Star Walking

So....

I live in California.  Los Angeles County.  You know what there are A LOT of here?

Movie stars.

I don't live in a great area for seeing them.  But occasionally I will.

And you know what I do when I see said stars?

Stop and stare.

And not in a good way.

I wish I had a cool line.  I wish I had the confidence of my friend Sara, who just goes up to stars and shakes their hands and says "Hi, I'm Sara, it's nice to meet you."  Which we did in Las Vegas when we met Kerr Smith from "Dawson's Creek" fame:

But I don't.  I stare, and I think about their movies, and I gush about them to my husband, and even when I have my camera there, and could totally take a picture, I don't.  (Like when we met Kerr, Sara really did all the talking, and I stood there like an idiot.)

WHY???

I interrupted a commercial shoot with David Beckham and Sofia Vergara while on Spring Break.  Granted, I probably couldn't have said hi to them because of all the security, but I was close.

 

Then, while Nick and I were house-hunting in Burbank, I saw this guy in Poquito Mas (Nick's favorite restaurant here).

Don't know who he is?  His name is Damaine Radcliff, and he played Willie Cager in Glory Road, and Mac in Step Up.  He was totally easy to spot because he is probably 6'8" tall.

(I recognize these people, because I watch WAAAAY too many movies and read WAAAAY too many celebrity sighting blogs.)

He was Right. There.  I should have walked up to him and said...
...
...
...

See?  That's the problem!  What do I say?

I guess I just imagine myself in their situation.  They are at Poquito Mas, minding their own business, and some random person comes up to them and asks them for a picture.

Umm...hello?  That's creepy.  Or, that's what the paparazzi do--and everyone knows that the stars hate paparazzi (except for the fame whores, and we won't go into that--I swear, if I see Speidi, I will turn away happily).

But then I am left with these, "I saw them!" posts with no pictures for evidence.  Like that one time I saw Halle Berry in SoHo in NYC and did nothing.

I need help!!  What do I say??

I am inspired by Lindsay from iamnotastalker.com (AWESOME blog name, btw).  How does she do it??

Video Tour of the House!

Several people have asked for more pictures of the house. So, I'll do you one better. How about a video?  Took this tonight--don't mind the mess!!

Sunset over the Valley

Modern-Day Pioneers

As we drove across the country, I was fascinated over and over by the towns that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.  Through Wyoming and Utah, we would drive across hundreds of miles of uninhabitable land, and then *poof!* a town would spring up in the middle of all of it.  I would constantly ask myself, "How did these people come to live here?"  "What made them stay?"  "Why did they decide to travel all the way out here?"

Unlike other countries, where your family's roots have been firmly planted in an area for centuries, the United States is different.  No one was in this part of the world 400 years ago.  People had to make the conscious choice to leave everything they had known, to move to another part of the globe that was untested and untried.

I tried to explain this over and over to my students.  I even asked them to write a journal entry once about what would make them move someplace completely foreign and new.  Most of them responded about wars, or some kind of natural disaster.

It was really interesting--an invaluable insight into the mindsets of our students--that none of them said "to make a better life" for themselves.  It is such a historical notion to create a better life for your future generations than you have presently.  I don't know where I heard it recently, but there is some statistic out there that says that most kids don't think their children will have better lives than they did--something like it is the first time in American history that it is like that (I'll have to try to find that statistic somewhere, instead of butchering it like I just did).

We went through the westward museum, and around the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and I found their journey fascinating.  Read the article here for more information about the Mormon pioneers.  These people were so inwardly motivated to make a better life that they dropped everything and traveled 1,500 miles across the wintery desert/plateau--to a destination that they didn't even know for sure existed.  I mean, who does that??  I don't think anyone these days would consider making a journey like that.

Our journey was completely non-life-threatening.  We had the safety of our car.  Our possessions were guaranteed to arrive complete and intact--and on a date of our choosing, no less.  We had hotels and family to stay in and with along the way.  We had restaurants to be able to eat plenty of food, and gas stations to help our "oxen" (aka Jeep) continue its journey.  We had paved roads and highways to journey on.  We traveled through a desert (107 degrees), but maintained our frosty 67 degree temperature inside our vehicle.  We had a GPS map to guide us, and the Internet to entertain us.  We met no unfriendly natives, and we arrived a couple of days earlier than anticipated.

How times have changed!

