“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4 not with a parade of guns, tanks and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” – Erma Bombeck

Today I’m celebrating America’s independence with s’mores pops and paper pinwheels.

To my fellow patriots of huddled around the dessert table today, I say, LET FREEDOM RING! (and also bon appetit).

Credits:

S’mores pops: recipe via Whimsical Creations
Pinwheel printables: Paper and Pigtails cupcake topper printable via Bella Grace Party Designs
Paper pinwheel instructions: DIY PDF via paper source
Free July 4th word art (framed): 16″ X 20″ printable word art via Crafting Chicks

Post from: Hannihaus

Wherein my wedding craft obsession becomes everyday craft obsession, post-wedding. In other words: Happy 4th of July, friends!

Now the nose thing is total bullshit. If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that friends (and gynecologists) can stick their fingers wherever the hell they want. Case in point: Smug Ellie, my college roommate, has been putting her finger in my patooty for years.

“Time to check your oil,” she says before thrusting her pointer in my pucker.

Silly Smug. She never finds Valvoline. Just gas.

Post from: Hannihaus

Send That Girl To Houston

a) worked lots of extra hours at A Very Hip Software Company,
b) had Angel’s maaa and popi in town for Thanksgiving (hi MIL and FIL), and
c) took a second, seasonal job at a place that rhymes with “cold gravy” and is famous for a little something called performance fleece. Yeah, working at McDonalds rocks!

O.K., I’m kidding about McDonalds, but I’m 100% for real about working retail. I’ve never done it before, but like being a rock star, librarian, or grocery store clerk, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do. Even though I’m busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest, busier than Tom Cruise gone sonogram shopping, if you will, (TomKat you’re killing me!) I decided to try my hand at hawking apparel.

Just call me a masochist.

So far I really like the work and I’m learning tons of things. For example, apparently my folding skills are crap. This is not a problem however, because five hour shifts of lather-wash-repeat type folding, (or fold-watch in horror as shoppers destroy, within 30 seconds, 30 minutes of work-refold) provides plenty of practice.

Also, if you play Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat” at 7 am on Black Friday, people will spontaneously burst into song and start dancing with their hoodies in the middle of the aisles… and sometimes even customers get in on the action. Heh.

I had canned heat in my heals that night (er morning), baby.

Alright, I gotta go get gorgeous. My next shift at “mold daily” starts in two hours. Til next, dear hannihaus readers, adieu.

Post from: Hannihaus

Retail Madness

I don’t mind so much the disgruntled looks and murmurings. Many times I have heard my coworkers cry out to the god of office etiquette, “How have I displeased you? What have I done to deserve this warbley-voiced hell?!”

But you know what? I don’t sweat it. I’m a rock star, even if the dudes who share a partition with me don’t know it.

But yes, anyways, the winner of the makes-the-workplace-fun award would have to go to Ed. Every day around four o’clock the clickety clack of fingers on keyboards is interrupted by, first, the small snickering, and then the eventual full-on, irrepressible howling of Ed. He’s laughs like a lunatic, because every day at four he watches this video:

Triumph The Insult Comic Dog Meets Star Wars Nerds.

Enjoy! (PS. I hope you’re sitting in a plastic chair b/c you’ll probably wet yourself.)

Post from: Hannihaus

Tickling my Giggle Bone

Lately things have been a little more celebratory than I, she-whose-diet-consists-of-85%-organic-veggies, would like. Yesterday we got an e-mail to announce that – woopie –the Big Guns hooked us up, because the pop machine is now selling Mr Pibb for 25cents! And while we have avoided such a monstrosity for many months, today a large, Funyun-wielding vending machine appeared outside the men’s room on the second floor.

And even though I’m anti, even though I’m so totally against processed foods and their excessive consumption, I have to admit, being given the opportunity for pants-splitting gluttony is great.

Yes, I am a Nutrition Nazi, but I appreciate that the bosses at a Very Hip Software Company like their employees enough to pony up for pizza every once in a while. I mean, where I used to work, my old boss, he was so tight, you could put a lump of coal up his ass, and after a fortnight, you’d probably have a diamond.

