Category Archives: life

How I Spent My Labor Day Weekend

1 Reply

Did I hang out at the beach?  No, but I did go to the Pier at Huntington Beach for dinner with an old friend one night.  We didn’t quite make it to the beach, though I could see the waves break through the windows and got to smell the bonfires as we drove down PCH.

Did I focus on work like some focused folks I know?  No.  In fact, I’ve been trying to log into my shopping cart system all damn weekend so I could get something set up, but for the life of me, I can’t log in.  And of course they’re not open today.

Did I clean house or at least get some clothes together to donate as part of my 29 Gifts?  No, but I have been pretty consistent in giving this weekend.  Even if I have’t been consistent in compiling my too big clothes and older kitchen wares to give away.

What I did do was shop.  Both online and in person.  If I wasn’t at a store, then I was online.  I was hoping to find stuff for Ireland, but nothing long-sleeved or winter wearable are in the stores just yet. I’m thinking the winter stuff will be in the stores shortly.  Luckily since I lived in NM, I honestly don’t really need anything but waterproof shoes and a waterproof coat (the sweaters are still boxed away).  The hub, well he’s another story; along with needing shoes and a coat, he also needs shirts and sweaters and probably a decent pair of gloves come to think of it (native Los Angelino that he is).

And when I wasn’t out and about shopping, I was listening to the news.  Except for forays to the Weather Channel for Gustav updates during commercial breaks, I don’t think our TV has been off CNN since the DNC last week.  And while I was listening to the news, if i wasn’t shopping, I was poking around trying to find a B&B in Galway city centre (or at least a walkable distance from the Centre so we won’t need to deal with parking our car while shopping and partaking of the pub life).  Anyone have a suggestion there?

I can’t say it’s been the most exciting weekend, but hey, it’s been relaxing for the most part.  And I’ve definately enjoyed the time spent with friends.

So how was your Labor Day weekend?  Anything exciting?

Help, I Need Ideas…

5 Replies

I’ve decided that I want to hold off on doing giveaways on my site for a while.  Or at least until I make some final decisions on our new design and whatnot.  Until then, I need something fun to write about.

Basically, it’s a site for women, about women.  I typically tell people that we talk about anything that women talk about when they get together.  And I don’t know about you guys, but when my friends get together for book club, the topics cover everything from parenting to porn, to recipes, vacation and fashion.  You name it.

Thing is, I’m just stuck for topics to write about.  Mind you, I could come up with a gazillion ideas for YOU to write about.  But for me, yeah, not so much.

So any topic ideas?  Or anything you might want to share?

One of My Favorite Things About the Fall…

3 Replies

Spa Week baby!  It’s the coolest thing, you can any treatment from botox to a massage to a facial or body scrub all for $50!!!  It’s a great way to check out a spa to decide if it’s one you might want to go back to later. There seems to be less spas participating this fall, compared to last spring, but there’s still a good amount in both LA and the OC.

If you’re in the LA area, I can’t recommend Skin Haven enough.  I had the herbology scrub there last Spa Week and it was divine!  Tell them I sent ya.

All I need now is a pumpkin spice latte and I’ll be a happy gal.  Well, that and maybe some cooler weather.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sommer Designs

And now, completely unrelated to the fall (kinda – “end of summer” means fall, right?)…a good friend and fellow LWLer, Sommer Designs is celebrating the end of summer by giving away this bee-you-tee-ful apron.  Just go here and leave her a comment letting her know just how talented she is (kidding, though she is talented).  Good luck!

My New Allergy Medicine is Messing With Me

1 Reply

It not only knocks me out totally and completely for the night, but it gives me some messed up dreams.  Today, I was dreaming that my ears were bleeding.  Yet this caused no concern on my “friend’s” part.  And or course, I don’t this had anything to do with the earlier part of the dream where I was in India getting ready to take a cruise (huh?) but spending all my time wandering around taking pictures.  Again, all with some “friend” that I don’t recognize.

And all of this is since I started the new allergy meds (something called Xyzal along with some inhaler thing called Patanase).  Funny thing, all that itching last week, all that torture, even more torture during the prick test and well, nothing showed up as causing an allergic reaction.  Well, nothing except the histamine reaction showing that I indeed was having a reaction to something. Now we just wait on the blood results and hope I don’t have to do the prick test all over again.

