pizza, scotch, and a little get-well cake

last night celine came over to keep me company after work

on the way home, taylor picked up papa john's and we devoured it in minutes, while having serious conversations about who-knows-what.

and then the scotch came out...

and the nintendo wii shortly after.

taylor was happy to have someone play him in boxing. i never play because i get frustrated and always lose (i hate losing!)

tay played some tunes on the guitar, davana came over she got off work...

and celine brought out a cheery chocolate cake that she brought me as a little get-well present.

and it made us all pretty cheery!

thank you to all my friends and family for your kind words and love over the past days.

i'm in much better spirits and my body doesn't ache too much anymore.

you all bring me such happiness and make this whole mess of a situation just that much more bearable

i couldn't do it without ya!

happy friday!

DIY: succulents in a mason jar

yesterday i was getting a little stir crazy alone at home with bad daytime t.v.

so i decided to take a little trip to the art store to see what crafty thing i could conjure up.

i had bought some mason jars at a local antique, furniture store and thought of making vases out of them. i chose succulent plants because they're low maintenance and only need water once a week.

i call these:

"a jar full of cacti" 

now let me just remind you that i am minus my dominant [right] hand, so if i can do this, i betchtya you can too!

what you will need:

mason jars

succulent plants (be sure the will be small enough/big enough to fit your jars)

cactus-friendly soil

ribbon

stem wire

 wire cutting and bending tools

scissors 

instructions:

1) depending on how deeply rooted your cactus plant is, fill the mason jar with about a handful of soil.

keep in mind that you don't want too much soil, as you don't want it to look like a jar of dirt.

2) gently place your plant in the jar and fill dirt around it so it is "planted" in the jar.

3) water the plant.

(fyi--succulents/cacti do not need very much h2o)

4) take your stem wire and wrap it around the bottom lip of the mason jar. with your wire tools, make a circle at one end of the wire and loop the other end through. it should look like the above photo.

(don't worry if its oddly shaped; you will be tying ribbon around it to hide the wire).

5) take another wire stem and hook the ends into the wire that is now around the jar. you may need to use your wire tools to make a loop.

6) cut your ribbon according to the size of your jar and cut the ends at a diagonal to make "v" shaped ends.

7) tie the ribbon around the jar and cover up the wire.

8) now, hang as you please!!

i think next time i may use leather straps to use as the "hanger" and i may also add some beads 

let me know how yours turn out. i want pictures please!

aches and pains

today has been a little tough

although not as crazy as yesterday's drama, i'm feeling a lot of aches and pains today

i'm sore all over; in muscles i didn't know i had!

i was delivered these beautiful flowers this afternoon by my friends at work

it put a smile on my face and warmth in my heart. they brightened up my day (quite literally, look at all the colors!)

i enjoyed a yummy pink grapefruit with hot lemon water as a snack,

and took a little walk along the beach to warm up my achy muscles.

i think it worked; however, a few hours later i started feeling stiff again...

nothing that motrin can't help!

i'm also finding it more and more difficult not having an operable right-hand

life's tough as a lefty!

taylor says i'll probably get more creative as i'll be exercising the left side of my brain.

i don't know how true that is, but the i'm secretly beaming with excitement by the thought, so i'm just going to take his word for it.

it's the little things...

i look forward to returning to work tomorrow.

i don't think i can take another day at the apartment alone, i get bored.

...humph...

a fall off the bike, an afternoon at the emergency room

sorry i missed you all yesterday

i had a pretty bad biking accident on the way to work that left me with one working arm, a bruised jaw-bone, a few butterfly stitches to the chin and some cuts and scrapes...

not a fun way to start my tuesday!

so heres the story as i'm sure you are thinking, "what happened!?!?"

(or maybe you're not thinking that, but i'll tell you anyway).

i was biking to work and carrying a my lunch bag over my shoulder and had it resting on my back.

the bag moved a bit causing me to have more weight on one side of the bike. i started to loose control and swerve a bit and thats when my bag flew forward right in between my bike frame and front tire.

the bike stopped, i flipped over the front, somehow unclipped my shoes from my bike, and landed on the side of my head and hand.

this was probably one of the scariest moments of my life.

i laid in the street, not being able to really lift my head or see. i couldn't really open my mouth wide enough to scream as my jaw was in excruciating pain. i could feel blood dripping down my neck and my hand was throbbing. it's crazy what goes through your head in moments like these; shear panic. i thought oh no i broke my face and my hand, and my head was pounding from the impact. i laid there yelling as loud as i could hoping someone saw what happened. luckily, within minutes, a man came into view with a cell phone asking if i was okay. a few more people came seconds later. i tried my best to explain that i was okay and told him to call taylor. moments later the paramedics came. they made sure i didn't have any neck or back injury and walked me over to the ambulance to clean me up and put a cardboard splint on my hand and arm. the pain was horrible and all i wanted was to see taylor and know that i was going to be okay, but everyone around me was so nice and helpful (there really are good people in l.a.). as soon as taylor came he packed up my things and took me to the E.R. i felt better knowing i was with him. he even made me laugh a little on the way there. he said, "how did this monkey get into so much trouble?"

