Belated Birthday and Living Room Camping

On my birthday/Father's Day, my mom, dad, and Doug went golfing! Actually, I just drove the golf cart while they golfed. I took photos and cheered on Doug. We also found quite a few golf balls (and only lost a few). It was a lot of fun!

Starting out!

Hitting it to the fairway


My dad


The guys teeing off


All three eyeing their final putts


Doug hitting it over the lake


Mom's turn to hit it over the lake



I've had date idea for about a year now and never got a chance to put it all together. We were always so busy and we never had a free night with a completely free day the next day (which was the ideal). Since we're leaving soon, I decided that I had to stop waiting for ideal and just do it, or otherwise it would just be something that I thought about and never did (and I don't like those). So I told Doug that we were having date night on Saturday night. I had work the next morning and he had junior high church to lead.
While he was at work I went grocery shopping and then set up the apartment for the night. I got out his camping tent, cleared the living room, and set it up. I gathered all our blankets in the apartment and made a next, hoping that it might be soft enough to sleep on.
When he got home he was super excited and thought I was a genius for having the idea (although I think I got it from a magazine, I think it was in a winter edition of Cosmo or something...which I did tell him it wasn't an original idea lol). We barbecued burgers on our little charcoal grill outside. Unfortunately, our charcoal had gone bad so we had to finish them off in the oven. I bought an onion so I could put grilled onions on mine. And lettuce. And bacon. They were delicious! We ate in the tent and then watched Muppet Treasure Island. We love Clueless Morgan, he's probably the best character. Then we made smores. We knew we couldn't use our grill, so we toasted them over our stove. Amazingness.
We tried to sleep in the tent but it was uncomfortable. And since we did have our amazing bed in the next room, we moved over there. I asked Doug, "Does it make us old if we move to our bed?" We decided that yes, it probably did make us old, but we didn't care :) It was a really fun night and I can't wait to go camping with Doug for reals! (Even though there will be no comfy bed in the other room to sleep on).

The tent!




Our little nest


Starting up the grill


It looks like our aloe plant is on fire...but it's not


Mmmmm


Us in our tent!


Making smores on the stove


Deliciousness

Let the count down begin!

23 Days till we begin the biggest adventure of our lives! (Well, 2nd biggest because I think that getting married was the biggest)
Also 23 days till we say goodbye to our apartment. Except we will probably leave a couple days early because we'll move when our bed moves lol. It seems that there is so much to do yet we can't yet. Like most of our packing doesn't need to be done until the week that we move. I feel like if we pack up our DVDs now we're going to want to watch one of them.

I have boxes that I got from my work though. I've got a good head start on collecting those.

This morning Doug and I started the packing process. We cleaned our the items that we were storing in our closet. And what we had under our bed. We threw two bags of trash away and filled another with give-away items. (We ran out of packing tape so we stopped).

We also ordered some items for our trip. We were excited to find out that almost all of our electronics (camera charger, kindle charger, straightener, and computer) can run on higher voltage, so we just need an adapter and not a full converter. We ordered two on amazon for only $5 each. We also ordered one of those packing compartments to help me fit everything in my bag. Lastly we got some locks for our bags (TSA friendly of course). Two days ago I bought a Tide on-the-go pen for when we spill food on ourselves and don't have a laundromat.

I also canceled our renter's insurance policy for when we leave. We have a few other services that we'll need to contact to cancel our service.

I have the apartment to myself tonight as Doug is working. I think I'll get a lot of reading done :)

10 Myths about Introverts

Someone posted this list on facebook tonight and it made me laugh. And it made me totally relate. I looked up where they had gotten this from and it was someone who was talking about a book that they had read and enjoyed because they felt like they finally understood themselves. So I guess this book will be going on my "to read" list. But here's the myths about introverts written by Carl King: (emphasis added)


Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.
Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.
Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.
Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.


This is the site that the list is from:
http://www.carlkingcreative.com/10-myths-about-introverts


I got my tetanus shot up to date and have been feeling terrible tonight. Just fatigue, headache, and a slight fever (although our thermometer says that I'm normal, I think it's faulty). All are very common side effects (I did my research). Just uncomfortable. So I'm off to bed early tonight. Hope I feel better in the morning.

Paper and pens

Today after work I had the pleasure of roaming through Barnes and Noble. When I was little I hated how it smelled. I thought it smelled so bad. I'd be gagging as we walked through the door. My mom didn't know what I was complaining about. Devonna didn't know what I was talking about. I still can slightly smell it when I first enter the door, but it's not nearly as powerful as it was when I was a child. Nor do I gag.

