Happy Birthday, Lisa and You're Welcome...

10 Things You Need to Know About My Dear Sister on Her Birthday...

10. She is insane a very hard worker. Lisa works 2 official jobs, 3 if you count being a full-time mom to 3 crazy kids and 4 if you count Twitter. I have no idea how much sleep she gets—I fear none—and have absolutely no earthly idea how she balances everything. I can barely get out the door in the morning without spontaneously combusting. It’s shocking.

9. She is very passionate. Lisa has many opinions. Lisa talks with her hands. Lisa has many opinions that she expresses with her hands. Whether it’s politics or publishing or being a mom or being a friend/sister/daughter/woman, Lisa is never afraid to speak up and voice her opinion. We’ll have brief detailed 9-hour-long conversations about some random issue and she’ll encourage me to “blog about it” as I slowly back away with my hands up. But she’s never afraid to put it out there. It’s pretty cool.

8. She’ll get on board with any diet, exercise plan, lifestyle change, hairstyle transformation, etc. that one may propose. I love people like this. All I have to do is call and say, “I saw this diet complete with a meal plan, want to try it? And before I’m even at “meal plan” she’s IN and driving to the grocery store to buy beets and a kettle bell. Then we’ll do something for 8 or so days and go back to eating ice cream from the container at 11 PM. It’s awesome.

7. She’s incredibly sarcastic—but you probably knew that already. She scares the hell out of my daughter Lydia and banks on the fact that she’ll be the favorite aunt by the time Lydia’s able to understand sarcasm. Let’s just hope Lydia forgets about all the times I forced Lisa to run upstairs and yell at her for waking up too early from a nap. I have no idea why we thought this was a good idea. Fail.

6. She makes me cry at least once per day. I have no clue if anyone else would find what we find funny as hilarious, but she cracks me up. The more random and inappropriate the better, which confirms the fact that I have a very sick and twisted mind. The bonus is that as I’m eating ice cream at 11 PM at night I can reflect on the fact that during one of our brief detailed 9-hour-long conversations, I got an ab workout in at the same time. Score.

5. She’s the brains behind this operation (and do not let her tell you any different). Our editors can pose some sort of issue with the plot of our book and she’ll pause for a second (while I hem and haw) and spew out some genius solution that simultaneously fixes fourteen other broken areas of the manuscript. It’s an art.

4. If you walk into a library or bookstore with Lisa, she will have read almost every single book in stock. I’ve accused her of skimming, which didn’t go over well, and/or lying, but her retention is convincing. When we were little, the amount of books she’d read baffled me. In addition, if you press “Guide” on your television remote, she will have watched at least one episode and often entire seasons of any given television series. The same goes for movies. “All I have to say is, don’t see Contagion.” “How are you not watching Gallery Girls?” “Be sure to DVR Underemployed!” Review number 10 on my list and your mind will officially be blown. There’s no way she sleeps.

3. She washes her floors every night. And asks me if I think this is crazy. I usually don’t say anything. Refer back to number 10 and 4.

2. Lisa doesn’t take herself (or really anyone) too seriously. If you accidentally take yourself too seriously, she will totally call you out on it and you’ll feel ashamed. This is a good thing. Nothing good ever comes from taking one’s self too seriously. Nothing.

1.  She’s my best friend. But you already knew that. When I was ten (with a very unfortunate overbite and some heavy duty orthodontia), I never would have dreamed that I’d grow up to love my sisters. I couldn’t see past, “Mo-om she’s looking at me!” spat across the dinner table. And now the three of us actually hang out…for fun and force our kids to like each other. Love.

 Happy Birthday, Lisa. Take the day off, you over-achiever.