Life Lessons at 27

Twenty-seven! Twenty-flipping-seven. For me, twenty-seven officially sounds adult. I'm far away from college, even further away from high school, even far enough away from those rambunctious, transitional years right after college to look back with a bit of nostalgia and a lot of hindsight. 

With that in mind, I started thinking back on all the things, big and small, that I've learned thus far in life. And with THAT, a list...because lists are among my favorite things, and every birthday girl deserves to indulge in as many of her favorite things as possible: 

27 Lessons for Myself at 27

1. Say thank you, always. Even better, send thank-you notes for everything. It's such a little thing and it makes such a difference.

2. Always, always wash your face at night. Waking up the next day feels so much better. 

3. It's okay to hold grudges privately deep inside. That's just how you are. Don't let those grudges affect how you live your life or treat people in it, though.

4. You will never be the kind of girl who can casually wear red lipstick. Points for effort, but save it for the fancy days.

5. By now, you really should know better than to read scary books late at night. Just don't do it.

6. Take ten seconds before reacting in anger. Your temper gets the best of you more often than it should, even now. Rational reactions are always better. 

7. Sometimes, ice cream actually does fix the problem.

8. Notre Dame football will always, ALWAYS at some point in every season make your blood pressure skyrocket. It will always, ALWAYS at some point let you down. You're going to love it forever anyway. 

9. You're never going to like working out while you're doing it, but you always like it afterward. Remember that...and do it.

10. The following things are almost always worth it: travel, theater, happy hour, going home to see your parents, and throwing parties. Keep that in mind next time you're feeling antisocial (or poor, or tired, or cranky). 

11. Know when to stick to your guns. Set minimum acceptable standards for yourself and the people in your life, and hold those as non-negotiable. You know what you deserve. 

12. Quality over quantity, in everything. Friends, clothes, commitments...sometimes it's better to have fewer, but better. Sometimes, less is more. (Except striped shirts. You can never have too many striped shirts.)

13. Gin in large quantities always ends poorly. In the same vein...NEVER drink more than one Backer Long Island. Bad things happen. 

14. The people you have surrounded yourself with are worthy of your love for a reason. Don't be afraid to tell them that you care about them (and why!). Similarly, the people who aren't worth it will make it apparent. Friendship and love are both two-way streets.  

15. You're pretty much never going to win the lottery or strike it rich off a best-selling series of novels about a teenage wizard. With that in mind, keep making smart money decisions, but remember to have fun along the way.

16. At work, show up, speak up, but also know when to shut up. By the age of 27, you know a fair amount, but you don't know everything. 

17. Appreciate the little things. Let inside jokes and babies and perfume and fireworks and crushes and flowers make you happy without feeling insipid. It's worth it.

18. Don't be afraid of the next steps life holds for you. As Mom always says, "Everything happens for a reason."

19. As little as you want to do it, cleaning and cooking on Sundays starts the entire week off on the right note. Don't skip the floors. 

20. In that vein, make your damn bed. You like it that way.

21. It's okay to accept a compliment without immediately deflecting it. Yeah, maybe your hair DOES look really good today. Just take it for what it is.

22. Seek out opportunities to advance yourself and to bring people together. You've got a great network and you need to put it to work more often. 

23. Value family above all else. It's okay that your dad is your favorite man in the entire world, your mom is your idol, and your siblings are two of the people you admire most. 

24. A lot of your natural lack of coordination can be mitigated if you just slow. down. Look before you leap...or before you walk on a flat surface  in heels, you know, the usual.

25. Remember to be grateful for what you have...for what you've earned and what you've given. Gratitude tends to re-frame things in a much more positive light. 

26. Your enthusiasm for your life and the people in it is not a bad thing. It's okay to be "hyperbolic" and to be excited about everyday existence. 

27. Laugh at as much as humanly possible. To quote your Grandma Lo, "If I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying." Seek silver linings and laugh at the rainclouds, and don't let life steal your sunshine. 

Cheers to you, 27-year old Liz, and here's to the next 27 and all the lessons still to come. 

happy birthday adam to me!!!!

In the spirit of celebrating my birthday as many times as humanly possible (no, seriously, it’s been obscene this year), I’m going to tell you all the story of Birthday Adam.

