my take on Lifetime Movies
Today I have felt all the emotions. And much like a Lois Lowry book even I am tapped out on giving today.
So, I am going to do what I do best… doodle weird things. Today’s weird thing is brought to you by an emotionally unstable girl staring at a tree:
Only 2.41667 hours until I can be somewhere else. But the magic 8 ball probably doesn’t agree… it never ever does.
♥Lauren
A well known fact about me is I am a big fan of people named Jen.
If not known to you. I can indeed verify that this is very true. Under my work blouse I have a shirt that says “Go Jen!” pretty much every day.
Just as true, and slightly off subject my first cat was named Jenny. She was gray and stripey.
But not all the Jen’s I know are gray and stripey.
Some of them are just fabulous people, I have encountered in this big old world.
One of these Jen’s is a craft-inspiring, whimsical, imaginative, brain twin of mine. She not only is the magical creator of this website she has not updated in a while, but she also makes fancy jam. (disclaimer: I can say nothing about updating blogs because well I have not updated this sucker is a bit.) I however, am just lazy… Jen has a reason, she is working on a very big project.
She’s having a baby!
And I have been thinking about her on and off this week, because it’s nearly time that she is going to bring her baby to the world.
And I thought I should send her a hello… But, it just didn’t seem special enough. So, a hello with a doodle will have to do.
Jen, I hope everything is going fantastic! Also, I am not a great face-booker… I should send you hello’s and such so much more often. Anyways enough with that and well…. Congratulations! You are going to be the best mom ever, and your impending little boy is just the luckiest duck.
♥Lauren
I have been gone for a while. But I never stay away too long. I actually I get really bummed when I don’t get to blog or draw for a while and well it’s time to get back to doodling!
Today I have to share something that has never happened to me in the nearly 7 years I have worked for this company.
I actually have too much light in my workspace.
You see I’m used to working in a space with no natural light :
At a few times after I had to put on sunglasses to see my emails… I thought maybe I was on my way to the pearly gates and I still had a work deadline. Only I would be working until the end. And I hadn’t even seen the rest of season 4 of Arrested Development… I just couldn’t deal with that thought. But I could deal with the thought that heaven is probably full of really good food and I was kind of hungry.
And now I have come to the conclusion… that I may be the office vampire. I mean I like being pasty, I am always wearing sunscreen (even at work) and I am quite skilled at adept at avoiding sun beams, and well I’m not a big fan of being stabbed with wooden stakes.
My boss thought I was exaggerating when he came out of his office to see me typing with my sunglasses on. The when he came over to my cubicle he realized I was in fact not exaggerating with my Stevie Wonder like wardrobe change. He then told me I could get extra blinds because when he came into my cubicle space and couldn’t even see the work on my computer.
I knew I wasn’t exaggerating that badly… and plus working with shades makes me feel cool, like Lenny Kravitz, or Shades from “That Thing You Do”.
♥Lauren
I like to make people really excited about not really exciting things.
I consider it a talent.
Eating and growing vegetables, going to the optometrist, buying hairspray at pharmacy… I can make these things/events seem like the best thing that could ever happen to you. I mean have you been to a CVS… they have everything including hyper ugly statuary! And $.99 plates shaped like dog heads!
So let’s get back to the making people excited part of this story. My mom has been having a hard time with work lately (seriously does anyone like where they work right now?) And I decided in my own goofy gander way to cheer her up.
She doesn’t need any thing… because she makes the little mermaid look like a minimalist. I mean I have asked her to borrow a black sweater a few weeks ago and she has told me I have 8 options, not including the sparkly ones.
So I was like… what can I do to make her smile?
She doesn’t really seem like she wants to go out to a restaurant after she gets home. And seriously I am not into hearing critiques on my cooking (totally different story).
And then I was like… hmmm a doodle sounds great!
And then I remembered how much she loves sea otters. And I remembered how much I like puns. So I made her this:
She bought a frame to hang it up in her house. And yes the little otters are obviously me and my sister. Really great depictions too.
♥Lauren
And I’m big girl excited to take the next few days off and be a tourist in my own town. Stay-cation here we come!
Okay I was super prepared to make another post. I was in it, I was going the distance.
And then I didn’t hit post. Because it just really wasn’t happening in my gut. I felt like there was something better I could share.
And then when I was driving home I realized what it was. Last week in my silly adventures I ended up on this Date Duration Calculator… and I found out today is my 10,000th day!
Because you know I’m a bit of a sappy girl I bring you this doodle:
And in my super 10,000 day knowledge I have decided I totally am going to live my next 1,000 days like Dolly Parton. Who I have always adored… but the more I learn about her the more I see her as a force of absolute goodness in this world. And really don’t we need more of that? I want to help with that!
Also thanks to Jonathon who understood my joy of 10,000 days. Just to let you know I ate Ice Cream and wore a very sparkly necklace to celebrate it… and did I mention there was a new Mindy Project? Well there was, and my whole day was just wonderful :)
One more thing. Use the calculator and calculate some of your special days. I’d like to see some of your numerical triumphs!
