Author Archives: LA Blogger Gal

Linkie Love – Looking to Pay it Forward

1 Reply

Well, I wasn’t quite ready to come out with it, but for the past couple of days I’ve been taking part in the 29 Days of Giving. I had something planned today, but never got around to getting out to the post office. Then I thought maybe just cooking dinner would be my gift for today – until I decided that I had no desire to cook.

Well, they say the road is paved with good intentions, blah, blah.  So instead I’ve decided to show a little linkie love…

Let me introduce you to the ladies at The Party Goddess. They not only share party planning tips and tricks, but they also love to talk about new products and other things they think you might find useful.   And because they’re also some business savvy gals, they’ve got some great tip, advice and years of experience to share with you all.

I Finally Did It!!!

1 Reply

I finally took the leap and set up my first paid seminar!  I’m so excited.  I have to figure out how much to charge for it now and write up the actual outline.  Since it’s a bring your own laptop kind of session, it won’t really take all that much creativity to write it up.

I teach regular classes on how to utilize social media and blogging for businesses.  For the most part, the group of women that I work with all get that they should blog, but all talk about how they have so little time and have no idea what to talk about.  As startup solopreneurs, they also tend to balk at paying someone (again) to work on their website or to install a blog on their site.

This workshop will require that they all bring their own laptops and we’ll walk through together, step by step, how to create a blog.  In the end, they will finally have their blog, understand what widgets are, set up their RSS feeds and, the best part, walk out of there with 5-10 (or more) topics that they can sit down and start writing about.  It’s guaranteed to get them started, no excuses.  If we’ve all set them up and can find the time to write in them, then so can they.

Told you guys I’ve been busy working this week!  And I’m not done yet…

It’s the Simple Things in Life

1 Reply

I’m so happy!!  I finally got around to calling a bookkeeper. No really, this is reason to rejoice.  Our books are finally going to be taken care of.  Best part, I think we’re actually going to use her to actually input our reciepts as well.  This means even less stress for me.  And by less stress, I really mean less tears at the end of the year.  I’m so happy.

I spent a good chunk of this weekend working on our books and our filing.  I still had all of the ’07 paperwork filed in the cabinet and not organized or boxed up.  Which of course meant that my ’08 paperwork was just piling up since I could actually file it away.  Not any more.  Now my desk is not only cleared, but I no longer have mountains of papers threatening to topple over.  Such a good feeling (even though I still have a bit more to file away).

So now I’m going to spend the rest of this week focusing on writing and getting my website up and running the way I want it to.  I’m finally going to get that newsletter subscription service running.  Enough putting it off.  The time is now.

On that note, I can’t say I’ll be blogging all that much this week.  I really do need to get caught up on things (and no, I haven’t even tried to get caught up on my backlog of blogs – though my email is all caught up!)  So bear with me.  I’l be back shortly…

Heading into the Weekend with a Slew of Random Thoughts

3 Replies

I feel like I should be writing a real post here, but seriously I have too much going on in my head to bother with focusing on one particular topic or another.

* To start with, my Reader is once again heading awfully close to 1000 posts.  I know that CurlyWurlyGurly says that I should only worry about her posts, but something tells me I might need to trim my reader a bit.

* On top of my Reader backlog, I also have an email backlog that I’m slowly working my way through.  Come of people, it was only 3 days.  What’s going to happen when we head out to Ireland for 10 days?!?!?!

* My landlords are petsitting their grand-dog and it’s driving me crazy.  Here I thought my dog barked a lot, but that thing never shuts up…especially when outside our bedroom in the early morning.

* I have to say that sometimes I wish my little guy was a big dog – big dogs bark so much less during the day.  Our guy has taken to sitting on the chair, looking out the window specifically for something to bark at in the evening.  Makes TV viewing a bit of a challenge.

