workin for the weekend

well, we had quite the day yesterday. we didn't get to sleep until almost 5:00 in the morning.

but we got a lot done.

let me show you.

we packed up the car to take a few things over and get a jump on moving. (btw, levi has never worked for ups.)

we reveled in the glory of our new home for a bit.

we discovered how badly the hardwood floors need a good scrubbing and searched for an internet connection. alas, there wasn't one. hopefully, it won't take too long to get it hooked up.

we stopped at costco for lunch on the way to home depot.

grabbed a few odds and ends before heading to the paint department to grab samples of our paint choices.

i made one last final plea for yellow.

it worked! levi, you're my favorite person in the whole wide world!! i consider this part of my birthday present.

we painted the samples on the walls...i went a little overboard with my sample.

we decided against the retro avocado. it was too brown/yellow when we got it on the wall. it looked kind of like the contents of a diaper. we went with rolling hills instead, and it is gorgeous. the yellow in our dining "room" is macaw, and we stuck with anonymous and dragon fruit for the bedroom. can i please tell you how much i love paint color names?? they're fantastic. they make the entire experience so much more fun.

i took a couple extra photos of the place to be nice.

this is the kitchen. we have a back door! the top comes opens. isn't it adorable?? levi wants to put a shelf on the bottom half of the door for cooling pies. i guess i'll be making more pies living here! haha!

this is the bedroom and anonymous on the walls.

i put our names on the mailbox! for some reason, this was very exciting for me. this is the front.

this is the inside.

now here's where we got a little crazy. we were so pumped on painting that we decided to go back to home depot after dinner to buy our paint and get started that very evening.

we left at 4:00 in the morning.

the living room probably needs one more coat to make it perfect.

the dining "room" should be done. i am so excited about this little nook. i can't help but smile every time i see it. we want to get a mini glittering chandelier and hang it from the center of the dining room's little ceiling. it's going to be amazing.

levi didn't do all of the painting, but he did do all of the edging. he's much better at it than i am.

so today, we're going to paint the bedroom, touch up everything else, clean, and pack some more. we'll probably be done in time to watch the laker game. woo!

i love Y-O-U

good morning fellow bloggers, readers, commenters, lurkers, human beings, etcetera!

i just need to tell you today how much i LOVE you all!

first of all, reading your comments to yesterday's pb+j post had me smiling all day. i enjoyed reading all about your random memory connections. erin (find her here and here), for example, told me the sweetest story about her grandparents. it was so cute that i had to read it out loud to levi during the lakers-nuggets game. i also loved hearing about how you make your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! i guess i'm not the only particular person out there! see, levi???

and secondly, i received the sweetest, most thoughtful gift in the mail yesterday from adele (and aramis) of poptart. she sent me a fujifilm instax mini camera and the most beautiful little handmade note!! let me tell you, i was skipping when i left my mailbox. i'm really excited to start using this thing, but, more than anything, i am blown away by her kindness and generosity.

adele, thank you so much for thinking of me and going through all the trouble of sending me a gift. you made more than just my day. your thoughtfulness filled me up with love, joy, inspiration, and happiness. thank you so much!

(in case you can't tell - this is a scanned photo from my new camera!)

let's all make it our mission this weekend to be full of love and kindness towards each other. let's keep making each other's days!

p.s. sometimes i sound like a hippie. :)

an experiment in spending

we had such an excellent "weekend"! and now levi's back to work. i don't go back until tomorrow. speaking of my job, it's still great! some of you have expressed some curiosity as to how it's going (thank you for caring!!), and i am very pleased to inform you that is going very well indeed. i made a lot in tips this week. it was amazing. levi actually had a really great week in tips too. we had so much money by the end of the weekend (the real weekend that most of you get to enjoy - the saturday/sunday weekend) that we were a little nervous.

we really had no idea what to do with all this extra money! my instinct was to just horde it and not spend a cent, but that's completely impractical. we have bills to pay and needs to meet. we can't be afraid to spend money.

so we spent our weekend buying essentials, paying bills, and just having an all around amazing time in each other's company.

our first stop was target. ohhhh how i love target! we bought:

toothpaste

toothbrushes

lint roller

kitty litter

mascara

a shirt for me to wear to work

and guess what??? we still had (a lot of) money afterwards!! it has been soooo long since we have been able to buy things we need and still have money after! imagine that?!?

next on the list: macarons!

after that, we went shoe shopping so i could get some shoes for work.

i think these men's size 20 nikes look rather nice, don't you?

we also stopped by see's candies. yummmmm.

said hi to this little guy.

and levi bought me a yellow (!!!) cutting board that was on sale at crate and barrel!

i don't have any fun pictures of us paying bills 'cause, really, that's just not much fun.

the rest of our weekend was spent laughing, talking, planning, watching the lakers, hanging out with my family, and just bein all in love and stuff. it was plain old fantastic, and i can't wait for next weekend!

did you just call me wheat thin?

that's what i asked Levi last night after i thought i heard him say, "good night, wheat thin." i heard correctly.

