Day Hacks

Sometimes life can be a bit shit. I know we aren't starving orphans where having no socks is the least of our problems. Let's be realistic. But there are times when daily life can be a little mundane. We wake up. We shower. We commute to work. We work. We commute back home. Blah blah blah. Repeat. Maybe we get to throw in a cheeky impromptu pun, or some tequila, or a game of Twister. Suddenly life becomes a little more fun. Could it be better? Yes. This is where my day hacks come in. 

To break the humdrum of the day-to-day drag, I made a few day hacks which I get maybe a little too excited about. 

Martini Monday
A martini must be taken on any given Monday. The preference is that you dress smart. If I were a man, the ideal outfit would be a pinstripe suit and a fancy hat. I'm not a man, and I don't own a pinstripe suit. I also don't know how I feel about pant suits, but one day I might give it a go. 
One of my friends has a philosophy which goes like this: Dress well, test well. He would dress nicely in hope of this influencing how well he does in his exam. My new philosophy is this: Dress well, martini well. Yeah I just made 'martini' into a verb. DEAL. I haven't actually done Martini Monday yet, and to be fair, I've only had one martini in my life. I don't even think it was a proper martini. My friend and I ordered them at our lodgings in Samoa. I'm pretty sure they didn't know how to make a martini and it was quite rank. 
Martini Monday WILL happen the next Monday, and I'll let you know how it goes for me.  


Whiquila Wednesday 
Whiquila is a drink which I made up. It's a shot of whisky and tequila together! It has all the benefits of both, being that it makes you fun and more fun. The bonus is that it doesn't make you horny or angry or sleepy! It tastes okay, and everyone thinks it's gonna be gross but then I make them take a shot with me and they love it! 


Fun Cereal Friday
I got this idea when I was still in high school. One of my friends Eli and I used to have Pie Day Friday. We would each take turns to buy us both pies from the school canteen. This stopped when we got into a fight about whose turn it was to buy the pies. To this day I swear Eli still owes me three pies. I mean, I'm over it though. Like, I don't even care anymore.
I don't even eat pies so of corse it doesn't even matter. It was eight years ago. 
Also, the pies were making me a little round.
Point is, I decided to do another fun thing on Friday to replace Pie Day Friday which had ended most abruptly. For this I did Fun Cereal Friday which is where I had cocoa pops on Friday because they were more fun than the healthier breakfast I had on the other days.
Now that I am in the States, there is whole new world of cereals available for me to sample every week. Rules: The cereal must look fun (it probably has a puzzle on the back of the package or some kind of cereal mascot like Cap'n Crunch), and it must be quite unhealthy. I'm not supposed to feel wholesome when I'm eating it, I'm supposed to feel slightly rebellious. 
Some of us went through this phase when we left home where we are all like "Screw you, Mum. I can eat whatever I want for breakfast!" So we did. Then we probably stopped. Now I'm starting again. But just on a Friday. Hopefully all the little balls of sugary-coated delight wont all cut my mouth open so much. We all know the cereal rule: The better it tastes, the more it cuts your mouth up.  

Icecream Sunday - See what I did there? Eh? Eeeehh? If you know my points system, you know I get a point when I eat icecream. As a family, we used to have icecream for pudding on Sunday. My brother thought it was kind of dumb. He's all: "Why the fuck can't we have icecream whenever we want?" And then Mum's all: "BECAUSE I SAID SO NAGNAGNAG!" Kidding. She doesn't really sound like that. Whenever Mum wasn't home, we would make Dad give us icecream even on a Wednesday or something CRAZY like that. 
I'm a big fan of the icecream on a Sunday rule. It means that I don't eat it every day, since I know Sunday must be only six or fewer days away.  The great thing about Portland is that there are all kinds of icecream shops where you can get all kinds of different icecream like honey lavender and maple bacon and chevre with bourbon pecan caramel if you're a food snob, and eggnog custard imuststopthisbeforeihaveanicecreamgasm!!!!

I still have three more days of the week to make up day hacks for. I need them to sound snappy. I need it to be fun but easy. Thoughts: Yours please. 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• What's up with the patterns on bus seats? Seriously. What are they? 
• Maybe I should just have Angry Thursday. Thursday is my Monday, therefore I don't like it. Nothing good can happen!
• Microwave minute > washing machine minute > normal minute. 
• Watch this please thank you. 

