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So much has happened since June!

Let’s see…

In July, I took out my bike a few times, hung out with friends, bbq’ed on my new grill, got busy at work, and generally settled in to my awesome apartment that I still love.

In August, I got super busy at work (thanks to Pacific Standard Time!), celebrated a birthday (the towel one), started my own little poker group, and spent a few days in Dallas VISITING MY BRAND NEW NEPHEW who is awesome and wonderful and will rule the world.

In September, I BOUGHT ALL THE THINGS for my nephew (and not-yet-born niece), launched most of my work projects, got my hair cut, had a bunch o’doctor appointments (kidney stones are still there *sigh*), started on ADD meds, joined a pool league (Wednesday nights!), spent a small fortune on a new pool cue, and took an auto repair class for women at Santa Monica College with Michelle (awesome class, I highly recommend it!).

This month, I shall be going home for a week to spend even more time with my totally awesome nephew, and, as all the gods are my witness, I shall lose some weight off my enormous posterior. No really, I saw a full-body reflection today, and it was NOT PRETTY.

I’ve also been reading a lot of The Bloggess, and if you haven’t discovered her yet, you should hie thyself over there ’cause she’s hysterically awesome. Start with this post if you don’t believe me.

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Gratuitous Picture Post News Travel

Updates from the past month

So, I moved. My friends and I painted the new apartment, I went into a frenzy of packing, and after $500 and eight hours with two professional movers, my stuff was officially transferred from West Hollywood to West L.A.

Living room
Living room, painting and filled with stuff

It’s been a rush, to be sure. The new place is smaller and I’m trying to readjust my thinking as I try to purge the excess from the many boxes. I’ve always been very attached to “having stuff”, even if it’s just stuff I shove under a bed or into a closet. Having it has always been the key for me. Now, I’m working on asking myself, “So what if I *don’t* have it? What will change?” This week I gifted several of my prized collectible Barbies. I’m shipping yarn to a friend tomorrow. I’m starting to think it might even be possible for me to let go of the Buffy action figures. ?!

Tomorrow I’m going to Ikea to purchase two PAX wardrobe units for my bedroom, and I’m very excited. I’ve been living out of suitcases for two weeks now (my dresser did not survive the move, and the new place as ONE, TINY closet), and I’ve reached a point with the boxes where there just isn’t any place left to put things. And Saturday, WeHo is having a shredding/recycling event at City Hall, so I may even get to unload 15 years of paper in one fell swoop. Seriously, I’m getting all tingly.

ION, I went home to Massachusetts last month for my friend Rebecca’s wedding. It was a great week (Red Sox game! Karaoke! Bar hopping in Boston!) and a great wedding, and I even learned that Mr. Darcy actually had a first name. I did not know that. (It’s Fitzwilliam, btw. Or maybe FitzWilliam?)

That’s all the news that’s fit to print–for now, anyway. 🙂

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News

I AM MOVING

Yes, it’s true. I’ve lived at my current residence for 10 1/2 years, despite leaky windows, insect infestations, and noisy neighbors, but I finally got the motivation to go out, find a place, and actually sign a freakin’ lease. (Really, it was the combination of all three of those at one time that finally convinced me.)

My new place is in West L.A.–five minute commute to work! My new place has a balcony with a clear view of the eastern sky–private outdoor space all my own to enjoy a book and a cup of tea! My new place has ONE closet–holy crap. So I’m currently in the process of packing and trying to purge, although the purging isn’t going all that well so far. Hopefully it’ll pick up once I reach the Hall Closet of Doom.

IMG_1786

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Blogs Links News Travel

Six months in 500 words or less

May 1st?? May freakin’ first?!!! Wow, someone needs to kick my ass. Let’s see if I can summarize the past holy-wow-six months.

May:
TroubleBad news first: My cat Trouble died. It was a terrible terrible thing, and I still blame myself for being too busy to take her to the vet sooner. She spent almost a week in the vet hospital before she passed, and I visited her every day. I wasn’t with her when she died, arriving about 30 minutes too late. 🙁

June:
Was the “official” photographer for a meet and greet fan event with Nick Brendon.

IMG_6450Got a new friend for Jack–this is Dr. Zeva Tinycat, although she’s no longer quite this tiny, as she eats like the shelter cat she was. She’s two and a half, loves string and meowing a lot, doesn’t like people food, and bounces on the stomachs of my houseguests when they sleep on the couch.

Started seeing a therapist. She’s cool, albeit expensive. The expense adds a little to my stress, but I feel it’s the one thing I can’t really talk about with her.

July:
Spot of my perfect momentDrove out to Zion National Park in Utah by myself and spent a couple of days hiking. It was an incredible experience. The park was beautiful, and being on my own and beholden to none was very freeing. Next time, though, I’d rather share the beauty with someone–and the little travelled trail I’d discovered.

August:
For my birthday I got my first ever kidney stone. Yeah, it sucked donkey balls. It hit two days before, at work. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where my boss hung out with me until I was released (and it was *his* birthday). Spent the rest of the week on my couch in much pain. Bonus, I still have two more stones hanging out in my kidneys that could drop at any time. Yay.

September:
IMG_8398Spent nine days at Disney World with nine friends and relatives to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. We had a BLAST! Seriously, one of my best vacations ever.

October:
Work project kicked into high gear and the stress became the center of my life. Not the greatest month ever. However, I did make it to Carnaval in West Hollywood for the first time in about seven years, so that was cool. It’s still just as fun and crazy as I remember. And I spent four hours on a Saturday helping to assemble holiday boxes to send to troops in I believe Afghanistan. That was cool.

So now it’s November. The work project is still in progress and still stressful, but should be launching in a week and a half. Unfortunately it coincides with a Fitness Challenge being held at the work-site gym, where eight teams of eight are competing to lose the most (percentage-wise) in seven weeks. I’m blogging my progress with that little event over here, but I must say, not being able to eat chocolate when I’m stressed is doing bad things to my general disposition.

I’ve been crocheting this whole time. All summer I’d work on granny squares–boring, basic squares, each made from a full ball of Plymouth Encore. I now have 20 squares that need to be joined into a blanket. Don’t know when that’ll be happening. I also made one ginormous granny square blanket for my sister’s birthday.

IMG_8734

So that’s the past six months in a nutshell. Hopefully it won’t be another six months before my next update. 🙂

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News Programming

For better? Or for worse?

In helping my sister set up her new website/blog, I’m learning some new stuff to help my own site. Or is it hindering? As you can see, my latest “improvement” is changing the homepage so it shows excerpts of new posts instead of the full content of each. I thought it would make the page more manageable and less like a 12 story building, but I’m not sure the execution works like I pictured it. I don’t know if the images are to small, or the excerpts are too short, but there seems to be too much space everywhere. Unfortunately my PHP skills are still in the baby-steps stage, so I’m not sure I can change it to the way I want. Phoo.

This place definitely needs an overhaul, regardless. The design, the content, the architectural structure (or lack thereof)…. Sadly there are at least three other websites in line for my spare time before this one, and two of them are paying gigs.