© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: first day of school, last day of school

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There are very few things that get me riled up enough to take to the internet.

Gay marriage equality? ACTIVIST!

Anti-bullying? ACTIVIST!

Melanoma awareness? ACTIVIST!

No-spoilers? ACTIVIST!

I’m not shy about voicing my feelings about what other people say or post online to social media channels as it relates to TV shows, movies, and books. I won’t apologize for my beliefs or my reasoning.

I go so far as to never watch the “coming on the next episode of…,” I almost never read snippets of upcoming book releases, and I sure as hell never EVER read the first chapter teaser of an unreleased book.

My theory: I’m too smart not to figure out the storyline of a TV/movie/book from the teaser to enjoy the surprises in store for me when I get to watch/read the full show/movie/book.

That’s right—I just said I’m too smart.

[EDITED 6.4.13—Please know that I'm not saying that teasers are a bad thing; not at all. They're just (for the most part) not for me. I publish and share teasers, I've read them, and I'll continue to publish and share them. Teasers are not spoilers.]

I like surprises in my fantasy life. Surprises in my real life are a no-no—just ask Patrick.

And yes, I expect everyone THE WORLD OVER to follow my rules for a No-Spoiler Lifestyle.

RULE 1—The Warning
Do not ever ever never “warn” me about an upcoming plot line twist. *cough*Dad*cough* When you warn me, I’ll anticipate what you got the privilege of being surprised over. I like the surprise; don’t take it away from me. This goes for before AND during the viewing and/or reading.

RULE 2—24-Hour TV Show Wait Time
Regarding a particularly exciting TV show episode or finale, never ever never reveal any particulars about said episode or result until a FULL 24 HOURS has passed since the airing. This is especially true for social media outlets.

Don’t be a dick and sit on your computer or phone during Game of Thrones and be that guy who tweets: “HOLY SHIT—JOFFREY JUST ORDERED NED’S HEAD BE CHOPPED OFF! #First” Every single Game of Thrones devotee who sees your tweet before getting to watch the show (either because geography or DVR recording) will hate you for the rest of your life. Save your specifics for tomorrow.

Try tweeting your excitement over a plot twist with intrigue. For example: “HOLY SHIT—TONIGHT’ #GoT IS A MUST-SEE ASAP! #IAmNotADick” This way, your friends and followers are aware and warned that they should make watching the show a priority and that you will probably be talking about it very soon. After the allotted 24 hours post airing has passed, there’s no hold barred. You’re free to give details, show pictures, and email all your friends with abandon.

RULE 2 EXCEPTION—Award Shows
I live-tweet award shows like a mo’fo because award shows are a different animal. Nowadays, they are shown live coast-to-coast, and if they aren’t, those on the West coast are smart enough to avoid social media if they’re interested in the outcome. Besides—no one really cares about the winners of an awards show 24 hours later anyway, so what’s the point in saving the discussion?

RULE 3—Books
I swear by all that is holy to me (see: my children, my TiVo, my Kindle, my Lappytop), if you take to the internet and say something even close to, “I LOVE THE HAPPY ENDING OF *insert name of the book you’ve been waiting 6 months to read*!!1!exclamation1!!!”? I will come to your house and break your e-reader in half with my bare hands. You are the worst kind of human being on social media. This is precisely why I am extra careful in my book recommendations to be vague about plot and character details.

Now that these easy-to-follow rules for a No-Spoiler Lifestyle have been established, let’s all do our best to live by them. It’s for the sake of my sanity that we’re all together on this.

You’re welcome, fellow no-spoiler activists.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: books, No Spoiler, spoiler free, TV

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I was very busy this morning talking to my BFFAEAEAEAE, Brittany, about how kids today are super spoiled.

We also discussed how waxing is a business expense, and we died from LOLs as how awesome our “jobs” have turned out.

Even though Brittany is a whole 1/2 a decade younger than me, she, too, grew up listening to Huey Lewis and the News’ Fore! on vinyl. We both also had the album version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, complete with the fold-out white tiger.

You know, back in the days when young, impressionable girls thought Michael Jackson was cute and totally dateable.

I also admitted to learning I Am the Walrus off of a record player. We were pretty much the coolest 80s kids ever.

The first cassette tape I owned was Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, and the first cassette tape I bought on my own from the record store at the mall was INXS Kick.

I owned the first CD player in our house—15th birthday present—and the first CD I owned was C+C Music Factory.

