Happy Father’s Day and Cookies for Breakfast!

By chelsea

June 16, 2013

12 Comments

happy father’s day to all the wonderful fathers out there! i need to obviously boast for a minute about how mine is the best so please bear with me! here’s one of my favorite photos with my dad on my wedding day dancing! he’s taught me compassion, how to be witty, how to take care of a car, appreciate nature and puns (among a list of other things). love you dad!

photo credit: carolina joy photography

then of course i have to shout out to my step-dad, who has taught me to be technologically savvy, appreciate dry humor, expand my tastebuds and how to make the best peach margarita ever. my amazing grandpa is also in the picture and he has showed me the value of hard work, to be kind and neighborly and how to kick butt in cribbage!

photo credit: cassie rosch photography

and of course my father-in-law, who i get to be celebrating with today! i first appreciate how he has helped to raise a son that is respectful, ambitious and a visionary (all of the qualities he posses as well). he is also not afraid to take risks and speaks his mind.

how lucky am i to have such great men in my life showing me unconditional love and support that is truly unwavering (yes, i totally have tears streaming down my face as i type this)!

now…let’s review the past 24 hours because honestly all i’ve done is eaten because my MIL is an amazing cook and we all know that my self control doesn’t exist. also, she makes the best chocolate chip cookies i’ve ever ever had. if you would like to challenge me on this statement, i would happily sample your cookies as well. take a look at the breakfast she prepares:

i hope you were also paying attention to the right hand center of the photo because COOKIES ARE ON THE BREAKFAST TABLE! here’s a close up so you can salivate.

my SIL (sister-in-law) and her husband came into town this weekend and we had a great time! it’s also a great time because after we get done taking nice photos like this….

photos like this usually come out of the woodwork later…no questions please, just accept that these people are a part of my family and i couldn’t be happier :)

i also feel like i need to fess up and let you know this is what ravery and i just ate about 13 minutes ago…kathy’s best chocolate chip cookies ever with blue bell ice cream (only the creamiest, fattest, ice cream ever). i literally almost passed out from the perfect taste in my mouth.

we need to figure out a gym membership or something because my pants are already getting tight and my sanity is still not feeling quite on par…i need to figure out how to control my addiction to sugar and step up my will power because this isn’t going to fly much longer! i hope everyone is enjoying your father’s day and you have access to delicious cookies as well!

life lesson: take time to tell your father and father figures/influencers in your life how much they mean to you and why. also, don’t wait for just one day out of the year to show appreciation either!

questions:
1) what characteristic do you admire most in your dad/father figure?
2) can you or have you ever been able to do the splits? (negative for me)
3) favorite brand of ice cream….go!

25.5 Questions to Ask Your Significant Other!

By chelsea

June 14, 2013

7 Comments

while ravery and i were on our very long road trip for portland, oregon to houston, texas…we had some time on our hands so we started asking each other questions. at first, i was kind of like “um…i know everything about you, we’ve been together for more than 6 years…” and then i realized that was in fact false. we are constantly growing and evolving and are very different people then we were when we first met (well, we would still absolutely take pictures of us with glasses over glasses any time, any place).

whether you’re trapped (i mean…get to road trip) with your significant other for days on end, are out on a hot date or simply have a few minutes with just the 2 of you…ask one another these questions to find out just who you share your peanut m&ms with.

also…a reminder…you should both be on board to answer honestly and then be open to talking more about different things that may arise. it’s super important to keep your lines of communication open and be willing to put the time and energy your partner may need to process something (this happened for us around mile 2,139 while passing through kansas).

1) what did you first think of me when we met?
2) what attracted you most to me right off the bat? physically and mentally?
3) what is the most romantic evening you could ever imagine?
4) what’s one thing i don’t know about you?
5) what’s one thing your family doesn’t know about you?
6) if you could talk to any animal, what would it be?
7) what’s your biggest fear?
8) what’s your biggest dream?
9) if you had to lose one of your senses, which one would you lose and why?
10) what’s one thing you wish you could change about yourself?
11) what’s one thing you wish you could change about me?
12) what’s your favorite part of your body? my body?
13) what’s your favorite part of your mind? my mind?
14) what’s your earliest memory of happiness? fear?
15) what 3 qualities do you like best about me?
16) how did your very first date go?
17) how do you think people perceive you?
18) what is the best decision you made?
19) do you regret any decisions?
20) what has been your proudest moment?
21) what habits do i have that irritate/upset you (try to stick to on 1-2)?
21) what things can i do to show you i appreciate you more?
22) how much time do you need by yourself every day?
23) if you weren’t in the career you’re doing now, what would you want to be doing?
24) how do you picture your life in 5 years?
25) when is the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t breath?
25.5) can i have a hug/kiss/high five (if you’re driving) to demonstrate that we should always agree to continue to grow and stay connected?

