garden is getting there!

I wish I had taken "before" photos of the garden-area, because it looks so dramatically different now! It WAS a corner in the back that was a mess of grape vines, rose bushes, and weeds - and is now a beautiful, weeded, TILLED lot, all ready for planting. I got home last night and Adam had spent his whole day cleaning the yard - including prepping the garden for me. I couldn't believe it. He also finished the fence!!! Now we just have to put it up! I'm SO CLOSE to being able to plant!!!

I am still debating the square foot gardening thing, or using the soil how it is. I can't decide. I'd have to build more boxes since I only have one, and the instant gratification of being able to PLANT NOW is a pretty strong force, buttt... will I be happier in the long run with the boxes? Not sure.

I want to do some "landscaping" while I plant - I want to make it pretty, in addition to fruitful. Not sure how - but maybe making some mosaic stepping stones or something. We shall see!

In any case, I have the best fiance in the whole world.


I am also about 1/3 of the way done with a granny square bag that I am making for my friend Dani. She makes beautiful jewelry, and so we are exchanging the bag for a turquoise/silver ring. This is how the world SHOULD work my friends! Bartering! Yay! I'm having fun on her bag - she took a photo of a bag she liked, and I am re-creating it. I really, really, really enjoy doing that - I did it for my mom with a beanie she saw in a store window. Cell phone cameras are a huge bonus to my work. ;)

As soon as that is done, I will be working on a dog sweater for a coworker. She gave me the dog's current favorite sweater to use as a pattern, so this should be interesting. I've never done any pet stuff before.

Tomorrow my family's coming over to celebrate some birthdays, so tonight involves housework, grocery shopping, and Juno training. Tomorrow is family party, Sunday is exercise, Juno, gardening, knitting, and prepping for the week. YAY!

I'm so glad that summer is here. Yes I said summer. It feels like it. It's warm, sunny...in fact, not even warm - but HOT. It's fantastic. I didn't realize how much the cold and dark weather was getting to me until it turned to heat and sunshine. I feel like a totally different person. Things that bothered me a week ago no longer matter. People are fantastic, interesting, beautiful creatures. I have energy! I want to do things! It's still LIGHT OUTSIDE when I get home from work!!!! I love this time of year! I am DONE with the cold, the chilly, the frigid. Bring on the tank tops, the tanning, the flip flops!

SUSS

Nancy came in with her 8 month old niece today - the one that was almost born during the A2A Cinco de Mayo event. I want to hold a baby that looks like me the way Klohee looks at Nancy! I want to belong to the thing. :P

Yesterday I made rosemary steak with potatoes and green beans, mooshu pork, and a kale salad. I had a fantastic time buying produce at Sprouts, listening to Tom Russel on my ipod, standing in line looking at the photos of babies in knit hats on the cover of hippie-dippie mothering magazines.

Theme?

yes.

Went to an unschooling symposium over the weekend - really interesting now that I am engaged how much I felt like I was split between younger and older generations of unschoolers. There was a time where I physically didn't know where to go - play games with the "kids" in one room, or play games with the "parents" in another room. I did a little of both. Ended up in the parent's game room for most of the night because I was knitting and they were playing a sedentary word game, rather than a jump-around-and-switch spots game.

Adam has been fantastic the past few days. Know the secret to my happiness? Think frequently about how I can make him happy. Really pays off. Wish I'd thought of this before. :) He suggested that we go look at wedding bands on Saturday (the ring kind, not the music kind) - and we will paint the rest of the fence we built, and figure out what we need to start P90X so we can start on Monday! I love projects with him!

Living with a bunch of families for a weekend in Santa Fe and seeing the Dodd's house made me think about the kind of home I want.

I worked 2.25 extra hours tonight, because I am going to Stuart's mother's memorial service tomorrow. I am not going to talk much about that right now. It's happening tomorrow, near Griffith Park. I will pick up Salvador, and maybe Adam will be able to leave work for a little while. I invited KJ.

