Balloons to the rescue.

Sometimes my office has the grumpiest bunch of people you have ever seen. I always feel like Pippi Long Stocking (is coooomin' into your town!) when I'm at work because I'm miss little chipper and cheerful. I'm usually a pretty peppy person anyway so I'm not complaining and I'm happy to do what I can to spread the wealth....but sometimes it can be exhausting.

So for the past two weeks I have been helping out another department that was short staffed. Because of my two weeks in Denver, I had a pretty good understanding of that department and was able to actually help instead of just ask questions and annoy people. Only problem is...they are so busy and so short staffed that everyone is WAY stressed. F bombs fly around the office more than smiles and papers/phones/pens/white outs are constantly being thrown against our little cubicle partitions. DEPRESSING! GUYS! We just ship stuff! I'm not saying I don't take my job seriously, I do...but we aren't doing open heart surgery on children. Don't be so damn down all the time. It's FREIGHT!

So I was joking around with people about it (because that's how I handle uncomfortable situations) and said, "Do you need a balloon? Would that make you smile?" just totally screwing around. But then it dawned on me that this could actually be a good idea. Stupid? Yes. Immature? Duh. But possibly a cheap way to get everyone out of their poopy little diapers and act like happy adults. And it worked! I literally tied a balloon on everyone's chair that had been grumpy. In retrospect it was probably a little embarrassing for them but everyone seemed to be a good sport. And it actually worked! People were talking about it for days!

My boss called me in to his office in the morning and is totally serious (which he never is) and is like, "is this to cheer everyone up? balloons? That's your answer?" and I'm thinking...oh damn...is this inappropriate? I know we have a casual office but maybe i took it too far or it's not "professional" or something. But then his "I'm trying to be serious face" broke and he grinned and he goes, "I'm just screwing with you. Great. Thank you very much. Keep up the good work...I really appreciate it". I was like, SERIOUSLY? GREAT!

And that is how Lizzi saved the day.

Cherry Crickle

So another food blog. Did I just eat the entire time I was in Denver? Why yes, yes I did.

We went to Cherry Creek Grill on my last Saturday there after the Zoo (loooved it!!) and had this artichoke in the picture with this awesome dip...it was ammaazzzzing. I can't honestly say I haven't ever had an artichoke like this. Hearts, sure. But hittin' it straight up like edamame? nope! So all in all apparently my trip to Denver was full of trying new things.

On that note, I'm going to rummage through my kitchen. Nothing else to do on a late Saturday afternoon than snack, right? Right. Adios my amigos.

Shooting Stars and Mountain Sheep

Another Denver story!! I went on a little hike one day and stopped at this Nature Center in the middle of no where. I ran in to the restroom and there were calenders all over the place talking about this Perseid Meteor shower. I've never even seen a shooting star so I figured when I was in a city that I could get far enough away to actually see a meteor shower -- I totally had to go.

So somehow I convinced Andrew to drive me out to the damn mountains at 11 at night. I was so super excited, especially since right when I jumped in his car I saw my very first shooting star -- and we were still in the middle of the city! a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!

So thirty minutes later we end up at Red Rocks. There was a concert going on and we were trying to get away from the lights....so we drove up a little bit higher and then hiked for a bit. We ended up sitting in the middle of a trail on a little cliff which is totally as bizarre as it sounds. Andrew was making me feel oh so comfortable by telling me "we really need to watch out for wild animals up here" . Needless to say...everytime the damn wind moved a leaf I whipped my head around looking for the mountain sheep that would end our lives.

The meteor shower was a bit disappointing though. I saw tons of shooting starts...but no

"shower".

We jumped in the car and started to leave. On our way down we found a road that was super dark and I saw whatever a big shooting star is called (comet? I don't know...), screamed for Andrew to stop and got out. We ended up laying on the top of Andrew's car and I thought this picture of his feet hanging through his sun roof was so funny. Not sure why....but it looks a bit morbid, no?

Anyway...fun night in Denver.

xx

Bone Marrow? Why not.

