Miserable, Magical Monday

I had every intention of posting last Monday, but got caught spending a day waiting for my passport to process. A recap is below.

1. I am a huge fan of Lauren Conrad. I watched every single episode of Laguna Beach (including the awful third season with the dull cast) and The Hills. I even watched most of The City, but that was mostly because Kelly Cutrone is a BAMF and someone I wish I could be. Naturally, I read Lauren's blog/website. She uploaded a video tutorial for her curled hair and the whole time I watched I couldn't help but think Aw, I miss watching her on TV. Lauren always was my favorite person on the shows.

//

We could so be friends.

2. Before moving to Davis (and doubling my commute time), I was a tad worried about how I'd handle having to wake up earlier. At that point I was completely struggling to get out bed before 7am and I knew that if I wanted to do yoga or have a semi-relaxing morning I'd need to be waking up around 6am once we moved. Luckily, I had trouble sleeping the day before the move (plus the next two days after) and I woke up between 5:30 and 6am. Since then I've unintentionally trained myself to expect an alarm around 6am and I've had no trouble waking up. It's been nice because I've had the freedom to sit and write, read, wash my hair or do yoga in the morning. Most days it's yoga, but a week ago I got up to put my contacts in and then got right back in bed and read for a while.

3. Speaking of yoga, I recently read a Greatist article about being bad at yoga. It was a pretty good, eye-opening and definitely relatable piece. I, for one, know that I cannot do gorgeous forward fold or downward dog pose. Anything that requires my stubby, unyielding hamstrings to stay straight while the rest of me relaxes is out of the question. I've been mildly keeping up with a home practice and can maybe get almost straight legs after an hour of yoga. But I rarely have time for more than 20 minutes of yoga, so I've kind of resigned myself to enjoy the lack of cracking that yoga gives me versus achieving a decent asana.

//

4. One thing I haven't quite mastered is the early bed time. I spent a solid chunk of time trying to figure out if I'm a morning person or night owl and the freaking test I took said I was neither! How am I supposed to plan my daily routines without this pertinent information about myself, Real Simple?! Anyway, it's not like I've got the discipline to actually go to bed at the same time each night. Brandon's for sure a night owl and I try to hang out with him as much as possible (because he's the coolest person I know), so I've caught myself in a cycle of late bedtimes and early risings. I won't complain as long as he keeps lulling me to sleep with bass renditions of Disney songs.

5. I spent last Wednesday night at my cousin Rachel's house. She was back in California for a short visit and I jumped at the chance to hang out with her and Lily in person. We ate a delicious dinner and sipped some yummy, almost champagne-like wine while laughing our way through stories from when we were kids. We even pulled out the sleeper couch and all slept in the living room together! It was a good night surrounded by girls/family I don't get to see too often. You better believe leaving for work Thursday morning was difficult. All I wanted to do was keep chatting and hanging out. I guess I'll just have to plan a trip to Boston or something, ha!

6. Brandon and I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past on Saturday. We spent all morning lounging; me going over vacation bible school (VBS) lines and him playing video games. After our late breakfast I was done lounging. I declared I was bored, but of course had no alternative activity to offer (I can be such a brat). Brandon suggested we go see a movie. Sure enough, X-Men was playing in 20 minutes. I really enjoyed the movie, though Brandon did let me in on a storyline inconsistency he noticed. We walked and talked as we searched for the Cultivé frozen yogurt downtown. Both of us are still familiarizing ourselves with downtown (we literally walked in circles our first weekend here), but luckily we found the place quickly. It was nice to get outdoors and stretch my legs out. Sitting at a desk all day is honestly wreaking havoc on my body. I don't know how we all just put up with it.

