Special Delivery

I have been on operation computer detox. Sometime in April my computer breathed it’s last breath of life. It was actually quite traumatic at the time, but in hind sight it does not seem like a big deal. I was able to get everything backed up onto an external hard drive, so other than the actual computer I lost nothing.

I could not decide if I wanted to switch over and get a mac or continue cruising my way down the PC path. When faced with this huge fork in the road instead of weighing the options and making a well thought out wise decision I decided not to decide and thus by default chose to live computerless.

Really I was not without, both of my roommates had computers and when Angela upgraded her computer last month she graciously allowed me to use her old beast until I replaced mine. In this time of no computer I was forced to find better things to fill my time with. It was amazingly refreshing. Before the death of my computer I found that I would spend my whole work day sitting at a computer, reading who knows what and then I would come home and like a magnet be pulled back to my computer. I had no life.

Not having a working computer forced me to be more social and get back into the real world. Now however, four months later I believe it is time. I am officially done with computer detox. Yesterday I purchased a new Mac book. YAY!!!!!! It is currently in route to the PENTHOUSE as we speak, delivery is scheduled for tomorrow. Plus added bonus thanks to free rebates I am also getting a PINK ipod (my very first one) and a printer. I am SO excited!!!!!

Look Away

I have discovered a new talent that I never knew I had. Usually I would consider discovering a new talent a good thing - but in this case not so much. My new talent is..........(drum roll please) causing car accidents.

Have no fear I was not in a car accident, I just have the uncanny ability to cause others to be in them. Here are two such examples:

Back in January I had been on an outing with a friend. We were in two separate cars, leaving the parking lot via two different exits. All of the sudden I hear the muffled sound of my phone ringing, by the time I finally found my phone buried in my purse I had missed the call. So I did what most normal people do I returned the call. It was of course from the other driver. At this point we were approaching a four way stop from different streets, but I could see him on my left. I had a front row view for what was about to happen. I hit the call button on my phone, hear it ring twice then I look up and see him look down at his phone, as he looked down at the screen the truck in front of him stopped, and his little car crunched right into the tail gate. I was in a little bit of shock. Seriously did I just cause that accident? Had I not called him, he never would have impaled his car on the truck in front of him. YIKES!!!

Now enter Saturday. Angela, Jeni and I are driving back from the Great Balloon Park on the 5 freeway. As we are cruising along I was enjoying watching other drivers from my backseat vantage point. A nice little VW swoops in along side us. The driver starts glancing over at us, I suppose I may have encouraged him just a little - I smiled, then he gave me a little head nod - I laughed. So on. I thought it was funny so I start to tell Angela and Jeni about how the guy next to us is totally giving me the nod - I only got three words into my story when we are all distracted by the sound of screeching tires and the sight of a massive suburban skidding across multiple lanes of the highway and slamming in to the cement divider and the little VW that housed my head nodder. As we all took a few minutes to calm our racing hearts and be entirely thankful that the accident missed us completely even though it happened a mere 10 feet behind us. Angela told us about the accident via her view point as the driver - including something about how the driver of the VW had been trying to change lanes but may have been distracted by something (aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!! distracted by me?!) After I finally finished telling them the story of the driver and Angela kindly reminded me of the simmilar incident I had caused (the previous story) we all came to the natural conclusion that if people look at me while driving they will get in a car accident.

Oh My!
Jeni informed me I should now cover my head at all times with a brown paper bag. BUT I think that could be equally as distracting.

Consider this my warning to all drivers: If you see me while driving look away - QUICKLY!

The Great Balloon Park

Saturday Jeni, Angela and I headed out to The Great Balloon Park in Orange County. I have been dying to check this place out ever since I discovered it online. It has the largest and highest(in the USA) tethered helium balloon - 500 feet. And of course the best part is that to ride in it costs absolutely nothing. There is nothing I love more than FREE activities!!!!

