365: Amazeballs

So first, a small rant. I get REALLY sick of hearing about how social media and Facebook in particular is causing the world to be more superficial and weakening "real friendships." These articles and comments in my experience come from two places:

1. Older people who don't actually understand technology all that well or are for some reason stuck in the "good old days" mentality (that doesn't actually exist) pre-technology. Basically, natural-born Luddites who resist innovation "cuz it's soooo scurry."

2. Hipsters who like to eschew technology because it's the cool anti-conformist thing to do. Basically, Luddites by choice because "I'm so much better than you because I don't participate in social media."

To which I call BULLSHIT.

I have several Facebook friends that I have become BETTER friends with (by many measures) because of Facebook. People that I know from various places in my past but if not for Facebook would be a distant memory because I'm probably not going to pick up the phone and chat with them or make plans to go see them. But because of Facebook they are people that I actually think about in more than a reminiscing way because we've built a connection via the web that wouldn't have been there without it.

And occasionally these people do astounding things that both amazes me AND fuels my disgust for the articles and comments that I mentioned above.

I got a quick Facebook message the other day from a Facebook friend that she'd popped a package in mail that contained some donation items that I could take with us on our upcoming African trip. Out of the blue. This person is a former grad student friend of mine, that again, I enjoy her and always thought she was great while in grad school, but we were never BFFs and OMG I'm going to miss you so much let's get matching tattoos! But through Facebook we have gotten to be much better friends than we have ever been "in real life."

Now this is NOT a diss to my "real life friends" (e.g. the people I do call on the phone on occasion, I do hang out with, people I do visit on vacay) because they are awesome and amazing as well, but how many of them have ever sent me a care package of donations without any prompting whatsoever? How can someone say that Natalie isn't a "real friend?" Get out of here with that nonsense. Friends come in a variety of formats and don't give me any speech about the quality of your friendships. Cause ALL of my friends rock. No matter how little I see them or how we conduct our friendship.

Rant aside, how cute is their return address stamp??? I love it!

And seriously, Natalie sent me BBQ Kettle Chips! Swoon! (We've had a mutual asynchronous conversation going on about the amazingness of Kettle chips for the past couple of weeks--that little package right there should be a major indicator of friendship status right there).

Anyway, longest 365 post yet right? But I just needed to put that out there. You're the bomb Natalie (& Tyler!) and you are definitely someone I count as a friend.

A Lesson in Photography

Ange and I have been looking for homes in Chico because DUH, we're moving there. Looking for a home has been exhausting but filled with silliness and giggles along the way. One of the funniest/worst things about the hunt has been looking at the pictures that people or realtors post. I mean, you want to sell the property...why wouldn't you think through the pictures you are taking and think whether or not you are featuring the best parts of the house and if you are enticing people to go for your property? I have picked some of the more ridiculous pictures that we've seen in our search to highlight what NOT to do.

Exhibit 1: Showing off a whole bunch of crap that is leaving with the current owner.

Hi, we don't care about your chair or ugly fake plants or dumb clock. Other than those things, this picture highlights nothing. A corner perhaps. 

 Or this one. Your curtains are ugly. And your rocking chair is creepy. That's all.

Exhibit 2: Way too close pictures that you can't figure out what is going on.

I think this is an entrance way? It's really close and there's no explanation attached.  WTF?

Exhibit 3: Pictures of random corners.

I don't know how many random corner shots there are out there. Great! Your house has corners. I'm so pleased. I was worried about finding a plethora of houses WITHOUT corners. Whew.

Exhibit 4: Someone who did not even try and clean their house.

I mean really? WTF IS THIS??? A picture of your crap by a window? GET. OUT.

Exhibit 5: Not knowing how the basic principles of a camera work.

 Camera flashes in a mirror is no good. And this really doesn't show me anything about the bathroom. Losers.

Exhibit 6: Terrible room pictures.

Great. A big white room with a door. Perfect. I want to move in tomorrow. 

Great! You have a shower curtain that presumably hides a shower! AWESOME!



Lights! You have lights!!! Sign me up.

Exhibit 7: Extra crusty things you should have fixed before listing. 

OMG, really? You have a burned up fireplace? At least paint it! Geesh!

Exhibit 8: I don't even know how to describe these ones...

 What the hell is this? I mean really, what the hell is it? A shed attached to a motorhome? In your backyard? What?

OMG, please enlarge this picture and look at the stuff on the crusty built-in wardrobe. I was seriously dying.

 

 This picture goes along with the one above. Again, please enlarge. Read the sign behind the pool. Dyyyyyyying. Srsly. 

This ends our tour for the day. Please refer back to this post when you are thinking of listing your house. Please.

Internets

I am working on some blog posts but the internet has been bunk all week and I haven't been able to upload any pictures. Such is life in Nigeria. The bandwidth sucks; even if you pay good money for internet sometimes it just doesn't work! So hold tight, there are more on the way!

She loves me! She really loves me!

So I meant to write about this before I left for Nigeria, but I didn't get around to it, so I'm writing about it now.

I love granola bars, snack bars, energy bars, meal replacement bars...pretty much any kind of "bar." On last year's mission I totally fell in love with a bar called the Clif Mojo Dipped Peanut Butter & Jelly Bar. It's almost like a PB&J sandwich in a snack bar. Which to me, is like heaven. In case you didn't know...peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are my absolute favorite food in the world. You know that game where someone says "If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one food with you what would it be?" My answer is always PB&J. So when one of the volunteers last year introduced me to the Mojo PB&J bar I was hooked.

I'd been happily buying them for about 6 months when all of a sudden they could be found NO WHERE. I usually bought them at Target or Walmart, but occasionally found them in other places. However, about 6 months ago they just disappeared! I was, of course, devastated. They were great snacks when I was running between classes, meetings, and other days where I'm so busy my head spins. What was I going to do???

I fell deeper into my Mojo depression, but never gave up hope. Every time we hit the store I'd look hopefully for my little purple packages. Ange would stand faithfully by warning me not to get my hopes up. It was sad.

One day I came home and there was a mystery package on my doorstep. I hadn't ordered anything so I wondered what it was. It had my name on it, but I didn't inspect it much closer. Ange played innocent and interested also wondering what it could be.

I opened the box and started shrieking! IT WAS A WHOLE BOX OF MOJO BARS!!! OOOOOOMMMMMMGGGGGGGG! She knew I was going to be traveling to Nigeria and that I don't eat a lot of local food there (many reasons) and that I survive on my snack bars. And that I was super sad that I would be without Mojo PBJ's.

So that sneaky little girl surfed the net and found out that you could order them directly from Clif! So she ordered me an entire box of them for my trip! How wonderful is she??? Just one more reason I love her and know that she is perfect for me :)

*I did not take a picture before I opened the box. I pretended to close it so I could do a re-enactment cause I knew I wanted to blog about it.

**Since the initial shipment, Mojo has rolled the bars back out in the store. They are shaped a little differently and have a slightly different package. They must have been pulled off the market during the redesign process.