the unimaginable has happened!

i have *quit diet coke.

anyone who knows me well, (which is everyone who reads this, because only people who know me well read this) knows that i have been a diet coke addict for over 10 years. probably 11 or 12 years. and the word "addict" isn't used here just to be funny or clever. i really was addicted. i used to joke that i would shoot it into my veins if i could, which really wasn't a funny joke, because if there was a way to do that, i probably really would have done it (if it didn't involve needles), which is more sad or scary than funny.

just so you get the idea of how bad the addiction really was, i'm going to walk you through an average day of my diet coke habit:

6:55am: stop on my way to work to get a 44oz diet coke from Maverick (the one where mark hacking went right after he killed his wife, for those who are interested)
9:00am: buy a can from vending machine at work (12oz)
11:00am: buy a can from vending machine at work (12oz)
1:00pm: buy a can from vending machine at work (12oz)
3:15pm: buy a 32oz from Maverick on my way home from work
sometime in the evening: another 32oz or 44oz is usually consumed at some point.



so if i were the kind of person who did math, i would notice that i averaged about 144oz (give or take) per day. that is a large number, that i am not proud of.

this is why i'm proud to say my beverage schedule has been drastically changed. i was introduced a few months ago to a (powder) drink called ZipFizz, which has changed my life. it was described to me as an energy drink, with no carbs, 10 calories, no sugar, millions of vitamins, electrolytes, etc. so i thought it would taste gross and probably not really give me any energy. but i decided to try it anyway, and boy was i wrong. it tastes so good, and instantly gave me actual energy. at the time, i wasn't even trying to *quit diet coke, but as soon as i drank ZipFizz, i didn't even want diet coke anymore. it was a miracle. it's been about 3 months of this, and i'm still *off of diet coke.



so maybe you're thinking to yourself "why do i care? i'm not addicted to diet coke", or "i'm not looking for a new beverage", or "i don't have any problems that can be solved by a delicious drink". but you couldn't be more wrong! i have converted 4 friends to it so far, and they all feel as strongly as i do that it is a life-changing beverage. some of them are the kinds of people who go to gyms and "work out" or "exercise", and they tell me it gives them more energy to do so. some claim it suppresses their appetite. no matter what ails you, i urge you to go buy some and then give me credit when all the problems in your life melt away with the first sip. getting credit has always been very important to me.

ps. you can only buy it at costco, or online. contact me with more questions.






*i only drink (diet coke) socially. maybe once a week, tops.

excited. E-X-C-I-T-E-D. excited.

anyone who knows me, knows that there are two things i can't get enough of. one of them is salty snacks, and the other is spelling. someone who knows this better than anyone, is rebekah (whom you may remember from "pour some sugar cookies on me"). she shares my feelings toward spelling (her feelings toward salty snacks however, are not quite as strong), and when we lived together, this lead to many hours of mocking the spelling/grammar errors of magazine writers, friends, strangers, etc. so when rebekah was given the opportunity to be an official "word-reader" for the spelling bee in her district (which took place on wednesday), she did what any good friend would do, and shared her good fortune with me.


as you can see by the above picture (look closely), not everyone takes spelling as seriously as rebekah and i do. but we were nonetheless E-X-C-I-T-E-D (which by the way, was the word i misspelled in my school spelling bee in 3rd grade, earning me third place, behind chris eide and marc czspreghy) to do our job and hopefully have a positive impact on the future of spelling.



the first thing we did when the kids arrived at the bee, was arbitrarily choose favorites. i chose a scrappy-looking 3rd grade boy who i thought had the look of a natural speller. he ended up getting out in the first round on the word "burrito", which he spelled B-R-R-E-T-O. i guess sometimes that scrappy look can also mean "better at sports". Rebekah's pick was a cute little 3rd grade girl in a pink skirt, who looked so nervous that she was probably minutes away from throwing up. she lasted a few rounds, but looked a little relieved when she finally got out.

so my big fear throughout the spelling bee, was that i would mispronounce a word. the words were a lot harder than you'd think (ephemeral, eiderdown, gestalt) for elementary school kids. in order to A-C-C-O-M-M-O-D-A-T-E the speller, when i pulled the word "corporal" out of the basket, i decided i should over-pronounce it. well, the stupid kid spelled it wrong anyway, he got out, and we went on with the bee. a few words later, his mom approached one of the judges, with the complaint that i had pronounced the word "cuh-PER-ul". clearly this mom doesn't realize the amount of respect i have for the art of spelling. plus, that's just not a word. so rebekah and i both felt this was simply a case of a mom not being able to admit that her son wasn't the speller she thought he was. The pronunciation scandal turned out to be minor, since the whole bee was being taped for that very reason. but still, it added another element of excitement.



so the poor spellers were weeded out, one by one, and eventually there were three talented ones left. rebekah and i both admitted to each other that we didn't want it to end, and we considered making up really easy words, just to keep the bee going for a while. i mean, this could end up being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and i would hate for it to only last for one hour. when the winning speller emerged, it was a 4th grade girl who had apparently asked her teacher for the word list on the first day of school, so she could start studying for the spelling bee. bless her heart. rebekah and i are planning on going to the state spelling bee to support her. and also because we can't get enough of spelling bees. and also we're going to try to see if they need some volunteer word-readers, or maybe a J-U-D-I-C-I-A-L (the word rebekah got out on, in her elementary school spelling bee) position, now that we have some experience. i'm not kidding about that.

but wait, there's more! after the bee, i stopped by rebekah's house, where there were a dozen of The Best Cookies In All of The Land waiting for me. she had gone to st. george the previous weekend, and brought them back for me, and some for heidi. i can't think of a better way to top off the whole experience.