Tweet, tweet.

Another canyon related, wildlife post!

We have tons of birds living around us.

We also have an air vent for our bathroom fan. And in that air vent, we used to have a bird's nest.

Before we figured it out, I'd be in the bathroom, and I would hear them. First it was just an odd echoed chirping noise. I had no idea what it was, and frankly it freaked me out a bit. I thought there was something trapped in our bathroom vent, and was too nervous to run the fan. Just in case. Then the sound went away for a while, then came back.

I told Sean, he told me I was crazy. I told him again, he told me I was nuts. I insisted, and he finally conceded and said he saw the birds fly out of the air vent.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks to the other day, when I heard baby birds!

They're quiet (and gone) now, but it was quite the experience to listen to birds build a nest, lay eggs, have the eggs hatch, listen to the baby birds, and ultimately, listen to them learn how to fly! When they were learning to fly, it sounded like something was dragging something around in the air vent.

The video below is a short clip of how the vent sounded right after the babies were born. The whole thing was pretty cool if you ask me!!!

Candace's Bachelorette Party: The Scavenger Hunt!

So, you have to keep in mind that a lot of these things were catered towards us being in Catalina for the bachelorette party. Obviously, not every place you go will have a bison statue or readily available hibiscus flowers. I looked up a bunch of things online, then kind of made up some more of my own items. Candace and my friend Kareena contributed items, and voila! Customized scavenger hunt, ready to go!

Rules: First team to complete 15 (or 10, or 20) of the things on this list wins!

* collect a map of Catalina
* take a photo of your whole group with the big bison
* get someone to give you a pair of men’s underwear
* convince a guy to let a group member put makeup on him
* collect a condom (must be one you get from someone, not one a group member already has!)
* video tape someone (not a group member) singing a line or two from Reading Rainbow or Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
* take a photo of your whole group in front of a liquor store
* collect a baggie of sand
* do 25 jumping jacks in the middle of a crowded bar (and get a photo as evidence)
* collect a tiny drink umbrella
* take a photo with a guy with a mustache
* collect a hibiscus flower
* take a photo with someone who looks like the groom
* get a guy to buy you a shot (and get a photo as evidence)
* collect a locker token
* take a photo of a group member (or two or three!) wading in the ocean
* collect five men’s business cards
* get a DJ to play your song
* take a photo of a group member with a cop, firefighter, or EMT
* collect a postcard of Catalina
* collect matches, a napkin or coaster from a bar we’ve visited
* take a photo with someone with a video game accessory – t-shirt, hat, bracelet, key chain, etc
* get a bartender to let you behind the bar (and get a photo as evidence)
* take a photo of a group member with a man who is rocking a mullet
* collect a penny with either the bride’s birth year (1981) or the groom’s birth year (1982)

I'm trying to recall all of the things we did to win, and I think this is a sort of complete list:

* collect a map of Catalina
* take a photo of your whole group with the big bison
* get someone to give you a pair of men’s underwear
* convince a guy to let a group member put makeup on him
* collect a condom (must be one you get from someone, not one a group member already has!)
* video tape someone (not a group member) singing a line or two from Reading Rainbow or Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
* take a photo of your whole group in front of a liquor store
* collect a baggie of sand
* do 25 jumping jacks in the middle of a crowded bar (and get a photo as evidence)
* collect a tiny drink umbrella
* take a photo with a guy with a mustache
* get a guy to buy you a shot (and get a photo as evidence)
* collect five men’s business cards
* take a photo of a group member with a cop, firefighter, or EMT
* collect matches, a napkin or coaster from a bar we’ve visited
* get a bartender to let you behind the bar (and get a photo as evidence)

So, in the end, we had 16 items total... including the men's underwear. It was actually a funny story - we went into a bar where a family was finishing dinner, and the wife took our list and checked it out, then basically told her hubby to give us his undies. Yes. And then he did. True story. We had a big plastic freezer baggie and made him put the boxer briefs directly in. Then, once we'd won, we ran back to the bar and shoved the entire bag (with all the other items in it, too) into his hands. It was a highly entertaining situation!

