Posted on

Operation Home Improvement (dammit)

So, the time has come, now that I've been in my house for almost four years (I know, right??) to actually unpack some stuff that I shoved into one of my closets approximately 3.5 years ago when I hosted Easter not long after I moved in. 

Last year I accidentally set a precedent to host Christmas Eve, and as the daughter of the family matriarch (sorry Mom… it's true!), I guess I have to Suck It Up™ and continue on with new family traditions. At my house. In my stuff. *sob*

Anyway, so last year it took me all of December to shovel out my house, and this year I'm determined not to spend all month cleaning out my collected detritus. I truly, deeply, abhor housekeeping (except for laundry, I kind of love doing laundry), so for me to undertake the following projects is a sign of how much I don't want to spend time doing things in December.

Here's the deal. In the master suite (haha… but it kind of is one) there is a section of the room that has two closets – a regular sized one and a big one that meet, more or less, at a right angle. The regular sized closet is full of plastic storage bins, my dresses and paint cans. This closet is opposite the vanity, aka Clothes Receptacle Dumping Ground. I would actually like to use the vanity as a vanity since I have real designer makeup now and a huge nail polish collection that needs a real home aside from the den coffee table. 

PROJECTS TO COMPLETE BEFORE CHRISTMAS OMG:

  1. Clear out second closet completely, bins, dresses, paint, foam bed thing, everything. Actually unpack bins and put things away and/or get rid of stuff.
  2. Move filing cabinet from big closet to second closet
  3. Install shelving into second closet so it can be a linen closet (which I don't have – my linens live piled in a cardboard box, as they have since 2009. Oops. For someone who has a generous amount of sheet sets and towels, this is vaguely embarrassing.
  4. Get massive Star Wars collection out of the den and into the big closet, where the filing cabinet was. My Star Wars crap is stored in two very large bins under the bar section of my kitchen counter (on the den side). I want to get at least one bar stool to place there instead. 
  5. Clean out old clothes/shoes, stored clothes at bottom of the big closet, and donate to the Richmond Rescue Mission.
  6. Move shoe bin of shoes I actually wear to big closet instead of under vanity.
  7. See if I can get purple luggage set into either big or second closet OR store outside in the shed.
  8. Move paint to shed.
  9. Clear off vanity of clothes thrown on it and chair, move makeup train case to vanity from bathroom and maybe get a Melmer from Michael's to hold the nail polishes. Also get a 5x magnifying mirror for the space and move some of the other makeup crap from the bathroom to the vanity.
  10. Clear out vanity drawers (I don't think there's too much stuff in them)
  11. Cull books and donate to WC Library foundation for fundraisers
  12. Straighten up living room and get cow horns up on the wall (not sure how to attach, need to check 3M products if they have a narrow hook to hang it – can't really use a nail because the area where I want to hang it is right behind the stove vent and power outlets above the microwave in the kitchen)
  13. Move old computers and Harry Potter Legos from the living room into now-organized closets. Harry Potter Legos might go into the craft room closet, but that is another disaster for another day. 
  14. Unpack new dishes and pots and get them into rotation – clean out old dishes and pots and donate to the foster kid program (for kids who age out of the foster care system and don't really have anything to start out with – a program I hugely support! I think these kids are often forgotten about in the grand scheme of society.)
  15. Move sconces from foyer to flank college diploma over bookshelf. I ordered a large print to hang in the foyer that I've been wanting. (We're coming up on the end of 2012: Year of Doing/Buying Whatever I Want… gotta get some final stuff in! heh)
  16. Replace pinch pleat curtain hooks – the hooks have disintegrated and I need to reinstall new hooks along the rod and rehang the curtains. I'm pretty peeved about this because I feel like I JUST replaced the one set, but what are you going to do? The hooks are plastic and don't cost very much. 

Generally speaking I would just do one room at a time but all of the above kind of interelate – except for maybe the book cull and sconce moving. Everything that needs to be done all starts at the second closet! Boo! The time has come. 

Since I do hate, oh so very much, pretty much everything about housekeeping, I'm hoping that the above projects will keep me organized for the foreseeable future, so I can keep the house straightened up on a regular basis. Having a dedicated place for linens will be delightful! I haven't had a linen closet in years. 

You'd never know it, but this year the house has been much more organized and less covered in papers than it was last year (somewhere my dad is shaking his head in disdain) – I can tell, and since I'm the one who lives there, mine is the only opinion that matters. Seriously though, I have been a lot better about keeping the junk mail off of every flat surface. (I throw it in a pile by the back door, which then gets thrown in the recycle bin.)

