Author Archives: LA Blogger Gal

Friends

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I’ve been thinking about friendships a lot over the past few days.  I’ve decided that honestly, I’ve got the best group of friends that a gal could ask for.  That includes my old friends, my new friends, my online friends and my biz related friends.  Each and every one of them are just wonderful.

In the past six or so months, I’ve really had some awesome support from my friends.  When I went through that crazy stalking shit, they were right by my side.  When I started my own biz, they were there to support me.  And now that my friends are going through some things of their own (separation pending divorce, new business jitters, being up for an entreprenurial award) you better believe that I’m right there for them!

I think my favorite part of friendship is when we can get together (or over the phone or blog or email or whatever) and just share ideas.  To just talk about what’s going great or might not be working in our lives or our business, and share those out-of-the-box ideas…awesome. Nothing can pump this gal up more than chatting with her friends.

A week or so ago I reached out to a newish, biz-related friend (a fellow LWLer).  I had a question about being an expert (Millie) at our upcoming LIVE event.  When she replied to my email, she not only addressed my particular question, but she also said that I should give her a call because she had some ideas about my business.  She had unsolicited ideas to help me make my business a success…Come on, how great is that?!?

I think it’s a great thing when we can all stop thinking about others as our competition and just show support when we can.   There’s more than plenty to go around.  I like to tell folks all the time that if they like me, they’ll like my friends.  Expanding on that, if you like the way I do business and help you, then you’ll also like how my friends do business and help those they know.

There are so many little things in life to be grateful for.  At the top of my list…my friends!

Let the Festivities Continue!

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First, I should be honest.  I’m a birthday whore.  I believe that birthdays should be at least a full week long.  So that means the birthday girl, or boy, gets to do the sort of things that they want to do, eat at the kind of restaurants that they want to eat at, for at least a week.  Yes, I’m one of those.

Of course, I kind of make matters a tad worse since well, our anniversary is mere days before my birthday. So technically, I usually celebrate my birth-a-versary for just over a week, usually from weekend to weekend.  Needless to say, we’ve been a bit busy lately.

Thursday was our actual anniversary.  We just stayed in and enjoyed my slightly dry, but very flavorful, braised short ribs and a kickass bottle of wine.  For the record, next time, I’ll use all the same ingredients, but use the crock pot instead.  As it was we didn’t eat until nearly 9:00PM since I kept waiting for that “fall off the bone” I was advised would happen in that hour of simmering.  Not!  It was nearly 2.5 hours of simmering and still not tender.  Oh well.  It was still tasty.

Friday we typically go out to dinner with one of my husband’s oldest friends (and one of my favorite shopping buddies!!)  She had a hellish week so she decided to work from home and well, chose the non-shower, hanging out in her PJs approach to work attire and just wasn’t up to join us for dinner.  Instead, we headed out to Hermosa Beach for some Pedones Italian.  Very yummy.  From there, we walked along the beach a bit.  Very relaxing.

Saturday was a pretty low key day.  We headed out to the Farmer’s Market in Pasadena and grabbed some brunch at Magpie’s in La Canada (our typical post-Farmer’s Market hang out).  I think we’re there nearly every week.  I love their greek chicken pita and salad and their chicken, mango and papaya salad.  So good.  The hub’s pretty much always orders the breakfast burrito with chorizo.

Saturday night though we headed on over to the Catalina jazz club to hear Marcus Miller (the hubs was also shooting the show).  I’ve heard Marcus play a few times now, both with Herbie Hancock and without.  Once again, it was a great performance (and I’m not even a fan of jazz).  It was the 10:00PM show, so once the show was over, and the chitchat with the band was over, we headed back home (nearly the only car left in the parking garage) it was pretty late – even for this late nighter gal.  Prince showed up briefly – and I do mean briefly.  He was there maybe for all of 2 minutes.  Not sure why he even bothered, but whatever.

Sunday we slept in late, well, after both a 6:0AM and an 8:00AM wakeup do to noises outside.  Hell, we went to bed pretty late as well, so sleeping in was quite lovely.  We just lounged around a bit, caught up on some TV (what did we ever do before the DVR?), and read some of Megan Crane’s new book (so happy to finally read it since she was quite excited about when I interviewed her last year some time).

