Flower

I want this game so bad. And I can't stand video games (or rather, sit still for them). It just looks so serene and peaceful and calming. What's crazy is that when I daydream - too often to mention - I daydream about being in a place like this. Rolling hills lush with vegetation, quiet music playing, not a soul in sight. The storyline behind the game is that a lonely plant in a big, dirty city longs to live in a place like this. This game is the daydreaming of a city plant.

Metaphorical for my life? You betcha.

The Little Girl is Spoilt!

Way back at last year's Christmas party, Bo and I won a night stay with dinner at the fancy La Valencia in La Jolla. For whatever reason, we kept forgetting to use it, so the certificate collected dust for a year. But, last night, Bo surprised me by saying that we were finally going to redeem it for my birthday. Hurrah! What a fun idea! So, we packed our bags with overnight stuff, threw on some fancy clothes (I got to wear my 4" Mary Janes), and headed to the coast.

When the bellhop asked us our room number, he immediately said how nice that our room would be. Which was the exact same response our bellhop in Cabo gave us when we told him our room number there. I took that as a sign of good things to come. Bo said he knew it'd be great when the front desk asked him which newspaper he'd prefer in the morning. I guess we all look for indicators in different ways, right?

We followed the bellhop through a convoluted path of plants, stairways, and elevators out to one of the Villas and then opened the door to our room. Holy Moly! It was a peaceful, airy room with lots of windows (Windows in a hotel room? Wow!) and enormous shuttered patio doors that opened out to the balcony. Which overlooked the ocean. Yes, the ocean. The sparkly blue Pacific Ocean. Directly in front of our room was a small park, and directly in front of that was an expanse of blue water and crashing waves. I immediately tra-la-la skipped from the balcony to the bed to give it the Cabo-test: And, yes, you could both see and hear the ocean from the bed. Ahhhh...And all for the price of zero dollars. Talk about a prize, eh? While I was sitting on the bed, I noticed a little card from the manager wishing me happy birthday, next to a bottle of wine and a small chocolate torte - breakfast is served!

We put our bags down and then meandered our way back to the hotel lobby so that we could take the elevator (complete with an elevator operator, no less) up to the poshest restaurant I've ever stepped foot in. We're talking, the waiter exchanged my white cloth napkin for a black one because I was wearing a black dress. Needless to say, the food was beyond delicious. Bo had the most amazing steak either of us had ever tasted. Ditto for his glass of cabernet. I couldn't finish even half of my plate of lobster because I was too stuffed from the champagne and fancy gnocchi starter that I gobbled up. And also from the mini-courses that our waiter brought out to cleanse our palates. I wish I could remember all of the delicious dishes he brought us, but there were just too many to memorize. Champagne isn't exactly a memory booster either :) I do, however, remember the total of the bill. Whew! The manager had told us to charge our dinner to our room, so we did. All 261-not-including-tip-dollars of it. Talk about a foodies' paradise - amazing food and drinks, all at zero cost.

I was so stuffed from all the food and champagne (and from my pesky cold), that I immediately fell asleep when we got back to our room. The next morning, we ate breakfast at an open-air cafe that overlooked the ocean. And then we walked along the ocean, enjoying the sunshiney, beautiful morning. All in all, it was a fantastically fun birthday, and I couldn't possibly have asked for a more relaxing and indulgent time!

Oh, and the kicker to our extravagent little adventure? It overlooked the very place where Bo and I had our first date. Ahhhh..♥

A Crush on the Cloche

Have I said lately how much I love hats? Well. I heart them in a huge way. Unfortunately, I don't actually wear them very often, but trust me - if I could have a closet full of them, I would.

I've long been crushing on the cloche hat, but was reminded how fabulously pretty they are while I watching Changling last night. I'd been eyeballing a couple on Anthropologie's website, but I wasn't yet motivated enough to buy one (ok, two, or five). After all, where would I wear it? Certainly not to work. The people there think I'm avante garde for wearing riding boots with my knee-length dresses. And it isn't as if I'm walking the streets of NYC, where that hat would be adorable paired with a girly pea coat and a pair of 4" maryjanes. Sigh...But, once again, my heart beats fast for them. I must own one. Must.

Changling

Wow. Wow. Wow. What an amazing movie!

I had been interested in seeing this movie, but only because I knew that it was based on a real event, back in the 1920s. But, wow, I was blown away by how great it was. "Great" might not be the best choice of words; the whole story was heart-wrenching and incredibly moving. And never have I felt, as a woman, so grateful for living in the 21st century...If you haven't yet seen this movie, I highly recommend it. At the minimum, go read up on the true story here and here.

Learn CPR

This one is a serious post...And for good reason. Last night, a half hour after I left work, my coworker had a heart attack. As in, he was 10 feet from my desk when it happened. As it turns out, nobody in this little office area knew CPR. Wow! But don't fret - our rock star admin gave him CPR and, as a result, saved his life.

