Merry Christmas!

-jess

 

i have failed you all.  i apologize for the 20 lapse in activity on rockjessie.com, i assure you i will not let that happen again.

assuming i am forgiven, i’m going to carry on with the regularly scheduled blogging.

what has changed:

• my little sister is a married lady.
• i have blonde hair
• my wisdom teeth are officially counting down their days
• the grand levee is no longer?
• st louis has gone from comfortably warm to unGodly humid and hot
• the days are longer (my favorite)
• i went fishing for the first time this year

things that are the same:

• i still haven’t caught any fish
• i still haven’t made it to the Ozarks
• i still don’t have a tan
• i still haven’t seen The Hangover
• i still haven’t purchased a protective case for my blackberry

other than the fact that my little sister is now married, most of those things are pretty uneventful.

so what i’m saying is, my life has been pretty boring other than all this wedding planning.  being the maid of honor is a lot of work!  but totally worth it.  i didn’t get much sleep this last week.  friday night i found it impossible to sleep soundly for more than about 45 minutes as i was terrified of over sleeping and missing my hair appointment and then, in turn, missing the wedding.  but none of that happened.

i must say, though, many things did go wrong.  nothing terribly big, but i would be lying if i said the whole thing went exactly as planned.  to give you an idea of some of the things that attempted to break the confidence of the bride:  2 left shoes not realized until the rehearsal dinner, non-functional aisle runner, tornado warnings, broken down car, unresponsive honeymoon resort, crying flower girl, lost necklace, bridal bug bites, wrong piano keys, lost cake deposits and a nearly missed 6am flight.

but despite the fact that every small thing went wrong, the most important thing was unshaken.  and that is the fact that no matter what happened, abby and josh were still madly in love with each other and never once even questioned what they were doing.

no cold feet.  except maybe emma because she didn’t have shoes until a few hours before the wedding.

here are a few photos so that you can see how beautiful it was.  the party was awesome.  the dj was the best i’ve ever experienced (let me know if you want his info, i strongly recommend!) everyone had so much fun and the party was raging until the lights came on.  even my grandparents danced the night away.

-jessica

i’m gonna be honest.  most of the pictures from the bachelorette party are completely inappropriate for my blog.  assuming i don’t want an 18+ rating slapped on here.

our hotel room turned out to be entirely too small to accomodate us.  which was kind of a downer…but what’r you gonna do?  squeeze in and bear it.  the bathroom was massive.  pretty much the size of the room.

we did a little shopping in downtown.  went to the biggest forever 21 i’ve ever seen. love that.  ran into a friend from college who just happened to also be visiting Chicago.  small world!

{the place: museum}

dude 1: (staring intently at imaginary photograph) I’m having trouble getting what the artist was really trying to say in this painting

dude 2: perhaps if you take off your shirt!

{shirts come off and fly across the room}

followed by 5 more similar shirt removals, then pants, then 3 layers of man-undies/boxers/etc.

the idea behind it was silly, but quite entertaining.

we didn’t get to see the beach, but i figured out, even though it’s about 80 degrees here, people in Chicago are still wearing trench coats & scarves.  because it’s friggin cold.  it’s just collllld there.  i don’t think i could live there.  i’m a creature that thrives under a warm sun.

anyway, as promised, here are a few shots of the excitement.  i’ll keep them tame, but if you’re going to get all offended, you should go away now and come back in a few days.now a few from the bridal shower.  theme = lovebirds.  everything was very nice, if i do say so myself.

-jess

yesterday was absolutely gorgeous here in st louis.  perfect temperature.  just the right sun to cloud ratio.  comfortable light breeze.  lovely.

i spotted the band from the school across the street playing some tunes on the playground, and this group of dudes playing craps on the back of their truck in the alley behind our building.  (they were also grilling and had some fold out chairs set-up).  these are only things you see on beautiful st louis days.

but we know days like these can never last.

today’s weather is super volatile.

sometimes the spring terrifies me.  i have always had a love/hate relationship with severe weather.  there is something absolutely fascinating about tornados and the conditions that support them.  when i was little my parents gave me a set of tornado chaser videos that i watched constantly.  they are so incredibly powerful and they can come on w/ almost no warning.  so much damage.

even when a tornado isn’t involved, things can get pretty hairy, like in Alton, IL yesterday when a building collapsed in the middle of downtown.  yep.  just over the river!

we haven’t seen much of the really bad stuff in stl yet, but it’s early, and will certainly come soon.

in other news…when the weather gets wet and muggy (like today), the creepy crawlies seem to want to take shelter inside.  this is no good for me because i have some serious issues co-habitating with spiders.  serious.

 so i have 2 phobias:

tornados
&
spiders

while we probably will not see a dreaded twister today (though it’s always possible), after this morning, the spider part is covered. 

guess who was chilling in my sink today?  giant brown spider (ok, by giant i mean…like the size of a quarter, but that’s quite giant enough for me.)