I had a couple of gift cards to spend/finish off from graduation and my birthday so I spent a short bit deciding what I wanted. I already knew that I wanted to get a journal for our Europe trip there and was hoping that they had one that I liked. And they did! It's a really nice one that has snaps so that it closes and comes with a pencil with a place held for it (I will be replacing this with a black felt pen shortly). It's made out of fine Italian leather. It's soo pretty.

I love getting new notebooks and journals. The problem is that I don't really write enough. I wrote almost every day while I was in Joshua, but since then I have barely filled half of a journal. Writing takes a long time. And I used to do it before bed, when I was in a mood, with my iPod buds in my ears as my pensive mood took over. Now that I'm married, that's hard to do. My urges to write (more than what I put in this blog), usually accompany my urges to be alone, or occur in loneliness. That doesn't happen much now. But I still love looking at journals and still want to buy them. Then I realize that it takes me a while to fill and it's not worth the money.

The other book that I got was a slow cooker recipe book. Our cookbook has a section for slow cookers, but it's limited. And everything has onions or mushrooms in it (a problem for Doug). So I found a "Slow Cooker Bible" with everything from appetizers, poultry, vegetable side dishes, soups, and desserts. I'm excited to use our slow cooker as fall starts. The few meals that I made last year were really good. I almost bought another book called "The Book Thief" (has anyone read it? Is it good?), but then realized that 1) I was out of gift card money and 2) Library's are still in existence and are much cheaper. Although I need to get a new library card because I accidentally put mine in the throw away pile when I was clearing off our dresser. Oops.

We put in our 30 day notice today with our apartment complex. The woman didn't seem the least bit surprised that it was because of the rent increase. When we told her that it had been $1199 when we moved in she was shocked. Which is weird because a lot of places are that price still. So that's done. Now to start the packing process, both of our apartment and for Europe.

I started my next book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm almost at page 100, and that's how long I give books to catch my attention. This one just about has I think. It's different than I thought it would be. And it's translated from Swedish, so some of the language is a little off and the names are hard for me to read without my mind wanting to stop and really sound them out (for the 20th time). Like the main character's name is Mikael Blomkvist. My mind does not like three consonants together. And I'm trying to figure out if it's supposed to be Michael or Mick-ale (cause I've heard that in European movies of the pronunciation of our Michael). I don't think I've even reached the plot point yet really though. I don't read the back of the book if it's a well-known book like this one is because it gives away too much information. If it's a #1 New York Times Bestseller and has spent 965 days in the top 100 for Kindle books...I don't need to know the story. Enough people have said that it's at least worth reading. So we shall see. I'm not building it up too much in my mind because it also only has 3.7 stars out of 5...

I should go to bed now because I have a couple of busy days ahead of me, but my Pandora station is treating me well so it's hard to shut it off. It keeps playing good songs (right now is an instrumental of Such Great Heights by the Postal Service).

Summer Loving (or loving summer)

Yesterday was an amazing day. I had work in the morning, but after I got off Doug and I had plans to go hiking. It was cold and cloudy here, so secretly neither of us really felt like going, but neither said anything and off we went! On our way out to the trail, we stopped by the movie theaters to buy our tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter. It's the last of the movies so I'm so excited that we get to see it at midnight (especially since we leave for Europe two days later).

The trail was up in the Los Padres Forest above Ojai. It took us about an hour to drive all the way there (curvy unfamiliar mountain roads), but we were glad when we broke through the clouds and had beautiful bright blue skies and sun!

We knew that we didn't have that much time since we had plans with our friends that night. But we started out on the trail because we thought that we could reach these rocks that we had seen from the road. And we did! It was a little over a mile to get there. We had to cross a couple of creeks and hike a couple of hills but it was a fun hike. We explored the rocks for a bit before heading back to our car. We felt like we were in a star trek episode or something and were glad that neither of us were wearing a red shirt :)

From the road as we were driving to the trailhead. The rocks in front are the ones that we ended up hiking to


Hiking the trail









The rocks. Or as they called them Piedra Blanca











Watching the clouds spilling into the valley



The clouds were really thick on the way down the mountain. Don't worry, we drove slow :)



We didn't even feel like we were cutting our hike short, which was good. And we made it home with plenty of time to get cleaned up and ready for our friends.

Three people in our group have birthdays within four days. Sammy's is the day before mine so we celebrated both of our birthdays last night (we celebrate Elyse's on Tuesday). We played team trivial pursuit, which is much better than normal trivial pursuit. The questions are more reasonable (still some are really tough) and since it's team, you have a much better chance of coming up with the answer. I always blank out during trivia games. Then we had cake and opened presents. Red Velvet! Mmmm. James ate way too much frosting for three dollars. Then we played Cranium. We divided ourselves up by birthdays, and the current birthday team won! (Which was me, Elyse, and Sammy). It was a great day and night.









