Birthday Recap

I'm going to try hard not to make this a brag-about-my-awesome-husband post, but I don't really see that there's any way around that.

Simply put: he is amazing and made my birthday perfect.

Friday afternoon we went out for lunch at my very favorite sandwich spot in Denver. Fantastic. Their hot ham and swiss is so melty and delicious that juice runs down my chin every time. Then, we packed up and headed to the mountains. He'd found us the cutest little cabin tucked beside a pond up in the beautiful Rocky Mountains above Idaho Springs. We fished, caught big beautiful rainbow trout and grilled them up for dinner. We watched the sun go down and he brought out a little, adorable lemon curd cake and sang me happy birthday.

Saturday morning we slept in. The first thing I did when I woke up was run over to my phone to see if anyone had already called and left a message on my phone. It was then that I realized my phone was totally dead and I'd forgotten the charger! TRAGEDY! My birthday is the one day a year I keep that phone with me all day and answer all the incoming well-wishing calls.Bummer.

We packed up our stuff and headed farther up the mountain to Echo Lake. This place was beautiful. Stunning. If you haven't been to Colorado before and want the full experience, go here. It is breathtaking. We drove up the highest paved road in North America to the top of Mt. Evans which stands at 14,240 feet. It was at the top of this mountain that he handed me a letter he'd written. A letter expressing his heart.

Then, he handed me a letter written by my mom.

Then one from my dad.

Then he explained that he'd hacked into my email account and send out emails to most of my close friends and family asking them to write me a letter telling me what they thought about me. All day long he kept handing me letter after letter from people I love most in this entire world. Each one brought laughter and tears. Seriously, I don't think I've ever felt more love.

I slid each one into a plastic protector in a beautiful green album.

It is something I will CHERISH for the rest of my life. One of the 4 things I will grab if my house is ever on fire.

After the mountain climb we drove home and he took me to dinner at Fruition. If you ever plan a trip to Denver, this place should be on your list of places to eat. It is fantastic. And I know you have to get a reservation 2 months in advance so the ear doctor has probably been planning this forever.

After the best meal in recent memory, we came home and I opened my last letters and his gift. His gift was a new Vera Bradley trip kit. Inside was a travel book for New York! He got us tickets to be in New York for almost a week over Labor Day! I have never been to the city before and can't wait to go!

All in all, a FANTASTIC way to celebrate my first 30 years of living on this planet.

Unexpected mortality check

Today for lunch I sat in the middle of a crowded fast-casual restaurant at a small table all alone.

I was surrounded by moms with strollers and elderly retired couples. There were teenagers on dates and groups of girls shopping for cheap clothes.

And I sat alone enjoying my spinach salad quite contentedly. Well, the salad was bit overdressed and for $7.50 I had hoped for a few more blue cheese crumbles.

I was really pretty perfectly happy until I decided to aspirate the balsamic fig dressing. Vinegar trying to make it's way into your lungs? Not a great feeling.

As I started coughing and hacking I looked around to make sure I wasn't bothering someone.

And guess what? No one even glanced my way!

I wonder if those happy lunch goers would have let me DIE sitting right there in the middle of the crowded dining room?

The thought was really creepy...and it made me remember why I don't really like eating at Noodles & Co.

Busted

I have a deep, dark, guilty secret.

I freakin love Kraft singles.

I love their slightly rubbery texture, their over salted flavor and I take great joy in peeling off that clingy plastic.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good fancy cheese too...but the kraft singles will always hold a place in my heart.

When we were little my parents bought my sister and I the cheese. We would sneak slices all day long and thought my mom never knew about our pilfered prize...because we stuffed the plastic wrappers between the cushions of the couch.

When she sat in that chair and heard the tell-tale crinkle of plastic wrappers her brains exploded. She ripped the couch apart and picked out every single piece of greasy plastic.

Kraft singles were banned in our house from that moment forward.

This morning I woke up and found this note, lovingly left for me by my husband on the kitchen counter:

I hope he doesn't decide to ban Nature's Valley granola bars from the house, because I really REALLY like them...

Just a little jealous

Last week we found out that a good friend of ours got laid off from his job.

He and his wife went away for a long weekend to celebrate their anniversary and the morning he got back to work they told him not to come in anymore.