So when I was in Denver, Andrew kept telling me about this place "Bones" that had the best lobster ramen (I know, right?) ever. We finally made our way there on a Wednesday night and I have to agree with him. Best. Ramen. Ever. My ramen doesn't usually cost 20 bucks...more like 15 cents, but oh well. When in Rome, right? So for an appetizer Andrew says, "oh my god, you have to try the veal bone marrow...it's amazing". What? No. What? Absolutely not. Veal? No. What? Bone Marrow? Absolutely not. As always, somehow Andrew convinced me that it wasn't unethical and that I should try it. It was....interesting. I'm not sure I want to go back and order it again, but I'm going to have to blame that on mental reasons...not the lack of tastiness. I was however, very proud of myself for stepping outside of my little Dallas box. Well worth the experience.

Missin' out

One bad thing about being in Denver is I missed the family barbeque this weekend! We have been planning this thing for a month and of course...I miss it. I asked my mom to send me pictures of the Smith boys and Jack Sprat so I could feel a little bit more "there". I thought this was so funny. Jacob, Caleb, and Samuel are all smiley and cute....happy as little clams. So then I get the picture of Jack.

Bahahahaha.

He is pissssssssed. Unfortunately I just don't know what to say to Amy. Jack just loves me more. I'm his favorite..I'm SORRY. I can't help it. I'd love for him to love all of his aunts equally. I promise...but it just isn't so. I'm sorry. Amy...maybe you can win over the next dog in the family. ZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On top of the world

Today was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. One of the huge things I wanted to do when I was in Denver was go to the top of Mount Evans. AND THAT I DID!! :) You feel like you're on top of the world. You are literally IN the clouds. It's an insane drive though. It is the highest paved road. I wish someone else had been driving so I could have taken pictures because you are literally on the edge of cliffs. There were so many cars but I still found myself asking "do people actually drive this?!" I had to drive about an hour or so outside of Denver and then up the mountain. Once you get to the base of the actual peak, it's another 15 miles up. The summit is at 14,000 feet (more than 2.5 miles). That didn't sound all that high when I thought about it...but that fleeting thought makes me a total moron. It definitely makes you wonder if you are scared of heights. :) Thankfully I made it to the top in once piece.

Little did I know there was a little hike at the end of this HOUR DRIVE UP THE MOUNTAIN! It really wasn't that high...but coming down was a bit more crazy. I sort of lost the trail down so ended up just sort of...hiking down rocks. Which I guess is really what people in Colorado do all the time...but lets be honest. I'm from Dallas. I know how to get 10 hours worth of shopping into 1 and know my way around a bottle of hairspray. I don't hike up mountains that are 14,000 feet UP. So I was very proud of myself. The picture just to the right of this is the little hill I hiked down. Is it stupid that I'm super proud? OH WELL! I don't care if it is! I'm so lame when it comes to outside activities (probably because I live in Dallas where it feels like hell when you walk out of our overly air conditioned buildings and physical activity sounds about as good as a punch in the face) but I would love to be able to crank that area of my life up a bit. Maybe I need to move to Denver. THOUGHTS ANYONE??!! :) Today was awesome. So so so beautiful.

Lookout Mountain

On Saturday I woke up and wanted to explore Denver. I went downtown for a few hours which ended up being cool but a bit uneventful. My plans for the day changed last minute, but wanted to still do something outside so I decided to the head towards the mountains. I was hoping I'd get lucky and run into something cool and that's exactly what happened! I saw an exit for "Lookout Mountain" and figured it had to be what it sounded like. It was! :) It was beautiful. I'm pretty much convinced anywhere you go in Colorado is amazing. So there are a bunch of trails all around Lookout Mountain and I really wish I could have gone and explored a little bit -- but everyone says not to hike by yourself. So I just sat and hung out and enjoyed the scenery. Andrew said this is where everyone used to go in high school to make out. Do kids actually drive 30 minutes outside the city and up a mountain to kiss? I think I made do with a car. Or my front porch. Anyway. Awesome day!

