probably more than a few of you know that i'm slightly obsessed with astrologyzone.com. each month, i look forward to what susan miller is going to tell me about the upcoming month, because more often than not, she is right on the nose. i realize that others feel differently (anne, for instance, who shares my sign, and whom it very rarely applies to), but for me, i often gape at just how well this stranger knows me.
case in point:
Is all this pressure and effort you are going through worth it? Yes, it is. You are giving birth to a whole new way of life, one that is meant for you, and one that you will enjoy more than the old one you are leaving.
Saturn is now toughening you up so that you'll be ready for anything life throws your way. As you walk across the creaky old bridge to your new life, don't look to your right or left and by all means, as you go across, don't look down. Just keep looking forward, putting one foot in front of the other. This is a process that requires concentration.
Under these very isolating and testing aspects, at times you will feel a little lonely, as if you are swimming in the middle of the ocean in high seas in a perfect storm. That's the way Saturn and Uranus tend to work - to isolate so that you will choose the remedy that feels right for you. Saturn and Uranus want to teach you to rely on yourself and not to ask others to make the decisions or other actions for you. You need to be present in all actions and to take the final responsibility for all decisions.
The feeling of isolation that you may experience is only an illusion - you will see evidence of this during April's last week, for instance. (More about that later.) Your friends, loved ones, and colleagues really do care about you and want to help you!
is it sacriligious if i say 'amen'?
honestly, i can't think of a better way to describe my life right now. work is overwhelming, i am completely stressed out about my new calling (2 friggin' weeks until the mid-singles conference!), and i am more self-reliant in this moment of my life than i have ever been. i'm paying off debt, learning about budgets and prioritizing, living on far less than i ever thought i could or would, and somehow, i'm making it work.
i often feel a little lonely and isolated, but over the course of the next several weeks, i will have many opportunities to spend time with people i love...dylan and kelly next weekend in portland, followed by a visit from my friend justin who is attending the conference. after that, i get to spend time with anne here, and lara in vegas on back to back weekends.
there is opposition, or rather, balance, in all things, and ms. miller is more right than anyone should be. ironically, she also mentions i 'may go out of town to see a friend or member of my family, such as your sister or brother' at exactly the time i'm doing just that. coincidence?
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
reunited, and it feels SO good!
i felt more like ‘me’ yesterday than i have in a long time. it’s a strange statement, i know, but something about being with someone who has known you for most of your life has that effect. and even beyond that, it’s deb. the self-portrait originator (though there is still some debate on this point), my fellow “goofy girl” and long time partner in crime.
we had a strange block of time in which to reconnect… 3pm, sunday. for many reasons, this is problematic. one, because i believe in keeping the sabbath day holy. for my non-mormon readership (though if you know me, you already know this!), among other things, this means not buying things on sunday. it’s true that when i myself am traveling, sunday often becomes less ‘sunday’, and depending on the situation sometimes more so than others. i’m sure all of you are better people than i, but if i’m traveling i will pay for food, possibly parking, admission fees. it all depends on what the ‘traveling’ is.
just for the record, i also, if possible, will go to church. the lines become a little bit more blurry for me in situations like this, where someone else is traveling, and i'm responsible for them. in most cases, there are multiple days, and plans can be arranged accordingly. in this case though, i had about 7 hours, and they happen to fall on sunday. i knew that we wouldn't be coming back to my house, and that we would be doing things i normally wouldn't do on the sabbath. so, as i recount our adventures, know that i know i'm not perfect, so please don’t judge (nicole)! :)
the second problem with 3pm sunday, is that many of the things i would liked to have done closed at 2 or 3pm, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much sun we would have. but, neither of us would have been content sitting in a hotel room—not on a beautiful socal day when there is new territory to be explored!
so, i put my google fingers to the test, and as usual, they did not fail me.
i picked deb up from her hotel in downtown la, and the adventure began.
