STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW
24 weeks from tomorrow I will be on a plane set towards England with Ben and Amber. I am terribly excited by the prospect of it. I only wish that there was more going on for me now. Actually, one should be careful what they wish for, they just might get it! I guess I am feeling fairly satisfied at the moment.
The weather is slightly cooler today than it has been. It feels like it could possibly be autumn instead of mid-summer. It's a good thing, too. There are still massive fires burning in the vicinity sort of near where I live. Ben said that all we need now on top of the supermarket strike, bus strike and fires is an earthquake. At around 3:45 this afternoon we had a 3.7 on the Richter scale. Ben always gets what he wants!
I've sort of been looking for a new job. I updated my resume and portfolio, and I've been looking at listings and submitted my resume to a few places. Things have calmed down here at my present job. We recently did a photo shoot for a new line of products that went really well. The company even used me and the other graphic artist as models; it was really fun. I was dressed as a schoolgirl in some of the shots. Also, we are working on a new design campaign for 2004 that is really kind of fun. So I can't complain too much. But I have come to the realisation that I live so close to the community college that I'd be a fool to not take a class fairly soon. I've decided to learn web design properly. There are so many job listings for web/graphic designers. Especially in London. I hope that Ben will go to school with me, too.
My birthday kicked major booty this year. It was so much fun and every present I received was wonderful and had a very nice dinner at The Great Greek restaurant in Sherman Oaks with family and friends. Marianna and I went shopping all day and it was so liberating to not have a bored money-conscious companion to shop with. Marianna's visit here was so good, and went by way too fast. It's nice to know that I will have such a nice ready-made companion when Ben and I relocate to London (and a shopping pal when we visit in 24 weeks!)
In the pursuit of OTR, I had lost all the weight that I wanted to lose by Thanksgiving by the time it was my birthday (nearly), then gained back a few pounds, then lost all of the weight and an extra pound, but gained back a couple this past weekend. Today, I am 2 pounds away from my Thanksgiving goal weight, and I have 4 weeks from tomorrow to lose it. Sounds easy, until I consider how much weight I will put on this weekend in honour of Halloween - one of my most favourite holidays! I am fantasising about the candy I'll be eating already. I am dressing up as Zorro, a costume that a chocolate moustache goes well with.
A couple of weekends ago, I went to see my most favourite movie in the whole world at the ElCapitan Theatre in Hollywood. It was 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. I had seen it there 10 years ago when the movie was first out, and it was just as amazing as I had remembered. It was so nice to see it on the big screen with Ben and Amber and Andrea and her nephew Pete who is 4. I love the movie so much that our kitchen/dining area is decorated in that theme year-round.
I have been addicted to Ebay lately. Ben said that he won't buy any Lego for himself if I don't buy anything else for myself for the rest of the year. I really haven't been as bad as I could have. I only bought 2 frivilous things: 2 Flapper Barbies that I have wanted for years. Everything else I bought were useful things that I would have paid full price for anyway, and it ended up being much cheaper even with shipping. It's hard to make stingy people understand this. Oh, sorry, frugal people. I think I may want to sell a few items on Ebay, now that I have had such a great experience buying things. There is a lot to get rid of before we move.
I also bought a new area rug for our lounge room. It was cheap, and my old rug was falling apart, looked gross and I had it for 6 years. Why do I sound like I have to justify my actions, you ask? It's called being married! :-)
In music news, I am really sad that Elliot Smith killed himself. He was so talented and only 34. I am also still obsessed with Belle & Sebastian's new album 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'... and a plan is still in the works to get together some rehearsals to sing christmas carols with my family. It's pretty much up to Tony, David and Ben to get it going, they're the musical ones. It will be very fun if they do.