Tonight I am going to fold my last load of laundry, feed the dogs, make the bed, run at 9 with Rosie, work on my camp, do some bootcamp videos, do some dishes, and knit!

gratitude and my life

I love days when I feel recharged by work, as opposed to drained by it. I wasn't terribly thrilled to get up out of bed at 6:30am this morning - Adam's been having some deep-coughing issues for the last few days, and his coughing and wheezing woke me up on a pretty regular basis last night. I have a new phone, and the unfamiliar alarm sound was jarring. But I did it, I got up out of the house only 15 minutes after I'd intended - and still made it to work 15 minutes early. I had time to DO things before my morning meeting, and at the meeting I created an actually manageable to-do-list, rather than an overwhelming list of vague wants and desires.

The reason I am recharged is because of the Walk for Independence - this has been both the most frustrating project AND the most rewarding for me. We had some issues getting up off the ground - all stemming to my vision being distinctly different than the executive director's vision. I felt like I wasn't being trusted to run a good event - and she felt like I was letting what was important to HER slide through the cracks. But now that we've got some stuff decided, we have momentum, and we actually have people registering, both of us have relaxed and can just enjoy the show.

I am personally gratified that my pleas to my friends on facebook have come through in such an amazing way. I wanted to raise $260 - because I couldn't quite get all of the food donated, and I felt bad about that. $260 covered the cost - I asked them to donate even if they could only donate $1.00 - and some people did just that. I received several $1.00 bills in the mail - which actually DOES provide an entire lunch to someone, and is a very helpful contribution. On the other end of the spectrum, in the last hour, I received 2 $100.00 donations. I've received everything in between, and have basked in the funny little notes and well-wishes that have also been included.

We have 59 people registered now, with many more people saying that they are *going* to register, so I am feeling better about that too. I was afraid it would just be us at the park...but it looks like we will have some company. :)

Because of this walk, too, we even got an elevator donated to our building. We still have to raise $100,000 to install the thing, but the elevator could have cost us as much as $75,000 - and it was DONATED. All because of the walk.

I've been interviewed by newspapers, we're in the AAA magazine, we have an inter-departmental competition here, we made a fantastic video of our clients, we've harnesses the amazing support of PI staff, clients, board members, family, friends and strangers... I'm inspired. Really and truly inspired today.


In other news - yesterday was a good day too. I went to a Bridal Expo with my sisters and cousin...it was intense, and made me really glad that I am not planning a wedding like that. I am glad to have had the experience, though. We got bored wit it after a couple of hours, so headed to the MAC store at South Coast Plaza, where we did makeup trial runs for my wedding! My cousin in law has a discount there, so I got to purchase a bunch of stuff and not break my budget. She's going to be doing my makeup for the wedding, too, so I won't have to pay a makeup artist.

After that we stopped by my aunt's for a goodbye dinner for a friend of the family's - played Pop5, the BEST PARTY GAME EVER, and then I went home and did a 10 minute sparkpeople video for day 1 of my new bootcamp. I realized at the last minute that I needed to cook chicken, and all I can say is - God Bless the Crockpot. I threw in chicken with some broth, a few carrots, half an onion, a bunch of mushrooms, some garlic, and a cup of dried lentils..and this morning had stew ready to take for lunch. After I did that, I fed dogs, crocheted most of a hat, wrote in my journal, and fell asleep watching The Office once Adam came home.

Today at 4:50 I will put on my gym clothes and head to the Brookhurst gym, where I will do 20 minutes on the exercise bike, and 42 minutes of walk/jog combo (5 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 5 run, 2 walk, 4 run, 5 walk). Then I'm going to go to Walmart to use my gift certificate to buy a stability ball, go home, do my 10 min. bootcamp video, take Juno for a walk, make lunches, spend 10 minutes working on my camp-to-be, write in my journal, pack for santa fe, and take my bag/spinning wheel/rosie's yarn over to my parents.

Tuesday, work and working out, Wednesday work, Thursday work til noon, then Santa Fe til sunday! When I get back I need to remember to call Adam's dad for some Juno training sessions.