1st stop – hollywood sign
my friend brandon told me that there was a dog park near the sign with great views, but he couldn’t remember how to get there. i did some searching and pieced together some fairly sketchy directions. truth be told, this first stop had me a little nervous. the gps would do me no good, as there was no address or coordinates to point myself towards. just some sketchy directions...which turned out to be dead on. without any trouble, we found said dog park, and were not disappointed.
the sun was shining off those big beautiful white letters, and i was with my bff surrounded by puppies and cute puppy daddies (seriously!) on an amazingly gorgeous day. heaven, i tell ya!
2nd stop – kodak theater & grauman’s chinese theater
my major hope for the day was that stops one and two could be accomplished in daylight, without rushing. and my hopes were realized! i’m a movie buff. no question. and in a former life, i might have even been a groupie of sorts. so, as touristy as these near-adjacent theaters are, i could have cared less (as evidenced by the photos).
we walked the red carpet hallway and stairs at the kodak,
(sidenote: was surprised that it wasn’t as imagined. it’s in the hollywood & highland shopping center! so when all those celebutantes enter for one of the premier industry events events, they are walking past the rocky mountain chocolate factory and planet funk, among others)
posed with jack sparrow (2 of them!) and davy jones
stuck our hands and feet in cement,
and paid tribute to moses.
AND, because we had to make a purchase to avoid paying the astronomical parking rates, deb picked up an item for herself at sephora. and because she was so impressed at my restraint, she bought me lip gloss that i so clearly wanted, yet wouldn’t buy for myself. i suppose, in hindsight, that contributing to delinquency is just as bad as being delinquent, but it was a generous gesture all the same. and the lip gloss is divine. completely kissable! (future post coming your way soon)
stop 3 – sprinkles cupcakes
find the cupcake in this photo:
ha ha! gotcha! there is no cupcake in this photo! well, unless you count the two on the sign that is...
let me explain. for those of you who aren’t in the loop on sprinkles, it’s a cupcakerie (it’s a word now) founded in beverly hills (though currently under nationwide expansion). frankly, the cupcakes are good, but not divine. nonetheless, it’s a “california thing”, and made logistical sense in my itinerary for the day. i didn’t bother checking the hours because it wasn’t a priority. if it worked out, great, if not, fine. i wanted to drive through beverly hills anyway.
as you might have guessed, they were closed by the time we arrived. so instead, we backtracked a bit to the beverly hills sign and took photos. all in all, probably a more worthwhile stop.
stop 4 – dinner in santa monica
i’ve been to santa monica a few times. i feel pretty comfortable getting there. so how i got lost, WITH my gps is still a mystery, although, maybe it was divine intervention. along the way i spotted a familiar site. a gold man blowing a horn, on top of a big white building. it was the la temple!
of course, it was sunday, and conference sunday on top of that, so the place was deserted, but we wanted to see the grounds, so we ignored our stomachs and did some wandering. i was actually a bit surprised that the grounds were so beautiful. the temple sits on top of a dramatic hill (i wonder if it’s man-made, because it’s out of sync with it’s neighborhood), and the landscaping is gorgeous. i've seen pictures before, and didn’t find this temple particularly impressive (certainly no dc or san diego), but the photos clearly don’t do it justice.
back on the road, we eventually we made it to santa monica. by the time we arrived, we were starving. after all, without the cupcake ‘hold-over’ it had been about 8 hours since either of us had eaten. there is some good food in santa monica, but we were too tired to walk the two bocks to get to it, so we settled on the first place we saw and tolerated a mediocre meal before wandering the third street promenade.
we did a little window shopping and hoped to find ourselves a sweet treat along the way. no luck! deb specifically asked about the likelihood of finding a pink berry, so a new stop was born.
