Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
April 6th, 2010 | 
Author: I’m not sure exactly what flavor my blog would be to be honest (maybe blueberry? tutti frutti?) but it’s tasty! Having no idea what that means, I should move on to something that makes sense:
You may have noticed that I’ve gotten rid of the ‘Random aMusings’ title for my blog. Why, you ask? Well, I am proud to announce that I am returning to consulting under the studio J name. In light of this, I wanted to eliminate confusion by sticking with a single image and a single brand:
While my main focus is marketing design and social media, I offer overall strategic advice (including market research) as well as basic web development and other related services. You can view some of my past work or my resume right here on this site and contact me for more information and a consultation. If you’re already familiar with my work, I encourage you to share the good word and feel free to direct others to my portfolio!
Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff
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I didn’t have much else to write about currently, so I thought I would share an AMAZING recipe that I found last night. You know when you make some really good brownies and the edges get perfectly crunchy-chewy? And you know how everyone always fights for the side pieces then? Well, fight no more! These come out JUST like that but in perfect cookie form:
Note: If you want to do a half batch like I did, just use 1 egg and half all the other ingredients!
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter, melted
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup cocoa
Directions
1. Add all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix until all ingredients are moist and blended.
2. Let the batter rest for about 10 minutes.
3. Drop by the teaspoonful onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 for 7-9 minutes. (They will look and feel still very soft but they are done!)
4. Transfer parchment and cookies to cooling rack to cool completely. (They will firm up when cool.)
The parchment paper in this case is VITAL! The one cookie that slipped off and baked right on the cookie sheet was burnt to a crisp and I had to (gasp!) throw that one away.
Consider this a preview: I officially got my new Eris phone yesterday and already I firmly believe that it will change many things in my life. Once I figured out the quirks of typing I think I heard angels singing. Then I started discovering the apps and I was officially hooked. More to come!!! (And yes I’m using it to write this.)
I brought home a new furball this afternoon. Other than a few mishaps from excitement, Cocoa seems to be settling in well. He’s taking a little longer than our last foster to understand the boundaries that we’re laying down, but it’s obvious that he will learn pretty quickly. Also, it was both sad and adorably amusing that he did freak out when he saw his reflection in the glass fireplace doors!
The story on this little Chihuaha mix isn’t really known other than he is a stray. He comes to the East Bay SPCA by way of Oakland Animal Services and he was terribly skinny when they found him. He’s up to about 9.1 lbs now and our goal in the next few weeks is to pack on another 1 -1.5 lbs. We’re happy to feed him all the leftovers he wants! Shouldn’t be too hard around the holidays!
(*If you’re reading this on FB, be sure to check out the actual blog link for some great pictures!)
Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff
Well, we’ve made it almost a week in our new venture. Millie is beginning to make herself right at home here, much to the chagrin of the cat. Dave and I have both said how difficult it will be when we give her up, but we realize now that having a dog full time is stressful! I did get some awesome shots of Dave and Millie chilling on the couch the other day, though.
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Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff
We officially welcomed a new guest in our house this evening. She comes to us from Muttville and is so sweet! She was shy at first, but who can blame her when she was in a home with 12 or so other dogs? Here she has a quiet place to rest her head. Nikki (our resident cat) decided that the stairway was as far as this dog was going to get so for now, the downstairs living room is Millie’s and the upstairs is the domain of Nikki (a.k.a. Lord and Master, a.k.a. King of the Jungle). They seem to be getting along fine for the first day, though!
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He thought he was asking me a simple question: “Do we need salt?”
Oh but he was wrong. Dave asked me this the other day when I was cooking dinner, as he could see I had the ‘big box’ of salt out to refill the smaller shaker container. It was an innocent question with helpful intentions that he most likely regretted.
I started in on how yes, we do need salt, but since I needed a new shaker container (the little disposible kind that I refill even though you aren’t supposed to) I needed to buy one of those instead of the big box (which I buy because its cheaper from a per-unit cost perspective). But wait, because I wanted to get one of those wooden salt cellars and had it on my holiday wish list and it would be easier to refill from the box… And it continued from there.
