Curious

I’m curious as to why the city is putting Christmas lights on the trees outside my office. It is still summer, we have MONTHS until it would even be close to a date that the hanging of lights would be acceptable. Unless of course I missed the memo on a Christmas in July celebration. Which, I am certain I did not. Artesia is out of control.

the outage

Over the weekend out sweet little house suffered an Internet outage. When it first occurred we naturally thought the world had ended. Two and a half days, and much stress later we knew it was one of the greatest tragedies of all time. Our future children would be reading out this in their history books one day. Or so it felt like.

Out of no where it just stopped working. No signal nothing. We tried everything, even tried changing to a different router, and still we had no luck. On day two of the outage we discovered that we were not getting Internet through our modem so we called our trusty Time Warner Cable 1-800 number. After too much time on the phone with them, the modem was working again, at which point the man told me next time I had Internet problems I should try troubleshooting online at http://www.timewarnercable.com/. Really? That annoyed me. How can I troubleshoot online when I can't get online? Answer me that Mr. TMC.

After the modem was working we still could not get the wireless working. Day three, many phone calls to Warren and Cameron later Rachel and I determined that we needed a new router. Now Rachel and I are both what I would consider reasonably capable people. We should with instructions be able to easily set up a new router. BUT no that would have been two easy. The new router still not giving us wireless. Next came the phone call the the Netgear tech support.

This phone call was by far the highlight of this tragedy. The women who was helping Rachel was quite entertaining. She really enjoyed chatting, about everything and, I am pretty sure it was because she quickly developed a crush on Rachel. Seriously, she told her that her British accent was sexy. Rachel has a British accent? This is news to me, HA! She also told us a lame therefore I found it funny joke. Ready?

Q: What is Dora the Explorers middle name?
(no it's not the)
A: Internet
Dora the Internet Explorer hehehehhe

And she fixed our problem for us. YAY! We have Internet again.

livin the LA life

All of the sudden I find myself going to LA a lot. Three times in the last two weeks, in the past I may have gone once a year or so. Other than the traffic it's been great, I am now wondering how it is that I have lived in this area for over seven years and had never really explored the area.

This time we headed up for the Renegade Craft Fair. Unfortunately we got stuck in some pretty nasty traffic on the drive up, but we were entertained by some great people watching. Check out this guy, who (sorry for the bad photo) was playing his harmonica while driving. I know there is no law against this, but really if holding a phone is dangerous this has got to be as well.

The craft fair was fun, HOT but fun, I of course got sunburned. I purchased a great sailboat card that will soon be added to my wall. In the midst of the crafting madness (there were TONS of people) I spotted T.J. Thyne. It did not appear that anyone else knew who he was, which is understandable I guess, as you are all probably wondering who he is..........he's on Bones.

This guy:

THEN, this just gets even better. After lunch we drove by the church from 7th Heaven. I made Rachel drive extra slow so I could snap a pic. Ang I wish you have been there to appreciate it with me, I had flashbacks of you asking Simon for an autograph way back freshman year.

How's that for some television sightings that no one cares about besides me?

It's Here!

It's here, it's here it's here. I can now leave the country.

WOOT WOOT!!

Who wants to go on vacation?

all that jazz

As you all know I am a total sucker for all things nautical. So naturally I was quite excited by the nearly full aisle of rope at the trim store we visited over the weekend. Last night I used some of my purchases to create this snazzy jazzy headband.

Proper nautical headgear is a must for when I eventually go sailing...............which could, possibly, maybe be happening in September!!!!!

25, part DOS - A (aka BLISS)

And here we have the last one, with approximately 500,000 photos. Which I should give appropriate credit, most photos were taken by Angela and Rachel - good skills they have! Now we enter the play by play of the HB.

Our picnic is packed and we are ready to go. That basked was SOOOOOOOO heavy. Seriously we had too many beverages. We had to take turns carrying it.

We, well at least I greatly enjoyed the people mover....the less stairs and hills we had to climb the better.

PICNIC!!!

Our table had a nice view of the Observatory off in the distance.

Yummy Yummy food! Possibly the largest sandwiches we have ever eaten.

The first of our many drinks......and my AWESOME hot pink nail polish!

Cupcakes! Chocolate with espresso buttercream frosting, delish!

We ended up sharing our picnic table - because we are just SO nice, with a group of four who we came to call Santa Barbara (as this is where they came from). Who were quite funny. They kept eyeing our food and telling us it looked good. Then one of them told us how she had seen the Beatles at the HB and had her high school graduation there. THEN, as I said they were eyeing our food, they offered us a swap. Wine for dessert. All four of them shared our extra cupcake.

She & Him!!!!!!!!!!

Oddly enough out of all of the thousands and thousands of people in attendance we saw numerous people we knew at different time throughout the night. Including a tunnel run in with Janelle, and old friend of Angela's and I - who we had not seen since we randomly ran into her at The Phantom of the Opera last year. Clearly we are both very cultured, I wonder where we will run into her next.

And once more just because I LOVE LOVE LOVED it!

More beverages.