I am very tired. I am looking forward to habit getting me to the gym, and the gym waking me up. I need to increase my liquid intake over the next few hours, and head for fruit if I get snacky. Luckily, I brought a bunch of oranges, grapes, and an apple with me.


my backyard lemon tree, the inspiration for my wedding!

4th of july photos

hello world!

Today I am in wedding mode! I have so much to do for Marina's wedding... it's time it's time! I wish I lived closer... this trying to figure out what to get now and what to get then is annoying.

Today my goal is to
1. Finish the shower favors, this involves
a. finish the ribboning
b. buying the c's and attaching the l's
c. printing the l's

2. Decide on a design for the bparty favors, start those

3. Get paper for the shower B, sketch design

Wednesday I will have very little time, and then Thursday, Ethan visits and I will do stuff like get my dress, get presents, work on TS, etc.

Sorry for the lack of details, but I'm not sure if Marina actually reads this thing. ;)

This is my garden as of the 4th of July! As of today, the zucchini's actually have blossoms!!! Yay! Very pleased.



this is my amazing jumping dog. Juno gets AIR. It's amazing. Also in the photo is roommate, Chris.



We borrowed the ping pong table from my folks, spent 2 hours setting it up, and here I am...getting whomped royally by my father. He's a ping pong master. I think he beat everyone that day.



Some of the potluck food, including an amazing homemade Apple pie. YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM.



Chris and Marco playing the bean bag game. This game is awesome. Marco brings it everywhere, and it never fails to be a hit. Also, I never fail to suck spectacularly at it. It's truly a remarkable phenomenon how bad I am at throwing a damn bean bag.




Boggle turned out to be a big hit for the night, also. Roxana, obviously, kicked some serious butt. My cousin Becky wins points for persistence. I think Alex and Glen get runners ups. I, of course, did not have the attention span to sit and play for any length of time. We also played blokus, which I won, every time, thank you very much.



We had a bonfire once it got dark, here we have my Cousin Zac and his wife, Abi, sitting around the fire.


We sat in the front yard and watched the fireworks. Rommel didn't like the noise, so he got up and went inside. We found him in the office where we had really loud music playing. Juno looked up once, then put her head down and closed her eyes. I thought she was sleeping, except every time there was a bang, her ears twitched in that direction.Behind us there was a kid that said "wowowowowWOW" every time a firework went off.




The 4th of July was awesome. Everything in my life is awesome, except for the headaches. Since I want everything to be awesome, I will finally make a doctor's appt. sheesh.

xmas, puppies, and...biopsies?

I always wonder just how personal to make this blog..and I go back and forth about which details to write and which not to write. But ya know, I've never been one to hold back, and honestly - you all saw me dressed up in 80's style hair/makeup, so I think we have no secrets anymore. I went to the doctor again today for a recurring issue that's caused a lot of pain for me for about a year. I've been so frustrated - I've seen I can't even tell you how many doctors how many times. I switched again, so today was the first day with this new specialist, and it was a little disconcerting because she shares an office with the last person I saw. She was younger, and had a lot of confidence. I really liked her - she seems like she is really taking control of my situation, rather than everyone else who all had a "wait and see..." attitude..for the last YEAR. So that's the good news. The bad news (well, sort of good news too I guess) is that I am having a biopsy in a couple of weeks. It's good because some sort of progress is being made, but it's bad because the idea of a biopsy is kind of freaking me out. So... I don't know. I think I am deciding to just be glad that she is doing something about it.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I seem to be more enmeshed in Christmas than I ever have been in the past. Part of it is working in an office for the first time - so the amount of cards and candies and cookies is kind of staggering. Part of it is running an etsy site, I WANT people to be christmas-present-ing, and part of it is living with Adam and having a tree and putting up lights and getting presents for each other's families and everything. I believe that wonderful man o mine is going snowboarding during the day, but then we have a Christmas Eve date to watch Love Actually and open our presents. Christmas day is going to be a very very long family day, so I'm going to take a minute now and zen out so I remember that I love being with family, Adam gets overwhelmed sometimes by mine, and we won't all hang out again til Easter so I should soak it up now.

