Note to self. Don't let the Project 365 pictures get backed up!

Day 18

4/27/09-Fritz and Cat Stevens. BFFs.

Day 19

4/28/09-Biff being a supermodel with Nicole.

Day 20

4/29/09-How boring, office furniture! My dad is giving me new stuff for my apartment.

Day 13

4/22/09-Little last minute trip up to San Fran to see Curtis. I missed this kid.

Day 14

4/23/09-Holy hungover walk back to BART

Day 15

4/24/09-I love Kim Chee. Seriously.

Day 16

4/25/09-Dragon Ball Z.

Day 17

4/26/09-Today I rode BMax, beat myself up, then read for three hours in the backyard and ended up with possibly the worst sunburn of my life.

Day 9

4/18/09-I was driving behind this person on the way into work. I just liked the visual.


Day 10

4/19/09-I rearranged my room today. It's getting hot again, the bed needed to go back under the window.


Day 11

4/20/09-Awful pic. But I had to quickly capture that it was effing 97 degrees today!


Day 12

4/21/09-Did I really just book this flight last minute to San Fran? Indeed I did!

Day 6

4/15/09-Coffee Bean at Target. Seriously?

Day 7

4/16/09-Ridiculous pictures in my training paperwork

Day 8

4/17/09-Biff, my boyfriend. Ain't he precious?

Day 5

4/14/09- A few months late, but still awesome. Thanks Mango!

Day 4

4/13/09-I totally almost forgot a picture today. I love these shoes. Wore them out for dinner tonight, Sam's birthday! We played dress up at Il Fornaio. Delish!

Day 3

4/12/09-Easter breakfast

Project 365

I've been wanting to start Project 365 for awhile now but haven't really had time to sit down and think about it. I figure now is as good a time as any to start though, I have three days in a row off from work and really am not doing anything since I am home in Goleta relaxing.

So here are my day one and two pictures...

Day 1

4/10/09-We came home. We played Wii for HOURS.

Day 2

4/11/09-We take our Christmas picture in April. Seriously.

2 down, 363 to go.

Just a note

I'm still alive and kicking. Life's been crazy busy lately, I'm in the middle of nine days of work straight.

I'm going home this weekend for the first time since Christmas.

I went on Mayercraft Carrier last week.

I am considering hitting up Atlanta in the end of May.

I am insane.

Good night.

The stars too, they tell of spring returning

Whew. Long day today! My friend Trish is in CA for the week and she came down to San Diego yesterday for a quick visit. Randomly last night, the oh so famous Alex Beh was down here screening a couple of his films, so we headed out for that. Very funny stuff. Good to see Alex too, though I'm still not quite used to him living out here now and seeing him on a much more regular basis. We called it a night early and had planned for a big day at the zoo today, but the weather was less than cooperative and it ended up raining most of the morning. We did a little shopping and some touring San Diego by car, trying to stay dry. Luckily, and amazingly actually, the rain let up in the afternoon and we ended up with blue skies, and a FREEZING wind! The day ended up gorgeous looking, but still not so nice to be outside. We walked through Balboa Park before heading over to Coronado for dinner. Busy, but good day!

It's been a crazy couple weeks, and it's only going to get crazier. How is it almost April already? I need a nap from life.

---

I just reread this blog and it is so poorly written that it almost hurts to post. Guess I need to get some sleep. Oh well. Perhaps I will edit it later.

The haps

It's been a hectic past couple weeks. I've been kinda all over the place and spreading myself way too thin and have therefore gotten pretty gnarly sick. The beginning of the week was pretty awful but I have since rested up a little and am feeling better. I still have a lot of congestion in the back of my throat, which is also still pretty sore, but it's miles better than what it was. I really just need to lay low and rest up but I have had so much going on that it has been difficult to just stop and rest. This next week is hopefully going to be less busy so hopefully I actually will lay low.

I think I'll end this little update with a few quotes that cracked me up recently.

"I was just telling Curtis that I hope we still know you when you are 40 so I can call you Marianne Cougar." -DYaden

"I think muster drills should be required for life. Randomly, the world should all have to report to a muster station." -TGreen

"I think I'm going to puke. Twitter that." -BMiddaugh (and I did)

Good night moon.