The Mile High City

So I'm in Denver for two weeks for work. I've only been here a couple of days and haven't had a chance to get out very much...but I love love love it. It's so beautiful! The scenery, weather...everything. Last night was the first night I was able to really get out into the city. Andrew came and picked me up from work and went to eat an ammmaaazing dinner. The neighborhood we were in was so cute. I'll definitely need to ask Andrew where we were.

After dinner we went downtown and drank a little vino at Cru. When we were there Andrew took a picture of me that he changed with "fat booth". So I've seen these pictures on Andrew's facebook of him and his friends as totally fat, gross men. So it's an iphone app that is so so so funny. So of course...we had to do it. Here is what I would look like if I ate everyone I knew. Uhhhh......so gross.

Anywho. Not much to report at this point...but I'm sure more stories will come shortly. Keep you posted. :)

Keeping up with the Crazy's

So more TV I have been obsessed (where do I ever find the time to sit on a couch and be THIS lazy?.....) with lately is ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ and ‘Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami’. They craaack me up. I’ll be honest when I say Kim is my least favorite. She doesn’t seem to be nearly as much fun as the other two. Kourtney is so little and inappropriate and Khloe is just totally ridiculous. When she gets going about Scott (Kourtney’s on again off again boyfriend/babydaddy/crazy)…I swear it encourages me to be a mean person because she makes it look so fun. She makes fun of him, screams at him, calls him a “douchelord” (not my word Anne,…Khloe’s. You can’t get mad if I quote someone) and has definitely hit him in the face before. All the while being hilarious and entertaining. I can barely talk about Scott. He is totally ridiculous and reminds me way too much of Jonasty (for those of you who do not know that reference…by very very glad). He’s just…terrible. See picture for any one who has any doubt and well...I rest my case.

They seem to be a favorite constant topic with Chelsea Handler too which has been pretty funny. Even Heather McDonald did a bit on them at her show that we went to. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of their….trunks. And the mom?? WHAT IS WITH HER? She is totally nuts. Period. She is the one complete ‘crazy’ on that show. Oh wait, no then there is Bruce. Put them together and it is almost complete agony to watch. That mom wants to be her daughters and Bruce…well. Bruce just wants to be on TV. Even if he looks pathetic and depressing while doing so. His face just really bothers me. I can’t tell if it’s just one too many surgeries or if it’s some chemical peel he tried that went south. Either way, he should have let nature run it’s course (with the hair as well). The men on this show just...crack me up.

I have no story about them, just wanted to blogger it up.

Are you there Vodka? It's me, Chelsea.

My life has been consumed with Chelsea “Coslopus” Handler for the last 2 weeks. I have read all three of her books, watched her standup on Youtube and have set my DVR to record ‘Chelsea Lately’ every night. She is hi-lar-i-ous. She is my new favorite everything.

This whole debacle started with Amy and Sarai and I going to the Heather McDonald stand up show. Heather is on Chelsea Lately and was so so so funny. Her Drew Barrymore impersonation is by far the funniest thing I have seen any time recently. I was laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair and Amy and Sarai almost hit me because I was being so annoying. Anyway. After that, I went and bought her book, “You’ll Never Blue Ball in this Town Again”. It was funny so then I wanted to move on to Chelsea Handler. Anne had let Amy borrow her second book…which then I borrowed….to which I fell desperately in love.

I don’t know if I have ever fallen so head over heels for anything like this ever before. I don’t know how I have lived without her for my 24 years.

I feel like she and I have a special little bond over our obsessions with midgets. (sorry for the inappropriateness of that statement…but I have to be honest. I feel like my sister Anne is going “oh my gosh, I can’t believe she just said that. Sorry Annie Fannie….) Although I don’t call them my little “nuggets”. That makes me a little better, right? She is so absolutely inappropriate that she is just…so funny.

She has a chapter in her book “Are you there Vodka? It’s me, Chelsea” that is solely devoted to her love of midgets, a one “Kimmy” in particular. She starts out by talking about a letter she gets from a mother of a midget who is “deeply offended” by Chelsea’s comments. Chelsea goes in to talking about how much she loves midgets and writes my favorite passage in the whole book:

“Next to fat babies, midgets are my favorite things to hold. I love them so much and I want to help them to do adult things like drive cars, Jet-Ski, and lip-synch. I’m in awe of their little limbs, their large craniums, and their medical-ball asses. I love the little baby steps they take while shifting their weight from side to side, and the fact that when you knock one over accidentally, he flails like a turtle on its back that can’t get up right away.”