This morning we found out that we have a place to stay in London (so stoked and thankful!). Doug made us waffles and bacon, and now we're going to go to the beach (still waiting for the clouds to burn completely off). Should be a great day though!!

Sidenote: I took this picture when I made Doug dinner earlier this week. It was the first time I used some of our serving dishes and wanted to commemorate the occasion. We just haven't had a reason to use them yet!

I realized today that it's already been June for two weeks, and that June is already half way over. How can this be?! Soon we'll be off to London! Woohoo!

I don't want to turn this blog into a one person book club, but I did finish A Tree Grows in Brooklyn tonight. I ended up really liking the book. I felt like the protagonist thought about things similar to how I think about things. Or described and noticed things in her head like I do. And there did end up being a plot. Sort of. It wasn't a tale, but more of an experience.

I haven't decided which book to read next, I have too many to choose from now. I love being able to just read though. Not have to finish it in a certain amount of time, but just when I feel like it. Which is most of the time. Although I do watch a lot of Netflix too. Doug and I are really into a documentary that makes me feel proud to be an American. It's called America, The Story of Us. It's really good so far (we're only on the 5th episode though). But I like it.

Tomorrow's my day off which I'm excited for. Although I think I'll spend it doing laundry and cleaning the apartment. But I'm sure napping and making dinner will be in there also. And maybe starting a new book :)

June Gloom

It has been cloudy lately. The first couple of days of June were nice, but now it's cloudy. Not surprising, but I wish it were sunnier. The clouds make me apathetic and then I just feel pathetic. I had a hard time getting up and going today. I laid in bed for a while and then got up and watched some documentaries and ate my oatmeal with nectarines. I've been good about my eating lately. Correction. I've been good about my morning and afternoon eating. Night times are the worst when I want to snack. And I usually give in. Anyways, I finally got up and got enough energy to go to my dad's office to clean it.

After that I went to Ralphs. Now, I looove grocery shopping (no seriously, I do). I love walking the aisles and deciding what is a good deal and what I can make meals out of. I got a lot of produce again. Mini-watermelons, kiwis, and pineapple were on sale. Also cucumbers, broccoli, and romaine lettuce. I even got canned beets for my salads.

Then I went home and got dinner started for when Doug came home. I made a chicken teriyaki meal. Then we watched Eclipse, then went for an adventure to Target. We walked to the one that's about a mile from our apartment. It was a lot of fun to spend time together. Doug needed more gel for his canker sores, and we figured we could use the walk. We picked up cards also. And Doug let me get two books :)
We also got donuts. haha

So I guess we walked those off on the way home. We figured it might be a good thing that we won't be here when the new Target opens up across the street because we'd be going there all the time for snacks, and justifying donuts because we walked the 100 yards to get there.

We are definitely moving out next month. We got a letter that stated that the price to renew our lease would be $1559 a month. It's ridiculous. It's not even in the best part of town (there's been graffiti in our hallway), we get woken up 3 times a week garbage trucks that empty the 6 dumpsters outside our apartment (which not every apartment has to deal with), we've been on the waiting list for over a year for a single garage, there is always something wrong with some of the gym equipment, and they advertise pilates class, but there are no pilates classes. So I'm really okay with leaving, I just can't believe they think the apartment is worth that much. I'm ready for a new chapter in our life. It'll be fun.

This past week Doug was gone for three days at a convention down in Anaheim. It wasn't as hard as the first time he was away from me, but still was rather lonesome. I had fun hanging out with Allison though on Wednesday. We made foods that Doug doesn't like and watched a movie that he wouldn't have liked (chick flick). I really did miss him though. I was happy when he was home.

I'm still in the middle of my current book, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." It's interesting, but I'm trying to find the point, or the plot line. Maybe I'm not far enough into it yet. Or maybe there isn't one.

I only have one more week of being 22, and then I'll be 23. It really is weird (and rather depressing) how quickly time goes by when you're older. Soon I'll be 30!

The Grotto

This afternoon Doug and I googled hikes in Ventura County. We found one that sounded interesting in between Pt. Mugu and Malibu, up in the Santa Monica Mountains (miles and miles away from Santa Monica, go figure). We drove out there for the afternoon after packing some pineapple, peanut butter and crackers, and a camelback full of water. It took us a bit to find the turn off from the PCH, which we laughed at, and finally found the long and winding road that went to the trailhead. There were a lot of nice houses up there, but we decided we wouldn't want to live half an hour from civilization. It'd be annoying to drive that small winding road every day. It'd only make sense to live there if you were a hermit or a writer.

I wore my new shoes today too to help break them in. Although I wore them on a short run yesterday so they weren't completely new. But I did wear preemptive bandages just in case blisters tried to form. But they didn't (probably because of the bandages). But I decided I really like my shoes!

