Tag Archives: home

Another Monthly Challenge (or What To Do When You Are Crazy Busy)

Posted on October 3, 2017 | 1 comment

The beginning of a new month is always exciting for me. But it’s been even more exciting since I started using my Volt Planner last year because it means it’s the beginning for a new monthly challenge! It can be a struggle sometimes to think of a new challenge each month, but once I pick one I really get into it. And knowing that I’ll be doing that again each month is something I look forward to.

Last month, my challenge was to tweet more. Specifically I wanted to tweet more about SAG-AFTRA and union related issues. My role as a SAG-AFTRA delegate is officially just as the convention (which is this week), but I don’t want the end of the convention to be the end of my involvement. And while being on social media isn’t the most active thing, I figure that every little bit helps. And I also got a lot out of doing this because every day I was reviewing tweets that might be ones I wanted to share. So I was learning more every time I reviewed them. I feel so much more educated about union issues (and not just actor union issues) than I ever have.

This month, I struggled a bit with picking something to set as my challenge but it wasn’t for the usual reason. I have a couple of things I want to do, but this month is going to be very crazy for me. I’ve got the SAG-AFTRA convention, lots of doctor appointments, work, podcast stuff, some projects I’m working on, and then trying to have a social life. I know that I will be a bit stressed and I didn’t want to pick something that might add more stress to my life. I’ve picked some challenges that have done that in the past, and it can work when the month isn’t going to be stressful. But I know October will be crazy. I’ve been telling people my life won’t be normal again until after the 16th because that’s when I seem to finally have free time in my calendar.

But there has been one thing that I’ve had on my monthly and weekly planning sheets in my planner that I don’t see to ever get around to. I really need to clean my desk and my closet. I probably need to work on my entire house, but I really see how packed my desk and closet are and I know I don’t need everything I have. I also keep bringing more things in without removing stuff so it gets more and more cluttered. But when I look at it it seems so overwhelming.

So I’ve set my monthly challenge for October to do speed cleaning/organizing every day. I have an alarm set and I want to do maybe 5-10 minutes every day. The idea is that I’d focus on one thing each day. For example, with my clothes I’d look at tops one day and dresses another. I don’t need to look at my closet as a whole since that has been what is looking like too much of a project. With my desk, I might break it down my the drawers or by category but I’m not sure yet. And there are so many other areas in my house that I could organize by breaking it down into chunks like this.

I had read “The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up” a while ago, and while I don’t agree with everything in the book there are some really good points. I only want to have things in my home that make me happy and bring me joy. My definition of those things are a bit different from what the book talks about, but the general idea is the same. There are things in my closet that I look at and get annoyed about because it doesn’t fit anymore (either too big or too small), it doesn’t fit right, or it just is something I never can figure out when I should wear it. I don’t need that taking up space in the tiny closet I have.

But besides decluttering, I just want to have a clean house that makes me happy. It’s never too dirty, but there are times that I have to spend a good amount of time cleaning every room before I have company over. I know that nobody cares if my house is a little messy, but I do. And if I worked on 5-10 minutes of cleaning a day (either by cleaning one room or doing one type of cleaning like vacuuming or dusting), it shouldn’t get too overwhelming before I have company over.

I know that even 5-10 minutes of cleaning might be a bit tough for me to do on the craziest days I have coming up this month, but that’s ok. I understand now that I don’t have to be perfect every single day but instead I want to get into the habit so that it becomes something I don’t even have to think about each day. It would be nice to know that I have a clean house pretty much all the time and not a semi-clean house most of the time and a super clean house occasionally.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged challenge, clean, home, organization, planning, volt planner

Time For Some Refocusing (or I Need To Do Some Follow Through)

Posted on June 14, 2017 | Comments Off

My life has been getting a bit crazy lately, but crazy in a good way. I’m back to my normal routine without the worry about medical issues in my head. I’m back in the dating game and while I’ve had some negative experiences I’m having fun. I’m going out with my friends and doing so much stuff that I love. Honestly, this is close to the happiest I’ve been as an adult. I think a lot of it is because I don’t care as much about what other’s think, but I also think I’m just making an effort to make me happy.