* Speaking of the little guy, I can’t believe that after fighting with the Hoover steam cleaner,  a couple weeks back that my dog had the nerve to throw up not once, not twice, but in six spurts on my clean rug!!!  Thankfully I haven’t yet returned the steam cleaner to my brother-in-law so I guess now I’ll be testing out the spot treatment capabilities *sigh*

* My basil plant has managed to survive over a month now, including 2 extended weekend trips.  But now, it seems to have those stupid little black bugs that eat the leaves.  I’ve already cut off the more intested branches as I’m hoping I can save at least some of the plant.  I haven’t made my panzanella salad yet this summer!  Wish me luck.

* My sinuses and throat starting acting up within an hour of returning home this week.  Seriously, I’m bummed that there’s something in the house that I’m allergic to.  More importantly, it’s seems likely that the cat is the culprit – and we won’t (I won’t) be getting rid of the cat anytime soon.

* Accupuncture is going well.  I can feel my sinuses releasing and my breathing getting easier while I’m resting in the office.  Today I was a bit more bothered by the actual needles and felt most of them (at least the ones in the face and hands) the entire time.  Normally, I don’t feel a thing.  She’s thinking that I need a total of five treatments, so I have three more to go.  I don’t care as long as I feel better.

* My arms have been itching a bit again lately.  I guess it looks like it too since the accupuncture doctor asked me about it.  And of course, that just made me feel itchier.  Go figure.  As long as I don’t start going scratching crazy in my sleep again I should be fine.  Needless to say, I’ll be asking my doctor for a recommendation to the allergist when I see her later this month.

* I have less than a month to read one more book for the Elle book thing.  And I’ve a week to finish my book club book.  And two more books came in the mail for me this week (not including our Ireland planning books and the work-related ebooks I have piling up).  Yeah, um…again I go off on the book thing.

* I’m thinking of doing the 29 Days of Giving thing.  A fellow LWL gal started up the site and a few of my friends have been doing it.  I always love how giving and setting intentions really change the energy and get things moving.  I just need to make sure I’m commited to the entire 29 days.  Feel free to play along.

* Last week my bloggie friend, Geggie gave me a “Smile Award” and I’ve yet to say thanks or pay it forward.  I’ll work on that.  And Geg, thanks!!

* I forgot just how usefull that Mac remote control is.  I’ve been doing a lot of iTunes library playing lately.  And well, the library on this particular computer is a mix of my stuff and the hubby’s stuff.  So is nice to not even have to switch between all my open windows.  I just click next and I’m on my way to the next song.  Genius.

Okay, I’ve got to stop at some point and this seems good enough.  Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Back From Sonoma!

3 Replies

We got home and settled in last night.  Overall it was an absolutely awesome trip. Best of all was being able to visit with my good friend.  We don’t get to see each other often enough.  But after this too quick visit, you better believe we’ll be heading out to Madrid to visit with them sooner rather than later!

And yes, it was filled with lots and lots of wine.  To be honest, we’d only managed to visit four wineries, one vineyard’s shop on the square and then had a bottle with dinner and a bottle back at the hotel.  But that was just enough to still enjoy everything we were drinking.

Overall, it was a bit of a Zinfandel kind of day.  Oh, but right before dinner we followed the advice on the guy from Porter Creek Winery and enjoyed a glass of some Oh.My.God so good chocolate port from Rosenblum Cellars.  We were seriously regretting only carrying on a bag and not checking our luggage, we fell so in love with this stuff.  I mean, the aroma alone made you just want to dive in and soak in it and it tasted even better still!  And I’m definatey not someone that drinks port.

As for dinner, we were considering trying out the Girl and Fig in Sonoma, but since we were just a couple of blocks away from one of our favorite restaurants in the area, we headed there.  Once again, dinner at Zin Restaurant and Wine Bar was absolutely amazing and our waiter treated us very well. We started with some odd but delicious calamari, butter bean, sausage and frise thing in a skillet that was awesome! We were fighting each other off to sop up the juice with the bread. Then there was a tasty frise, goat cheese and grilled peach salad (that I plan on duplicating!). Of course, we each had (and shared) some great dishes – though my short ribs were rumored to be the best of the bunch. And let’s not forget the shared dessert. A great end to a beautiful day with friends.