Such a fantastic birthday, and concert, probably my favorite of the not so many that I have attended. Thanks Ang and Rach for celebrating with me ALL weekend long you guys are the BEST!!!

25, part DOS

And we're back with more. I apologize if you tire of hearing about my birthday, I promise there will only be one more post about it after this one.

Sunday morning I arose to the sweet smell of cinnamon rolls, YUM! We had a nice breakfast complete with gifts, and everything, and I do mean everything (plates, candles, presents, and gift wrap) was pink and teal.

Please ignore my grungy appearance "morning Mandy" is not very photogenic.

Best gift wrap EVER!!!!!!!!!!

25, part UNO-A

We did so many things I forgot some of them already. YIKES! Along with the fashion district we also strolled through the flower district - which was quite lovely for other reasons beyond the fact that it was highly air conditioned unlike every other store we went to. It smelled great and was of course full of flowers.

These lovely birthday hydrangea were purchased.

Here they are looking quite celebratory at home.

25, part UNO

Whew I'm back, hopefully you weren't too worried about me. The creeper did not get me (I know secretly that is what you were thinking when I didn't blog for so many days). He is actually gone I think. Well not gone gone but I have changed my morning routine so I arrive about 7 minutes later than before and he has not been around.

Thanks to my wonderful friends I had a full weekend of birthday celebrations. It was so jam packed that it has to be broken up into two posts. This is the first.......in case you didn't get that from the title.

To start out the weekend Rachel decorated the house - this way anyone who entered would know without a doubt that it was my birthday.

The first activity of the weekend was a viewing of Inception. Probably the movie I have been most looking forward to this year. After sitting in the theater for a good 45 minutes due to a malfunctioning projector I was not disappointed. It was fantastic, well worth the wait.

The second activity was a visit to the fashion distric in LA.

This trim store was probably my/eveyones favorite stop. It was quite fun walking through aisle after aisle of ribbons.

See this wall? Floor to ceiling of shelves filled with boxes of buttons, buckles, bows, patches, sequins and everything in between. Well Rachel wanted a few things. Of course everything she wanted was on the very top shelf. The poor worker men had to go find a taller ladder to get them down. After quite some time of rearranging boxes they got them down Rachel perused them and decided she didn't actually want them. It made me laugh.

creeper

I have failed to mention the creeper in my life to you all. This is because up until this morning I thought he was creepy but would tell myself “no Mandy you are being to sensitive he is not creepy you are just reading into it and being paranoid.” BUT NO LONGER. It’s official there is a creeper in my life.

So there is this man (man man not a young man, he is like 40ish) who works in my building. Every morning when I arrive he is sitting in his car waiting to be let in the building. He would say hi, and chat for a minute or so, nothing much but I just kind of always got that semi creepy greasy I like to watch you vibe from him. Thus me telling myself I am a paranoid person since I only saw him like 2 min a day. I never really understood why he didn’t come a mere ten minutes later, since he clearly knew when the I would arrive to unlock the doors, but whatever I chalked it up to him not really minding waiting a few minutes. Well Last week he got a key to the building. I know this for a fact, because I told my boss to give him one because he was always waiting to be let in. Low and behold he was still waiting outside every morning. Even on days when one of my coworkers got there before me and unlocked-and propped the door open, he was still sitting in his car. This is when I decided that he was clearly waiting on my arrival. He would get out of his car when I pulled into the parking lot and then walk to the door with me, and follow me up the stairs.

Today, I saw this happen. The doors to the building were open when I pulled in. He was getting out of his car, and I just thought to myself I don't want to deal with this today. I don’t' want to make 2 minute small talk with you semi creepy man because you are not normal. So I got out of my car and walk pretty quickly inside, through the doorway and down the hallway to the stairs taking them two at a time hoping to round the corner before he entered so I would not have to speak to him. I heard the door open, him enter and ..............music? Strange I assumed his phone must be ringing, it continued to play, in my head I was thinking “answer your phone already dude.” It went on way to long, and I realized it wasn't ringing, he wass playing music. So I listen more closely to hear what song it is. And to my utter shock/dismay/alarm I hear the soft voice of Barry Manilow crooning "Oh Mandy' EEEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I RAN into my office and around the corner as to not be seen through the window!

SO mature

In my last days as a twenty four year old I am really seeing little peeks of maturity in my life. Last night I had this moment. I did something, something most people do quite often, and don't think is a big deal, but to me it was. I did it and then I sat thinking about it, reflecting on how mature I this action made me. I was laying in bed reading, enjoying my book, when I saw something move. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small spider scurry across my bed.

Major Gross factor here. Spiders in my bed. EW!!! [ha ok thinking that obviously is not showing maturity] BUT, mature Mandy, well she may have thought that, but she also took action, she was not scared away by the little brown arachnid.