Not everything in my life is going great, but it’s pretty awesome right now. I’m taking more time to focus on the positives in my life than the negatives that might come up. But because I’m not focusing on the negatives, I’m slacking off on some things and I know that I need to work on that balance.

Some of the slacking off has been cleaning and organizing. This has been something on my to-do list for a while and I’m just not taking the time out to do the work that I need to do. And looking at my calendar for the coming days, I honestly don’t know when I’ll have the chance to do it. And because I want to do more than just a basic cleaning, I know that this is something I need to set aside the time to do.

My desk has been getting a bit out of control because I’m sitting at it so many hours a day. When I start working on stuff and don’t get to finish, I just set it to the side on my desk thinking I’ll pick it up later. But later doesn’t seem to come and some of these things have been on my desk for too long. One of the things that’s been on my desk forever has been the dry erase board that I used for my Oscars costume. When I got it, I assumed that I would be using it at my desk or somewhere else. But I haven’t done anything with it and I don’t know now if I will be using it. I just need to make a decision and do something with it.

My closet is another trap right now for me. I really need to go through all my clothes and figure out what I want to keep and what I need to toss. There are several things in my closet that are now too big for me and I don’t want to keep them around anymore. But sometimes it’s hard to let those things go because I justify in my head that maybe I could get it tailored smaller or that I might wear it baggy. But I know I won’t and I just have to let it go. There are also things that have gotten torn or just not my style anymore and I need to get rid of it. But again, this is a major cleaning and I know I’ll need to set aside lots of time to do it. I probably will need to try on a lot of stuff from my closet to do this and when I do this cleaning I also am looking at making a list of what I own so I don’t feel like I’m missing something in my closet and go out and buy it (I’ve done that before and have had to make trips to return duplicates).

And as always, I just want to clean up some of the clutter that is in my house. I keep a lot of stuff for sentiment value and I know that I don’t need to do that. I want to work on digitizing more stuff that I keep and finding new and clever ways to organize and store what I want to have. It’s a bit overwhelming to think about how much I want to get done, but I also know in the long run that this will be an awesome thing for me to do and I will probably be really happy when I feel like I have a cleaner, more organized, and happier space.

I know a lot of people who have gone through major cleanings like this have been inspired by the book “The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up”. I actually have this book. I bought it almost 2 years ago and for some reason I haven’t really started to read it. I know that I always get distracted by other books that I have, but now that I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the work I want to get done I think this might be a good time to start reading it. I’m in the middle of one book right now so I probably won’t be able to read it until next week, but I honestly forgot that I owned the book until I started to feel as overwhelmed as I am now.

I’m tired of setting a goal to work on cleaning my space and not following through with it. I need to just get my butt in gear and do it. But it’s not always easy to make a change like this when you’ve been putting it off. But hopefully soon I will find the motivation and time to get this done and I can feel calmer in my space so that my home will make me as happy as my social life is making me.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged clean, happiness, home, organization, shopping

Spring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)

Posted on May 12, 2017 | 1 comment

I usually keep a pretty clean house. I live in a tiny house (seriously, it’s under 500 square feet) so any mess seems to be significantly worse in my house than in a normal house. I don’t like to have a ton of stuff around, but I’ve seemed to acquire a lot lately and it’s been piling up. Literally piling up. It’s a bit ridiculous for me, but I know that for most people it’s probably still a pretty clean space. The worst space is next to my computer on my desk since I’m spending so much time working right now. When I’ve got something I’m working on and a customer calls, I put whatever I’m working on down and I don’t always remember to pick it back up or put it away.

I have written about decluttering before, and as always it seems like I don’t realize my house is getting a bit out of control until it’s so bad that I can’t help but see it! And this time, I feel like I’ve just been ignoring it because of how crazy my life has been. It always seems like I can’t have everything in my life balanced. I guess that’s how it is, something always has to be off. And before it was my social life and now it’s my house.

