the wonderful world of partially prepared meals...

josh and i have a new favorite grocery store. you have to check out fresh & easy if you haven't yet! first off, they give away more coupons than i've ever seen (after bed, bath, and beyond) so there's no excuse to not try it. anyway, (so far) josh and i haven't spent time focusing on "cooking"...we are more the type of people that will take any opportunity to rationalize going to dinner instead of cooking ("since we don't have ALL the ingredients we need for that, we'll have to go to the store first, which takes gas...especially after you turn the car on twice, once to get there and once to get back...then the onion will be so big that no matter which house it stays at, it'll end up being thrown away because it won't get eaten before it goes bad, and since we haven't seen each other in a few days, we really need to catch up over a served-hot appetizer, and we should really do our part in trying to keep the economy strong...") so, in an effort to stay away from going out to eat so much, we'll often drag one another to the grocery store and throw things in each other's carts. but fresh and easy....well, we're having a fun with that one. so much pre-seasoned/flavored fun! i'm especially fond of the seemingly fresh cookie dough that needs to just be "popped in the oven", and josh so far likes the pre-wrapped burritos that only take 3 minutes in the microwave to cook.
doesn't our eating style sound just SOOOOO tasty?! everything from (not)scratch. i'm having a dinner party soon. who's in?

chewed up old, wooden desk and a can of lighter fluid...

that says it all, don't ya think!?
josh, jacqui (josh's sister), steve (jacqui's bf) and i cruised down to capo beach on sunday night with a trunkful of wood (josh's old desk and filing cabinet in 30 pieces), a few hot dogs, some wire hangers, and a lighter. we found a pit, set up shop, and hung out by the warmth of the fire for 3 hours. we topped the night off with some golden spoon, because what's a weekend without frozen yogurt?????? not a weekend...obviously....

jet-tivities

i like to combine words. josh thinks i'm a dork, but what else is new, really? last week i traveled to saugatuck, michigan. what? where? yeah, that's what i said... saugatuck, michigan borders douglas, michigan. what? where? yeah, that's what i said. i was invited by a haworth furniture dealer (office furniture) to visit haworth's headquarters and manufacturing plant in michigan. it was a last minute trip, but i was stoked to find out the deal came with a private jet for the 14 guests, a trip out on the lake in a yacht, and 2 nights in the locals bed and breakfasts. not to mention, tons of food, wine, and a few really informative sessions about office furniture (which, call me a dork, but i love office furniture) and cool lectures about the leed certification process the new building went through (leed...sustainability, green, etc. i just became a leed accredited professional in the last few months, so this too, was intriguing. josh is an eco-friendly green-buff, so he's always pushing me to learn more about energy conservation, recycling, reusing, and going greeeeen!) saugatuck was so funny. it was basically "balboa island meets cape cod"...plop in the middle of the midwest. the town had a smaller population than ucsb. in any case, the trip was quick, easy, and fun. it was really nice to get back in time to enjoy the weekend and spend time with the j-man though, that's for sure!

When I was a senior in high school...

The last thing I wanted to do on a Saturday morning was ride my bike around and check out garage sales with my best friend.  In fact,  it never even made the list of things I might possibly want to do with my Saturday morning.  

Now that I am 32, things havent changed much, but I found myself up at 4:45 a.m. this last Saturday driving with my fiance to my parents house to work a community garage sale.  By community I mean my parents and three other houses within 4 square blocks.  Yeah, it was awesome.  You only wish you could have been there too.  

The best part though was the two high school seniors who showed up on their bikes.  It had to be the highlight of the day.  We were just imagining the phone call that sparked it all....

Kid 1 - "Dude.... do you still have that backpack?"

Kid 2 - "Yeah, I wear it to school every day..."

Kid 1 - "No, no, no... that wont do.  I mean the BIG one.  The one you can almost fit yourself in"

Kid 2 - "Yeah.....why?"

Kid 1 - "Just get on your bike, make sure you have your riding gloves on, and come over... I have something planned that you're gonna LOVE."

If I was Kid 2 and I showed up to have my buddy tell me we were going garage saling, I would have punched him in the face, shoved him in the backpack, and thrown him in the lake.  But being on the flip side of things and watching it all happen was a heck of a lot of fun!!  Those two kids bought 2 entire backbacks full of junk.  It was really quite awesome. 

The best parts of the day was hanging with the family, super mario bros and a nap on the couch.  I would do another garage sale in 6 months just for that part! 

"BREAKING NEWS--New Chef Cooks Without Flavor!!!"

Josh and I hit up The Beach House in Laguna for dinner on Saturday night. What did we talk about all night, you ask??? How AWFUL the food was. What a bust... :-( LUCKILY, Josh and I have a strange way of making just about ANYTHING so much stinkin fun, that 3 nasty bites and 4 grossed out faces later, we were having a blast with each other. I'm sure splitting a bottle of some random Cabernet-Shiraz blend didn't hurt our cause... :-)

Josh 'n' Gigi's day off...

For some reason Labor day means a day off of work. I don't know who came up with that idea but I am not going to argue with it. For me it means I get to forget about schoolwork for a day and spend some time with my fiance!

After a busy Saturday and Sunday, a relaxing Monday was what I needed. Thank goodness we had the day off and lunch at Islands with Gigi was the perfect way to start. Caffeine and food to take my headache away then it was off to REI for some shopping for whatever will get rid of the gift cards that melted in my car....oops! After finding some new clothes we were off to IKEA to look for some temporary furniture until we are married. We didnt find anything except wedding decorations, but did you know you can get frozen yogurt in a cone for $1.00 at IKEA? That was awesome!

We left IKEA and went grocery shopping (where we got some kick-ass patio chairs), picked up June from my house and went to Gigi's house for dinner. We had frozen pizza on the patio and watched the neighbors get all jealous of our food. Then we poured some wine, opened up the new patio chairs and watched an episode of Heroes on the laptop. Technology is awesome! (and so are those chairs!)

What a great day!