yesterday was such a good day, one of those golden, perfect days.

i went to my mom's and hung out with my family all day.

my mom and i went shopping and tried loads of clothes on.

everything looked good on me, and i felt skinny. in fact, i lost a little weight! major self-esteem booster.

and my mom bought me a shirt!!! she bought the same shirt for herself so now we have yet another matching item of clothing. haha! i don't mind at all. i think it's funny.

after shopping, we walked down to the beach (the house i grew up in is across the street from the beach) and shared some strips.

for those of you who don't know (probably all of you), strips are the food that will be served in Heaven. well, strips and BBQ.

anyway, strips are a genius little concoction of chips, cheese, sauce, sun, and beach air.

all i can tell you about the sauce is that it's red and delicious.

the cheese gets the tiniest bit melty from the sun.

and everything just tastes a little bit saltier when you eat them out in the beach air.

they are amazing.

i want to serve them at my wedding.

the day continued to get better after the strips.

i went for a walk on the pier with my friend jesse (who also lives with my mom and sister), baby sis ivy, and my cousin janine. we stopped for milk shakes at the end of the pier. yummm.

when levi got off of work, we watched the second half of the Lakers game. thankfully, they made up for Thursday night's fiasco - they won, and they won well.

we had key lime dessert shots at chili's to celebrate and went for a ride on the ferris wheel (it was  running again!!).

fyi, levi hates ferris wheels. i didn't realize he hated them so much until we got on, and he started making all these unhappy, uneasy, kinda sick faces. he must really love me.

bracing himself

see Levi? this is how you're supposed to do it.

for the record, my boobs are absolutely not this big. just smooshed in.

i also got all the laundry done last night, including folding all of Levi's underwear (does anyone else think it's really weird that he likes his underwear folded??).

Levi's at work all day today and has to go to some hair class/show thing in LA as soon as he's off so i'm a  little sad. i think my sister is going to come over and keep my company. otherwise, i've got a movie to watch and a letter to write so i suppose i'll survive.

happy Sunday everybody!

the end of another "weekend"

Well, our "weekend" is over today (we have a Monday/Tuesday weekend because Levi's a hair stylist). It was freakin exhausting and, honestly, involved a little too much bickering for both our tastes. Apartment hunting will do that to you, especially since we have soooo many limitations in what we can afford and the very specific area we want to live in. There aren't a whole lot of studios where we want to live, and the cheapest one bedrooms are a couple hundred out of our reach. Ugh. We have decided to sit tight and keep looking. We don't want to be hasty again and end up in a place that's less than suitable. We'll find something. It's just going to take longer than we thought.

So there's a possibility that I might have a temporary job pretty soon! I'm afraid to talk about it for fear of jinxing it, but jinxes aren't real so I need to get over that. Levi's salon's owner wants to have me help out doing "express facials" at the salon a couple days a week for a couple months. A few times a year, they hire people to sell a ton of these "visit" packages that allow new clients to come to the salon four different times to have four different services performed, all for under $50. The other estheticians don't really want to do all the "visit" facials, so that's where I would come in to help out. I would get hourly pay and tips. We're really hoping it works out! The money would help tremendously. 

And to sum up our weekend, here are some photos from Ivy's family birthday celebration. My mom made steak, corn on the cob, a SUPER delicious salad (I actually skipped the steak because this salad was so good), and strawberry shortcake for dessert. We also had a tumultuous game of charades (I get WAY too competitive during charades), and Levi watched the Lakers game. :) Unfortunately, my brother is NOWHERE to be found in these photos. He was downstairs changing the oil in his car. Weirdo!

This is Levi multi-tasking - eating corn, watching the Lakers, & making one of his classic photo faces.

my sister-in-law, Chrystal, reading - she had a lot of homework due the next day.

My mom & I are slicing strawberries for the shortcake.

me & mom :)

and finally...the birthday girl!

And now I am off to start my week with some much needed ballet! 

Shame shame.

Ugh. I've been a very bad blogger lately. In my defense, I have a very fickle internet connection at my apartment (I don't pay for it so that's really the main problem). Anyway, I didn't have any internet connection last week so nothing new went up. I did a whole bunch of cooking last week though and want to share my photos and the experience so, hopefully, I will get around to that soon. :)

Levi and I celebrated our first anniversary on Tuesday. We had the best time. One of his clients got us (free!) tickets to the Lakers game. I had never been before and really love the Lakers so this was a very exciting surprise for me! We just had such a lovely day, enjoying each other's company, and reminiscing over the last year. It didn't matter that we couldn't afford some big, fancy, restaurant dinner with a nice bottle of champagne. A good cup of coffee and free tickets to a Lakers game was enough for us! We even took the train there, so instead of paying $25 for parking plus gas, we only paid $5 for the two of us round trip. Not too shabby. :)

after the Lakers won - we were happy!

our seats were sort of crappy (literally the last row of the Staples Center) but we could still see everything

Alright, that's all I've got in me for now. Will post more later!