My Sister’s Book Just Came Out And Already It’s #1 on Amazon

Just because I like you guys so much, I’m telling you to enter this contest to win a FREE wedding cake from your favorite bakery PLUS an autographed copy of my sister’s new book! But hurry, the contest ends June 15, 2012. 

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Can you believe how cool my family is? I told you about my (in)famous brother and sister-in-law in an old blog post and now my sister Rachel is a #1 on the Hot New Releases list on Amazon??? A-MAZ-ING! (Kinda makes me look like a slacker, huh?). No, but seriously, you’re not going to believe how famous she is now.

And for her book launch last week, Barnes & Noble in New York City threw an event/party for her where she gave a speech and signed autographs! 

Here’s Rachel ever so casually autographing copies of her book. Because, you know, no big deal, people ask for her autograph all the time. Don’t they ask for yours?? Actually, B&N was sold out of the book so a lot of her fans couldn’t even get an autographed copy!!! Crazy?!

I know you think I’m biased and have to say that the book is awesome, but how can you not trust the endorsement of Jodie Sweetin (aka Stephanie Tanner) that this book is amazing? She said:

“Running of the Bride is a hilarious, laugh-out-loud peek into the mind of a crazed bride. If you’ve ever gotten married, wanted to get married, or maybe even NOT wanted to get married, you’ll love this book. Rachel writes with such wit and humor, it’s often like reading the mind of your best girlfriend. She may even be the missing member of the SATC clan! Truly a great read!” 

Even the freakin’ drummer from OK GO knows a good read when he sees one. He said:

“Running of the Bride is a fast read, full of funny (and often heart-warming) moments strung into a compelling narrative. A recommended read for those who are single, engaged, married, separated, divorced—basically, anyone living.”

— Dan Konopka, drummer for OK Go

And Carley Rooney, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the most popular bridal website in the world theknot.com, what did she say? 

“We all know wedding planning rarely goes perfectly or smoothly and Rachel Eddey’s hilarious account of her own nuptials includes quite a few mishaps (and page turners!). I couldn’t put down this heartfelt story of learning how to have it all because, at the end of the wedding, we all need our happy ending and I couldn’t wait to find out how Rachel got hers.”

So I know by now you’re wondering how in the heck to get your hands on this amazing book. Click on the images before for direct links to purchase and viel spass reading!


   

My Sister’s Book Just Came Out And Already It’s #1 on Amazon

Just because I like you guys so much, I’m telling you to enter this contest to win a FREE wedding cake from your favorite bakery PLUS an autographed copy of my sister’s new book! But hurry, the contest ends June 15, 2012. 

—————


Can you believe how cool my family is? I told you about my (in)famous brother and sister-in-law in an old blog post and now my sister Rachel is a #1 on the Hot New Releases list on Amazon??? A-MAZ-ING! (Kinda makes me look like a slacker, huh?). No, but seriously, you’re not going to believe how famous she is now.

And for her book launch last week, Barnes & Noble in New York City threw an event/party for her where she gave a speech and signed autographs! 

Here’s Rachel ever so casually autographing copies of her book. Because, you know, no big deal, people ask for her autograph all the time. Don’t they ask for yours?? Actually, B&N was sold out of the book so a lot of her fans couldn’t even get an autographed copy!!! Crazy?!

I know you think I’m biased and have to say that the book is awesome, but how can you not trust the endorsement of Jodie Sweetin (aka Stephanie Tanner) that this book is amazing? She said:

“Running of the Bride is a hilarious, laugh-out-loud peek into the mind of a crazed bride. If you’ve ever gotten married, wanted to get married, or maybe even NOT wanted to get married, you’ll love this book. Rachel writes with such wit and humor, it’s often like reading the mind of your best girlfriend. She may even be the missing member of the SATC clan! Truly a great read!” 

Even the freakin’ drummer from OK GO knows a good read when he sees one. He said:

“Running of the Bride is a fast read, full of funny (and often heart-warming) moments strung into a compelling narrative. A recommended read for those who are single, engaged, married, separated, divorced—basically, anyone living.”

