Monthly Archives: March 2010

Generation Ranch

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Good Stuff, Listing, Muse, Random Shit

So my friend Kristen and I were on the phone one day talking about stuff that people like us talk about, and we came upon the subject of ranch dressing. That’s right: RANCH DRESSING. And apparently Kristen works with someone who believes that only people in a certain age bracket truly understand the value and diversification of ranch dressing. Don’t believe me?

True or False?

1. Ranch dressing on pizza is second only to ranch dressing as a pizza dipper.

2. A breakfast burrito? Infinitely better with a side of ranch.

3. These are obvious, but ranch makes Doritos, fries and garlic bread terribly delicious.

4. Ranch does not enhance cereal, chocolate or most cookies.

If you answered “false” to more than one of these, you are probably not in Generation Ranch. This is the same generation that grew up eating C3PO cereal, drank out of red cups at Pizza Hut and only ate Wonder Bread. We are the generation of Kool-Aid with real sugar, canned vegetables and frozen fish sticks. We are the people who went to college, discovered mozzarella sticks and ate them three meals a day. We eat cereal for dinner, drink Diet Coke for breakfast and – truth be told – would enjoy a can of Bud Light if no one were watching.

Frankly, I think our house goes through at least one bottle of ranch a week. From salads to tacos, chips to pizza, ranch is like a great pair of earrings: your outfit looked fabulous before, but ranch dressing just made you even prettier. Some of you may not get this. That’s because some of you aren’t from the Ranch Dressing Generation.

Poor you.

A list of Apple apps that might change your life

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Daily, Good Stuff, Listing, Shopping

It’s Monday morning people, you all know that, and so I’m giving you BRAND NEW CONTENT to blow your minds! Actually, I’m just writing for a change, and so, you’re welcome. Below I give to you a list of apps for your iPhone or iTouch that I have found to be, quite frankly, revolutionary. Behold, readers: a list.

1. FMC: Female Menstrual Calendar. Oh yes, I started with that. I AM THAT BOLD. Anyway, this nifty little app records your periods, sex and stats so that you know if a) you’re on a regular schedule (which I’m not ever, so I need this and that’s why I got it to begin with), b) when your ovulation dates are (this is helpful whether or not you want to be pregnant – either lay off HA! or get.it.on. according to this calendar), and c) it shows you statistics about your periods that you may or may not need to know, but which are interesting. So you download the app, put in your information and voila! Your entire reproductive system RIGHT THERE in a shiny colorful app. Will wonders never cease.

2. Air hockey. Now I know that there are about a million and one games to choose from and from that, probably 82,000 are some sort of hockey games but Y’ALL. This is air hockey like from the ’84 arcade. Like from Chuck E. Cheese. And if you turn up the volume kind of loud, you get the sound of the AIR! and the sound of the back and forth pong-pong-pong as the puck bounces off you and your opponent. I have played this for hours, to BB’s chagrin, and sometimes I have to turn off the pong-pong sound because it gets me caught. Otherwise he thinks I’m emailing very important people. And sometimes I like to let him think that. This game is not so much revolutionary as it is just plain fun, and I guess fun could be revolutionary for some people. You sad sacks.

3. Speaking of sad sacks, when you’re down, you’re troubled and need a helping hand from someone who isn’t James Taylor, simply go onto Pizza Hut’s app, enter your information and POW! You have the entire Hut kitchen at your disposal. Choose from exciting pictures of delicious pizza toppings to create your perfect sack of sad cholesterol. And if you’re lazy, you can just have it delivered, or you can get excited about the fact that you just ordered pizza from your handheld device and you can roll up to the drive-thru and be all, Yeah homie. That’s me. I ordered FROM MY iPHONE. How you like me now? And then of course all the Pizza Hut employees will laugh at you as you drive off but really? What’s a little humiliation in the face of a piping hot Pizza Hut pizza? Can’t put a price on that, my friends.