When I was in college, I studied abroad in London the spring of my junior year, and it was truly one of the most incredible, life-changing experiences I’ve ever had. Learning how to travel on a shoestring budget, exploring London’s museums, parks and pubs, interning and getting my first real exposure to the professional world…those four months still seem fairy tale-like to me. One small drawback, though, was how anticlimactic turning 21 in a country where the legal drinking age was 18 seemed. (Hi, first-world problems, right?)

My flatmate Kelly and her friend Katie had perhaps the most ingeniously delightful way to make birthdays seem a bit more special…rather than just celebrating once on the actual day, they turned it into a three-day affair! See, you have your birthday…and then of course there’s your birthday eve, which isn’t much of a stretch to celebrate. But in all their Catholic-college creativity, of course they thought about the fact that in the Bible, Adam comes before Eve. Logically, therefore, a birthday Adam should come before a birthday “Eve,” right?

And so we celebrated Birthday Adams two days before the actual birthday, usually with some kind of small sweet treat (my favorite, above, from a darling bakery called Candy Cakes!) and a glass of cheap, shitty Tesco wine (drunk out of coffee cups or tumblers, of COURSE we didn't have wineglasses!). It was delightful, and I always kind of smile to myself when I think about it. So today is my birthday Adam, and I’ll be celebrating with some kind of treat and a less cheap, less shitty glass of wine.

Here’s to celebrating all month long! 

Fridays in France: Chapels and Cathedrals

I think my earliest exposure to Paris was through the "Madeline" books and Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." While I adored the former, the latter utterly terrified me. Frollo was a scary bad guy, okay!? That said, the movie imbued the churches of Paris with a certain mystique in my young eyes...a mystique that has only grown and intensified as I've grown up and moved deeper into my love of the Catholic church, architecture, music, and all things Francophile. 

On our Paris trip last May, Mom, Em and I explored plenty of Paris's famous places of worship, and through Em's lens they were captured absolutely beautifully. I can't help but marvel at the insane dedication of time and skill to erect such stunning buildings in an era before cranes and bulldozers and machines...truly a tribute to the glory of God. 

Our first stop, appropriately, was Notre Dame! 

We headed there from the Musée Rodin, and it was my favorite cab ride of the trip. The driver totally humored me in my desire to converse and squeeze in all the French practice I could, and we chatted the entire way about churches and Notre Dame (the university, not the church!). He thought it was hilarious that a school in America had "stolen" the name of the Blessed Virgin. He also took us on a baby detour to do a drive-by of the Eglise de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris. I didn't get a picture out the cab window but it was beautiful! We also talked about the 8,000-pipe organ at Notre Dame, and he told me all about how he regularly goes to the organ recitals there. Um, hi, let's be besties. 

The exterior of Notre Dame will never cease to amaze me. I can't help but get chills every time I think about the craftsmanship that went into every gargoyle and saint carved on every little surface. Mind-blowing. My only regret is that we didn't go up the bell tower, but we were pressed for time and their evening Mass was starting shortly after we arrived. 

...it was a bit windy! 

Cannot get over those portal carvings. This is the right-side door, featuring the Virgin Mary's mother and about five bajillion angels and notable historical figures in the Church. 

The doors themselves aren't too shabby either. I love the attention to detail and completely lavish ornamentation in every aspect of the church's design. Our driver also told us to look out for the statue of decapitated St. Denis, who is said to have carried his head six miles to the center of Paris. 

Found him! And his head! 

Like I said, we got there about fifteen minutes before Mass was set to start...it's interesting, because the cathedral remains open during services so there's a lot of ambient tourist noise (I attended Mass on my visit in 2010 when I studied abroad!). We kept our exploring to the perimeter because of the Mass. 

Let's chat about that rose window, shall we? This is the South Rose Window...there's also a North and an East, which is largely hidden by the massive organ. These are so massive that the weight of the stone around it often caused tiny cracks in the glass, so all the rose windows have been heavily restored. The photo doesn't communicate their sheer size.

I also couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the stained-glass panels open. Gothic air-conditioning for the win, I suppose! 