Oooooh the other big news, which deserves it's own post really, is that we are looking into getting a PUPPY!!! So exciting! We are going to get (ideally) a female german shepherd puppy, which I will be initially and primarily responsible for, since Adam already has Rommel and Adam will be starting Police Academy soon. I have puppy fever like crazy. I want want want want want and it's sort of driving me bonkers not being able to rush out and go GET one. We're waiting to hear from his dad, though, because as captain-something-or-other of the la-county-animal-something-or-other he has some ins and favors he could potentially call in to get us a catch on a new dog. SO EXCITED. WANT A PUPPY NOW.

I am so excited in fact, that I think this post deserves some puppy love in the form of photos of german shepherd puppies. Who doesn't love that??

AHHHhhhhh I die, I die, I die... must-have-puppy-NOW!

december blog carnival

Since I am updating...

I missed the first blog carnival for december, so I'm going to get a head start for the second one. The blog topic is:
1. Christmas traditions & recipes- Share Christmas traditions or your favorite holiday recipe.


Now - I love Christmas time. I really do. Last night Adam and I went out and picked up a christmas tree, and hung lights on the front of the house. I'm thrilled with it. Picking out a christmas tree was one of the best family traditions that we did with my Grandma. We'd get all dressed up in those cheap drugstore gloves and wear scarves the one time a year we ever wore them (we live in Southern California), and run around a christmas tree lot pretending to be Laura Ingall's and drinking hot cider.

The reason it was so exciting was that we didn't have a christmas tree at my house. My parents are Baha'i' - so we didn't celebrate christmas with our immediate family. We did christmas at my grandma's with the extended family, and all my life I have loved having the best of both worlds.

My family did celebrate a winter holiday though - called Shabiyalda. This is celebrated on the longest night of the year, and is so full of winter traditions I don't even know where to start. We start the evening off by covering up the tv with some sort of cloth, so that we aren't even tempted to turn it on. My dad puts on Iranian music on the cd player (there is one song with my name in it, so I am always begging for that) and my mom puts all of the little snack foods in her pink glass bowls. We eat so much that night - I guess that's a tradition for most holidays. The big ticket item is roasting potatoes in the fireplace. Yum yum yum. Those always take so long that they're kind of our midnight snack. Oh - that was the other neat thing about Shabiyalda, at least when we were younger - the idea was to stay up as late as you possibly could. We'd drag all of the blankets and pillows to the living room and fall asleep one at a time while my dad read Persian folk tales. The older I get, the earlier I fall asleep.

It's one of my favorite nights of the year. It's one of those traditions that can be celebrated with no religion involved - just for the wonderment of being warm, inside with family, on a long winter night.

My plan today -
sweep, first and foremost
laundry in washer
sprinkle cleanser in the shower
do dishes
eat an apple with some cheese cut up
scrub shower
take shower
put on running clothes, leave house
(by 11am)

leave house, head for farmer's market! buy fruit
go to beach, do week 3 of couch to 5k
go to Michael's
buy yarn for JW's bag
take car to charity car wash #1
take car to fundraising car wash #2

get home, eat things (like fruit!)
laundry in dryer
balance checkbook
make spaghetti
fold laundry
work on JW's bag or braided rug


etc. etc. I should get crackalackin if I am really going to do all of this.

The romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries are thriving. Some of the cabbage looks good too. There is one little sprout of something I forgot to label, the artichokes are dyyyying, and I don't remember what anything else is. Come on garden, you can make it!

Yesterday, Adam and I went to 2nd street and met up with pretty much every member of my extended family and then some at Rubios, walked around for a while, then went to see the movie W at the marketplace. I didn't laugh as much as the other people in the audience did. At one point, a man in the back yelled "This great American experience is almost over!!! Vote for Obama!" and everyone clapped. I think Bush's legacy will be having both a tv show and a movie come out DURING his presidency which mock him mercilessly. well that's free speech for ya.

In any case, time to get moving!