This last month has been full of the MOST change I have ever experienced in my young life.  

I think of my life consisting of three main components, and everything else is a detail.  Those three pillars are: home, love and work.  I've felt in the last few months that I can't have all three in happy unison. If my love life is great, something will be wrong with my living situation or my job.  As you all know, I hate my job and have been having a REALLY tough time finding a good (really, even just ok) living situation in Los Angeles.  So, my job was going ok (no worse than normal) and I was FINALLY moving out of my awful living situation with the roommate who decided to stop paying his bills (and ended up owing me almost $2000. Now he owes me about $600).  I was moving into a super cute studio  and everything seemed to be heading towards peace and balance in my life, then OF COURSE.. because heaven forbid I get 3 out of 3... on March 20 my boss freaking lays me off!  I really shouldn't be surprised- it just goes with  my theory that I haven't yet earned the right to have a great boyfriend, a peaceful living situation and a decent job.

Anyway, I'm not that angry, just frustrated.  I hated my job and am very glad of spirit to be free of it, but of course I got no severance and now I am facing the... no less than daunting task of finding a new job.  I have fairly low standards, I just need to make almost as much as what I was making before (which wasn't much, so it won't be too hard to find) but everyone knows that there are very, very few jobs available right now.  

My only solace comes from the fact that my boss has already recognized how utterly STUPID it was to lay off his ONLY sales/marketing person when he has no work for production (yet kept the entire production staff) and he has a warehouse full of merchandise that is now not selling.  I guess the silver lining is that I don't have to work for such an intelligently inferior person anymore.

So my life now consists of a LOT of time and effort applying for jobs, and almost instantly getting an email telling me "thanks for your application but we are looking for more experience" or whatever kind of BS that companies are saying.  Ugh.  So I have started broadening my search even more.  I am looking into becoming a leasing consultant for an apartment building either in West LA or in Downtown, those jobs make about what I made before hourly, plus commission.

Other than that, my apartment is fantastic and cute and cozy and Bret and I are better than ever.  If I had to have 2 out of 3, at least I have my own space and an amazing boyfriend.  Now I just need to find some source of income.

In other news, I did something I NEVER thought I would do and embraced my inner democrat and applied for unemployment today.  To show how shitty my job was, on government assistance I will be making 60% of what I was making before.  So insulting.

And that's about it for now.  

Haiku

I'm still alive, just
Busy making adjustments
Without internet.

Inspirational Design!

Www.ApartmentTherapy.com is one of my all-time favorite blogs.  I was introduced to it when I started working at my company, because the site has featured our products several times (like here and here if you are interested).  Basically, it's a blog that features inspirational design, DIYs, good use of color, etc.  They also focus a lot on space-saving solutions, which is obviously a concern for most apartment dwellers.   Anyway, so I am making a BIG move in the next few weeks.  I am going from a condo, where I fully furnished and filled my bedroom, living room and kitchen with stuff.  I am moving into a one-room studio, and if it’s 250 square feet I will be surprised.  The studio is very nice, newly remodeled and in a good area, and I am just relishing the idea of living alone.  But, besides being small, there is hardly any storage room! I have no access to a garage, or even a deep closet (like I have now) so I am trying to be extremely strict with myself in downsizing my possessions.  The idea of surrounding myself with ONLY the things that I cherish and truly love is so appealing to me, but proving to be difficult!  So, today I turned to apartmenttherapy.com for some inspiration.

 

This studio in Santa Monica is bigger than my place is going to be (if you can even imagine that!) but the woman that lives there did a truly WONDERFUL job with not only space planning, but with her use of color and minimizing her stuff.  Nothing there looks cluttered or overwhelmed.  I can only hope that I will be able to minimize like that!  Not surprisingly- it's the top rated house tour on the whole website (and they feature one a day!)

 

This house in Austin, though not similar to my situation in terms of space, is my DREAM color scheme.  I LOVE the white/green/orange/yellow that she used.  Love love love.  I also love how she took the pattered material from the table by the window and then has 2 picture frames framing the same material across the room.  It is a great use of repetition- but I don’t think I could ever do it.  I have so many pictures that I would rather hang- and I don’t want to cover every single inch of the wall!

 

So, I hope I will be able to get to this level someday.  Until then, I am ruthlessly categorizing my stuff into 5 categories:  KEEP, SELL, DONATE, STORE IN PARENT’S ATTIC and GIVE TO FRIENDS.  