Seriously – this dude was so cheap that around the holidays, instead of throwing a party, he forced his egregiously underpaid employees to purchase and prepare various foodies for a mandatory, Christmas pot-luck. This 60 minute intestinal adventure in the cockroach-infested den of iniquity known as the company kitchen, well it was meant to satiate us.

I don’t think any of us were fooled.

As we chewed through the beef jerky that Helen insisted was meatballs, we knew that other companies were throwing real Christmas parties, the kind you don’t bring a crockpot to, the kind where you drink too much and then photocopy your unmentionables.

Yeah, because I worked for Ebenezer Scrooge, we never had that party, and that’s a real shame. After all, nothing says Celebration of Christ’s Birth quite like a Xeroxed set of butt cheeks.

But I digress.

So in conclusion, I won’t be drinking that swill, but the 25cent soda was a nice gesture. It makes Hänni happy. Good job Big Guns!

And good job to you too dear hannihaus readers. If you’re reading this, you’ve made it through another marathon post. I’m on a freaking roll this week – woo.

Post from: Hannihaus

Nutrition Nazi in the Dog Eat Donut Workplace

For a brief second, a wave of surprise played out on her, typically, serene face. And then, without warning, she began laughing maniacally. Amused by my comment, she took an impromptu survey. Great news! Everyone polled in the same. I didn’t get voted off the island, but I did get laughed out of my cubicle!

Long story short, I guess I’m not all business after all. And thank goodness for that.

In the spirit of all things fun and funny, I present my gift to you on this, the most humpiest of hump days:

Click here for a message from Hänni

Just for today, dear hannihaus readers, let’s forget about attaining world peace, ending global hunger, and locating weapons of mass destruction. I say we all just grab a frosty beverage, (Evian for me, please), and Woogle ‘til the cows come home.

Why don’t you show me what you made? Your participation delights me.

Post from: Hannihaus

I’m Sick of Being Serious

Work was the worst today! I’ve got unbearable deadlines as four major projects loom like dark, heavy clouds just on the horizon. And these clouds, they aren’t your regular, garden variety black clouds. Hell no, dear hannihaus readers, these particular clouds signal something more sinister.

I am afraid, gentle readers, that a shit storm is a-brewing, and I, Employee Supreme, am on the front line waiting for the ugly, and quite possibly ungodly, fall out.

Ever spent an afternoon contemplating how to clone yourself in an effort to increase productivity using only those tools immediately available to you – i.e. paper clips, highlighters, and those breast milk pills you take for indigestion?

Guess what? I have.

So yeah, in an effort to cope with my S-T-R-E-S-S I’ve found myself needing a little something to get me through the day. No, I’m not talking about alcohol. I’m hardcore.

I like to put a little something on my tongue.

I might be an addict, but I’m not ashamed. My drug of choice, it’s no bake cookies. And guess what? I’ve just had a half dozen of those tasty little bitches.

…And I know what you’re thinking. You’re like Oh My God, Miss Veggie Queen is eating something that wasn’t harvested from the earth just this afternoon. But you know what folks? I can’t believe I’m saying this – because I’ve certainly never said it before and I’ll probably never say it again – but this dear hannihaus readers, this is no time for nutrition!

Regardless, I realize the cookies will run out soon, and I’m too lazy to make more. That being said, I need to learn to cope real quick. I’ve tried breathing, running and yoga, but I gotta be honest, I don’t find downward-facing dog all that relaxing. Staring at your belly button while bent in half like some crazy jackknife, well that’s more screwy than soothing.

But I digress.

Anyone else got any ideas on how to beat the workin’ woman’s blues? Be a saint and share, why don’t you?

Post from: Hannihaus

Stress Sucks

The atmosphere of said party, alone, was ridiculous. The helium-balloon-to-employee-ratio was probably 5:1 and the $80 spent on donuts, bagels and various other bad-for-you baked goods was probably overkill considering we also had catered lunch, candy, chocolate bars, chocolate milk, champagne, brownies, cookies, milk, etc.