I would totally freak out if this happened to me. I know it's always a possibility, but it just seems crazy to have your security just uprooted so dramatically. To his credit, he's totally taking it like a champ. For the last week he has been a stay at home dad, taking care of their 10 month old baby 24 hours a day.

On Wednesday his wife told me that he was totally going crazy. She asked the ear doctor if he could take her husband golfing this morning. And, since the ear doctor is really great at service and sacrifice he rearranged his schedule and was up bright and early this morning organizing his golf bag and cleaning out his soft spiked shoes.

Instead of getting to go out to the links, I had to haul my sorry buns to work.

To make it worse, my commute takes me right by a huge reservoir where people were out water skiing on glassy water.

And then, to really emphasize the fact that I'm working and not having fun I had to drive under people launch hot air balloons!

I know I should be grateful to have a job, and not feel any jealousy at all for someone who unexpectedly lost his.  I know that to the depths of my soul. I get it that I am SO lucky to have such a great job that I really do like 90% of the time.

But wouldn't it be fun to golf, or water ski, or ride in a balloon today?

Time rolls on

I hate it when I find myself being a total cliche.

Up until last week I was totally fine with the idea of turning 30 next week. Excited even.

But this week, as I calm my mind and lay in my big fluffy bed attempting to fall asleep a little bit of dread washes over me.

30?

How did that happen.

And why do I still feel like I'm 22? Will I always feel that old?


Maybe it's because I haven't had a baby yet?


How old do you feel?

I'm havering to you

Last night I took the teenage girls from my church group to a free concert in the park. We got them awesome pizza, every flavor of Izze soda we could find, laid out blankets to lounge and I even had red velvet cupcakes to top off the evening.

The performers, however, were a little...well...not what your average 15 year old girl wants to listen to. It was a "band" of 3 brothers singing traditional Irish songs. None of us knew any of the songs so we just kind of listened and giggled and made fun of the lead singer's long stringy man-ponytail.

Half way through the performance one of the girls got up and started crazy hippie dancing to the songs. So we all followed along. It was hilarious, but I wanted to make sure the girls felt free to be silly. I wanted them to let their self-consciousness go and realize that no one cares how you look. So I acted a bit of a fool. I felt like I was a 16 year old girl hanging out with my friends.

The concert drew to a close and the band struck up for it's final number. Within the first few bars I knew we were in for a treat. I would walk 500 miles by The Proclaimers. A song I will always know. A song that brings me squarely to my middle school days. I remember being 13 years old and getting that song on a movie soundtrack compilation disk. I remember having my friends over to my house, putting the disk in the computer drive, turning off all the lights in the office and jumpdancing around the room with flashlights. Over and over and over again until we were sweaty and doubled over with laughter-induced stomach cramps.


And so when I looked around and realized that not a single one of the girls that was with me last night had ever heard the song before I just shook my head in awe.

And realized that, yes, I will be turning 30 next month...and it's beginning to show.

Muscle Memory

Last night after work I came home and needed a break.

A break from thinking and feeling and being frustrated and being anxious and being nervous.


So I put my old gross crocs, an old beat up pair of shorts and went out to harvest food out of my garden. Someone in my neighborhood must be feeding the birds like crazy because there are about 100 times more birds trying to eat my salad greens than there ever have been. As a result we draped netting over the top of my garden. So now, when I go in I have to crawl on all fours to stay under the bird netting.

At first I thought having to crawl around would be totally horrible. I thought it would hurt my back and scrape up my knees.

But guess what? I totally love it. It reminds me of the tent that my sister got for her birthday one year. It had a fitted sheet on the bottom so you could make it right on top of your mattress and always feel like you are sleeping in a cave.

It reminds me of when I was 10 and would climb into the closet under the stairs to read the Chronicles of Narnia by the light of my favorite pink flashlight.

It reminds me of climbing into my 4 year old niece Charlotte's pink princess tent while we play make believe.


Turns out that almost every memory I have of crawling into small places is warm and familiar and friendly. 

Getting it right

Yesterday the ear doctor and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.

Did you know that the traditional gift to give your spouse for the 4th anniversary is linen or silk? Usually we try to honor the tradition in some way, but this year I totally dropped the ball. Which is a total bummer because the ear doctor could have really used a new maroon silk smoking jacket and coordinating ascot...