Thanks for reading

Liz Tritops

xoxo

I Don't Go To Work Today

Most days I go to work, but some days, I don't.

A day off in the life of Liz is not as exciting as it should be. Warning: Writing about to-do list features heavily, however actually doing things on to-do list doesn't happen so much. 

Here is what I do:

• Make to-do list
• On to-do list, put down a few things that I did last night and cross them off. That way, I will not feel like a total failure today. 
• Make list of food that I like from other countries. Why? Because I like lists, and I like food.  Feel sad that I will never be in one place where it is easy to obtain all of these foods. List contains dulce de leche, mangos all the time and I want at least one a day but for 20c only, mango sticky rice, more mangos, milo, peanut butter cups, empanadas, Gingernuts, Ben and Jerry's, Marmite, this really good beer that I had in Canada and no I am never turning into a beer snob but it was actually amazing. 
• Who is this Honey Boo Boo character? Research must be done.
• Watch episode.
• Regret decision. 
• Realise I cannot concentrate on actual things without a clean workspace.
• Clean workspace.
• Clean more things, because I can't just clean one thing. Clean thing is making dirty things look even dirtier in comparison. 
• I want to run.
• Remember that I can't run and get angry about it.
• I could do some other kind of exercise right? Or I could angrily eat candy corn instead. 
• Choose the latter. 
• Check news from home. On front cover of news website will invariably be a picture of a six-year-old boy who found a rusty old coin in his neighbour's garden. 
• How do I make quinoa really fluffy? Apparently quinoa has recently gone mainstream. Do I even want it anymore? It used to be the grain 'you've probably never heard of'. Currently imagining tiny quinoa thingies with moustaches and fixies. 
• Do personal admin, such as replying to emails and balancing my books. I need a personal assistant STAT.  
• Make grocery list. Yes, grocery list is on to-do list. So right now I have a to-do list of to-do lists. Brilliant. 
• Don't bother putting empanadas or mango sticky rice on grocery list. 
• Find sleeping bag because it's cold.
• Make tea because it's still cold AND bitchez love tea. 
• Get drunk and ask all the boys if I'm pretty. 
• LOL JK.
• Eat quinoa, but it isn't as fluffy as predicted. It's okay though, I guess. Fluffy isn't even my favourite texture of food so don't worry. At least it didn't turn into a paste. I think I like gummy things the best.
• Take photo of grocery list? Will it look backwards on Photo Booth? Is it like a mirror? How does that even work? Why do I look so weird on Photo Booth?
• Pull silly face.
• Take photo.
• Repeat.
• Shit. Photo Booth DOES do the backwards mirror thing. Use camera. 
• Show grocery list to you guys because I'm so narcissistic.
• I'm doing this thing where I listen to all the music on my iTunes and delete the stuff that I don't want. I do this because sometimes my music is on shuffle and some indie electronic crap will come on. Song might not even have any words, which means I don't know how I should feel inside. I have no idea how the heck it got on my iTunes and who even sings it. Where I was going with this is right now I'm up to the part where my favourite christmas carol is being sung by N Sync a cappella-style so yes I'm okay right now. And yes, this song is a keeper.  
• Go to supermarket. Still getting distracted by all the American things, especially in the cereal isle and the candy isle. And the frozen isle.
• Write on to-do list things that I did this morning which weren't already on to-do list, so I feel as though I have stuck to to-do list. Yes, I even put 'eat candy corn' and 'shower' on to-do list. 
• Go and play in trampoline park in Portland because bouncing should always be fun, no matter how old you are. Trampoline park was on to-do list. Also, every day off needs at least one fun activity. 

THE END

Here is my grocery list:

I hope you like it. 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• I think a great way to exert superiority is to start calling people 'serfs' and 'bastards' (but in a loving way). Let's bring those words back.  
• MUST.BUY.CHRISTMAS.JUMPER.
• This week I learned that dogs can get stuck when they are mating. Apparently there are two kinds of people in the world: those who know about this and those who don't. Half the people I told this were all like 'No shit, Liz. You're dumb. Have you been living under a rock?' The other half were just as surprised as me. So yeah. That happens. You're welcome. 
• Here. Watch this. Cat's are dogs, too.

Have a great week

Bye

Liz Tritops

xoxo

I'm a Smart Girl, but I'm not Always Right

Sometimes I am wrong. I made a list of things I thought I knew. This was way back when Pluto was still a planet and everyone agreed that the Triceratops was a proper dinosaur. 

