Category Archives: life

I Guess I Should Post Something Already

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I figured that this weekend I was just going to embrace the whole three-day-weekend mentality.  Needless to say, I’ve not done a whole lot of anything since returning home (I’ll write a Sonoma update tomorrow, though truth be told, not all too much happened).

Both yesterday and today I did a little bit of shopping.  While there are some great sales out there this weekend, nothing really grabbed me but a couple of basic tees from Eddie Bauer. At least today I got to hang with a girlfriend while she shopped.  Either way, crazy crowds reminding me why I usually do my shopping during the week.

On to the random thoughts:

* the pup has been doing nothing more than just lying about.  I guess a couple of days at doggie sleepaway camp is some exhausting stuff.

* the cat hasn’t been doing much more than the pup, except in his case, he’s all about the snuggling.

* weather has been crazy.  We went from cold and rainy in Northern Cali, to cold and gloomy here in LA.  We had to use the heat yesterday it was so cold!  This, after 95+ days just last week!  What the hell?!?!

* I’m looking for some book suggestions.  I’ve been pretty focused on reading business books lately, but right about now, I want something good and devourable.  You know, something to get lost in for a day or two.  Extra credit if I can get it at the library (though I do have some B&N money from a b’day gift I can cash in).  I’m also looking for another book to get me through the cross-country flight and back next weekend.  Any suggestions?

* I seem to be PMSy and coming down with something.  I noticed last night that my throat seems to be hurting.  I’m afraid it’s a post-nasal thing, in which case, with my past experiences, might turn into a sinus infection (if not yet, but the time we fly back from NJ next weekend).  PMS and chocolate cravings don’t miss so well with the sore throat.  Of course, that’s not stopping me 😉

Okay, off to snuggle with my boys.  I’ll share some photos (barely took any) and some trip recaps tomorrow.

PS – Julianne Hough’s CD isn’t all that bad – in fact, it’s better than I had expected.  How funny that I can just see some of her DWTS moves to the music.

Breakfast is For the Birds

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Just now I was in the other room kissing the hubs good-bye as he heads off to work.  There was this god-awful squawking going on and I noticed the cat was paying close attention to something outside the window.  Turns out there was a baby bird in the flower bed squawking for his mama to bring him some food.

I noticed that she was feeding him some peanut shell (our crazy, bird-feeding neighbor across the way feeds buckets of peanuts to the local pigeons – and now the local area ducks – a couple times a day).  Figuring that peanut shell can’t be all too tasty, I ripped up half a slice of bread and quietly threw it out the door.

Of course, then five other small black birds came flying over to join the mama and her baby for some breakfast of ripped up bread.  Though I do wonder if it’s breakfast for them since they’ve likely been up for hours upon hours by now. I decided then and there that I was going to write this up since it was such a sweet thing, but I needed a photo so that the sweetness would just burst your little heart.  But um…I couldn’t find my camera.

This of course, is not good news (though secretly, deep inside it’s better than good news, it’s great news!).  I looked and I looked, and it was no where to be found.  It must have fallen out of my purse during the wine tasting trip.  Uh Oh!  Not cool since we go out of town this weekend and of course a gal needs her camera when going out of town.

I figured it was easier to break the news to the hubs now, so I had enough time to head over to Costco to pick up a new(er, smaller, sleeker, cooler – so exciting!) camera.  While I’m breaking the news to the hubs, I notice a black thingie under the coffee table.  Yep, my camera. *sigh* I mean Yay!

No new camera for me.  And sadly, no pictures of the mama and the baby bird as they’re no longer in front of our window.  Though I still here the baby squawking somewhere next door and there is still some bread crumbs in the front.  Maybe those peanut shells do taste better if you’re a little black bird.

Must be Quick

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I’m heading out the door in a few minutes. Yes, you’re eyes are NOT deceiving you, it is indeed merely 8:00Am here in the hot San Fernando Valley.  My widget tells me to expect 102 today. Yikes!

