12 of 12 - January 2011

Can't believe it is already the 12th again. Time for the 12 of 12. Check out Chad Darnell's blog for the index and links to other 12 of 12er's around the globe.

We've been snowed/iced in here in Atlanta since Sunday, and I've spent the last few days trapped in the house, so today was my first full day back at work (I made it in for a half-day yesterday just because I was going stir-crazy stuck here at home but I was pretty much the only one there.) So it is a good thing that I was able to get out and back into civilization today, because otherwise my 12 of 12 would have just been self-portraits of me rocking back and forth in a corner muttering to myself with the accompanying commentary, "All work and no play makes Joni a dull girl," typed over and over ala Jack Torrence from The Shining.

8:25 a.m. - Heading out to work. I've got on 115 layers of clothing including thermals under my fat jeans. So glad that I hadn't thrown out the fat jeans yet, as they made layering a lot easier and also reminded me how far I've come with my weight loss (down 77 pounds since April). Of course, while I had on all the layers to keep me warm, I had absolutely no appropriate shoes for the snow. I know I have some boots somewhere, but wasn't able to find them. They will probably turn up in June when I'm looking for my flip-flops.

8:29 a.m. - Managed to get my short driveway shoveled off yesterday, so that made it a little easier this morning. My driveway, along with the community alleyway to the street, is on the north side of the house and stays shaded though most of the day, so it may be next month before the ice is all gone off the alley and my back deck which has about 8 inches of show, topped by 2 more inches of solid ice.

8:35 a.m. - A sad little one-eyed snowman at the end of my neighborhood. I can't tell if those red things on the front are deformed arms or really saggy and lopsided boobs.

8:40 a.m. - Accidental self-portrait I took on my way in from the parking lot.


1:14 p.m. - Our Director ordered pizza for the team today so we wouldn't have to go out in the ice to get our lunches. I know it is such a simple thing for her to do, but I seriously work for some of the nicest people.

1:15 p.m.- Should I have hot cocoa, or be good and go with the green tea? I went with the tea, but only because hot cocoa should be made with real milk, not water.

5:20 p.m. - On the way home. The parking lot is still iced over in a lot of places and plenty of snow still on the ground.

5:21 p.m. - Loved the look of the clouds over the parking lot and the airport in the distance.

5:23 p.m. - Oops, hit the wiper control as I started to pull out of my parking spot and it immediately froze. And of course, if I don't have the proper shoes for ice and snow, you can imagine that I don't have an ice scraper in my car either. (My Dad was so looking down on me, shaking his head and saying, "I've given you 100 of those things over the years - why was one of them not in your car young lady??") I ended up using the hard piece of plastic in the bottom of one of my reusable grocery bags to scrape it off - at least I'm industrious, if not prepared.)

5:30 p.m. - Liked the look of our fence widgets against the ice in this one.

5:32 p.m. - and the ominous nature of this one. My office is directly under the TA in Delta.

5:40 p.m. - Finally got some mail. That bit about "Through rain, sleet and gloom of night" on the side of the post office in New York is a big ole joke -the post office hasn't delivered any mail to my neighborhood all week. Although to be fair, I wasn't going out to the mailbox anyway. This also serves as my monthly bonus shot, which is the recreation of a photo from an earlier 12 of 12. I had a picking up the mail shot in my very first 12 of 12 back in December 2007.

5:47 p.m. - I've been craving cheese toast for 3 days, but I didn't have any cheese and the grocery store is too far to risk going with so much ice on the ground. Thankfully, my next-door neighbor Katie came to my rescue as she had cheese stocked in her fridge. I traipsed over in the snow to get it, shivering from the cold and shaking like an addict and she passed it off to me in a little plastic baggie. It had the feel of a drug deal going down.

And finally, one last bonus photo. This is not in fact my photo, nor was it taken on the 12th, but I thought it was kind of funny. My boss sent this to me today from when she went grocery shopping over the weekend before the snow hit. You see, in the south, for some strange reason, every time there are predictions of snow, everyone runs to the grocery store to buy milk and bread. It's like the whole world is coming to an end and the only thing that will save us all from certain doom is milk and bread. Why milk and bread? I have no idea. I guess bread in order to make sandwiches if the power goes out? But the milk would go bad if that happened. So I'm not sure why, but we do it. As evident by this photo of the Publix bread aisle on Sunday morning.