That is blurry me in the background saying a quiet Hail Mary and lighting a candle, my favorite tradition in churches all over the world. I can think of few experiences lovelier than lighting a candle at Notre Dame as the (smaller) organ began to play for Mass. It's nice to know that I've lit candles at two Notre Dames now...the other being, of course, at the Grotto on campus. 

On to a quick snapshot of Sacré-Coeur! We spent one gray and drizzly morning exploring Montmartre on an art history walking tour, which was absolutely fantastic and which I highly recommend. It focused primarily on the Impressionists, who really put Montmartre on the map, but we learned a ton about the area, including its famous "moulins" (windmills) and its significance in Parisian history. One of the most interesting facts? Sacré Coeur was finished in 1914! For some reason I thought it was much older...but it was built to serve a dual religious and political purpose. Politically, it marks the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, and religiously it's meant to subdue those damned (literally) Montmartre hippies. 

For these reasons, it's not beloved by the French, and we peeked inside for all of fifteen minutes while we tried to dry out and plan our next move (which was art shopping at the Place du Tertre, and which I can't recommend highly enough!). My only other comment is that this is the only area in Paris where I ever felt uncomfortably worried about pickpockets...they were out-and-out aggressive both in 2010 and on our visit last May. Just a thought. 

From Sacré-Coeur, we bounce back to Notre Dame de Reims, which I referenced fairly heavily in my champagne post three weeks ago and will gloss over now with minimal commentary, except to say that the façade of the church is being totally restored...

...and is just as spectacularly ornate as Notre Dame de Paris. 

Their windows in the nave are paned with clear or very light stained glass, so the whole space felt so much lighter and airier than Notre Dame de Paris. 

And the Chagall windows were such a striking contrast to the ancient church! Added in 1974, they felt weirdly contemporary compared to the Gothic architecture. Gotta say, I didn't love them...until this happened: 

The sun burst out and everything lit up and I was utterly transfixed. 

And that's all for Reims! 

The award for my very favorite church in all of Paris, though, will always go to Sainte-Chapelle, the stunning little jewel box of a chapel hidden near Notre Dame on Ile de la Cité. It's housed in the interior of the Conciergerie and was built for Louis IX to house Passion relics. Words and pictures truly cannot do its beauty justice...so I'll let pictures do the talking. 

Every medallion in the windows tells the story of a chapter of the Bible, and every window's medallions are a slightly different shape. There are fifteen windows in all, 14 of which tell the story of the Bible and one of which recounts the French king's quest for the Passion relics. 

As if looking up weren't enough, even the floors are elaborately tiled and painted. There's so much to look at that our group in 2010 spent almost an hour in here, and Mom and Em and I did too. While we didn't get lucky with a super sunny day to see it, the beauty of the windows spoke for themselves despite the clouds. 

Heart-stopping. 

I'll end it on that note this week...stay tuned for more Fridays in France next week, or click the "Paris" tag to the right of the top of the post for past editions! 

101 in 1001 #11: Go 30 days without eating out.

1/4/16: 

I know I’m not the only person who has essentially spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and, well, today on a moderately tipsy, cheese-covered sugar high. Every time early January rolls around I end up a little depressed and angsty, and although I usually blame it on the holiday season ending, part of me knows that it’s also largely due to the fact that I have put nothing but crap in my body for the last month-plus. This year it feels even worse, fresh off our Arizona trip where we played my favorite game, “Take ALL THE SHOTS,” and chased them with In’N’Out (oh my god, so good, SO good!). Add to that the fact that I've spent an absurd amount of money lately, and a lot of that has been on food and, worse, alcohol. Long story short, the minute my plane landed in Minneapolis tonight, I knew I needed to make a major reset in that department. 

January is always a kind of odd month for me. It’s the busiest time of year at work, it’s dark and cold and miserable, and it falls between December (holidays, duh, I love) and February (my birthday, duh, also love). What better time to go hardcore on checking off a goal? Last year, I didn’t shop for a month, and it felt really good financially and sartorially to check out for a little bit there. This year, I’m giving up eating out for 30 days, and am planning to chronicle it in the same way as last year…day by day, as interesting things happen. I started a bit late due to the aforementioned Phoenix trip, but am planning on eating in from January 5 to February 4 to make up for it. Hopefully by February 5, things will be feeling better (my skinny jeans) and my bank account will appreciate the lack of appetizers and alcohol!  

