things i'm loving

 - carpooling with my husband
 - diet coke from a soda fountain over ice
 - ice cream wednesdays at work
 - chatting with friends and family on im
 - catching up on blogs (aka blog-stalking)
 - so you think you can dance
 - warmer weather
 - candles at night (we're working on conserving energy)
 - the broadway station on our free month of satellite radio

Cold day in July...

... was the metaphor the Dixie Chicks used in their song, but it really IS a cold day in July in LA! Brrr!! I have come to accept "June Gloom" living in LA, but come on... bring on the heat, baby!

Other than the chilly, gloomy weather, July is turning out to be a pretty awesome month. You already know that we bought a snazzy new car and next I'm going to tell you about our visit with Will and Josh.

So my best guess is that our apartment is around 500 sq ft. This is based on the fact that we stayed in a 231 sq ft cabin this past week, I'm thinking our apartment is probably twice that. Anyway.. this is really not enough room for one girl, three boys and a dog. Pee-yoo. Besides just being boys, Will is training for another marathon, so his sweaty clothes also resided in our place. Am I complaining? No way! I'd take a stinky apartment again for a week with my favorite brother.

They flew into the Long Beach airport on Wednesday night. We don't go down to LB much, so I looked for "restaurants" on my Google Maps and Five Guys Burgers popped up. I have seen people rave about this place on Facebook and also know it's an Obama favorite. They were down with going and Matt has since mentioned several times going back. Not impressed with the fries, but the burger was great!

Mmm.

On Thursday morning we all got up early and headed down to Santa Monica. This is where their "Ultimate Vacation" (as Will deemed it) really began. We first stopped by the Apple Store at around 7:15am, only to find two lines wrapped around the building. This was the day the new iPhone was released and Matt had one on reserve. So we ditched that and went to LAX to pick up a rent car. (This was before we sold our cars, but renting was cheaper than driving Matt's truck all over LA.) Now this next part is when things REALLY started heating up.... we went to the...

SANTA MONICA DMV!!!

I know, am I the best sister or what? But if you think the Texas DMV is a headache, you ain't seen nothin' like CA DMVs. Luckily, we were only there about about an hour, and Will and Josh were very patient. Will even found a S*bux nearby to pass the time. Afterwards, Matt headed to work, while we grabbed some brunch at Jack & Jill's. The weather was so beautiful, so we rolled our windows down and drove up the 1 to the Getty Villa. Next we kept driving north towards Malibu, went to the Country Mart (one of my favs), enjoyed a Crumbs cupcake, and finally headed back to Santa Monica where we met up with Matt at 3rd & Promenade. For dinner we picked up ingredients at Trader Joes and made homemade pizza on our grill.

View from our table at Jack & Jill's.

Getty Villa gift shop.

 Will chillaxin in the Bu

On Friday while Matt worked, the boys and I went to Universal Studios where we rode the Simpsons Ride, Revenge of the Mummy, Shrek 4D, the backlot studio tour and our favorite - Jurassic Park. That night we picked up Matt and met up with some of our friends in Marina Del Rey at C&O Trattoria - home of "That's Amore" and killer garlic rolls.

Ran into some of our favorite astronauts.

Will punching the shark ... me sharing my breakfast bar.

 I ain't skeered of no Jurassic Park ride.

King Tut O'Rear

Saturday morning we slept in, took it easy, made pancakes-- all while Will took a 10 mile run. The rest of the afternoon we mostly chilled before finally deciding to visit the Americana at Brand. We arrived just in time for happy hour at Frida's, then browsed through some stores. While we were there, I gently took my husband by the hand and led him to the kitchen section at Anthropologie. "This," I said, "is what I want my kitchen to look like. If you ever want to get a surprise gift for me, just come pick out anything here." And being the amazing husband that he is, he picked up this kitchen timer and said, "Well let's start here." I know, I know. He's the best. We ended our evening at the Holzapfels, or "Wooden Apples" as Matt likes to call them. (They are a whole other blog post, because I could just go on and on about how much we love them.) Anyway Will and Josh met them last summer before Miss Lyla James was born, so they wanted to officially meet her. We had a great time, listened to some Douglas James tunes, watched the in-progress music video, and mostly just oo'd and aah'd over Lyla. She and Will especially bonded.

Will & Lyla James

On Sunday we shared our beloved family, Ecclesia Hollywood, with them and then grabbed some Kitchen 24 with friends. Our afternoon plan was to go hiking, but their "Ultimate Vacation" kicked back in when we received calls from Craigslisters offering to buy our cars. So in one afternoon, we sold both of our cars and spent a few hours at our local Toyota buying our new one. I felt sooo bad for the boys at home, stuck in our house. When we finally got home around 7:00pm, we decided to go to get some dinner and see Cyrus.

Monday was our last day together - Matt went back to work, while the boys and I brunched at Aroma Cafe. That afternoon I took the boys hiking to Fryman Canyon. The fact that Fryman is located in the middle of LA seemed to concern the boys, as maybe they thought it wasn't going to be a challenging experience. Well... it was. And they learned another reason LA is so great -- not just beautiful beaches, but also gorgeous hiking trails smack in the middle of the city. That night we invited our dear friends, the Benners over for build-your-own quesadillas (only Rhi could come) and ended our evening with Menchies.