But it got me thinking - I assumed everyone knew CPR. We all took the class in 8th grade health with Rescusi-Annie and those plastic mouth bags. And I did take that refresher course nearly 10 years ago, but I was amazed that more people don't know the steps.

Please do all of humanity a favor and hit up this website to remind yourself how to give CPR. They are really easy steps to learn and will save someone's life.

http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/quickcpr.html

Butta Culla Teef

First, I had a bad body image. And then, as if that weren't ambitious or go-getter enough, I went and developed a bad teeth image. I'm not sure when it happened; I would guess it dates back as far as when I still lived in Oregon. But, no matter. Let me explain the inner workings of this self-imposed malady of the mind.

When I look in the mirror, mirror on the wall, I see my teeth as being a shade of beige. If you're staring at a handy HTML color chart, think "Cornsilk." But that sounds pretty, doesn't it? Chimly is one of my best good friends who is also afflicted with this mania, and she calls it "Butter Teeth." Yes, I have butter teeth. At least, that's what I see when I inspect their shade, as I frequently and obsessively do.

I have a whole arsenal of weapons involved in the battle of the butter: Whitening toothpaste (only Aquafresh varieties will do), a power toothbrush (otherwise my teeth are always wearing little sweaters), a whitening mouthwash, whitening strips for maintenance, and whitening kits for a blast of stain-erasing goodness. And I have to admit that I keep floss in my car too. I used to keep a toothbrush, but discovered that floss was easier and way more compact to stow away. In my own defense, I don't use all those products every single day. But the fact that I own them and think about them and have favorites is a testament to the fact that I spend way too much thought-power dedicated to the color of my teeth.

In case you were wondering, I don't have any hangups on the straightness of my teeth. That's probably attributable to the fact that my permanent retainers haven't allowed my teeth to scoot much over the years, and I've got a deathgrip on those wires.

But like any addict, I'm on the lookout for better, faster, stronger. I've read good things about this toothpaste, so I'm antsy to try it next!

Topsy Turvy Cherry Chip

"When you're grumpy, we'll make cupcakes!"...Some of the most beautiful words ever to be spoken. And spoken by my knight in shining armor, no less. Ahh...he's so incredibly dreamy....I reached over and gave him a good Jubilee! pinch to be sure. Yep, he's real. The only thing I have left to do is to scribble my name all over him in Sharpie to ward off any would-be Perfect Man snatchers.

When I told Bo that I wasn't feeling right as rain, he suggested we make cupcakes. Cupcakes?! Did I hear him right?? I had to ask again to make sure he wasn't mocking me. Nope, it was legit, and 14 seconds later, I had all the ingredients lined up on the counter.

The cardinal rule about baking box cake mix is that you also have to use frosting in a tub. The only flavor we had on hand was cherry. I've been avoiding it for a while (thus its remarkable longevity in my pantry), because you can really, truly go so, so wrong with cherry flavor. For example, my beloved cherry chip birthday cake tastes nothing like cherry. It doesn't even look like cherry should. It's in the same category as those shockingly red cherry Dilly Bars from Dairy Queen. Mmmmm...if only dairy didn't hate me...But, I digress. Back to the task at hand: The tub of bright pink, cherry frosting was plopped onto the counter along with our other ingredients. And, shut up, it tastes exactly like cherry chip cake!! Had I known - all these years! - that I could have satisfied my cherry chip craving with that tub of frosting, well...Gosh, words fail me.

Focus, Sara! Ok. So, we made white cake mix cupcakes and frosted them with the cherry frosting. They were essentially an upside down version of my birthday treats every year, and just as fantastically, gosh-darn sparkly tasting.

It started with my feeling yucky and ended with my feeling sugar loaded - I couldn't ask for a single speck more!

A thing of beauty:

An action shot of me if there ever were one:

And our dog, awww. She's such a great sport, posing for pictures and all:

I'm in a fight with Running

Running is making me fat. Honest to blog. Now, I know that common sense tells me that I'm burning more calories and revving up my metabolism. But the buttons on my pants are screaming at me that something isn't quite right. This is the second time that I've taken a break from running and then started it back up only to find that my waist circumference has increased. This is unbelievably cruel! The last time I stopped and then re-started running, I gave it 3 weeks of bulging belly before losing motivation to continue my predawn workouts. The obvious is to examine my eating habits to see if I've upped my food intake along with my mileage. Nope. I'm actually eating healthier than I've eaten in a while - more veggies, fewer simple carbs, lots more homemade meals. I'm going to stick it out for longer than my previous 3 week stint because I just know that I should start skinnying down soon. Well, that's what I'll be telling myself when my alarm goes off tomorrow morning at 5:45.