road safety

i didn’t really think about it until i had been on the road to LA but everything useful i’ve learned about driving i’ve learned from this guy.

 

that’s my dad (you’ve read about him in my home improvements post). he’s not like a “s– my dad says”  crazy old man dad. he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s talking about and wants to pass on his knowledge about everything from surfing to home improvements to laundry. or driving…

for example…

“ten and two”- well i don’t really drive 10 and 2  but when he says it i know he means keep two hands on the steering wheel and keep control of the vehicle. (i’m more of a 9 and 3 driver)

“you can only go as fast as the car in front of you”- totally true. (and i wish the people who have rear ended me knew this too) and i don’t try to go faster than the people in front of me. but if i want to i go around. its only right. (plus my little matrix can’t blow through people’s cars) (but that’d be awesome if it could haha)

“drive nicely”- i’m convinced my dad thinks i drive like a lunatic. i don’t. i just drive like i have somewhere to be and i have minor road rage. ok maybe not road rage so much as i like to tell other people to get out of my way and i’ll show them how to drive.

and every time i get in my car he always says “obey the law”, and no matter how much i assure him i will, i know he’s always going to worry about me being on the road. not because he thinks i can’t drive safely, but because he knows other people don’t know how to drive safely.

so thanks dad. i really appreciate it.

hello new years resolution

i took a weekend road trip to LA this past weekend for a friend’s wedding (wedding was beautiful and i only almost cried two times).

i miss LA. i’m not going to lie. i miss living in a big city. i’ve always wanted to live in San Francisco. it’s young and fun and exciting. it was my plan to do whatever i had to so i could live in San Francisco after college. coming home from LA made me miss that. i did all sorts of fun things, ate great food, and basked in the sun for a weekend.

i ate at umami burger my first night in town. the truffle burger is something like heaven. breakfast at square one was beautiful.

griffith observatory is a must see. such a beautiful view and the exhibits are interesting and a beautiful work of art.

i have more pictures than i know what to do with so i’ll throw in a few..

so here’s the breakdown of my weekend adventure…

what i like about LA:

• so many things to do
• so many places to eat
• the warmth
• i actually know people there (unlike here) and hung out with more people than i ever have here

what i dont like about LA:

• it takes forever to get anywhere (im sooo impatient)
• you have to park in a parking structure to go to the grocery store or target (parking structures are annoying)
• i got rear ended (LA drivers hate me)
• smog (it’s weird)

 

overall thoughts:

for my first weekend road trip (and for driving alone) i totally had fun. and i want to go back. i miss LA. and i never thought i’d say that. while i don’t think i could ever live there, i still think LA isn’t so bad of a place to be.

why have i never taken road trips before!?

 

wordless wednesday: glamorous adventure edition

weekend adventure #1: LA

dear LA,

i will be meeting you in a few hours. please play nice.

lovelovelove,

ashley

wordless wednesday: sierra edition

a look at sierra's first 2 months with us

 

i’m a wuss

yup. it’s true. i am a huge worry wort of a wuss.

the lovely Miss Cupcakes is getting married this weekend and i’ve been planning to trek down there to take part in the whole shindig for quite some time now. oh down where? southern california. no big deal, right?

wrong.

don’t get my wrong, i’m uber excited. i can’t wait. my super awesome friend offered to house me for the weekend and take me on a tour of LA (and save me the big bucks). all my plans are in order, my laundry is done, i’ve made a mental list of what i’m packing…i am going to check my oil and everything.

there’s just one tiny thing standing in my way.

me.

i’m super scared.

i’ve been to paris on my own. i’ve been on a week-long cabo vacation with adam and his family (just as nerve-wracking as traveling alone). i’ve even gone off to college on my own. but i am scared to drive to LA.

me on my way to work.. not so scared of driving..

i’ve been pretty nervous over it for about a week now and it’s coming down to it… i almost don’t want to leave. i don’t blame anyone for this trait except my overly cautious, careful, lame self.

see that new widget on the side there? yeah… that’s the blogger meet-up i registered for. it’s in vegas. it’s on my birthday weekend. of course i didn’t register without first giving it some very careful contemplation (about an hour). then i said ‘screw it. im going to be spontaneous, irresponsible, throw caution to the wind, i want to do 25 big, i want to do something totally not me for once’.

and i’ve felt bad ever since. i’ve been beating myself up over it. emotionally kicking myself in the pants.

why i do this to myself, i will never know. but instead of sleeping at 3:30 in the morning i am chicken scratching my way through what became this morning’s blog post.

all because i was worrying about my drive to LA (ok so i originally woke up from a truly awful nightmare).

i know all will be well with my trip. i’m staying with a friend i haven’t seen since graduation. i’m going to share in the  joyous occasion that is angie’s wedding day. i’m going to go on my first weekend adventure of 2011. and i’m going to do it all without thinking it through pro/con list style.  i’ve done everything i need to do to prepare for my trip and now all i need to do is have fun.

better late than never

i think i’ve decided on what my new years resolution(s) will be. i haven’t really thought long and hard about it but i guess a couple minutes is better than not thinking about it at all… even though i’m not quite sure i’ve ever made resolutions.

i go to the gym everyday so i never make my resolution to get fit/go to the gym/workout, etc. it really annoys me that people do that too. they take up all the parking in the small parking lot and they take all the gym equipment and then three weeks later i’ll never see them again.yes, i sound like a gym brat, i know… but the gym has become one of the great loves of my life. so i resolve to spend more time on my relationship with the gym and i will let it be if i can’t make it because i am deathly ill. i really need to build up my upper body strength so i can pick sierra up again. she’s getting so big. i can’t wait until she gets used to walking on a leash so we can go running.