if you enjoyed this, please share it with others so we can all feel more connected to our partners!

life lesson: make your relationship a priority and put the work in to make it successful.

questions:
1) what other questions would you add to the above list? (i have about 309503 more)
2) how do you or will you make your relationship a priority?
3) i want to know what made you laugh hard recently!

Home Sweat Home!

By chelsea

June 11, 2013

10 Comments

well, we have successfully been out of our car for a full day now and have arrived in houston, texas to start this next adventure of our lives! it still hasn’t fully hit me that we aren’t just visiting and will be returning home to our apartment in a few days so i’m sure i will be having a panic attack within the next 5 days once this sinks in fully. but in the mean time…here’s what we get to do today:

that is everything that exploded out of our car and i can’t believe we fit most everything (minus some winter clothes) into our car for our 2,935 mile road trip from portland, oregon to houston, texas!

look at what was next to our bed when we arrived- wheat thins AND touch of portland featuring flowers in a rogue brewery/voodoo donuts flavored beer! very high attention to detail and incredibly sweet. i cried.

we will be taking a few days to come back down to earth and especially for me to rebalance my brain and life. i have never ever been so busy in my entire life than this past month. i know i tend to be overly dramatic and exaggerate sometimes…but i’m for real-i’ve used 100% of everything in me over the past few weeks!

you may remember me getting all mushy gushy about HOBY and explaining how my life will never be the same (read more here) well…ravery was asked to be a speaker at HOBY texas capital area and then it turned out they needed a facilitator at the last minute so i jumped in. thankfully they hadn’t come up with a mascot for the group yet so i jumped on the MOOSE group (remember when i freaked out and saw a moose in the grand tetons).

i was fortunate to be able to work with some truly OUTSTANDING individuals for 3 days in the moose/meese/moosiah group this past weekend and i expect big things out of each of you!

i also feel super grateful that this was my first introduction to a large group of texans (staff and ambassadors included) because they were so warm, welcoming, interested in social change and hilarious. i think i have also let slip ‘y’all’ a few times without intention-eek!

anyways…back to rebalancing my life…it will involve a lot of this:

don’t my in-laws have a magnificent place?! my mother-in-law (MIL) is a fantastic gardener and she has created quite the oasis (friends…come visit….we will be glued here for days).

ravery and i have also agreed that it’s acceptable to eat like crap for a few days and then get back to training like champions (which involves eating right and working out). but for now…we had iguana joe’s yesterday for dinner! chips, queso, some sort of guac-sour cream combo and salsa! best believe margaritas were involved too. if you have one of these near you…go right now, you shall not be disappointed.

needless to say…it was a good day. then this morning i woke up feeling kind of gross so i decided to attempt a quick run since i haven’t worked out in a month. i made it about 1.3 miles before i was sweating so profusely i couldn’t even see and almost passed out. it is so dang humid here that each and every pour of mine is working over time and my hair is constantly ridiculous. but the amazing thing…after coming home from the quick run i jumped right into the pool and cooled off instantly. it’s a pretty sweet deal.

less than 7 minutes later, my MIL, kathy pokes her head out and says….”come and get it” and she has a glorious, warm, chewy, delicious DONUTS from shipley in her hand! these are seriously some of the very best donuts ever.

my FIL (father in law) mark and i were incredibly happy.

for now it is time to stay inside this beautifully air-conditioned house and get our life organized (i’m excited to find different clothes since i’ve been wearing the same things out of our small suitcase for the past 3 weeks). my reward for hard work today will most likely consist of sitting by the pool, sweating profusely and eating cookies and by-george (is that the saying?) i feel like i’ve earned it!

life lesson: it is vitally important to take time to re-center yourself and find your balance, particularly after some big life changes. take to the time to take care of yourself.

questions:
1) longest road trip you’ve ever been on? (oregon to texas takes the cake for mine)
2) would your rather be really cold or really hot all day? (cold for me)
3) what ways do you find to re-balance your life?

On the Road Again!