When I thought I needed surgery, I was neglecting organizing because I knew my life was going to get super hectic and I wasn’t worried too much about my house. I figured that while I was in the hospital and when I was recovering I would have a bunch of people coming over and helping and trying to keep things clean while that is happening wasn’t going to be a priority. So I didn’t worry too much about keeping it too nice before surgery. Also, I was buying a bunch of stuff I thought I was going to need for surgery so that was adding to my clutter by piling up around the house in different piles depending on if I’d need it in the hospital or while recovering. And once surgery was canceled, I put a lot of time and focus into getting my life back to normal and having a regular life again. And because of that, cleaning and decluttering was put on the back burner once more. I did managed to get rid of all the extra things I bought for surgery (some was returned to where I got it and some was giving to people who do need them), but just because I did that didn’t mean that I was able to really do any decluttering.

I keep setting decluttering as one of my weekly goals and each week goes by and I don’t do it. But it’s gotten to the point where I just need to take time out of my day and work on cleaning. It’s pretty much spring cleaning even though it’s almost summer. And I really want to do a big overhaul in the stuff that I’m keeping in my house. I’ve done a couple of small cleanups lately and have even put together bags of clothes to donate, but then of course those bags are just sitting in my house so they are just adding to the clutter issue.

Some of the decluttering is just stuff that I haven’t filed away if I need to keep it, but a lot of it is just random stuff that I probably need to throw away. I’m not great at throwing things away when I think I might still need them. I’m not a hoarder, but there are cards or paperwork that I debate if I need. I am trying to get better about this by digitally storing a lot of paperwork that I have but there are still some things that I like to keep hard copies of. It’s a process but I’m working on organizing everything.

I think the reason why my clutter is hitting me this time is because I finally have my life back in order (or almost in order) and now I’m noticing that my house isn’t. It’s a weird feeling when coming home isn’t the most settled feeling and I’m not used to that.

I know I’m overdue for a massive project. This isn’t just going to be a normal cleaning and organizing day. I need to actually go through my stuff and see what I actually need to keep. I need to go through my closet and see what I can get rid of. I’ve gotten a few new things recently (trying to get ready for the heat of the summer) and I’m trying to follow the rule of “one thing in one thing out”. If I bought 3 new things, I need to take 3 things I don’t wear anymore out of my closet to donate.

I haven’t figured out when I’m going to have the time to do this big cleaning and decluttering, but hopefully I’ll figure out a good block of time that I can set aside to just focusing on my house. I need to not just do this in between other things in my schedule because I will keep putting it off like I have been doing. And hopefully I’ll find this time in the next week or so to really get my house back to how I want it to be and to make my space a much happier place for me.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged clean, home, organization

Broken Oven (or Putting A Wrench Into My Plans)

Posted on March 16, 2017 | 1 comment

After writing the post yesterday, I felt extra motivated to get my butt back into gear. I don’t want to play the victim, and when I read my post after writing it that’s exactly what it felt like I was doing. I don’t need to be a victim and I have no plans on being one.

So I went back to the food plan that I created for this week and decided to figure out what I could do to shift things around so that I could still pretty much follow the plan. I needed to move some of the dinners to other days and shift around a few other meals, but it still seemed pretty reasonable to me and I figured I could get it to all work out for me.

So last night, I knew I would need to do some cooking. I’ve been making these really great muffins out of garbanzo beans that taste really decadent for breakfasts and lunches a lot and needed to bake those. And I also wanted to make meatloaf muffins to have for a few dinners. I decided to make the meatloaf first since I needed those for dinner and got to pre-heating my oven. While my oven was pre-heating, I mixed up all the ingredients for the meatloaf (with almost more veggies than meat) and got it into a muffin tray.

And then I tried to open my oven.

For some reason, my oven would only open on one side. The other side seemed stuck and I couldn’t open it no matter what. My oven doesn’t have a self-cleaning option so it wasn’t stuck because of that (which is what everything online seemed to say) and I couldn’t see it stuck on anything. And then, the oven door slipped and somehow one side fell off the hinges.

I’m glad I had turned off the oven before the door fell because it wasn’t too hot when it fell down. I tried with everything I had to get the door back on the hinges, but there was no way that it was going to go back. And with one side falling off like that, the oven was starting to tip over so I figured out how to get the door totally off the over and put it on the kitchen floor.

Fortunately, my neighbor let me use his oven to cook the meatloaf so that at least I didn’t have to throw all that out. He said I could bake the other things that I needed to too, but I didn’t want to worry too much about it and figured that hopefully my oven would be fixed soon enough.

