Brain Dump

Once again, boys and girls, it's time for a brain dump.

• I heard an interesting story about how, if one is tricked into thinking time passed more quickly than they actually thought it had, they feel like they had more fun. Commence speeding up your clocks...now!
• Smells like something is cooking in my apartment. Nothing is cooking in my apartment. Nothing has cooked in my apartment for a couple of days--I've been eating my lazy food since I've been feeling a touch under the weather. Bad sign?
• I have a trash can right next to my couch where I sit to watch TV. This trash can is very convenient for throwing away all sorts of things, and particularly convenient for knocking things off of my arm rest and right into the can. Smooth, I know... Happens at least once a day. You might think that I should move the trash can, but that, dear friends, would be inconvenient in a whole new way.
• People have told me several times lately that I wouldn't like to travel somewhere or participate in some activity. Here's the bottom line, people: you don't actually know what I want to do. YOU might not enjoy it, but I might, so unless the activity is celery-related, go ahead and don't try to make up my mind for me.
• I like Christmas, but I don't love cleaning up after it. After cleaning up the decorations at work, I've lost all motivation to clean them up at home. Sigh. I simply must take down my tree this weekend--it's just irresponsible to leave it up much longer, especially since it is having a severe structural integrity issue.
• Through the magic of pre-portioned detergent, I can say with confidence that I have run the dishwasher exactly 17 times since moving into this apartment...seven months ago.
• I've been seriously pondering over the last couple of weeks if I might be poisoned in some way. Just a thought. Radon? Toxic spills? Asbestos? Celery salt?
• My professionalism at work has taken a big hit due to the most recent storm. I've taken to wearing my snow boots to work. Oh well...at least I'm not going in my sweats. Yet.
• Bought some new shoes the other day when out shopping with Somebody's Mother. I always find something cute when I'm out shopping with her.
• I received several very thoughtful gifts for Christmas. Apparently, gift-giving is no longer contingent upon good behavior.
• The new year is just around the corner. Here's to a year full of excitement and adventure for all!

Love, Love, Love

Today is my parents' 35th wedding anniversary. They've been married longer than I've even been alive! (Thought this today, and then giggled for about 10 minutes about having that random thought...)

Each night, I write down three things that I am thinking of that day that I am grateful for. (Side note: you should all try it. It's good for you. And the universe. Good for you, the universe, and your journal/computer--makes it feel needed. Just good all around.)

Tonight, I was thinking about how grateful I am for two parents who love each other, love me, and are committed to working hard through whatever comes up. The trials that our family has endured have certainly not been a walk in the park, but their love for each other and us has inspired them to work, facing the same future together, hand-in-hand, headed into whatever comes next. I sure love them.

Yesterday at church, my parents had a funny, quiet little moment with each other, and I made some comment about keeping those things at home, away from the public.

I've changed my mind though.

I have two fabulous parents who each love me and support my goals, dreams, and ambitions. They pick me up when I fall, listen to me cry, and then help me learn how to pick myself up in the future. I love them.

In addition to all of this, they are madly, passionately in love with each other. Not only do they have a deep, mature love and respect, but they are also just crazy about each other. Sometimes, it's like being with a couple of twitterpated teenagers. They are silly, smoochy, snuggly, and occasionally embarrassing, and I don't care if the whole world knows it. They are so in love. It's inspiring and encouraging.

So, love to my mom and dad, and here's to the next 35 years.

Meanest Coworker Ever

I love Christmas. I love traditions, I love celebrations, fireplaces, spending time with family, and I love Christmas foods.

One of the great things about having people marry into my family is that I get to add all kinds of wonderful traditions to my own. My brother's wonderful wife makes the most fabulous sugar cookies. I look forward to them all year. She has the best recipe, and I'm a total sugar-cookie nut as it is, so it's a wonderful treat.

Today, I was working at a different office training some employees. My aforementioned sister-in-law dropped off a plate of sugar cookies for me. Each year, she makes me my own plate of cookies because she knows how much I love them. I told you--she's wonderful.

I've been looking forward to these cookies for at least a week, since my sister-in-law advised me she'd be dropping them by. When she and my adorable nephews brought them in for me, I thanked them profusely, and then stuffed the cookies under my jacket on the counter in the back.

I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the employees at that office whine about how I was not sharing cookies with them. I certainly would not share with them. Holiday cookies come in limited quantity, only once a year, and sharing homemade cookies with them would be like pearls before swine--they'll eat ANYTHING. It's not that I was eating in front of them--I had removed the cookies from sight, and I made no further mention of them. Later in the afternoon, my coworkers brought our department's Christmas present to this office over to them. Our present? Candy! They got candy, yet they continued to whine about the cookies.

