good couple of days

The sun is out but it is not so hot as it was the last two days. Oh summer...you are a tease.
Yesterday was another marvelous day for me. Being warm and having sunlight makes SUCH a difference - a difference I don't even realize until I am OUTSIDE and the freckles are popping out on my shoulders and my smile feels warm and stretched and everything is happy.
So yesterday I went for a walk on my lunch break up on the river trail - california sagebrush and blackeyed susans and the sun on my shoulders some more. After work I went home and read some tamora pierce, but fell asleep and took a 2 hour nap. I got up, went to karate, then got home, did dishes, laundry, dog stuff, showered, made lunches, and did my yoga video. I had time to read some more and felt totally relaxed and wonderful all night.

Today after work I am going to go down to the beach and do a half hour of jogging and then lay on the sand for a while. I want to also find a weight watchers or hungry girl recipe to make for dinner, and something for lunches tomorrow.

I love this weather. Adam's schedule has been nice too - this week he hasn't had to be at the academy until 11 or 12, and has been getting home around 11pm, but he still wakes up at 7am with me. So it's been neat getting to hang out with him while I get ready, and then have the house to myself during the evening so I can clean up and get ready for things without him asking more of me, and then be glad and rested when he gets home! He usually does another half hour-hour of stuff, and then we put on a movie and watch it while we fall asleep. It's been nice. Too bad this week is the only week of it.

My Spring Fling Festival is this Saturday and I am nervous. Don't wanna talk about it any more. :P

three cheers for the SUN!

Today started with my spilling 5 gallons of white paint in the trunk of my car. 2 very hot and sweaty hours later, I have salvaged what I could from the trunk (so long first aid kit..) and the painted carmat is drying out on the lawn.

It must be because I actually got enough sleep last night that I was laughing to myself the whole time.

Or, it could be because it's incredibly, ridiculously, wonderfully hot outside and I love this weather. I am so tired of feeling cold. I am so happy to be feeling sunshine all the way down to my bones.

Today I have a marvelous afternoon/evening planned. As soon as work is done, Emily, work-Rosie and I will be heading to the beach to exercise. Then I plan on reading Tamora Pierce books while eating strawberries whilst laying in my bathing suit on the sand. When I tire of my leisure, I will pick my sunsoaked self up and go to Mother's Market, where I will buy tofu shirataki. Once home, I will play with the doggies, make Adam's lunch, do the dishes, and make shirataki alfredo a la Hungry Girl for my dinner/lunch tomorrow. Then I will proceed to do my new beginners yoga dvd that makes me feel so happy at the end of it.

I am going to enjoy the heck out of this day of sunshine and wellness. There's a 5k run at Disneyland in September, I'd like to train to run in that. This is new, big, exciting - but in the summer, everything is possible.

gray day

To be happy. Today I will.

Go to the library. Get books. Read books. Get books on tape/cd. Listen to them while I cross stitch.

Play with my puppy.

.....what else?

Last night was bad. I'd like today to be better. I don't know how. I was so happy yesterday when I got off work and went running. Then I got home and WHAM everything hit at once, but I can't even figure out WHAT was so bad, all I know is that I got totally overwhelmed and frustrated and exploded.

I'm very tired today. Maybe a nap is in order also.

looking forward to a domestic night tonight. First, running on the river trail, then picking up dry cleaning, then grocery shopping, then home for laundry, playing with dogs, feeding fish, doing dishes, making dinner, making lunches, doing strength exercises, and cross stitching! sounds good to me. I like those days every once in a while. My friend Rebecca calls it "nesting" - when you want to stay close to home and putter and put things right.

I bought workout pants that make me feel really cute, which is the main force behind getting me to go run these days. It's great!

Tomorrow I plan on going to a running store and researching new shoes. The shoes I run in now my dad bought me when I was 18 years old. 6 years later... time to get new shoes.

Today I've felt pretty good. Happy, productive, peaceful, glad. I feel the way an icelandic poppy looks. I love the sunshine. I am so happy that it's spring. I am ignoring the fact that it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow - gray and gloominess right in the midst of sunshine tends to put me in a bad mood, but instead I will revel in the fact that the rain will water my freesia bulbs that I keep forgetting to water, and then I won't have to wash my car. Then it will be sunshine again!

a long hollywood weekend

This weekend I took a group of 20 adults with developmental disabilities and 3 volunteers to Hollywood. We went to Griffith Observatory, the Wax Museum, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, stayed at the Ramada, and then got up in the morning and went on a Hollywood Stars tour, and then went to Universal Studios all day! It was fun and exhausting, as all A2A trips are. I was sick the whole time, and lost my voice by the end of the 2nd day. I left my house at 7:30am Saturday morning and got home at 10:00pm Sunday night.

I got home to a sparklingly clean house, thanks to my amazing boyfriend. It was so nice not to have to deal with the pile of dishes and dirty stove that I had left!!! Man, it's nice when someone else cleans for you. One day I will splurge and have a housekeeper come every so often and keep only the fun chores for myself (yes, I like some of them. I like cleaning the bathtub, for example. And the mirrors. I always liked cleaning the bathroom because there was a precise list of things to do, and it was a contained space that had a *finish* to the job. Unlike the living room or dining room which never ever seems totally clean).

