3-Day

After years of looking at the brochures, wishing I had the time to participate, knowing that one day I would participate, the time is finally here. In November, I'm walking in the Breast Cancer 3-Day!

For those of you not familiar with this event, participants sign up to walk 60 miles over 3 days while raising money that goes to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure and The National Philantropic Trust -- both of which support breast cancer research. My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was pretty young and while it was treated in the best manner possible for that time, compared to treatment standards today, it wasn't enough. After a brief remission, it came back several years later, eventually metastisized to various parts of her body and she ultimately lost her battle with cancer almost 20 years ago.

The idea of being able to do something to not only honor her memory, but to also support research that will hopefully lead to a cure for this awful disease is inspiring and exciting. I'm also excited to be participating in this event with my fellow blogger buddy, Alyssa! We've started a team called 'Bloggers for Healthy Hooters' and we'll be showing our love of pink and enthusiasm for this cause throughout the 3 day event. I can't wait for November!

Training and fundraising go hand-in-hand and I started both 2 weeks ago. To the right, I'm keeping track of the number of training miles I've walked and there is also a link to donate if you're so inclined. A big thanks to those of you who have already donated! I really appreciate it and you should be receiving something in the mail shortly.

This blog isn't going to turn into a running diary of my prep for this event, but I'll post progress notes here and there. This is a huge deal for me and I'm so happy that the timing has worked out where I can finally participate in this event -- something I've wanted to do for years now. :)

Thanks in advance for all of your support over the next few months!!

Weekend Recap

So many things to blog about, so little time. :( I still need to recap my b-day celebrations last week and the weekend before and some other fun stuff that is going on, but since those posts have fun pictures and this weekend doesn't, I'll just start with this one.

Friday
Yay for a day off! Still had to get up early to make it to Westwood for a morning doctor appointment (all is well, just a yearly check-up). After that was wrapped up, I headed home to run some errands, then I picked up lunch and vegged on the couch while watching Project Runway.

That night, we met up with some friends for sushi and then drinks afterwards at Trader Vick's. Mr. Metro is still in town from jolly 'ol England and it was fun to catch up with him and the rest of the group. Trader Vick's has totally changed since the last time I was there -- the bar is now right next to the pool at the Beverly Hilton and there is lots of space to hang out and unwind with a group of friends. As a bonus, they were playing the opening ceremony of the Olympics on the side of the building, so we didn't miss anything. So fun!

Saturday
Up early. Again. Our realtor was hosting a housewarming party at our place that afternoon and we needed to finish cleaning up the house, both inside and out. While our family and some friends were invited to the shindig, the main purpose was for us to meet our neighbors, but more importantly (although he wouldn't admit to this) was to help him meet new people and maybe get some business out of it. Totally fine by us. He paid for everything and all we had to do was be gracious hosts.

However, while our friends and family all showed up, only ONE set of neighbors showed. ONE! :/ Ah well. What can you do, right? The taco cart food was yummy and it was a chance to show the house to friends and family, which was fun. Thanks for making the trek out to the new pad R, Wan, Trish and WeeMo!

By about 6pm or so, everyone had left and the exhaustion set in. After having another round of tacos for dinner, we got ice cream for dessert and collapsed on the couch to watch the Olympics.

Sunday
We got to sleep in! Finally! The morning and afternoon passed in a lazy haze. We had some breakfast then Jim started working from home while I finished up some laundry and worked on making a batch of 'thank you' cards.

Later that afternoon, I went for a walk in the blistering heat and made a beeline for the pool once I got back. So refreshing. Makes the walks a lot easier when you have that to look forward to ;) That night, we trekked out to Yard House for dinner - mmm framboise and burgers -- and then somehow drug ourselves home and collapsed on the couch to watch more Olympics.

Weekend was fun, but too short. What else is new, right? ;)

My first love

I started reading Twilight Monday night and yeah, it's really good! And I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it, too. However, before this young adult series came along, I - along with the rest of the world - first fell in love with the children's series of Mr. Harry Potter.