But in other ways, times have not changed so much.  Nick and I still left the safety of everything we have known.  Best friends, our beautiful house, a secure job (for me), and our families.  We traveled across a vast country with all of our possessions.  We did not have a home when we arrived at our destination.  We have to make a new life for ourselves away from everything that is familiar and safe.  There are many times when I want to turn around and go back.  Go back to the familiarity of Ohio, the safeness of it all.  I know that the historical pioneers must have felt the same way.

But the other part of me is longing for the adventure, and a release from the routine that is so easy to become trapped in--something I am sure that the pioneers experienced, as well.

I am both terrified and exhilarated.

Until the next...

Dog Day at the Beach

We took Gus and Waldo to Leo Carillo State Park last weekend. It has an on-leash beach area that we were able to take the dogs to, so that they could experience the beach for the first time!

They liked the water!  It was very cold--maybe 65 degrees and windy, and the water was cold--but the boys didn't seem to mind too much.  Waldo kept eating the water and the foam!!

I took both the boys for a run along the sand--I had to run my fastest speed to keep up with Waldo.  If you click on this picture, you can see a bigger version of it, and look at Waldo's face!!

We stayed for a little while, and there weren't many people at all.  When it got a little bit later in the evening, we let the dogs run into the surf.  Gus in particular was very interested in the waves.  Once, he ran far out as the tide pulled out--then was totally overtaken by a wave!!  He was a little more timid after that--and in fact didn't go out in the water past his belly!

He kept "fetching" his leash for us.

Nick would run up to the surf, and then race the waves back to the shore with the dogs.  Pretty funny!

The sign of a great day--both boys zonked out when we got home!!

This won't be our last trip to the beach--we would like to visit the off-leash beach in Long Beach some weekend!

Unpacking the Pod

I unpacked the Pod all by myself, as I mentioned in a previous post.  Here are the pictures of the rooms with all the boxes in them:

This first picture of the dining room area is deceptive, as I had already unpacked a bunch of the kitchen items.  So the boxes here in the foreground are empty--but they were full at one point!

This family room now has the TV in it, as well as a rug and a couch.

Another angle of the family room (and front door):

 

This is the 3rd bedroom, which will be for guests, and also for the library.

This is the office area (2nd bedroom):

This is the master bedroom, before we put our mattress in it. California has a thing for mirrored doors--don't get it!

This is the other side of the master bedroom.  Our King bed BARELY fits in the room, but it will fit, so we are keeping it.

This is the master bathroom.

Laundry room area:

 Laundry room area:

The remaining bits of the pod that I couldn't remove by myself.

Once everything (or almost everything) is put away, I'll take you on a tour so you can see what everything looks like now--LOTS of changes since these pics were taken!!

Ultra-Big Thanks

When I am talking about thanks, I cannot go any further without recognizing the two men in my life.

We would NOT have finished on time without Nick and Dad.

They stayed up for 18 hours straight packing the Pod.

They worked this huge game of Tetris for 2 days in order to make everything fit.  And it was a MASTERFUL game of Tetris.  The only things that we left behind were two box springs, Nick's ShopVac (which he was very sad to leave), some Christmas garland, a box of junky working clothes, and a few other miscellaneous items that I don't even remember because they weren't important.

When you are moving cross-country, you really become very picky about the stuff to take, and the stuff to leave.  There are several things that did not make the cut that would probably have made it if we were just moving to another house in Dayton.

We did have one incident.  Dad and Nick were carrying out our dresser together, and Dad's foot caught on a box that was in the way, and he fell.  In attempting to rescue the dresser from being badly damaged, he failed to break his fall.  So his head broke his fall, instead.  Right on the corner of the floor of the Pod (the white part in the picture above).  It bled for a little while, so we got some ice and a towel, and he was fine.  No dizziness, no pain.  I looked at it, and it looked to be about a half-inch cut, so we figured it would stop soon.  He didn't have any pain, so we didn't worry too much.  A couple of hours later, while he was still at our house, it was still bleeding a little bit, so he decided to go and get it checked out at the Urgent Care close to our house.

Needless to say, I was shocked when he arrived back to our house like this!!

Turns out the doctor gave him 7 staples!  Which, by the way, staples sounds so much more dire than stitches, doesn't it?  He still didn't have any pain, so he stayed and finished working with Nick.  Now THAT is a trooper!!

I was going to put the picture of his cut on here, but I figure most of you don't really want to see it, so I took it off.  You're welcome.