1/9:I'm realizing just how much of my social life centers around eating out...specifically, brunch and happy hour. I'm very guilty of doing the whole happy hour "apps for dinner" thing, and obviously I have a serious love affair on with brunch. 

1/10:Cooking! It's a good thing to do, as atrocious as I am at it. I think I'm going to take this opportunity to check off my crockpot challenge as well, starting today with stuffed peppers. Here goes nothing! 

1/12:Planned an alternative to brunch/happy hour with Hannah...watching "The Bachelor" with wine at my place! It'll be nice to catch up with her and stay in doing so. I also need to get something on the calendar with Claire and Kelsie...I haven't seen either of them forever. 

1/14:Funny thing I noticed this morning while getting ready: my skin is WAY clearer than it would normally be at this time of the month/year. Winter wreaks havoc on my face at all times and I am wishfully attributing the change to less gin/restaurant food and more fruit/veggies. Interesting side effect of eating in is that my dairy intake is way down too...I use almond milk for my smoothie every day and haven't been adding a ton of cheese to what I'm cooking. Maybe that's it? I don't know, but either way, I'm liking it! 

1/17: I cheated. My mom and I had tickets to the Guthrie to see "Pericles," and we went to Parlour for cocktails and split a burger. Oh the shame and ignominy! I'm justifying it by claiming that since I didn't foot the bill, I technically am still holding to the financial side of things, if not the "make healthy choices" spirit I struck out in. Shameful. That burger, though...worth it! 

1/19: I'll be going out tonight, but not eating out, as part of the Notre Dame Club of Minnesota's "Pericles" outing (that's right, I'm seeing it twice in three days!). The club is hosting a pre-show get together at Day Block Brewing, so I'll plan to head over there to socialize without falling into my usual happy hour habits. I'm finding it much easier than I expected to strike balances like this, and that's gratifying. 

1/22: I hosted Eva last night and am having Hannah over tonight for an evening in featuring a taco bar and homemade margaritas! Proof that I don't need to go out to maintain a great social life. Plus, with temps as cold as they've been lately, it's well worth it to stay in. 

1/27: An uneventful but lovely week of staying in and doing a ton of cooking. I'm making lunch every night for the next day before bed...which is such a little thing, but it's so great to just grab it and go in the morning. Instead of my 2015 "mid-morning coffee run" habit, I've been drinking smoothies at work with protein powder and a shit-ton of spinach in them. They look gross but taste really good...if I close my eyes! 

1/31: I cheated, again, but have absolutely zero shame as it was my early birthday brunch with my parents! They'll be in Florida on the 11th, so they took me to my very favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities, Spoon and Stable. Again, I didn't foot the bill, and the croque madame and pastries were so over-the-top delicious that I have NO REGRETS. 

2/2: Went home from the office early in a blizzard and cooked a giant crockpot of soup for the next week's lunches! I think that, even though I'm excited to give myself the option of brunch and happy hour again, the "no lunch out" thing is going to be a great change for me. Hopefully this habit sticks! 

2/3: MADE IT. Celebrated by going out to a pre-Anthro birthday party dinner with Jodester at Mozza Mia for sinfully delicious caprese and panzanella. 

Lessons learned: 

--Preparation is key. I found that having a ton of food on hand and ready to go at home made going out way less tempting...especially thinking about food spoiling after spending so much to have fresh produce on hand. 

--Similarly, variety matters. I started the month eating the same lunches and dinners repeatedly and got really bored. It was fun to strike out of my kitchen comfort zone and try new things--I found a few fantastic new recipes that will be in rotation going forward for sure! 

--Be up-front with friends. I just told the people I wanted to see that going out to eat wasn't an option, and everyone was lovely about it (and more than willing to stay in!). I think often I choose the convenience of meeting up with someone at a bar or restaurant over the perceived hassle of hosting, when really, it's absolutely heavenly to be able to stay in, wear leggings and drink my own wine with my favorite people. 

