Quick and Easy Gift Tags

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Wrapping presents is one of my favorite activities.

I went to my boyfriend’s Christmas last year for the first time ever, and noticed that the tradition in his family is unadorned, simple wrapping jobs–not the masterpieces of curling ribbon and contrasting wrapping papers of my parents’ Christmas.

This year I weighed my options: simplify my wrapping to fit in, or own my family’s tradition. It was an easy choice.

While wrapping I ran into the problem of needing gift tags. I considered various options, and decided to take the easiest route: fold a piece of wrapping paper in half, and write the message inside. Not only is it quick and easy and cheap, but it’s a great way to use the little bits that you wind up throwing away. Continue Reading

Life Lessons: Skinny Jeans

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Sidenote: I didn’t get the Jennings memo till I saw a sign in the window of a local shop and assumed it was a typo.  Who could be so silly as to make a giant sign with such a glaring error?  Well, I was the one making the error!

I went shopping one day last year with my roommate Ellen, who is so fit and stylish that it makes me jealous and proud all rolled into one little rum ball. She coerced me into buying my first pair of skinny jeans, a trend that I thought would accentuate my pear-shaped body and make me look utterly ridiculous.  Never mind that some of the curviest of my friends rock the skinny jeans all day long and I never think that their bottom halves look ridiculous.  That’s the way it is–as I’m sure you know.  Everyone else looks good, but I certainly don’t. The curse of modern-day women: body envy.

I put the skinny jeans on and I was terrified yet enamored.  They were tight but yet they smoothed my imperfections.  Ellen suggested I do some squats to move into them. That helped me feel at home. As the year progressed, I wore them more and more, but conservatively. I only had one pair, after all, and I needed them to last.

Tonight I was boogieing to some Fats Domino — a record we possess but which I’d never taken the time to listen to — and it was glorious.  Right when I was really moving, “RIIIIPPPPPP.”

That’s the peril of skinny jeans.  They rip when you boogie. I’ve also been informed that they can rip when you ride bikes too.

And now for your boogieing pleasure, Fats Domino, I’m Ready.

Cold Snaps Conquer Colds!

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Cold Snaps (actually called Cold Snap) are an herbal supplement composed of 20 herbs to restore righteous chi.  I don’t know what the herbs are or how it works, but I do know that it does.  I just had to make a video and tell you all about it — especially when Julia came over with a cold.

Buy Cold Snap now at Amazon!

What helps with your cold? Continue Reading

Boycotting Extravagant Amounts of New Clothes

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I caught the late morning TBS movie this morning, Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah.  It was quite good and would have made me inspired to quit my day job and follow my dreams if I hadn’t already done that.  But it did give me a boost of inspiration to keep it going.

The TBS feature was Movie and a Makeover which meant that they interrupted the movie a few times to tell us how to do our make up and that we need to run out to TJ Maxx or Marshall’s (the sponsors of the feature) and buy many holiday dresses — or separates that we can wear all year long. Continue Reading

Talk of the Town

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

As a small business owner, I am honored to receive email sales pitches for advertising placement, marketing and promotion help, and, in this case, the “Talk of the Town 2010 Plaque of Honor for Excellence in Customer Satisfaction.”

As someone perpetually obsessed with both get rich quick and get rich slow schemes, one of my favorite activities is getting to the bottom of what’s in it for these services.

“Talk of the Town” would have you believe that they evaluate all businesses and that yours came out on top.  They interviewed my customers and they love me.  The first time I received one of their emails, I was honored.

When you click through from the emails, you find that to showcase this honor, you need to shell out at least $195.  An award you pay for?  What a deal!

I especially enjoy this quote from their website:

What does the recognition mean to me and my business?
To a business it means everything. It reflects your customer’s opinion of your business and drives new business referrals. You can leverage this award to thank customers, staff and returning and new business development.

In other words, this recognition means nothing, but we’re really good at stringing fluffy sounding words together so that you feel good about what you do and want to give us money.

The funniest part to me is that someone took the time to put this elaborate scheme together.  I have nothing but the most profound respect for what motivates con men, but am continually bewildered by their constant dismissal of whatever moral compass they have inside.

They do look like nice plaques, though. Maybe I’ll ask for mine for Christmas.

You Are Awesome (or else)

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I heard a tale of a man named Saint-Simon.  Every morning his valet would wake him and say, “Arise, sir!!  You have great things to do today!”

We can’t all have a valet to wake us with such inspiring words.  I created this little reminder of how awesome you are out of little bits of a Soap Opera Digest. The high resolution version is below.  Download it, print it out, frame it and look at it every day and smile.  Or make it your desktop background!

We all deserve to be reminded of how awesome we are as often as possible.  The world will conspire to bring us down– let’s work together to stay afloat!

Continue Reading

Is my cat weird?

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Whenever the Guster is hungry he makes sure I know he’s serious. That’s why I made that brain map of how he thinks the other day. I’m not sure that got across how really and truly strange his behavior turns.  Seriously, I think he would bite my face off if I weren’t marginally stronger than he is.

I made a video so that maybe you would help me decide if he really is that weird:


Continue Reading

televisions, browsers and changing technology

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I haven’t upgraded my television. It works fine and my environmental nature winces whenever I consider trading up for a modern, wide-screen version.

Ever since the digital switch I’ve noticed that my shows are cropped badly. The Daily Show is obviously not framed correctly–I regularly miss meaningful gestures of John Stewart’s left hand. We straight up miss jokes on American Dad and the Family Guy because they occur in that region of the show that only wide-screened TVs include.

The other day, I noticed that we were even missing out on part of Jeopardy. In some shots, two out of three of the contestants were practically cut in half! Continue Reading