Manny-gate

After four months of Scott Boras being a total shithead that needs to be kicked in the teeth, the Dodgers have finally resigned Manny Ramirez for an obscene amount of money. Every offer they made him was obscene and yet Boras kept rejecting them because he's a piece of shit. Not a fan. Could you tell? At this point, I am more glad that it's over than that he actually signed with the Dodgers. I was tired of being jerked around. It's good to just know.

Spring is in the air!

February started out super warm and gorgeous, then we went through a rainy cold spell, and then the month finished out warm and gorgeous again. Now we're in March. When the hell did that happen? It cooled down a little today, but it is still definitely spring time.

I need a vacation again. Just sayin.

It also really needs to be Friday because I need to get paaaaaid. I wanna go shopping.

Saturday I am going up to LA for some fancy pants party with Bridget. I have absolutely no idea what to expect because from what I can tell, it's kind of a big deal? Like, having to do with fashion week? And there is streaming video online? What in the hell? Yeah I have no idea, I just know that it is going to be so much fun because it's with Bridget and that's how we roll.

Alright. I'm gonna watch some TV and hit the hay.

21 years old and still such an idiot

Doesn't that sight just warm your heart? Kevin turned 21 yesterday and so Sunday, Patrick and I went up to LA to help him celebrate. That picture was taken after we walked down to the bar, realized that Kevin forgot his ID, starting walking back from the bar, gave Kevin so much shit for forgetting his ID that he got all butthurt and ran all the way back to his apartment, where we found him in this position, snoring away. I can't believe he forgot his ID. Who forgets their ID on their 21st birthday? This guy. I'm so proud.



There's a nice little family shot.

Oh and in closing, here is Fritz in the sink...



He's the biggest cat of all time. Yep.

One wheel, four hands, two hearts...

Trying To Drive is SUCH a great song. Love it.

I got majorly sidetracked last week and apparently forgot that I intended to come back and write about water polo. Ha. Oops. Water polo was so much fun, even though my entire body hurt for two days afterward. There weren't many girls playing so I was most often matched up with a 250 pound guy that I could swim circles around, but could not guard to save my life if he drove into set. I mean really? Physically impossible. I think I'm going to play again on Thursday, and perhaps might even work myself up to playing twice a week once I get into better swimming shape. Even though it completely wiped me out and made me feel like an old lady, it made me remember how much I used to love it.

Saturday night, Sam, Kelsey and I had dinner and stole patio furniture from Coffee Bean. And then we made crepes. Dinner consisted of salad and faux Rice-A-Roni. Stealing furniture consisted of piling two tables and about 20 chairs into the back of Sam's truck (we got new furniture at the bean, so we stole the old stuff, figuring, we were going to get rid of it anyways.... right?). And then crepes. Crepes are hard to make by the way. Getting them thin is damn near impossible. However, slather on some Nutella and strawberries. Holy heaven in your mouth. SO GOOD!

Not much going on otherwise. I don't work tomorrow until 11am, which is some kind of record for me being able to sleep in. I'm now going to continue my love affair with Scrubs and then catch up on some much needed sleep. I've made it to the middle of season four!

Oh, just a reminder to myself. Post the pictures of Fritz in the sink.

Good night!

Water Polo

Every inch of my body hurts like a mofo right now. I played water polo tonight after work for the first time in.... well let's see. After I quit the team at UCSB.... I think I played in one alumni game. So about four years? I have been swimming VERY sporadically, so I am not 100% out of shape (just like 90%), but oh man, it was rough.

Dammit, Grey's just started. More later.

I love the nuts

My dad sent me a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. They are freaking delicious.

Today I almost killed/blinded myself today when Biff ran between my feet and almost knocked me on my ass. I managed to catch myself but I also managed to hit my eye on the cabinet and now I have a gnarly cut and what is sure to be a glorious bruise in the morning. Joy. I can't wait to see what it looks like when I get up.

Scrubs

I've watched it on and off ever since it started, and yesterday I decided I was going to start from the beginning and watch them all. Love them. I am done with season 1 and starting season 2 now.

It's pretty much Hurricane San Diego out right now and has been most of the day. It's rainy and the wind is howling. Looking out the windows at the pool tonight, the sky was black and the wind was bending the trees in half outside. Insane. It also snowed just a few miles inland. What the hell, THIS IS SAN DIEGO PEOPLE!!

Brrrr. This is karma for me talking all this crap about how warm it was last week.