7. Last but not least: the reason I missed last week's post. I went to get my passport processed in San Francisco on Monday. I thought for sure I'd go to my appointment, head to work and still have time to come up with something witty enough to post. I was wrong. My procrastinating ways got the best of me. I was told by my super helpful passport processor that express mail was still cutting it too short and that I might want to pick up my passport at the end of the day. First of all, I had no idea it only took a day to process! So there I was, alone in San Francisco, taking a day off work that I didn't want to take, with no car. I took BART in for old time's sake which left me at the mercy of my feet and the amount of cash on my BART ticket. I walked sooo much last week. I killed a bit of time in a Blue Bottle but had to eventually call Brandon because my extroverted tendencies were going nuts (I hadn't said a word out loud in hours). Honestly, it's the least amount of fun I've ever had in the city. I guess I've gotta go back to make up for it, right?

A

Miserable, Magical Monday

Today's MMM comes a little later than normal, but this weekend felt weirdly busy and my week was plagued with writer's block. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

1. As you all know, Saturday was the seventh. It also happened to be me and Brandon's first weekend in our new place. Since I'm more sentimental than that chick from Mean Girls who just wants to bake a cake with her feelings and since Brandon is a sweet dude, we made a day of strolling around in the downtown heat before retreating back to our apartment for some watermelon and House of Cards watching. Originally, we headed back to our place so we could take a dip in the pool, but then House of Cards happened. Before we knew it, it was nine! Which was when we decided we should probably have dinner.

//

2. My mom gifted me this really cute potted aster daisy plant back in February (I think). I tried to keep it alive, but having never cared for a potted flower plant before, it died on me. Not surprising! Still, I kept the plant in all its brown crumbly shame and eventually looked up if you could revive a dead plant on the internet. Turns out you totally can, my plant was just beyond saving. I've been wanting a plant for a while but new home furnishings, including a house plant or soil, just aren't in the budget (have I mentioned how much I hate budgets? They're awful) right now. But I also didn't want to toss a perfectly good pot of soil because, remember, I'm super sentimental. Then it hit me. Brandon and I had an insane amount of daisy seed packets leftover from the wedding! So I hurriedly broke apart the dry soil and wet it until it actually looked like dirt and not clay. I then shallowly planted the daisy seeds from the wedding. The best part: I had teensy weensy sprouts in a week! I was over the moon. The sprouts luckily survived the move and are growing slowly but surely. I'm making sure to give them lots of light because I read daisies need it. Are any of you good gardeners? I'm pretty much flying blind here.

3. My minimal success with my flowers has me wanting to plant all the things! Ha. I think I'll try my hand at fresh herbs next. Trader Joe's totally has a potted basil plant for $2.99. Is this real life? I have dried basil that came with my spice rack and I love it like I love pesto. I can only imagine how good homemade pesto made from the freshest homegrown basil would taste! Mmm!!

//

4. So there's this website called Naturally Curly and it has A TON of information about the different kinds of curly hair and other hair properties. I could seriously spend hours doing what I call curly hair research. I've read a lot and now am trying to learn how to properly apply. I'm also pretty sure my hair is a genetic disaster. It's super thick, coarse and dryer than even normal curly hair (which is naturally dryer than straighter hair). So to keep it moisturized I'm supposed to use heavy products, but I'm also really sensitive to protein/product buildup, so I should really use heavy products. In short, my hair's a ghastly mess. (Kudos to anyone who caught the Mary Poppins reference!)

//

5. A few weeks ago I went to check out the French classic, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry at Solano, my old community college. I figured that since I was already there and it had been ages since I'd walked through the old 700 building, where I fell in love with French, it was about time for me to see if the room had changed in the years since I'd studied French.

I miss this room!

FYI: I sat in the second seat in the second row from the right.

It hadn't changed at all! Madame's left-handed cursive was still visible on the white board despite the fact that it had been erased. It brought back some really cool, fun memories to stand in the doorway like a creep, hoping no one would see me and ask me what I was doing. I even walked past Madame's office to see if she was around (she wasn't). It was probably for the best. I get weird stage fright when it comes time to speak French with native/native level speakers. Either way, I'm glad I stopped by. It was nice to quietly enjoy my memories from five years ago.

6. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the fact that my glasses are broken. Nothing irreparable, but enough that I can't wear them in place of my contacts anymore. I completely slacked on purchasing vision insurance for myself this year which has left me in a pickle. I need new glasses but need a new prescription before I can get them. Add to the mix me running out of fresh contacts about a month and a half ago. Yes, friends. This is my reality. I'm wearing contacts that should have been tossed a month ago and have no glasses to relieve my poor eyes. Just last week I noticed that my contacts were tearing. Tearing! At that point I knew there was no more stalling. So I called Costco up and set up an appointment. The older I get (WOW that made me feel way older than I am), the more scared I get of the doctor. Any doctor. But it'll feel so nice to see clearly and to not have torn plastic on my eyelids.

//

7. Remember how my sister and I are going to Costa Rica this month? Yeah, as in 17 days?! That's insane. What's more insane is the fact that both of us need to get our passports. I'm pretty sure she just needs to renew hers, but not me. I changed my name when I got married so although I totally have a valid passport, the name on it is wrong. Anyway, I'll be expediting my process (I don't really have a choice haha) and get to make a tiny trip into San Francisco in a week. I'm planning on taking BART to save gas and parking money and I have to admit, I'm excited about it. BART isn't exactly the classiest form of public transit but it's familiar and easy. It reminds me of the time I got to go to Bring Your Child To Work Day with my mom, who has been riding BART to work for something like 15 years. Yes, every time I get on BART I think of that memory. But I'm also weirdly romantic about public transit (I'm pretty sure I romanticize the absolute strangest things). I might even score some Blue Bottle while I'm out there. That will make everything completely worth it!

Thanks for reading!
♥ A

Six Months Out: 12 Things Update

It's officially past the halfway point to my 25th birthday (no lie I forgot how old I was for three whole seconds). Here's how I'm doing on my 12 Things

1. Perfect the tiramisu cupcake

Done.

2. Read 6 5 books

I finished Mindy Kaling's book last week and am working my way through Nora Ephron's I Fell Bad About My Neck as well as Antoine Saint-Exupery's Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). So we're making some progress!

3. Explore a part of SF I've spent little time in

I can't remember the last time I was in the city.

4. Finish organizing and uploading my Project 365

Seriously slacking here.

5. Practice French everyday for one month

June. I will come back to this in June.

6. Make coffee art

Oh gosh. I don't even know why I added this to the list. I was hugely unaware of the equipment necessary to make coffee art. Plus, I need to find a proper method of brewing a shot (or two) of espresso at home. My keurig isn't the same as Starbucks' at home system. I'll still attempt this, but I'm telling you it won't be pretty.

7. Bake a cake/cupcakes from scratch.

Nothing yet. Brandon and I are doing everything we can to not buy groceries until after the move. I think we can make it.

8. Watch 10 8 classic movies I've never seen before

I've watched Some Like It Hot, The Usual Suspects (an excellent movie)...and...that's it. Annie Hall is for sure on my list of movies I need to watch. I think Brandon tried to get me to watch it years ago but I fell asleep. And if anyone has Casablanca, you should let me borrow it.

9. Complete 5 1 of my pins from Learn/Make/Do

I can't believe I've made the most progress with this one! Only one more pin to complete. It's the magnets. I'm decisively saying it'll be the magnets.

At-home make up brush cleaning.

Natural oven deep cleaner.

Sugar Lip Scrub.

Woven Map Journal

10. Hand letter something. Turn that something into art.

It's just written in chalk pen right now but I hope to still print out my other design and frame it in this frame.

It's not Pinterest or Etsy-worthy, but it's home.

The words are lyrics from me and Brandon's first dance. Technically, the song is from our first kiss. Anyway, I wrote the lyric on this frame very soon after getting married and moving in, the only main difference being the frame's orientation. I was feeling semi-inspired on Sunday morning and decided to flip it and change things up a bit, including adding our anniversary date. The bottles with greenery are usually empty, but I had a bunch of bouquet fillers left over from the Mother's day arrangements I made the day before, so I thought I'd try that hipster look of branches in vases. I kind of really like it. And that flask looking bottle filled with layers of semi-combined sand is perhaps my favorite souvenir from studying abroad. It's sand from all but one beach I visited in my three months over there.

11. Volunteer at Coastal Cleanup Day

It shall be done in September.

