I've decided...

I wanna be the kind of person who sends snail mail. what ever happened to people using regular mail? USPS has been wondering that for the past few years since electronic billing and e-cards took hold. Email has destroyed so much of the personal interaction that used to build communities and even force real-time conversations in order to solve problems at work. Now it's all about the "paper trail" and proper documentation, CCing all the important people who feel entitled to be kept in the loop, or often times just to CYA (cover your a--). We've all been guilty of sending an email instead of walking 10 feet down the hall and getting a quick answer.

Avoiding the sense of invading someone's office space with our questions, our personalities, we confine ourselves to the same 4 walls in the comforting, familiar presence of our computer and ipod. side note... since when is it ok to walk the halls at work with headphones? No, your headphones do not preclude you from the generic hello or head nod in the hallway. Your music is not that good, trust me.

Well last month I successfully sent out 4 pieces of mail: birthday cards, a birthday gift, and a just because mailing. I also gave a card to a co-worker whose wife has cancer. Sometimes you don't need a reason or an occasion to help brighten someone's day. Or you want to make someone feel better but you don't know what to say. My dad recently told me 'when you speak from the heart, it can never come out wrong'. Good advice, Dad!

And then this month sent me for a crazy loop and now I don't know which way is up. The boyfriend and I moved. Then his teenage kids came to visit for the month. Yup, teenage and yes, kids plural. Had a housewarming party (oops... meant to mail out invitations, ended up emailing a few people). Still haven't sent out our change of address. In other words... the whole plan went to HELL. So yeah, I still want to be the kind of person who sends snail mail. I'm workin on it. But first I gotta find those stamps.

Jewelry Parties.

How did i not know about these before. I knew about tupperware parties, I sat through many as a child and reveled in finding all the right lids that went with the dishes, sorted by letter. Remember those?! It was a fun game for me. Okay, who am I kidding, it still is today.

Back to the best invention ever. A party where the sole purpose is to gather with other ladies and eat and drink while a much more fashion-inclined person than myself shows me what kind of jewelry to wear and what the latest trends are and I don't have to pretend to know what a lobster claw clasp is or buy several things at once because I have no idea how to choose one thing to go with my latest impulse buy? Hmmm... can there please be a shoe party in my near future? Where I can try on shoes without that ridiculous nylon sock thingy or have to wait forever for the old guy to come from the back with my size 7.5s? Or be seen heading straight to the clearance aisle because - it's a recession y'all... and I'm cheap.

Okay so a minor drawback to the jewelry party is having to wait a few weeks for your purchases. Kinda takes the excitement outta the experience when all I have to show for $100 is a bloated belly and wine lips. Wait... that's most weekend evenings for me. Doh!

Happy July

On the 28th of July of my 28th year, I figured I should squeeze in a few minutes to post on some of the new haps. It's been a very big month for me. My birthday is always time to celebrate, and celebrate I did with friends and family for an entire week. My dad came and visited, and it helped me realize i have one of the coolest dads ever. He's not your typical dad: tacky (rarely), active (always), social (extremely). He's the kind of guy you can take anywhere and find a way to have some fun. We spent my birthday weekend having a nice dinner, a few drinks out with my friends, lots of good conversation, and a nice trip down some class II rapids on the South Fork of the American River. Yup, just a leisurly stroll down some (flip out of the boat and lose your valuables and lucky if you don't get bruised/scraped by rocks) nice rapids. Lucikily we all survived. I'm grateful, though, for my dad and the relationship that we have. I'm glad that I'm so much like him, and I'm really glad he and the boyfriend get along fairly well for 2 people with very strong personalities (read stubborn).

We also moved on July 24th (see June post) across the Sacramento River to a cute, spacious house in West Sac. I still feel like I'm only visiting someone else's really cool house. Although it's only a rental, I still worked my butt off to get to the point where I could live where I wanted, in a house that I hand picked because I deserve to. I haven't strayed from my personal goals, I haven't stopped working towards the next level. I've accomplished a lot for myself in the last 10 years out of high school. This one is for me. For us. Because I deserve it.