I need to do my taxes. Hmm.

It's February

And it has been raining since Thursday. Relentless. I am so tired of it!

I have been watching Scrubs in bed all day. I woke up at 745am, for some odd reason, then napped from noon to four, and have otherwise spent the entire day in bed. I am so lethargic, I just don't feel like doing anything else.

I am going to bed now. Maybe the rain will be done in the morning and I will start feeling better.

V8 Splash and mascarpone cheese

My new favorite drink and my new favorite cheese.

We cooked up a FEAST tonight! Chicken piccata, lemon cream risotto, and chocolate hazelnut cream cake. All from scratch. SO beyond delicious. I love cooking, I really do wish I had the time and energy to do it more often.

Peach Mango V8 splash with champagne, new delicious modified mimosa. Mascarpone cheese, both in the risotto and the cake frosting, makes everything more delicious!

The cake might have been the best cake I have ever eaten. Chocolate layered cake with whipped cream/mascarpone/sugar/hazelnut chocolate frosting, sprinkled with chopped chocolate chips and hazelnut pieces, with just a hint of orange zest. Seriously, you don't even know until you've tried it. Amazing.

All in all, tonight was a great one. Amy, Lindsey, Sam and I made a great team, everyone helping out with every dish. And Amy folded us pretty bird of paradise napkins. Jen stopped by for cake and we spent the rest of the night watching silly YouTube videos. So good.

I am seriously exhausted. I have the whole day off tomorrow with absolutely no plans! I can't wait to do absolutely nothing till I work next on Monday afternoon.

The sky might actually be falling now

The rain is RIDICULOUS! Two car alarms have gone off down the street, that's how hard it is coming down.

And now thunder is rolling through the canyon.

What the heck is this weather?

Interestingly enough, the sun was out at the beach while I was at work, and then it was POURING rain back at home. I took a few pictures on my Snozzberry:



The clouds looming over Mission Valley


Downpour. I'm being safe, I know.


But look, sunny over Mission Bay!


And sun over Mission Beach and Belmont Park!

Silly weather.

The sky is falling!

Actually, the sky is not falling as much as the roof is leaking.

I woke up at 4am because there was a slow stream of water coming from the ceiling and splatting onto the floor in the middle of my room. This is the one complaint I have about our house. The damn roof leaks in my room, Hester's room, and the living room. We don't get much rain, so it isn't much of an issue but seeing as it has been raining pretty steadily for the past two days, it is currently a big issue. I'm not sure how/why it leaks because it is currently pouring, yet nothing is dripping, and when it was dripping at 4am, I couldn't hear any rain outside. Who knows? I am slightly paranoid that the roof is going to get super waterlogged and then fall on my head. Fun times, right?

Today I worked 745a-630p. Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays are KILLER. Tomorrow I work at 9a (and instead of sleeping, I am blogging) till noon and then having girl's afternoon/evening/whatever with Amy and Sam, and perhaps Adriana and Lindsey. If it wasn't raining and generally gross to be outside, I'd say we should do happy hour downtown but I am not down to go out in the rain. No thanks!

Crap, I jinxed myself. Roof is leaking again. It sounds like it is raining in my room. Not a fan.

I need to go to sleep but the pouring rain is loud and there's not a chance of me sleeping through it at this point. Oh well. Guess I'll finish that crossover episode of Grey's and Private Practice that I fell asleep during last night.

The forecast (which formerly said rain Thurs and Fri) now says rain through Monday, with thunder and lightning tomorrow. Joy.

Wow, am I a weather oriented person or what?

Cold beer on a Friday night

Except replace cold beer with warm soup!

After almost a week of perfect weather, the last couple days have been far from perfect. It's so windy that I can hear the howling in the canyon like it's right outside my window and it has been POURING rain on and off since yesterday afternoon. The only consolation is it hasn't been too cold. Just wet and blustery.

I'm sorry I just got distracted by Steffi D's YouTube Channel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SteffiD5

And now I am watching them all.

Another Sunny Day

But first...


Cat Stevens and Biff hanging out at home.


Shorty hanging under the coffee table. Just another day in the Encino Zoo.

Today was beautiful. Sam and I went to Coronado, picnicked on the beach, then headed to Balboa for some picture taking, and then naturally went shopping. I only spent $18 and got sunglasses, two headbands and a purse. Woohoo!