I'm not really a minimalist when it comes to home decoration – I love STUFF (boy do I) but at the same time, I'm also not really attached to any of my STUFF. In fact, as the years go by and I acquire more STUFF, the less STUFF I feel like I have a real connection to. (Probably because my affection is spread around). 

I do love those terrible cow horns though; they add a certain je ne sai quois to the whole thing. And by je ne sai quois I mean awesome. Heh.

(I am the person who has a hot pink flocked deer statue in her living room. Taste is not exactly an issue around here.)

I ordered the above linked art print, and I want to get my Ed Emberley (!) print "Monster Parade" framed. I want to do a floating frame (can't have the print touch the glass) and the print has rounded corners so I don't really know how that would work. I guess I could, you know, actually take it down to the frame shop and get a bid. *rolls eyes at self*

I got started on the bins the other night and have been finding interesting things in them (sketchbooks from years past with crying Batmans, zombies, etc., my handgun safety booklet, a CD I thought was long vanished, decorative papers…). I am definitely making progress on my project – and I found the size shelving I want to install in the closet on the Lowe's website. I may get organized sooner than I was expecting!

Anyway, so that's what's going on with the house. My dream someday is to have a weekly housekeeper. Yes, it's one of those things that I would gladly pay someone else to do (much like yardwork, which I do pay someone to do occasionally [my cousin]). 

***

When I bought my place in December 2008 (I moved in over New Years of 2009), I always figured I'd just be there for three or four years before moving on to someplace else. Well, I've worked with homeowners associations for six years now just about, and I know that I do NOT want to live in a condo. I don't know what I want to do or where I want to live. But I CAN tell you that I'm perfectly happy where I am for now, and I have no intention of moving any time soon. So that three or four years may turn into six or seven or eight years. 

I may not live in the richest, best neighborhood, or own the richest, best house, but when I see what's happening around the country, and I look at what are, essentially, the riches surrounding me (dudes! I have a laundry room and satellite cable and I can park right next to my house. I'm not attached to any neighbors. I have central air and heating), I have no complaints. So what I am doing right now, is making my house my home, because I live there, and I will for awhile. 

And I'm grateful for that. 

Posted on

Vacaciones! The Ronald Reagan Experience (Days 7-8)

The conclusion to my vacation posts…

Awhile ago I had looked up to see where exactly the Reagan Library was located because I thought it might be something to do the next time I went down to visit Sarah, and it turns out it's pretty much in their hood, only 40 miles away from them in Simi Valley. As it turned out, they are also currently running an exhibit on Disney Archives – costumes, props, memorabilia from Disney's past. That sounded like the perfect excuse to head down to Simi Valley, so all of us headed down there on Saturday to check it out. 

We got there just a hair after 10 a.m. (when it opened) and the parking lot was already almost full. We had already purchased our tickets online and since the kids were with us, we headed to the Disney Archives exhibit first. One of the things that I thought was really well done was incorporating how Reagan actually had involvement to some degree with Disney – he was there as an announcer on the day the park opened, and continued on to have a friendship with Walt Disney himself, which was documented through letters and photos. 

The part of the exhibit I liked the most were the costumes!

Giselle's wedding dress from Enchanted. It really is that poofy!

Big Maleficent dragon head from the Disneyland Fantasmic show!

Model pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

I've been to only one other presidential library – George H. W. Bush at the Texas A&M campus back in 1999, and at that time, it was pretty boring and more like a library than a museum, though I looked at that link and it looks like it's now pretty impressive in its own right (a new building and exhibits were built a couple years ago). 

Anyway, I was really impressed with everything. The building was set up so each exhibit flowed into each other organically. I've been to plenty of museums and usually they're like, here's the Meso-American room, here's the Ming Dynasty room, right next to each other with no flow. The Reagan Library was set up really well in a timeline so as you toured the building, the narrative really flowed well. 

I was most impressed with the section that had the actual video of the 1981 assassination attempt – I'd never seen the video before and actually only knew the bare minimum about it – that it happened, that the shooter was nuts and trying to impress Jodie Foster, that Agent Brady was severely injured and went on to lobby for stricter gun control laws. The way the library had the section set up was really powerful – first you watch the video in surround sound, and then there were all the displays and artifacts, and more video about the recovery and what have you. I thought it was really well done. 

One of the really awesome parts of the Library is that they have, in its own glass pavilion, the verysame Air Force One that Reagan (and other presidents) flew around in. It was decommissioned in 2004 or thereabouts and transported to the Reagan Library for display. 

