Live Life Like You're Camping

For the second time now I have survived camping 10 days in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. You'd be right if you're thinking to yourself "Huh? Natasha doesn't strike me as an outdoorsy type." I'm NOT a shit-in-the-woods kind of gal, but, with some creative angling and a big enough boulder I CAN pee in the woods. I think we call that personal growth.

Live Life Like You're Camping

1. Take care of your house (tent).
Close (zip) the front door to not let the flies (and spiders!) in. Close your windows when you leave. It may be sunny when you leave in the morning but an afternoon rain may (will) blow through and soak your bedding and all worldly possessions. Author note: I learned this last year.

Be neat, separate your dirty and clean clothes. Make the bed. Also, take off, and keep, your shoes outside.

2. Rise with the sun
Ok, maybe not at the exact moment that the sun rises, however, it's a good idea to not let it to high in the sky before you get up. Plus, there's lots to do. Like haul water.

3. Conserve water
You have to haul that shit. Don't waste it. Can you thoroughly wash your hands with much less water? Yes. Dan showered once with only 2.5 gallons of water. Dan also only showered once. But that's a different story.

4. Eat for fuel
The water isn't going to haul itself, nor is the fire going to light itself. There's a lot to do even before you get to the fun things like hiking, biking or just sight seeing. Eat to keep you going. I didn't always heed this one. I found myself face first in a bag of chips more than once.

5. Make time for star gazing
Instead of looking up, lie on your back and look out! Your eyeballs really gets to soak it all in and your neck will thank you. Beauty, perspective, awe. We all need more of that in our lives.

6. Appreciate the task
Without fail, you spend considerable more time preparing any meal than you do eating it. Relish the task of preparing your meal. In "normal life" these are just straight up chores. Relish the chopping, stirring, grilling and feeding your friends, family and yourself!

7. Be kind, be happy
Camping is rough. There is constant work, the sleeping conditions are sub-par and your boyfriend has only showered once. And don't forget the 12 hour drive home. There is no room for you to be a Poopy Panther. In fact, be kind and happy. Camping, and Life, is a short, precious pocket of time you get to experience beauty and love in. Be thankful for both.

Ok, I thought I was done but I really have 1 more.

8. Let the other person go to the bathroom first.
3 words. Automatic Seat Warmer.

Damages

Last weekend was Girls in the Lou part Tres. A ritual of eating, shopping, eating and drinking for Shannan, Amy and myself. We did a lot of damage.

Cocktails at a fancy schmancy restaurant. The name of this beaut is Grounds for Divorce.

Breakfast the next day! And boy howdy do we know how to chow down. With cocktails.

Mmmmmmm brownie dessert.

And really, shopping doesn't mix too well with the copious amount of food we ate, but SOMEHOW we were still able to pull it off.

Not pictured:

* The other 3 dozen cocktails we had
* The other grossly large meals we ate
* Kris Koster (MO Attorney General I saw at our hotel)
* The Pepper Accident
* Fun Bobby

Can't wait to do it again! Maybe after I detox first, though. 

Yeast Infection

Just when you start to feel comfortable and confident in the kitchen --- BAM out of nowhere something comes along to knock you off your culinary horse. This most recent time the "something" was not reading the instructions carefully and not knowing the differences in types of yeast. Yeast is yeast is yeast, right???

Wrong.

::farts::

So wrong.

I gathered all the stuff to make this. YUM. For the dressing I grabbed "yeast" since that is all I had written on my grocery list. I picked up a three pack of the little envelopes and headed home to concoct a delicious and nutritious meal.

Fast forward to the dressing. The recipe called for 1/4 cup and my three packets only amounted to 1/8 cup. A silver lining, if there IS one to this story. ::farts:: I put all my ingredients in the food processor and blended. Then tasted. "Hmmmmm, maybe add more lemon, garlic, salt and pepper?" I thought. So I did. "Hmmm, better. But the taste was still a little, well, doughy. Maybe once it's combined with the salad it will all come together."

The taste was slightly more mild once mixed with my beautiful vegetables, quinoa and lentils. And don't get my wrong, it didn't taste bad, there was just a very present flavor of raw yeast in my mouth. Plus I had just made a batch of this for my lunch for the week. I ate a few more bites and decided to look over the recipe one more time.

1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast

"What the hell? Where did that come from? I don't remember seeing "Nutritional" there before. And anyway - what IS nutritional yeast." I continue to eat my salad as I search the interwebs for this mystery ingredient and, also, the effects of eating raw yeast.

Nutritional Yeast is DEactivated yeast and  has a mild nutty/cheesy flavor and is so very much NOT the same as the type of yeast (active) I used. Both in taste and digestionally. The effects, I was discovering, of eating active yeast (while still alive) boils down to a chemical reaction in your intestines that produce A LOT of gas.

::farts::

And I mean a lot of gas. I basically farted for 2 days straight. Without stopping. So maybe it wasn't so much a yeast infection but rather a yeast reaction. I hated to throw away all that food, but there was no way I could eat it for a whole week and not be shunned from work. And Yoga. And Dan.

Lesson learned. You won this time Yeast but don't count me out just yet. I'm getting back on the horse and will try this recipe again once I find your Nutritional cousin and can control my flatulence.

