Pumpkins and SuperSam

I carved a pumpkin and her name was Tinker Bell. Don't act like you're surprised.My husband also carved a pumpkin:

Sam came by with his 11 month old dressed as Superman. The child's name is Sam Jr. So I called him SuperSam. He didn't care much what I called him as he's not into the whole talking thing yet. We watched What Lies Beneath for spooky fun. All in all a good night. We had exactly one trick or treater. That's what happens when you live on a street with out sidewalks.

Did you carve a pumpkin?

Happy Halloween

It's rainy and gloomy and perfect! Above are my "costume socks" that I wore to work and below, my Halloween face I am wearing right now, thinking about how much I love my socks. I also put on a lot of mascara and black eyeliner to celebrate the season. Not that you can tell in this picture though. The camera adds 10 pounds on your body and erases 80% of your make-up. Hardly fair.

Hopefully I will have jack o lantern pictures for you later. Yes I am lame and haven't carved my pumpkins yet. I know it's Halloween already. Boo!

Chili and Things

I made chili yesterday in my slow cooker. I cooked it for 6 hours or so, even though it was mostly canned ingredients. Canned beans, canned corn, jar of salsa. But I did roast jalapenos and red, orange and yellow bell peppers for it. Then my husband barbecued a pork tenderloin and a couple tri-tip steaks for the pot. It tastes really good. There are 4 jalapenos in there too, so it's very spicy. Spicy and GOOD!

*Sigh* I love food. I would take a picture of it for you but I'm afraid it just wouldn't look very appetizing. So just use your mind's eye and imagine a colorful veggie, bean and meat packed stew of yum. Okay, I know it's 5:45am but now I must have some.

Today I'm meeting with my sponsor, Linda. She's the coolest lady. I'm very happy to have fallen in with her. A gal she sponsors is one of my favorite people up here.

I bought a treadmill. It's gigantor. Huge. When we set it up, its gravitational pull attracted a small moon. I kind of over-bought because it was such a great deal. Beware the great deal, people. Although now that I'm more used to it, I do have to say I love it. Even though it has a helm like the Enterprise!

I'm so ready for Halloween. Scary movie, check. Pumpkins to carve, check. Five and a half foot tall motion sensor scarecrow to terrify small children, check! I don't do costumes per se but I do do knee-high black and orange striped socks. I love them!

If I don't talk to you before then, have a very scary Halloween.

Another Hiking Trip

Montana de Oro: Hello gorgeous! Gabe and I went to this new place to hike on Wednesday. It is a little different than the other hikes in that it's very beachy interactive. Obviously there was a starfish:



Things have been looking up for me. I am finding my place among the gals of this town and settling in more and more. They are very sweet women and a few of them are just absolute dolls.
Unlike the economy, I am sensing an upward trend. One of them asked me when I was throwing my next party. I told her we will have a get together when Jennie is here...

We are going to Burbank for my sister-in-law's birthday pretty soon here and I'm hoping to squeeze in some time with my gals, but it's such short notice! Really other than a trip to LA, there's nothing going on until Jennie gets here. She's due to arrive next Monday and we always enjoy her visits! Then my cousin is coming a few days later to hang with her child in a quieter place. I am so looking forward to seeing my little niece, and my cousin too.

We still haven't figured out the holidays so I won't even go into that.

I leave you with the most dramatic of pictures:

All Better!

It hasn't exactly been happy times in my head lately, although everything is exactly the same on the outside. I've been trapped in self-pity and it's so ugly that I couldn't stand to spew my junk on all of you... hence the lack of blogging.

I have been dealing with the reality that what people say isn't always what they do. This is not excluding myself, of course. But I understand when I do it! When you do it, I feel disappointed and hurt. And even more dangerously, I start taking it personally. It took a lot of pep talks from my husband to help me get over myself.

Now that that is over, I feel free and ready to blog again! I bet you're relieved...

In happy news, I got an iPhone!! Yay. I've been coveting Gabe's since he got it a year ago and I was finally able to change phones. So I went for it. Now I have a new toy that takes up a considerable amount of my attention. It's so interactive, and even technotarded me can understand it.