so, the doctor saw me, stitched up my chin and took x-rays of my hand, wrist and jaw. when i returned to my exam room he showed me the x-rays and told me i had broken my hand in three places. (crap!) he also said some people with this kind of break need surgery, but that my orthopedic doctor will better know if that's the case for me. 

it is my right hand, which is my writing hand. my first thoughts were, oh no how am i going to take pictures and blog (my love and passion), or make french toast on fridays....or work! meanwhile taylor was saying "whoa, cooool" and trying to get the doc to print the pictures out as a souvenir.

so for the next six weeks (practically all of summer!) i will have a cast. but i must say i'm pretty lucky i was wearing a helmet. i dont know that i'd be here right now typing (...slowly typing) without it. so a broken hand, a locked jaw, a stitched chin and a few cuts and bruises...

eh, that's nothin'!

 lets just hope i don't need surgery. i should know on friday.

and i was still (with a lot of effort and help from tay) able to make waffles with our new waffle iron!

sorry my pictures are a little out of sorts. i'm going to have to learn how to shoot left-handed!

happy wednesday!

a cambrian weekend.

what a lovely weekend it was in cambria with taylor and his parents

the mornings were cloudy, the days were sunny.

we decided to take his parents up for the weekend as they're looking for places to retire and we wanted to show them the "pines by the sea"

we did hour long walks along the bluffs in the mornings to work up appetites for breakfast....

we visited the quaint boutique stores in town

and fell in love with a whimsical gardening store, "the gardening shed"... 

where we met "abdner the cat" who apparently runs the joint...

ate at my favorite lunch spot, indigo moon

where taylor enjoyed a grilled chicken sandwich

(grilled chicken, brie & apple with onion jam served on hot focaccia) 

taylor's dad an albacore sandwich

(fresh poached albacore with red leaf lettuce & tomato on olive bread)

taylor's mom the tilapia special

(grilled tilapia served with a tomato salsa & avocado, white wine sauteed spinach and wild rice)

and me a pear and gorgonzola salad

(pear, gorgonzola, caramelized walnuts over greens tossed with a meyer lemon champagne vinaigrette)

and not to mention, the "word wars" that took place late at night.

let me say, scrabble with taylor and i can be pretty intense. 

the beau and i never fight, except when scrabble words are involved.

he has to look up every word i play because he swears i make them up

its not my fault he has a limited vocabulary (teehee)

and we slept... a lot. 

all we ever want to do when we're in cambria is sleep, and it was nice because we caught up on much needed rest.

hope you're weekend was as leisurely and enjoyable as ours.

happy monday!

Pardon my French...

it's friday, and you all know what that means...

FRENCH TOAST!

this morning's menu: pineapple and strawberry french toast.

"the origin of french toast"

the question is, were the french really the first to dip and fry their bread? 

the exact origin of french toast is undetermined, however the popular history suggests that it started with medieval european cooks who need to use every bit of food they could find to feed their families. quite like today, cooks would add eggs and milk to revive old, stale bread.

another theory suggests that this simple concoction was always called "german toast" until world war I, when the name was changed for patriotic reasons... although it is generally agreed upon that this tale of "toast-renaming" is apocryphal.

but no matter the origin, its safe to say that french toast is delightfully enjoyed by taylor and i as a yummy breakfast treat!

happy friday, friends

i will be off to cambria for the weekend but i will be back monday!

history sources: here and here

kcrw presents...a night for 2

last night kcrw treated us to a lovely evening at the echoplex in echo park.

taylor won 2 free tickets, along with a signed album, to see deigo garcia with his kcrw membership (woohoo!)

the music was great, but there's something about diego that didn't sit right with me, perhaps i felt he was "trying to hard" and wasn't organic in his performance. however! the guitarist stole the show and his bassist/violinist was unbelievable!

i must take a second to mention the opening act - jenny-o. i honestly would have paid money to watch just her. she was incredible and her music was fun to dance to.  i'm actually listening to her as i type...

(check out below whats playing on my headphones right now)

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

in all, we had a fun night just the two of us, as we always do at concerts.

we got some beers and sat in a back corner the first 30mins laughing about the silliest things like school kids.

the only bummer of the night was that i couldn't bring in my camera because i didn't have a "press pass", arg!

photos via here and here