In the corner..

I spent a good portion of my night in a corner with these two hooligans:

After the men's basketball won their last home game, Loren, Shefali and I headed to The Beach Club for dinner. I haven't been out to dinner or drinks with many people lately. Working graveyard (and now not working) has kept me home to sleep or to save money, so tonight it was nice to have good girlfriends, good basketball, decent food and incredible jokes surround me. I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did tonight. 

Long Beach, the CSULB campus and the Walter Pyramid are my homes away from home. It's where I feel comfortable, where a lot of things make sense, and where I really grew up. It's where I've laughed, cried and stayed up learning life's secrets with my friends til the sun comes up. I truly love this city and all it has to offer. I can't wait for the day that I move back. 

It's beautiful, isn't it? 

Fly...

Fly.. Today's prompt is "fly." I knew what I wants to write about when I saw this prompt, I just had to figure out how. 

I live under three different landing patterns for LAX. Planes have alway been a constant in my life, I've been on them while traveling, or under them while at home. 

I have trouble sleeping when the skies are quiet. When I first moved to Long Beach, it took me a month or so to get used to how quiet it was. After the planes hit the towers on 9/11 and all the planes were grounded, I remember being so scared because it was so quiet. The house didn't rumble, you could always hear the tv and there wasn't a "hold on, there's a plane" in the middle of phone conversations.

I used to love the window seat when I traveled, then I grew. When I fly, I prefer an aisle seat with as much leg room as I can find, especially on longer flights. There is one awesome thing you give up when sitting on the aisle in a plane: the window pictures. Seeing the world from thousands of feet in the air is magical. You fly through and over storms, through clouds and you get to see sunrises and sunsets from the most magnificent place. 

In 2009, I was able to cross something major off my life's bucket list. I saw the sunrise on the east coast (on the way to the Dulles airport in DC), flew home and saw it set into the marina in Long Beach that same night. I didn't realize the impact it would have, but you see the sunrise over the Washingtom Monument and tell me it doesn't strike a chord. 

Here's to the land above the clouds, friends. Enjoy it whenever you can. 

GOOOAAALLLLL

So, some people know, some don't, but I'm (slowly) in the process of starting my own business. I've been researching the crap out of what to do over the last year and finally have a game plan.. now with an official end goal in site.

My end goal? To be a vendor at the Artisinal LA show next fall.

It sounds a bit funny, but having a goal like this will force me to get my ass in gear, file for my DBA, Cottage Food license and get everything rolling. Ideas are great, but results and living my dream are even better.

Here's a little recap of my weekend.
Thursday to Friday, I wrote my Lumpy blog entries and posted them on Friday morning. The outpouring of love, support and encouragement BLEW MY MIND. Seriously. I spent a large part of the day with a swollen, full, loved heart, glossy teary eyes and a greater respect for a few of my friends. I can't fully express how much the reinforcement and encouragement meant to me. I cried at 7:30am at work after reading a Facebook post, at a soup restaurant while in line after reading a text message/essay and an email that were sent while I was interviewing. The messages that were sent to me over that 24 hour period were, and still are some of the most cherished things. Not only were they about the blog posts, but they were wishing me luck for an interview that could be life/career/happiness changing. Friday morning could not have been better... well, other than burning my tongue on a crappy cappuccino.

After the interview, I headed to Long Beach to meet up with a friend for coffee and to catch up and the 2 hours that we hung out was no where near enough, but luckily, I'll see her again soon. I attempted to go to Disneyland after, but it closed at 7 and we got there around 7:30. Not a big deal, California Adventure was open til midnight, right? WELL. Apparently, millions of people wanted to go too. Every single line was over an hour long and annoying, so my friend and I basically went to DCA for a corn dog. Still, funny story and good times. I ended up being up for 26ish hours and fell asleep a few minutes after walking in the door.

Saturday was amazing. Artisinal LA is an amazingly curated show/fair/thingie. So many vendors and small businesses all revolving around food and well-being. I need to be ready to sell things there next fall. I will be. I met The Fancy Boyz who do a lot of pop up shops at Lindy & Grundy in Hollywood. They were fantastic and recognized me from Instagram, so basically we're new best friends. I can't wait for what is going to come as my baking business starts. I am so grateful for an insanely supportive family and group of friends who are willing to help in any way that they can. I went to ALA with my aunts and had a great time, I wish I had bought more, or had gone back on Sunday to buy the things that I didn't get on Saturday - Lesson learned!

I have a light at the end of the tunnels of a few different things, and I'm hoping they all play out in great ways. I can't wait to see what this week brings. So many new adventures and good things are coming, I can feel it.