My first Car!

This weekend I bit the bullet and finally got a car. I haven't had one for almost 5 years and this is the first car I have ever had any choice in (i.e. not a hand me down). I'm a little scared to drive it (I never cared about scratching my old cars) but I'm excited to be able to get around a little easier now.

I'm still taking the metro to work etc. (its faster than driving - stupid traffic) but I'll be using the car for late night/weekend/ early morning excursions. First road trip is scheduled for weekend after next. Not a super exciting trip - home to see parents - but it will be nice to see how the 5-hour drive goes.

Oh did you want to know about the car? Its the Honda Fit (thanks to Quynh for the recommendation). I think the coolest features are the i-pod hook up (course my 2nd generation mini doesn't work with it... hmmm) and the super foldy seats (just think of all the stuff i can lug around now!) I also really like the mini windows on the from sides of the car (in front of side rear view mirrors) oh and the side rear view mirrors that fold down as well. Very nice.

Bees

So, I'm in my room, minding my own business and I see a bee crawling around on the floor. Then another once flying by the window. I go to the window and there are 5 bees trapped in between the glass and the screen. I run downstairs and look outside and I see this scene (see picture). That brown mass is a huge pile of bees. Ack!

This happened on Saturday and I havent seen anything this bad since so, hopefully I wont be killed by bees in my sleep. Blech.

We got a kitty!

We set out early this morning for the Valentines day pet adoption event at the Los Angeles County animal shelters. I was a little doubtful we would find a kitten as its not "kitten season" yet but at the west LA shelter we found this kid who is adorable. He is about 2 months old, just under 3 lbs. They neutered him this morning (hence the cone) and let us take him home. So far we have learned that he doesn't like riding in cars, he does like the fireplace and he's got a lot of energy.

Sometimes things are funny later

So, sometimes you start a week with the best of intentions. You try to use up the yarn you shouldn't have bought a year ago when you didn't know how to knit. You start going to the gym in the morning. You start eating the organic vegetables you have delivered every other week and you stop eating crap (because what you consumed while watching the Superbowl was really out of hand). You put your laundry away as soon as you get back from the laundromat. You are turning over a new leaf (again) and becoming a productive, efficient healthy person.

And then - a sad two days into it -things start getting in your way (yes mostly its your own brain).

You realize you don't have enough of the yarn you are using to finish the project you started. You don't go to the gym in the morning because you got to bed late (it was the laundry's fault) and you are having a nightmare and you have an 8:30 am call at work again. You get all your tax information together but Fidelity has decided not to send out tax forms until Feb. 28th so now you must wait for your (hopefully) free money. You try to go to the gym at lunch to FINALLY try that yoga class you have wanted to for months (seriously its free and all) because no one is in the office and its totally dead. But then, you get all the way there and realize you forgot your pants.

Now, a forgetting sports bra is one thing but I am not doing yoga without pants. This is of course the one thing that is threatening to send me back into the arms of junk food and sloth because I finally went the extra mile to go to the gym later because I didn't go in the morning and I totally sabotaged myself. Now the mystery remains. Will I go after work? Only time will tell.

At least I finally wrote another blog entry...

Are we moved in yet?

So we moved into this place in July or so. Its mid-November now and no, we are not moved in. But, in an attempt to have a record number of people over for Thanksgiving we are trying to right those last few trouble spots. I'm happy to announce that every panel that is supposed to be on Mark's wall in the studio is now in place (course the one for the ceiling is still, well, not up there.)

I tried to make some persimmon fudge today but it may end up being persimmon pudding (or maybe more of a sauce). Oh well. Fudge is hard to make right? Its like making candy.

Well there is always a bright side. Last week we had to have the house tented. We had to stay out of the building for 2 days and then they didn't call the gas company to come turn that back on... etc. Fortunately for everyone we did get someone to come out this weekend and now we can shower again ;).

I hope everyone has some enjoyable plans for Thanksgiving. I'll be sure to take some pictures of the festivities here. Have a great short week!

Trick or Bike!

Evening kids. I managed to celebrate Halloween this year on the actual date. Mark and I went to the local pumpkin patch where I managed to spend $64 on 4 pumpkins. Oops. When we got home we discovered that two of them were massive. They didn't look that big when they were all lined up and the pumpkin patch people picked them up and put them in our car. We spent a long night carving them (see picture) and on Halloween managed to get trick-or-treaters. There was a tiny cow and a large banana, some princesses and a cowgirl and then some kind of weirdly half-assed teenage costumes.

Woo hoo!

Today I finally committed to a large transportation-related purchase and bought a bike. I tested out like five different ones and (shockingly) bought the most expensive one. It's my self birthday present (a tradition I started last year when I bought myself a watch). The bike is kind of really comfortable and I got a basket and a lock and a helmet. Its pretty rad. Here's hoping I actually ride it around :).

Back from Italy

We got back from Italy yesterday and I think I've spent ALL DAY putting together a somewhat manageable set of photos. It was a crazy trip and jam packed with sightseeing. I've heavily captioned the photos so I wont go into too much detail.

Now that I can stop obsessing about planning a trip to Rome maybe I can get back to all those other projects I was intending on doing/sharing with you all. Either way its back to work in the morning. Weird.