My Happy Place

She is absolutely everywhere: on magazines, in your TV and even sporting that sappy grin on every box of Wheat Thins. She is Rachael Ray. The bane of my existence.

Okay, so maybe not the bane of my existence, but sometimes I honestly feel like I will scream if I see just one more picture of that woman.

To my amusement, I recently discovered that I am not the only person on Earth that feels this way. Upon receiving a Rachael Ray-laden Nabisco box, DJ Omar Khan of “The Kevin and Bean Show” attempted to exchange the box at the grocery store. When the store failed to locate a Rachael-free box, he took to cutting her face from the box.

After hearing Omar’s story, my husband hopped online and found the Rachael Ray Sucks Community on LiVE JOURNAL. As a matter of fact, there are quite a few sites aimed at Rachael. But, as it turns out, the best anti-Rachael Ray material to date was hiding out in my local bookstore.

While at Borders doing some last minute Christmas shopping, I spied not one, but two Rachael Ray cookbooks in the bargain section. Irked at the sight of her, I started complaining to my friend about her seeming omnipresence. At that moment, one of the sales associates asked us if we were finding everything okay.

As a joke my friend asked if they had any books on hating Rachael Ray. Needless to say, we were in total shock when she said, “Sure. Follow me.” And then, she showed me this:

Every Freaking! Day with Rachell Ray: An Unauthorized Parody

Ah, sweet retribution!

Having read and loved the books, I decided that I should probably see the Twilight movie. So, my friend Marilee and I went whole hog and waited in line on Thursday night to see the midnight showing. In honor of the occasion I thought I would show my Team Edward spirit by creating fun felt brooches for myself and my friend. The best part of my design is that rather than using pin backs, I glued a magnet to the inside so that when I’m not wearing it, it can chill on my fridge!

I know this is going to speak volumes about my nerdiness, but I loves me some Big Bang Theory. When Sheldon made that crack about more nervous tics than a Lyme disease research facility, I was in stitches!

A coworker of mine was able to attend a taping of the show last night and offered to take something with her that the actors could autograph. I printed out the best picture I could find and I was totally thrilled today when she returned it to me with three signatures! Silly to get so excited by ink scribbles on paper, I know. I just can’t help myself!

Signatures from left to right: Simon Helberg (Howard),
Kaley Cuoco (Penny) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon)

Sometimes you just can’t let poor drawing skills keep you from depicting a marvelous idea. When I accidentally disarranged the idiom “hook, line and sinker,” I wasn’t about to let my lack of experience drawing hookers stop me!

I won’t go into all of my neurotic reasons why… I just very much dislike driving. So, because I do drive to get places, I decided to create the *voice booming* Ultimate Driving Playlist. My goal was to compose a list of upbeat songs that would elevate my mood while I’m on the road. I want to mention that not all of the songs below are what I would classify as “topnotch,” in and of themselves. But, I’ll be darned if I don’t get pumped up while blasting these babies.