♥Lauren
This is my second post of the day.
Can you believe the best day ever has 2 parts? And this post is dedicated to the one and only Isabel.
And of course there’s a story to go with her unbridled majesty. Isabel was the first friend I made in high school, she listened to cool music, was incredibly pale… and she drove to school in the most awesome station wagon this side of the rocky mountains. My story about her this year comes a few years after we met…When were seniors we had a class trip to Disneyland that lasted all night (A California tradition). Our parents both liked to terrify us, the way parents do… and told us not to fall asleep on the bus because we would certainly be molested. And being good Catholic girls we totally abided by our parents rules. We stayed up the WHOLE night, the entire bloody night. And we stayed up the whole bus ride back as everyone else slept, and out other friends boob popped out of her shirt. Thank goodness we were up because that sucker got covered up big time. Needless to say when we got back to my house we were delirious, and the worst part is that neither of us could sleep. So we decide to pass our still awake hours by watching “Center Stage” (which was lovingly borrowed from Christine.) We put the tape into my cool tv/vcr combo and let it play. And my mother assumed we would have fallen asleep in about half an hour once we were in my room watching this teen flick. Well, I can’t even tell you what that movie was about, I just know that we laughed the whole way through it like the delirious unmolested children we were. It was one of the most fun days ever recorded.
And I didn’t laugh that hard ever again until we watched the French Canadian version of “Bring It On” which was re-titled “Le Tout Por Let Tout”.
Happy Birthday Isabel you are really the best friend a girl could ask for and the best person to laugh through a movie with!
And yes I still draw you in Weezer shirts after all these years… I would like to imagine you own like 40 of them. And you have them for all occasions. In fact I cannot wait for you to have your wedding day Weezer shirt… and since you don’t really have one, I will totally make it for you.
Happy Isabel & Christine’s birthday everyone!
♥Lauren
Today is actually one of my favorite days.
No, not because of Good Friday’s meatless promises.
But because it’s my bff’s for life’s birthdays! And as always I would like to share a little tale about one of the best people I know. I am a very lucky girl to have met Christine in the freshest moments of the new century. She had an impressive vocabulary for a teenager, and at the same time she had the most unintentional orange hair I have ever seen. In fact at the moment we started giggling I knew that I had met someone of significance. And 13 years later we are still gigglier than ever. Now we don’t pass notes in class, but we pass texts during work. And we still play the same word games that tickled our fancy in our teenage years. We may have jobs, family issues, and bills to pay. But when we are together we can be as silly and girly as our hearts desire.
Happy Birthday Christine! You are the best co-conspirator a girl could ask for.
Have the best year ever, Christine. And Happy Christine & Isabel’s birthday.
♥Lauren
Sometimes I find it so hard to be stuck in a place I don’t necessarily want to be in. I think everybody has this feeling. And it’s not that I am literally stuck in the worst place. I am just kind of sitting at a crossroads. I don’t know what I want but I do know that the outcome I want is… happiness.
I am like everyone else in that way. I just want the happy.
Now I can be happy in pretty much every situation, it’s true. It’s really just the perspective I keep to stay sane.
And even the worst days have things to be happy about.
Like yesterday we lost our lunch table and I had to eat lunch alone at my desk. Well I can say that it was cruddy and I didn’t get to see the outside at all yesterday until after 6.
Or I can say I got to draw at my desk for an hour… And that is where this little friend came from:
So although everyday may not be the best put up with it, live in it, and enjoy it. Because rain isn’t so bad when you are waiting for your rainbow.
And the best things about today is that it’s sunny, and I got to eat chicken fingers and make Jonathon a birthday card.
And hopefully my rainbow will be here soon. And yours too! I am not stingy with my joy.
♥Lauren
So I have had a killer workday ahead of me. In fact yesterday, I worked 9 hours on something I couldn’t even explain to anyone if I tried. I just recolored blocks in a computer program over and over again. So quite candidly I can say… those blocks, are really really colored. And everything else well… it didn’t get done.
And I have had a headache since last week that is made up of stress and allergies… because it’s been so windy where I live. I actually feel the north wind is telling me I should run away like, Juliette Binoche in Chocolat and start my own store of drinks and doodles. Where that weird French guy can judge how I would rather live a happy life than the life of a nun, and Johnny Depp can be my sexy repairman. But that is for later, and deadlines are for now.
Amber came back into the office yesterday and was super optimistic. She made me remember all the things I learned in the last few weeks by watching movies with Paul Rudd in them. Wanderlust, My Idiot Brother, the Baxter. All of these movies made my last few weeks. All of them have helped me realize what I really need.
Happiness.
The only thing is I have to do is go find what that is to me right now. And since I’m currently at work I can try to think about it. I hope you can do it too… wherever you are at:
Right now I’m listening to music and trying to think about what would make me happy… not feeling trapped in this office would be nice.
♥Lauren
Viciously Sweet 