12. Decorate our apartment

We move in three weeks!! Oh gosh, we move in three weeks! As you can imagine, I'm nowhere on schedule for a move. It'll get done. Brandon and I consistently talk about this apartment being a fresh start for us. It's not that we need a fresh start from anything, but more that we're looking forward to a new city with new opportunities. In a way, to get out of the suburb rut. I have so many ideas for the apartment, but I also know that you're supposed to slowly curate your aesthetic. I'm sort of looking forward to having to slow myself down back to reality.


There we have it. Only one Thing is fully completed but I'm on my way to another two! I have confidence I'll see this through.

//

You didn't think I'd leave you without a single gif, did you?

♥ A

Crustaceans, Coffee, a Concert in the City

That up there is my lazy attempt at alliteration and haiku.

I'm pretty sure I slipped in a mention of a Los Lonely Boys concert Brandon and I were going to in a previous post. Well, we went. And it was awesome.

Brandon and I watched a live DVD concert of the Boys (that's my nickname for them, totally not official) sometime before Christmas and Brandon made a remark about how cool it would have been to see them live. We both assumed they weren't currently touring. Then one day at work, I was clicking around my Spotify and bam! There was a notice telling me the Boys were going to be playing in SF in February. Um, it was fate. My plan to get us tickets to a Sharks game was going to fall through because we just didn't have that kind of cash at the time and I needed something. So I got him the tickets.

Sunset loooooovvve.

Flash forward like a Taylor Swift song and we find ourselves in February, four days before Brandon's birthday. I skipped my lunch hour so we could beat some of the traffic into the City. Now, most if not all of you know Brandon. And you know he's incredibly laid back. Like, so laid back that all he wanted to do for his birthday was have his friends come over and play video games all night. I was not going to participate in the "junior high boys' night" as he called it, so I insisted that we grab an extravagant dinner at the Fish Market on the Pier. It's pretty touristy. One, it 's on Pier 39. That's really all it needs to be considered touristy haha. Anyway, we ordered a shrimp appetizer (we never order apps) and delicious lemonade and tea and just ate so much seafood. We even got a bread bowl of clam chowder on the house because our server accidentally prepped an extra one. Who knows if he was just buttering us up or if that was the truth. Either way, we gorged ourselves. We ate so much we were too full to go to our mini donut go-to spot, Trish's.

Off we set to the other side of the city to get to the Independent. We got there without much of a problem but could not find parking to save our lives. Go figure that all the side streets would be packed full of early-comers. Anyway, we eventually found the easiest most perfect parking spot...about a 10 minute walk away. Brandon's tea was ready to burst through him by the time we got to my current favorite latte experience ever: The Mill. An old friend friend posted a foursquare thing on Pinterest a while ago and the place intrigued me. I convinced Brandon to find the place with me on our trip to SF after Christmas. Brandon practically ran to the bathroom once we crossed the entrance's threshold. I quickly went to order a drink to avoid the dirty looks from the hipster baristas. Too bad they didn't see me for a good 30 seconds. I just watched them wash dishes and murmur about the strange man who just shot to the back without even ordering anything. They were definitely judgy. I would have made an actual judgmental face at them and walked out had the coffee not been calling out my name. So I smiled a fake smile and ordered my yummy latte. And I forgave their judgment on my husband because the coffee was so good. And homegirl could pour her milk. That sounds way dirtier than it should.

It was finally time for the show!! The Boys were so down to earth and so chill and so talented. They can really jam. I sound like such a poser saying that, but it's true. These dudes love each other, their music and their fans and it showed. The other cool thing was the fact that literally all ages and demographics were represented in the audience. I'd be the person to notice that kind of thing, but it was cool to see girls I would scowl at in my brain rocking out to the same music I was. Plus, the Independent is s relatively small venue and everything was standing room only so we got pretty close to the stage. It was pretty legit.

Yeah...super proud of iPhone for this shot.

Blurry selfies.

Can we all just appreciate the fact that they're playing the bass and guitar parts on the SAME GUITAR?!

Until next time, Boys.

♥ A