— Dan Konopka, drummer for OK Go

And Carley Rooney, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the most popular bridal website in the world theknot.com, what did she say? 

“We all know wedding planning rarely goes perfectly or smoothly and Rachel Eddey’s hilarious account of her own nuptials includes quite a few mishaps (and page turners!). I couldn’t put down this heartfelt story of learning how to have it all because, at the end of the wedding, we all need our happy ending and I couldn’t wait to find out how Rachel got hers.”

So I know by now you’re wondering how in the heck to get your hands on this amazing book. Click on the images before for direct links to purchase and viel spass reading!


   

Budapest Through Pictures

If you were wondering, Budapest is, in fact,  AWESOME. But I figured, why bother just telling you about the trip when I could show you about the trip. Ok, fine, if you insist I’ll add some captions along the way.

Random Hungarian Things I Found Super Hilarious: (but probably nobody else does)

I feel like Mark Zuckerberg & Bill Gates combined when I’m in Hungary – the currency is so devalued that our tour bus tickets cost 10,000Ft!! Which is only roughly $45 (CHF40), but it feels so cool when you’re throwing down thousands everywhere you go.

Please refrain from bringing your horse and buggy on the main freeway. Not joking, this sign was actually posted at regular intervals.

That’s a lamp post… WAY cooler and more efficient than having one crappy single little bulb at the top and like 15 lamp posts all around.

Why yes, crazy lady, I would like to eat in your restaurant.

How awesome is it that their water drain cover look like a family crest?

The Food:

Because butter isn’t unhealthy enough for the Hungarians, they use deep fried pork lard spread instead. Mmmmmmmm. I’m pretty sure I felt my arteries clogging just by looking at it.

And I quote: “That was maybe the best burger I’ve ever had in my life” – Florian Christen, Americanophile

Obligatory Generic City Pictures: 

(Sidenote: Why do we always feel the need to take the same pictures as professionals already have with their far superior cameras?? Obviously your postcard shot is going to be nicer than mine, let’s save me the hassle and I’ll frame some postcards). 

Fun fact: Buda and Pest are on different sides of the river, only connected through bridges

Tell me this doesn’t look like a helicopter-on-official-government-business shot?

 Obligatory Beautiful Architecture Pictures:

I was quite creepy through the whole trip watching people through their windows to get a glimpse of the “real lives” of Hungarians.

1900?? Please, only us Americans consider that historic.

 

Cool Artsy Architecture Pictures:

The Creepiest Place On Earth – The House of Terror Museum: 

Murdered victims of the Nazi and Communist regimes

The victims’ pictures alongside an old Russian tank

The files that were kept on everyone…

I took many more pictures of the place but it’s really something you have to experience as opposed to seeing pictures, so I suggest you immediately book a ticket to Budapest now.

 A Little Something To Cheer You Up After Those Depressing Pictures:

Budapest Through Pictures

If you were wondering, Budapest is, in fact,  AWESOME. But I figured, why bother just telling you about the trip when I could show you about the trip. Ok, fine, if you insist I’ll add some captions along the way.

Random Hungarian Things I Found Super Hilarious: (but probably nobody else does)

I feel like Mark Zuckerberg & Bill Gates combined when I’m in Hungary – the currency is so devalued that our tour bus tickets cost 10,000Ft!! Which is only roughly $45 (CHF40), but it feels so cool when you’re throwing down thousands everywhere you go.

Please refrain from bringing your horse and buggy on the main freeway. Not joking, this sign was actually posted at regular intervals.

That’s a lamp post… WAY cooler and more efficient than having one crappy single little bulb at the top and like 15 lamp posts all around.

Why yes, crazy lady, I would like to eat in your restaurant.

How awesome is it that their water drain cover look like a family crest?

The Food:

Because butter isn’t unhealthy enough for the Hungarians, they use deep fried pork lard spread instead. Mmmmmmmm. I’m pretty sure I felt my arteries clogging just by looking at it.