Much to my dismay we learned upon our arrival the balloon was grounded due to high winds. All was not lost though, we enjoyed ourselves with an impromptu photo shoot of the sweet bike rack.

I greatly enjoyed the fact that everything in the whole park was orange.

Good Morning Saturday

YUM YUM!!!
I LOVE Blueberry Muffins!

Turning One and a Nun

Today officilly marks the one year existence of this blog.

To celebrate I.......................

Honked at a Nun!

Seriously I did - It was pretty funny.

I did not know it was a nun of course when I honked I just thought it was a

crazy driver who totally cut me off. But it totally made my day when she turned

and I saw her driving in her full on habit.

Have you ever seen a nun driving?

There is just something about it that seems unnatural.

Thursday Thoughts

How is it possible that I am absolutely and completely head over heals in LOVE

with Tomatoes and Pizza

(seriously all through college I ate pizza at least once a day - I just never get sick of it)

But I am completely repulsed by V8, detest marinara sauce (aka spaghetti) and just thinking about Ketchup makes me want to gag. Everything about it grosses me out. The smell, the texture, the taste, even the sound it makes when you squeeze it out of the container. EEEEEWWWWW!!!

Is there any explanation for this phenomenon other than Mandy is absurd?

Location Location Location

My beloved apartment complex has a few rather funny quarks. One of them being that they make you pay $25 to get a key to the fitness center. I got lucky because Rachel forked out the big bucks for the key and left it with us when she moved out. You would think for $25 you would get one snazzy looking key chain. No such luck it looks like this:

With the economy down and all people are going to extremes to cut back - for some that evidentally includes frivilities such as fitness center keys. Instead, they are forced to be creative and think of new places in which they can excersize. I am not however conviced that between the rows of washing machines is the best alternative.

Last night when I went in to do my laundry I had to carefully maneuver myself around a women who was doing her daily workout in the laundry room. Seriously she was cranking out the push ups right there (I witnessed numbers 17 - 28, and yes she was counting out loud) in the middle of the room. She was completely unfazed by me - I had to step over/around her to get my laundry out of the dryer.

It was quite possibly the funniest thing I saw all day.

Meet Baily

I would like to formally introduce you to Baily the newest addition to the PENTHOUSE. And for the record no we are not replacing Rachel - Baily is our new Basil plant. A gift from Mom and Lindsey.

On that note I would like to shout a big THANK YOU to my mom and sister. They drove all the way out from Arizona just for my birthday. I had tons and tons of fun with you guys this last weekend. Thank you for the wonderful birthday decorations, the gifts, the many meals, the movies, the shopping, the hours of What Not To Wear, the driving, the gilato and finally for Baily the Basil.

24 is no BORE!

In case you missed the memo Saturday was my birthday. It was a fabulously fantastic day- we some how managed to squeeze tons of events into a few hours. Here is a cliffs notes/bullet point version of the day followed by some photos.

After my earlier rant I found somewhere to see (500) Days of Summer - and absolutely LOVED it!
Did a lot a lot of shopping.
Enjoyed a surprise dessert gathering with my friends.
Experienced The Melting Pot for the first time.
Received a Pink fishing pole.
Gained many pretty pink things for my kitchen.
Finally the best part was that each guest surprised me with a reading and or reciting of an original poem!

(500) Days of Summer

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want to see this movie.

I have been waiting months for it to come out. I got more than a little excited when I found out that it came out on my birthday weekend - I even found someone to see it with me (which actually is a feat I thought I would have to go alone).

Needless to say I was unterly and completely depressed when I discovered that it is not playing near me. Sad - I think I might cry. Then to top is all off today the internet is just trying to torcher me. There are endless numbers of articles all about the movie - just rubbing it in even more than it is realeased and I can't watch it.

All right I am done ranting now - Happy Friday!

Thursday

Guess what I did at work yesterday?

Go ahead I'll give you three guesses.

Did you think of three?