By chelsea

June 6, 2013

14 Comments

blogging on the road and in between working while on the road is a lot tougher than i was anticipating and i’m a little bummed out about it.

do you know where i get my love of snacks from? i got it from my mama! she suggested we have a few friends over to the house so we could visit better than going out somewhere and she said she would get some things to eat and drink…she did not disappoint. we also share a deep love for stripes (in the past 2 posts, you may have noticed i was wearing the same shirt she is in this photo, we like matching).

it was fantastic to sit outside in the colorado sunshine and see some of our friends that i haven’t seen in ages!

i got to spend some quality time with my dad too and that made me very happy! while is day job consists of being an aerospace engineer, he is also a landscape architect. i hadn’t seen his fantastic yard in the summer so we are standing in front of it and i loved all the aspen trees!

we also went to visit my mom’s work and because i hadn’t seen her new office. when she visited my work in portland she took loads of pictures of me sitting at my desk/with coworkers/the building so i had to do the same to her! she was the first person to ask ravery for his autograph after he won the world championship and she keeps it on her desk!

then i got all teary eyes and beamed with pride because we got to visit the toastmasters club SHE started at her work! how amazing is that?? she had never been a toastmasters before and here she is jumping in and helping people she works with become better leaders and communicators, so proud of her :) here’s the group at healthgrades

after we sat in on their meeting, she promised us a mid-afternoon brunch at the restaurant syrup in her building and it was delicious! we started off with sharing beignets and they were so dense but fluffy i was quite happy.

i ordered a burrito but ravery….he ordered “the caroline” which was eggs benedict but with pulled pork. it was out of this world!

i was happy happy happy and then very sad once i had to say goodbye :(

we left at 4:30am to make it to oklahoma city for ravery to teach a workshop and that was a looooong day but they were great and helped me set up a lot of things because my brain was fried.

yesterday we left early again to make it to dallas for another workshop and here’s the rundown of what i saw as i was driving. i saw 9 dead armadillos (i have yet to see one alive and know i will freak out when i do), 3 skunks, 4 unidentified animals and 16 dead turtles! the turtles made me especially sad because i didn’t know there were so many in the wild and they used to be my favorite animal so it was really sad to see.

and then….drum roll please….we entered….

yup. i am sitting in texas as i type this. we are arriving in houston on monday to get settled in and are currently in dallas about to leave for austin here shortly. we stayed with a friend and let me tell you how amazing it was to swim in the pool for a bit but even better…guess what dessert #1 was (that was homemade). HOME MADE APPLE PIE. it was delectable AND still warm.

then, i heard “yeah, i bought some things because i thought it might be fun to have s’mores.” um, what! i have been craving s’mores ever since yellowstone and now they are in my stomach. they were amazing AND he bought fancy chocolate! this fancy chocolate a) is from seattle so i felt some PNW love b) had some spicy chili in it so it gave a little kick! no honestly so amazing.

so far, texas has been pretty good to me and now we get to go to austin! i’m so excited to see this city and hopefully feel the vibe of portland there! i am jumping in as a facilitator for HOBY Texas Capital Area so i will be off the grid again and am little bit nervous for my exhaustion level come monday morning but it will be worth it!

life lesson: it brings great joy to see your family set goals and accomplish them. it inspires you all over again!

question:
1) do you still keep in touch with some friends from high school/college?
2) what is something your parent/guardian has done/did to make you proud?
3) favorite kind of pie…go!

Grand Tetons-Beyond Grand AND I Saw A…

By chelsea

June 3, 2013

9 Comments

after we made it through chilly but beautiful yellowstone (recap here) ravery surprised me with a stay in a “dude ranch” instead of a typical hotel for 2 nights! it was absolutely amazing. it was called heart six guest ranch.

it was complete with a view of the tetons, horses and enough wood in our cabin that termites would have been happy for eternity.

this is a real life picture i took on one of the mornings we were there (unedited, un-enhanced, pure nature) and my jaw literally dropped. this is type of scene i thought you only find in old school paintings and in old western films:

i mean, how magical is that?! that is not even with the zoom on. amazing. i would highly recommend heart six to stay-it’s near moran, wyoming and only takes about 30 minutes to get to the grand teton national park (and about 3 hours south of yellowstone national park). the only draw back was that it’s not very sound proof so we could hear people outside of our cabin and the people next to us a little bit but that also meant you could hear horses ‘naaaaaying’ and birds chriping.