Josh was very brave!

Will... not so much (he takes after his sister)

WHEW!! Ok, I realize that was waaaaay long, and probably only my darling mother is still reading this. But I wanted to share all of the fun we had! Thanks Will and Josh for coming to see us! And if you, dear reader, would ever like to visit LA, we have two couches with your name on them.

I'm baaaack....

Hello blog, I am your mother. I have forsaken you and I offer my sincerest apologies. There's no use looking in the rearview mirror... let's just focus on what's ahead.
DISNEYLAND!!!
For the past two months Matt and I have been planning on spending this weekend in Oceanside, CA - 1) to film a mud run that several co-workers are running and 2) to see some friends who recently moved there. This plan was quickly demolished when we received an email on Wednesday from a friend (who is a new ABC employee) inviting us to Disneyland on Saturday... for FREE. Plus 30% off all food and souvenirs. (Mickey ears anyone?) This is a big deal people. One-day passes START at $75 and there are no hidden discounts out there. We've been to both Disneyland parks once and have wanted to go back... and going for free is a beautiful way to return.
The next few weeks are also looking very promising. Next week Will and his roommate are returning for their 2nd annual trip to see us and I'm taking my first vacation days since my promotion in January. The following week is short, because a) I'm taking Monday off for Will and 2) half-day on Friday for July 4th weekend. Then the week after THAT is also short... another Monday off completing the July 4th weekend. And THEN at the end of July... I am going hoooooooooooome!!! I cannot WAIT!! Doing a little tour of Texas... starting in Austin, a short appearance in Temple, a few days in Abilene, then ending in Dallas. I haven't been home since the holidays (which in many ways seems like yesterday) and I'm not sure the next time I'll be there. So I will be soaking up every moment with Mama and Papa Riggs and looking forward to hugging many necks.
Anyone else looking forward to seeing Eat, Pray, Love? I just started reading the book and then have recently become obsessed with this song - Dog Days Are Over - when I heard it played in the background of the movie trailer. So I decided to share it with my loverly blog readers, so that you too may discover the joys of this fun song-- the best way to listen is to open your windows, turn up your speakers and dance around. However the best way to watch the music video to this song is with your eyes. wide. SHUT. Turns out Florence + The Machine are kinda weird and this video might give you nightmares. So lean back, hit play, close your eyes, and let the music take you away...

Simply Shakespeare

1) Last week an opportunity came about that I thought would be fun. 2) Then I didn't want to go. 3) Then I really didn't want to go. 4) Then I had to go anyways. 5) Then I was SO happy that I did and was a little giddy at the event.

Here's what went down:
1) My department had extra tickets to an event called Simply Shakespeare-- an annual event in its 20th year hosted by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. It's a live reading of a Shakespeare classic- this year it was "Much Ado About Nothing", my favorite! They invite their actor friends to participate, and it's mostly off-the-cuff and highly entertaining. Lots of assistants went last year, so I requested two tickets, for myself and Matt.
2) This year it was a smaller venue and we didn't have as many tickets, so I couldn't bring a +1.
3) Then I found out that only a few assistants were going, along with a handful of agents. AND the event was on the same evening that I had planned a "Life Unexpected" finale night with a couple of girlfriends. In all honesty, I'd rather go with Matt to events, so I told them to give away my ticket. (These tix were in high demand in the company.)
4) My colleagues literally laughed when I told them to give my ticket away... I believe their exact words were, "Hahaha, LOL, oh Katie, yes you are going, you need to go, you'll love it." So I canceled my girlfriend plans (Matt, btw, was also excited about watching the LU finale) and made plans to go to Simply Shakespeare instead.
5) When I arrived at the venue, it was much smaller than I expected. The theater holds about 300 people, and my seat was on the 4th row. When I sat down, one of my favorite assistant friends was there, so I immediately was relieved that I knew someone. I opened my program and lo... and... behold... I read that included in the musicians for the evening would be.....

SARA and SEAN WATKINS

Formerly of Nickel Creek, but still some of my favorite artists. I love Sara's most recent solo album and I've had Sean's "Fiction Family" album in my car CD player since last fall. I literally became giddy when I realized that they were playing.

If could go back and choose some times in my life to live over, this would be one of them. It was such a fantastic event- I laughed, I cried from laughing so much, I was in heaven listening to the Watkins, and sitting 20 feet away from Tom Hanks acting on stage isn't too shabby. Here are some of the people that were part of the act:

Can anyone name all of these stars? What a fantastic event and truly an LA experience that I will never forget... if only Matt could have joined me. :)

Handy Matty

Having a husband who is not afraid of power tools is pretty awesome. I love being able to point at something and say, "Can you make that?" and the answer is yes. And come to think of it, he actually doesn't even own many power tools and he still gets the job done.
I added the link on my sidebar for Knock Off Wood, because I find myself visiting her site each day. I'm already starting to look around our apartment and think about future projects. Below is the bed we're currently building-- NOT our bed, but an example picture from the website. We're also painting ours white and "antiquing" it, though we're planning on making ours more of an ivory than stark white. We'll see. That's the part I'm most nervous about. (If you click on the pic, it will take you to the plans we're using.)