So there you have it, another 12 of 12 in the books. Now I'm off to enjoy my cheese toast and some hot chocolate made with milk, not water.

Hey, wait a minute. Now I think that I understand the whole bread and milk thing.

Joni & Santa: A Pictorial Retrospective

I actually wrote and posted a similar entry on my blog about two years ago, but I felt it needed some updating to honor my real Santa Claus - my Daddy - who I lost earlier this year.

For nine years, my Mom dutifully dressed me in my finest Christmas wear and took me to see Santa Claus at the Rich's at Greenbriar Mall (and once at the Downtown Rich's when my kindergarten choir performed on the Bridge at the lighting of the Great Tree). Here is the chronicle of those visits.

1963 - So, this is where it all began. My first visit as a 3 month old in 1963. I'm clearly making a lot of noise and irritating Santa, while my brother Steve is a picture perfect boy scout. This picture pretty much sums up my family dynamic from that point on.

1964 - Still making noise and being irritating....

1965 - although, admit it - you'd cry too if Santa was letting everyone see your underpants?

1966 - I can haz a Christmas Tree Candy??? (See? Before Candy = No Happys. After Candy - Happys!)

1967 - Dude! He gave me candy again, and I wasn't even good this year!

1968 - Hey, if my brother can dress up like a boy scout, I can be an angelic little choir girl. (This one is the only departure from the Greenbriar tradition - this one was taken at the Downtown Rich's. Man, Santa really got around.)

1969 - I think that I'm slowly starting to notice that the beard is a fake. But I'm totally digging that crocheted vest over my blouse and the plaid pleated skirt.

1970 - Now this Santa sort of creeps me out. I think he's sort of sketchy looking, don't you? But, on a happier note, my aunt Charlsie made that top/dress for me. It was one of my favorites.

1971 - And this Santa just isn't even trying - I mean, his mustache is below his top lip and his belly is pushed up above his belt like man boobs. Come on dude, this isn't a tough gig - just sit in the chair and make sure your fake hair and stomach stays in place. I'm thinking this guy had thrown back a few too many before shift down at the Happy Hermans mid-mall.

Just after this one, my stupid, mean classmate Ronnie Powell ruined Christmas forever when he told us all the truth about Santa. I hated that kid. Of course, in relaying this story to my childhood best friend Karen, I found out that I promptly came home from school that day and told her what Ronnie Powell had done, thereby ruining Santa Claus for her. Damn me and my gossiping. Sorry Karen :-(

2009 - So here I am last Christmas with the real (and very best) Santa that there ever was. I love you Daddy, and I appreciate all you did to make each Christmas special for our family. It won't be the same without you this year.

I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane with Santa, and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

12 of 12 - December 2010

After missing last month (where it was the 15th before I realized that the 12th was long gone), I'm back with a 12 of 12 for December. My day was a little colder than it was for 12 of 12 creator Chad Darnell. Chad ran the Honolulu Marathon today as part of a group that raised over $600,000 for Aids Project Los Angeles. Way to go Chad! Love you and am so proud of you. :-)

So, now on to my 12....

12:30 a.m. - Speaking of men I love - Paul McCartney and Seth Meyers on Weekend Update. This two parts of my dream threesome. LOL.


12:57 a.m. - Love it when he sings Get Back, cause I like to pretend I'm the Jojo he is singing about.

12:20 p.m. - Woke up to a dusting of snow this morning. Just a little on the front porch...

12:22 p.m. - and a little more out back on the north side of the house where it is shadier.


1:15 p.m. - My poor orchid has seen better days. I'm like the kiss of death to any plant.


4:17 p.m. - Went shopping at Pier One for an ornament for our office Christmas lunch ornament exchange. I always like their airplane ornaments, but I went in a different direction for the gift ornament.

4:20 p.m. - and the Pink Pigs were cute. They reminded me of the Rich's Pink Pig from when I was a kid. I should have bought one for myself, but decided to wait. Hopefully, they will still have plenty after Christmas when they are 75% off.

4:23 p.m. - Got some Jingle Bells so that next time I say I'll be somewhere "with bells on" I can really do it.

4:45 p.m. - This is what poinsettias look like before I buy them and take them home and kill them with my kiss of death.