3 days ago I found out that I passed my PE exam. It's been something I've worked for for the better part of 2 years. Taking classes, studying nights and weekends, gaining weight from so much sitting! And it's all paid off with a title. Not that it means much to my worklife now, but it does mean I'm no longer playing in the minors. It's all about the big leagues now. To wear that title of professional engineer will raise me to the next level (and hopefully result in a raise of another sort), and I will eventually take the increased responsibility and continue to work my butt off in an industry whose main purpose is to improve the quality of life for the public. In fact 75% of my time is spent in something related to my improving myself to be a better person, better engineer, and a better leader.

Now that the month is coming to a close, I have pretty high hopes for August (my least fave month due to no holidays, and 100+ degree weather). Not that I would be disappointed if it were less than special, I had a pretty awesome July. Plus I got these sent to me at work today from my best friend, Libby, congratulating me on my PE. I know, amazing right? I'm lucky to have such a great friend, the best friend a girl can have.

So Long South Natomas

My commute is currently about 5 minutes. Sometimes 7 when I try to avoid 1 of the 4 stoplights and get stuck behind a car that doesn't realize it can TURN RIGHT on a RED. Adam Carolla had a hilarious rant about right-turn-on-red drivers, oh how I miss that show. Anyway back to the commute. 7 minutes, give or take. This happens to be the ONLY consolation for living and working in the ghetto that is South Natomas, a community in the northwest area of Sacramento. We all know crime is everywhere, especially in Sac. But in the 1 year I've lived in this area we've had a burglary at my office and several incidences of crime at my apartment complex including my own vehicle, my only possession worth anything, being vandalized. TWICE. Furthermore w/ several people crammed into one complex trying to save on rent, there are never any open parking spaces for ourselves or our guests forcing some to designate their own parking spaces which may or may not result in a very expensive impound fee. mother#*&%ing tow companies.


These are among a few of the many reasons why we desperately want to leave this area w/out having to find jobs in the bay area or elsewhere. After scouring craigs' for about a month, we opted for a walk-thru in a couple houses on the outskirts of town. 30-40 minute commute for a better living situation is entirely worth it, I now realize. But we got extremely lucky and found an adorable, remodeled 1920's house in west sacramento, in a unique area where the old homes share the neighborhood with a skyscraper and a pyramid building. The house for me defines maturity, and is the first place I've ever been excited to live in. Instead of settling for the housing that was just what I could afford, instead of getting a roomate to share expenses, I am choosing this place because it suits me. And I am feeling incredibly privileged to have the option in such a rough economy. I only wish the move-in date were sooner than 1 month from now! I'm so excited I want to drive by every day and sneak pictures from my iphone to swoon over all night. I want to sleep on its vintage little porch. I will actually have a porch! Yes... you could say I have a bit of a crush on this house.


One of the best parts about moving is no longer subscribing to the South Natomas police crime blog, although I really do have to hand it to the police for their impressive take-downs. Go female cops btw... I could never do that job. And not to say there won't be crime in my new neighborhood, but I'm willing to bet I won't be awakened by arrests outside my bedroom window, gunshots, or ghetto birds. Llookin forward to that! Especially now that it's summer and ghetto teens have nothing better to do than burglarize people's cars. So long foolio's! Hah.


While my work situation won't change for a while and regretfully I won't be able to avoid this area between 8 and 5pm Mon-Fri, how sweet it will be to drive away from it every day across the river to a welcoming neighborhood where I will love my neighbors, they'll love me, and I'll park whereever I damn well please.

I hate it when i...

...run into someone i friended on myspace/FB and i dont really know them but they think they know me and it makes for a very awkward eye contact/pause/just kidding keep moving moment. If this has never happened to you, Congratulations. You've avoided one of those rare (why did i wake up late and yet HAVE to have a cup of joe, making my trip 15 minutes later in the morning than usual) super cool moments of Adulthood.