Well lucky for me, I’ll be out wine tasting in Temecula.  Mmmmm….wine.  It’s a shuttled trip with a friend from LWL.  So basically, we can drink more than we might otherwise and know that we have at least a two hour commute (no traffic) until we get back in front of our cars.  Should be fun.

I’m bringing my camera, so hopefully I can get some fun shots. Funny thing, I’ll be up in Sonoma in a few days for still more wine.  Yum!  You better believe that NO bottles of wine will be coming home with me (today).

And speaking of cameras…I went to the Crowded House show last night at the Orpheum.  The Orpheum is one of LA’s art deco style theaters.   Absolutely gorgeous.  We actually hung out afterwards looking around and taking pictures.  So woohoo, looks like I’ll have some fresh Wordless Wednesday material…finally.

The show was quite good as well.  The guys were in great form playing off of each other and the audience.  I did realize though, Crowded House is much like Toad the Wet Sprocket for me.  I love them, and will always recognize their songs, but…I can rarely sing along since I like to listen to them while doing other things.  They have great background noise and perfect for driving (not necessarily singing).

Okay, time to head out.  Hope you guys have a great Saturday and those of you here in SoCal, stay cool!

I Love My Doctor

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She actually just called me personally to tell me that we need to do some bloodwork (at the request of the insurance company) for my thyroid. Come on, what doctor does that? She didn’t pass the call off to her staff. Nope, she called me personally. Just another reason to love my doctor!

And totally unrelated…but when did we stop getting real mail?  All I get now on most days is piles and piles of junk mail.  You know, the stupid sales papers, postcards to bridal fairs and other wedding crap (it doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve been married four years now, someone must’ve recently sold my info), and other variations of junk and crap.  I want real mail dammit!

Looking For Advice From Those More Experienced

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The other day, I was asked to speak on my area of expertise for a DVD that will be handed out at upcoming networking and training events.  I’m not so much worried about what I have to say (though I am hoping I can do so without a plethora of “ums” and sound confident – you’d think that years of being a DJ and teacher I could at least talk clearly and professionally, right?).  Right now, I’m more concerned with what to wear on Tuesday.

It’s going to be conducted in front of a green screen – so blues, greens and aquas are out.  I think I’ve heard once that you shouldn’t wear prints.  But other than that, I’m at a loss.   Should I go more “professional” or will I do fine with a classic look of jeans and a tee?  Or maybe a nice blouse or cardigan set? Should I wear black and call it a day (we all know that I have tons of black) or should a wear a color that I know flatters?  Pants or skirt or just screw it and go with a dress?

HELP!!! I’m really a bit out of my element here. Anyone with more experience with this have any ideas???

Then I had some great news again yesterday.  I was invited to take part in an online radio talk show.  This is kind of cool.  I need a decent, professional-like photo for this.  The hubs can easily take and edit the photo, but I don’t really know, again, what I should be wearing or where we should take it.  I need to do this today since they want it up on their site prior to the June 9th show.  FWIW, we have Griffith Park nearby, so an outdoor shot is easily doable, but it’s hazy and overcast and we don’t have any lighting tools.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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!

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!

He Did It!!

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Yay for my little guy! He passed his interview. Personally, I think he wowed the behavior gal by loving her to death. He can be charming like that. From what I saw on the webcam he seemed to do okay with the other dogs. We’re going to drop him off for daycare for a couple of hours later this week to make sure he gets more comfortable with being around that many dogs.

I did learn that on a webcam, well, he looks just like every other small black dog. I only knew it was him because all the other dogs were swarmed about him and the behavior lady was right there next to him. So I guess when we leave him, we’ll leave him with a bandanna so we’ll be able to recognize him quickly.

Even that little time he was there must have tired him out some. He’s been lounging about all day. More than usual. So I’m sure if he’s comfortable and playing, he’ll be even more tuckered. And this is good to know.

So once we get back from our vacations, he can look like this…

How Much is that Doggie in the Mirror