Ah, the beach in February. Gotta love it.


Someday I want to live in one of these...


Balboa in bloom!


Botanical Garden


Orchids

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. Bummer.

Sunny day

Today was the absolute perfect sunny day. Not too hot. A slight breeze. Sunny skies all afternoon long. I had plenty to do inside today, random chores and errands, but instead I went out to lunch and basked in the sun with Silka and Daniel, and then went home and sat outside by the pool with my laptop getting caught up on various TV shows.

Tomorrow is supposed to cool down a little and by Thursday we are supposed to have rain and the it will warm up again by the weekend. This is why I don't think I could ever leave southern California. Everyone else is frozen solid right now and I spent the afternoon in shorts and a tank top. The months I spent in Italy freezing my ass off? Yeah, definitely taught me a lesson. Can't keep me out of the sunshine.

Coronado tomorrow. Sunshine in the sand. Life is good.

Moloka'i

I read this book two years ago while on Maui for Christmas. My mom had just read it, and it has since been passed all around our extended Napili family. I had forgotten about it until this last trip when my mom brought it out for my brother's girlfriend to read. It really is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The story is so heartbreaking yet so beautiful, and kept me completely captivated from cover to cover. I sat undisturbed from essentially sunup to sundown one day, unable to tear myself away from it until I was finished. I laughed, I cried, I absolutely loved it.

It follows the life of a girl with leprosy and her life banished to a lepper colony on Moloka'i.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312304358/ref=nosim?tag=sealarksgoodbook&link_code=as3&creative=373489&camp=211189

If you're looking for a good read, look no further.

Free Grand Slams

I love breakfast. More specifically, I love breakfast burritos. If I had the time and energy, I would make a breakfast burrito every morning. What's not to love? Eggs, potatoes, sausage, cheese, onions, and the occasional avocado? Maybe replace the sausage with some bacon? Recipe for delicious in my mouth. Someone asked me today what I would eat if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life. Yes, a silly question, because in what world would something delicious that you love be the only thing available for you to eat? I thought long and hard on the matter, because there are plenty of things that I love, but would get just plain sick of after awhile. I came to the conclusion that a good breakfast burrito would make me happy every meal of every day. You even get all the food groups in there! The perfect meal indeed.

Denny's is giving away free Grand Slams tomorrow, which is what I originally came here to write about before getting distracted by thoughts of breakfast burritos. I wish I had the motivation in the morning to make breakfast more often. However, in no way, shape, or form, could I ever eat three giant plates of breakfast. That's just insane. One is good enough for me.

I'm tired and should stop taking Vicodin before blogging.

In my current drugged out state

So I unthinkingly took a Vicodin a couple hours ago, forgetting that I was drinking all afternoon. I sobered up and drove home earlier, but the Vicodin haze I always get is weirder than normal and I am thinking now that I probably shouldn't have taken it. And no, I don't regularly take Vicodin, and yes I have a prescription, and under normal circumstances, I should definitely have taken one tonight. Why am I even trying to explain this?

I actually had something of substance to write about, and now I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Clearly it was very important. Maybe I will remember it tomorrow when I am not feeling so damn loopy.

The Super Bowl was boring. The last quarter was fun to watch but what a completely anticlimatic final play! Warner couldn't even get a pass off, and then there was no official review on the fumble? Come on, it's the last play of the Super Bowl and you want to end on that note? Boooooring. The commercials weren't all that good either. The eTrade babies of course were good, and the careerbuilder.com animal punching one was also good, but other than those, nothing stands out in my mind other than the movie trailers.

Spring Awakening is making it's way back west in the fall. That is a long ways away. But dude. It's coming back and threatens to take all my money once again. I can't wait.

Aspartame really does not taste good. Neither does Splenda really, but aspartame is actually kinda gross. I'm drinking one of those sparkling water fruit drinks and I have no idea why I keep drinking it because it doesn't taste good. Hmm.

Coachella. Who's in? Friday and Saturday. Plus camping. Let's do this. Paul freaking McCartney.

The new Stephen Kellogg song from Lido is awesome. If YouTube wasn't being such a cocksucker, I'd upload the video and share the awesomeness. Alas. Cocksucker. They friggen OWNED the Rock Boat.