I bet your wrong.

Yesterday I taught a coworker (my bosses wife) how to use facebook.

Yeah that's right we started with the basic lessons of creating a profile.

Then we progressed to finding and requesting friends.

And concluded with uploading, captioning, tagging and commenting on photos.

What can I say that's what I get paid the big bucks to do.

Hear This

My ears are dysfunctional. No I am not deaf – I can hear just fine, but my actual ears have MAJOR issues. It all began with ear buds. For some reason they will not stay in my ears. No matter what I do, no twisting turning or jamming will get them to stay in my ears for more than 10 seconds. Just when you think they are going to stay they will just slip right out. It is a HUGE annoyance.

So obviously I can not use ear buds – I have other head phones that stay put. Over the last couple of months they have decided that they no longer want to work. It started out as a every few days the left ear would be harder to hear type of thing. But now it has grown into a full blown only one ear projects sound type of thing. I therefore had to find new headphones.

Of course the obvious thing to do would to be go out and buy a new pair. Did I do that? No. Why? Because I have another pair of head phones laying around the apartment. Granted these were given out free at a concert I attended last summer – but I am sure they work. I put them to the test. Last night I was watching TV on the computer and the head phones were working great. About 32 minuets into the show the computer decided to die. Upon it’s death I removed the headphones from my ears.

I had this weird feeling that my right ear was plugged. It felt like I was flying – I really needed my ear to pop, but it was not cooperating. Thirty minutes or so later I picked-up the soon to be titled “crappy” head phones and realized that one of them was broken, missing a piece.

Sure enough I reach into my right ear and find the missing piece just chillin there. Making me think I was having hearing issues.

Moral of the story: Not only can I not wear ear buds, but my ears are so strong that they manage to break other headphones off in my ears.

The BIG TWO OH OH

Thankfully I am not sporting any grey hair yet, but I am getting older. And I don’t just mean in the “each second, of each hour of each day we get closer to death” getting older way. I mean it in the my birthday is this week and I get an official year older sort of way. Don’t worry this is not going to turn into some bitter diatribe about getting old. Right now I don’t mind it maybe in another six years I will start to dread the passing of another year, but until then I chose to enjoy them.

This year Angela has decided that I not only get a birthDAY but a whole week of small celebrations. And let me tell you so far I am LOVING it. Each day I am greeted with a small gift and a delightful note, asking me a reflective question of my 23rd year which has almost passed.

Here is a little recap of my birthWEEK:
Monday

Gift = Diet Pepsi
Question = What is your favorite memory of the last year?

I decided to go with our trip to Wheaton/Chicago, visiting Megan, exploring

the Midwest and using as many modes of transportation as possible.
Tuesday

Gift = Mint Milanos
Question = Where do you want to be next year on your birthday?

I didn’t really have an answer for this one – I did not even know the answer

to that question for this year, how in the world would I know for next year.

Oh wait I totally got it – on a boat, peripherally a sail boat I would settle

for any boat.

Wednesday

Gift = an AWESOME Statue of Liberty Magnet
Question = Besides NYC where do you want to travel to in your 24th year?

Boston, I definitely want to drink tea at the harbor – and I want to leave the

country, go to any other one. But before I can do that I must complete the

number on thing on my list of things to accomplish in my 24th year – get a passport.

That’s my week so far – pretty snazzy right?
Thanks Ang!

* Did you know that there is a free listening limit on Pandora?

Sad day, I had no idea and I just reached my limit for the MONTH!

Whatever will I do for music now?

** Regarding the title (The BIG TWO OH OH) this is my 200th blog post, WOW!!!

Mourning

I am in mourning. I guess it is no coincidence that I chose to wear black today. Subconciously I must have known when I got dressed today that something bad would happen. Something life altering, something that would have a huge effect on the rest of my day. Something uterly and completely terrible.

I left my lunch at home.