I got an AA sponsor up here finally and I think that's going to help me out with the self-pity and just in general. It's nice to feel connected and to have some one to work with. A gal that I went hiking with once keeps coming into Starbucks for a drink and telling me we should connect. YAY! I'm going to call her in the next couple of days and just try to get coffee with her or something.

Yesterday I took a class to become a Starbucks learning coach, so that I can train new baristas. As we were sitting there in the class I realized I was signing up for something that was going to make me "responsible" which is practically a dirty word. But I realize it's something I do very naturally anyway and so I might as well have some official authority behind my "instruction."

Other than that, nothing really exciting has been going on. The holidays are coming which I usually love. I wonder how it's going to be this year, up here away from the party circuit? I'm interested to see what happens, if there are parties and festivities up here or if I'm going to have to make a party myself. Not that I'd mind that terribly.

I can't believe I've been up here for 10 months. Trip.

Early Morning Thoughts

I started this blog to document my move to a new place and to keep everyone posted on my life in general while I'm so far away. Fortunately, I've been able to find plenty of new ways to communicate with my friends down south and don't feel particularly cut off.

Still, this blog is way fun and so even though I don't really have a lot of newsworthy stuff afoot, I don't plan to give it up any time soon. Talking to people who aren't there is one of my specialties any way!

Gabe and I were in Burbank over the weekend (again) because we went down to see Wicked (again!). My hubby's such a good sport, he's seen it 3 times now and didn't complain hardly at all before we went. Afterwards we both agreed it wasn't the best version we had seen, though.

We went with a couple from Atascadero and I was hoping to get to know them a little better but they didn't even get to the theater til after the lights had gone down, and when went out to post-Wicked dinner, she mostly bonded with her friend from kindergarten she had invited along. So much for that plan.

We went to dinner at LALA's on Melrose. Great food, but disappointing service. After waiting 20 minutes for menus, one of us asked a staff member if we had a waiter. A long moment of silence followed, and "I don't know" was the actual answer we received. Eventually things got straightened out, our food came and all was almost forgiven.

This weekend, I have a big event going on at my house. A very talented massage therapist graces me with her presence once a month, and we decided to throw a spa party. Now, I've got 10 appointments available and exactly ONE got filled. People here are so frustrating. We'll see if any one even actually shows up. Well, besides the one appointment.

Looking back, I see things I could have done differently to coordinate and plan better. But the flyers are out and there's really no turning back.

So when I say "big event" I mean that there's a possibility I might have some people over... or not. Who knows... the way I look at it, it's an opportunity for me to open my doors, be welcoming and hopefully make at least one friend out of this whole shenanigan. Plus! Helllllooooo chocolate fountain!

On a happier note, work is going well and I'm trying to make connections there with the people I work with. Everyone there likes to have fun so it's really never boring. More recently, I've been working past the big morning rush and actually getting to relax for a few minutes at a time, and get to speak to customers a little longer and conversate with my fellow Starbucks partners.

Now I'm off to work!

More Hiking Pics

Gratuitous Gnome Photo: Into the woods we go! On the left is my new friend Marie, then Brandi my hiking buddy and boss, plus Scooter our tour guide.
Here's the actual trail we were on:

Here's some more pictures of this trail and it's surrounding areas. This one is in San Simeon and gee golly wiz is it pretty.



I can't believe I live so close to this beautiful awesomeness. It's almost (what? I said almost!) as good as Disneyland. Minus the soft serve ice cream stands.

All this hiking is a really good workout but unfortunately I keep eating too much to see any results... Soooo it looks like I'm going to be embarking on a new WLJ (weight loss journey... stop retching) through work. I feel like I might be getting a little bored with the whole Weight Watchers thing. Even though I love it and know it works, I am not doing it so much right now and I think it's because the challenge is gone. So I'm switching it up.

I'm going down to LA in a few days again to see Wicked the Musical for, oh, the 4th time. I swear I'm done for a year or so after that! It helps that it's leaving LA pretty soon and I have no plans to visit Broadway. We're going with a friend of Gabe's and his girlfriend so hopefully it will be some kinda fun double date thing. Wish my socially awkward self good luck.