Kids today won’t have a first record, a first tape, or a first CD. Our kids already have their own disconnected iPhones full of music “borrowed” from our iTunes accounts.

HOW LAME IS THAT?

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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There’s just some things that come along and leave me speechless.

For instance, Mr. Gandy:

Like that Parker Hurley even exists:

And that my sister felt this way: Her Little Sister

All three of the above make my eyes leak with love. You suck.

image/image

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Those crazy people at Graco want you to believe that if you use their products (which I used), your life and living room will be beige and pretty like this one:

In reality, this is what raising babies looks like:

Graco also wants you to think this is what your baby’s play dates will look like, complete with unstained couches and mugs of coffee without toddler fingers dipping in:

What’s better than a play date with your baby’s best buddy? A play date with your baby’s best buddy PLUS catch-up time for mommies over a great cup of coffee.
Now, it’s your turn to fill in the blank: “My favorite is a playdate with my baby’s best buddy PLUS ________________.”

This is what a REAL play date looks like. Notice there are no kids around.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: having kids

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I know the whole “everyone deals with death in different ways” adage is true, and I trust it. I just don’t know how to deal with my daughter’s way of dealing with death.

Luckily, I didn’t have to experience death in my life as a kid. As an adult, I’ve (expectedly) lost grandparents, (not expectedly) lost a pregnant cousin, and (not expectedly) lost my father-in-law.

Growing up, we had two dogs. One lived to be 17-1/2 years old, and the day before she was to be taken in to be put down, she committed apparent suicide by drowning in the lake behind my parent’s house when I was a teenager. The other lived through cancer, and long after I left home, my dad took her in to be put down.

As a girl and into my teens, death was never something that touched me—not even remotely closely.

For the last 2 years, we’ve been preparing ourselves and our girls for the inevitable death of our oldest dog. For a beagle, any years lived healthily past 13 are added bonuses. We promised her and ourselves that we wouldn’t let her suffer in her elderly age.

We don’t think she did.

She had cataracts, she couldn’t hear worth shit, she’d had a heart murmur for the last 7 years, and she only really barked/howled when she was hungry. But she wasn’t in pain; she wasn’t suffering. We let her live on.

When a beagle turns away food, you know something is wrong or you’ve let your toddler feed her. As I wrote in a previous post,

(M)y girls after having “fed” our dogs while I was in the other room napping cleaning, the dog food left after our beagle ate so much she was nearly full. If you know beagles, you know they never get full. They will eat until their stomachs explode like the Glutton victim inSe7en. I imagine this was the Best Day Ever for the dog.

Sunday, Kesah turned away her dinner. She refused to eat.

The dog we adopted from an animal shelter on our 1st wedding anniversary and named after an NHL goalie (Dominik Hasek, spelled backwards), the dog who once ate so much food she stopped eating, collapsed and couldn’t get back up.

Without going into (gross) details about what she went through in her last hours, we made the final decision to have her taken in to the emergency vet on Sunday afternoon and have her put down.

She was not going to suffer.

But I think my daughter is suffering in her loss.

Anna, at 8 years old, loved that dog more than I probably ever did. Anna, with her anxiety issues and intelligence and tendency to disappear inside her head, is quietly grieving and won’t let us in.

She’s still laughing, still happy, still putting on a good face.

On Sunday, she saw the end of her dog’s life. We did everything we could to prepare her and her sister and ourselves for Kesah’s death, but even all of that preparation couldn’t help the sobs and wails from escaping.

She wailed.

So I grieved for the innocence lost in my daughter’s eyes that death hadn’t yet touched her.

This week, she’s been…off. Not herself. Hiding something. Refusing to admit that anything is wrong. Unwilling to succumb to her tears.

Her way of dealing with Kesah’s death is hurting me more than losing our dog.

I don’t know what it’s like to be 8 years old and lose a family member or pet. I can’t sympathize with her. I never had to watch a pet go through the processes of death.

I’m at a loss.

I feel like I’m waiting for her to fall.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death, dog, kesah, kids

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My contribution to last night’s Last Call with Brittany was suggest that the best way to reduce face wrinkles is to gain weight. Basically, I’m a nincompoop.

Also, my hair was in tip-top form.

Also also, my face is very expressive apparently.

Also also also, I had to get up three times to do things for my damn elderly dog.

Four alsos, Brittany got a Brazilian wax and recorded it.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Last Call with Brittany, video

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I’m not really good at telling stories and out-loud talking.