My landlord came by to see if the oven could be fixed, but he doesn’t think it’s possible. I’m waiting for a call from another repair person to see if they are going to be able to fix it or if I’ll need to get a new oven. I’m not sure if I want a new oven because I finally have this one figured out (basically I need to set the temperature almost 100 degrees higher than I need it to be so it’s right). And hopefully I’ll find out within a day or two what will be happening.

I hate that when I get things back on track in my head, there is something that stops me. There are several things that I wanted to make this week that involve using my oven. And yes, I could probably go back to my neighbor to use his again, but I don’t want to inconvenience him. If my oven if fixed soon, it shouldn’t throw too much off. And again, I have rearranged my food plan to see what I can make and how I can get things to work out. I may need to make a grocery run to get a few other things that I know I can make in the microwave or on the stove, but I should be able to be ok.

And even though this isn’t a fun situation, I’m still trying to look on the positives. At least I rent and I don’t have to spend anything to get my oven fixed. My oven broke before I put my food in, because if it broke when the food was in there I’m pretty sure everything would have been burnt. And not having an oven isn’t that horrible. It’s a setback, but a super minor one compared to everything else I have dealt with. And hopefully soon, I’ll have a new oven that will work perfect to use for all the cooking I know I need to be doing!

1 Comment

Posted in Food

Tagged cooking, food, home, setback

Working On Cleaning (or Time To Declutter)

Posted on January 27, 2017 | 2 comments

I try not to clutter up my house since I live in such a small place, but somehow it seems like all of a sudden from time to time that I feel like my space is too cluttered. I seem to acquire new things in batches, so it quickly feels like I have too much stuff in my house. For some reason, even though I didn’t really buy too much for myself during the holidays, it started to feel like I needed to do a big cleaning after the holidays. But for some reason, this time I’m struggling with getting rid of stuff.

A lot of the stuff I want to get rid of are clothes. I have a lot of clothes that I don’t wear anymore. Most of it is due to it being too large on me now (a good problem to have) but some stuff I just don’t like or it has started to show wear and tear. But despite the clothes not being worn that often, for some reason I don’t want to let go of them. Even the clothes that are too big are tough to bring to donate. All of the clothes I needed to get rid of still fit in my closet, but I wanted them gone. So I ended up taking out everything that I’m not wearing and putting them into bags. I haven’t been able to get rid of the bags yet, so they are just living in my utility room for now. I don’t know what the struggle with letting them go is, but I guess baby steps are better than nothing.

I also seemed to get a ton of new stuff on my desk. Part of it was when I got my new computer and I had to work on the transfer between the computers. Since the cables for the new computer are different from the old computer, I do need to buy some converters to make everything work the way I want it to. But my desk has also become a catchall for things that I need to deal with. I’m starting to organize my 2016 taxes and that’s all over my desk. I also have cards and paperwork that needs to be finished on my printer. My desk drawers are full, but not unbearable so. My focus is just cleaning the desk since that’s what looks cluttered. I want to get this done, but I also know that this stuff is still in process so I can’t just get rid of them.

And finally, I feel like I just have too much stuff in general around the house. I don’t have a ton of things, but the space has felt smaller to me lately. I do only have about 400 square feet, but it never felt too small before. And I haven’t really added too much that takes up floor space (I did get a robot vacuum during a flash sale on Amazon that is on the floor). I’m wondering if I’m feeling this way because things have been organized the same way in my house for years and I haven’t moved around furniture or switched things up in a while. My last big change was when I got a new couch. And that was over 2 years ago. Maybe I just need to rearrange things and it will feel better.

I don’t keep a dirty or cluttered house, but for some reason it’s just been getting to me. I know I need to do something to fix this or it’s just going to keep bugging me. I’m trying to take steps where I can to make things better but I know I need to do more. I do have motivation to do more this weekend because I’m supposed to be having people over on Sunday (having people come over is always a good motivation to do a major cleaning). But just cleaning might not be good enough because I don’t just want to move things around or hide them in drawers. I do want to get things out of the house that aren’t useful to me so that I can make sure my space is as functional and productive for me as possible.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged clean, home, shopping

The Roadrunner (or More Memories In My House)

Posted on December 2, 2015 | Comments Off

For several years, I’ve been getting things of my grandparents’ to put into my house.