after appreciating waking up in this peaceful way (continuing with no electronics except my camera) eating pb&h sandwiches and oatmeal, we got started on our trek through the grand tetons! i was waaaay more awe-struck than i anticipated by these jagged, rugged, and jaw dropping mountains.

we ventured through the grand teton national park and my dad had recommended going to see jenny lake for a great view of the lake that was backed up right against the tetons so off we went, but not before ridiculous jumping photos were taken (it’s actually quite impressive).

you may notice we are in the same clothes from the day before on our yellowstone adventure because these were only long-sleeved articles of clothing we owned-ha! when we got to jenny lake it, we got hailed on, snowed on, rained on and then the sun eventually came out for a hot minute (not really hot though).

highly recommend visiting jenny lake when you venturing through the grand tetons and we hiked a short 2 miles around part of the lake and saw where screen savers are made (everywhere we looked we just kept saying “omg, this is on the default settings of computers to put as screen savers”).

after the hike and temperamental weather, i knew i had to get something substatial to eat (we had literally eaten a half of loaf of bread and half a jar of peanut butter the past few days to save money on food) so we got a recommendation for a local to eat at donran’s not too far away. we ate a delish salad (healthy) and garlic sauce, pine nut, fresh mozzarella pizza (not as healthy but so delicious). i also loved their napkins and ravery doesn’t know this but i took 2 and hid them in the car.

what else did you see on the napkin? oh, that we were in MOOSE, wyoming!? isn’t that spectacular? i certainly thought so. you will never believe what we saw 5 minutes after we finished our meal…

A MOOSE IN MOOSE, WYOMING.

i am still reeling from the natural high of seeing a real life moose in real life!! AND in the town of moose. my face is still like this:

i also just received word that another senior facilitator is needed in HOBY Austin and they have mascots for their groups…guess what i picked for my group…yup. the moose! here another little tip, when driving through areas with high wildlife…anytime you see a hoard of cars parked along the road, they are most likely oohhh and aweing over some sort of animal so you should safely pull over too. ravery did not know this but luckily he married me.

then we saw the female moose sitting across road and we only knew this because 2 people with big cameras were over there so we figured something was up. apparently she was hiding her little baby somewhere nearby. how do you get a baby moose to stay hidden? well done mama moose.

after some moose seeing, we ventured into jackson hole, wyoming basically so we could take the below picture. the sun even stayed out for 15 minutes!

we had an absolutely amazing time in the grand tetons and i would highly highly recommend adding them to your list of “things i must see before i can no longer see” list stat.

we leave colorado tomorrow morning at 4:30am and have a very long day in the car to make it oklahoma city to teach a workshop tomorrow afternoon. thank goodness my mom has awesome snacks so we have reloaded and are ready to go! my soul feels so much better being around family and immersed in mountains!

life lesson: when the opportunity presents itself, take full advantage of seeing new sights and unplugging from the electronic world to reconnect with important people in your life.

questions:
1) best animal you’ve seen in real life nature?
2) have you ever stayed in a log cabin? what was your experience like?
3) how do you feel about arches made of antlers?
4) when was the last time you didn’t have your phone on you (before these past few days…i would say it had been months)

The Magic of Yellowstone-What To See and Do

By chelsea

June 1, 2013

7 Comments

we made it to colorado and we are staying here for 3 days! woohoo! although i do have to say how hard it is to have our car packed of all our worldly possessions and we are only passing through colorado, not staying here (yet…i’m still working on ravery for the future). here’s how crazy our car is packed but equally amazing because we are able to pull out our suitcase to lug into hotels!

we actually spent the last 2 days unplugged (no computers, social media, phones) and just spent time reconnecting to each other. we have been going 9230281 miles an hour i almost forget what color ravery’s eyes were. it was amazing to spend time with just him AND in a glorious place. first up…yellowstone recap!

we rolled through montana and entered at the west entrance…apparently we dragged all the portland clouds with us.

literally within 100 feet of the park entrance (you have to pay $25 but that gets you into yellowstone national park and the grand tetons national park for 7 days…it’s a smoking deal) we saw bison! and even cooler…a little baby bison!

next we ventured to the ‘grand canyon of yellowstone‘ and it literally took my breath away. not only was it magnificent to see the canyon, the huge snow/ice cliff but the waterfall was inteeeense.

absolutely worth the hike down and panting getting back up the hill (you are allowed to take breaks to catch your breath and eat m&ms you find in your coat pocket).