Because first off, the eye contact is accidental, and then you realize they're looking back at you, and then you think for about 3 seconds 'do i know him/her? does he know me? god where do i know...OHHHHHHH...dammit" and now it's 3.5 seconds into the eye contact and you quickly divert your eyes because a Friend Request accept is clearly not the same thing as an in-person, 2-way street, introduction. I'm the kind of person who rejects 95% of friend requests from strangers, too. Commenting on my friends' wall, for example, is not an invitation for you to "Friend" me, for what, to say 'yo.. nice comment.. what's up' And the remaining 5% seem perfectly harmless to add because 1) I am taken and pics of boyfriend and blog posts of relationship are enough evidence...and 2) I never think i'll actually SEE them around town!!!

There is absolutely no way to get around this awkwardness other than to hope they're still not staring when you grab your latte and bolt through the emergency exit. And if they still think it's ok to email on myspace/FB later and say 'hey, was that you I ran into at starbucks?' then, you know, probably safe to just reject all 100% of strangers to save yourself from any of the above mentioned awkward occurances and then you'll never have to forfeit your favorite coffee shop with the only barista in town who knows how to properly steam soymilk.

I enjoy...

...when women change their names when they get married. Don't know why, but hyphenated names kill me. maybe cause i grew up w/ a stepmother who already had a daughter and when she married my father, didnt wanna change her last name from her other married name, which was also my stepsisters last name. so she hyphenated, and sometime shortly before my sister married (and took her husbands name) my mom dropped the old married name and kept ours. I think that's why in my mind, i believe keeping your old name is to somewhat 'reject' your new life, to have one foot over the threshold and the other firmly planted on the old trusty doormat.
not that im in love with my boyfriend's last name. it's very two-syllable english/scottish/bland. mine is three syllable sing-songy to match my three syllable unique first name which when people hear it requires them to hold their breath for a satisfying closer. my last name, all but cinches the deal like a note to end a song. Like the familiar trumpets at the end of a mariachi song. You expect it, you welcome it, you love it.
Of course it'll be difficult to give up my last name one day. So I've long ago accepted that I will throw out my middle name (as much as I adore it), shove over my last name in its place, and be happy that I got away with a non-hyphenated name change. Is that bending the rules? Probably. I definitely see nothing wrong with hanging onto the name and hiding it with an initial. I'm Latin, people, to adopt an English name will be like lobbing off my arm and replacing it with a prosthetic. And they don't make brown prosthetics. Well maybe they do, but no doubt it just wouldn't feel the same.
But I do love this man, and should he become my husband some day, I would be honored to take his name and scootch my own to the backseat. A silent G. to anchor my name but allow the first and new last name to be my identity. No one will even notice. It can be our little secret.

Disturbing? You be the judge.

Maybe its being home alone for 5 days that's got me sketched out at everything. Noises. My dogs bark and I jump out of my skin. Blinds open. I need some light but the scary creepy men outside are checking me out! They must know i'm alone! Even TV... the MOST disturbing season finale i've ever seen - private practice - where 45 week pregnant violet gets drugged by her psychotic and dellusional patient who is about to CUT her baby out of her uterus and the show ends. Just like that. Yeah didn't sleep a wink! No I'm not pregnant, but could you imagine if i was?! it was bad enough I had dreams about labor and scalpels but thankfully woke up and just had hunger pangs.

I seriously cannot get that episode out of my head. There's a reason I don't watch scary movies. I really hate being scared! I dont get an adrenaline rush and then go back for more. NO. I get pissed off and want to slap someone. So why would one of my fave TV shows that I'm truly loyal to (no matter how overly dramatic the plot lines are) go and do to that to me. WHYYYY.

My first thought upon crawling into bed (after trying to kill some mosquito eater thing that I was convinced would crawl into my ear while i was sleeping and leave its eggs... Yes, it was too big to fit in my ear, but you never know.) was Thank God i'm sleeping at my friends' place tomorrow... screw this sleeping alone in scary dark mosquito eating dweller apt and its peeping toms. I'm outta here!