This started when my grandparents were selling their house and moving to their apartment. They had to do a big downsizing and lots of things were given to various family members. While I didn’t really get any pieces of furniture, I got some cool things from my grandpa’s office. That never felt weird because since they were downsizing, they chose to give those things away. And none of the things I got had significant memories to me because they were mainly things from my grandpa’s office (I wasn’t in his office that often in their house).

Then after my grandpa died, I got more things that belonged to my grandparents because my grandma was moving from the apartment she shared with my grandpa into a smaller apartment.

Some of the things I got then were sent to me by my parents (like the mattress from the guest room) and were selected for me. Some things were things that I specifically asked to get to keep (like the martini swords I got). And some things were things that I saw right before the old apartment was closed up when I went to lunch with my grandma and aunt. Everything that nobody had claimed was in the living room and I was allowed to select anything that I thought was cool and wanted to keep. I took a couple of things, but again they weren’t really things that had specific memories for me.

When I went down to San Diego for Thanksgiving, I knew I’d be bringing back the bear made from my grandpa’s sweaters. The bears had been shipped to my parents’ house, so I didn’t get to pick mine out until Thanksgiving. But I wasn’t expecting to take anything else home with me.

But when I was hanging out with my parents the night I arrived, I saw two painting from my grandparents’ house sitting in the rental house. I asked my mom why they were there, and she said that they were taking them back to their house because they had previously been stored.

One painting I’m not sure where it was in my grandparents’ house. But the other painting was very familiar to me. It used to be in the kitchen eating area of my grandparents’ house. I always called it “The Roadrunner” because it reminded me of the roadrunner in the cartoons. I think my brother and cousins might have called it that as well, but I’m not too sure.

I told my mom that I’d like to have The Roadrunner one day because I’ve always loved that painting. My parents then decided that they really didn’t have a place for The Roadrunner to be in their house, so I could take the painting home with me when I drove back to LA (thank goodness I have a decent sized car).

The day after I got back to LA, my parents came to my house for the afternoon. They were driving up to Santa Barbara to see my brother and sister-in-law and made a stop by me to have lunch, see my house, and help me do projects in my house. Fortunately, almost all the projects in my house were already done (I installed the a/c without my dad being there). But my parents did help me hang The Roadrunner in my living room.

Right below The Roadrunner is the acrylic chair I got from my grandparents’ apartment (it was my grandma’s makeup vanity chair in there) and on the chair is my bear.

I love having these things in my house, but it is a bit odd having The Roadrunner in there. I have thousands of memories of that hanging in my grandparents’ kitchen and even though I haven’t seen it in that space in years the memories are still strong. I’m almost doing double takes every time I pass it because it doesn’t feel quite right yet that it’s with me and not with my grandma.

It’s weird that this painting is the first thing that made me feel like I’m stealing something from my grandparents (which is not the case at all) and nothing else I’ve gotten has had anything but positive feelings. It might be because of all of the memories attached or it might be because it’s the most obvious thing in my house that I’ve gotten.

I know that the weird feeling will hopefully go away soon and I will only have the feeling of gratefulness that my family let me have this painting in my house because it is special to me. And I can create new memories with The Roadrunner now.

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged grandparents, home, San Diego, Thanksgiving

FaceTime Repair (or Baby Steps To Prepare Me For Home Ownership)

Posted on September 29, 2015 | Comments Off

For the last several years, whenever something goes wrong at my house that my landlord needs to fix, my dad reminds me that these are things that I will have to deal with on my own when I’m eventually a home owner. He always says that there are some things that you just need to be prepared to write a check for (like those floods and gas leak that I had at my house) but there are other things that I should know how to do myself.

I think that I’m pretty handy with things. I have issues with some repairs at my house because my walls are weird (it takes anchors and a special drill bit to hang things on my walls), but I was able to install my air conditioning with the help of a friend. And a couple of years ago, a built a screen door with my dad and installed it at my parents’ house (we talked about that accomplishment a lot). I have a pretty well stocked tool kit thanks to my dad and I’m prepared for several things that I might need to do around the house (or that my dad might do for me when he comes to visit).

