San Diego 2009 - Part 2

We left off on Tuesday evening at Croce's Jazz Bar, and now resume our tale Wednesday morning.



Pretty flowers outside yet another thrift store.

After that, we went to Hillcrest, off of University Avenue (oddly enough, it's near the college) for another "famous" thrift store (or at least it got good reviews online). We parked just outside "Wear it Again, Sam," a vintage clothing store. (That's not the one we were looking for, but it was a fortuitous parking place, since we got to check it out!) I stepped inside and I swear, it was like I Love Lucy all around, from the men's shirts to the purses and hats to the bathing suits to the dresses. Sooooo much prettiness and cuteness! Unfortunately everything was overpriced, even the things that were in bad condition, i.e. had rips or runs or broken zippers. *Sigh* But very fun to look.

We had lunch at Pizza Fusion, and everything there is eco-friendly, biodegradable, free-range, and organic. Our waitress was covered in tattoos and was kind of a friendly, dippy hippie sort of person. Here is the bathroom sink:



(I took a picture of the nifty bathroom sinks at Quarter Kitchen, too, but they turned out bad so I didn't post them. I'm weird, I know.) I'm pretty sure it was made from bamboo, and at the bottom of the mirror, it says "This person is helping to change the world." Awww.

We hit Buffalo Exchange after that, and if we weren't so tired and footsore at that point, we could've spent a lot longer inside. I tried on a ton of stuff but everything either didn't fit, or was ugly on me. All except a cute black pencil skirt, yay! I'd been wanting one for teaching this fall.

If you've met my mom, this will come as little surprise to you: we went and got her nose pierced that afternoon. :D We punched "tattoo" into the GPS to find a place and drove just a little ways, went in and met a hairy, tattoo'd dude, and were told to come back in half an hour. After having a coffee and pastry at a cute French place, we returned to Swell Tattoo Co.





:D Didn't hurt, didn't bleed, she didn't even tear up.

After that, we went home, exhausted.

Thursday was our last day in San Diego. We hit Ikea in the morning, wheeeeeee! I love love love that store! I'd never been in one before, but everything in it was just like our house is decorated. I wanted to buy all of it! And so cheap, too! Eventually, when (if) we have money, we might be ordering some smaller things from the website.



Brittany, this is for you and your Ikea food pictures! We split a chicken wrap and an order of French fries. I had apple juice and Mom had some sort of sparkling peach stuff. Yum!

After lunch, we drove to the Natural History Museum for the Body Worlds exhibit. It was very cool and I'm very glad we went! It was like walking through a giant science lesson, but in a good way. I went back and forth between, "Oh my gosh, these are real people. Ew. Dang." and "Wow, this is so awsome! Look at that heart cross section/those blood vessels/that embryo/those muscles!" If you have a chance to go, I recommend it.



Lovely avenue between the science building and the museum proper. Don't know what was down it, but it was sure a photo opportunity!

Thursday after work, Lori drove us an hour and a half-ish back to Jenna's apartment. We watched What Happens in Vegas, which was better than I'd thought it would be: hilarious and cute. Lori then drove home since she had work the next morning, and Mom and I slept on the hideaway in the spare room, and the couch in the living room, respectively.

The whole trip, Mom and I had been dying for El Pollo Loco. (Oh my gosh, that website just made me so hungry for it! It's soooo good!) It had been years since either of us had had it, since there aren't any in Colorado. So on the way to the airport (Jen came back on her lunch break to take us), we drove through and got combo meals. Deciding it would be too messy to eat them in the car, and thinking it was only a half hour, anyway, we waited til we got to the airport. After checking our bag and getting our tickets, we started toward... well, a freaking huge line. And at the end of that line was the security checkpoint, past which you cannot take food. So yes, we scarfed down as much as we could, since we had to get in that line and we couldn't be late for our flight.



(Good grief, I really needed to cut my bangs that whole time we were there, they looked like crud!) (And I like Mr. "I'm not paying attention to the silly tourists taking pictures of their chicken" behind me.) Here I am with our carry-on junk on a cart, eating grilled chicken, tortillas, beans, and rice, as fast as possible without getting sick.