Back in the day I would have seen that and screamed. Flung back my covers and fled from my room, vowing to never again sleep in my bed again because it was clearly infested with spiders, who although my be tiny, were out to get me. [Quick history of Mandy and spiders one must know to fully appreciate my actions: my room at my parents house was in located in the basement aka the animal reserve, or so we called it after a squirrel got caught in the wall, mice and spiders were know to live in my room at different times. And we are talking like majorly HUGE obviously on steroids spiders. We had to regularly use bug bombs and I even had one of those annoying clicking machines that was supposed to keep the bugs away. Many were killed, but many survived, enough to make me afraid to enter my room.] So my track record with spiders is not good - they gross me out and I don't like to kill them because that means I have to get near them.

Now enough with the history lesson. Last night, I saw the spider. I set down my book, killed the spider, flushed it down the toilet to make sure that even if it managed to live through my skull crushing it would not make it back into my room. Then I climbed right back into my bed and slept with no nightmares of spider attacks. Watch out spiders, I will run from you no more!

happy birthday SYLVAN!!!

And Congratulations on the promotion you shall be an AWESOME Senior Client Services Associate!!!

this and that

Today I am a wee bit tired - therefore this may be a non sense making post. Which probably means I should not post since it is nothing of importance just random ramblings, but alas it is me and I am bored and trying to stay awake at work so post I will. But feel free to stop reading now, I won't hold it against you.

So the this: I am a little bit directionally challenged. I tend to get lost, misunderstand directions, and get distracted, probably all reasons I don't love driving. Friday I got myself all the way down to Costa Mesa to Sylvan's house without getting lost or making a wrong turn. I realize that being only a 25 minute trek it may not sound too impressive to you -BUT it was a big deal. I had to go on three different freeways, all by myself, and I did it. I was proud. So me being on a good direction high was feeling good about my drive to LAX last night/this morning to pick up Rachel. I had my directions all written out, drank my coffee as to stay awake [she got stuck in Denver due to storms and didn't arrive until 12:40] and set out. I have been to LAX  many times, but this was the first time since we moved to Fullerton, which for the record completely changes the route. I used to just have to take Imperial Hwy and the 105 now there are three different freeways involved, so much room for error. Thankfully I made it without mishap, picked her up and headed home. I was doing good until about 1:20 when I realized that I was not recognizing anything around us. So I may have gone the wrong direction on the 91. WOOPS! Making our late night journey a good 20 minutes longer than necessary - I was so annoyed with myself.

The that: [Ang check it out]Yesterday, after oh you know about four years of talk I finally went and got my passport. Or well, payed for it and turned in all the paperwork - I won't have have it for another four weeks, but still. It has taken me years, and multiple times of filling out the paperwork to actually go do it. Can you say lazy? Uh yeah.

the ARIZONA life

Is stinkin HOT! Like disgusting, sweltering I thought I might have a heat stroke from 5 minutes outside HOT. When I walked out of the airport Friday night at 9:45pm it was still over 100. Southern California looked real good about then, at least we get cool evenings and nice breezes. But really I can't complain too much about the heat, air conditioning is a wonderful invention and there are things like this little girl that make it all worth it.

My lovely holiday weekend consisted of getting up early (opposite of most peoples vacations) lots of Justin Bieber, Sesamie Street, shopping, crafting, snacking, watching TV and relaxing.

Now it's back to work. The last four weeks have been so strange for me - three of the four weeks I was out of town and having 3 or 4 day weekends. So nice. Back to reality now, no more three day weekends until Labor day. Shucks that is a long ways away.

red white and BLUE

Feeling patriotic this weekend? I sure am. Starting the weekend off right. Rachel prepared a lovely red white and blue breakfast for us this morning (unintentionally even) we feasted on strawberry and blueberry crepes with homemade whipped cream. SO GOOD!!!

I also just so happened to be wearing red white and blue today. AND I did notice that I even packed a fair amount of blue for my weekend away in Arizona. My wardrobe is seriously lacking in red, but blue being nautical and all I sure have a lot of.

Now if only this blasted work day would come to an end, and I could be off. Why is it that the last few hours before the weekend feel 43 times longer than the rest of the day?

Happy three day weekend!

shrivel shrivel

When Angela and I moved in with Rachel I knew she had a problem keeping plants alive. She has a black thumb, sorry Rach but you know it's true. I on the other hand would hardly say I have a green thumb, but I/we have had some decent plants survive in our home over the years. Abraham for example has been living with us for at least five years now, since the good ol days at Biola.

But now, one month after moving in with Rachel my plants are dying. It is tragic. Abraham thank goodness is fine, he will live forever. BUT the two succulent plants that were purchased a few weeks ago are currently on the brink of death. Seriously. Aren't those plant supposed to be unkillable? Clearly that is not true. And the basil plant well yeah, he has only been with us for about 4 days and already he is starting to shrivel. What in the world are we doing wrong?


Angela we need to come home and revive the plants, they miss you. And I should probably mention we totally forget to lock the doors without your nightly text messages. We are clearly incapable of protecting ourselves. I woke up the other morning and as I walked to the kitchen to get my coffee I noticed that the front door was unlocked, so just for kicks I checked the back door as well, and sure enough they were both unlocked. Woops! Thank goodness no prowlers decided to stop in for a little visit.

wedded bliss

Happy Anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Holt!!