2 hours away and is an easy drive from Sacramento. The first few nights in the house we had been watching the Dirty Harry movies. If you've seen the films then you know that their set in San Francisco. Soooo.... of course we found a few of the filming locations and visited them!

First up was the street where Clint Eastwood is seen watching Hot Mary. 
Next up we stopped by the Condor Club. This would be the strip club/bar where Clint goes inside.
We went more PG after the Condor club and saw the Church where the priest refuses to back down with a hit on his life. 
It was really fun to see a few of the locations that was used in filming Dirty Harry. I had never seen the movies till that week so they were all really fresh in my mind. After walking around a bit we started to get hungry so we hopped into a little pizza shop. I wish I would have got the name but I didn't. It's over by City Light Books if you ever want to go to it. As you can see... the slices were HUGE!
We also stopped over and saw the famous Painted Ladies...
and of course we could see Alcatraz when we were over by the Golden Gate Bridge...
I was freezing if you can't tell from this photo. It was pretty chilly with the wind. While we were in the city we also visited City Light Books, the home where Jefferson Airplane lived and Ameoba. I always love Ameoba's dvd section! All in all I thought it was a pretty nice day. If you've never been to San Francisco it should definitely be on your must see list. 

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Home Tour: The Before

Before we began moving everything into the house, I've got photos to show how it all looked. There's three other bedrooms here not photographed and my master bath. The bedrooms were all newly painted and brand new carpet. In the living room/dining room and kitchen there is brand new hardwood flooring. The bathrooms both have been freshly painted and tiled. I also lucked out with new ceiling fans, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and a jacuzzi tub in one of the bathrooms! 
entry way/living room
dining area connected to the living area
Kitchen
Another view of the kitchen
One of the 4 bedrooms.
The hall bathroom with a jacuzzi tub.

Once we started bringing in the boxes... oh my! It was instant clutter and chaos. 
Please tell me most people's living rooms look like this that first day of moving in. 

Now I just have to finish unpacking a few more things and hang more on the walls and then I can show you the after photos! I might show the progress tomorrow. It's slowly coming together. Hopefully, I can get everything unboxed by Thursday or Friday. 

Monday, September 3, 2012

Alive & Well: The Move to California!

Knock knock! Look who's back! 

I've finally got internet now so I can post an update. The last time I posted I was leaving Huntington, West Virginia and heading west to Sacramento, California. I can tell you that we made it without any problems. 

On Friday, August 17th we loaded up the truck. We had reserved a 12 foot Penske truck and let me tell you, we used every single inch of space in that truck.The day started out really good. We were getting the truck loaded pretty quickly, securing everything down and trying to make sure that we had room for everything. We knew that the amount of space was going to be tight for everything that we were hoping to load. As the time went on, it started to rain as we were loading. Thank goodness the rain stopped after about 30 minutes. We couldn't get in some bookshelves, night stand and one other piece of furniture but I think we did pretty well for the amount of space that we had. 
 
The next morning, Saturday, August 18th we hit the road at 9:30am. When I say, "we" I mean my mom's boyfriend Shayne and I.
The first day our goal was to make it to Springfield, Missouri. I drove my car while Shayne drove the truck. We drove for around 11 hours and made it to Springfield. I was emotionally and physically exhausted because I had said goodbye to people that I loved and had been in the car for so long. 
The second day we were shooting for Amarillo, Texas. We made it in good time and we were able to have a little fun for dinner. We hit up the Big Texas Steakhouse. If you're ever in Amarillo, I recommend this place. It was a lot of fun and affordable. The food was really good too. 
The third day we made it to Flagstaff, Arizona. By this point I had acquired a sore throat. I don't know if it was from being in so many different climates so fast, the freezing hotel rooms or just being run down but I definitely caught a sore throat/head cold. 
The fourth day we made it all the way through the desert and spent the night in Bakersfield, California. I had never been so happy to make it to a hotel. The desert is NO joke people. It's hot, hot and hot! We had to stop multiple times because we were so hot. The stopping points are also really spread out from Flagstaff to Bakersfield so when you see a gas station... STOP! You might not find one again for quite a few miles. 
On the fifth day of driving Wednesday, August 22nd we finally made it to the house! We were hot, tired and still had a lot to do. My realtor Kim met us with the key and we got started on unloading the truck. 
More on the house and unpacking tomorrow!