And I quote: “That was maybe the best burger I’ve ever had in my life” – Florian Christen, Americanophile

Obligatory Generic City Pictures: 

(Sidenote: Why do we always feel the need to take the same pictures as professionals already have with their far superior cameras?? Obviously your postcard shot is going to be nicer than mine, let’s save me the hassle and I’ll frame some postcards). 

Fun fact: Buda and Pest are on different sides of the river, only connected through bridges

Tell me this doesn’t look like a helicopter-on-official-government-business shot?

 Obligatory Beautiful Architecture Pictures:

I was quite creepy through the whole trip watching people through their windows to get a glimpse of the “real lives” of Hungarians.

1900?? Please, only us Americans consider that historic.

 

Cool Artsy Architecture Pictures:

The Creepiest Place On Earth – The House of Terror Museum: 

Murdered victims of the Nazi and Communist regimes

The victims’ pictures alongside an old Russian tank

The files that were kept on everyone…

I took many more pictures of the place but it’s really something you have to experience as opposed to seeing pictures, so I suggest you immediately book a ticket to Budapest now.

 A Little Something To Cheer You Up After Those Depressing Pictures:

Zhitch + Me = Entrepreneur

For the first time in my life, I’m a groupie. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not swooning over some silly pop boy band. Nope, I started having a love affair with entrepreneurship. I’ve come to love watching the excitement and passion spew out  of the elite few people who (gave the finger to big business and) started their own non-9 to 5 jobs. I imagined a bit about what it would be like to be one of them. And then last weekend, I finally worked up the courage to try out being an entrepreneur myself.

Obviously, only a wanna-be entrepreneur would PAY to spend 54 hours straight working on launching a new product, which is exactly what I and 40 other awesome people did at StartUp Weekend.  For funsies, I quickly made up a business idea to pitch so I could have some practice and *shockingly* my idea was not selected as one of the top business ideas worth working on. Sidenote: It was definitely not shocking, seeing as how even I didn’t think my own idea was great. I actually was crossing my fingers NOT to be picked because other people had pitched really amazing ideas that I wanted to work on waaaaaaaaay more. I didn’t even vote for myself. 

After the best ideas were selected by the judges, I got to select with which team/idea I wanted to work. Lots of cool and interesting ideas, but I was really happy to have picked the team I did because the idea was hilarious but also cool and the team was awesome (shout out to Beat for having the vision of this idea!). Plus, the idea solves a problem that EVERYBODY has. You, reading this right now: YOU HAVE THE PROBLEM THIS APP SOLVES. And now I get to work on giving everyone a solution. Um, how awesome is that?? I really love pretending to be an entrepreneur.

Anyway, so tell me you’ve never been in this scenario (BTW, scenario is based on the following assumptions: you’re nice, you have friends, and you have a car or at some point have ridden in a car). So your friends are pretty awesome but they just kinda forget to offer you gas money, even though you drive them to the mall, to the restaurant, to work, and to that fun ski trip a few months ago. It’s super awkward to tell your friends you want them to chip in for gas money, but at the same time you want them to chip in for gas money! Now how to broach the subject without sounding cheap (believe me, I’m Jewish, I have to be extra careful around cheap topics!).

Enter the Zhitch App – it solves that problem for you! It’s got a cool game aspect so you can casually be like “oh, hey dude, I just got this new app because I want to earn points to get some free rewards. And, uh, BTW, it also happened to track the route we just drove and calculate your fair share of the gas money. Of course you don’t have to pay, I mean I just wanted the reward points and ninja belts, but if you did want to pay, just click that button right there in the App and it will auto pay me directly exactly your share of the gas.”  Bam, done. Much easier, right? And it even works for things like sharing a taxi ride, so if you feel awkward starting the conversation in your car, just start using it in places where people pay their share anyway and all that awkwardness is POOF gone.