stop 5 – pinkberry
pinkberry, like sprinkles, is a california food thing. frozen yogurt is big here, and it can actually be difficult to find an ice cream place as a result. i’ve tried a couple of the favorites (golden spoon comes out on top for me), but hadn’t yet tried pinkberry, though I’ve been hearing about it since the moment i arrived in ca. with a little help from my live search and my nav, we located the closest one, and called to confirm that it was still open (it was about 9:30pm by now, and it WAS a sunday).
but yay! they were open until 11! we made the two mile drive to venice and easily located the joint. walking in had us both a little confused, though, and deb immediately asked me what the flavors were. i was just as confused, and come to find out, there are three. that’s right, just three. original, coffee, and green tea. upon realizing that, i started thinking maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. maybe the established california rep had come based solely on the fact that it was clearly trying too hard to be ‘chic’ and people love that kind of stuff. the ‘trendy’ décor had me wary.
until i took my first bite.
it was an absolutely unique frozen yogurt experience. it tasted like…um…yogurt…but frozen. what a bizarre concept! instead of masquerading as ice cream sans calories, it was truly frozen yogurt, and it was delicious.
there was simply no better way to top our day’s experience than yummy treats, and deb and i were both exhausted (i, with an hour drive home), so it was time to say farewell. our time was brief, but we certainly made the most of it, and i am quite pleased at how well my little itinerary actually worked out!
anyone else want to come play?
we had a strange block of time in which to reconnect… 3pm, sunday. for many reasons, this is problematic. one, because i believe in keeping the sabbath day holy. for my non-mormon readership (though if you know me, you already know this!), among other things, this means not buying things on sunday. it’s true that when i myself am traveling, sunday often becomes less ‘sunday’, and depending on the situation sometimes more so than others. i’m sure all of you are better people than i, but if i’m traveling i will pay for food, possibly parking, admission fees. it all depends on what the ‘traveling’ is.
just for the record, i also, if possible, will go to church. the lines become a little bit more blurry for me in situations like this, where someone else is traveling, and i'm responsible for them. in most cases, there are multiple days, and plans can be arranged accordingly. in this case though, i had about 7 hours, and they happen to fall on sunday. i knew that we wouldn't be coming back to my house, and that we would be doing things i normally wouldn't do on the sabbath. so, as i recount our adventures, know that i know i'm not perfect, so please don’t judge (nicole)! :)
the second problem with 3pm sunday, is that many of the things i would liked to have done closed at 2 or 3pm, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much sun we would have. but, neither of us would have been content sitting in a hotel room—not on a beautiful socal day when there is new territory to be explored!
so, i put my google fingers to the test, and as usual, they did not fail me.
i picked deb up from her hotel in downtown la, and the adventure began.
1st stop – hollywood sign
my friend brandon told me that there was a dog park near the sign with great views, but he couldn’t remember how to get there. i did some searching and pieced together some fairly sketchy directions. truth be told, this first stop had me a little nervous. the gps would do me no good, as there was no address or coordinates to point myself towards. just some sketchy directions...which turned out to be dead on. without any trouble, we found said dog park, and were not disappointed.
the sun was shining off those big beautiful white letters, and i was with my bff surrounded by puppies and cute puppy daddies (seriously!) on an amazingly gorgeous day. heaven, i tell ya!
2nd stop – kodak theater & grauman’s chinese theater
my major hope for the day was that stops one and two could be accomplished in daylight, without rushing. and my hopes were realized! i’m a movie buff. no question. and in a former life, i might have even been a groupie of sorts. so, as touristy as these near-adjacent theaters are, i could have cared less (as evidenced by the photos).
we walked the red carpet hallway and stairs at the kodak,
(sidenote: was surprised that it wasn’t as imagined. it’s in the hollywood & highland shopping center! so when all those celebutantes enter for one of the premier industry events events, they are walking past the rocky mountain chocolate factory and planet funk, among others)
posed with jack sparrow (2 of them!) and davy jones
stuck our hands and feet in cement,
and paid tribute to moses.