And then, finally, we were on the plane home. After the stress of the huge airport, both of us just read and dozed a little. However, I had to take one more picture.



I think our carry-on bags are so indicative of our personalities. Heather's is handmade, vintage-looking, pink, and comfy. Donna's is patent-leather, zebra striped, and accented with lipstick-red and silver chains.

Good trip.

San Diego 2009 - Part 1

The trip immortalized forever in a wholllle lot of pictures! Oddly enough, a lot of them are of food, but I'll only show you a couple of those. (We did a lot of eating. It was great.) I took about 80 pictures and whittled them down to 21.

Mom and I left here about 9:30 on Friday night and the two-hour flight got into LAX about 10:45--California time. (The trip home was "three hours" long because of the time change.) My cousin, Jennifer, picked us up at the airport since she lives about half an hour away, then we drove straight down to my Aunt Lori's house in San Diego, about another hour and a half. We arrived at Lori's about 1am and promptly crashed into our respective beds. Mom and I had their toy hauler/trailer in the driveway to ourselves, which was super nice.



Here is the view from their huge picture window in the living room. Across the bay you can see the Sea World fireworks go off about 10 every night.



This is how we spent the first half of Saturday. It was amazing. Once we were finally dressed, we went to CostCo, since we'd made great plans of wonderful things to cook and eat that week. After dropping all that off at the house, Mom and I took Lori's car to the beach for a couple hours while Lori and Jen (who can go to the beach whenever they want since they live there) hit another grocery store for a couple more things. We came back and had a yummy dinner: a salad of greens with grilled chicken, fresh raspberries, carmelized walnuts, and raspberry vinagrette. Uncle Jeff was on a boat fishing with friends, and my other cousin, Curtis, was at his cousin's house, so we could have a super-girly dinner.

Sunday we had a "tea party" breakfast with orange-chocolate-chip scones, two kinds of tea, and yogurt-fruit-granola "parfaits" in martini glasses, then the four of us went to the swap meet. Sooooooo much shopping, and all for super cheap! I got a top and a dress for $12, the parasol for $2, a bunch of earrings for $5, a purse and matching wallet (the same exact set I'd been pining for from Icing, but I paid $8 for the set instead of $30!), lots of hair stuff, new sunglasses... I don't know what all else. Jenna also got a big rug for her new apartment for just $40, and Mom got two pair of shoes, a hat... Yeah, there was major shopping.





Snack time! (Jenna and Lori)

That night we had a nice dinner with the whole family, as well as Curtis' really sweet girlfriend, Sarah. We watched Holes, which I hadn't seen in forever. It's still wonderful! :) (Please read the book first if you haven't seen the movie! They're both great, but of course the book is better.) Then Curtis played a new song he'd learned on his 12-string. He has a minor guitar addiction, and by "minor" I mean he has about 6 all over his room.



Jenna got up early Monday morning to head back to Orange County and work, booo. Mom drove Lori to work so we'd have the use of her car all day (and she caught a ride back with Jeff). Then we hit the thrift stores--hard! One called "The Buff" was supposed to be awesome, but was mostly full of cheap-o Halloween costumes and castoff 90's clothes, though I did find some dark turquoise, velvet, high-heeled shoes with rhinestone buckles on them! Up the street was "Thrift Trader," where everything in the store--t-shirts, skirts, movies, CDs, jackets, everything--was either $5.99 or 4 items for $20. We made out good there!



I got this top, as well as a bunch of cute WWF t-shirts and a black cropped jacket that will be good for teaching. Mom got a bunch of CDs.



We then made our second Starbucks stop of the day for a little pick-me-up before heading to AmVets, a huuuuge thrift store the size of a warehouse. (All the proceeds went to support veterans, yay.)



Mom did not get the overalls, I just wanted a picture of her in a thrift store, too. She did get a tablecloth, and I got a couple of dresses and a pair of brown patent-leather peep-toe heels. I've been needing good brown shoes!