Or, better but much more unlikely scenario in making it easy to bring up the subject. For the very few of us who are REALLY nice, this is a good way for you to offer to pay your friends your portion of the gas money when they drive. Nothing like starting to use the App by being nice, then giving them tacit peer pressure to return the favor. This works especially well if you are driving them around more often anyway.

Shoot, I mean gas is not getting any cheaper during the summer months. No harm in giving the Zhitch app a shot, right?! The worst that happens is your friends never talk to you again, the best is you can actually afford your rent.

Zhitch + Me = Entrepreneur

For the first time in my life, I’m a groupie. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not swooning over some silly pop boy band. Nope, I started having a love affair with entrepreneurship. I’ve come to love watching the excitement and passion spew out  of the elite few people who (gave the finger to big business and) started their own non-9 to 5 jobs. I imagined a bit about what it would be like to be one of them. And then last weekend, I finally worked up the courage to try out being an entrepreneur myself.

Obviously, only a wanna-be entrepreneur would PAY to spend 54 hours straight working on launching a new product, which is exactly what I and 40 other awesome people did at StartUp Weekend.  For funsies, I quickly made up a business idea to pitch so I could have some practice and *shockingly* my idea was not selected as one of the top business ideas worth working on. Sidenote: It was definitely not shocking, seeing as how even I didn’t think my own idea was great. I actually was crossing my fingers NOT to be picked because other people had pitched really amazing ideas that I wanted to work on waaaaaaaaay more. I didn’t even vote for myself. 

After the best ideas were selected by the judges, I got to select with which team/idea I wanted to work. Lots of cool and interesting ideas, but I was really happy to have picked the team I did because the idea was hilarious but also cool and the team was awesome (shout out to Beat for having the vision of this idea!). Plus, the idea solves a problem that EVERYBODY has. You, reading this right now: YOU HAVE THE PROBLEM THIS APP SOLVES. And now I get to work on giving everyone a solution. Um, how awesome is that?? I really love pretending to be an entrepreneur.

Anyway, so tell me you’ve never been in this scenario (BTW, scenario is based on the following assumptions: you’re nice, you have friends, and you have a car or at some point have ridden in a car). So your friends are pretty awesome but they just kinda forget to offer you gas money, even though you drive them to the mall, to the restaurant, to work, and to that fun ski trip a few months ago. It’s super awkward to tell your friends you want them to chip in for gas money, but at the same time you want them to chip in for gas money! Now how to broach the subject without sounding cheap (believe me, I’m Jewish, I have to be extra careful around cheap topics!).

Enter the Zhitch App – it solves that problem for you! It’s got a cool game aspect so you can casually be like “oh, hey dude, I just got this new app because I want to earn points to get some free rewards. And, uh, BTW, it also happened to track the route we just drove and calculate your fair share of the gas money. Of course you don’t have to pay, I mean I just wanted the reward points and ninja belts, but if you did want to pay, just click that button right there in the App and it will auto pay me directly exactly your share of the gas.”  Bam, done. Much easier, right? And it even works for things like sharing a taxi ride, so if you feel awkward starting the conversation in your car, just start using it in places where people pay their share anyway and all that awkwardness is POOF gone.

Or, better but much more unlikely scenario in making it easy to bring up the subject. For the very few of us who are REALLY nice, this is a good way for you to offer to pay your friends your portion of the gas money when they drive. Nothing like starting to use the App by being nice, then giving them tacit peer pressure to return the favor. This works especially well if you are driving them around more often anyway.

Shoot, I mean gas is not getting any cheaper during the summer months. No harm in giving the Zhitch app a shot, right?! The worst that happens is your friends never talk to you again, the best is you can actually afford your rent.