My fun Saturday Night :(

Saturday afternoon I was minding my own business, in bed reading an amazing book (called The Shell Seekers) when I get a call from Bret.  I answer and he said "can you come over and take care of me?" and I thought he was just being a baby so I was like, yeah ok sure, do you want frozen yogurt too? (I wanted some for myself, so I thought I'd offer).  So I went to get him froyo, and went to his house.  I go in and low and behold, Bret is sprawled out on the couch, with his whole left arm covered in ice packs.  I asked what was wrong and he said he fell playing basketball that day and felt it pop and now even the slightest move hurts like hell.  His mom (who used to be a chiropractor) was in a movie and couldnt get back for 2 more hours.  As soon as she got home, she looked at it and immediately called Bret's dad (who is also a chiropractor) and talked it over with him, and they decided Bret needed x-rays.  LUCKILY I didn't have to take Bret to a hospital- we just drove to his dad's office in Santa Monica and Rick (Bret's dad) met us there and took the x-rays.  He took tons of "pictures" as he called them and concluded that Bret broke one of his forearm bones and will have to get a cast this week :(  I feel sorry for him but the Big Baby is milking it for ALL ITS WORTH!  "Suuussiiieeeee can you make me some teeeeaaa???  It hurts too much to get up."  Good thing I love him!

And yes, he made me feed him his froyo since he couldnt hold the bowl himself.  Such a baby :)

Tahoe!

I tried to upload pics of my Tahoe trip, but YET AGAIN it didn't work.  So, no pics.

Long story short:  Weather on Saturday was perfect and we had an amazing day, complete with a gondola ride and cocoa on the gondola sky deck!!  It snowed like CRAZY on Sunday so we quit early and Bret and I went to Harrahs and gambled.  He lost all his money in craps and I slowly lost $20 playing slots, but it took me like 3 hours to lose so it was actually almost fun.  On Monday it was snowing again but it wasn't very cold, so we toughed it out, to be blessed with about 1 hour of beautiful sunshine.  As soon as we went in for lunch it started snowing like crazy again so we called it a day around 1pm.  It was snowing so hard we couldn't even see 30 feet in front of us.  Monday evening Bret and I flew from Reno back to LA.  Taking off, we had really bad turbulence and I almost lost my MIND.  It was SO SCARY!  But, it was fun flying into LA for the first time since I've moved here.  Now I know what everything was that we were flying over, and I even saw my apartment (literally the last building you fly over before you are over the airport- pretty nuts!).

If maybe someday figure out how to upload photos to this thing, I will show you some of the amazingly beautiful pictures.  

Yeah!!! Internet is back!!

Currently listening to:  Kanye West "The Good Life"

"Come on y'all, let's go on a livin' spree!!"

I'm in a great mood for a few reasons:

-Yesterday was my 2-year anniversary with my sweetie :)

-Today I gave my 30-day notice to move out of my apartment with my laaame roommates

-Yesterday I found a way cute (but small) studio in my budget that I am moving into on March 15

-I am THISCLOSE to being truly independent and the master of my own domain!!

-I spent Saturday- Monday in Lake Tahoe with my favorite people in the world- my parents, my brother and my boyfriend.

-On Saturday I rode the Heavenly Gondola, one of my favorite things in the world to do.

-Tons of NSYNC came on my ipod today- talk about an instant pick-me-up

-Hillary is going to help me clean out my closet soon (please???)  :)

I don’t have internet, I might as well diiieeee

So I haven’t blogged in forever because the internet at my apartment mysteriously turned off.  Luckily my iPhone has kept me updated with my email, Perez Hilton and all the other blogs I read- I just couldn’t update my own blog.  I called Time Warner like 10 times, and FINALLY got through after being on hold for hours it seemed.  Anyway, so it turns out that our modem decided to self-destruct.  The good news is though, that Time Warner is sending a repairman on Thursday and we will get credited for the time we didn’t have service!! The bad news- I have to wait till Thursday!  Until then I will have to sneak in blog posts at work... shhh!

 

Anyway, so I have lots of updates.