The trail was about 1.7 miles to a grotto cave (redundant, I know). The trail wasn't too hard either. I think there was more uphill coming back, but that was ok. It was a pretty trail too. Surrounded by mountains and some flowers. And then when we got down to the creek it was really pretty too. We only saw two other men on the trail the whole time we were out there, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We reached the grotto and waterfall and it was pretty. If it had been super hot out we could have dipped in the pool below the waterfall, but it wasn't that hot and the water was chilly. We sat and ate our pineapple and crackers though and talked. I think what I like best about hiking is our conversations. We talk about anything that comes up. Today we talked about our Joshua years and different events that happened that year. We also talked about our future and our Europe trip (I kept peppering Doug with all of the information that I read online that kept popping in my head). We talked about how even though we want to have kids, and sometimes it's hard when people who have been married longer are already having kids, we really do like our life because we're able to play. We're able to spontaneously go for hikes and go to Europe for a month. We know we'll have kids someday, and we both want them. But we're really enjoying the time with each other that many couples don't get to spend together while they're young.

Starting out


On our hike last week, Doug was telling me how you can make a leash for a lizard out of a long piece of grass and tie a knot in it so that when you loop it over the lizard's head, it doesn't move (cause it's used to being touched by plants), and then you can pull it so that it's tight. We didn't find a lizard last week but did this week. And it works! We caught him, then looked at him (he was a blue belly), and then let him go. He was mad and scurried off like crazy.


Some of the views around us




Some of the flowers and such




Hiking






The Grotto!


Some perspective


The Waterfall




We hiked back and drove home, enjoying the beautiful afternoon sun on the ocean. We got home and made steak, corn on the cob yams (for me) and rice (for Doug). It was delicious. We cleaned the apartment and ourselves and then had our friends over to hang out. We watched Bolt which was fun, and then played bananagrams, Old Maid, and Battle of the Sexes. All while feasting on watermelon, pretzel M&Ms, Reese's, banana bread, and kettle corn. It was so much fun with laughing till our sides hurt.

The amazing banana bread that was finished tonight and that I need to make more of. Sooo good. Oh, and my banana breads always have chocolate chips in them :)

100th Post!

It's taken me over 2 years to get to 100 posts...that's kind of sad. Maybe it'll take me less time to get to 200.

Today Doug and I have the day off together. It is such a nice feeling. We both slept in (actually he's still sleeping). I have the coffee brewing and just have to wait for him to wake up to make breakfast together.

We're now about 80% positive that we'll be moving when our lease is up in July. I looked on Craigslist to see how much our apartment is going for, and it was at $1500. Ridiculous. Not something we're willing to pay, and more importantly not something that we can afford. I've been looking into guesthouses though and that has gotten me excited. I search for guesthouses with our price cap and there are a few that people are renting out. Some sound just like renting a real house, just smaller. Some have laundry hook ups. Some have fireplaces. If we got a guest house I think we'd feel like we live in a house, a little cottage, just like I want. We'd have some sort of yard too. We'll have mixed feelings about leaving this place (I'm sad that we'll be gone before the humungous Target opens across the street, and this was our first place together), but I'm excited for the next chapter.

Along with opening of that chapter is our trip to Europe! This possibility had been brewing in our minds and plans for a long time, and now it's actually happening. Thanks to my parents and their generosity, we're able to go! We'll be leaving on the 17th of July (I'm excited that we'll get to see Harry Potter before we go), and then not coming back till August 21st. Spending almost a week in London, a week in Paris, a week in Italy, and then have 2 weeks to go around Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. I dunno how we're gonna be able to find christmas tree ornaments for all of the places.

Yesterday I was getting excited about it and searched packing lists and kindle guide books. I found some guide books for my Kindle which we have to go through and read to see what we want to see and where we want to go. And I realized that we can use the internet on my Kindle there, so we don't have to get some crazy fancy phone to use over there. And the packing lists are really helpful. We're more or less backpacking through Europe, so we're not bring big suitcases. And they had ideas for items I wouldn't really think to bring. Like a sham-wow towel for the hostels that don't provide towels. And to make sure you have appropriate clothing for the historical religious places, and to bring one pair of shoes and a pair of nice sandals. It'll be nice to have a packing list from people who've been there and wrote books about it.

Doug's up now, so we're gonna make breakfast and then get on with our day.
We're making our specialty. Like an open egg mcmuffin, but with the eggs over-easy instead of scrambled. It's one of our favorites. And I've just about perfected the cooking timing.

Cooking Eggs and Bacon



English muffin, cheese, bacon, and over-easy egg. Mmmmm