That said, I’ll be doing that live on the world wide internet tonight where you can see my actual face saying actual words talking to actual people.

So please forgive me if I don’t make sense, because in my head, I will totally understand myself.

Starting at 10pm EST tonight, I’ll be hanging out with Brittany, Amber, Meredith, Audrey, and some fangirls of Brittany’s on the first episode of Last Call with Brittany Gibbons.

I fixed my hair and everything.

Make it worth my while and come watch me be dorkaliciously funny.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: google plus, last call with brittany gibbons

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This is absolutely for real—I checked it on Target.com myself.

This Mossimo Womens Kimono Maxi Dress available online online at Target.com is available in the following arbitrary sizes and colors:

• Regular sizes (X-Small to XX Large) comes in Dark Heather Gray.
• Plus sizes (1 to 4) comes in Manatee Gray.

All of the other colors are named the same no matter the size, yet when it comes to getting your arbitrarily numbered plus-size maxi dress, you can get it in Manatee Gray.

I just wish I could get a purple plus-size maxi dress in Grimace Purple.

What the. Plus sized women get “Manatee Grey” while standard sizes are “Dark Heather Grey.” @target #notbuyingit twitter.com/suZen/status/3…

— Susan Clemens (@suZen) April 3, 2013

At least Target has admitted their wrongdoing and has replied to @suZen saying they’re fixing it ASAP. Yet, at this time, 10:00pm EST, nearly 24 hours after it came to their attention, the Manatee Gray color is still available for purchase.

source Target via @suZen

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: grimace, manatee gray, maxi dress, mossimo, target

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I often make the comment that I’m so white, I’m translucent. I also say that I’m not tan, I’m healthy.

My dad has had basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. He jokes that he’s been carved up so much, there won’t be anything left of him to bury. But don’t worry about him dying from cancer; he’ll die from curmudgeonry before he lets melanoma get him.

I’ll never be a skin model, unless I’m a “before” model in a before/after campaign. My skin is definitely not my best feature, what with my whole cystic acne issues and being covered head-to-toe in moles and freckles.

Last May while snorkeling on vacation in Cozumel, I got so badly sunburned that my dermatologist suggested pain killers. She also gave me a lecture I deserved.

(In my defense, I had applied a generous amount of sunscreen twice during the day on the water, but with my oh so see-through skin, I should have applied twice that much and worn a shirt over my bathing suit.)

I see my dermatologist every 6 months for overall skin checks and acne treatment effectiveness. Unfortunately for me, none of the acne treatments have worked, and aside from making myself extra super crazy-in-the-head, I’m not going to take Accutane or anything similar. And because of my family history of skin cancers, I am skin checked every 6 months. When she sees something on me that raises a flag, I don’t hesitate in telling her to take it off.

Again, I will never be a skin model.

One of my side jobs is as a content writer for a local dermatologist’s blog. Every month for the last year-plus, I’ve written 2-3 articles about skin care and skin cancer for her website.

She also happens to be my daughter’s dermatologist.

Because my 7-year-old has had a dermatologist since she was 5. I noticed 2 large moles behind her left ear when she was a toddler. When I noticed them growing, I took her to a pediatric dermatologist. Thank goodness the moles are benign, but like all spots on her skin and mine, I have to “keep an eye on it.”

Today, my friend, Dawn, passed away from melanoma.

She’s gone.

— phenom1984 (@phenom1984) April 2, 2013

I’d never met her face-to-face, never talked to her or heard her voice. But here in the world of social media and blogging, none of that makes you any better friends than someone you’ve spent time with outside of the computer.

We shared a love of reading, and I recently sent her two of my favorite books. She told me she loved The Sea of Tranquility, but I don’t know if she ever got to read Hopeless.

She was my friend. Her husband, Mike, is my friend. He’s pretty damn hilarious on Twitter, and he’s one of the few husbands I know online.

For as long as I’ve known Dawn and Mike, I’ve known that Dawn has had melanoma and that Mike is an incredible husband.

Today, she lost her fight with melanoma.

What started as an innocuous-to-her spot on her leg in 2009 turned into what killed her today.

Her last round of chemo ended just this past February.

She’s leaving behind two boys and a husband who has doted on her since they started dating in high school.

Please, wear sunscreen.

Please, get checked.

And if you can, donate.

Donate to MRF

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2013. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dawn gentz, melanoma, pgoodness, skin cancer

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