And in the name of excess at work, I rode that sugary, caffeine-laced, faux-food train all the way babies. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake. I realize now that this gluttony is merely a one-way ticket to fat ass ville. Plus, now I’m all constipated.

In case you were wondering, it sucks.

The best part of the party was probably the grand finale, wherein said festivities took a more action-packed turn as a massive rubber band fight ensued. Rubber band fights are nothing new at A Very Hip Software Company. Part of the company culture, just about every day of the week, at some point in the day, I’ll hear the snap of a crisp band as it hits some poor schmuck right in the keester.

And then I hobble back to my desk, trying to look cool, like it didn’t really hurt when I got that stretchy missile lobbed at my voluptuous, easy-target of an ass.

But I digress.

But yesterday’s rubber band fight was the greatest I’ve ever witnessed. Employees from every department and level snapped bands like their lives depended on it. A regular war zone, rubber bands sailed through the air like kamikaze jet fighters, crashing into their targets with no remorse. We even had a bit of a matrix moment when rubber bands, caught in streamers hung from helium balloons, slowed their flight, producing futuristic, psychedelic tri-color waves.

Above the din of said fighing, a lone voice could be heard shouting gleefully, “Productivity is at an all time low!”

And that, my friends, is why I love my job.

Post from: Hannihaus

Now With Increased Hipness

And I wasn’t surprised by this product. I’ve read about wild yams before, and know that some women take it as an alternative to hormonal birth control. And for those who don’t know how this all works, I bring you the Sex Ed portion of this post:

Wild yam works like this: it pumps you full of progesterone, effectively tricking your body into thinking you’re “with child”/ got a “bun in the oven,”/are “preggers”/whatever. Because you’re “knocked up” you stop ovulating. If you’re not ovulating, then you’re not making babies. In short: taking wild yams hypothetically means that no swimmies will find safe harbor on your shores, no spunk will play house in your stomach.

And even though I know the mechanics of how this very useful supplement works, I still had to giggle at the little doggy vitaminks, because a) they had “bitch” on the label, and b) I am an unsophisticated cull.

Well at work today somebody put an away message up that said, “Who let the dogs out?”

I really wanted to IM back, “I have no Concept…a-bitch!”

Get it? Dogs? Bitches? No Concept?

Well, I thought it was funny, but I didn’t end up messaging. My coworker probably wouldn’t have gotten the joke anyway. He’s not like me. He’s normal.
————————–
Secret. Coming. Hit by lightning, therefore experiencing small delay. I ask your patience dear friends of the haus.

Post from: Hannihaus

Concept-a-Bitch

I got to work this morning only to find an e-mail with the subject “You Should Be Ashamed” staring me in the face.

Oh crap, I thought. What have I done now?

I racked my brain for reasons to be ashamed. I’m a decent tipper, kind to animals, really fantastic at my job, good about brushing teeth and wearing clean undies, so it couldn’t have been any of those things.

With pounding heart and sweaty brow, I opened the e-mail.

What was contained therein was a scathing communiqué, sent company-wide, but really only directed to one filcher of ¼ gallon of baby-cow-grow. This milk, the e-mail asserted, was for the e-mail author’s grandkids.

This bastard took milk from the mouths of babes.

The e-mail ended by letting this mystery mooch know that he/she should be ashamed for “consumer” something they weren’t given permission to “partake of.” I cringed, but not because I am the milk bandit and, therefore, had reason to be shamed – far from it. As part of my homeopathic, hey noni noni, new age fervor, I make it a point to avoid excess consumption of dairy, unless of course, it comes in the form of a gigantic, brownie sundae.

But I digress.

No, I’m not one to consume, or even cry over filched milk. Really, because I am a writing nerd, the most distressing part of this whole ordeal was the milk missive’s blatantly bad grammar.

In other news, my team won a very cool award today that will do amazing things for my resume. It was a real underdog feat. I kind of feel like the ugly girl who just won prom queen, despite having buck teeth and a Farrah Fawcett hairdo.

————–
Can’t wait to tell more good news when The Secret is revealed!

Post from: Hannihaus

Filched Milk!