At the end of the day, I collected my coat and my plate of cookies and left. There was a bit more whining and grabbing for cookies, but I would not relent. I think that they probably were bothering me about it more because they thought it was funny and less because they actually wanted cookies, but whatever.

Of course, the employees clearly forgot that the last time I was there, I brought them all cookies that I had purchased especially for them!

Whatever. I'm the meanest coworker ever. Cry about it all you want. I don't even feel bad--I'm here with a plate of cookies!!

Crafty Crafterson

I made a craft for the holiday season. I thought I'd include the instructions along with a picture of my finished craft so that you can all make it as well.

• Step 1: See a cute idea on the internet.
• Step 2: Let coworkers deceive you into believing that you're capable of creating it.
• Step 3: Wait a week.
• Step 4: Show cute idea to your mother. Purchase tulle with her guidance.
• Step 5: Have your mother cut out the tulle into pieces so they turn out correctly.
• Step 6: Leave your mother's house with specific instructions to finish by the end of the night.
• Step 7: Wait three weeks.
• Step 8: Get your craft back out. Re-evaluate your decision to be crafty several times.
• Step 9: Get back to work. Tie loops of the %@# tulle around over and over and over and over.
• Step 10: Run out of pieces after two hours of work.
• Step 11: Cut more pieces.
• Step 12: Finish the wreath while watching cheesy made-for-TV holiday movies.
• Step 13: Smash enormous wreath with a broken TiVo so as to reduce its ridiculous fluffiness.
• Step 14: Wait an hour while continuing to watch cheesy made-for-TV holiday movies.
• Step 15: Hang wreath on inside of door because it is too cold and too late at night to open door.
• Step 16: Take a picture of wreath, just in case it gets stolen when you finally get around to putting it outside.

So, folks, there you have it. A step-by-step tutorial for how to make a Christmas wreath. (Note: some non-essential steps may have been excluded. I'm sure you'll figure them out.)

Finished product:

Funny Comic

My dad sent this to my siblings and me. It cracked me right up, so I thought I'd share it with you.

I've Said It Before, and I'll Say It Again

May the light always find you on a dreary day;

When you need to be home, may you find a way.

May you always have courage to take a chance,

And never find frogs in your underpants.

–Unknown Scandinavian

Thanksgiving

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.

-Johannes A. Gaertner

Dear Self

Dear Liz:

When you're talking to someone on the phone, and strange/disturbing questions you could ask that person pop into your head, I have a bit of advice for you:

Don't. Just don't. Just say goodnight and then hang up the phone, hoser.

Love,

You, Ten Minutes Later

Tidbits

This week, I was training some excellent employees for work, while working on other projects in the evenings. It was a good week.

Here are some tidbits from my week, no particular order, no particular significance:

• Tellering is an awfully snuggly activity. It's nice to be alone with plenty of space in my apartment this evening.
• I'm 5'2''. I stepped on a teller today. How on earth does that happen?
• My sister-in-law gave me a new picture of my newest nephew, which I promptly hung in my cubicle at work. He's so adorable, it's distracting!
• One of my coworkers is going to be out of the office next week, so when I saw her for the last time this week on Thursday, I told her I'd see her next in December. How is it already almost December?
• Random person in the parking lot of the grocery store asked me for money last night. I had $0.75. Sorry, random person. Hope you found more money from other people!
• One of my tellers this week has an aunt who owns one of my favorite restaurants here in town, and I've been craving it ever since we talked about it! Mmmm... La Carreta!!
• On Thanksgiving, I basically want to eat mashed potatoes, rolls, and pie. Lots of pie. Bad sign?
• One of my good friends recently told me that if she gets a vote in a matter, she gets four, because she eats for four people. The eating for four people description is completely accurate. She'll be in town soon, and I suspect we'll be doing a serious amount of eating.
• I changed my thermostat to warm the apartment slightly before time to get up so that it would be easier to get out of bed. The opposite has been achieved--I'm so warm and snuggly first thing in the morning that I have no desire to get up.
• One of my tellers was speaking in Spanish to a customer today. I put my hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and quietly spoke half a sentence to remind him of something that I needed him to do in the transaction. He looked up at me, completely puzzled. The half-sentence I spoke had words in it that could be mistaken for Spanish, and he had no idea what I had just said. We laughed about it all day--we know my Spanish is not that good!
• The cooler your job is, the fewer days you'll have to work next week. Take a moment now to assess your relative awesomeness. Mine's fairly high.