The other day, there were some friends over at my house. After everyone went home, I was putting things back where they belong and fixing things up when I realized that my toilet was broken. I eventually figured out that the chain (which on my toilet was actually a rubber string) had broken off. Without the help of YouTube or my dad, I did figure out how I could manually flush the toilet by putting my hands into the tank (that’s clean water, don’t worry) and pulling up the stopper.

But I didn’t want to have to do that a ton. So I let my landlord know that my toilet was broken and then called my dad to see what he would say. He was out but got back to me a bit later that night. He agreed that the chain was broken on the toilet and we tried to think of some temporary solutions to fix it before my landlord would have a chance to fix it.

Somehow, my dad remembered that he had given me picture hanging wire in the past, so I dug through my tool kit and found the last piece of it. I then put my dad on FaceTime and balanced my phone on the shelf behind my toilet so he could see what I was doing.

It only took a few minutes, but I managed to fix it! I know this will sound so corny and silly, but it was the greatest feeling ever that I was able to create a temporary fix for the chain in the toilet. I needed this positive boost in my life after having a bad day. I was on such a high knowing that I did this and so thankful that not only is my dad handy but that he is willing to get on FaceTime and help me fix things on my own!

My landlord was able to come the next day to do a real repair, but he was pretty darn impressed with my picture hanging wire repair. He even tested it a couple of times before doing the fix to see how well it worked!

Obviously, it would be nice to be able to call a plumber for every little repair that I need. I’m lucky that I’m in an apartment where I’m not financially responsible for repairs. But I’m trying to do as much as I can on my own (or learning how the repair is done when the professionals do work here) so that hopefully one day when I own a home I can do as much as possible on my own. As easy as it would be to write a check for these things, it’s so much more empowering to do things myself.

Who knew that a broken toilet would be the key to improving my mood?

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff

Tagged dad, home, repair

Out Of The Heat (or Finally Getting A/C!)

Posted on September 10, 2015 | 7 comments

I’ve been complaining about the heat in my house since my very first summer here. Because my house is so old, the insulation is pretty bad. So when it gets hot in LA, the heat gets trapped inside even if it cools down outside in the evening. There have been plenty of nights where it’s over 90 degrees inside my bedroom when I was going to bed.

I have never really lived in a place with a/c (my last apartment had it but it was facing a wall in the kitchen so it was useless). And I wanted to get some sort of a/c for my house. But there were issues from the beginning. Until recently, my house had fuses and there wasn’t enough power to run an a/c. Then when I got circuits, I was told that I would have to still watch how much power I used because there is still very little power in my place.

Next was the issue of trying to find a portable a/c unit that wasn’t a swamp cooler (because it does get too humid in LA to use one) and didn’t use a ton of power. Once I found that, then it was the issue of finding one that wasn’t insanely expensive. I never found anything that seemed right to me so I never got a portable a/c unit.

I was talking to my landlord last month and we were making small talk about the heat. I mentioned the lack of a/c and he said that because of my house set up I was pretty limited in my options. I said how I really wanted to put a window unit in my dining room, and he said that it couldn’t block the communal driveway (my dining room looks onto the driveway and there is about a foot of room between my wall and the driveway path). With that new restriction, I started to do some research again.

I actually found a low profile window a/c that doesn’t stick out that far and is energy-efficient so it doesn’t go over the power limit I have in my house! And since I hadn’t asked for anything for my birthday from my parents, they agreed to buy it for me!

Once I knew it was on its way, I had to figure out how I’d install it. Fortunately, the directions were available online so my dad and I both researched them. And when I was at brunch with my friend Jane a week ago, I mentioned the new a/c unit and she said that she had installed one before! So she agreed to help me out when it was here!

This past Sunday was installation day. Prior to that, I had made a trip to Home Depot because my dad discovered some fine print in the directions that would require me to drill a piece of wood onto my window sill. And my dad and I had multiple FaceTime calls so he could look at what I was doing.

It was actually pretty funny when we were on FaceTime trying to figure this all out.