AND, because we had to make a purchase to avoid paying the astronomical parking rates, deb picked up an item for herself at sephora. and because she was so impressed at my restraint, she bought me lip gloss that i so clearly wanted, yet wouldn’t buy for myself. i suppose, in hindsight, that contributing to delinquency is just as bad as being delinquent, but it was a generous gesture all the same. and the lip gloss is divine. completely kissable! (future post coming your way soon)stop 3 – sprinkles cupcakes
find the cupcake in this photo:
ha ha! gotcha! there is no cupcake in this photo! well, unless you count the two on the sign that is...
let me explain. for those of you who aren’t in the loop on sprinkles, it’s a cupcakerie (it’s a word now) founded in beverly hills (though currently under nationwide expansion). frankly, the cupcakes are good, but not divine. nonetheless, it’s a “california thing”, and made logistical sense in my itinerary for the day. i didn’t bother checking the hours because it wasn’t a priority. if it worked out, great, if not, fine. i wanted to drive through beverly hills anyway.
as you might have guessed, they were closed by the time we arrived. so instead, we backtracked a bit to the beverly hills sign and took photos. all in all, probably a more worthwhile stop.
stop 4 – dinner in santa monica
i’ve been to santa monica a few times. i feel pretty comfortable getting there. so how i got lost, WITH my gps is still a mystery, although, maybe it was divine intervention. along the way i spotted a familiar site. a gold man blowing a horn, on top of a big white building. it was the la temple!
of course, it was sunday, and conference sunday on top of that, so the place was deserted, but we wanted to see the grounds, so we ignored our stomachs and did some wandering. i was actually a bit surprised that the grounds were so beautiful. the temple sits on top of a dramatic hill (i wonder if it’s man-made, because it’s out of sync with it’s neighborhood), and the landscaping is gorgeous. i've seen pictures before, and didn’t find this temple particularly impressive (certainly no dc or san diego), but the photos clearly don’t do it justice.
back on the road, we eventually we made it to santa monica. by the time we arrived, we were starving. after all, without the cupcake ‘hold-over’ it had been about 8 hours since either of us had eaten. there is some good food in santa monica, but we were too tired to walk the two bocks to get to it, so we settled on the first place we saw and tolerated a mediocre meal before wandering the third street promenade.
we did a little window shopping and hoped to find ourselves a sweet treat along the way. no luck! deb specifically asked about the likelihood of finding a pink berry, so a new stop was born.stop 5 – pinkberry
pinkberry, like sprinkles, is a california food thing. frozen yogurt is big here, and it can actually be difficult to find an ice cream place as a result. i’ve tried a couple of the favorites (golden spoon comes out on top for me), but hadn’t yet tried pinkberry, though I’ve been hearing about it since the moment i arrived in ca. with a little help from my live search and my nav, we located the closest one, and called to confirm that it was still open (it was about 9:30pm by now, and it WAS a sunday).
but yay! they were open until 11! we made the two mile drive to venice and easily located the joint. walking in had us both a little confused, though, and deb immediately asked me what the flavors were. i was just as confused, and come to find out, there are three. that’s right, just three. original, coffee, and green tea. upon realizing that, i started thinking maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. maybe the established california rep had come based solely on the fact that it was clearly trying too hard to be ‘chic’ and people love that kind of stuff. the ‘trendy’ décor had me wary.
until i took my first bite.it was an absolutely unique frozen yogurt experience. it tasted like…um…yogurt…but frozen. what a bizarre concept! instead of masquerading as ice cream sans calories, it was truly frozen yogurt, and it was delicious.
there was simply no better way to top our day’s experience than yummy treats, and deb and i were both exhausted (i, with an hour drive home), so it was time to say farewell. our time was brief, but we certainly made the most of it, and i am quite pleased at how well my little itinerary actually worked out!
anyone else want to come play?