This year my husband got me milk delivery from a honest-to-goodness milk man. From now on, when I wake up on Friday mornings I'll be able to go out to my porch, open up that shiny metal box and find perfect, fresh, hormone-free dairy products and eggs produced by animals that actually live in my own state.

How does this tie in with the traditional 4th year anniversary gift? Well, he got a carton of Silk (soy milk), emptied it out, cut a trap door in the back of the carton and glued the logo of the dairy that delivers to our neighborhood on the inside. I knew immediately what that meant.


Before he gave me the gift, he tried to explain it to some people. They just didn't understand what could possibly be romantic about giving someone diary delivery for their anniversary. They thought he should be getting a box of Godiva chocolates and a couple dozen long stemmed roses or something.

But Godiva chocolates once made me spend a weekend wracked with uncontrollable vomit and roses, to me, are more of a flower meant to stay in the garden.


Romance, to me, is knowing your spouse so well that you know exactly what will totally knock their socks off. Which for me? Is totally a milk man.

Happy 4th!

Want to know what the ear doctor looks like when I totally suprise him with an unexpeted picnic in public to commemorate our 4th wedding anniversary?


I thought you'd never ask!

Last night after dinner with my man I suggested we take a leisurley stroll through downtown Denver. As we walked toward our favorite bridge he noticed a beat up box that was kind of opened a bit with light coming out. He reached down to look at it and saw his name on it. When he opened it, there was a balloon, candles and chocolate cake inside.

We sat on the bridge, ate cake, danced to the same song as our "first dance" (I've got a crush on you).

I love this guy like CRAZY!

Acting like Frenchies

The ear doctor and I try our very hardest not to watch TV on Monday nights. Monday nights are special for us. For talking. For laughing. For family.

Last night I got off work late because I had to stay and attend a really frustrating meeting. I stopped by the market to get some fish for dinner and a pre-made salad. It was just one of those nights.


We made the dinner and I could literally feel the stress rolling off my back. By the time I was sopping up the delicious buttery fish oil from my plate with a chewy slice of sourdough I was ready to laugh.


We spent a hour playing keep away from the dog with an old chewed up basketball. We laid in our pretty green grass that just months ago was a bare patch of dead dirt. We decided to grab the leash and walk the dog 2 blocks away to our favorite gelato place. We sat on a bench and enjoyed zabaglione (which I pronounce as zag-a-ba-lonie) and raspberry sorbet.


At which point the ear doctor turned to me and said, "let's go home and watch Harry and the Hendersons"


A perfect way to spend the evening before we celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary.

adventures in pet ownership

Last night the ear doctor and I went over to a friend's house to return their grass edger and we ended up sitting around chatting for a bit.

These particular friends have the most beautiful little puppy. A vizsla. The puppy and I have almost the same color hair. They love their little puppy more than anyone I've ever met loves their dog and because she happens to be a pretty perfect specimen of the breed, they've decided to start showing her.

And I didn't know this, but when you show dogs you can't get them spayed.

Which means that sometimes your dog has her period.

Which is why last night their puppy was wearing a pink plaid flannel diaper with a jumbo maxi-pad slid inside.


Maybe you're more used to seeing a dog wearing a diaper...but I sure wasn't. All I could think of was how gross it would be to take care of a dog during her "time of the year" (which I found out only really happens every 6 months or so)

And I thought, "I'd never do something gross like that for a DOG"



That was, of course, until this morning when my dog had a long gross piece of grass coming out of his butt hole that he couldn't shake loose.

What did I do? I put my hand inside the poo bag, got a grip of the piece of grass and pulled the long slippery thing out of him.


I didn't even hesitate.


Who's the gross one now?

Friday night the ear doctor and I went out to see Super 8. 

The whole time I just sat there totally enthralled with the story telling. About 8 minutes into the movie the ear doctor turned to me and said, "this is like Goonies" and I said, "or the Sandlot." Both of which are probably in my top 20 movies of all time.

I literally gasped a couple of times at the beautiful camera work: the reflection in the gas, the slow closeup on the soldiers shuffling boots, the turn of the gas station sign obscuring our view of what exactly was going on.