On Sunday, there were dozens of phone calls/FaceTime calls to my dad while Jane and I were working and then we also had to make another Home Depot run. But after a couple of attempts (and thanks to my power drill and saw that my dad got me years ago), we were able to install it!

I’m sure this sounds silly, but even in the couple of days that I’ve had it this a/c unit has made a huge difference in my life! I got it installed just in time for another heat wave in LA and I’m finally getting to work in my house in reasonable temperatures.

I’m still super nervous about how much more expensive my power bill will be, but there was a little guide on the a/c unit that said if you ran the until 8 hours a day for 3 months it would only cost an extra $48 a year. Hopefully that’s true.

I’m so glad that my parents were generous enough to get me this a/c unit. I’m so happy that I was able to install it and that Jane was willing to help me (and we did this in the heat since the a/c wasn’t in yet!). And I’m so excited that I will not feel as sick inside my house during a heat wave and feel trapped since I have to work in my house.

Hopefully when I eventually move one day this a/c unit is as easy to uninstall as it was to install. This thing is totally coming with me wherever I go!

7 Comments

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged birthday, heat, home, Los Angeles, parents, presents

Brunch and Shopping (or Helping A Friend Make Some Upgrades)

Posted on September 1, 2015 | 1 comment

I had the best Sunday this past Sunday! I got to hang out with my friend Jane (who is in my Women In Film mentoring group) and help her do some awesome things!

We had originally made plans for brunch. We went to Flores and Sons in West LA (I’m a bad blogger and forgot to take pictures of the food). We were seated on the front patio which was perfect because we had a fan right next to us! Over brunch, we were catching up on things that we have been up to lately. I told her about the SAG-AFTRA election and stuff about my day jobs. And she was telling me about her new apartment.

Jane had just moved into a new place very recently and she was still trying to get settled in. She was lacking a lot of furniture that she wanted to get and was hoping to get a mattress in a Labor Day sale. I told her about Sofa Club (where I got my couch) and told her I’d be happy to take her there to see if she could get a good deal on a mattress.

After talking about that, Jane had mentioned that she needed to do some more upgrades in her life. Mainly with her wallet and purse. She had asked me where I had gotten mine (they are both by Lodis) and I mentioned how I had bought them both years ago and they aren’t made anymore. But I knew that there was a really awesome Nordstrom Rack near where we were and said that we should take the day to do some shopping for fun and her new apartment!

The first stop was Nordstrom Rack. Of course, as soon as we got to the purse section I found my dream purse that was on sale for $130 (from $395). As much as I wanted to get it, I don’t have the money for it right now and this shopping day was for Jane. We ended up finding her the perfect purse and wallet, plus a really cute set of outdoor lights for her new patio. I think that the purse upgrade was a big upgrade and she’s going to look super chic now when she’s out and about town.

Next was an adventure to Sofa Club. I warned her that the outside of the building isn’t impressive but they have great stuff and amazing deals. We had to wait to be helped (we sat on one of their comfy couches while we waited) but the wait was totally worth it! She got a new mattress, box spring, and frame for much less than she was expecting to pay. And they gave her free next day delivery too!

After all that shopping, we needed a quick cool down snack (it was insanely hot out). And right by Sofa Club is Rita’s. I hadn’t been to a Rita’s since the tasting event and this location is super close to my house. I got the mint chocolate ice with vanilla custard and it was perfect!

Finally to end our adventure, I got to see Jane’s new apartment. I was so inspired by her new place and we spent probably an hour or so rearranging the furniture she has now and planning what she should get to complete the place. I think that I’m going to go shopping again with her this weekend to help her set up some more stuff.

It was seriously such a great day. Obviously, it’s always fun shopping when it’s for someone else (and with someone else’s money). But it was more than that. Jane had said that she needed to upgrade her life a bit and I got to be a part of that! She’s such a fabulous person and she deserves to feel that way too!

Hopefully after our next shopping adventure, I will have some before and after pictures of her new place to share with you all!