The game ended up being so much fun, and I highly recommend it for any bachelorette party!

Productive.

As I hinted at yesterday, last weekend was quite the productive weekend for me.

In addition to the gardening, I:

- bought a water filter for our shower, which will hopefully fix my super dry skin, scalp and hair.

- got another yellow jacket trap, and some better gardening tools.

- helped Sean chop up and stack the wood from the eucalyptus tree. We still have to chop it some more before we can use it for firewood, but we got a great start.

- hung out with my neighbors and some of Sean's cool friends, had breakfast with one of my best gals, Marie, and then bbq'd with a bunch of other great friends.

- saw The Proposal - so cute!

- watched fireworks

- took naps on all three days of my three day weekend.

- ate way too much food.

I totally missed having a nap yesterday, and I'm feeling it this morning.

Michael Jackson's funeral is today and I'm dreading my drive into work - I drive right by Staples Center every day, and I have an ominous feeling that it's going to take me 5 times as long as it normally does. Here's hoping there's some level of respect and class for that whole situation - though I don't know how classy a memorial service at freakin' Staples Center could be.

I'll admit it - I'm a bit over hearing about his death. I liked some of his music, sure, and recognize that he had major influence on the music world and much of my generation. But enough is enough!

Tell me - are you over the Michael Jackson death stuff, or are you curious about every detail?

In the garden.

Friday afternoon, we did a bunch of gardening. It started with a tree branch from a eucalyptus tree that fell into the road. Sean thought it was on our property and therefore our responsibility to break down and get rid of. So we got a saw and a hatchet and Sean got to work. His work motivated me to get going on some of our weeds.

We had two simultaneous projects going on: Sean with the eucalyptus tree branch, and me with with weeds and ivy growing next to our steps.

I hate ivy. It takes over everything and while it sometimes looks nice, it is a breeding ground for rodents and bugs and all kinds of things that I'm not a fan of. My goal is to clear out about 3 feet out on either side of the stairs, so that we can plant some flowers and have it look really pretty.

The problems for me were that 1) the soil isn't so much "soil," as "hard, dry, rock solid dirt," and 2) ivy and weeds are really hearty and don't like being removed.

In the end, Sean got the tree chopped up and I got a good start on clearing the area around our steps.

The day was a huge success, with the exception of Sean discovering one of the yellow jackets nests and being stung three times. He totally "took it like a man," not even telling me about them till he was done and about to get in the shower. Me? I'd have been crying like a baby and it would have halted my entire process. But then again, I totally swell up around any and every type of sting. I guess the silver lining is that we now know where at least one of the nests are. I am totally calling an exterminator to remove it ASAP.

I'm still totally sore from all the work we did - two hours straight of pulling and digging and hacking. I cleared out about 10 feet x 2-3 feet of ivy and weeds, and am extremely proud of myself for the first manual labor I've done in years. My hand have blisters and my back and butt (no clue why) are sore. But it felt really good to get out there, to make progress. Hopefully I will be able to stick to it and finish.

Sean wants to get this special tool that makes clearing ivy really easy, and I'm all over that. Also, I will soon be investing in some better tools - the cheap ones from Target are definitely not cutting it for our hard core hillside.

And now, some photographic evidence of my toil. The top photo is the "before" photo - it's not the same area I was working on (it's actually a photo I sent to my landlady to show her that the "brush clearance" didn't really get finished), but it gives you the gist of what I was dealing with. The second photo is the finished product: I cleared out the space to the right of the stairs, and did some light weeding on the left side.


Here's hoping we stick with it get a really garden going!

P.S. A special note to Blogger: You really need to fix the "scheduling" function ASAP. I am perilously close to switching to Wordpress due to your bugs.

Call of the wild.

Our upstairs neighbors once bought the wrong dog food for Ashton, and instead of wasting it by throwing it out, they dumped it on the empty lot across the drive from our house.

Let's just say it's been an adventure watching the animals check it out... especially this lone coyote who decided to venture out in the middle of the day.

Mmm... dog food. A poor substitute, but I suppose it'll do.

Hey, you over there! What are you looking at?

I don't think I trust you...

Thanks for the snack! I think I'll go now.

Just another amazing example of the crazy things that we see in the canyon - not only was it the earliest in the day we'd seen a coyote (noon!), but he was bigger than your average coyote, and had amazing colored eyes. I really like coyotes... you know. Aside from the "they eat your small animals" part.

Candace's Bachelorette Party: The mixed CD.

I just found a giant spider that scurried out from under my sheets when I went to get up. As in, from where I had just been sleeping. Naked. I killed it, but I am still not completely calm.

So, in an effort to distract myself from the fact that I had been sleeping naked with a giant fucking spider, I'm posting the playlist for the CD I put together for Candace's bachelorette party and watching the end of Juno.

Just Dance - Lady Gaga
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Wait A Minute - The Pussycat Dolls
Do Something - Britney Spears
4 Minutes (feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland) - Madonna
SOS - Rihanna
Buttons (feat. Snoop Dogg) - The Pussycat Dolls
Promiscuous (feat. Timbaland) - Nelly Furtado
Hips Don't Lie (feat. Wyclef) - Shakira
My Love (feat. T.I.) - Justin Timberlake
Heartbreaker (feat. Jay Z) - Mariah Carey
Let's Hear It for the Boy - Deniece Williams
Nothin' but a Good Time - Poison
Ooh Ooh Baby - Britney Spears
L.O.V.E. - Ashlee Simpson
Mercy - Duffy
Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days) - Monica
Say Hey (I Love You) - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Don't Stop Believin' - Journey

That's right. Monica. And Deniece Williams. I'm pretty happy with how the mix came out, and the feedback so far has been good!

I'll post the full list from the scavenger hunt (and maybe a photo or two) sometime soon!

Candace's Bachelorette Party: The games!

I didn't plan a lot of activities for the trip, because I didn't want it to be too structured. But, I did want to plan some fun stuff for Candace to make the trip more memorable!

I ended up planning three games: a drinking game of "I never," a question game, and a scavenger hunt.

The game of "I never" was really fun! We had a bottle of pink passion fruit vodka, about 15 "I never" cards. We each went around and picked one - they ranged anywhere between the obvious and the completely random.

"I've never gone out of town for a bachelorette party!" "Oops! Everyone drink!"

The question game didn't work out quite as well as I'd planned. I'd planned it in two parts. Part 1 was questions I asked Candace's fiance, Skyler, to answer. The girls had to guess if Candace would answer the question correctly, and just write "yes" or "no." This part? Doesn't work so well with a tipsy, giggling bride. I would ask the question, and Candace would immediately say "Oh I think I know that one," or "Man! I don't know that one!" Kind of defeated the purpose a little, but it was hilarious anyway. Part 2 was questions I asked Candace, and the girls had to answer these. Some were easy, like "What is Candace's tattoo of?," some were tougher, like "What movie did Candace and Skyler see on their first date," and some were hit or miss, like "What is Candace's birthday, month, date and year." You'd be surprised at how many people missed that one! The girl with the most points got an advantage for the scavenger hunt, and the first and second place girls were the "team leaders" who drew the names for the scavenger hunt teams.

The last game was the scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt was super fun because we spent an hour running (literally) all over Avalon for the most random things: photos with cops, photos in front of the bison statue, a guy who would give us his underwear, a guy who would let us put lipstick on him, a bartender who would let us behind the bar. I'll post the full list some day, but let's just say even though the other team had the advantage of only having to collect 14 instead of 15 items, we won. And it had 100% to do with the hilarious gentleman who gave us his underwear. That's right. He actually gave us his skivvies! (Don't worry - we gave them back immediately after winning, and we never, ever touched them!)

All in all, the games turned out really well - not too structured, but still super fun! I highly recommend any of these games for any bachelorette party!

Candace's Bachelorette Party: Goodie bags!

Well, the bachelorette party was a SMASHING success!

One of my favorite parts of the planning was putting together the goodie bags for everyone - especially Candace.

The finished bag looked like this:

And tucked away inside were all these goodies!



Goodies included: A tiara with a veil attached, a feather boa, a "Bride to be" sash, a spinning bridal button, a shot glass necklace, two little magnet frames, a flashing bridal button, a bottle of wine, and a bunch of sweet candy (for my sweet Candace, of course!)

Then there were the goodie bags for all of us! Please note the assembly line of goodies above: colorful beads, magnetic frames, a special "Candace's Bachelorette Party" mixed CD (more on that later), shot glasses, noise makers, fish shaped soaps (pink grapefruit scent - we WERE going to an island after all!), bachelorette stickers, and... tiaras!

I love tiaras, and never wear them since, hi, I'm over the age of 7. But this was the perfect excuse, so in they went! I also dropped some candy in these bags, too, and some Finding Nemo fruit snacks!

The finished product, in the colorful bags I found at Party City. Once Candace saw hers ("I see fluffy! And shiny!"), she could barely wait for everyone to get there to open hers... making every second of the assembly totally worth it.

And when she opened it, she immediately put every single item on, looking quite the perfect picture for the start of our great weekend!

Coming tomorrow: the bachelorette party games!

Officially a hippie.

I just put this on my car.


We've officially crossed over into the world of Topanga. And I love it. :-)

Also? Candace rocks my world for planning suprise massages last night!

Also? Blogger, you SUCK for not publishing my scheduled posts. I'm tired of you - fix that, already! I've had to manually update three posts that were supposed to go automatically... am I the only one? Am I missing something???

Oh, dear.

My poor upstairs neighbor.

Today, her dog peed through the deck again directly onto our deck. It was gross, but we could hear her yell at him and come down and clean up after him.

Then, her kid dropped (threw?) a butter knife over their deck onto the glass table on our deck, shattering it and getting glass EVERYWHERE. (We were gone at the time.) She again came down to clean everything up, left us a nice note about how she's going to come back tomorrow and finish getting the last of the glass she couldn't get in the dark, and how she's sorry for being the "neighbor from hell."

I feel bad, because that's a pretty shitty day.

Then again, I hate dog pee, and I really liked that table.

Maybe it's actually "poor us."

Excited again, finally.

I am almost done with the goodie bags for Candace's bachelorette party!

I am loving how they've come out so far. I was a little worried when I first started putting them together - Candace put in a strong VETO for "penis stuff" and "kiss the bride" stuff (Am I the only one who doesn't get the "kiss the bride" stuff? She's getting married! She doesn't want your kisses!), and so I aimed towards classy and fun. But I was a little concerned that that might translate into generic and blah... until I got everything together last night and assembled the bags, and now I'm super excited again. It's all little stuff - but I still think it'll be cute little surprises for us all.

I feel like the stuff I've put together matches what Candace wanted, and also the personalities of the ladies going. I am dying to elaborate, and post photos of everything, but there are a couple of ladies going that sometimes read my blog, and I get a kick out of surprises...

So, I'll keep it to a couple of teases about Candace's bag. Candace's goodie bag was the most fun to put together - I found a couple of things that I know she wanted/was hoping for. My favorite things for her bag? The white feather boa and bridal tiara with a mini veil. She's going to be STOKED.

On top of the goodie bags, I have a couple of games that I'm putting together, and I hit up BevMo last night... of course they were having their "Buy one bottle of wine, get the second for $0.05," so I couldn't resist. Two bottles of a sweet Riesling, two bottles of sparkling wine, and a bottle of X-Rated for a drinking game later, and I think we're set!

Oh yeah... and she's definitely getting a cake in the shape of a penis, too. Can't be ALL classy and sweet!

And I promise - next week should be full of the rundowns of how everything went!

Lists: An update.

A few months ago, I wrote this post.

I was just looking back at it, and discovered that I've actually accomplished quite a bit in the last four months!

Let's take a look see, shall we?

Things I need to plan in the next 6 months:
- CSI Experience <-- Done! We went the very last day of the exhibit, but we still went!
- LA Travel & Adventure Show
- Mayercraft girls get together <-- we've had SEVERAL get togethers, AND went on the trip! Wooo!
- Girls' night <-- Check! And the mother of all girls' nights is coming up this weekend!
- BBQ (I bought Sean a little gas grill for his birthday! Which is today. Happy Birthday Sean!)
- Bridal shower for Candace <-- her aunt and cousin actually ended up doing the majority of the planning, but I got the cake.
- Bachelorette party for Candace <-- We're TOTALLY going this weekend!

Things I need to do today and/or in the near future:
- Pay bills
- Cancel my car insurance for my old car <-- awwww.. my old car!
- PDF and/or copy, then mail the liability release for my old car
- Add Sean to my 24 Hour Fitness membership
- Get a Blackberry <-- CHECK!
- Find a credit card for Sean to transfer his balance to

Things I want to do:
- Go to the Griffith Park Observatory
- Go to the Getty Villa
- Take an Advanced Digital Photography class
- Figure out how to watermark my photos
- Start an Etsy photography shop
- Book travel to Ireland, Portland, and maybe even Minneapolis, too <-- well, I didn't do so well in this category, but at least I have booked Ireland!!!

Things I want:
- A strawberry and pineapple Edible Arrangement
- A new template for this blog <-- I still love my template, and a ton of the others at Simply Fabulous templates!
- A massage
- 18mm - 200mm Nikkor VR zoom lens <-- Oh how I love this lens!
- Gorillapod portable tripod
- Travel camera strap

Things I want to bake:
- Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
- Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Butter Cookies
- Mini Orange Cupcakes with Vanilla Glaze
- Lemon Cake with Lemon Glaze

Ok, so I didn't manage to do as much on that list as I originally thought... especially the baking part. But, I got some of the most important stuff done! Here's to getting more done over the course of the summer!

Good news/Bad news.

My weekend, in bullet points of good and bad news.

- Good news: We had an awesome weekend overall. Got to spend some really good time with Sean! We hung out with friends on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, then napped and grabbed tacos in Ventura and dessert in Santa Barbara. I love being a little random and spontaneous.
- Bad news: Between our two schedules this week, it’s entirely possible that the next time we see each other will be next Sunday when I get home from the bachelorette party. Yeah, this sucks big hairy balls.

- Good news: My dad and family came over yesterday to celebrate Father’s Day at our house, which was bunches of fun, and a little bit strange at the same time. I felt very “adult” having them all there, but in a good way.
- Bad news: My dad and family came over yesterday to celebrate Father’s Day at our house, causing a huge fight between me and Sean. It’s resolved now, and it was actually mostly my fault. But it didn’t really reflect well on Sean, if you know what I mean.

- Good news: I figured out how I got sick last week. The younger of my two sisters was sick a week ago last Friday, then I stayed there for part of the weekend because our parents were out of town. By Tuesday, my other sister, my brother and I were all super sick.
- Bad news: Hanging out with my sister yesterday sent me into a coughing relapse and I woke up today once again feeling just awful.

- Good news: I BOOKED OUR FLIGHTS TO IRELAND! I did it this morning, when I checked on Aer Lingus and discovered that round trip tickets were down to $480! I kind of can’t believe we’re actually going, but am SO excited!

- Good news: I left work early today, got home about 1:30pm, and slept from 1:30pm till now, 7:30pm. I feel significantly better, and am hoping I kicked the sickness once and for all.

- Bad news: I wrote the bulk of this blog this morning with the hopes of posting it via Blackberry. I copied and pasted, hit "Post," and nothing happened. Stoopid Blackberry.
- Good news: Did I mention I got our tickets to Ireland??? Wooo!

And now, I'm trying to drink a ton of water and tea, and will try to go back to sleep in a couple hours. We'll see how well that goes, given the dog from upstairs is woefully howling for being left outside. I seriously hate being sick.

All I need is a little time.

I've been a bad blogger again. Or, not really a bad blogger, just a frustrated one due to the utter lack of time for anything this week.

Can I rant for a minute? I know I usually do that over on I Shake My Fist At You, but this post isn't going to be JUST a rant, so I need a second.

I'm working on a project at work that is currently about 15 times as challenging as it needs to be because of one person. A person who has repeatedly gone around me, blatantly ignored directives, made decisions they were unauthorized to make. And on top of everything else? Is condescending. I finally reached the end of my rope with this person and went to their supervisor. Said things directly and exactly, didn't mince words. Put my foot down, calmly and rationally gave examples of the unacceptable behavior.

I think I actually got through - things have been going much more smoothly for the last two days. But this project is still taking up much more of my time than it should, and it's incredibly frustrating because now not only am I dealing with it practically every moment I'm in the office, it's also spilling over into my personal life. The time I have with Sean. The time I normally reserve for laundry, for picking up the house. For watching the movies we have on Netflix, and blogging. The time I've wanted to spend planning Candace's bachelorette party (coming up next week, thank the lord), or our now confirmed trip to Ireland.

Plus, I'm sick. And I'm fairly certain that I'm sick because of this project and the stress this person has been causing me. And it's the most annoying kind of sick - that coughing, sore throat, eight pounds of phlegm kind of sick. I've been wiped out for going on three days, and it's the least convenient time.

On top of that, our septic tank nearly overflowed on Monday due to my upstairs neighbor's toilet running all day, causing some incredibly stinky "seepage," the other neighbor's dog keeps peeing through their porch onto ours (and onto Sean's surfboard), causing our porch to constantly smell like dog piss, and it's "that time" of the month. Sorry, my two male readers, but it is definitely a contributing factor to my exhaustion this week. Oh! AND I just found out that my AAA bill is going to be $500 more than I thought for this year, which puts a tiny kink in my safety savings since we really should book Ireland tickets this month, too.

I have no "me" time. I've been pushed out of my routine, had to delay things important to me (yes, blogging is important to me!), and I'm over it. I'm stressed out, I'm tired, I'm sick. I need a break, and the weekend cannot come soon enough.

I can't even explain how happy I am that it's Friday. That I get paid today (woo!!!!!!). That we have no "plans" for this weekend. That I'll have some precious time to do some of the things I really want to do, like finish the bachelorette favors and daydream about Ireland with Sean.

Hopefully, this project will continue to go smoothly next week (I hope that's not too much to ask), and things will get back to normal. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'll be going out of town for a while next weekend... I am SO needing that right now!

Going, going, gone.

So, we're going!

We both started getting really excited at the idea of going, so we're going to do it!

We'll go around Labor Day in September, and we'll be there for 8-9 days. I'm trying to figure out the maximum amount of time we can be there, combined with the least number of PTO hours for each of us. Sean's schedule is crazy because he can take 3 days off and have a total of 12 days, but each of his "days" is 24 hours of PTO. So, he'll have to take 72 hours of PTO to my 48 for the same trip. Boo!

But, I think it'll totally be worth it when we get there and have an amazing time.

I'm going to try and book the plane tickets this week - we're just waiting on the approval of our vacation hours.

Now all we have to figure out is WHERE in Ireland to go! Sean wants to go North, I want to go South... At least we both want to start in Dublin, right? And then there's where to stay - Sean likes the cheapness of hostels, I say we're too old to strictly stay in hostels and prefer B&Bs. The battle of wills (and checkbooks) is about to begin!

But really, we're just super excited to go, and can't wait to get there, no matter where we stay or go. Any recommendations from people who've been to Ireland? From people who haven't been but have always wanted to go to _______? Please help!

I'm super tired this morning due to another last minute, late night John Mayer $5 show at Hotel Cafe... though it's once again worth it - new songs, AND it's so rad to hear him in such a small venue! I'm sure it'll hit me about 10am... so I'd better go finish getting ready!

Also? Not sure what's going on with my template... will look into it when I get to work. Ugh. It's going to be a long day.