It's kind of amazing. 

The pavilion from outside

The view from the pavilion into the valley

You could go inside the plane, but you weren't allowed to take pictures, which was kind of a bummer but on the other hand, I understand that for security reasons it's probably not the BEST idea to take pictures of the airplane that squired around various presidents and their technology. There were also these pictures put up on how they got the plane from wherever it had been, all the way to California and up the hill and into the pavilion, which was essentially built up around it. Really an engineering feat that was just as interesting as the plane itself!

Anyway, it was a GREAT trip! I'm so glad I went, and I'd love to go back to the Library by myself someday – I would probably spend all day there, have a Guinness in the pub underneath the plane (yes, really!) and read every single display in the place. As it was, it took us three hours to get through everything, even with a passle of kids. 

After the library we had lunch at an incompetent Chili's, then headed back to Santa Clarita. 

That evening we headed out to New Moon, which is my favorite restaurant down there. I know what you're thinking: New Moon? Isn't that part of the Twilight franchise?

NOOOOOOOOO

It's a really delicious Chinese restaurant. We ordered Chloe Shrimp (my faaaavorite!), spicy green beans, chicken fried rice, honey walnut chicken, dragon beef (my NEW favorite! omg it was amazing)… and maybe something else but now I can't remember. I did manage to beat Bill to to the bill (hah) and treated them for the meal since they'd been so generous to me the rest of the trip. DRAGON BEEF 

*** 

In conclusion, while I bought a ton of noodles and a cutting board shaped like the United States on my vacation, I did not buy any nail polish. Don't worry, I made up for it during the rest of the month. (My nail polish guy even called today with the new OPI holiday collection. It's like he knew it was payday!)

I'm heading back to LA over New Year's to see the new bebe, so that's something to look forward to, and in the meantime I'm trying to sort the house out (more on that later) and finish my Christmas shopping before December. I ordered a ton of stuff from Lima Beads and there's at least two more bead shows I'm attending before the end of the year, PLUS I discovered there's a new Hobby Lobby in Stockton (45 miles from me – as opposed to only getting to visit Hobby Lobby when I'm in Texas every two years!).

I can't believe it's almost October!

Posted on

Vacaciones! Days 1-7

Last week I took the week off from work and recharged from the day-to-day. Sort of. Could have used another week, methinks.

My parents recently celebrated their 40th anniversary, so my sister and I took them out for a meal at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco. Basque cuisine has long been a part of our immediate family lives – at least, when we're on vacation; we have tried it out at several different places (mostly in Nevada) and have always enjoyed it. My sister discovered they had a restaurant in South SF so a couple years ago we tried it out, it was good, and so we took the parents there for a celebration meal. We got the family dinner which had several different courses including soup, salad, lamb cheek (not gonna lie, it was both delicious and gross at the same time), and prime rib. Aside from the lamb cheek (I love lamb, but the cheek was a gross cut, chewy and weird) it was all very nice! 

We also went to the Wreaths Across America fundraiser for the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. This also included delicious meat and potatoes and a (very loud) live auction that blew my hearing out for the evening. We went to this fundraiser last year, and this year were able to bring my grandmother – my grandpa is buried at the cemetary, and the fundraiser is to place wreaths at each soldier's grave during the Christmas season. This year they will need 12,000.

Then I sort of ran around and was stuck in major traffic on Hwy 4 to Brentwood on Labor Day (a big fat accident in the construction zone just past the Loveridge exit – there had to have been three Highway Patrol cars, glass in the road, a fire truck, ambulance, tow trucks… and by the time I got there it was pretty much cleared so I didn't even get to see the carnage. BOO.) I was heading over the the Shops at Brentwood, where they have an Ulta and a DSW – I'm a little bummed I don't have a closer Ulta, but what are you gonna do? There's also a Sephora in the JC Penney's in Brentwood – but luckily there is a real one in Walnut Creek. I actually managed to not increase the nail polish/makeup/etc supply, instead stopping in at the Kohl's and Michael's – picked up some new dangles for earrings or something from Michael's, and I finally found a black tee/tunic at Kohl's! I've been looking for one for a long time, it's beaded down the front. The last picture in this post has me wearing it. 

Tuesday I stayed home and did laundry like a champ, packed up my stuff and on Wednesday headed down south to Santa Clarita to visit Sarah and her family. The trip down took 5.5 hours which is generally about right, with two stops – one for gas at Harris Ranch and another pit stop at Laval, just before the Grapevine. I got to Sarah's right around 3:30.