::farts::

Big Money

I found a penny in the grocery store parking lot. I saw it as soon as I got out of the car, and just like that I was one cent richer! The Thursday before last I found 4 pennies, separately, on my walk home. Just the night before I found a quarter AND a penny in the yoga changing room.

Cha-Ching.

I haven't kept a running total, but it amounts to more than a few bucks. I netted $1.22 during a 10 day trip to the Rockies. I, very literally, found a penny on top of a mountain. There it was. Sunning itself on the top of Mt. Elbert. A whole dollar came at the laundromat the next day.

But back to the grocery store. I needed quarters for laundry and I failed to get cash back at check out. I rolled the dice and went to customer service, hoping they'd just let me use them like an ATM. I did find a penny in the parking lot, maybe it was my lucky day?

"No ma'am, you have to buy something, at least $1 worth."

"Oh."

"Like a Powerball or Scratchers ticket."

"OH?????? Yes please! I DID just find a penny in the parking lot. Who knows, maybe I will win big and can buy my own washer and dryer!" And some way to get the hookups into my 2nd floor apartment. "I'll take a scratchers and a roll of quarters, then."

"There you go! Good Luck!"

I head to my car and FIND ANOTHER PENNY on my way out. Do people just throw them away???? I get to my car and scratch the shit out of that ticket.

I matched the first two numbers, and then three and after a flurry of metallic shavings were cleared away, I realized I had matched all 5!

I WON $10!!!!!!!

That's a lot of pennies. Thanks Universe. I appreciate ALL the money you send my way. Even the ones stuck in the cement.

I got what I paid for

I bought a Groupon for a facial. Cause, dammit, it was my birthday: Happy birthday to me. And my face. The location was in my neighborhood, which was a bonus. I set the appointment on my Birthday and arrived 10 minutes early.

After about 5 minutes wandering around a very expansive, maze like and sterile office building hallway I seriously begin to fear that I had bought a Groupon for Dexter to kill me. Did this stop me from going into Suite 226? Nope.

The esthetician was ill-prepared for my arrival. In fact, I got there 5 minutes before she did. She came into the spa with a few bags and a pile of hastily folded linens.

"Just have a seat and I'll go get the room ready."

I sit. I wait. The overhead light, kept on by motion sensor, goes out. I stand up.

My "room" is ready not long after then. I am escorted into a large, empty room with a massage table,  lots of face products and a facial steamer waiting in the far corner.

Holy shit. I am going to be sliced by this woman. 

But do Serial Killers really go so far as to set up a legit business only to then run a Groupon and kill people? Do they??? I continue to undress my upper body. At her CD player she takes no less than 4 full minutes to figure out how to work it.

Dying ON your birthday, that's kinda poetic. Right?

But alas, she was no serial killer. I am only going off the fact that she didn't kill me. The facial was OK, she was awkward and her spa had all the charm and comfort of an empty tin can. With bad fluorescent lighting. You're gonna need to put something a little heavier than a cotton ball on your clients eyes before turning on those lights after AN HOUR IN THE PITCH DARK.

Please use your Groupon money and invest in some mood lighting. Or at least some candles.

Chemical Warfare

I did not need another reason for Homeland Security to keep tabs on me. But after this past weekend I may have inadvertently done just that. An upgrade from Terrorist to Bio-Terrorist. While doing a deep clean of my bathroom I accidentally made a batch of mustard gas. 

It was easier that you might think.

I used bleach to clean my shower. I had done a pretty good spray down and the smell was pretty strong. It smelled, frankly, like I was trying to clean up a murder. I poured some bleach in my toilet bowl and then, for good measure and extra "cleanliness," I put toilet bowl cleaner around the upper ring. It turned a yellow-y orange color and started to fizz.

Not taking any clue from the smell or the obvious chemical reaction, I just closed the toilet bowl lid to let it sit and began to clean the mirrors. Breathing was a little difficult and my throat was beginning to get really scratchy. I'll just breath through a towel. 

Then I started coughing. A lot. And by then I was done with the mirrors and figured it was time to scrub the totally safe and non toxic toilet. The mere act of sticking the brush into the bowl created even MORE bubbles and fizzies. No red flags have gone up. After a thorough cleansing I flushed and then Dan (in the other room) put 2 and 2 together.

"We need to evacuate the premises. You mixed bleach and ammonia."

We opened all the windows. I grabbed Sammy and Dan grabbed the computer. Once outside in the "fresh air" he googled "mixing bleach and ammonia" and according to the interwebs doing that creates mustard gas. Straight-up-will-kill-you-no-joke mustard gas.

I felt terrible. But I also felt like a dumb ass. It took almost 2 fulls days for me to feel close to back to normal and Sammy had a little cough and that just made me feel like shit too.

So, that's how I accidentally waged chemical warfare on everyone in my apartment. I hope I can't accidentally make anything else lethal out of household cleaning products. Baking soda and kitty litter doesn't make anthrax, does it?

Any Guesses???

I saw this written on my kitchen dry erase board.

Any guesses on who wrote it? (hint:: it wasn't Sammy)

Any guesses on what the heck it means?