creepiest part?  he was not in there when i got out of the shower, so at some point that guy was just hanging out nearby while i went through the morning routine.  it’s very possible that he dropped from the ceiling because i’m not sure how else he would have managed to get in my bowl sink.  what i’m saying is….he could have dropped on my head. 

i wanted to take a photo, but i was too terrified to do so.  this is creepy brown spider #3.  i know this sounds paranoid and crazy, but i am relatively sure there are brown recluses.  which would make sense considering the fact that i live in the middle of brown recluse territory.  i don’t want their venom to eat away my flesh.

in the end, i did not have to squish him because there are other people in my life that are less terrified than me that like me enough to exterminate my spiders.  however, had i been alone, there is a good chance i would i have created a blowtorch w/ my hairspray and fried the little bugger.

should we bomb again??

-jess

There’s a spider on the drain and he’s feeling pain
And he doesn’t want to die any more than you or I
He’s struggling to live but he doesn’t have much time
Any more than you or I, you or I

weezer ~ the spider

i love working with such creative people.  check out our awesome bowling trophy.  (i stole this from the switch blog, btw)

 

you like?

 

-jess

 

i love to eat an apple.  LOVE them.   i love their delicious juicyness and the chompy noise they make when you bite into them.  i love them in caramel, peanut butter or even just plain.  i just love them.

however, eating an apple can be difficult because i inevitably get apple all over my face.  gosh, there must be some easier way to eat apples.

of course!  an apply wedger!  i always knew these magnificant devices existed, but i never actually owned one.  who knew it would make my life that much simpler. 

my little sister was sweet enough to give me her extra apple wedger. it was the nice kind…from pampered chef. 

i purchased some apples late last week with the specific intention of slicing each into 10 equal, tasty parts. 

apple one:  success!  the perfect apples slices.  i was so excited, i couldn’t wait to dunk my apples into the caramel dip i had purchased just for this purpose.  i think, i better clean off my new tool so it will be ready for the next apple i choose to eat. 

as i washed the new, wonderful addition to my kitchen team, i couldn’t help but smile and marvel at the fact that such a small detail can make such a huge difference in my apple eating experience. 

it’s difficult to clean though.  as i am just finishing up, still ecstatic, i flip the wedger over to give it a quick rinse. perfect.  good to go for next time.

somewhere between the wedger’s bath and it’s arrival back to it’s protective plastic sleeve, something went wrong.

our happy relationship took a turn for the worst.  i’m not sure if my new friend was upset that i wasn’t choosing to eat a 2nd apple just then, of if perhaps it had an extreme distaste for the confines of it’s plastic prison, but either way, i was biten.

my finger was sliced.  and rather deeply.  it was so incredibly razor sharp that i barely realized it had happened until the blood began to flow.  i tossed the offending utensil across the counter.  and ran to find my neon band-aids.  now it hurts when i play guitar.

how dare you, apple wedger.

i thought this was going to be a beautiful relationship, but now i realize i must be more careful for you are not here for my pleasure.  you are out to destroy me.  one slice at a time.

-jessica

eyeball sighting.

 

-jess

future newest member of my family:

 

guess what’s inside….

-jess

this is where i’m going tomorrow:

it’s on the panhandle…santa rosa beach…close by seaside where the truman show was filmed (i’ll definitely be stopping by!)

it’s quaint.  bicycling, kayaking, walking on the beach.  no parties.  just relaxing.  there is a hot tub, too.  yay!

i absolutely cannot wait to get there.  i can’t tell you how much i need a little relaxation!

be back on Monday night!

-jess

our plane landed in st louis just after 11pm last night

needless to say, i’m quite dead today, however, before i pass out for a nice long nap, i would like to share some of my trip with you.

not all of it, though, because as they say “what happens in vegas…” well, you know the rest.

going for work is quite different than going with friends, but regardless, it was still a lot of fun.

here are a few shots of our booth WHICH, btw, won the “Best New Exhibitor Booth”….sweet!

^our truck, breaking through the wall of traditional media (also see our pile of old tv’s to the left!)

^some of our banners

^switch liberate your brand!

^paintball aftermath..messy messy messy. (but fun!)

^liberate yourself from the confines of traditional media by shooting up this tv with a paintball gun :)

^yes.  we rock.  go switch!

^ate my first oyster..i also ate my first snail..and just some of the best food i’ve ever eaten in general

^it’s 5 degrees in the red square vodka freezer…so you have to wear a fur coat and hat with flaps

^so you can see how big he is.

^dancing, posing, i’m not sure, but we certainly had fun at rumjungle

^jeannie sported the switch dots to dinner at mon ami gabi (best salmon i’ve ever had, fyi)

so we never saw the sun, and we barely slept (basically we became vampires for 4 days), but we accomplished our mission, and had a lot of fun doing it…

yay switch!

-jess