Saturday, April 05, 2008
deb's in town
and tomorrow, we get to play!
i only get her for a few hours, so i'll head up to la after general conference, and play tour guide. since i haven't actually been to la yet, i may be a little out of my league on this one. but i am a google queen, and i've put together a nice little itinerary.
in thinking about what i wanted to do, and what we would have time for, i thought it was high time i start the 'california must-do list'.
see...when i lived in utah, i constantly regretted that i had lived so long outside our nation's capital, and hadn't taken full advantage of it. so i made a list of all the things i needed to do, and when i moved back, i started crossing things off my list. museums i had never seen, annual activities i had never participated in, restaurants i'd never tried.
there were only a couple of things left on the list when i moved here, and doing all of those things made me truly appreciate 'home'.
being in california, i know, is temporary. i've always known it. and though i don't know if 'temporary' means a year, or 2, or 5, or 20, i know i'm not here for the duration. the last thing i want to do is to leave, when the time comes, knowing that i didn't really live here.
i guess i needed an impetus though, and deb's trip is just the right motivation. so, here's how the list begins (and feel free to send me any additions you may have!)
Theaters & Studios
Grauman’s Chinese Theater/Walk of Fame
Kodak Theater
Paramount Studios
Sony Pictures
Universal Studios
Warner Brothers Studios
Amusement/Theme Parks
Disneyland
Knott’s Berry Farm
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Museums
The Museum of Tolerance
The Getty Museum
Other (Los Angeles)
Hollywood Sign
Venice Beach
La Brea Tar Pits
National Parks (Around California)
Joshua Tree
Channel Islands National Park
Death Valley National Park
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park
Yosemite National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Redwood National Park
Other (Around California)
Santa Monica Pier
Third Street Promenade - Santa Monica
Queen Mary - Long Beach
Wild Animal Park - San Diego
Sea World - San Diego
San Diego Zoo (again)
Winchester House - San Jose
i only get her for a few hours, so i'll head up to la after general conference, and play tour guide. since i haven't actually been to la yet, i may be a little out of my league on this one. but i am a google queen, and i've put together a nice little itinerary.
in thinking about what i wanted to do, and what we would have time for, i thought it was high time i start the 'california must-do list'.
see...when i lived in utah, i constantly regretted that i had lived so long outside our nation's capital, and hadn't taken full advantage of it. so i made a list of all the things i needed to do, and when i moved back, i started crossing things off my list. museums i had never seen, annual activities i had never participated in, restaurants i'd never tried.
there were only a couple of things left on the list when i moved here, and doing all of those things made me truly appreciate 'home'.
being in california, i know, is temporary. i've always known it. and though i don't know if 'temporary' means a year, or 2, or 5, or 20, i know i'm not here for the duration. the last thing i want to do is to leave, when the time comes, knowing that i didn't really live here.
i guess i needed an impetus though, and deb's trip is just the right motivation. so, here's how the list begins (and feel free to send me any additions you may have!)
Theaters & Studios
Grauman’s Chinese Theater/Walk of Fame
Kodak Theater
Paramount Studios
Sony Pictures
Universal Studios
Warner Brothers Studios
Amusement/Theme Parks
Disneyland
Knott’s Berry Farm
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Museums
The Museum of Tolerance
The Getty Museum
Other (Los Angeles)
Hollywood Sign
Venice Beach
La Brea Tar Pits
National Parks (Around California)
Joshua Tree
Channel Islands National Park
Death Valley National Park
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park
Yosemite National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Redwood National Park
Other (Around California)
Santa Monica Pier
Third Street Promenade - Santa Monica
Queen Mary - Long Beach
Wild Animal Park - San Diego
Sea World - San Diego
San Diego Zoo (again)
Winchester House - San Jose
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
three signs you should have stayed in bed this morning
1. you get the company car towed
2. you are mandatorily (is that a word?) evacuated from your office building
3. you lose an exhibit booth needed at the show site tomorrow
it's a pretty rough day when the highlight is the tow truck guy saying 'you must be here for the mercedes' upon your arrival at the impound lot.