It's getting closer to that time of year again. Time for a new HP movie. Entertainment Weekly has the trailer posted as of today, which you can view here. Looks sooo good!

Obviously, if you haven't read the books (and if you haven't, I shake my head at you), there are spoilers, so watch at your own risk.

Such a bandwagoner

Ya'll (and you know who "ya'll" are) won't stop talking about this book and I couldn't stand it any longer. I'm going to start Twilight tonight. And I'm planning to get a little sleep. I can hear some of you cackling all the way up here in Los Angeles ;)

Still not back to "normal"

While the house is coming along, I'm still not back in my normal routine and it's starting to drive me a bit crazy. I think it's almost entirely due to my personality as my husband seems to be just fine with everything. I'm really hoping over the next week or two things will calm down, but if I'm being totally honest, I think the rest of the summer is going to just busy and by fall everything should be good to go.

Btw, if I know you IRL, you'll be receiving a gallery of house pictures soon. If all goes well, as in tonight soon. For the lurkers, sorry, still feel a bit uneasy of posting the full gallery of pics.

Now, while we've been busy getting the casa together, life keeps happening and there is actually a lot of other fun stuff going on. Such as:

* Paper Source Girl's Night Out. Wan, Cee and I went to their annual event Thursday night from 8-10pm. We got to try out some new techniques, find a bunch of new stuff that we want and just hang out. So fun! Can't wait to go next year.

*Vino's wedding prep! Blondie and I met up on Friday with Crafty to work on the shower and bachelorette party invites which will get popped in the mail on Monday. I think the invites turned out great and the actual parties should be even better. Dressing Queen has a great menu planned for the shower and then we're putting together a fun night for her bachelorette party.
* Food! I'm finally starting to cook more in the new kitchen and good lord, LOVE is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings towards it. Since it's been 8 billion degrees lately, my cooking has revolved around oven-less meals, but I've still managed to whip up seviche-style shrimp tacos, grilled veggie sandwiches with green olive-artichoke tapenade, cheeseburgers and a breakfast scramble.
And I'm making an exception with the house pictures here, but you gotta see this kitchen!! <3 <3 <3

More good stuff soon, but right now I gotta run to make dinner ;)

Why I love Fridays

* Wearing jeans to the office. So comfy and casual.
* Lighter traffic. The freeway was moving at a nice 65mph this morning. Made it into work in 22 minutes.
* Leaving early. That extra hour of me time feels so decadent.
* Thinking about all the fun stuff I'll cram into the weekend. Okay, so maybe it's not fun in the traditional sense of the word, but it's fun to me. :)

Happy Friday everyone!


p.s. The pool is finally back from it's swampy beginnings and we took our first dip last night. So great. I could seriously get used to this!

Crazy busy

The short version:

* Moved on Friday. 7am - 11pm. I've never had my feet throb like they did that night. Inlaws came over to help, which was a godsend. And they brought pastries (I'll pause while some of you stop giggling), a PB giftcard and champagne. Love them lots.

* Saturday got up super early, went to hang out with Sporty and Blondie while they got ready for Sporty's wedding. Yup, she got married that night. Beautiful ceremony and a kickass reception. Crapload of alcohol consumed. Loads of awesome pictures taken. Around 12:30am, Blondie's husband, Links and Jim decided to show us their crumping routine. I'm not allowed to post it, but it's effing hysterical! Rallying cry of the night "I love you Dick!"

* Drove home Sunday afternoon after rehashing the night over breakfast with my besties and the husbands. Finished cleaning the kitchen that night. Kitchen looks great, rest of the house looks like a tornado hit it. Ironic thing is that I have no time to cook.

* Monday Direct TV came, all installed. Coordinated with gardener. Pool man came to make our pool look less like a swamp and more like, well, a pool. Bought paint supplies and prepped/painted our master bedroom. Such hard work. Very happy we have a small bedroom. Slept like a baby.

Longer, more involved updates (especially in regards to the wedding) coming soon!