6:11 p.m. - Up to the attic to get down some of my Christmas stuff. One of my friends is supposed to come over and help me with my tree tomorrow. I didn't have one last year because I was so sick, and I'm hoping that putting one up this year will help with the depression over losing Daddy.


6:15 p.m. - Speaking of Daddy, since we had a shared love of aviation, most of my ornaments are airplanes and a lot of them came from him. I have about 30-35 different airplanes for my tree, along with all of the Delta ornaments designed by Christopher Radko.


6:16 p.m. - I also have a lot of red cardinals for the tree, which you can see among the ornaments in this photo. Dad's mother (Nanny Bug) use to have red cardinal ornaments that clipped on to her tree and I found some like them a few years ago in a retro shop and I bought them all. I figure that the fly like airplanes do, so they still work with my theme. Also, the little red airplane in the middle is one of my favorites from Dad because it reminds me of the Red Baron airplane (Yes, it has stars instead of the crosses, but we both got the same Red Baron vibe from it.) It was a great call back to my youth when Daddy gave me my very first 45 record - The Royal Guardsman's Snoopy vs. The Red Baron - along with my first record player, when I was about 4 years old. I bet I played that song 1,000 times and Daddy never complained. He'd even dance with me during the instrumental bridge. Damn I miss him.

So, there we go. If I ever get the tree up and finished, I'll try to follow up with some photos of the finished product. Hope you all enjoyed, and Merry Christmas (and happy 12th) to you all.

12 of 12 - October 2010

For October's 12 of 12, I thought I'd try something a little different. Having been recently accused of having an addiction to my iPhone (it's not an addiction, I can quit any time I want to, I just don't want to, please don't take my phone from me, I will die.....) I decided to do a 12 of 12 made up completely of screen-cap photos of my iPhone.

1:15 a.m. - Great thing about the screencaps is that I'm not having to guesstimate the time of the photos. This was taken in the middle of the night when I woke up for no reason. I always wake up or look at the clock at 1:15. It's like my version of the Amityville Horror where the guy would wake up every night at 3:15 a.m. which coincided with the murders. I'm not being haunted by a murder, but I'm definitely being haunted by something.

6:00 a.m. - There goes the freaking alarm, only about 2 hours after I finally fell back to sleep.


6:09 a.m. - I could have pretty much taken this same photo every 9 minutes for the next 45 minutes, because once the alarm goes off, I can sleep like the dead.


8:01 a.m. - Checking Facebook. Look - a fellow 12 of 12er (and Words with Friends friend) likes my Status update.


10:27 a.m. - I guess technically it is Mom Home now, but I can't bear to take Dad off of the phone. Plus I love looking at the photo of the two of them when it rings. At least Mom waiting until after our daily 9:30 meeting today to call me about whatever calamity has occurred or thing I forgot to do for her. Usually, she calls me about 5 minutes into the meeting and when I don't pick up, she keeps calling. I love that she use to fuss about my Dad doing the same thing and swore she would never do it. She did have good reason today, so I'm giving her a break.


1:01 p.m. - Responding to an email. I thought about explaining the perfectly clean, nice and polite suggestion that a friend made which led to this response from me, but I figured it would be more fun to just let everyone come up with their own image/idea of what it was all about. So enjoy. (Muwahahahaha/Bom-Chika-Bom-Bom)


4:07 p.m. - Making a move in a Words with Friends game. My Georgia friends won't like it, but my Florida friends will.

6:02 p.m. - Call from BFF Tony. We mourned the end of the Braves season.

6:36 p.m. - Call from the doctor's office with some results we've been waiting on (no I'm not pregnant, yes I'm sure.)

8:21 p.m. - Back to Words with Friends. Win some.....

9:26 - Lose some.

9:54 p.m. - Trying to figure out the name of a song I heard on the way home earlier - I for sure thought it was an old 80s song, but it was a Killers song from only like 3 years ago. I guess it just felt 80s cause it was smushed between a Police song and a Simple Minds song on the radio.

11:17 p.m. - Downloaded a bunch of horror classics this month on an e-book app. Currently rereading one of my faves - Bram Stoker's Dracula. Will probably read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein next. (Maybe starting to figure out why I can't sleep at night.)