What’s Your Favorite Mascara?

8 Replies

I need your help.  I learned from a friend of mine that my lashes will hold their curl better with a “gel based” mascara.  Of course, this make up artist friend of mine suggested some high end product.  Now I don’t mind spending the money from time to time, especially if the product works great.  But…I only wear make up once or twice a week.  Which of course means, I never get my money’s worth out of a full tube.

So I’m hoping to find a good drugstore brand.  I know all the magazines rave about the pink miracle, Great Lash, but I just can’t get behind it.  The wand is too wimpy for my tastes.  So I thought I’d ask the mightly blogsophere.

Help a gal out – what’s your favorite mascara and why?

And now we return to trying to ditch this migraine.  You can seem to set a clock by my migraines and when I need a chiropractic adjustment.

Oh No, Baby Spiders!!

1 Reply

I just got in a bit ago from picking the hubs up at the airport and then a quick dinner in Hermosa Beach.  We’re laying on the couch with the boys and I look to the window.  I notice a BUNCH of little black dots all over my curtains.  Thinking they must be bugs of some sort (I did just vacuum the other day), I got up to get a closer look.

Yep, bunches of baby spiders are sleeping on my curtains!  Off to grab the Dyson – who cares if it’s midnight, I have baby spiders!  I sucked them all up.  Of course, now they’re living my my empty canister (since it was just dumped clean the other day).  Really, I hate spiders – babies or not.

And of course, now I’m imagining that my body is covered in little, baby spiders.  Gross!

When the Husband is Away…

2 Replies

…the wife will scratch!

Okay, I’m down to the final countdown here.  My appointment is at 2:30 tomorrow.  I just need to make it through tonight.  Luckily, the itching seems to much more tame today.  I’m thinking it just means that I’m getting used to being without meds again.  Then agian, I typically go scratching crazy at night, so who knows.

I did decide that today was the day for errands.  Amazing how much earlier I can wake up when I go to bed earlier – funny how that works.  I had to pick up some meds, drop off some food at the local food bank (thank you 29 Days of Giving), and head out to J Crew to see if those $50 flipflops are on sale yet (they are – $35 at 30% off — I’d happily pay $25 for them though I didn’t like the way they fit).

After the errands, I spent most of the day working on biz stuff – emails, bookkeeping (half-way!!), and reading some biz stuff.  I find that I set these priorities and tasks for myself and my business, but then life happens and I keep putting things off.  I’ve been much better this week though, so I hope to keep this momentum going.

I also decided to look at a condo today.  The hubs actually looked at it on Sunday while I was at book club and asked that I check it out this week.  It’s a nice complex, right down the street, quiet, has a rec room (where I could lead workshops), pool, gym, blah, blah.  It’s a bit bigger than I’d think we’d need with PLENTY of storage which of course means that sadly, we’d easily be able to fill up all that space.  I think it might be a bit out of our price range, but who knows.  It’s definitelly nice to at least get the energy flowing in the direction of creating a new living space.  There’s one smaller one a town or two over that he’d like me to look at as well so I’ll call on that tomorrow.

Now…it’s time for dinner and a chick flick.

I Think I’m Going to Have to Slipcover My Couch…

6 Replies

Or is that too reminiscent of those early adult, post-college days?  I mean do real people use slipcovers?  Well, slipcovers that weren’t made specifically for that particular piece of furniture, I mean – we’re not talking Pottery Barn sofa here.  This isn’t a judgment by any means, it’s truly a question I’ve been pondering for the past couple of months.

And speaking of generic slipcovers, how do you know they’ll fit?  My couch doesn’t look like the couches in the pictures – it’s longer and has low arms.  How do you know it won’t look stupid and look like you just threw a sheet or a blanket over your couch like we did back when we were first starting out?

We bought a hand-me-down couch about a year ago.  It was in pretty good shape, but the fabric had a little wear and tear – I mean, it’s a couch for Pete’s sake.  Of course, with a husband, a dog and a cat, it’s seen some better days and far too many pairs of claws if you ask me.