One of my kids showed up to his lesson on Saturday morning with super short hair (this kid had really long hair too), and when I said "Cian, what happened to all your hair?", he replied, "Mom cut it because it had bugs in it." This is also the same four year old that says "what the heck are you trying to do to me?" whenever I dunk him under water.

For whatever reason, this blog input box does not have spell check. Or wait. Yes it does, because it does not recognize the word Vicodin... ok wait, at the begining of the post, there is a little red squiggly line under Vicodin, and these last two times, no squiggly lines. Apparently as this post has gone on, my spell check has gotten lazy. I seriously don't get it and I don't think the Vicodin has anything to do with that. Still no squiggle. Damn.

I am still a little bit freaked out by this weird drugged feeling and have kinda been putting off going to skeep because of it. But maybe I just need to sleep it off. Either way, I need to stop writing in here before I start oversharing big time.

Here I go again

I had this whole paragraph written out about how long it has been since I've blogged and a list of excuses and reasons why, and then I decided to delete it all and just dive right into it.

I have had several random and completely unrelated trains of thoughts bouncing around in my head for some time now. Seeing as this is as good place as any to expunge them from my mind, here they are in no specific order (by the way, when I said random, I meant RANDOM).

-I watched an episode of Private Practice a couple weeks ago as it followed Grey's Anatomy. Now, Private Practice is a spin-off of Grey's, so all the characters and storylines exist in both shows, just in different locations. Right? So how can they cast an actress on Private Practice that previously had a role on Grey's? The woman whose husband had the bomb in his chest on Grey's is the same actress as the one that played the mother of the kid with the measles. And it wasn't like Addison wasn't around for the Code Black episode of Grey's, but then the same woman shows up in LA, only she is actually completely different? Stupid casting choice, especially since most people watching Private Practice have also been watching Grey's. I don't know why I am so bothered by this, especially since I don't even watch Private Practice regularly, but it has been swimming around in my head ever since the episode aired and it was time to get it out.

-Megavideo. Why can you only watch 75 mins at a time? And why is the audio out of sync with the picture in half of the videos? This annoys me to no end. Oh well, that's what I get for being too lazy to watch TV when it is actually on.

-The chlorine in the pool has been really intense these past couple days. My eyes are BURNING and my skin has gotten super dry again. I just picked up lessons on Friday so now I am in the pool Mon, Thurs, Fri, and Sat and I really hope I don't get burned out. It's definitely good money and I love being back in the pool and working with kids again. It's just two hours straight of four year olds screaming in my face gets a little tiresome. I do work with some amazing kids though, so I suppose in the end it's all worth it.

-I cannot stop Twittering. Or is it tweeting? Tweeting on Twitter. Either way, I have no idea how I got so addicted to it but I have Twitterberry on my Blackberry and I check/tweet ALL THE TIME. As if I needed another website to get addicted to. Follow me @mklovesdanger and I'll then have yet another person keeping me updated on the random things in life. I originally started a Twitter account back in July so I could get fire updates from The Santa Barbara Independent, and then again in November with the second fire, but didn't really use my account until Christmas time and I found myself with nothing to do.

-I really want to get a DSLR. That is going to be my next big purchase. I love taking pictures and love my trusty/amazing point and shoot Canon, but I'd really like to get more into photography so a DSLR is the next step. Then a photography class.

-I am officially too tired to function, but I can't sleep right now because my roommates are having a jam session in the living room. I don't even mind actually, I like having live music in the house all the time, but every time I close my eyes I start dreaming in Beatles songs (their band choice of the evening) and it's starting to freak me out. Subconcious yellow submarines and walruses? Freaky shit.

-There is officially something playing the saxaphone in my living room. Just FYI.

-Although it should be fairly obvious to anyone that loves Aslyn, I named this blog after a lyric from the new Aslyn song "Wherever the Dandelion Falls". On the Rock Boat, she told the story of how the song came about and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I feel like I have become someone that hasn't been hopeful, dreaming, or believing and it kind of kills me that at age 23, I have gotten so cynical. I think it was somewhat of a wakeup call for me so by including it in this new blog, maybe it will remind me a little more often that life doesn't suck as much as I might think. And yes, I am fully aware of how cheesy and ridiculous it is. My blog. Don't hate.

I think I am done for now. I'm not sure how often I will update, but I think it will be theraputic to at least spill my thoughts out every once in awhile.

Lookie right here, look what I've got in my hand...