It’s back to the grind for me today…and you, I figure. I had the best 3 1/2 days off! If ever there were days that needed to creep by and actually did, it was my 3 1/2 days off, and it was wonderful.
A trip wouldn’t be without stories, and this trip didn’t disappoint. I went to Las Vegas in case I didn’t mention it at any point, and I left Thursday afternoon. Leaving work early had me all sorts of excited as I headed to the airport. Walking toward the security check, I saw that I would be the only one there.
No lines, no wait..just a bunch of bored TSA agent’s standing around. I almost took a picture.
After sitting in what I thought was my terminal for 1 1/2 hours waiting for my flight, I decided to really look at the monitor that showed me I was in fact in the wrong area, not to mention floor. Thankfully I was still so early, it didn’t effect me in any way and it wouldn’t have mattered if it did because my flight got delayed thanks to the crazy thunder storms and flash floods that were going on in Vegas.
30 minutes later they announced we had literally 30 minutes to board and take off in order to make “the window” to land in Vegas, so we all needed to be quick and go straight to our assigned seats. Everyone sprang into action. Passengers sat down, moved out of the way, buckled up and were quickly filling up the plane. And then…the drunks came on board.
5 grown women who decided to start their Vegas vacation early got drunk at the airport and decided to take 5 other passenger’s assigned seats, so they could sit together on the plane. When the 5 other women came on board to claim those seats, the yelling drunk women weren’t wanting to give them up and told them to find other seats. Precious minutes are ticking by as the long line of passengers waiting to take their seats are growing impatient in the aisle.
After many passengers began yelling and screaming at the drunks, the 1st attendant finally forced the drunk women to take their original separate seats (much to their loud whining), and move out of the aisle so everyone could sit in order for us to leave. We barely made it out..and there may have been laughter when the flight attendant announced that they won’t be serving any alcohol to any passenger they believe to be intoxicated.
It was a good thing we got into Vegas when we did because the floods and hail came! It might be hard to tell but that is a river of water flowing quickly down my friend’s street that same night.
The hail came down harder than I’ve ever heard it. If I knew how to put the video from my phone on here to show you, I would. It was pretty crazy!
My schedule stayed pretty busy the entire trip but it was one of those great busies that I enjoyed.
I’m so thankful I got to see a sweet friend I haven’t seen in 13 years and hold her precious 8 week old baby that fell asleep in my arms, and having my oldest be… I mean oldest “friend” lend me her car to drive around Vegas on my own.
I’m glad I’m home now. Back in the swing of things. To the normal and every day. Going on these short little weekend trips, help make these normal every day days better. A rejuvenation of sorts.
Monday, October 15, 2012
A thankful me - 39
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Lost and gone forever?
I had quite the scare the other night with my old pictures. A long long time ago I used to upload all my pictures onto kodak gallery online. Everything was stored there from the early to mid 2000's. Probably close to 2,000 pictures were saved online that I would email to friends and family and G-man when he was overseas. It was my go to for anything pictures, Christmas cards and photo books.
At the beginning of the year, Kodak said they were closing their website and transferring all the pictures to shutterfly’s site. I didn’t think much of it since the email said everything would be taken care of for me. Come the beginning of July, their site shut down but I didn’t bother checking either site to see where my pictures were.
Fast forward to Monday. I was looking for a particular picture and needed to get it from shutterfly, but after logging in, it showed zero albums. zero pictures. I was freaking out! All those pictures gone! My trips I took, all my work pictures with my co workers from prison, my nieces nephews family, all gone!
It took 4 shutterfly logins (because you know if you keep logging in and out of the same website they’ll magically appear) and 2 kodak gallery logins to finally scroll down and read where it said, ‘to complete transfer of your pictures, log into kodak gallery here.’
Hmmmm, I don’t remember ever doing that….
The moment I do, all the pictures show up in shutterfly. Talk about heaving the biggest sigh of relief!! I started looking through them all and figured I’d share some fun ones…there’s a good chance one person will kill me after this..
Clearly you can see I’ve always been a fan of sunsets. Pier in Cayucos, CA.
Avila Beach, CA
I still have this skirt! I wore it that one time at the wedding and held onto it for 7 years before finally wearing it again.
Remember my story about my close friend who would do anything for me? That’s him. :)
Santa Barbara, CA. Which was absolutely beautiful!