We can’t really afford to just toss it (hell, there’s a reason we bought a used couch to begin with), but we also can’t afford to reupholster the whole thing either.  In fact, I hear that with the money we might spend to reupholster, we might as well just buy a new couch.

So I figured that I’d try this slipcover thing.  But Lordy, who knew they’d be so expensive?  I guess I just have issues forking over $150+ when I don’t even know if it will look good, stay put or even fit. 

So I have to ask, do you use slipcovers on your every day furniture?  Are you pleased with it?  Are some kinds better than others?  Can you recommend a store or site where they make a good (but not so crazy expensive) one?

And totally unrelated…

One – the itching is killing me.  The good news, I learned today that ice helps the itching and in some cases can kill the burn & the itch.  The better news, my friends assure me that once I finish my allergy test, they’ll give me an allergy med shot right there in the office – oh sweet relief!  Even better still…only 1.5 more days of this insanity and I’ll be back on the meds!!! (Curly, to get accurate test results, I had to be allergy med-free for a week).

Two – I sent out my first business newsletter today.  I was (and am) super proud of it and think it looks great and has some good content.  Well, I thought it had some good content.  Turns out a product I was pitching (an awesome DIY SEO book) is no longer available.  Ooops!  Guess next time I’ll check those links before I send it out.

Okay, off to get a new ice pack – this one has melted too much and seems to have lost it’s magic touch.

And So it Starts…

1 Reply

Well, the itching has begun *sigh* and it’s driving me insane already.

The good news, as my friends from book club pointed out, it looks as though I’m not as allergic to the cat as I may have thought.  My itching started and advanced all while sitting outside in my friend’s backyard without a cat anywhere in sight.  I also noticed that once I got in the car and started heading home, the incessant itching calmed down (and that’s with the windows open).  Once I got home, I’m still not scratching anywhere near as much as I was outside earlier.  So good news for the cute one!

And totallly unrelated, the hubs stopped by an open house today up the street and liked it.  He wants me to call and schedule a visit myself when he’s out of town this week.  Should be interesting.

And still more unrelated…I just gave up on my Reader and deleted about half of my subscriptions.  So now I’m thankfully down to 150 or so blogs with more still that can probably be culled.  It’s a start.

Great Show Tonight: Martina McBride @ Verizon Amphitheater

1 Reply

Tonight we headed down to the OC to see Martina McBride at the Verizon Amphitheater. I just love Martina, but have yet to see her live so I begged the hubs to take me. Plenty of tickets were still available, so we figured we’d just buy lawn seats when we got there like we did for Brad Paisley.

I’m waiting by the gate while the hubby buys the tickets. I had no idea what was taking so long. He walks over to me and tells me that they didn’t open the lawn, but that he thinks I’ll like the seats. When then start the trek up to the “cheap” seats. Or so I thought.

Turns out, they gave him tickets in the pit. So basically, we were 6th row. This is the first time in a long, long, loooong time since I’ve been this close to a show. I think Depeche Mode in ’86 was my last show where I was this close (ah…the days when a day of scaped ticket would only cost you $35).

Needless to say, the show was incredible. The energy level was great. She sounded awesome. When I listen to Martina or Trisha Yearwood live, I’m always amazed at just how sucky the current crop of pop singers really are. I mean on her best day, I don’t think Britney Spears could even come close to singing the notes these ladies sing.

Of course, tonight I decided to not bring my purse, camera or phone with me. So the few photos we did get (I had to try, I was too close to waste the opportunity) were from the hubby’s blackberry which has no zoom and takes some pretty shitty photos.

After the show we stopped by the Irvine Spectrum for dinner…but uh, no purse = no ID. Yeah, I’m about ready to be knocking on 40’s door not all too far in the future here, but without an ID they didn’t want to let me in. I swore up and down that I would only be drinking diet coke (ended up drinking green tea, close enough). I get that you need to card and all, but we just wanted dinner and at 11:30 at night very few places were open. Luckily the manager agreed to let us in after making sure I don’t work for ABC or law enforcement – LOL.

Oh yeah, those pit tickets…only cost $12 for the pair!!! Times like this remind me that when you share what you have with others (I’m doing the 29 Days of Giving), it comes back to you in so many ways. Amazing stuff.

Great night all around. Now it’s nearly 3:00AM and it’s time for bed.