The visit itself was too short and our time together is too far between visits, but we definitely made the most of our time together.  Right up to killing one last bottle of wine while hanging out in the hotel lobby enjoying the fire catching up late into the night.  It was almost painful to wake up the next morning.  After a light breakfast we parted ways.  Until our next visit…this time in Spain!

And now some photos (clicking on them will make them larger)…

Just outside our hotel – we had a view like this from our room (this was from the deck though)
IMG_4556.JPG

The view crossing the Russian River
IMG_4560.JPG

Let the wine drinking commence!
IMG_4562.JPG

Are these beautiful or what?
IMG_4566.JPG

We don’t have this many varieties of garlic in LA
Garlic at the Healdsburg Farmer's Market

Don’t they just make you crave a glass of wine? No? What about grape jelly then?
IMG_4579.JPG

Life Lesson: Car Rental Schmar Rental

2 Replies

Guess what? Turns out there’s a serious difference in the daily rate between booking a car for a week and booking a car for 1 day and 16 hours. I’ve done Hotwire before for our car rentals and I’ve gotten some great rates. This time though, there’s not much of a rate difference between Hotwire and the standard travel sites.

I guess I learned that there’s a difference between with how far out you should book your car even if you’re using a discount service. I figured that like the hotels, they’d rather have the room (in this case the car) booked, than unbooked and thus, give you a bargain on Hotwire. Turns out that’s not the case. If I’d booked our car a few weeks back, when we first started making our plans, I’d be saving about half the price.

Who knew?!? Well, probably everyone else but me. Oh well, it’s all about visiting and hanging out with my long time friend. And um…drinking wine.

Damn that Reader

4 Replies

I have over 1000 unread blog posts piled up. Sadly, I won’t be reading the majority of them. “Mark as Read” is my friend. Sorry if I haven’t been around to comment lately, I just haven’t felt all that motivated to read my blogs (my books, yes – my blogs, no).

Some Completely Random Things

3 Replies

* Lunch went well.  My husband has a great team that he works with and the gals are all super sweet.  I was right too – one gal is an immigrant from China (she did our ordering) and the other two are first generation, as is one of the guys.  It was good fun though and all perfectly normal food.  They ordered jellyfish and I tried it, but I didn’t much like the consistency.  Otherwise it was a fun lunch.

* My good friend wrote me to tell me that he and his new wife just put a bid in on the house next door to where I used to live.  How odd is that?  Those houses are HUGE too, so I’m kinda surprised their going for something so large with no kids just yet.  But they are beautiful homes and it’s a great neighborhood (as long as it doesn’t snow – very steep hill at the entrance to the sub-division).

* My husband is a bit of a work-a-holic…surprise!  He had permission from his boss to work the rest of the from home, but chose not to.  He’s got a big project set to launch on Monday and we’re gone Tuesday and Wednesday so he wants to make sure it’s completely ready to go.

* I’ve scheduled an appointment with an acupuncturist.  Hopefully I can get this sinus thing under control.  I’d settle for the stupid post-nasal to just go away.  I still need to schedule with an allergy specialist so I can rule out whatever might be making me so crazy here in the house.

* My desk is a mess and covered in piles o’crap.  I haven’t filed our receipts or worked on our books in months!  Insanity.  Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend?

The weekend is full of shows and visits with friends so it should be a good one.  Can’t wait to head up to Sonoma on Monday.  It’ll be the first time I’ve seen my friend in about 5 years.  We met up in Vegas leading up to the wedding for a quick weekend the last time she was in the states.  So even though this trip will also be quick, it will involve a lot of wine (woohoo!) and a lot of catching up.  So excited.

Okay, off to get needles poked in me…

We’re Off to Try Some Shanghainese

Leave a reply

And let me tell you, I’m just the slightest bit scared.  Not that I don’t like Chinese food because I do. But for one, I’ll be meeting my husband’s entire work team (going away/maternity leave party for his boss).  Secondly, they’re all also really adventurist diners and well, they’re Chinese and Vietnamese. On top of that, it’s also the first time I’m meeting everyone.  So either way, a little nerve-wracking.