When our Pod arrived here in CA, we had a little bit of trepidation when we opened it.  How would our things appear?  What would be their state?  Would things have shifted and broken on the long journey across the country?

It was AMAZING.  Nothing was broken, nothing was damaged.  In fact, other than a key and some screws, nothing even MOVED!  One Rubbermaid box at the bottom of the pile was a little squished, and all of my lipsticks were kaput, but both of those were heat-related, and had nothing to do with the moving itself.

My husband and my Dad are heroes.

A HUGE thanks to both of them.  If I had 18 DAYS to fill the Pod, I would not have done half as well as you did with 18 hours.  You stayed up late, you carried load after load, and you did it all without complaining.

I love you both.

Saying Goodbye (Part 2)

I have some unbelievable friends.  I had so many people that came over--some even just for an hour or so--to help us clean and pack up our Ohio house.  I want to take the opportunity here to say a public THANK YOU to:

Kristi - you rock the adorable gloves like no other, and you make packing enjoyable--even though Mark is probably right about my talking/packing ratio.  Thanks for cleaning my oven, fridge, and microwave.  Your comments about their state of cleanliness were too kind.  Thanks also for your friendship, care, and understanding this year.  It is rare to meet someone quite like you, and I am a better person because of you.

Laura - It was only for an hour, but your "I will do whatever you want" attitude was a salve to my soul.  Thank you so much for the little things that made a big difference.

SaraD - You are one of the few that I would let pack up my underwear--we are that good of friends.  Thanks  for helping me pack all the little things. I was totally disheveled and frantic, but you understand that about me, and love me anyway, and for that?  I love you.  Thanks.

Christy and Pam - Thank you for helping me attack the back room--and for taking half of its contents in the process.  I hope your girls enjoy their loot.  Not only that, but thank you so much for the privilege of your friendship.  I am honored that two ladies of such unbelievable quality are my friends.

Megan, Sara, and Carol - Thank you so much for an incredibly hilarious goodbye party.  The series of pictures that follow are such a perfect picture into our lifelong friendship.  I know the future is changing for our little group of 4, but I know for a fact that nothing about US will ever change.  Sara and Carol--none of the dishes broke, and every little bit of newspaper had your handprints of love on them.  Megan--the cupcakes were unbelievably divine.

The following photos are a little montage of all of my helpers.

WEEEELLLL, the first two pictures are not of my helpers.  They are more like "helpers".  Two nights before we were to leave, I was coming down the stairs and saw a shadow moving outside.  I went outside, and found all of these kids toilet papering and forking our house!  I had mentioned a couple of days before to a parent that I had never been or gone toilet papering, and we were talking about another family to TP.  Imagine my surprise and humor at all of these kids teepeeing my house at 10:30 at night!!  It was a fun little surprise--and yes, they did clean up afterwards!!

Dear friends Pam and Christy, helping me pack up our upstairs bedroom:

I just ADORE this series of photos, which perfectly captures our friendship!!

My friends the Ertsgaards left me messages in my driveway:

Finished Room

I LOVE having a bathroom to dress up again! Fun new shower curtain from Target and a "walrus brown" rug complete the room!

Unloading the Pod Stats

Yesterday, our Pod arrived from the storage facility. It eas a miracle that it fit in our little gateway, but major props to the pod guy! I will post some pictures at another time, when I have a computer handy.

Nick went to work, and so I had the responsibility, nay, the privilege of unpacking the Pod on my own.

I started at 7:30 am. I broke for lunch at 10:45 (no breakfast, so I was really hungry by then!), and resumed at 11:15. I finished what I could at 2:30 pm. = 6.5 hours

Yesterday's high temperature = 88 degrees
In the pod temperature = not measured, but I wish could have. At least 15 degrees hotter.

I made sure to stay hydrated during the work yesterday. Since it was so hot, I didn't want to poop out before Nick got home. I would bring in a load, and get a drink. Ounces of Mt. dew consumed = 20 Ounces of water consumed = 60

It is 28 feet from the outside of the Pod door to the sliding door of our house. I did not count how far it was to each room. A round-trip from the Pod to the house, and back to the Pod = 56 feet

I made 83 round-trips from the pod to the house, not counting the trips I made into the garage for Nick's tools, and our Christmas decorations and things. 83 trips x 56 feet = 4,558 feet of moving. I would say adding in the trips to the garage, and calculating in the rest of the move into each of the rooms, I did over a mile of moving yesterday!