Exhausted, we returned to Lori and Jeff's and put our feet up!

The next day we went to the Gaslamp District, which is full of historic buildings such as:



Pretty, huh? Also, gas lamps! Although of course they're electric now. We spent pretty much that whole day in the Horton Plaza Mall, again, shopping til we dropped. (Why I kept wearing high heels, I do not know. Oh right, cuz they're cute. Beauty is pain.) We finally rested our feet at Quarter Kitchen, the restaurant of the Ivy, a fancy-ish hotel. There I met, in person, Jen from Somewhere Knitting! We've been internet friends for around three years now, I think! She lived about two hours south of San Diego, and since she would be moving back east a couple of weeks after and we would likely never get the chance to meet again, we decided to have dinner that night!



It was really great to talk to her face-to-face, and I'm so glad my mom could meet her, too! (They'd been Facebook friends for a while; somehow they remind me of the other.) Jen, thanks again so much for driving all that way to see us!



This is the most amazing braised beef I've ever had, it just fell apart in your mouth! Tiny carrots, tiny potatoes. The restaurant was so fancy that the portions were leeetle, but we got two appetizer-entree-dessert orders and shared between the three of us; it was just right.



Like I said, Mom has fond memories of Jim Croce and his music from her high school days, so we went to his restaurant and jazz bar to check it out and buy a souvenier. (He died in a plane crash years ago, so it's not really his restaurant, but anyway.) It wasn't quite what we were expecting; there was a very loud band in one corner (good, though!) and the "gift shop" was a locked glass case in the back by the restrooms which contained a few box sets, some DVDs, and some t-shirts. Oh well. Mom got the 30th anniversary box set of two CDs and a DVD of live stuff, and took a picture with the bouncer! Then we took the trolley back to the depot (we'd taken the bus into the District, so we got both experiences--the trolley was a lot faster--in order to not mess with and pay for parking downtown) and drove a couple of miles home!

This is a very long post with a lot lot of pictures, so I'll wrap it up for now. Part 2 coming soon! (Hopefully tomorrow.)

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Hiiiiiiiii!

I'm back! I'm here! Home, my very own home! It's full of boxes and bags of STUFF (man, we have a lot of stuff) but it is ours.

San Diego was great! I'll make a post soonish with lots of pictures and tell you all about it. I got a ton of stuff from the swap meet and various thrift stores, and great memories with my mom.

We are all moved in, totally and completely. The carpets in the old apartment have been cleaned, and we turned in our keys. Hopefully we'll get our deposit back soon. :)

There is a scratch on the inside of this mug that looks just like a smiley face. =) Like that.

My head is full of so many things right now (one of them being caffienated iced tea) that I'm a little ADD.

Off to visit family for the weekend; it's my grandma's birthday, and my mom's two sisters are coming out as well. Monday is new teacher orientation, as is Tuesday, then Wednesday starts the teacher work days. By the 19th, I will be with students in "my" classroom! AAAAAAAAAAAACK!

I mean YAAAAAAAAY! Yes, that's what I meant.

8 Things Friday

1. We picked out and bought the paint for the new kitchen, as well as all the other supplies! :) Go here, click on "Warm Reds," and type "Tomato Red" into the search on the right side. It looks horrid on my monitor, sort of pinkish and dull, but it's much nicer than that, really. I'm trying to think of something in real life to compare it to... Maybe a bit more orange than geraniums, and a little darker.

As a reminder, here's the kitchen:



Keep in mind the new countertops will be medium-grey with speckles. The two walls you can see, as well as the third wall facing the living room, will be painted. Did I say the new theme for the kitchen is "sushi"? :D I think it will be so cute! I want to make a rag rug from old t-shirts that looks like a sushi roll (green on the outside for seaweed, white inside for rice, and pink in the center for salmon or whatever). Any links to sushi-themed fabric, knick-knacks, pictures, or kitchen doo-dads, if you happen to come across them, would be appreciated!