So, that's my day with my addiction, I mean my phone. Hope you enjoyed.

12 of 12 - September 2010

Sorry all - I needed to take down my September 12 of 12 post. Not sure if I'll be reposting anything in it's place or not.

12 of 12 - August 2010

Happy 12 of 12. Check at Chad Darnell's blog for the master 12 of 12 list with links to all the other 12 of 12ers. And remember Chad's name, cause he's gonna be an Academy Award winning screenwriter one day soon. :-)

My 12th was spent once again at the doctor's. I've got to stop letting them schedule me on the 12th, cause I have way too many photos of the hospital, x-ray machines, blood, needles, etc. in 12 of 12s past. I don't want to see them anymore, and I'm sure no one else does either. But unfortunately, this month, that's most of what I got.

So let's begin.

6:55 a.m. - View from my bed. Looks like the sun is creeping up on me again. I rarely sleep anymore, but I try. Of course, most of my good sleep comes about 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. Trying to get in a little early today since I'm only working a half day and have tons of stuff that has to be finished before I go.

7:15 a.m. - Getting prepped for the doctor. They can never get a good vein when they take my blood, and I'm already squeamish about it to begin with. I've even passed out a time or two (or 7) when they've stuck me, so I've learned all kinds of tricks to try and make it go easier for me. Trick #1 is to start drinking lots of water 24 hours ahead of the appointment. (This has the added benefit of also helping if you have to give another type of sample as well.) So, here are a couple of bottles to get me started (plus 2 more I left in the fridge at work.)

7:17 a.m.- Trick #2 is to take something to focus on that makes me happy so that I won't focus on them sticking me. I've used a lot of things over the years, but this is one that has helped me the last few times. It is a photo from a friend that has special meaning to me. I had it made into a wallet size so that I can whip it out whenever they start tying the little rubber thing around my arm.

7:17 a.m. - Trick #3 - Previous lab results. I get copies every time I have blood work done, because if it has only been a few weeks, some of my doctors will take this in lieu of doing it over again. This works once in a while. It didn't work today.

12:48 p.m. - Piedmont Fayette Hospital, oh how I hate you. It's a nice hospital and all, I just hate being there since that's where Daddy was through most of his final illness. But all of my doctors are in this building, so what can I do?

12:55 p.m. - Kind of a weird reflection thing going on between the two sets of windows on either side of the glass doors going into the doctor's office.

1:12 p.m. - Trick #4 - Have them use a butterfly on you instead of what the smart-ass technician referred to as a "grown-up" needle. The butterflies are a little easier for them to fish with when my vein inevitably runs and hides. Looks like they found one on the first try.......

1:30 p.m. - Yep - just looked like it. That one blew out before the first tube filled up. Ended up with two sticks in my arm...


1:37 p.m. - before they ended up going to my hand, which still hurts hours later. Seems that none of my tricks worked today. And it just got worse after that. I'll just say that blood was not all they wanted from me today, and the next set of photos would have involved longer needles, my hip and me weeping uncontrollably. Needless to say, the camera got put away and I need to have my photo from Trick #2 reprinted cause it got crumpled pretty badly.


4:00 p.m. - Finally getting ready to flee from the torture. View of the hospital parking lot from the 4th floor. Can you spot my car/truck? You know, from this distance, you can't even tell that it needs to be washed.

4:10 p.m. - Passed the lake on the way home and stopped for a few minutes to get out and kind of meditate on it all. Of course, the heat, combined with my light-headedness, was not a good combination so it didn't last long. So I went home and took a nap.

9:00 p.m. - Woke up and went upstairs to try and finish cleaning out the guestroom closet. This baby was completely full 2 weeks ago. But I've lost 50 pounds in the last few months (which made me happy, but not my doctor for some strange reason) and so I went in and tried on just about everything up there in the last few weeks. Ended up donating about 100 items. Now all that remains are all my winter coats, my concert t-shirts from the 80s and 90s, a few other keep sake clothing items and my Dad's flight jacket. Now I can actually have a guest stay with me and have room to hang their clothes. And for the record, that little black spot on the wall of the closet? It isn't really there. I went back up there and the wall is completely white. I cleaned my lens and took the photo again, and it was still in the photo. Too strange.

So, guess that's it. See you next month, if not sooner.