after this, we made it to the ‘midway geyser basin.’ below is the 3rd largest hot spring in the world with it’s temperature ranges from 144-185 degrees fahrenheit called the ‘grand prismatic spring.’ and apparently you can see outrageously colored water here but because it was so cold, there was a crazy amount of steam so we could only barely see it. the surrounding areas were amazingly colored though.

here’s what we looked like after walking the neat wooden boardwalk through this area. FYI: it’s still very cold in yellowstone at the end of May…we had already sent all our winter clothes to texas…but layers work pretty well! the inside of my ears still kind of ache though from all that icy wind. it was so tempting to reach down and touch the small streams to see if they were really that hot or not but we used all of our restrain to keep our fingers inside the safe zone during the whole time. please be proud of us.

next we ventured to main attraction of yellowstone….old faithful! i have been lucky enough to see this before during a road trip with my dad when i was about 12 but ravery hadn’t so he was getting super excited! it’s pretty amazing that they can time when this is going to go off within 10 minutes of ‘launch’ time. pretty impressive.

the average height of the eruption is 130 feet but can go between 106-184 feet (we saw the lower end) and it lasts between 1.5-5 minutes (ours lasted about 2 minutes). thanks FAQ of old faithful for these fun facts.we were freezing (it was probably 34 degrees out) so we raced inside the very cool yellowstone inn just in front of old faithful for a warm up. this fire place certainly warmed us up and naturally we bought a cookie to split and enjoy the flames.

the cafeteria food inside here was reasonably priced but not very tasty so we walked next door the little snack/gift shop and it was amazing. they had a s’mores stand complete with fancy chocolate for those people who identify as fancy (i’m only semi-fancy so i would have bought hershey’s).

i contemplated asking the strangers around me to join their campsites so we could partake in some s’more action but ravery said it would be too creepy so i refrained. next we drove to the west thumb geyser basin of yellowstone lake and despite the fact that we were freezing, it was a gorgeous view. we actually got see the color of this one a bit more.

as we turned around to head back to the car after walking along the lake for a bit, 2 elks had decided to start grazing riiiight next to the path so we had to wait until they were done because i did not want to write a blog article titled ‘the time i got head-butted by an elk.’

those are my top recommendations on what to see and do in yellowstone national park when you spend less than 7 hours there but my goodness were they a great 7 hours! i can’t wait to show you where we stayed and our adventures through the grand tetons (and the coolest thing i got to see) but for now i must go sit in the sunshine next to my dad!

life lesson: check the weather enough in advance so you are adequately prepared for the climate when traveling. also, elks have the right-of-way.

questions:
1) favorite thing you would suggest to see in yellowstone if you’ve been before?
2) what is your favorite ingredient in a s’more? (mine is the chocolate, duh.)
3) when you see rules about not doing something, does that sometimes tempt you to want to try it out even more (like not touching the apparently ‘scalding’ water)?

My Life Will Never Be The Same

By chelsea

May 29, 2013

3 Comments

have you ever done something that has completely changed your life? have you ever blown your own dang mind with what you are capable of? have you ever been a part of something so much bigger than you? i can firmly answer “absolutely” to all of those above questions after this past weekend. i had the privilege of being the leadership seminar chairperson (LSC) for hugh o’brian youth (HOBY) leadership seminar for oregon. i drank the HOBY kool-aid last year when ravery and i volunteered as senior facilitators for the 3 day seminar, specific for high school sophomores. he was actually an ambassador in one of the texas HOBYs when he was a sophomore and his closest friends were found during his seminar 10 years ago. this, of course, wasn’t without some self doubt and many stressful days beforehand…

i truly felt like i would not be able to run a super successful seminar having only experienced one previously and none of the behind-the-scenes business. panic mode set in last tuesday when i heard the terribly sad news from our corporate board president and all around HOBY superstar, jacquie, that her mother had unexpectedly passed away. not only did my heart ache for her loss but i was terrified to run the seminar without her. i realized i had been relying on jacquie’s brain to handle all the rules, guidelines, training and probably running the show more than me. it was crunch time and thankfully all came together.

it has been a wild ride since then and i do have to shout out to jacquie, beki, matt, claire, and jess for helping me plan the seminar and letting me ask a boat load of questions along the way. here is a picture of a few of the above mentioned.