2. Now for plans for the sewing room! I might clip a few aprons onto a pretend clothesline on the wall, or hang them on pegs, but the rest I want to pin onto curtains and replace the lame sliding closet doors with those curtains! They'll look like they're almost made out of aprons, but I can still take the aprons off at any point and not damage any if I just use safety pins. I might also sew/pin doilies and hankies in the blank spots between aprons and make it really patchwork-y, we'll see.

I got a couple of nice wooden hangers on which to display my pretty vintage dresses. I hate that my Gunne Sax, my 60s homecoming dresses, and a few other neat ones, are just hung in the back of my closet and are worn either never or very rarely. Why not treat them as art? I'll put a couple hooks or pegs on the wall and rotate the dresses on hangers depending on what I want to see.

If I could find some decent-looking wig heads, I might put some of the vintage hats on them; HOWEVER, 1) having heads in my sewing room, especially at night and when it's dark, might freak me out out of the corner of my eye and 2) I'm not sure I'll have enough free horizontal surfaces (like bookcases or shelves) on which to put them. So the hats might go on the wall, too.

After this, if I have any wall space left (one wall is mostly sliding glass door, the other is mostly closet, and there's the door into the room in another wall), I might do something like this with a few of my favorite/most meaningful fabrics. Cute, huh? I got about 8 wooden embroidery hoops of various sizes at the Goodwill the other day for really cheap, too.

Oh, and I want a vanity in the sewing room. With just my sewing table and desk, there should be room. It would be so nice to have all my jewelry, makeup, and hair stuff in a place where I can sit down and get ready in the morning, with a nice little table, stool, and mirror. I described my ideal vanity to Mom--white, sort of curvy, with rounded edges and maybe moulding?--and she said it was "French Provincial." Lovely!

3. Good grief, are we only on three? All right, here's another picture:



Yes, it is a picture of a dirty, rather linty floor. But do you know what floor it is? It is the floor of the current craft closet! YES, IT HAS A FLOOR! I have discovered it! The overflow pile of laundry is GONE (it all fits in the hampers, now, and holy cow do we have a lot of clothes!) so you can SEE the FLOOR! If I'm ever not running around doing stuff for the new house/moving, or doing school, I could actually get in there and sort through stuff and pack stuff! CRAZY!

4. More pictures! The other day for lunch, I turned this



into this



Appetizing, no? :P It was quite delicious. The addition of a banana helped to disguise the spinach taste completely, and the strawberries and pineapple plus OJ, made it very yummy! I will give you a tip, though: don't have this much fruit in one day, two days in a row. I'm just sayin.

5. SEVEN DAYS TIL SAN DIEGO!!!

6. Speaking of which, does anyone who knows San Diego have any fabulous places we simply must visit while we're there? (July 24th-31st) So far we have: one day of thrift stores, one day of the Gaslamp District, maybe one day at the swap meet. We'd like to visit the beach at least a couple of mornings/afternoons (not all day) and just lay around and read and be bums. :) Also want to hit the Jim Croce restaurant/shop because my mom has fond memories of his music from her youth, and we might go Coronado Island Hotel. We're not that interested in Sea World (been there, done that), nor do we want to drive far at all since we'll be borrowing my aunt's car while she's at work.

7. Goodwill is made of awesome! I needed new jeans that fit and weren't holey, and a hoodie that met very specific requirements (none of which my other 537 jackets had), and ended up getting not only classy wide-leg jeans and a lime-green hoodie, but the embroidery hoops mentioned above, white sandals (strappy, high-heeled) that I like a lot better than my current white sandals, two comfy knit dresses about knee-length, and a really 80s-looking cotton floral dress that I think is cute but might be a little tacky/lame in 2009. Don't care, I wore it anyway. Oh, and also our Christmas cards for this year because they were cheap, and a hot pink sheet to make into a dress/skirt/whatever. I need to quit buying sheets for fabric until I use up a few that I have! All that for just about $34!

8. If you could recommend one book on pregnancy/childbirth, what would it be and why? I want to get a few in the near-ish future to start looking ahead and considering all my options.