Sunday evening was dinner at Lala’s Argentine Grill with the girls from book club.  Once again, I’m am so happy knowing that through book club I have one helluva group of friends. It’s so great whenever we get together, whether it’s one on one or in a small group, or at book club.  Really, they’re a great group of ladies that I’m so grateful to call friends.  And for the record, the empanadas and sangria are awesome!

Tonight we’ve got the Paddy Casey and KT Tunstall show at the Wiltern.  The hubs is actually out right now interviewing Paddy for his podcast (they already got the music session at SXSW in March).  He interviewed KT last year or the year before at Austin City Limits.    I believe he’ll also be shooting tonight since he was charging his camera batteries last night.  I was directed (ha!) to pick the hubs up at work around 7:00 so we should head over to the show tonight.  It should be interesting since we rarely see both the opening act and the main performer.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Tomorrow, my actual birthday, I’m cashing in my Christmas spa treat and getting both and hour and a half facial and massage.  I can’t wait!  Talk about being blissed out.  I don’t know if we’ll be doing anything else though since we’ve been so busy this weekend.  I’m thinking it might be worth it to just hang out at home for dinner (thai takeout??) and maybe do a fancy dinner out this weekend when there’s more time to relax.

So there we go…why I haven’t been around much these past couple of days.  I spent today catching up on email and running a few errands.  I’m considering treating my birthday self to a new blog design here.  I mean, this is all so drab and boring because I was hoping for something better.  Well, now I just might take matters into my own hands and make some magic happen.

On that note, I’m off to chill out for a bit before hoping into the shower to leave to get the hubs.  Hope everyone is having a fun week thus far.  As to day is Cinco de Mayo, feel free to raise up that margarita and have a birthday toast to me!!

I’m Just Going to Have to Suck it Up

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For the past week or so, my Google Reader has been on over-drive.  It’s not that there’s any more posts than usual to read – though thanks to Twitter, I have found some new blogs to follow.  It’s  more that I just haven’t really had the time or the desire to catch up.

Currently, I have over 450 posts sitting there begging to be ignored read.  And well, I just don’t think I can swing it.  I’m thinking that I’m just going to have to suck it up and just mark them all as read.  I’m sure I’ll most a lot of good biz-friendly stuff since that’s what more than half of it consists of.  But I can’t deal with the pressure and then the guilt of staring at those numbers day after day.

Consider them marked as read…

*whew* now we can start over again!

Anniversary Flowers

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These are the beautiful (if not overwhelmingly aromatic) lilies that the hubby bought me yesterday for our anniversary. Today, twice as many blooms are opened (making things even more aromatic still) than yesterday, and at least a good dozen flowers are still closed and not yet blooming. I’m sure by Sunday the bouquet will be amazing.

Happy Anniversary Flowers

Hmmm…I wonder if the lovely (if not overwhelming aroma) has anything to do with my allergies going insanely crazy today?

It’s Official…It’s May

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It’s amazing to me how much of the year has gone by already. I mean, really, it’s May! For us, May pretty much starts the summer season. Concert season begins and vacations happens. Our anniversary starts it all off on May 1st and in my husband’s family, it’s officially the start of the birthday season (mine is in mere days)!

But there’s still so much more May madness…A few weeks ago I posted about my friend’s YouTube video trailer for their Fun With War Crimes series. Well, it’s officially launched and ready for your viewing. Enjoy!

And now, now I must go find some allergy medicine as I seem to feel like my nose is about to explode off my face from the damn tickling. And the eyes, the burning, the watering. Man, allergy season sucks. I guess it’s May afterall.

We’re pretty booked with concerts and dinners this weekend, so I probably won’t be around much. Wishing you all a Happy Weekend!