I am soooo close to being done with my Moose at Sunset crosssitch - but I ran out of the last color I need, so I have to go to Joanne's before I can finish. So close!

Yesterday I walked to the store and bought dumbbells and created a new little fitness routine for myself, and today my legs are actually sore. It's a good feeling. I've been sick for so long I really need to get back into exercising regularly.

I have a bread machine and I've been baking bread pretty steadily. I need to find a weight watchers bread machine recipe though, because I keep baking this amazing french bread and eat loooaaavves of it by myself. Not too conducive with the whole weight loss thing.

Juno is amazing and wonderful and I love my crazy puppy so much. She makes me want to have kids. That maternal yearning which seems to start somewhere deep and seep into every pore has begun again. Watch out small children, Roya wants to take you home...

Also - I watched Twilight and it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be and I am not ashamed to say it. Last night I also watched Speed and it wasn't nearly as horrible as I'd been led to believe either!! I liked it! I stayed awake for the whole damn thing! I cared what happened to those people! I predicted everything and still gasped when exciting things happened!

Tonight I am going to see Avenue Q with Swasthi, Chrispy and Larry. YAYYYYY.

sinus owch

I have a head-stuffed-up-like-crazy cold and all I want to do is go home and put on some silly little kid movies and curl up under the covers with tangerines. I've been crocheting dishcloths in order to sell them with the handmade soap Amber and I will one day make, and they are pretty and instant-gratification and the yarn is satisfying (yay cotton) and maybe if I feel up to it I'll do more of those. I'm at work right now, but everything is being difficult and I just need to go home and be sick, I think. I have an A2A event all weekend, and I can't even imagine how that will work if I am still feeling like this.

So. I will stop at the store and buy tangerines and then I will go home, and maybe even have a little bit of extra energy to put the clothes in the dryer and to start a loaf of bread, and then.... Lilo and Stitch, here I come.

I started an actual paper journal again. I got out my water colors yesterday - I did feel like I was 14 again, but mostly in a good way. I hope it helps. I want to make sure that as an adult I am journaling with a purpose - it's good for venting, but I also want to use it as my on-paper dialogue with myself, not just "grr I'm angry and frustrated and so and so pisses me off" but, "this is why I am angry and frustrated and maybe this is how I can change my perspective so I am not as much" that's what I need. I keep making stupid little mistakes lately that ruin the atmosphere of the evening, and if I'd just stopped for a breath, it wouldn't have happened.

Tangerines! It's time.

I like my life

Today I registered for the Sparkpeople Convention happening on May 2nd, in San Diego. It's a very full day which starts out with a "fun run" at 7am, and then speakers, panels, prizes, stretching routines, etc. etc. The website Sparkpeople is SO innovative and amazing, that my expectations are already pretty high for their convention. I am really, really, really excited (I am also really excited about the STUFF you get for registering..t-shirt, totebag, fitness dvds...) I can't wait til May. :)

I am incredibly good at my job, and every time I have a mandatory meeting for one of my overnight trips it comes back to me just how satisfying it really is doing something that I enjoy this much and that I am this proficient at. Event planning, especially when you are talking about taking groups of 40+ adults with developmental disabilities, is not for everyone. I am uniquely suited to it, I think, and I LOVE it. LOVE IT LOVE IT. So last night was our meeting for the Hollywood trip in two weeks, and I am finally excited for it. We'll be going to Griffith Observatory, staying at the Ramada in West Hollywood, seeing a movie at Grauman's Chinese Theater, and then spending the 2nd day on a Movie Stars tour and going to Universal Studios. It's going to be totally cheesy and wonderful. :)

I baked my 2nd loaf of bread in the bread machine yesterday - smells wonderful, tastes good, but is a funny looking loaf. They've both been really SHORT. I don't know if that's how they are supposed to be or if I am doing something wrong.

I want to finish my Moose at Sunset cross stitch - I am so freaking close to being done. When I finish, it will be the first humongous cross stitch project that I ever actually saw to completion. I have a smaller geisha girl who is beautiful, and to most people she looks done, but I never technically finished some of the top embroidery and cross hatching. The Moose at Sunset don't need added embellishment. ;)

After Moose, I think I'll start on the Bear Catching the Salmon, to keep going with the Alaskan theme. I did send away for the missing instructions for my Yoruban Women, so I could finish that too..but I'm just not feeling it right now.

At some point I'd like to get out those granny square bags I was making and SELL some. Now that the weather is improving, I really, really, really want to get a booth at the craft fair in LB and sell all my stuff. I have made a necessary promise to myself that I just can't buy more material or even make many more things without first selling what I have. My art room is full to overflowing. It's time to get the items moving.

I think I might sell some of them at the Spring Fling Festival I am holding for Project Independence. I'll donate a percentage of what I make to PI, that way everyone wins.

Okay. It's nearly 5. I can leave now. To the dry cleaners, then HOME, for hopefully a LOT of sleep tonight. SO TIRED! Also, very into capital letters today, apparently.