Didn't do too much that day: long drive = tired Melissa. I got myself a new air bed, a massive 19" full size Beautyrest from Walmart, and that along with a foam mattress cover equaled a really nice portable bed! I was pleased. I just can't sleep close to the ground anymore; my old air bed is the regular kind that's like six or eight inches off the floor – when you have to get up in the middle of the night in a strange place… let's just say I am too old for that, now. I've never been a champ at camping and sleeping on couches, and I'm not about to do an about-face and change my stance on that. 

Thursday we took the boys to soccer and then headed to SUPERWALMART, which is always a treat. We don't have SUPERWALMART by me at all (there's one in American Canyon which is 25 minutes and a $5 toll away… or an hour if you get stuck in Six Flags traffic, in which case you suck it up and keep going because you paid that damn $5 toll!) so I'm always up for a trip. I didn't need anything but I did find medium egg noodles which are increasingly difficult to find up yonder, and a butter pecan box cake mix. MEDIUM EGG NOODLES!!! I also checked out a new-to-me yarn store not far from Sarah's house and got two skeins of Madelinetosh Chunky to make into hats. 

Friday we hopped on the Metrolink train to downtown LA, where I experienced Union Station – what a trip! I've been in big airports and ridden BART all over the Bay Area but that was just weird/overwhelming to me, how all the trains, buses, Amtrak, etc., all converged in one place. Glad I don't have to do that every day! The inside of the station was very art deco and I got a shot of a section that isn't being used: 

Across the street from Union Station is Olvera Street, which is an old part of LA, and there is even an old adobe inside. Before we headed over there, we went to lunch at Phillipe's, the originator of the French Dip Sandwich! I… was actually not too enthused by this idea originally but I'm game for anything. Even giving wet bread sandwiches a chance again. Wet bread is up there in like the top three things I generally refuse eat (cooked fish, lima beans, wet bread [I say cooked fish because I recently developed a love of RAW SUSHI wtf]) so I was like, okay I will try this famous wet bread french sandwich but I don't promise to like it. 

I liked it.

They just barely dipped the bread in the au jus, like maybe a quarter inch? The meat was good – I had beef. They also had pork, chicken, lamb, etc. I meant to order the sandwich with bleu cheese which would have been even better! Next time, for sure, whenever that may be. I also want to try the lamb, because yum, lamb (just not lamb cheek!).

 After lunch, we headed over to Olvera Street, and it definitely reminded me of an outdoor version of my beloved Mercado in San Antonio. 

We visited the Avila Adobe – the oldest house in LA! Nicely set up and definitely cooler in the shade than the rest of LA, that's for sure. Sarah's little boy David actually sat with me for a picture…

And may I just say as someone who was suffering from a crazy stomachache AND the dredges of a migraine… I look pretty excellent in this picture. Especially since I wanted to lie down and WHINE. (Thanks Sarah for taking an excellent picture of me! lol)

Later that day, we went back to Sarah's house and rested up for our dinner out in Santa Monica – we were meeting our high school friend Rhoda for dinner at Il Fornaio, which is exactly where we had dinner with Rhoda last year! Last year I had a pasta dish with lobster, and it turns out I don't really like lobster (I'm not really kidding about the "If it comes from the sea it does not go in me" stance I generally take with sea food, but given that the sea food I do like is on the weird spectrum – calamari and shrimps, and I like crab cakes, I really thought I would go for lobster, but alas! I do not. I am sad about this) so this year I decided to stay away from anything too weird, especially since I'd had a pretty sassy stomacheache all day (YOU'RE WELCOME) and the food at Il Fornaio is quite rich. 

I decided to go for chicken tortellinis with a tomato cream sauce (See Abs, I totes will eat a cream sauce… as long as it's a tomato one!) and it was quite good, particularly after I followed Rhoda's lead and put a bunch of hot pepper flakes all over it for a little extra kick! I also had a very nice glass of sauvignon blanc and a caramel custard for dessert. The custard was very much like flan so of course I had to go for it. 

After dinner we took our now-yearly picture!

I look slightly ridiculous but I think I'd just kicked my leg up and made a face! Yay for me. I was having a pretty good hair day, though, and my glass of wine didn't reignite my migraine, so I call this whole evening a win! lol

The next day, my last in Southern California, was spent at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library… a post for another day because I have many feelings (almost all of them patriotic) about our trip there. It was really quite an experience, so stay tuned!