It starts and ends with palm trees but that is pretty much the only evidence of coherence...

Today I am pining a bit for my L.A. life. The days where I would work a full day, be off by noon, head over to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, park my car, grab my new US weekly and a Blended from Coffee Bean and head over to the grassy knolls and watch the waves crash. Sometimes I went by myself, sometimes I was lucky enough to be in the company of my cousin Kelly (and THANK GOD! because she would assure me that we were not going to get killed by a tidal wave that particular afternoon and always brough good trashy magazines). Most of the time I would just sit and relax, people watch and think about what my life would be like in the future because, heck...life was incredibly simple then (though it seemed SO COMPLICATED at the time) so full of possibilites and I was surrounded by beautiful people and things and I really didn't have any major responsibilities. All I had to do was live in the moment and do exactly what I wanted when I wanted.

Whenever I have a lot of chaos in my head I go back to those years where I was living on my own in a city where I could drive around every day and discover something new. I wasn't attached to anything and it really was All About Me All The Damn Time (Ha! Those were the days). But the ups in life are always punctuated by the downs and most often we don't always appreciate the present. It wasn't always the best of times down there, I remind myself-- I was constantly wondering why I hadn't met Mr. Right, I hadn't completed my degree which was hanging over my head like some major unfinished business, and I was working in retail and just KNEW that I had something else in me to give career-wise. So whenever I pine for that time, I try to remind myself to be present in my life now because what seems crazy now, will just be tomorrow's nostalgic memories.

God, I don't mean to sound so ominous. I mean, in general, my life is really good right now -- especially compared to the awful tales that you hear everytime you listen to the news or read anything on the internet. I have a job that I am ::knocks wood:: not in danger of losing, I have found a partner that loves me for all of my crazy quirks, and we have built a life together that brings me so much joy on a daily basis that it's silly. I wake up laughing, I am always ready to come home after a long day of work and the two of us are making plans for the future that involve big, exciting life changing things. We are only responsible for ourselves right now -- we don't have kids, we don't have mortgages -- but holy hell, sometimes deciding to forge a life with another person can feel like such a huge deal.

I didn't make a lofty list of New Year's Resolutions this year. For me, this year it is really important that I prioritize my own stress management. I guess you could call that a resolution, but really I'm sort of staging my own intervention. Part of being a good life-partner in my opinion, is knowing how to manage yourself long before you go and trying and join a team. I want to do my best to make sure I am taking care of myself, so I can be there for Garrett when he needs it.

Last year I took the Myers-Briggs Assesment as an assignment for work and discovered I had an ENFJ personality type. Honestly, the depiction is pretty much right on par with me as a person. Especially the part where "[ENFJ's] get excited about possibilities for the future, but may become easily bored or restless with the present." The way this manifests itself in my life is that I am constantly on the go -- planning, doing, seeing, producing, exploring -- NONSTOP -- until I get to a point where the inertia of my life is overwhelming that I am forced stop. Everything sort of falls to the ground and then when I get bored and restless I pick up the pieces and start juggling everything over again. This is obviously not a good long term strategy and I'm trying to figure out how to cope -- especially this year of all years.

There are a million things changing this year: Garrett and I are taking the plunge and moving in together, we are mapping out our future, I am taking on a new professional endeavor, and OMG have I mentioned, I will finally get to see Hawaii?!?!? I have been bitching about my parents promising to take me there when I was 10 for like two decades, so I really can't believe that I am actually finally getting to go, and we are spending just about two solid weeks relaxing on Maui and I absolutely can't wait.

But all these things? I want to be present, ya know? I need to be present. They are all too important to just be another ball I'm juggling.

I guess I'm babbling about all of this because it helps me feel accountable. I know we all have days when we long for a simpler time in our lives, but I want to work on trying to enjoy the complexity of my life where it's at right this moment. And sometimes that might mean slowing down -- but that is hard for me. Everything worth figuring out in life seems to be a bit of a challenge though, doesn't it? My hope is that those strategies I'm working out now will bear fruit for me and of course our lives in the future.

And I'm not totally positive, but it think it might be of Pineapple and the Passion Fruit variety! Here's to hoping...

Best Weekend Ever***

Well it's been a while since I wrote anything of substance here, would you like to make some small talk to catch up? Could you believe the weather this weekend? I mean...the rain! the wind! It just made me want to curl up on the couch and stay in the same outfit for 3 days while not leaving the house watching awful Lifetime movies and eating frozen pizza! Doesn't that sound delightful?

Oh, hey -- speaking of weekends, how was yours? Oh wow, that's great. I'm so jealous, because mine? JUST ABSOLUTELY SUCKED.

I bet you would think it would be great because on Friday night I was supposed to pick Garrett up from the airport after his 6 day work trip to Des Moines, Iowa, right? Well you would think wrong, unfortunately, because Friday afternoon while I was on my way back to work from lunch, the temperature gauge in my car started acting a little funny. And by funny, I mean spazzing the hell out and then ending up in the "Red Zone" and we all know that there is nowhere in the world that the red zone is a good thing -- well except maybe in football or perhaps an Old Spice commercial but that's not the point my friends, we are talking about my car -- so stick with me here, k?!?