All in all, great success! Eating out just twice in 30 days is a massive, major change for me and I'm really glad I checked this one off to start 2016 off on the right foot. For more 101 in 1001, head here, and if anyone's in the mood to stay in with me, I'm totally up for keeping the stay-in train going! 

Team Fiesta Bowl takes the Grand Canyon!

After our Fiesta Bowl shenanigans on New Year's Day, we took it easy on Jan 2 and spent the day exploring Tempe! We hit up ASU, spent some time exploring my mom's old collegiate stomping grounds, and passed several hours at the fantastic Four Peaks Brewery. (I also had my first In'N'Out burger and oh man, the hype is deserved.) After margaritas and more football in Old Town Scottsdale, we called it a night fairly early before the other big adventure of our trip...a road trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona! 

After using my sweet corporate discount to get ourselves in a nice mid-sized SUV, we struck out for northern AZ. The terrain quickly went from arid desert/cactuses to this...

...and the temperature plunged accordingly. We stopped at Walmart for snacks and a bathroom break, and before too long (about a 3 hour drive all in), we were pulling into the Grand Canyon National Park!

Let it be noted: I was woefully unprepared for this excursion. I had my work coat on (um, hi, Italian tweed and six-inch fur cuffs?) and this was my sensible footwear...

Please note, that is snow/ice surrounding my (sock-free) feet in ballet flats, to explore the effing GRAND CANYON. What can I say? I packed too quickly and didn't check the weather report. Ultimately, no big deal...it worked out fine for the way we did the day...but just a classic "Lizzie-is-an-idiot" moment. 

Our route was pretty simple: we started at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, where we read a tiny bit about the canyon's early exploration and where David decided his goal for the day was to catch a falcon (Kelli: not amused). From there we struck out to Mather Point for our first peek at the canyon, walked the rim trail to Yavapai Point and the Geology Museum (about a .75 mile loop), shuttled back to the Visitor Center, and explored the rest of the South Rim in our car, stopping whenever we felt like it to explore. We ended up spending about four and a half hours in the park, and I could have easily spent longer! 

I'll keep it pretty light, text-wise, for the rest of the post, but I have to say up-front: 90% of the (amazing) photos in this post are courtesy of Andrew, who in addition to being a genius engineer grad student is also an avid hiker and photographer. These photos blew me away when he put them up on Facebook earlier this week, and I will make sure to call out which (crappy) photos are mine so as to avoid embarrassing him. Thanks for letting me share, Andrew! 

Our first breathtaking peek at the canyon at Mather Point. Photos can't do it justice...I thought I knew what to expect and was utterly dumbfounded. 

The contrast of the snow on the rocks made for some pretty epic shots. Snow under my ballet flats, on the other hand, made for a pretty nervous explorer. 

Mather Point, above, was all nice and fenced-in and had great guard railings, so yours truly didn't panic at all, short of holding the railing extra-tight. Once we headed toward Yavapai, though, the railings went away, and those hundreds-of-feet drops seemed a bit too close for comfort when paired with icy/snowy ground and hideously inappropriate footwear. Add to that my phobia-level fear of the sensation of falling, and I was a dithery wreck for the first fifteen minutes or so. Thankfully Kelli was pretty much on the same page as me on the whole "let's not plunge to a rocky canyon death to start off 2016" thing. David and Andrew coaxed us out for a few heart-stopping views, though, and I like to think the photo below makes me look all bad-ass and intrepid. Sort of. In my ballet flats. 

You can see the fear in my eyes. 

Our fearless experienced Boy-Scout-hiker-nature-wilderness men hopped out with no fear for a few selfies. At this point I think my rictus grin speaks for itself. (It says GET ME OFF THIS SCARY ROCK AND BACK ON THE PATH NOW PLEASE.) A few yards up the trail, David, having no such fears, decided to scare us half to death and take a little break...

...chilling over a mile-deep drop. This is why I love him...that utterly derpy look of glee as he, in my eyes, risks his life. Just whatever. 

Total creeper shot courtesy of my iPhone of our photographer in action! Watching him all day made me want to invest in a high-quality camera and either take lessons or spend A LOT of time teaching myself. Who wouldn't want to be able to produce photos like this one, below? 

