card party April 23, 2012

 

our wonderful family friend Luann Macdonald hosted a card making party at our house this past weekend.  i got to invite my new friend allison and my mom and sister also invited a couple of their friend.  of course, no boys were allowed at this awesome girl party!  since the party started at 9am my mom made caramel french toast (so delicious) and we had a basket full of strawberries!!  what a great way to start a party!!  then it was on to the cards. for $25 we got to make 10 cards!!!  we had 5 designs so we made two of each.  the nice thing about how luann runs her parties is that all the supplies needed for one card comes in a box and the directions are written on the side!  so allison and i were able to go to each card making station and do it ourselves!  there were a couple of tricks that we needed help on, but we pretty much rocked it ourselves!  and now we’re fully equipped with a stack of birthday and thank you cards.  i’m a HUGE fan of arts and crafts and so i really enjoyed that party.

 

house of blues April 23, 2012

my old partner from work, david, and i went to see a concert at hollywood house of blues!  it was my first time to a house of blues.  the venue was a bit small, but i actually really liked it!  we went to see Attack Attack and Escape the Fate, which are more on the rock/punk/metal side of music.  it was a ton of fun!  there were crazy amounts of crowd surfers and moshing throughout the concert along with a bunch of singing and jumping.  i love live music and how people express themselves in different ways while enjoying it.

 

mondo April 7, 2012

one of my favorite tv shows to watch is project runway.  that might not say a lot cuz i only watch about 3 shows religiously.  however, PR is still at the top of my lil list.  it’s also at the top of my mom’s and sister’s list!  so we had this great idea, since i moved down here, to watch the episodes together.  it was trickier than expected cuz of my late night work schedule and us all just being busy in general.  however, we made it work.  and i’m glad, because when you get the 3 of us together to watch PR, it’s like how guys watch football.  no joke!  we’re yelling at the judges, asking some designers what are they thinking, laughing at the drama, crying with the losers, and cheering for our favorites.  ever since the beginning of this “all star” season i was routing for the designer Mondo.  i personally think he was the best of his prior season yet folded under the pressure of his final runway.  Mondo is 100% my style and i think i’d wear about 98% of what he made on the show.  he’s also very passionate about his dream and has a good head on his shoulders.  and, to my delight, he won this season!  my heart was pounding as they were stalling on announcing the winner, but when the called his name i jumped for joy!

asking alexandria March 23, 2012

david and i went to go see my new favorite metal/punk band, asking alexandria, in concert at the SOMA in san diego a couple weeks ago… and let me tell you, it was the CRAZIEST show i’ve been to yet!  asking alexandria fans are awesomely ridiculous!  david and i got great spots close to the stage and a lil to the left.  we thought we’d be free from mosh pits, but nope!!  there was the major mosh pit in the middle of the venue and then there were tiny ones all over the place, including one right next to us.  and when the large mosh pit in the middle got too out of hand, we got smooshed!!  haha.  one time the girl next to me fell down and i helped pick her up.  it’s all in fun.  i love how live music moves people, whether it’s moshing, singing, zoning out, or dancing.  i mostly singed and danced!… and got smooshed.  at one point, the band encouraged us to do the “wall of death”, which is when the crowd splits in two right down the middle.  so everyone is squished up against the side walls and when the band gives the cue, the two halves of the room run towards each other and mosh or whatever in the middle.  once they said wall of death, i hid behind david and watched my life flash before my eyes.  luckily tho, we were close enough to the stage where we didn’t really get involved.  however it was pretty insane to watch!  my ears were ringing for about 3 days, especially my left ear!  what a night!

 

visit February 4, 2012

a couple of my family members came to visit us for a few days.  it was perfect timing since i just had my surgery and i was still off from work.  aggie is living in west virginia right now and krish is living in oregon.  both of those places are experiencing some gloomy weather so we decided to live up the OC life while they were here.  we all went down to laguna beach and sat out on a patio drinking mixed drinks and eating chips and guacamole!! it was a nice relaxing day.