No wonder my arms and legs are sore today!

When Nick got home, the Pod was empty minus the TV, our couch, and the TV stand. Everything else I got on my own! I felt like She-Ra, Queen of the Universe! I also felt like I owed it to Nick (and my dad) to not make Nick have to unload anything, because he worked sooo hard and sooo long to fill the Pod. I didn't want hom to have to unload it, too.

I took some pictures of the moving process, but I am typing this from my iPad, and I can't do pictures. The Internet is being hooked up tomorrow, so I will work on some pictures then.

Until the next...

Goodwill visit in the future?

It is fairly ridiculous that this is all clothes.  I did just come from a state with 4 distinct. seasons, but still...

Waldo lays in the pod!

Waldo is such a big help.

The Dogs Go To The Beach! (Part One)

I have some more posts about the house, and about how I am feeling, but Nick is going back to work tomorrow (sniff!), and will be taking the laptop, so I thought I would do a picture post while I have access to the camera and uploading capabilities.

Today was our 6-year anniversary!  We celebrated by buying a refrigerator (more on THAT in a later post), eating at Wendy's, and cleaning out the kitchen cabinets.  Sexy, right?  :)

We also took the dogs to one of the few dog beaches here in Los Angeles County--Leo Carillo State Park.  It is an on-leash park, which was a bummer, but we still had fun introducing the dogs to the wonders of WAVES. :)

Grrr....the pictures are uploading reeealllly slowly, or not at all.  I will have to do this another time, as it is now 12:15 am, and the Pod is scheduled to arrive tomorrow sometime between 6:45 and 9:45.  Am.  That is not funny, people!!

How We Found Our House

About a month ago, Nick was here in LA for work.  He didn't have things to do in the evening, and he didn't have things to do on the weekends.  He looked for houses frequently (in fact, part of the reason I was frustrated was because I would put an address into my phone, get us almost there, and then Nick would say, "Oh, we don't need to see that one--I've already been there"--grr!  Tell me before this minute!).  He went to an open house one Sunday afternoon, and showed me the pictures when he came back home.

I didn't think anything about it.

When we were house-hunting at McDonald's, Nick saw that the house he went on an open house for was still available for rent.  He asked if I would be interested in seeing it, and of course I was, because we didn't have any other options at this point.

So he called the owner, and she remembered Nick!  She said that she had transferred the renting of the property to a rental agency, and gave us his number.  Nick called that number a few minutes later to set up a showing--and the rental agent said that the owner had already contacted him to make sure that we got to see the house!  Crazy, right?

We set up a meeting with the rental agent on Friday morning at 9:00, then planned to drive around to some more houses that we had found that evening.  When we went to bed, Nick said, "I think we're going to end up with that house tomorrow morning."

It was a 45-minute drive from our hotel in Burbank (which gave Nick a pretty good idea of how long it would take to get to work every day), so we headed out early.  Nick already knew where the house was, as he had been there before.  When we arrived at the house, there was another lady there looking at the house, as well (see??  rental-hunting in LA!).  We walked through the house, and I was impressed with a few things:
1. BIG backyard.  I mean, seriously big.  It was definitely the biggest backyard of any house we had been through yet.
2. Nice new kitchen and bathrooms.
3. Organized shelving and things in the bedroom closets.
4. Bedrooms that weren't the size of postage stamps.
5. But a master bedroom that wouldn't fit our king-sized bed.

The rental agent mentioned to Nick that they had a renter set up to move in on July 1st, so if we were interested, then we would need to move quickly.  Nick asked why it was still on the market, and the rental agent mentioned how the owner was kind of....picky...about who she wanted in the house.  But then he mentioned how he didn't think we would have any trouble getting into the house because she already liked Nick. :)

After the showing, Nick and I headed to a McDonald's in the area (yes, AGAIN.  They have free wi-fi!) to talk it over, look on the web to see if any other houses had become available, and discuss whether this house was something we wanted.

After talking about it, weighing our options, and praying about it, we realized that this was the house that we were supposed to stay in.  We took our applications to the rental office, he processed them, and called us an hour later to say that we were approved!

I am not going to post pictures of the whole house yet (gotta give you a reason to keep coming back!), but here are a couple to tide you over:

 

Want to see more house pictures?  Come back and visit the blog again!