It’s Been Four Years

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I have mere minutes left in this day to tell you that four years ago today my adorable, photographer, workaholic husband agreed to stand before our friends and family and make it official.  And man, what a party!  If I knew you all a little better (ha!) 😉 I’d even share the pictures from our shindig so you’d feel like you were there too (it’s a shame what what a little stalking can do to a gal *sigh*)

The funny thing, all of us, the hubs, me, our friends, all swear it’s really our fifth anniversary.  But I double checked the marriage certificate, just to be sure and nope…four years.

We stayed in for the night, nothing too crazy fancy.  I tired my hand at braised short ribs.  They were kick ass flavorful, but not nearly as tender as I was expecting considering they cooked for nearly 3 hours.  But oh well, the salad and the fixin’s were good.  And the wine…the wine was wonderful.

We didn’t really do the gifts thing.  He brought me some beautiful lilies and I picked him up the Godfather set, but nothing fancy.  And certainly nothing 4th anniversary-ish – we’ve yet to do those official anniversary gifts.  I guess we’re just goofy like that.

Happy Anniversary to Me!!  Well, to Us – but he doesn’t read this, so I guess just Me, really 😀

Life Lesson: A Shopping Bag Mishap

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I’ve often wondered just how difficult it is to put items in a bag. You know, sometimes the baggers put the gallon of milk and the bread in the same bag. Or only put one item per bag. Or stack everything on your eggs. You get the idea.

Today I ran out to Costco to pick up some basics like vitamins and razor blades. While there I figured I’ll pick up a spinach salad for dinner. I went in with my own cloth bag to make things easier. Or so I thought it would be.

I watched the guy try to put all the boxes in the bag before the smaller stuff. You know, ‘cuz boxes you can hold pretty easily, but five small bottles of vitamins might not be quite so easy to hold onto. So I asked that he put the smaller items in first and not to worry about the boxes of cereals and Fiber One bars. He looked at me like I was speaking Greek. I should have just taken over the bagging then and there.

I mean me, I would have put the salad in first – one, it’s large and about the width of the bag itself and two, it’s nice and flat. But no, he decided that the salad should just be squeezed in, in between the boxes – making not only a tight, uneven bag (since he went away from the width and put things in sideways), but plenty of space in the bottom with all the vitamin bottles jangling about. Whatever, I headed out the door.

I come home and pull up the salad to put in the fridge and BLAMMO! salad explodes all over the counter, the bag and the floor. One of the dressing also popped open and exploded on the floor. My dog is having a field day eating the bacon bits and the cheese. Me, I’m cursing up a storm.

Luckily, between the Dyson and the dog, things are cleaned up. But I have to say, I’m pissed! One, that was our dinner and now, well, the dog has eaten about half of it (minus the spinach itself of course). And two, it cost me $9! I guess we’ll behaving either sandwiches or soup with our salad tonight.

*sigh*

The lesson here…pack your own bags. Especially if you bring your own bags with you – that “my bag is larger and sturdier and can carry more than your plastic sack” concept just seems to throw those baggers for a loop.

WooHoo!!! Gotta Love Twitter!

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Thanks to Twitter, I’ve made some new business friends.  In particular, I really enjoy reading and learning more about Guy Kawasaki.  If you haven’t yet heard, Guy and his friends have started up an awesome blog aggregation site called Alltop.com.  Within the site itself, various blogs are divided up between different categories.  The categories are then even further divided up.

Well, take a bold step (and doing something totally out of character for myself), I shot Guy a DM (direct message) on Twitter and asked if it would be possible to get my site listed in the Women’s section of Alltop.  I just received confirmation that he’s accepted and it’s done!

I’m so excited by what this will mean for my site.  I mean so many more people that until now have never heard of my site will now be reading it!  And as one would expect, there’s a trickle of fear involved as well.  Hello…I need to have some good content on there if I expect folks to keep sticking around.  But I’ll just throw that out into the Universe – good content, good writers, good commenters & good giveaways – and know that it will be provided for me.

Heck, I don’t doubt that this all came from my recent cleaning and organizing trend.  Not to mention the focused intent I’ve had going on lately.  I’m so grateful that things are moving forward like this.  I just love knowing that you get what you ask for.  As Michael Gerber said a while back in a teleconference I was listening to…if not me, than who else?  So why not me, right?