to be fair, none of these things were actually my fault, and i was completely uninvolved in the evacuation. i promise! frankly the hour long wait to get back in the building while the four fire engines and an ambulance figured out the problem, was kind of a nice break. of course, having it occur in the middle of a conference call that's been scheduled for a week, not so much. funny that a little smoke from a burned out elevator motor could cause so much commotion!
as for the car...it was only sort of my fault. maybe fault isn't the right word. i happened to be slightly involved in a series of events which all aligned at exactly the right time and in exactly the wrong way, with annoying consequences.
and the booth? well, i can't help it that fed-ex is incompetent. but i'm not sure the exhibitors are going to sympathize with me.
i knew i had to give my boss a heads up, though i was hesitant to do so given that she, and several of our exec staff are at a retreat in colorado. nonetheless if there is one thing i know about her, it's that she is a straight shooter, and expects the same. i tried to infuse a little humor and posed the following multiple choice question:
which would you like to hear about first? a) the mercedes being towed, b) the mandatory evacuation, or c) the lost booth
her answer? "they towed rosie?"
unbeknownst to me, the car has a name. after explaining what had happened, and my suspicions as to why it happened, her response was simply, 'well, it's actually the perfect time, since no one will be in town for a few days.' have i mentioned how much i love my boss?
by the end of the day, rosie was safely ensconced back at 'home'.
as for the booth, i am praying that the fed-ex tracking is delayed, and the booth has safely arrived, along with it's counterpart that definitely has.
in other news...i got to play with my cousin mel and second cousin katie this weekend! they were in town doing the disneyland thing, so i kidnapped them on sunday, dragged them to church with me. then they voluntarily came with me to the beach and to mick and jenny's for dinner, where i laughed so hard, my stomach was killing me on monday! my family is seriously awesome.
katie, me, and mel
the whole kit and caboodle (sans mick)
2. you are mandatorily (is that a word?) evacuated from your office building
3. you lose an exhibit booth needed at the show site tomorrow
it's a pretty rough day when the highlight is the tow truck guy saying 'you must be here for the mercedes' upon your arrival at the impound lot.
to be fair, none of these things were actually my fault, and i was completely uninvolved in the evacuation. i promise! frankly the hour long wait to get back in the building while the four fire engines and an ambulance figured out the problem, was kind of a nice break. of course, having it occur in the middle of a conference call that's been scheduled for a week, not so much. funny that a little smoke from a burned out elevator motor could cause so much commotion!
as for the car...it was only sort of my fault. maybe fault isn't the right word. i happened to be slightly involved in a series of events which all aligned at exactly the right time and in exactly the wrong way, with annoying consequences.
and the booth? well, i can't help it that fed-ex is incompetent. but i'm not sure the exhibitors are going to sympathize with me.
i knew i had to give my boss a heads up, though i was hesitant to do so given that she, and several of our exec staff are at a retreat in colorado. nonetheless if there is one thing i know about her, it's that she is a straight shooter, and expects the same. i tried to infuse a little humor and posed the following multiple choice question:
which would you like to hear about first? a) the mercedes being towed, b) the mandatory evacuation, or c) the lost booth
her answer? "they towed rosie?"
unbeknownst to me, the car has a name. after explaining what had happened, and my suspicions as to why it happened, her response was simply, 'well, it's actually the perfect time, since no one will be in town for a few days.' have i mentioned how much i love my boss?
by the end of the day, rosie was safely ensconced back at 'home'.
as for the booth, i am praying that the fed-ex tracking is delayed, and the booth has safely arrived, along with it's counterpart that definitely has.
in other news...i got to play with my cousin mel and second cousin katie this weekend! they were in town doing the disneyland thing, so i kidnapped them on sunday, dragged them to church with me. then they voluntarily came with me to the beach and to mick and jenny's for dinner, where i laughed so hard, my stomach was killing me on monday! my family is seriously awesome.
katie, me, and mel
the whole kit and caboodle (sans mick)
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