And the music choices for the movie? Perfect. I left the theater singing My Sharona out loud, thus making the sweet abuelita standing with me in the bathroom line just a little bit nervous.

Let's not even talk about how great the costumes and hair were.

I totally nerded out over the whole thing and it made me think two thoughts. First, I MUST get myself a Super8 camera. How great are those old grainy images?!?!Second, I'm so glad I used those 3 credit hours of undergrad taking Intro to Film. I probably never would have noticed the beauty without taking that class.

a whole new world

So turns out I should listen to my sister more often.

She said I would love falafel...but I just couldn't wrap my head around eating garbanzo beans...or chick peas as my mom taught me.

I've tried hummus in all it's myrid of forms and found it gross and grainy and completely unpalatable.


But, falafel? COMPLETELY different. Divine. Wonderful.

AMAZING!

Moving

Right now my little sister is throwing the last few boxes into the back of a moving van and hauling her family from the sweltering heat of summer in St. Louis to the promise of sub-zero winters of Minnesota.

She's closing the door on the perfect little 100 year old row house that they shed blood sweat and tears over to renovate from top to bottom in just 3 years. She's saying goodbye to the amazing friends who loved and supported her for the last 4 years...probably the hardest 4 of her life. She's taking off and driving north without knowing if they'll have a house to live in when they get there.

And while I know she's probably excited for the next phase of her life, I can't help but be a little bit heartbroken for her today.


The day we pack up our little house and move away is going to rip my heart in two.


Neither of us were really built for change.

Missing Out

My little sister and her husband are in Orlando right now enjoying a full week at Disneyworld. I'm sure my little 4 year old niece Charlotte is having the time of her life. Surrounded by her cousins, meeting princesses, getting to eat as much junk food as humanly possible...that's the stuff of dreams for a 4 year old.

And I was getting pretty bummed that I was sitting in my cubical, in rainy, cold, gloomy Denver, working crazy long hours and missing out.

So I went to weather.com and checked was it was like in Orlando.


Over 90 degrees...yikes!



Then I imagined how I'd feel if I were in Orlando, in 90 degree weather, holding my 2 year old nephew's little heater body while we stand on hard black pavement waiting in line to meet Lightning McQueen....


...and I felt a tad better about missing the fun.

obsession

Last year the ear doctor and I failed at Homeowners 101: Keeping your grass alive. Total, utter failure. Our yard was the only one on the block that dried up and turned into a big dirt pit by August.

Probably because we didn't water it all summer?


This year we have both become grass-loving freaks. We water the grass. We fertilize the grass. We had it aerated which it probably hadn't been in 20 years. We mulched. We reseeded the thin spots.

Every time we walk through the front yard (at least twice a day) we crouch down and inspect the new growth. We measure the progress. I'm pretty sure I've even said a prayer under my breath to ask for divine intervention in saving the grass.


It's our newest obsession.



Even now as I sit in my cubical at work and eat my lunch at my desk I'm taking glances out the nearby window and thinking, "I really hate that it's raining today. I wore awesome new shoes and they got gross water spots all over them when I walked the 30 feet from my car to the building...

...but at least the grass will look beautiful"

Leavin

You can always tell it's the day before I leave for a trip by the strange outfit I throw together. I pull something out of the back of my closet that I hardly ever wear because I want to make sure I have my cutest clothes available for the trip.

Because I've never once had my picture taken the day BEFORE a trip.

Never once been immortalized in that moment.

So today if you looked at my clothes I'm pretty sure you could tell that at 3:30 this afternoon the ear doctor and I are boarding a plane and flying off to St. Louis to celebrate my brother-in-law's fantastic achievement. He's worked harder and sacrificed a lot and is finally getting to take the Hippocratic oath and graduate from med school.

I couldn't be prouder.


And I get one last trip to St. Louis in before they move away and I never have another excuse to visit the city again. There are 3 absolute musts that I will be participating in this week...other than the ceremony, of course:

1. Gooey butter cake from either ]Park Avenue coffee or Gooey Louie...or maybe both
2. City Museum
3. Frozen Custard from Ted Drewes



Usually I wouldn't post about going away on a trip and leave the creepers on the internet an open invitation to check out our house, but since we got robbed a month ago and haven't replaced anything yet we really don't have anything worth stealing!