Last night I took special care to prepare and AMAZING lunch. I made myself a mouthwatering wrap that I was really looking forward to eating. Everything was packed up nicely in my new pink lunch box (my first birthday gift compliments of Rachel) sitting on the kitecn table just waiting to be taken to work and enjoyed at lunch time. And there it sits still – missing me surely as much as I miss it.

Tear

Stories From The Road

Now is the time that I realize nothing exciting/blogworthy is happening in my life this week (hence the lack of postage yesterday) and figure it is time to pull out some old stories. So go ahead gather round, grab a warm beverage (some Celestial Seasoning’s Tea perhaps) and blanket and curl up on the couch –it is time to settle in for story time.

While in Colorado Angela and I did our best to help out with the wedding preparations, try to work our keep if you will. Farakh taught us what is quite possibly the most complex napkin fold EVER. And from there we proceeded to fold all of the napkins for the wedding into the “star fold” (see the below photo slide show for picture). I think we did about 140 napkins and I think it only took me to napkin 100 to feel like I knew what I was doing. HA! But the good news is that if any of you ever need fancy napkins I am your go to person. Quite the skilled folder I am.

We also had the pleasure of preparing the crooked willow branches for the centerpieces. So the Simonov’s have a neighbor who kindly donated many branches from his willow tree to the wedding centerpiece cause. We walked a few houses down, he cut the branches and we carried them back to the house. In the process of this a few of the leaves may have touched another neighbor’s lawn – which then led to major neighbor drama. We definitely contributed to a small war that may now be in full battle in Colorado. Woops!!! Back to the centerpieces – we then proceeded to pull off all of the leaves from the branches. We spent about an hour and a half pulling off all of the leaves, giving them hundreds of branches to use for the centerpieces. Upon our viewing of the finished product we realized that only a small fraction of the branches were actually needed. Oh man, I guess we were a little over ambitious with that project.

Finally, we get to the best story from Colorado. Our last day there Angela and I took to exploring the great state. This story takes place at the 16th street mall in Denver. We were walking along here taking in the sites minding our own business when a man (presumably homeless) standing against the buildings says “do you represent Campbell’s soup?” We did not stop, I was really confused, what did that mean –my thoughts “it’s stinkin hot out here, why would anyone be thinking about soup?” Then a couple of seconds later, behind us I hear “because you’re mmm mmm good!” HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I laughed – ok actually I think I kinda groaned a little when I understood and then I laughed – out loud. This one was new to me – I am defiantly adding to my bank of cheesy pick-up lines.

Happy Friday!!

Photos from Colorado

Jet Lag

Is it possible to get jet lag from a one hour time difference? If so I am definitely suffering from it. Really, I know it sounds ridiculous but it is true. Last night Angela and I arrived back from Colorado, pretty exhausted. It was not that we did not have great accommodations, we just had a long day filled with adventure, lots of friends, tourist activities, tea, Pops, the successful use of a GPS, rental cars, shuttles, and the Grand Canyon, all of which happened on few hours of sleep.

When I fell into bed last night I was thankful to be home in my own little bed - looking forward to the AMAZING night sleep I would soon be enjoying. Five thirty am rolls around and my body has other ideas. I was WIDE awake. Completely unable to fall back asleep. My internal clock seemed to be confused that we were not in for another day of Colorado sightseeing, but a long day at the office. Try as I might I could not get back to sleep.

Hopefully this is not an extreme case of jet lag, just a minor one day bug - fingers crossed all shall be cleared up tomorrow.

VACATION!!!!

Today was the first day of VACATION!!!!
To kick it off I had a delightful breakfast with this little guy.

Lindsey, Kevin and Gavin came into town just as I am leaving, but we were able to squeeze in a little breakfast bonding time. YAY!!!

Now it is off to Colorado - the excitment is getting a little overwhelming. Only a few more hours of mundane normal life in La Hara. Then I shall be living the High Life or more specifically the "Mile High" life.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!