I spent a lot of the trip thinking to myself (and pontificating to anyone who would listen) about how the magnitude of the Grand Canyon almost steals any sense of perspective. It's just SO incredibly massive and overwhelming that any ability to see scale just disappears. I would find myself looking down at the canyon, or across to the other side, and not being able to gauge how far away things were...a quarter-mile seemed like a football field, the river was the thinnest little ribbon of water when, in actuality it was over 300 yards across, and everything seemed so enormous that all I could really comprehend was just how infinitesimally small I was in the scheme of things. 

Okay this requires a story. First of all, please appreciate Andrew's National Geographic-quality shot of this here elk, which we encountered as we left the visitor center in our trusty SUV. I immediately, completely irrationally freaked the fuck out with excitement, because we had been talking all morning about close encounters with wildlife and being all "nah, won't happen." This little (well, big) guy was hanging out about ten feet off the road just munching. So I died and went to heaven, essentially. 

While Andrew's shot makes it look like we were alone with him, there were actually about twenty idiot tourists just to his right, out of the frame. And while we kept a respectable, safe distance from the wild animal in the wild, these tourists were like five feet away from him, taking selfies, and in one case holding up a toddler/small child like basically ON the animal's antlers. I had visions of rampages, but was also (as mentioned) completely spazzing like a child myself with excitement. 

David was our driver/"trip dad" for the day, and stopped the truck every time we saw anything remotely interesting. At first, this was like every ten minutes, until he put his trip dad foot down and was like "We will never make it to the Desert View Overlook if we keep stopping every ten minutes!" So we were all "Thanks trip dad!" and behaved ourselves. These gorgeous overlook views were worth it, though. 

The photo above is mine. Thanks Instagram for a: making it look like I can handle a camera and b: making the Grand Canyon look like something off a Candyland board. #allthefilters, #allthetime. 

More elk! This time it was a herd of like...ten of them, and while we stopped for pictures, we were all "oh, blah, more elk, how dull, get us a mountain lion next time." Ha! 

Emboldened by my close encounters with wildlife, I also overcame (sort of) my fear of falling to a canyon-y death, and Andrew made me look appropriately epic. Thank you, Andrew. :) 

Again with the "snow and trees and rocks and sky being all perfect" thing. I think this is my favorite of the day. 

We finally got to Desert View, the other big overlook point, and parked the car. Kelli and I immediately started trying to guess what this little guy on the snack bar sign was supposed to be. I landed on "tribal Ewok." Thoughts? 

The overlook had a fancy tower that was designed to incorporate all kinds of Native American symbols and heritage, which I enjoyed reading about way too much and will refrain from regurgitating here to spare you all a history lesson. You can thank me later. 

This overlook was particularly cool because the canyon was far more open on this end. We could see a lot more of the river, and beyond the canyon, the expanse of the Colorado Plateau and more arid desert. It just made the anomaly of the canyon seem even more dramatic. 

^^having a tiny dork-out moment because I have always loved that Psalm. Done now. 

We took the obligatory tourist picture with the park sign thanks to two girls who were also headed out, one of whom apparently needed to take as many ridiculous pictures of herself as possible. It was wonderful; you had to be there. From the Grand Canyon, we drove through miles and miles of desert to reach Sedona for sunset! Our drive was like two hours of uneventful and then all of a sudden we hit a hairpin turn atop a canyon. Kelli looked at the map on her phone and goes, "Um, David? We're going to have a lot more of these." Take a look: 

Absolute insanity. By David's estimation, we dropped over 1000 feet in less than a mile, in one of the most stunning, raw-power-of-nature beautiful drives I've ever experienced. Think red rock canyons, snowy rivers and waterfall gullies, scrub trees and cacti, and sunset just starting to gather above the canyon. Although he was a hangry beast by this point, he fulfilled Trip Dad duties and got us to the Sedona Airport Overlook in one piece in time for this: 

The cloudy skies prevented the usual sunset drama spectacular, but we still enjoyed the view. At this point, we were all starving and hangry, though...so we headed out shortly before the sun actually set (invisibly behind the clouds) and grabbed an amazing Italian dinner at the Hideaway House in the town. (If you're ever in Sedona, highly recommended!)

Such an awesome day trip and truly an amazing way to wrap up our Fiesta Bowl vacation!