claire, moi, beki and matt

while we missed jacquie terribly (and i still want a HOBY hug from you!) despite her not being there, everyone on the operations team (and all the other staff) really stepped up and helped me put on a life-changing seminar for 75 people. as much as i would have looooved to have jacquie there, i do not think i would have pushed myself and really expanded my own comfort zone and leadership skills the way i did over the weekend. i honestly did not think i was capable of what i accomplished. things ran smoothly, i watched these incredible youth open up about their own lives like when they’ve experienced racism, sexism, oppression, unearned privileges, and what type of leaders they want to be. it was powerful. they gave me the inspiration to find the leader in myself which was buried ridiculously deep. ravery wrote an article yesterday that did a great job capturing why he participates in HOBY so read it for more details .

selfishly, while watching and appreciating the youth grow, you are also observing your peers and other volunteer staff having paradigm shifting experiences. there aren’t really words to describe this but it is powerful, it shakes your inner being. i would highly encourage you to find your local seminar and volunteer with them for their annual seminar or send your sophomore to the program.

i astounded myself by not passing out during open and closing ceremonies (remember, i don’t love public speaking like ravery), facilitating intense large group discussions and helping to create a safe space for staff to grow and evolve in addition to the ambassadors. our programming goes from 7:30am until 11:30pm (and after for staff) so i’m still experiencing my HOBY hangover (moving the day after also doesn’t help anything) but i am so fueled and energized by every single person i interacted with this weekend that i can’t stop smiling and saying everything is O-U-T-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G (HOBY folks will get it).

i know for a fact that if i would have experienced HOBY when i was 15, i would have had an entirely different rest of my high school career and started way earlier having the confidence to be a leader and do big things. 26 is better than never! shout out to ravery for introducing me to HOBY, i owe you one :)

not only do you walk away with more confidence, strength in what you are capable of and a renewed drive to change the world…you always walk away with an entire network of people who feel the same (and surprise you with epic shirts and road trip mixes…thanks jacquie and beki! and excellent photobomb matt!). i mustache you a question…

life lesson: you are capable of much more than you allow yourself to believe, step it up.

questions:
1) what event or person has entered your life to completely change it? if you haven’t had this yet, start searching!
2) if you’ve attended HOBY, tell us how it’s changed you for the better.
3) when is the last time you surprised yourself with an accomplishment? (before HOBY, it was my event at my work and before that it was voluntarily running a 5k!)

Launch Party, Car Accident and Bubble Wrap

By chelsea

May 18, 2013

16 Comments

whew it’s been a crazy few days! we held ravery and randy’s first launch party for How to Be a Speaker in our apartment’s community room (although randy ended up not being able to make it-we missed you!). i very badly wanted to be tasked with picking out all the snacks for the party but alas, i had my last day as a non-profit worker so ravery got to do it. take a gander at the spread:

he did pretty excellent even though i’ve never seen bananas served at a party (and no, he wasn’t going to make a fruit salad). he made sure i had a massive box of wheat thins, candy, chips and salsa, veggies and oreos (because those are his favorite packaged cookies). please also note our excellent wine selection all thanks to linda at yamhill valley vineyards! linda is fabulous and their wine is exquisit (as is their beautiful tasting room) so they are now our official wine sponsor wooohoo! i can truly recommend them because it’s been our ‘go-to’ wine for over 4 years. jacqueline and i modeling our love for their wine and also ‘how to be a speaker!’

i know what you really want to see is how we displayed all of the snacks ravery bought. i have to give ravery credit where credit is due and he arranged all of the fruit platters and they were quite visually pleasing (note the pineapple topper)! i’m a little upset i was rushed while taking this picture because while i appreciate the healthy end of the table, you don’t get to see the cookie plate, bowls of candy, chocolate covered pretzels and pastries! see folks, this is what happens when you rush through things.

we had a great turn out from lots of our friends and aspiring speakers at the launch party! it was great to see a lot of the people that helped ravery on his journey in winning the world championship of public speaking and who are basically just good people.

shout out to lisa and kim for stepping in and helping serve beverages and taking pictures! you ladies are fabulous. thank you also to ellen (not pictured) who scrubbed and scrubbed to remove a WHOLE bottle of red wine that broke on the carpet. you work magic. also, ravery is only allowed to climb on counters during launch parties.

thank you to everyone who came out to show your support and of course i need to plug the fabulous product they launched; 8 DVDS, 8 CDs, and a 94-page workbook for a home study course available on How Be A Speaker for a heck of a deal until June 14.

i’m so proud of my boo (a funny story behind that nickname some other time) and all the hard work, energy, enthusiasm and dedication he has poured into following his dreams!

we ended up getting to bed close to midnight that night and had to be up at 3:45am to get him off to airport to catch his flight to houston in order to speak at district 56′s conference happening this weekend! that was an early morning but luckily i came home and slept about 2 more hours so i could function properly.

warning: abrupt change in topic is about to happen…i later received a call that my new glasses are in finally (this will have been my 4th time to the eye doctor because there has been something wrong with them each time and i keep seeing weird rainbows because of the polish). so i get there and guess what…they had to replace the lenses because they got scratched and they put the damn polish BACK on so i was seeing rainbow prism again. i left AGAIN without new glasses.

as i’m driving back home, trying not to feel completely annoyed and irritated by this whole process, i’m literally 1 block away from our apartment and some fool decides he doesn’t need to stop when rolling out of a parking garage and slams into me. thankfully, neither of us were hurt but let me tell you…i was pissed.

i was very proud of myself for only saying to him “are you FREAKIN’ serious?! seriously?!” and walking away to take a few deep breaths because i can’t really deal with more crap in the midst of everything going on! i reminded myself that obviously he didn’t do this on purpose and accidents happen. i also thought about how i’d want someone to react if i hit someone so breathed it out and reined in the fire-breathing lady that was on the brink of eruption.

thankfully the door still closes but apparently i need a whole new door and the bill is $2,300. doesn’t that seem ridiculously absurd!? i was thinking a few hundred max (and thankfully it’s not coming out of our pocket, just the time and energy). we will have to wait to get it fixed when we get to texas because i have my 3 day leadership seminar starting this thursday and then we start our roadtrip the following tuesday. can you tell i still have some lingering feelings about how annoying this is AND the only reason i was in the car was to pick up my glasses, which i still don’t have. thanks for letting me rant a moment. it’s done now.

here is how i spent last night…popping a massive amount of bubble wrap to help relieve my stress and drinking wine. cheers to a new day! and to a blog post full of many feelings :)

life lesson: accidents happen, they are called accidents for a reason so try to keep your cool (but still process your feelings).

questions:
1) your go-to snack when planning a party? (mine is probably crackers and cheese)
2) one of your favorite nicknames for your significant other?
3) what do you do to relieve stress? (i need some more good ways to get it out)

As if I’m Not Freaking Out Enough…

By chelsea

May 14, 2013

20 Comments

my event at work on sunday went great! i had a very long talk with mother nature about holding off the rain during the event and guess what…it started raining at 4:32pm-just as we were tearing down! i couldn’t believe it, i’m still smiling that we didn’t have to deal with rain during our actual event so people could hula hoop dryly.

needless to say, i was looking forward to finally getting a solid night’s sleep with ravery back home and me not worrying about this event anymore until i awoke to the sound of dropping tools. apparently they are ripping down the building that shares a lot with our apartment complex. they started at 7:02am. fine, whatever, i’ll get up because that’s 2 hours later than when i had been getting up. thank goodness i put some pants on because i saw THIS when i walked in the living room…

a MAN basically in my apartment (okay, he was outside but honestly like 6 feet away-it’s that close). i freaked out. this is not normal-we live on the 3rd floor. i ran and hid in my bedroom until ravery got home (he had a speech at 6:30am so i knew he’d be home soon) and hoped this situation wouldn’t turn into a lifetime movie. thankfully it did not and yes, that’s where my mind usually goes. i jokingly told ravery we should offer them something to drink and then he opened the door and did. they declined but then he took their picture.

they are building scaffolding and then apparently work is to be done. my blood pressure dropped some and i feel awkward in my own home having these guys able to see my every move and watch me eat my morning wheat thins- so i leave for work. let’s all remember i’m still a zombie because of lack of sleep and brain overexertion so when i walk into my apartment later and find this….i almost enter a full-fledged panic attack.

here is what runs through my head: a) omg i’ve been abducted and they encapsulated my whole apartment b) there has been a murder and the gruesome scene has to be blocked c) the world is trying to suffocate me.

i get it together a little more and go with option c) the world is trying to suffocate me. not only does our apartment look disastrous because we are moving and sending 1 load with ravery as he leaves for a speaking engagement in houston on thursday (side note: pretty proud of myself for booking him on southwest airlines because he gets to fly 2 bags for free…aka 2 bags full of all our winter clothes and books for FREE! they are the best airlines).