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged brunch, fashion, friends, home, shopping

San Diego Beach Lunch (or Having Some Of My Grandparents’ Things In My House)

Posted on May 20, 2015 | 1 comment

I hadn’t seen my grandma in a few weeks, so I knew it was time to get back down to San Diego to see her. Also, my grandma is downsizing to a smaller apartment in the community that she and my grandpa moved to about 3 years ago so I’m inheriting some things that won’t fit in the new apartment. I already have my mattress and my parents brought me a few things, but there was a box that didn’t fit into my parents’ car as well as some other things that my parents wanted me to look at.

So I decided to head down to San Diego on Sunday to visit with my grandma as well as get the things that were waiting for me there.

I was pretty lucky and made it down to San Diego in just under 2 hours, so I was at my grandma’s place a bit earlier than I planned. The plan for the day was for my grandma, my Aunt Nancy, and I to go to lunch and then my aunt and I would go to the old apartment on our own. Shortly after I arrived, my aunt got there and we headed in the car to go to lunch.

We went to Poseidon in Del Mar which was right on the beach. There was a bit of a wait for a table, so we sat outside and enjoyed the beach from the sidewalk (I didn’t want to get sandy).

After about 15 minutes, a table on the patio was ready for us. It wasn’t right at the edge overlooking the beach, but we could still see the beach and water from our table.

Lunch was pretty good. We had a long wait for our meal. It took them over an hour to bring our food to us and tables who were seated 15 or 20 minutes after us got their food first, but they were very apologetic about it and comped one of the entrees. I had gotten so hungry that when they brought my sandwich I started eating it right away without taking a photo (sorry). But I had a very nice turkey sandwich.

When we got back to my grandma’s apartment, I said goodbye to my grandma and my aunt and I headed back to the old apartment. My Aunt Cindy had warned me that I might be upset because the apartment looked empty and weird, but shockingly it didn’t bother me. I think I had prepared myself for it to look worse, so it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

The box that my parents had left for me was there and my aunt asked me to go around the apartment to see if there was anything else that I wanted to keep. All the stuff that was left in the apartment was going to be donated to charity, so I could take whatever I wanted.

It felt a little weird and almost like stealing from my grandparents, but I knew that if I didn’t take stuff, nobody in my family would have it. So I found a couple of things that I wanted like a purse, some quartz bookends, a lucite vanity chair, napkin rings, and a vase. And my aunt had found my grandparents’ copy of my parents’ wedding album along with their wedding invitation so I got that as well.

I also had brought my gardening shears and a plastic bag for a specific project. My grandparents had some amazing succulent plants on their balcony and because the planters they were in were so heavy, they were just going to be thrown out. But if you cut a succulent and let it dry a little, you can plant it and it will grow. So I cut a bunch of pieces and will be planting half for me and half for my parents.

By then, it was after 3pm and I wanted to head home. So we got a luggage cart from the concierge at the building and I brought down the things I was bringing home.

My drive home was a bit longer than my drive down, but it was still uneventful. And as soon as I got home I unpacked the box that my parents had packed and sealed for me. There were a couple of things that I knew they were giving me (like new sheets and some of my grandparents’ serving platters), but there was one thing that was so special to me.

I’ve mentioned my grandpa’s love of martinis and how he got me to love martinis as well. And a few years ago I got him hooked on blue cheese olives. My grandpa always used these really cool swords to keep his olives in his martinis and I always thought that that was the most amazing thing. So when my parents had asked me if there was anything from my grandparents’ apartment that I wanted that my grandma wasn’t taking to her new apartment, the only thing I could think of was those swords. Those were in the sealed box along with the last jar of olives from the case that I brought my grandpa last year.

Those swords are so special to me. I have them on display in my dining room now and they make me smile when I walk past them. While I’ve gotten lots of cool stuff from my grandparents’ old apartment, those swords are the most sentimental to me.

I’m still finding places for some of the other things that I brought back with me, but I’m so grateful that I have things that remind me of my grandparents in my house now. I don’t get to see my grandma as often as I’d like (the 4 hour round trip makes it tough to do too many day trips), but having some of their things in my house makes me feel closer to my grandma and helps me not miss her as much.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Food, Tough Stuff

Tagged beach, drinks, grandparents, home, lunch, San Diego

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San Diego Beach Lunch (or Having Some Of My Grandparents’ Things In My House)

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