I’m honestly not sure what the final answer was, since as of right now I haven’t bought either the box or the shaker of salt. And since it isn’t the holiday yet, I do not have my salt cellar. I do, however, feel incredibly silly and told Dave so today, trying to explain my logic through the whole thing. I think he’s even more confused than before.
I do try not to be the crazy irrational chick, though I never claimed I was successful. It’s just a classic case of male vs. female brain at its best.
Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff
I hope you’ll forgive my likely disjointed writing today – my mind is still reeling from its return to reality and civilization. Mind you, I was only gone for about 30 minutes.
I set off from work early today, considering most everyone is out of the office this week and there’s not a whole lot that can’t wait until tomorrow. I had planned on sitting my butt down in a comfy chair at the coffee shop and doing some writing, but sadly my brain had other plans, and I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me. After several minutes of mental wrestle-mania, I decided to do something I’ve been wanting for quite awhile now – absolutely nothing.
I drove up to the national park that is at the top of the Oakland Hills and just kept driving; winding around hairpin turns and up steep mountain-like hills. Eventually I found a small dirt parking lot with no one else there and a walking path that crept up into the woods. I climbed and walked for about 10 minutes until I could barely even hear the odd car passing now and then. I was out of breath and wheezing and my heart felt like it would burst, but I managed to do what I came to do.
I sat down and did absolutely nothing.
I listened to nature, I breathed in the cool air, I ran my hand through the leaves that hung in the trees above me. For the first time in the three years since I’ve come to California I was nearly alone and it felt wonderful. No cars honking, no people yelling, no panhandlers begging, no phones ringing, no whir of computer parts or wail of sirens. Just me and nature back together again.
I really do love the city and there are so many opportunities and wonderful things to see and do and accomplish here. But sometimes you just need peace to soothe your soul. It’s relaxing to the core and energizing like you wouldn’t believe.
In my recent bout with learning about SEO and SEM, I have come across an apparently new pet peeve: people who don’t have a clue how to use a search engine. Did you know that every time you type words into Google or Yahoo or (heaven forbid) Bing, they do actually GO somewhere and DO something. They don’t get sent out as a wish and a hope that something relavent will turn up. It goes into a highly technical algorithm that decides what web pages most closely match what you’re looking for. Marketing companies and departments spend large amounts of money, manpower and other resources to make sure they are on that list. They do it by going through enormous lists of keywords that WE (you, me, the average user) type into the search engine and optimizing their sites for those keywords.
For the less technically-minded, let me make this as short and simple as possible:
- Unless you actually know what boolean logic is, stop using ‘and’ ‘or’ & ‘not’ in your searches. They’re usually ignored right along with ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘but’ and many other useless words.
- It is not going to enhance your search to include slashes, plus signs, hyphens or other random characters that you pull out of your… keyboard.
- Runningallyourkeywordstogetherwillnotgetyouverygoodresultseither.
- Using complete sentences does little good unless you are searching for an exact phrase, in which case use quotes.
- Just because Google has a built-in-spell-checker-for-idiots does not mean you can stop trying.
Bonus internet-related tips:
- Your searches and info are being used to target marketing and advertising towards you. Get used to it, quit complaining and be glad you can be offered relevant ads for similar shoes that you’re searching for rather than Viagra and free iPod scams.
- Stop using your Comcast/Earthlink/Time Warner/SBCNet email address. Get GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, SOMETHING to show people that you’re living in the 21st century.
- Please please please please stop putting “www” in front of your email address. It makes you look like an idiot.
Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff
The Bay Area: home to sophisticated edgy yuppies, high-tech silicon valley nerds, sign-carrying protesters, laid-back groovy hippies and so much in between. There is another demographic here though, that no one seems to talk about. I belong to this particular group and dammit, we are here to stay!
We wear what’s comfortable, not what’s in style.
We garden for the fun of it, not because it’s good for the planet.
We drink beer, not wine.
We listen to country music, not dance or R&B.
We watch NASCAR.
We sometimes talk funny.
We aren’t politically correct.
We are rednecks in the city!
Sadly we have but one country music station. We have only one honky tonk (and I’m not sure it fully qualifies as such). And YOU try finding somewhere to buy jeans in this city that don’t cost more than $100. We’re a minority around here and we have to stick together. All you fellow hicks out there, gimme a YEE-HAW!
Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff