overwhelmed.

sometimes i just feel like there is WAY too much to do.

and just when i start thinking there's no way i could feel any worse -- i read mommy blogs of women who are preparing meals for their families which involve words like "artisan" and "ginger cilantro" and "sweet potatoes" and i just start feeling overwhelmed all over again. there are so many things i'm not good at.

when will life slow down?

in brief

tonight i killed a spider. i haven't done that since i got married [that's what husbands are for, right? killing spiders] because i HATE spiders. but i was really brave tonight and did it.

maybe i was just trying to atone for the fact that the spider was lurking around a bag of grapefruit i snuck over the arizona border yesterday -- i'm pretty sure that's illegal because why else do they have the agriculture inspection when you come into california? whoops. my environmental science teacher would be so disgusted -- i am contributing to non-native invasive insect growth.

also two hours ago i almost threw up at the gym. mental note: lactose intolerant people should not eat ice cream before running three miles.

also every time i see the previews for the hannah montana movie and/or 17 again [i think that's what it's called -- you know, with zac efron] i get really excited. first american idol, now this? i think i am mentally stunted at the age of 14.

and for the miracle of the day: b left his wallet at my parents' house this weekend. his train pass was in it. this morning we decided to buy him a one-way pass here in pasadena instead of just breezing through the station hoping we wouldn't get caught before buying our april passes. what do we see when de-boarding the train at pershing square? cops checking tickets. oy. so glad we were legit today -- thats a $200 fee [and, allegedly, 40 hours of community service] we just avoided. yesss.

is anyone else shocked that april starts in one day?

arizona dreaming

last thursday was my grammie's 75th birthday. so to celebrate such a monumental event for a great lady (whom you may remember her from posts like this), my grandad and the rest of the fam threw her a surprise party on friday night. my big contribution was making the invitations to the party, which you can see on my stationery blog.

i drove out with my mom, my aunt flew in from colorado, my other aunt came from her home in phoenix near my grandparents, and grammie's two sisters came from the phoenix area as well. the ploy was a dinner with a few friend-couples who live near my grandparents in their "retirement community" (aka resort paradise) so we met up with all of them and waited for the birthday girl to arrive.

me & momma waiting for the party to start:



finally it was showtime. here's gram and grandad upon arrival -- please note the look of delighted shock. she was totally surprised. i felt so sneaky -- i love surprises :)



the party was fun -- we had mexican food [after i'd eaten cafe rio for lunch just five hours earlier...mmm. one can never have too much mexi, in my opinion.] and everyone got to tell their favorite memories of grammie. not only did i learn she dated someone named "harvey the marine" before meeting grandad, i found out she used to deliver doggie droppings to neighbors she didnt like when she was in elementary school.

here's me and gram [she's not really THAT much shorter than me, just fyi -- i was wearing giant heels]:



grammie and her three girls (l-r my mom, aunt susan, gram and aunt nancy) -- um, i think maybe they're related because they look like quadruplets:



fun times. saturday we all hopped in the car for a marathon day of coleman-woman shopping. you can never go wrong when shopping with grammie; she gets the BEST deals and takes you to the funnest places.

we started out at the queen creek olive mill -- totally fun place with all sorts of yummy olive oils, spreads and dips to try. it was in such a picturesque, pretty setting -- reminded me of europe:





we ran a few more errands and got to eat THIS sucker at lunch. behold, the biggest frozen cream puff on the planet, bigger than my face [complete with neon mutant cherries. i skipped those]. you know i can't leave out dessert:



one of our last stops of the day was at a bosch kitchen center, filled with the most delightful cooking supplies you can imagine. as if that wasn't good enough, they were doing a cooking class! i got to watch a bosch mixer in action [helpful because i've had a bosch for two years and have only used it twice] AND learn how to make delicious food items such as scalloped potatoes [gallon of cream included], pepper steak, and peach cobbler with a pecan-roll crust. they gave me a loaf of homemade wheat bread because it was my first visit, and then we got to sample everything they made! so fun...and it was all free. my arteries are clogging just thinking about it.

and thennnn... they did a raffle drawing. me, the girl who never wins ANYTHING, won knives! that's a $60 value, thank you very much. they are sort of weird -- they're swiss and brightly colored and non-stick but i love them because they are FREE.

this is my thrilled face [and the knives clutched tightly in-hand]:



woot. free bread, free snacks AND free knives. doesn't get much better.

after that we went to home goods and i remembered i had a $42 gift card leftover from my wedding. so i bought a bunch of junk all for free. saturday was a great day.

that night we cooked dinner and chatted and read books. it was a fun relaxing night. sunday we went to church with grammie and met all her friends, and then mom and i packed up our car and drove home.

i must say, arizona is fabulous. i love everything about it -- the sun, the desert, the palm trees. or maybe i'm just captivated by all the billboards advertising new homes for $120K. regardless, i want to move there. b and i may just be headed to the greater phoenix area in approximately three years :)

still alive.

i think this is the longest i've gone without blogging in a loooong time. sorry to my two aunts, who both separately informed me today that they are disappointed in my blogging absence. apparently i have two fans! yay.

hmm...what has happened in the past 10 days? let's see...i've been grocery shopping x4, got a new phone, went back to blond hair, ran 9 miles, made my acting debut, drove to rancho x3. yeah, not so exciting.

this week was definitely a corporate week for me, which also took time away from blogging. i feel like an official businesswoman when i:

a. eat out for 6 out of 9 meals in a three-day timeframe [though, granted, i didn't pay for any of it]
b. work a 40 hour workweek...in only four days
c. dream about media relations
d. all of the above were this week's occurrences. oh well, at least i'm working on fun projects and feeling fulfilled. and at least my husband works in the same office so we can see each other for lunch and occasional train rides.

i'm currently in arizona for a rocking surprise party. can't say too much about it as i'm not positive the birthday person won't read this blog before the party happens, but i'll be back with plenty of photos.


viva la cactus...i love arizona.

baked good weekend

so we had a great weekend. but now that it's tuesday i don't much feel like regurgitating the whole thing for you on the blog.

suffice it to say our two-day break involved the americana, girl scout cookie ice cream, waiting for guffman, sleeping in, pretending it's summer, spending our tax refund, wii, friends, and cupcakes:





and a side note. i was supposed to bake a cake for a ladies-only church luncheon on saturday. the cakes were to be the centerpieces so i had pressure to make it look pretty. however, i procrastinated my planning, and then couldn't bring myself to frost a cake, so i decided to go the good old bundt cake route. and then i found out my oven doesn't work.

not so bad from the side:



but from the top it was a train wreck:



not even frosting and sprinkles could salvage it. i almost bailed on the activity all together but decided to go anyway. and when i got there i got to listen to amazing music from some very talented pianists and singers and a violinist, and hear some talks about ways i can be a better, more loving, more giving person, and i got to see real charity in action: when i walked in with a distraught look on my face and a tragically damaged cake in my hands, a mid-sixties-ish woman who had recruited me for the cake baking took one look at me and said "turns out a lot of people brought extra cakes -- so we can leave yours in the back room and you can take it home!" i laughed out loud and gratefully agreed.

she found me after the program, on my way to lunch, just to reassure me that she loves lemon cake and didn't want mine to go to waste and she had eaten a piece of the cake and LOVED it. [of course she ate the most damaged looking section of the cake so i could take home and cut up the rest for a better presentation.] the next day at church she found me again just to tell me she was still thinking about my delicious cake and she was so glad i had made an effort.

moral of the story: sometimes i suck at baking. and sometimes kind, motherly older women warm my heart right up.

green day

i posted this last year, but it STILL brings me unequivocal, delirious happiness. so i'm sharing it once again. enjoy!



happy st patricks day :)

[and p.s. -- if you REALLY want a treat...check out the remix here.]

the return of bella

for some odd reason, b and i have the eternal privilege of living below cat ladies wherever we go. the l.a. apartment came complete with a pretty good one. and now, in pasadena, we have another cat lady directly above us. we hear her talking to her cats all the time but never see her out and about. she also scoots a rolling chair around the floor above us, sounding mysteriously similar to the "roller cat" noises we discovered with the l.a. lady.

i've never met this one, but for weeks and weeks we heard her out on the balcony directly above our bedroom window calling for her cat, bella. almost every night around midnight we'd hear "bella!.......bella!" [imagine that being yelled in a high-pitched whiny accented voice.] it was incessant. b started yelling it back to her after a few months of that, but she still never shut up [nor found her cat].

on sunday, we were sitting on the counch watching tv when i heard something in our building hallway. at first i thought it was a baby crying but we muted the tv and it sounded like a CAT. b snuck over to the door and peered out the peephole -- there was a cat sitting right in front of our door, meowing. i hate cats. i am allergic to them, but i also think they have major attitude and plus they are not cuddly in the least. and this cat only had part of a tail! gross.

b opened the door [to my complete horror. i could just imagine some rabid cat running into our apartment and wedging itself beneath our couch. i'd have to move out if that happened!] and tried to shoo it away but it held its ground. we figured it was bella -- she must have thought she was one floor up and probably couldn't understand why we wouldn't let her in. b shut the door and we went back to our show.

a couple hours later we went to bed and just as we laid down -- we heard meowing right outside our window. freaking cat was following us around! we started snickering at the attentive cat and then heard the sliding door above us open...and guess who came out. the cat lady! she said "bella! where have you been!" and i assume the cat jumped up into her waiting arms. we thought it was hilarious. we solved the case of the missing cat.

place your bets

i can't believe how ridiculously in to american idol i am this year. I LOVE IT.

meant to post this last night...whoops. even though we're now down to the top 11 [that final 13 sure didn't last long], mark my words. here's my bid for the top 3, in no particular order:

adam lambert [i've got a mad emo crush on that one. looooove him. and yes, i'm aware he's probably gay.]
allison iraheta [her heart song was the first number of the season that i actually had to watch multiple times. i adore her.]
lil rounds [she's ok. but i think she'll go far. or danny gokey will beat her out with all his shirt-matching glasses and dead-wife pity. but i'll stick to my prediction.]

can't wait to see how it ends up! who are your predictions?

depends on how you spin it

last night i was hating daylight savings. i rolled around in bed till at least 1 a.m. (waaaay past the regular lyndsey bedtime), trying to force myself to go to sleep as i knew i'd be wiped out this morning.

this morning i hated daylight savings even more when my alarm clock went off at 7 (felt like 4 a.m. -- i swear, we only lose ONE hour but it feels like so much more) and it was dark outside and i was so sleepy i didn't even want to eat.

and then things started looking up. to celebrate daylight savings we got to wear our pjs to work! fun fun. my bff co worker joLee actually wore footsie pajamas. i was not even aware they made them in adult sizes but here is proof:



we were quite comfy and happy all day. ALSO my boss came back to work today after a looong four month maternity leave! yay. here's the boss, me, jL and fellow co workers:



oh and also -- in addition to the jammies we had a cereal party. yay cereal! mmm. i kind of OD'ed but whatever. at least it wasn't cookies.

but truly the GREATEST part of today was that when b and i left work -- at 6 p.m.! -- IT WAS LIGHT OUTSIDE.

so. fantastic.
you don't know how wonderful it is to come out after being inside for nine hours and see the sun -- makes my whole day feel longer. and better.

even makes all that nasty early wake up stuff worth it.

p.s. except i got another migraine today. not quite as bad as fri's but still bad. maybe sleep deprivation brought it on?

p.p.s. completely unrelated to daylight savings but tonight i inhaled a combination of ginger, garlic and roasted red pepper as it was sauteeing on my stove. and i am STILL coughing. can breathing in spices damage your respiratory track?

happy daylight savings!

taco weekend

let's just get it out there: i love tacos. i could probably eat some form of latin-inspired cuisine every day for the rest of my life. i also love just about any type of asian food as well (except i don't eat anything with fish -- so that kills sushi. sorry folks) but there is just something about mexican food that i adore.

anyway, this was an awesome weekend for tacos. friday night, i was finally recovering from the dreaded migraine and wanted a low-key dinner.

[you'll be happy (disgusted?) to note i've been back to my old sugar habits ever since the migraine. i'm even helping to expedite the addiction in young children -- today at church b and i gave jelly beans to three different children. mwahahaha. start em young!]

so friday -- we went to wahoo's fish taco for dinner. it was my first time. and i loved it! yum. in fact, i have the leftovers of a carne asada burrito in the fridge right now, calling my name.

but yesterday was the taco adventure to end them all. we've even got some back story here. as you know, i'm recently obsessed with twitter and through my surfing i kept hearing about kogi bbq. apparently there's this new startup phenomenon in l.a., where kogi bbq operates two trucks that drive around the city serving up korean tacos. mmm. i wasn't even sure what a korean taco was but i knew it sounded amazing.

if you're not intrigued yet, get this: they have the most brilliant marketing plan imaginable. every day they go to a different location, but the only way to find out where they'll be is by reading their updates on their blog or their twitter page. and it has turned into this craaaaaazy hit business. i swear, in the past two weeks i have read about kogi in the ny times, newsweek, the l.a. times and a million other places.

kogi tweets, the people come. i guess they average 300 to 700 customers a night, and they usually make a few stops.

yesterday was actually our second attempt tracking down the korean taco truck [i smile every time i say that phrase...just sounds so random] due to poor scheduling and a late truck last week, so i was bound and determined to get me some tacos last night.





we showed up 15 min. after scheduled truck arrival and the truck was indeed there -- along with a line of about 100 people. b and i stood there getting gradually colder and gradually hungrier. [maybe this is part of their brilliance? they make you stand in line for a long time, hungry and bored, while you smell amazing korean spices? you'd even love cardboard if it was smothered in kimchi after long enough.] we made friends with hippies in line and tried not to drool.

after an hour and a half WE MADE IT. the kogi web site posts pictures of tacos that look like these:



mine, however, looked like these (unphotoshopped):



they were indeed quite delicious, and made the wait worth it. my favorite was the korean short rib. i am still not convinced, however, that i'd wait another hour and a half for them again. i guess the rosemead location we went to is one of their most crowded; the truck also frequents stops in mid-wilshire, santa monica, eagle rock, los feliz, etc. so maaaaybe i will try another location in the future. and maybe i'm drooling right now just remembering the meal.

but for now, i am quite content with my taco weekend.

just so you know.

i woke up this morning, took a shower, straightened my hair and started seeing stars. that means a killer migraine is coming on. UGH.

i popped some ibuprofen, ate some cereal and went back to bed for three hours. when i woke up, i had another bowl of cereal, three peanut m&ms and two of those little cookies from last night. and what do you know -- i started feeling better.

[if by better you mean i still can't see, i feel like the walking dead and i still momentarily wonder if my skull will split open. but hey, i came into work, so i guess i'm not doing that bad.]

i'm still not 100% and the recent sugar intake only helped mildly, but i'm just sayin -- i think yesterday's dessert fast is already proving to be a terrible idea.

sugar shock

today i did not eat dessert.

this is a BIG deal. if you are a regular reader of the blog you know i have this oddly high tolerance for sugar. i've been known to eat half a joe joe at 7 a.m. while i'm packing lunches, sneak a chocolate truffle after finishing my cereal, get a little candy pick-me-up in the 4 p.m. snacking hour, or enjoy an extra dessert with b during american idol. not to mention i LOVE cookies any time, anywhere, any style. mmm.

sometimes i get a little too carried away. for example, yesterday at work i ate half a cookie...a scoop of ice cream...another bit of ice cream and a slice of cake at church (balancing it all with a handful of cereal and a string cheese for dinner). by the time i came home i was feeling pretty nasty and regretful. yuck.

then this morning b and i were IMing. here is an excerpt of our conversation.

b: today i challenge you not to eat dessert
l: um...i don't think so
b: it will make you feel better and you'll have more energy. http://www.momscape.com/articles/sugar-shock.htm
l: no WAY. sugar makes me who i am.
l: without sugar i would just be a sad, boring, un-sassy lyndsey
b: oh come on. sugar is not your personality
b: try it for one day
l: hmm
l: okay. but i just ate mini wheats. does that count?
b: no, that's okay
b: just no empty calorie sugar treats
b: cookies, candy, etc.

and that's how it began. i have actually made it 13 hours since that conversation with NO treats. i'm still sort of amazed that i did it. once in college lacy and i decided to give up dessert, starting on a sunday morning. we didn't eat breakfast or lunch that day because we were fasting, and halfway through dinner we decided we couldn't handle it anymore and traded our chicken cordon bleu for an ice cream waffle. me? persistant? what?

the best co-accomplishment of today was that during these 13 hours, i attended a baby shower. a baby shower! one of the best opportunities for free and guilty treats. i said no to ice cream, bottle-shaped sugar cookies, peanut m&ms and a carmel apple, all in a two hour span. um...yeah. i was drooling, but i said no repeatedly.

but i'm not dumb. i collected those items at the end of the night, shoved them in my purse and have them waiting on my table for me to enjoy whenever i break this streak:



we'll see how long it lasts. i was proud of myself this afternoon and told my co worker about the new pledge [via IM once again...i was working remotely]. her response? "ha. so your girl scout cookies that arrived in the office today? those are just going to go to brandon?"

DANG IT. i guess tomorrow is another day...we'll see if it includes sugar or not.

big news.

no, i'm not having a baby. [every time my blog post title involves the words "news," "surprise," etc. i have at least three people tell me "oh, i thought you were going to say you're pregnant!" GET OFF IT, PEOPLE. no baby.]

however, i do have other big news. they are making sleepless in seattle into a broadway play.

HA. while that is my single ultimate favorite movie ever of my life, i think it will suck as a musical. some wonders of the cinema are meant to stay in the cinema. i mean seriously -- a cardboard-and-plaster empire state building?? lame.

also, if you read some of the comments on that article (or even the article itself), you'll see a lot of SIS-haters. sad. granted, i can't really blame them -- it is a somewhat cheesy, unrealistic, dated movie -- but that's what makes it so fun! that and the fact that i can quote verbatim the entire movie, start to finish.

and it's monday.

i was informed recently that i've been slacking on the blog. i think i am capable of being psychotically enamored with only one social media outlet at a time, and lately that has been twitter -- so the blog has been neglected. twitter is, however, breeding ADD in me because i check it constantly. [but if i didn't, how would i ever hear about a mormon girl swallowing her engagement ring, or find out the new editor in chief at car & driver mag before my boss knew about it, or learn about cool mobile food phenomena? more on that last one later. but as you can see, life without twitter would be a sad place.]

or maybe we just haven't been doing anything "cool." sometimes i do fun things and i bring my camera along and i think, this would be a perfect blog entry.

but sometimes all i do on the weekends is watch 30 rock on dvd, make cards, sit on the couch and quote movies for hours with b, go to target, provide free babysitting and cook food for other people and eat delicious apple crisp with friends and well...those things are just not quite so blog-friendly. but they are still my life and these things still make me pretty happy. even if it's not worth a whole blog entry once in a while, i think i have a pretty fun life.

maybe this is blog worthy? last week i found a quarter in a crack in the street on my walk to the train! i was very happy. even though i receive a pretty decent salary check every fifteen days, i get realllly excited if i find a quarter. THEN, the next day, i was working from home and found another quarter in our building hallway. angels were smiling upon me last week. the vending machines at work are new, thanks to the remodel, and now snacks are 50 cents. takes double the luck to find enough change for a snack, but apparently i'm up for it.

i suppose the moral of this story is that i find happiness in simple things. like grocery shopping at 8 a.m. when shelves are fully stocked and no people are out yet. or making it to the train station just in time to hop aboard before the train leaves. or making a new friend on the new blog. or the fact that sometimes i still wish i had stayed in nyc, but then today my google weather tracker says it is 19 degrees there and crazy snowy and i am grateful for my sunny pasadena and palm trees and fun friends who throw monday potlucks where i get to eat two cookies and a brownie for dinner.

life is good.
even if there's not much to blog about.