My long time childhood friend, that I’m seeing today, who I’m sure would like to kill me but let’s take the focus off her and on my side 1990’s bangs I’m sporting.
Getting all fancy for my date with G-man in San Francisco where he took me to a fancy shmancy restaurant and a symphony after…all while he ran a 105 temperature! What a guy!!
Hours after chopping my hair off, not to mention coloring it. That cut took entirely too long to grow back.
A little flashback Thursday if you will. I’m heading out to see my friend for the weekend. We’re doing some fun stuff that involves a little place called Vegas. Ok, I’m probably not going to come close to the strip! I’m going for other reasons, but we’re having a slumber party at her house with 3 other women. I’m sure her husband will love all the women taking over the house!
~ ~I just wanted to throw it out there in case anyone’s interested. I’m having a little 24 hour lia sophia sale that starts today, if you want to be included in it, make sure you include your email in your comment and I’ll email you the information and what it’s all about. Anyone that orders (within the US) will get their order shipped to them by me. :)
Since Christmas is coming and the new Special Edition Catalog is rockin’, I figured why not offer it in case you’re interested for yourself or for Christmas gifts.~ ~
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Monday, October 8, 2012
A thankful me - 38
Hi there friends! Happy Columbus Day to all of you who actually get the day off. Happy Monday to all us suckers who have get to work it! kidding kidding
How we don’t have the day off to pay homage to the man that discovered America is beyond me! He discovered the country for pete sake! I think I’m going to take up a petition.
So the weekend. Let’s talk about that. It was in the 70’s!!!! This was monumental. For the first time since April or May, I didn’t have to turn my a/c on when I got home from work Friday. It was glorious. And then Saturday night was the first night I woke up to pull my covers up (and my a/c was off too), then in the morning I actually took a warm shower. First time in MONTHS I’ve taken a warm shower. All previous showers have been cold, its been that hot!
I’m really excited for this.
I got a mani/pedi over the weekend. First time I got gel nail polish on my fingers. Its just like shalack, but gel and I think I like it. I went with a neutral color because I’m all about subtle. Its supposed to stay on for up to 3 weeks.
My pedi….well, I’ll be honest and say it’s the worst polish job I’ve ever had. Like ever. I’m embarrassed for anyone to actually look down. Thankfully I wear closed toed shoes to work so they can’t see them, but the next time I go to that salon (because I really like the salon) I’ll be booking my appointment with another person.
I also did something else this weekend that warrants a mention. …I pet a dog. yes yes, I did. But I should mention it’s a puppy, which totally is the only reason. Though, I guess (just because it was in my face) I did pet the older dog. They were very well behaved. I’ll give them that.
I also stuck my flats in the freezer… what? You don’t!?
The claim is, if you keep them in for at least 24 hours, it will get rid of the smell…or the sweet and pleasant odor that you leeched all over them… whatever you want to call it. I did it for a good 48 hours because my sweet and pleasant odor was on there real good and needed to be abolished. I have yet to wear them, though I did give them a good sniff and they still have a hint of “me”, so we’ll see when I wear them next how well it really worked.
{this picture reminded me to put the bacon out to thaw! baaaacon!!!}
And then (no and then) I saw a very beeeeautiful sunset. Where I snapped picture after picture while driving down the road, until I could stop and take a proper iPhone picture. It rivaled my Hawaiian sunsets.. but they still win out.
The rest of the weekend was filled with Costco samples, Kohl’s (where I didn’t buy a thing), great food (where I didn’t cook a thing), sweet and adorable old ladies, jewelry and my parents 39th wedding anniversary. (Happy official Anniversary Mom and Dad!)
And that is what I’m most thankful for this week.
Friday, October 5, 2012
The soothing sounds of soundtracks
I’m a big advocate for soundtracks. They have the ability to excite you, make you cry, dance, give you chills and what can be most important; sooth and relax you.
I grew up with soundtracks. Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera to start and as I got older, I got into the movies; Forest Gump, Titanic, Chicago… to name a few.
Even in college, the guys were heavy into Star Wars I, and I can’t even tell you how many times we listened to that soundtrack in their dorm room or on our way to Denny’s.
Once I started working for the prison system, as I’ve mentioned before, I had a very difficult time with sleep. I’d either lie there with anxiety knowing I had to start my Monday the next morning, or lie there afraid someone had broken into my house and played out every scenario of that happening. Or what was sometimes even worse, having really bad nightmares that would wake me up drenched in sweat with my heart pounding so hard it would just stop.
