Vacation Equations

I got back yesterday from a week's vacation to the Dominican Republic with my Monica, and I came up with the following equations to summarize the trip:

















(Warm Weather + Sister Time + Delicious Food + SCUBA + Tan+ New Friends)-(Falling On My Ass + Getting Sick) = Still An Awesome Vacation

What's That Called Again?

Sometimes, I start a sentence thinking that I will come up with the words for whatever clever thought I just had.....and then I just have to stop in the middle of the sentence and say, "uh...nevermind..."

Unfortunately, sometimes people take this as a sign that I was about to tell them something really juicy but got embarrassed. And they're like, "No! You can't do that! You have to say it now!" But I got nothin'.

I just went to Baskin' Robbins and requested, "Can I please have a Peanut Butter n Chocolate....uhh... where you mix it up..."

"You mean a Reese's?"

"No...I can't remember the word..." I was basically doing charades while frantically scanning the menu for the word I could not remember: milkshake.

But I was also too nervous to read, so gave up and asked for a scoop instead.

Edamame

Sally loves edamame. Not to eat. It is a toy.

She stole some from me last night. She kept hopping up on the table, trying to bat at it. I must have pushed her onto the floor 50 times. But she darted up real quick, grabbed a pod, and bolted off to the closet.

I just found it in my shoe...

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire!

One year in grade school, we put together an "All About Me" book. It was a collection of writing samples, drawings, etc that we had completed throughout the school year.

One of our writing prompts was, "Write one page about something you learned to do recently."

I couldn't think of anything interesting, so I totally BS-ed it. I wrote all about my grandma teaching me how to knit. I think she had tried once to teach me a couple of years earlier, but I didn't really get it. In my paper, however, I wrote all about how she had successfully taught me to knit, and how I practiced all the time and was someday going to knit her a sweater. Frankly, my only concern was finishing the paper so I could go hunt for frogs in the neighbor's window well.

I had all but forgotten the "All About Me" book by the next time we visited my grandparents, but my mom had been very touched by the knitting story. As we were driving to Dekalb for the weekend she said, "Oh Lauren! I brought that book you made at school to show Grandma and Grandpa. I just know Grandma's going to love that one you wrote about her! I marked it with a post it note so she can read it."

Surely I was going to get it. Grandma would recognize my fabrication and tell my mom that I had lied to my teacher and I would be grounded and no one would ever trust me again! I think my heart was racing and my face burning for the next 24 hours, until I realized that Grandma wasn't going to rat me out. Bless her little heart.

I'm Like an Old Lady

So, I signed up to do a half marathon in July. I know. Crazy, since I'm not all that much of a runner. One of the reasons why swimming is my favorite is because the sweat just gets rinsed right off. I do think I'm built for distance, though. For the first 20 minutes of a workout I'm dragging, but after I've been at it for an hour, I don't want to stop. I'm all pumped and ready to go!

Last week, I started going to training sessions. Lots of weight lifting and squats and lunges. Soooo sore.

On Saturday, I picked up my Grandma in Dekalb on my way to Peoria for Easter. Never in my life have I been so thrilled to see a geriatric toilet. You know, the kind where the seat is raised up about 5 inches? They're glorious! My quads were very pleased.

The couch was much more difficult. I got about 3/4 of the way down and just had to plop. My Grandma was like, "Hey, now that's how I sit down!"

Something to look forward to.

Eggs

I picked up my first CSA egg share last night! There's something kind of magical about having eggs that are all different shades and sizes.

Unfortunately (or, actually, fortunately, because I love me some eggs) I thought the CSA started next week, so I bought a carton of 18 eggs on Monday. So, I was daydreaming about egg recipes. I think that over-easy egg pizza is happening Friday night.

I remember the first time I made deviled eggs on my own: for a potluck my last week of nursing school. I had forgotten that older eggs peel more easily than fresh eggs after being hard-boiled.

It was kind of disastrous. It took forever, and they were not pretty.

When I took them to school, I set the deviled eggs on the back seat of my car, where they were flat and safe from harm. Alas, physics prevailed when some jerk cut me off and I had to slam on my brakes. I heard the plate tumble to the floor.

For the next five minutes until I arrived at school, I was fuming about my precious eggs and imagining the mess in the back seat.

But Glad Press and Seal Saved the day! The plate was upside down, but the eggs were all pretty much intact. And they tasted delicious, as is the habit of deviled eggs.


I considered a career as a spokesperson for Glad. It could have been glamorous.

Shine On

Right after college, before nursing school, I briefly worked at Bath and Body Works for a holiday season. It was a fun place to work, great manager, nice co-workers. Lotion Emergencies were extremely rare. But retail ain't my thang.

I've always hated selling things. Girl Scout cookie time used to be tortuous. I would come up with any excuse not to go door-to-door. Like, "Oh, my ankle hurts too much to walk," or "I have to do my math homework," or "It's getting dark out soon, and that's dangerous." (In a neighborhood where it was totally normal to go next door and ask for a cup of sugar.)

Mostly, I just wanted to work the register, not the floor. One night, we had a little lull and I started to restock the shelves in the gift basket section. A man came in, walked over and said, "I want to get some gift baskets for the ladies that work in my office. How much do those big ones cost?"

"They're thirty dollars."

"Alright, I need fifteen of them. Any scent. A variety."

I shrink-wrapped and ribbon-ed those suckers up all pretty. It ended up totaling around $500 dollars, and my manager and manager-in-training were very pleased that I had made such a great sale. In reality, all I had done was happen to be standing by the gift baskets.

My manager asked her trainee, "Mary! Do you think we should keep Lauren on the registers, or let her continue to shine in Zone One?!"

With great pep in her step, Mary turned to me and nodded, "Ok, Lauren! Continue to shine in Zone One!"

Let me tell you, it was a great effort not to laugh in her face.