take a moment to appreciate the stomach of our vacuum. ew.

but now this is our view:

it’s honestly really bad. just looking at this picture is stressing me out. it feels like the walls are closing in on me and i don’t like it one bit. luckily i can sit in our bedroom and only see a portion of the white sheet and cranes so i think i’ll be hiding in here for the next 2 weeks (that’s right…we MOVE in 2 weeks ahhhhh). the only positive thing i have taken away from this new and unexpected experience is that i get a blog article out of it. otherwise, my chest feels like a sumo wrestler wrapped in a white sheet is sitting on it. as if i wasn’t freaking out enough…

life lesson: wake up and put pants on, you never know when construction workers will be present.

questions:
1) one of the most ridiculous things you’ve woken up to…
2) how many hours of sleep a night do you need to be a pleasant, functioning person? (i need 7-8)
3) how do you feel about enclosed spaces? what is one of your fears?

moving question: for those of you that have shipped large boxes full of your personal belongings, is the post office or fedex ground shipping cheaper?? thanks!

A Picturesque DC

By chelsea

May 11, 2013

10 Comments

whoa. these next 2 week are going to be nuuuuts (and this week has already been insane) and it’s hard to believe we were just in DC on monday! i am going to try something new and it’s going to mostly just be a picture blog today- reliving the amazing moments ravery and i had on our trip to our country’s Capitol (did you know you use “Capitol” only when referring to the place where the US Congress meet and ‘capital’ in other instances-oh english language).

yes, there was a basket of pastries as part of our breakfast to start the day at kafe leopold in georgetown. best patries ever. then we became tourists and explored DC!

blue skies and the magnificent lincoln memorial. this is ravery’s favorite one and i can see why-it’s powerful.

then this happened: a woman literally ran over to us while we were taking pictures and said “i have the best idea. ok stand like this and do this (motioning and acting out how she wanted us to stand) and INSISTED we do a pyramid pose. she was about 50 and very enthusiastic so we appeased her. below is the picture she captured. i hope we made her day? it was quite strange. ha!

DC was actually the first place ravery and i went together outside of colorado! a few weeks after we started dating, he was off to work in georgetown for the summer then onto study abroad. i met him in DC and he showed me an amazing time (it included a fancy hotel room, delicious meals, matching piercings and the midnight showing of harry potter)!

then we found our friend jordan who moved to DC a while ago and is loving it!

we needed more pictures (but no crazy lady this time) and ravery loves a good jumping photo. please note the BEST PHOTO BOMB EVER (random person jumping in the background too in the red!)

then we walked to see the washington monument (it was under construction) and someone made little steps for the ducks to get out of the reflection pool. toooo cute.

playing in the sculpture park! so amazing to be in the sunshine and with great friends in a fun, new city (jen and i didn’t even plaaaan to match-we are just that good).

before our flight on monday, we went to the zoo because it’s freeee (like most everything in that cool city) and i feel in love with this panda. he was just covered in his food and eating non-stop. i watched him for about 15 minutes then imagined myself in a similar situation covered in cookies. amazing.

did you know male pandas do handstands to court their mates?! i had no idea. i am going to ask ravery to work on this.

since we found out we’d be going to DC a few months ago, ravery had non-stop been talking about his favorite sandwich place EVER. this was his description “it was in a convenience store in the back somewhere in georgetown.” obviously very descriptive. but we went back there and found it! it’s called “wisemiller’s” and it truly is delicious!

his favorite sandwich of all time, “the california chicken.”

right before we went to the airport we had to go see the gorgeous georgetown campus and lookie here: us on monday

and us in july 2007!!!

i much preferred visiting in may as opposed to july because it was waaaaay too hot and humid for my taste the first time we visited DC together. glad i have much ‘cooler’ memories now.

and of course we had to run (ok, slowly walk up) the stairs from the exorcist movie.

i hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. back to work for me and trying to negotiate with mother nature not to rain on the big event i’ve planned for work and have outside from 9am-5pm tomorrow!

life lesson: it’s good to give a city/place/person a second chance, the situation and environment may be different and you may actually enjoy it better!

questions:
1) when you visit a place, how likely are you return or do you like to explore new adventures?
2) favorite animal to see while at the zoo?
3) where’s the best sandwich you’ve ever had and what was on it?

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