Weekend update

Friday night the ear doctor and I were invited to a housewarming party. But it wasn't held at the honoree's new home, it was held at someone else's place that had more space. I thought that was kind of strange, but was willing to go with it. And it was a really fun, pretty typical party until about 10 pm when someone brought out a trumpet and started stumbling through a barley recognizable version of battle hymn of the republic. Yikes.

I just looked around and was a little amazed at what I now considered a fun Friday night out.

Saturday morning I spent the whole morning at work desperately trying to get a jump on the week.

Then I drove myself over to a friend's house for a graduation party. That party was a lot less likely to produce a crazy symphonic talent show, but i did find out about half way into the party that 3 of the 4 people living at the party house had just been diagnosed with strep throat the day before.

At which point I stopped eating from the big bowl of help-yourself-with-your-bar-hands ruffles and started feeling the back of my neck to check for any signs of immediate onset fever.

Sunday I spent the whole day laying around on the couch in my new favorite sweatpants from Walmart. I was attempting to recover from the midnight puke session I had the chance to experience brought on by whatever rotten thing I consumed the day before.

Try not to be super jealous of my life...

life saver

Yesterday it was so cold and rainy here in Colorado that it put everyone in a funk.

It was so funky around here at work that someone actually yelled at me, stormed out of a conference room and slammed the door behind himself so hard the walls shook.

So funky that I dropped a huge glop of guacamole on my pants during lunch and I had to wear the stain the rest of the day.

I'm telling you, EVERYONE was feeling the funk. After work I started getting a flurry of texts and calls asking about our regularly occurring Wednesday night youth group activity. The other leaders were tired, had grumpy babies or had to drive all over town to get things for their new house. The idea of trying to cheerleader a bunch of likewise funky-attituded teenage girls seemed about as daunting as summiting Mt Everest.

But we just couldn't cancel on our teens. So, I altered my plan for the night.


Luckily, I had read Designmom recently and her awesome daughter reminded me how awesome it is to learn to make friendship bracelets.


So with the last ounce of energy in my soul I went to the craft store, bought 3 dollars worth of embroidery floss and pulled off a miracle. A fun activity for teenage girls with zero planning involved.



Blogs saved my life last night.

On TV

Friday afternoon we heard that the food trucks from Food Network's Great Food Truck Race would be pulling into Denver for the weekend.

There are very few things that the ear doctor loves more than eating his food from a truck in the street. I think it comes from him living in Mexico for 2 years and eating his weight in Tacos Al Pastor. Every time he sees anyone selling food on the street he is drawn to their offering like moth to flame. So it's no wonder that his eyes lit up and our plans for Saturday afternoon were set.

We'd be driving all over Denver hunting and gathering our meals from kitchens on wheels.

Our first conquest was the Roxy's grilled cheese truck in Wash park. Delicious goat cheese, duck prosciutto and fig preserves toasted perfection. Definitely a strong contender.

Then we drove into downtown and found the Cafe con Leche truck and I had my first taste of amazing Cuban food. Since I don't really care for pickles I've always shied away from a Cuban Sandwich. We walked up to the truck and I just told the guy to make me the best thing he had.

It was awesome. He took a flattened grilled plantain, piled sweet, pulled pork on top and finished it with this creamy sauce, tomato chunks and grilled onions. This was my favorite thing we ate BY FAR.

Roscoe wanted some BAD!

The third truck we searched out was the Korean BBQ/taco truck called Korilla. By this time the fatigue and heat of the day was getting to me. We stood in line behind the most annoying kids in the world who wouldn't leave our dog alone and the food, to me, was just OK. The ear doctor loved it. I think his eyes even rolled back into his head with joy each time he took a bite.

We intended to keep driving around and try the other 3 trucks, but I was full and tired and sore. So we went to our favorite ice cream place instead...then came home and passed out.

Now we'll have to tune into the show to see if we made it into any of the background shots! There were camera crews at 2 of the 3 trucks we saw.

The only other time I was on TV my best friend and I were sitting in front row seats at our high school state basketball tournament looking totally bored out of our minds. It was awesome.