4. Zillow Real Estate. Now I’m not assuming that you all don’t already have these apps downloaded, and perhaps you’re at home right now, scrolling through them as you have one eye over here. But for y’all that don’t know, allow me to indulge my inner know-it-all. Zillow is this awesome app that finds your location, lets you zoom in on your neighborhood (or anyone else’s for that matter) and gives you information like selling price, asking price, house/property information AND it alerts you if you want it to when prices on houses you covet go up or down. It’s also fun to use when you head out to dinner at someone’s house, find it to be utterly fabulous, and want to know how much they paid for it (if they’ve bought it recently). If nothing else, it’s a fun way to waste time.

5. Mint. I wrote a paper about Mint last summer for an executive marketing class I was taking (because, you know, I like to execute marketing and all) but I’d been using Mint since it first rolled out a few years ago. If you don’t use Mint in your normal life, you are seriously missing out. Mint is an awesome financial planning site that uses your usernames and passwords to access your dozens of accounts from wherever to whowhat’sit and shows you all the ways you’re spending money you don’t have. Or saving it, whatever. And then it draws up little pie charts and line graphs and alerts you when your balances are low, or when a payment is due. Y’all it ROCKS. Hard. Some people are skeptical at first because of the whole here’s-my-name-and-password thing, but actually it’s super secure. It doesn’t store any of that information; it just goes out into the wild blue yonder, sucks down your sad sack bank balance and reminds you that you should’ve paid your American Express two weeks ago.

I could go on and on about this for days, because I have many more than this and use them every single solitary day. But these are the ones that honestly kind of mostly have changed my life, you know, in the way that an Apple application can change your life.

How was your weekend?

And the winner is…

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Daily, Good Stuff, Rejoicing

Those are my sultry office eyes and my "Kiss Me I'm Irish" tiara. Can't say I didn't BRING IT at work!

Olive Cooper of Olive Out! Her suggestion for my new business name was “Twice Noted,” which I think is ab-fab and very clever. Olive, please send an email to elizabethbake at gmail dot com with your address and your iTunes gift card will be on its way! Congratulations.

Much as I’d love to tell Olive that her suggestion was taken, we have actually decided to call my paper pimpin’ spot “Noteworthy.” I have an insanely gorgeous business card designed which I’ll show you later this week. Right now I have to run to a little out-of-town meeting (read: goofing off in the car for a couple of hours) but when I come back, OH WHEN I COME BACK, we’ll kvetch together.

(I’m thinking of trying out Yiddish in my quest to explore a new life being Jewish. Again, we’ll talk later.)

TTFN friends – happy St. Patrick’s Day!

A round of applause

Posted by Elizabeth in Anxiety, Daily, Family, Good Stuff, Muse

Did you hear me yesterday when I said hello to you? I say hello to you most every day when I pass you, but I rarely get an answer. Some days you talk back to me, other days I don’t hear anything at all.

I looked down at my fingers today, the ones that are almost arthritic from the atrophy of not practicing at the keyboard, and I recognized yours. They are younger hands, of course, and they have short nails and fat fingers and are not at all elegant, but the shape of the way they curve when I type is similar to the arch of yours. Our knuckles are the same, and our wrists, though not small, have a certain grace.

Telling you about my decision is not going to be easy, and you should know this. I know how you feel about the way my life should be led, but I hope you realize that plans don’t always work out as, well, planned. I’m not sure if I’m moving in the right direction, I have doubts, and Brian is skeptical as well. He is worried that I will have regrets. He is worried that I am in over my head, that I will become strung out again, too nervous to sit still, and that may be true. But persistence is the key, or at least that’s what you said, and I have a stubborn streak a mile wide that wants desperately to prove that I can do anything I set my mind to, whether I have approval from you all or not.

Last week I talked about self-worth, and how it’s defined – or not defined. It’s different for different people, and that is why I have to at least try my hand at something that proves to me that I have self worth. I want to look in the mirror and say to the girl staring back at me that I am smarter than they said, that I can finish what I start.

You didn’t say hello to me because you can’t. But I pass your headstone nearly every day and I say hello to you, mostly good morning, and I feel your presence in my hands as they hold the steering wheel. I have never doubted your approval, your pride in me and what I have become, and even though your fingers will never touch mine again, I know that you would use them to squeeze my shoulder if you could; you would use them to reassure me that I am worthy to this world no matter what I do, and I always will be.