\\\\\\\\ <— that’s sierra typing. she likes to blog too.

being sick these past few weeks  has made my life boring and lazy. i don’t like not doing anything. i missed my friend’s housewarming, i skipped a few days at the gym.. ive  been generally out of it due to my foggy head and ears. i’ve cooked less because i dont have an appetite, i’ve blogged more because i can’t do much else, and i’ve caught up on reading blogs. one of the blogs i enjoy reading daily is  Chris and Paige. her scrapbook pages are amazing and her adventures are fun to read about. she inspires me to blog regularly and she’s inspired a resolution: to go on more weekend adventures and take more pictures. i don’t like to waste my weekends sitting around the house; i do that every day of the week before work. adam got me such a beautiful camera and i need to use it more.

hy0-jkio<– guess who’s blogging again…

my other resolution is to ditch my jeans. i love jeans, don’t get me wrong.. but i wear them 7 out of 7 days of the week. i’m taking some advice from Kendi Everyday and reevaluating my wardrobe and, someday, 30 for 30 remixing. (aunt kelly is kinda doing something like that and wearing a new pair of shoes everyday. i aspire to have a shoe collection and a shoe closet as awesome as hers.)  i’d like to have more non-jean outfits in my life. i’m turning the big 2-5 this year (whoo hoo!!) and i’m sick of looking like i’m 14. which means i also have to resolve not to pick at my nail polish. it looks ugly and it makes a huge mess.

overall i think i’m resolving to take better care of myself. i want my big 2-5 year to be awesome! i want to look back this time next year and think ‘yeah that 2011 was a fun year’ even though i’m not so sure twenty eleven has the ring twenty ten had.

so resolvers, what are you resolving to do or not to do?

 

UPDATE: so as of posting this morning a)i’ve done the most spontaneous thing i’ve ever done in my life (it involves vegas and my birthday) and i’m coming to terms with it and b) kendi has a new 30 for 30 coming up. so i’m saying ‘screw it’ and ‘i only turn 25 once’ and ‘i’m such a wuss’ and ‘why not…’ and i’m sticking with my resolutions.

 

compromising

I’ve been struggling with how to write this post…

I figure I can just throw up some pictures of the amazing bed we got and leave it be. I really wanted to. But maybe writing about the most amazing bed I’ve ever had is about as hard as it was choosing the mattress, frame, and even the bedding. You’d think after six years of being great friends, over three years of dating, and a few months of living together that Adam and I would learn about compromise. But we are both the most stubborn people we know.

I like patterns and bright colors. Adam likes dark colors and bachelor pad style. So when we went to Target to pick out some sheets it turned into something just short of an argument. I didn’t want to buy sheets that didn’t go with bedding. Adam didn’t want to buy bedding he didn’t like.

Now… I don’t know if it’s a boy-girl thing or what but after an hour of (and you can guess who said what):

“but I like this”

“but I like that”

“but that’s too bright and I don’t like leaves”

“but that’s too dark and I don’t want a boy bed”

I ended up grabbing a gray quilt. It wasn’t that great and I didn’t think Adam liked it anyway. But then as we were leaving I saw this…

It’s gray and tan and not too bright and not too much of a pattern and it goes with the style of our bed frame and what I would like for the overall look of the room. And I think I only got my way because Adam was sick and taking lots of cold medicine and fed up with being at Target for so long.

But look at it…

 

It’s perfect. We both love it.

It might’ve been a more difficult process than it had to have been but that’s just our style.

wordless wednesday: sierra edition

winter wonderland

It’s been a month now of true winter weather. Chill you to your bone winter weather. The only thing missing is snow. When you think real winter, you think snow; frost; snowflakes. Well, this is what I woke up to yesterday.

I do not love the cold, by the way. I do not enjoy standing outside at work in the cold with full body chills for hours on end. And while I can throw on leggings under my jeans, three t-shirts under my sweater, under my winter coat, fully accessorized with a scarf, hat, gloves, and Uggs and stay relatively warm, I do not enjoy walking around all day in 40 degree weather like the kid in A Christmas Story.

Here’s my typical work uniform, minus the scarf and yes, my Uggs are on:

Growing up in the constant comfortable 60-70 degree weather of the Bay Area was WONDERFUL. As long as you carry around a sweater, you’re covered. Start the day and it’s kind of chilly, throw on your sweater. Warming up around lunchtime, take off your sweater. When I leave the house now I don’t know if i should take a scarf or not, a big coat or a little coat, my ear warmer or a full hat, gloves or no gloves, put leggings under my threadbare jeans or go without. I wish I had another pair of Uggs so I could at least change up my footwear every once in a while.

My Uggs, looking surprisingly clean considering I’ve worn them mostly everyday for a few years:

And while we’re on the subject of Uggs… Don’t knock them til you try them. Uggs are amazing as long as you do not wear them with shorts or a skirt. In that case maybe you should just go back into the house and decide if you are too hot for jeans or too cold for sandals.

Any who… I’m hoping your winter wonderland isn’t waking up seeing a foot of snow because I imagine shoveling snow is a) not fun, b) not a glamorous task, and c) annoying. Grab a cup of coffee and a movie and stay inside until the snow or, in my case, the ice melts.

I raise my mug to you, snow shovelers. Hang in there.