Obviously, car troubles are not that fun. But it especially sucks when you and your boyfriend have been driving your car (which by the way is actually his second car) to avoid the enormous oil leak and slow tire leak in his car (which is his first car). So I have a car (again, his car) that is basically boiling over at work and another car at home that really isn't begging to be driven. Fantastic! The problem? Aside from the obvious, is that I also have somewhere to be 30 minutes after I get off work and then need to pick Garrett up at the airport at 8:30. Oh wait, scratch that -- 10 PM BECAUSE HIS FLIGHT IS DELAYED! Wonderful news, right? And it was wonderful news that I was informed of when I phoned him to discuss the car situations.

I want you to truly have an understanding of this conversation...so let me help you out a bit:

Imagine, if you will, you are on a 6 day business trip where you are having super long work days, even longer "networking" type nights (as a total sidebar: ALWAYS say no to sushi when you are in a state that is nowhere even close to the ocean), and then factor in a wee bit of personal drama on the side. Are you imagining the mindset that this would put you in? Now imagine that you are on your way home from said trip, and your layover flight that you have just boarded is filled to max capacity and someone has just informed you that you will be delayed (because there isn't a pilot to fly the plane! Earth to United, get your shit together!) which means you get to sit inside said airplane for another hour, IN THE MIDDLE SEAT, without the air conditioning system turned on.

...and then your cell phone rings.

NOW, I want you to imagine you are me and have to be the person on the other line telling them that one of their cars is super broken and basically sitting out in front of the house in a puddle of radiator fluid, and you are going to take their other car that is only "sort of broken" to run your errands, and see ya at 8:30 -- whoops-- I mean 10 pm -- and hey, hopefully they turn on those air vents soon, KTHXBAI.

So, would you want to be me in that situation? SWEET BABY JESUS, that was not the most romantic phone call I have ever had in my life.

And I'll have you know once I picked Garrett up and we headed home, I immediately concocted 3 very delicious Belvedere and Tonics in a row, and then drank them like they were ice cold water and our kitchen was the SAHARA EFFING DESERT. And then, making not the best decision I have ever made, I promptly went to bed.

And that was only Friday.

Saturday morning (shocker) I awoke about noon with a gigantic throbbing headache and could not find a single bottle of Advil, Tylenol, Motrin or any other EVER LOVING PAIN RELIEVER in the house, which immediately put me in a fantastic mood! I was a chipper chicken, in fact. And did I mention that the PMS I was experiencing was like on ORANGE ALERT! So we did some errands, did a little trouble shooting with the radiator in Car Number One but then we realized that we had lost the radiator funnel and couldn't put the fluid into the car until we found it. So because I was trying to multi-task, while Garrett was looking high and low for this funnel, I threw a load of laundry in the washer. Ten minutes later, our Laundry Room floor was covered in water for absolutely no apparent reason. We're talking a sea of detergent, fabric softener, and color safe bleach from the BRAND NEW WASHER all over the BRAND NEW LINOLEUM. Honestly, I thought my head was going to explode right at that moment, and I can only assume Garrett felt the same way because his only response was to hand me car keys and to say "Please go to any auto parts store right now and just find me a radiator funnel and I'll deal with this."

I have to be honest, in that moment, all of my retail experiences flashed before my eyes and I can say with the utmost certainty that if someone had put a gun to my head and made that same request, today I would be dead (and frankly, probably in a better mood). UM....WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THE AUTOMOTIVE STORES? I'm still not so sure, but I did drive around aimlessly for awhile thinking about all the shitty stuff that had happened this weekend, and then finally ended up at Target. Target, who by the way only carries "universal funnels" and not "radiator funnels" and whose "Automotive Section" really only consists of car wash accoutrement. WTF, Target? Who the hell even knew there was a difference in funnels by the way?

By the time I got home Garrett had cleaned things up and luckily the washer had not started leaking again, so after a few subsequent "safe" loads we left that problem alone because we had to get ready to go to the incredibly conveniently scheduled Annual Junior League Crab Feed. And as much as I wanted to skip the whole thing ($80 worth of tickets and all), I knew it would make us feel better, if for no other reason than all we had to do was show up and we were going to be served dinner. And I think if I had had to think about or even cook dinner that night, I might have just passed out and died from the effort of that single act. So right before we walked out the door I snapped the following photo and said to Garrett, "You know, years from now when we have kids and pets and houses and lives that are far more complicated than we are living now, we are going look back on this photo and laugh at the things we thought were so stressful."



And although Sunday didn't hit us with quit the same amount of URGENT DRAMA (though we did find out that Steve's Pizza is all but closing all of their locations...boo!), now that I am back at work this morning and feeling totally unrefreshed I am hoping more than ever that my pre-photo sentiment on Saturday was right.

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***Yeah, not so much

This video is killing me...

Not much going on 'round these parts....

...um, I got a new haircut, how's that?



yeah, I didn't think it was that interesting either. But there are BANGS! And I love bangs!! Well, until they get too long and then they drive me crazy, which makes me grow them out, and then when they are finally long enough to not be irritating as hell, what do I do? Cut new ones.

It's a vicious cycle, I tell you.

Well, Garrett is in Des Moines, Iowa this week for work and thoroughly experiencing the fabulousness that is the mid-west. Actually when I was back there in 2006 I found it to be a pretty charming little city, so I am hoping he has the same experience and from what I hear thus far he likes it.

Besides enjoying Super Bowl with my mom, cousins, Aunt and Uncle (which was a freakin' blast) I didn't do a whole helluva lot this weekend. I'm hoping this week is mellow and relaxing and full of lots of sleep. I felt like I was getting sick this weekend and I am so OVER that! I spent a week last February with the worst flu ever and do not need a repeat this year. No siree!

What about you folks...what are you up to???