Categories
Gratuitous Picture Post News Travel

Updates from the past month

So, I moved. My friends and I painted the new apartment, I went into a frenzy of packing, and after $500 and eight hours with two professional movers, my stuff was officially transferred from West Hollywood to West L.A.

Living room
Living room, painting and filled with stuff

It’s been a rush, to be sure. The new place is smaller and I’m trying to readjust my thinking as I try to purge the excess from the many boxes. I’ve always been very attached to “having stuff”, even if it’s just stuff I shove under a bed or into a closet. Having it has always been the key for me. Now, I’m working on asking myself, “So what if I *don’t* have it? What will change?” This week I gifted several of my prized collectible Barbies. I’m shipping yarn to a friend tomorrow. I’m starting to think it might even be possible for me to let go of the Buffy action figures. ?!

Tomorrow I’m going to Ikea to purchase two PAX wardrobe units for my bedroom, and I’m very excited. I’ve been living out of suitcases for two weeks now (my dresser did not survive the move, and the new place as ONE, TINY closet), and I’ve reached a point with the boxes where there just isn’t any place left to put things. And Saturday, WeHo is having a shredding/recycling event at City Hall, so I may even get to unload 15 years of paper in one fell swoop. Seriously, I’m getting all tingly.

ION, I went home to Massachusetts last month for my friend Rebecca’s wedding. It was a great week (Red Sox game! Karaoke! Bar hopping in Boston!) and a great wedding, and I even learned that Mr. Darcy actually had a first name. I did not know that. (It’s Fitzwilliam, btw. Or maybe FitzWilliam?)

That’s all the news that’s fit to print–for now, anyway. 🙂

Categories
Gratuitous Picture Post Travel

Goodbye, vacation! I’ll miss you!

This is my last day of vacation before heading back to work tomorrow. The vacation was awesome and deserves a much more involved post, but for now, some pics:

Categories
Miscellaneous Travel

A work in progress

As you may or may not be able to tell, I’m still working on the site. I’ve found my general layout, but I’m still working on the colors and graphics, so please bear* with me. Man, I hate png files!

In other news, there’s only one more sleep before my sis and bro-in-law arrive–yay! So glad I’m getting an extra day with them. Thank you, forecasted New England snowstorm, for forcing them to move their flight up a day.

And since it’s been awhile since I posted a photo, here’s my Zeva mid-yawn. *g*

IMG_0202

*I totally just googled this to make sure I was using the correct “bear/bare”. Fortunately I was right the first time. 😀

Categories
Blogs Links News Travel

Six months in 500 words or less

May 1st?? May freakin’ first?!!! Wow, someone needs to kick my ass. Let’s see if I can summarize the past holy-wow-six months.

May:
TroubleBad news first: My cat Trouble died. It was a terrible terrible thing, and I still blame myself for being too busy to take her to the vet sooner. She spent almost a week in the vet hospital before she passed, and I visited her every day. I wasn’t with her when she died, arriving about 30 minutes too late. 🙁

June:
Was the “official” photographer for a meet and greet fan event with Nick Brendon.

IMG_6450Got a new friend for Jack–this is Dr. Zeva Tinycat, although she’s no longer quite this tiny, as she eats like the shelter cat she was. She’s two and a half, loves string and meowing a lot, doesn’t like people food, and bounces on the stomachs of my houseguests when they sleep on the couch.

Started seeing a therapist. She’s cool, albeit expensive. The expense adds a little to my stress, but I feel it’s the one thing I can’t really talk about with her.

July:
Spot of my perfect momentDrove out to Zion National Park in Utah by myself and spent a couple of days hiking. It was an incredible experience. The park was beautiful, and being on my own and beholden to none was very freeing. Next time, though, I’d rather share the beauty with someone–and the little travelled trail I’d discovered.

August:
For my birthday I got my first ever kidney stone. Yeah, it sucked donkey balls. It hit two days before, at work. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where my boss hung out with me until I was released (and it was *his* birthday). Spent the rest of the week on my couch in much pain. Bonus, I still have two more stones hanging out in my kidneys that could drop at any time. Yay.

September:
IMG_8398Spent nine days at Disney World with nine friends and relatives to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. We had a BLAST! Seriously, one of my best vacations ever.

October:
Work project kicked into high gear and the stress became the center of my life. Not the greatest month ever. However, I did make it to Carnaval in West Hollywood for the first time in about seven years, so that was cool. It’s still just as fun and crazy as I remember. And I spent four hours on a Saturday helping to assemble holiday boxes to send to troops in I believe Afghanistan. That was cool.

So now it’s November. The work project is still in progress and still stressful, but should be launching in a week and a half. Unfortunately it coincides with a Fitness Challenge being held at the work-site gym, where eight teams of eight are competing to lose the most (percentage-wise) in seven weeks. I’m blogging my progress with that little event over here, but I must say, not being able to eat chocolate when I’m stressed is doing bad things to my general disposition.

I’ve been crocheting this whole time. All summer I’d work on granny squares–boring, basic squares, each made from a full ball of Plymouth Encore. I now have 20 squares that need to be joined into a blanket. Don’t know when that’ll be happening. I also made one ginormous granny square blanket for my sister’s birthday.

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So that’s the past six months in a nutshell. Hopefully it won’t be another six months before my next update. 🙂

Categories
Programming Travel

WordCamp SF

Sitting in the first session of the WordCamp SF one-day conference, waiting for Writing Plugins for NooBs to start. Whee!