Aggie, Krish, Sarah, Dad, Me, Mom

dutch pride October 22, 2011

ever since i can remember my family has been going to june lake, mammoth area, for a family fishing trip every summer.  i don’t know when it started, but a tradition formed once we discovered Eric Schat’s Bakery, a dutch bakery in Bishop CA.  on the the way to AND from june lake we would stop at this bakery and load up on baked goods… including cookies, bread, and breakfast treats!  my favorites have always been their traditional sheepherder’s bread and lace cookies!  we’d also usually time it right so that their deli section would be open and we could get a sandwich served on fresh-out-of-the-oven bread!

me with sheepherder's bread!

i recently went on a trip to tahoe and took my friend to schat’s and he loved it!  he couldn’t believe the quality of the baked goods and the deliciousness of the sandwitches.  i believe he said something along the lines of “this is the best sandwitch i’ve ever had”.

birthday plans August 30, 2011

so i’m getting a bunch of questions about what i’m doing for my birthday.  well, since we had such a huge birthday party last year (click here to read about it) i thought i’d keep it on the down low this year.  my birthday is on a thursday, but i work on thursdays.  so, family and dear friends, if you’re free wednesday night on september 7th, lets all go out to dinner somewhere.  where?  i’m not sure yet.  but i’ll let you know once i know. (i’m thinking slater’s 50/50)

and if you can’t make it to dinner or are afraid of barging in on family time, i’m totally down for hanging out individually with you some time and grabbing a drink or a meal of some sort.

that’s what i truly enjoy, just spending time with people… either in a group or individually.  that’s what means the most to me!  but i know that some of you have been asking me if i have a birthday list, so if you want to get me something i do have a wish list on amazon: http://amzn.com/w/1H1D2BXED2P7G but hanging out over a meal or coffee means just the same to me too!

space August 28, 2011

since i’ve moved back home i have been working on remodeling my room… cuz it was full of pink and purple flowered wall paper and kinda reminded me of a pre-school class room.  so since then i’ve put up crown molding along with molding around the window and doors.  i also threw on some nice floor boards too!  the molding adds quite the sophistication!  and since my room was an add on to the house and is right next to the garage, it doesn’t stay very cool during the summer.  so i installed a much needed ceiling fan!  oh i wanted one of those in high school so badly!  it also has four functioning light bulbs, so i can actually see things in my room!  it’s quite lovely.

i’m hoping to get a coat of primer on the walls some time this week.  i just have a bit more of sanding to do then we’ll be good to go.  after that i’ll paint the walls, make/install some type of book shelving, and get rid of my desk that i don’t even fit in anymore thanks to my ridiculously long legs! i’m thinking i’ll probably store my bike where my desk is, just so that it’s not chillin in the living room anymore. and i also love my bike and don’t mind it lookin at it all the time.  when i lived in santa cruz i always had my biking in my room and i miss that… it’s kinda a comfort thing, like a security blanket i guess.

we also need to do some serious work in my bathroom.  we’re buying and installing a new toilet next week.  i’m so stoked for a new toilet cuz the one i have now has been broken since some time in high school.  and it also turns on when the sprinklers go on at night, and that’s not fun to wake up to.  honestly tho, that whole bathroom needs to be gutted due to water damage cuz the shower’s been leaking for who knows how long… and the shower tiles were cracked and yep…. we got some bubblin dry wall.  yuck.  but we fixed the shower a couple days ago, the leak and the cracks.

i can’t wait to have a lil space all to my own!

up close August 12, 2011

i took an intro to photography class when i went to UCSC, and through it i learned countless photography techniques along with the history of photographers.  my favorite photographer that i studied was robert capa because his slogan was “If your picture isn’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.  and i agree 100%.  throughout the class i found myself lying in the dirt, getting in people’s personal bubble, climbing trees, etc just to get close enough.

one day my professor asked us to all take out a piece of paper and write down in words the picture we’ve always wanted to take, but haven’t.  so i wrote down “a close up portrait of a cow”.  she stumbled through all the responses and only read a few outloud, and of course one of them was mine!  “why not?” she asked me.  i told her i was too scared and the cows were never close enough to the fence (we had cows that grazed lower campus).  “hop the fence then!!”  i never did.

but i just went to the orange county fair the other day with my friend garrett and got this shot.  now, it’s not what i imagined, cuz i want blue sky and/or green grass to be somewhere in the picture, but this is a start!  it makes me really happy, and it’s actually the picture on my computer desktop…  that’s how proud of it i am!

 

25 August 8, 2011

i turn a quarter of a century in a month.

and i don’t feel old!