Headed into what is sure to be a fabulous weekend--hope the same for all of you!

Jealous?

I often draw on the board as I train to illustrate what I'm discussing and to help solidify the information. I am, of course, a terrible artist, and these drawings are often quite comical.

Yesterday, the employees I was training got to see some pretty fancy artwork.

Some samples (phone photos, so they don't really do it justice; also, try to not be too jealous that you didn't get to be part of this clearly fabulous class):

Spaghetti Dinner

I still don't have anything to say, but fortunately, I still have really cute nephews.

For your viewing enjoyment, I present the following:

Nothing to Say

I really have nothing to say lately.

However, I'm feeling bad for neglecting my poor, bored readers.

So here are a couple of adorable pictures for your viewing enjoyment. I'll try to come up with something interesting to say later.

Netflix Suggestion

I love Netflix. It's one of the special things in my life that I just really enjoy. I have an easily-accessible, internet-based queue where I line up all of the DVDs I'd like Netflix to send to my house. The movies arrive, I enjoy them, and then I pop them back into the mailbox and wait impatiently for my next movie. It's a fabulous system that's worth every penny I spend on it.

Netflix is also open to giving suggestions. Each time I open up the website, I am greeted with several categories of movies that it thinks I'll enjoy, each filled with movie suggestions just for me. It's a very handy system, and quite intelligent, as well. For example, if I have rented and enjoyed both romance movies and comedies, it may create a category of "Romantic Comedy" movies for me to peruse.

Although it seems pretty awesome in theory, every now and again, I wonder what on earth I rented to create a category that it thinks will suit my desires.

Case in point: last night, when I brought up the Netflix page, I was greeted with a category I've never seen before. It's odd and incredibly specific.

"Sentimental Independent Dysfunctional-Family Movies"

Huh.

Are any of you readers Netflixers as well? What categories has it created for you? I'm thinking that the sky's the limit on this thing...

A Request

Dear Population of the World:

Let's ratchet back the panic a bit, shall we? Everywhere I turn, it's Panic City about one thing or another. Economy, illness, doom, doom, DOOM!!!

From now on, just assume that I get it: we're all going to die jobless, debt-riddled, and infected with several kinds of flesh-eating bacteria and other diseases that plagued us as we wasted away in an economy that would never regain its glory.

Got it. Please stop telling me.

Thanks bunches!

Liz

Quote of the Whatever

I love this one...

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

-George Bernard Shaw

Diagnosis: Anti-Social

Tonight, one of my former roommates, of the most recent set, called to see if I wanted to go to a corn maze with her and our other roommate (they still live together).

My reply: Sure!

Her: (pause) Really?!??

Me: Yep. You sound surprised. Were you just inviting me to be nice, but planning on me saying no?

It turns out that, evidently, I say no a lot to invitations for social events.

My most sincere apologies. I'll endeavor to do better.

Go ahead--ask me to do something social with you. I'm in.

Maybe.

Past/Future

Seven years ago today, I sat down in a training room for my first day at my new, fancy job.

Today, I sat down in my cubicle at the same company. Although my job is now somewhat different than it was seven years ago, many, many elements remain the same.

Sometimes, it seems like I just started yesterday.

Other times, it seems like I've always worked there.

Two different employees asked me today what I thought my long-term plan was. Apparently, I'm starting to look old for my job.

Home

I'm back from my visit to Cheeseland.

I had the most wonderful time with my sister and her family. I have many funny stories to tell, adorable pictures to post, etc.

But for tonight, I'm just doing a little bit of being sad on my couch. I sure love my sister and her family, and I have such a wonderful time spending my vacation with them. It's hard to have to come home to a place that is so far away from them.

Stay tuned for the all of the silliness, love, and corresponding pictures, as soon as I can muster the will to get back to regular life.

Until then, I'll be indulging in a bit of TiVo and ice cream.

For The Fam

Here are a couple of pictures of my newest nephew, for those of you who are family and cannot wait to see him! Born yesterday, 8 lbs, 4 oz, 20 inches (I think...you'll have to wait for his mom to heal up for all the official details).

Such sweet friends already! His older brother sure loves him!

I'm An Aunt!

In truth, I've been an aunt for a while, but I'm now an aunt again! My newest little nephew (bringing my nephew count to seven) was born early this morning.

Although I have not yet seen him in person, I can verify that he is gorgeous, snuggly, beautiful, fabulous, brilliant, handsome, charming, compassionate, loving, hilarious, wonderful, and practically perfect in every way.