• I thought I was invincible at Cluedo. One day, I lost, and I haven't played since. This is not just because it's not everyday that you get offered the chance to participate in the second best board game, but also I'm scared because I don't know exactly who I am anymore. I thought I could figure out all the clues, dammit. Half the time, it's that bitch Mrs. White. 
• A flying fox is not just a freaking awesome piece of playground, but also an animal. You can even call them megabats if you want. Isn't that great? LOOK AT THE PICTURE!
• I have this theory about fruit that I may have told you before. If the effort involved in  eating a particular piece of fruit outweighs the deliciousness of eating it, then it's a no-go. Think sticky hands. Think juice going everywhere. Think rind under fingernails. Think seeds and pips in teeth. Think where the blimin' heck do I put the skin? I've seen enough Vaudville to both appreciate the potential slapstick value in the banana skin but also realise the danger. As an economics student who loves cost and benefit and all those nerdy things, I contemplated my theory for quite some time. Many graphs and equations were made. Well, not really. That being said, I honestly thought that the humble grapefruit was dead to me. Then, I discovered the GRAPEFRUIT SPOON! Great invention, guys. It's like the superhero of the utensil world. Hell, why can't these spoons be wearing capes?  
• I thought those Glacé cherries were made out of some kind of edible plastic. I now know they're REAL cherries. (I guess‽) 
• I was wrong about going to step class. For me, this is never a good idea.  Today, I accidentally kicked a girl in the head. 
• After listening to Mumford and Sons repeatedly on the way to and from Canada, I realised that the song 'Lion Man' could actually be about a lion-man hybrid. Most of the lyrics point to yes. 
• Duct tape is not called 'duck tape'. However, there is a brand of duct tape called 'Duck tape'. Well played.   
• I just want Alicia Keys (and Jay-Z, for that matter) to tell me what a wet dream tomato is. 
• The Who was not wondering what it was like to be Batman behind blue eyes. 
• I always thought mayonnaise was yucky.
• Wait. I got that right. Mayonnaise IS yucky.
• Since playing The Oregon Trail, I thought certain diseases sounded trivial. A typical conversation in the wagon would go like this: "Ma, I can't eat this stewed rabbit just this minute. Don't worry, I'll be done with my cholera soon." Cholera is actually quite bad.
• You are allowed to return the baby birds to the nests if you see them stranded. Don't worry, their mums will still like them. I've never seen a baby bird stranded though. Where are they at? 
• I have been looking for a substitute for Griffin's Gingernuts dunked in a milky cup of tea. I'm starting to worry that no substitute exists. 
• Getting drunk WILL give me a notorious hangover and I will be shit at work the next day or I just won't even be able to move for 12 hours. Life is NOT like it used to be when I was 16 and a milkshake and a slice of pizza would make me feel 110% again so I could continue being passive-aggressive with my parents and GO.  
• Sex in a Subaru doesn't count.
• Is it three or four musketeers? Did they even have muskets? To me it just sounds like they should be little mice. Who are armed. With muskets. Did they already make a sequel to Stewart Little? 
• Being in a plane adds at least one star to crappy movies, and it adds all five stars to RuPaul's Drag Race and Extreme Couponing. 
• Lending books is never just lending them. Imagine you are giving away free gifts, therefore you must realise that you will never see them again. 

Other things from me this week:

• It's time to start baking again. This week I will attempt a pumpkin pie because of this 'America' thing that I am doing right now. Maybe I'll do it with real pumpkin instead of the instant pumpkin that 'they' use. Do you know why? I'm not a cheater, that's why. (I hope you're not allergic to my pretentiousness. To be fair, I think I'm only 2% pretentious.) Also, next time you see me I will be the size of a house, because if you make the pie, you gotta eat the pie. 
• I learned about a new dinosaur. It's in my top five. 
• Playing Bingo with old people will also happen soon and I will most likely write a report on it. Old people are actually great. 
• We have Christmas lights up. It's not Christmas time yet but a) Bitchez need to see the things in their lounge, and b) Christmas lights are fun, as is Christmas. Speaking of which, I need to find a dashing Christmas jumper for the harsh Oregon winter. Ha. 
• You should probably watch this. Consider it your homework. 

Bye guys and thanks for reading.

xoxo

Liz Tritops