Are you kidding me? So inappropriate, but so funny. I can’t get enough.

I then moved on to her most recent book “Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang”. EVEN BETTER THAN THE LAST ONE!

I can’t even talk about the first chapter on a public blog. The midget topic was really pushing the envelope for me but…it’s just too ridiculous, even for me. If you love her inappropriateness, trust me and buy this book. It is….beyond words.

So moving on from the first chapter. One of the things I think is the funniest about her writing is the way she interacts with her parents. She curses and sounds like a brash 50 year old sailor when she’s like…six. It’s sort of an ongoing topic throughout her three books and just cracks me up.

I can’t even begin to talk about this book because it’s so funny so I’ll just share a couple of my favorite quotes.

“Like any self-respecting brother-and-sister combo, Greg and I decided to eat some mushrooms.”

“I had never planted my face so fast into a carpet in my life.”

“My parents couldn’t have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren’t purchased at a pharmacy.”

“Why he wouldn’t agree to install an eight-by-eight-foot fish tank and then not fill it with a single dolphin made me want to burn his eyebrows off.”

wah wah wahhhh

okay my blog went whack. i'll work on fixing it but right now i'm going to bed. xxxxx

Shopping day with Anne

Okay so I went with Anne last week to run errands and we stopped at Home Goods. And I'm sorry. This is wildly inappropriate but this leaf hanging/picture/whatever the H this is supposed to be, CRACKED. ME. UP. If this doesn't look like, well, you know...I don't know what does.

Seriously...WHAT IS THIS??

Tastes like the Fourth of July!!

Man oh man I love that scene. Stuffing a hot dog in her face....

Anywho. So the fourth of July was spent with Anne, Mark and her amigos. I was....not at my finest that morning after a night out with Miss Martha but, as anyone who knows me, am always willing to attempt to rally.

And I did.

I made Anne soak a watermelon in Vodka and was totally excited about it. I was really nervous about Anne not putting enough Vodka in it and then I got there, tasted it and realized she is in fact a Doak. God love her.

Mark and Anne had all kinds of goodies for everyone. Snacks, the most amazing punch ever we discovered from the Bailey's, homemade burgers (Mark...kudos....), and things that no one else would think of, like blueberry ice cubes to celebrate the fourth of July. We were joking about this on Sunday but I will repeat. My kids are definitely having their birthday parties and "holidays" at Aunt Anne's house. She is the most crafty homemaker that is not a homemaker I know. I can't wait for them to have kids (sorry for this awkward topic Anne) because they will be the best parents!!

So Anne might kill me for this but I can't resist. I'm pretty sure Mark thought he was being devilishly handsome. Something tells me Anne might argue that point. Bahaha...he's just being silly. It's a good hoot.

Winni Klaus and German mania

Okay so this guy is my new favorite person. A guy in my office sent me this picture thinking I would like it -- which is incorrect. Love. I LOVE it. This next one was just the day of the German game and he completely lost his mind. All in all...it's been a good couple of entertaining weeks.

The ridiculousness of the World Cup

So my office is like the United Nations. We have people representing the US, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, Thailand, China, and England. Needless to say, the World Cup has turned our office into a crazy place.
I also have to interject here and say I think the US is the only country in the world that doesn't understand how big of a deal the World Cup is and I feel sort of lame about that. Oh well.
Anyway. So Brazil played the Netherlands on Friday and everyone expected Brazil to win. So I come in to work and everyone is talking shit to everyone else as they have been doing for weeks so I sort of just tune it out until I hear what sounds like high heels but 10 times louder. I sort of stand up and am like, what the h is that noise? Well...turns out Winnie, one of our little German friends has decided to root for the Netherlands and represent with WOODEN CLOGS.

He was walking around in these things all damn day. I thought it was pretty funny.