And let’s keep in mind, we were complaining (toungue in cheek) that my friend and his wife served our table the Americanized version of Chinese food at their wedding.  But as he explained it…being told to expect that a full chicken with head and feet is coming to the table is not the same thing as seeing it.  His co-workers are totally into the chicken feet sort of thing and they talk about it at work (no really, I do believe that 3/4 of them are either immigrants themselves that came over as a young child or first generation).

The Yelp reviews of the place we’re going are good though.  I could always just get something that I’m comfortable with, like um…noodles or the shrimp in mayo (yum!).  Of course, back at the office they’ll probably get a good giggle out of that.  But really, I can’t say I’d blame them.

Coming from an immigrant family (okay, I was raised by my first generation grandmother, but we lived with my immigrant great grandmother), I never really had food from other cultures until I was an adult – spaghetti and pizza don’t count.  Heck, I never had Mexican food until I was like 17 and even then, it was from ChiChi’s (and we all know that doesn’t count).  The only Chinese food I’d had was chicken lo mein and that was at my elementary school cafeteria (again, don’t really think that counts).  I didn’t have Indian or Mid-Eastern food until my late 20’s.

Since meeting my husband, I think I’ve tried more ethnic food that I can think of.  So it’s not that I’m scared to try new or unknown foods, I’m just not sure I’m up for the chicken feet or braised pork belly.  We just didn’t eat that sort of thing growing up (though those Eastern Europeans do seem to love their tongue and liver – nothankyouplease).

Wish me luck!

5 Things I’m Loving Right Now

4 Replies

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts.  Consider that I just fell in love with a few of them, I thought it was time to share the love.

Huggable Hangers

I found these a while back.  I love how much thinner they are than my typical plastic hangers and how they don’t seem to leave those hanger bumps on the shoulders.  But more importantly, I love how things actually stay ON the hangers (now I can cut off all those damn plastic strings and not worry about it).

Shu Umera Eyelash Curler

I asked a make up artist friend what to do with my lashes since they just didn’t seem to hold their curl any more.  She suggested I get a new Shu Umera curler – something about the springs not lasting and therefore not curling as well.  Turns out the new curler is exactly what I needed.  Thanks Tara, you’re a genius!  If you haven’t yet invested in a curler (the Shu Umera is a cult classic) I recommend doing so.  The way your curled lashes open your eyes will amaze you.

Dermalogica Soothing Eye Make-Up Remover

I first learned about this product when we were at the Ladies Who Launch LIVE event at the Dermalogica headquarters back in May.  We didn’t get a sample, but everyone around me was raving about this product so I ran out and bought it.  This removes everything from your eyes and is so gentle, you can open your eyes even with the product all over them.  Seriously.  And it washes right away without any film left on your eyes like some of those other products leave behind.

DDF Fade Gel 4

I found out about this product when I read Nadine Haobsh’s book, Beauty Confidential.  She raved about it for reducing hyper-pigmentation spots.  Considering I had a relatively largish spot right on my cheek, near my eye (where my sunglasses rest – gee, I wonder how it got there?!?!) I thought I would give it a try. Granted, it’s not completely gone, but it reduced the pigmentation by at least half.  Made me quite happy and I’ve been raving about it to all my friends since.

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Surface Scrub

This is the product that actually made me sit down and right up this list I was that excited.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve decided to go green in the house (I’m still working on the health & beauty products, but that seems a bit more challenging and another story all together).  Yesterday I tried the scrub on our tub and it worked great!  All the stains (damn that tinted shine stuff!) and sugar scrub residue is gone.  It really surprised me.  I also use their shower spray and the toilet bowl cleaner and like those as well.  But this, this one I’m loving since I can actually breathe while I scrub.

So what are you loving right now? What do you recommend we all run out and try?