I’m (Basically) Ready To Be A Mommy

Let’s be honest, I say I’m basically ready to be a mom because I’m missing one important thing in that equation – my own kid. SPOILER ALERT: Suffice it to say, Florian and I quite enjoy our life of leisure and traveling and will keep it that way for a while longer. Besides, who wants to canoe in Norway or hike in Sweden or not drink wine in Paris or scuba in Thailand while pregnant?? Not me, and those are my planned trips over the next few months! I’m ready to be a babysitter mommy is maybe a more accurate description. But I really L-O-V-E other peoples’ babies. They’re so teeny and chubby and easy to dress up, and best of all I give them back when they start to cry! I need to give that kid back at night so I can sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I love sleep slightly more than I love other peoples’ kids 🙂

But these last few months I’ve had a crash course in parenting since I’ve now got two new baby nieces, 2 new Zurich babies and about 99% of the other women I know are pregnant!! (Ok, obviously that is an exaggerated statistic but I swear it feels like that when I go to lunch and 4 of 6 girls are pregnant!). I can now do the following things with a baby: change its diapers, burp, bathe, shush, rock, swaddle and feed it, tolerate high-pitched crying, and know when it is crying “just because”, amongst other skills. I also coo and tell them how cute they are and tell them how much I love them and then I speak a little German to ensure they are bi-lingual.

But today is a special day because it’s my niece Lily’s 1-month birthday (BTW, is that a thing? A 1-month birthday?? I think it’s like when I was a teenager and celebrated my six-month anniversary with a boyfriend). To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to share these amazing pictures of her adorableness that will absolutely make you smile. Sidenote: my other sister Rachel says Lily looks like me. What do you think? Perhaps a maternity test is in order??? 

I’m (Basically) Ready To Be A Mommy

Let’s be honest, I say I’m basically ready to be a mom because I’m missing one important thing in that equation – my own kid. SPOILER ALERT: Suffice it to say, Florian and I quite enjoy our life of leisure and traveling and will keep it that way for a while longer. Besides, who wants to canoe in Norway or hike in Sweden or not drink wine in Paris or scuba in Thailand while pregnant?? Not me, and those are my planned trips over the next few months! I’m ready to be a babysitter mommy is maybe a more accurate description. But I really L-O-V-E other peoples’ babies. They’re so teeny and chubby and easy to dress up, and best of all I give them back when they start to cry! I need to give that kid back at night so I can sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I love sleep slightly more than I love other peoples’ kids 🙂

But these last few months I’ve had a crash course in parenting since I’ve now got two new baby nieces, 2 new Zurich babies and about 99% of the other women I know are pregnant!! (Ok, obviously that is an exaggerated statistic but I swear it feels like that when I go to lunch and 4 of 6 girls are pregnant!). I can now do the following things with a baby: change its diapers, burp, bathe, shush, rock, swaddle and feed it, tolerate high-pitched crying, and know when it is crying “just because”, amongst other skills. I also coo and tell them how cute they are and tell them how much I love them and then I speak a little German to ensure they are bi-lingual.

But today is a special day because it’s my niece Lily’s 1-month birthday (BTW, is that a thing? A 1-month birthday?? I think it’s like when I was a teenager and celebrated my six-month anniversary with a boyfriend). To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to share these amazing pictures of her adorableness that will absolutely make you smile. Sidenote: my other sister Rachel says Lily looks like me. What do you think? Perhaps a maternity test is in order??? 

I Love, Love, Love, Love, LOVE Spring!!

                

The pictures say it all (hence why I’m not even going to bother trying to write a post worthy of accompanying their beauty). I was simply walking around the block with Bella and using my normal old point-and-shoot camera to capture these. Did I mention that I love spring, love bright colors, and love pretty flowers.

Switzerland = Amazeballs!!

                                           

           

I thought since I was sharing photographs I might as well alternate them between left and right to be all artsy pretend I am very creative. 

I Love, Love, Love, Love, LOVE Spring!!

                

The pictures say it all (hence why I’m not even going to bother trying to write a post worthy of accompanying their beauty). I was simply walking around the block with Bella and using my normal old point-and-shoot camera to capture these. Did I mention that I love spring, love bright colors, and love pretty flowers.

Switzerland = Amazeballs!!

                                           

           

I thought since I was sharing photographs I might as well alternate them between left and right to be all artsy pretend I am very creative.