When nights became too much for my head to handle, I would grab my cd player and put in my favorite soundtrack; Meet Joe Black. The only soundtrack that had the ability to sooth me to sleep. Sometimes it would take only a few tracks, sometimes it would take the entire cd, but in time, I’d drift off to sleep.
To this day, its still one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. Even as I write this, I’m listening to it picturing where we are in the movie. And that’s what’s so great about soundtracks! If you’ve seen the movie enough, you can play the entire scene in your head as you listen. There’ll be times I’ll pause in what I’m doing to play it out in my head and a little smile will appear because as always, its one of my favorite parts.
Every soundtrack evokes a different emotion in me. When I’m needing to decompress from the day, I’ll play my ‘soundtracks' playlist that begins with Pride and Prejudice, followed by Meet Joe Black and then Pearl Harbor. It continues on to others, but these are my top 3 favorites to have me unwind. If I’m feeling more upbeat, I’ll listen to Chicago and sing along or {when I had it} Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I plan to always have soundtracks in my life. I think its very important for my {future} kids to appreciate the finer music. The symphonies and feeling the emotion in every note they make. To sit back and close their eyes as they soak in the sounds, being able to pick out the cellos and clarinets, the violins and flutes. Feeling the beat…
I can certainly go on and on about it, that’s how passionate I am about beautiful music. What also gives me a huge appreciation for it is watching how the composer made the music. G-man and I one night, awhile back, watched a documentary on the Rocky movies. In it, they talked about the music. In the very first movie, they had such a low budget, they filmed primarily in the middle of the night or at dawn. That’s why you see so many morning shots. They had to because they didn’t have a permit to shoot in the city as it was too expensive.
With the music, generally they’re given weeks (if I remember correctly) to watch the movie and play the music in their studio repeatedly, along with a large budget but right before doing their first run through, the composer was pulled aside, told the budget was slashed to virtually nothing and without telling the musicians, started the recording and had them play every song for the entire movie.
They played every song once. That’s it. What you hear in the movie was their very first run through. Now if you watch that movie again, {which if you’re anything like me, you’re forced happy to watch it every time it comes on} I’d imagine your appreciation for it all will increase. Maybe its just me thinking its cool. But I can’t help it, I do.
I know I’m not alone in liking soundtracks, so what kind do you listen to?
What are your favorites and your go to’s?
Any that fall in line with Pride and Prejudice and Meet Joe Black? I would love recommendations on similar ones to add to my collection.
Happy Friday and weekend everyone. Oh and that’s my very first collage so go easy on me with how simple it is.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
When is it ok to spend?
So you all must think I’m a little crazy..well, maybe not all but the majority of you since my last post. I question if I should share 1/2 the things that go on in my head with you, so usually reduce it to about 1/3 and even then, sometimes it’s too much.
But oh well. As many of you have said, I’m transparent. I say what I say and it may be random, heartfelt, deep, funny or just plain weird, but its me in all my goofiness.
random unrelated but pretty picture
I’ve had a lot of money thoughts lately. Thoughts in the way of wanting to spend a lot. I’ve had the itch for two weeks now, though I’ll admit, its died down considerably. Sense has crept back in and allowed me to function at a normal level again but I still think and question certain amounts of spending.
I put it on twitter and got quite the response, so I’ll put it here to see what you’d do.
If you knew you’d get a phenomenal haircut and color, would you spend $300 for it?
The type of cut and color where you know will be amazing. Where no other stylist you know or go to could ever come close.
This is the debate I’m having right now. I’m seeing my awesome stylist in November for a cut, but saw “Belle” on Once Upon A Time (the show) and absolutely fell in love with her color. It’s a highlight/lowlight color so it would take work and I’m considering having my stylist do it along with the cut. This will most likely cost over $300 but let’s just say it’ll be a solid 3. I’ve already made the appointment for both since its easier to cancel than add but I’m not sure if I can fully take the leap.
I’m back to my sensible spending ways and have a hard time choking down that amount, but in the same I was about to plunk down over 3 times that amount for a camera lens just days ago.
Do you see where I can justify spending the “chump change”? Its still so easy for me to fall back into my old spending ways when I had a ton of money. It runs through my blood, so to speak.