 

I went to SLO last weekend, and had a blast as always!  That town is my Happy Place.  I went because Bret was in Berkeley visiting his brother (my birthday present to him!).  I got to see some of my favorite people (Jessica, Marsha, Brian, Katie S, Big Red & Billy at McClintocks, Ali, Kayla, Mike, Lauren, Katie R, Monica, Phil, Alex, Brett, etc this list goes on and on!!) but it only made me miss them MORE when I left!  I stayed with Ali and Kayla and it was Kayla’s birthday so we threw her a party Friday night, which of course featured the VIP wine bag that I brought (long story, but those kids LOVE boxed wine!) and lots of beer pong.  On Saturday I met up with some girls that live in the new housing complex on campus (Poly Canyon Village) and I was totally jelly that they didn’t have that nice of housing when I lived on campus!!  Then I went to lunch with Mike at the Shack (mmmm chicken fingers!) and topped the night off at my favorite place on earth, McClintocks.  Katie and I went to visit two of our favorite people, Big Red and Billy.  Needless to say we got pretty sauced.  Billy supplied us with Dunbars, Strawberry Lemon Drops, Pomatinis and White Gummi Bears.  We also had a “shot for the road” but of course I don’t remember what it was because all these drinks we had in like 2 hours!  Then Katie and I went to Buffalo (our favorite bar in downtown slo) and drank water for 3 hours waiting for Big Red and Billy to meet us downtown.  We met some random dudes in the meantime, but they were suuuuch losers.  Like, such the stereotypical SLO d-bag who hangs out at bars to meet girls.   Anyway, Buffalo got so crowded that we called it a night around midnight (We started at McC’s at 6, so it was still a long night).  Sunday was a bit quieter, started off with breakfast with Marsha at Linnea’s, then lunch with Monica and a quick visit to Brian and Chris’s.  All in all, an amazing, yet exhausting weekend!!

 

Last week wasn’t nearly as great as my weekend.  Basically, work sucked.  Like, more than normal, if that’s possible!! But I will leave that at that.  Oh, one thing to mention. Thursday was like the worst day EVER.  Really, top 5 worst days.  I texted Bret asking him if we could hang out that night because I was really having a hell of a day and needed to relax and cuddle.  Literally, I was close to tears of frustration and misery half the day.  At about 2pm, the lowest hour of the day (boss yelling, scowling, insulting, etc) a delivery man came and brought flowers for me!! Bret sent me flowers at work (miniature roses in lavender, white, whisper pink and coral!)!! I don’t know HOW he did it, but literally, they couldn’t have come at a better time.  I was so happy and it truly made me realize how much work DOESN’T matter in the grand scheme of things.  Thank God for amazing people like Bret J

 

Towards the end of last week I started to get sick, and I’m surprised I even made it to 5:00 on Friday.  I don’t get sick often so when I do I am a HUGE baby and have a really low tolerance for pain and discomfort.  I really just shut down until I am better (but, I usually get better in 2 days so it’s all a wash).  After work on Friday I went home, and literally slept from 6pm till 8am Saturday morning.  14 hours!! I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life!  I went over to Bret’s Saturday morning to make him breakfast (scrambled eggs and peanut butter toast!) and then when he went to basketball I treated myself to a trip to the scrapbook store, followed by a few hours of scrapbooking my parent’s ski trips (I have to finish this week, their anniversary is on the 19^th!).    For Valentine’s Day Bret took me to one of my FAVORITE restaurants, called 26 Beach in Venice.  I also got to wear my brand new super cute dark purple dress from Banana!!  We had to wait over an HOUR for our reservation, but they had heat lamps outside and it was worth it.  They make the most amaaaazing chicken parmisian there, and I was sure to only eat 1/3 of it (don’t worry, it was huge) so I can enjoy it for lunch today and tomorrow!!  I wasn’t feeling well so I was a total V-Day dud and had Bret take me home after dinner, and I was asleep by 9pm (I even skipped dessert!!!).

 

Sunday (yesterday) was a lazy day, I got up early again and went to Bret’s for breakfast and some Sunday Morning Tivo (The Office and 30 Rock) before I went home and climbed in bed for a day of healing.  I watched Amelie (AMAZING MOVIE! I’ve seen it before but the 2^nd time was even better!) and Closer, which was a truly depressing movie, I wouldn’t recommend it!  It was basically about two couples who cheat on each other with each other and no one ends up happy.  But, Natalie Portman was in it and she was EXCELLENT.  She’s up there with Kate Winslett as my favorite actresses.

 

So that’s about it! This upcoming weekend Bret and I are flying to Tahoe for some winter fun! We will be gone Friday night through Monday night, and I am just antsy in my pantsy!   Tahoe is getting TONS of snow right now, so the skiing should be great! Bret, David and I are also going to make a trip to Harrah’s for some blackjack (fingers crossed for a big win, though I’ll probably stick to slots!!)