I’m also aware of all the things I’ll be spending a lot of money on that’s coming up. Things that might trump the color, so again, the debate wages on inside.
I like what Angie said, “…There is nothing wrong indulgence as long as you aren't going into debt over it!”
I agree. And its nice being pampered with the assurance I’ll be more than 100% satisfied with the result.
Money…or more like spending, has been on my mind lately and just wanted to see where you stand.
SO, would you spend that? Or could you see yourself spending $300 on something else that was in one sitting?
Or would you absolutely never spend that much money on yourself? Maybe because you don’t think you should? Or aren’t worth it? Or just plain don’t think you ever need to spend that much on yourself period.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Vanity filled
viaIs this vain? Is this smart? Is this putting way too much thought into it?
Hard to say, but what I've decided to do..or at least cut back considerably in doing is drinking out of a straw. Random, right?
I bought this nifty new water bottle to replace my, older than I care to admit one, that has a straw in it. At first I thought it was so cool. I no longer had to hoist the bottle up with the fear of it dribbling down my face, chest and lap (cause that was happening) but I started to pay attention to the lip pucker...and there's a lot of lip pucker. I drink almost a gallon of water a day out of it so imagine, if you will how often I'm sucking down on that straw.
By week 2 is when I noticed that it simulated a smoker. {do you think I'm crazy yet?} Maybe you do, but I'm around a lot of smokers and I see the horrible lines they have around their mouths from the constant pucker and heck if I (the non smoker that I am) will have those lines from drinking out of a straw! I'm getting wrinkles regardless. You all know, if you've been around for awhile, I've been talking a bit about them on my face and neck. Its natural, its going to happen, but I certainly don't want to speed up the process over a silly straw!
After moving the straw to the left side of my mouth...then the right side..then not fully putting my lips on it and having it spray all over me and looking like a fool, I decided to take the lid off every time and drink like its a glass of water. Surprisingly, I'm almost doubled my water intake because of it.
Feel free to call me silly or superficial, I don't mind. I prefer to age gracefully…not to mention slowly. I'm sure someone will say, 'so you won't kiss because it may cause wrinkles?' and no... I'll happily kiss for 30 minutes and not think once about any wrinkles forming, but a straw? There's no enjoyment in those wrinkles.
have you thought of this?
- I never did in my 20's but I'm in my 30's now and I'm a lot more aware of what can affect and damage my skin.
Speaking of vanity, I put the 'pin it' button on the blog for the cookies, Friday. Just in case anyone wanted to pin it and have it be a quick easy way and now its on each and every post and I can't remove it! I've gone into HTML and searched all over for it and can't find a way to take it out, so I promise, I'm not so conceded that I think you'll want to pin every single post I put up.
And seriously, if you know how to find it in my HTML, tell me and I'll send you a cookie!
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Monday, October 1, 2012
A thankful me - 37
Hi hi hi everyone!! It’s October and you know what that means, right!? if you know, fill me in…
My weekend was insane-o. I slept… listened to Michael Buble… took out the trash…twice! and had to wash the dishes! I’m not sure I’ll fully recover. In all actuality, I did do all those things but Saturday was a bit exhausting (as I yawns just typing that out).
At some point, I jerked awake not sure where I was or what the heck was on me. Good thing I don’t flail my arms or anything since clearly he was still sleeping on me, but it certainly had my heart racing. Sleeping babies on me aren’t exactly an every day occurrence over here.
Good thing he’s their 4th, because as I was standing up to take him to his crib, I managed to kick the loudest toy possible across their hardwood floor, while the 3 year old came in slamming the back door. Kid didn’t flinch once.
Here’s a glimpse of that morning..
This past week, I have more than enough to be thankful for:
- Monday a co worker brought me chocolate and not 4 hours later another co worker brought me Starbucks, and a third co worker offered to buy me lunch. All for no apparent reason. I admit, I was a little more than suspicious.
- later on in the week that 3rd co worker surprised me with lunch…but not before accidentally giving me his tongue burrito instead of my carne asada burrito. Yes, actual tongue! I made sure he removed the offensive burrito off my desk himself…all while thanking him of course.
- potluck Friday commenced and the food was in abundance, and my cookies were eaten
- getting some nice accolades at work
- seeing the sunrise
- marking the 5th anniversary of our first date
I realize most of my thankfulness revolves around food this week but my belly has been quite happy. How was your weekend? Did you catch the sunrise?
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