(NOT our bed.... just an example of what ours will hopefully look like...)

I'm going to do some test painting on some leftover pieces of wood before we do the real thing. So... any painting advice anyone?

Good Friday, indeed.

Half day at work today. 3.5 hours until I get to go home to my favorite boys. We get to wear jeans and sandals on half-days which makes me soo happy!

We are dog-sitting this weekend for a family with a pool. It's way too cold to swim, but warm enough to layout. I could fit in very nicely with the cast of Twilight right now, so if you need me around noon tomorrow, you know where to find me.

I've got some major sinus-aches right now, so I stopped by my favorite S*bux this morning on my way in for my usual- non-fat, no-whip, Cafe Mocha. Mmmm. But they had some samples out of their new dark cherry mocha frappuchinos. I. AM. IN. LOVE.

On Sunday we're having our 3rd annual Easter lunch, 2nd annual Easter picnic. Our first Easter Sunday in LA, we had a bunch of Matt's LAFSC classmates over for lunch after church. I attempted to bake my first ham, then sent Matt to the store upon coming home from church to find a burned ham in our oven. Then last year we invited everyone to an Easter picnic after church, where I did NOT attempt to bake a ham. But... I think this is the year. We're having another Easter picnic, I am going to successfully bake a ham. And it will be delicious. Amen.

As most of you know, I have a house-husband right now. It doesn't pay very well, but the benefits (for me) are pretty great. Last night I came home to a home-cooked meal, a clean kitchen, folded laundry and some cash due to Craigslist sales. Sometimes I leave him with a list of things to do and he never complains. He's my favorite.

Tomorrow is tax-day in the Maxwell house. A day I have been dreading. Last year we handed over about $500. I started using Turbo Tax yesterday and when the amount we owed reached $2,700, I decided to stop and call H&R Block. It really makes no sense to us, because we both claim only 1 deduction on our forms. And most of our friends get back at least $1k each year. So we're just gathering up everything and headed to HRB tomorrow. I might take a barf bag with me.

Happy Easter weekend to everyone. Wishing we were home with family... but grateful that God has been so gracious in providing us with family here in LA with whom we can proclaim and celebrate, "He is risen. He is risen, indeed."

5k Review

Hopefully by now you've had a chance to watch the lovely video that Matt made before, during, and after our run. He was gracious enough to cut out the shots of me making ugly faces and telling him to get the camera out of my face. I might have even used the s-phrase once, "shut up," but that doesn't sound like me at all. Exhaust can bring out an ugly side, people.
I'm so happy we decided to run for Team World Vision. A) I really love World Vision. B) It was fun to be involved with something that my bother of a brother is also passionate about. C) When we arrived at the race, TWV was there waiting with open, encouraging arms. They said a prayer of blessing over the race and the people in Haiti, for whom we ran. That was a great way to begin the race. Not to mention, they watched our backpacks while we ran.
We then prepared to head to the starting line- we stuffed our jackets in our backpacks, strapped on our iPhones, plugged in our headphones. While we were waiting for the race to start, I looked over and saw Kevin Connolly, also know as "E" from Entourage. (Later, I looked up his time... I beat him!) We had to wait about 20 minutes before the race began, and during that time my stomach began growling. I was sooo hungry! I knew this wasn't the best way to begin a race, but I just had to deal with it.
Overall the race went better than I thought in most ways. When we finished, I didn't collapse. I didn't have any regrets during the race and afterwards I was excited about continuing training for our next one. The biggest challenge was this: hills!! The race was in Elysium Park, around Dodger Stadium. I knew the Stadium sat up on a hill... why didn't I consider there might be some inclines in the course? So we mostly power-walked up the hills and ran down them and continued until we came to the next hill.
As we came to the end, we could hear the crowd cheering and started jogging again. As we headed in, Matt ran ahead to cross the finish line first, so he could turn around and film me coming in. But as I was running, I decided that I was feeling really great and wanted to shave a few seconds off my time. So I just took off.... I ran as fast as I could, the crowds were cheering, I even ran PAST Matt. And all of the sudden.... my stomach started wrenching. I slowed down, covered my mouth, and was trying to think quickly about what to do if i couldn't hold it in. Should I toss it on the path, where runners might step in it? Should I run to the side, and hope that the crowd would back away? Luckily I was able to keep it down and just walked slowly across the finish line. My full concentration was on keeping my stomach settled, and running at the end wasn't going to help that. I do feel a little lame about walking across the line, but throwing up on little children would have been a lot worse. Agreed?

Next up... May 8, Revlon Run/Walk 5k for Women's Cancers. Goal... run the entire thing.

Weekend!

Finally... so happy it's here. And the weather is b-e-a-utiful! I am VERY ready for sunshine, spring clothes, and the beach. Not so much ready for swimsuits, but I am ready for a tan! Here's what our weekend is looking like so far:

Tonight: no plans! Maybe hang out with our better halves, the Holzapfels, or maybe just catch-up on some Tivo. I haven't watched Biggest Loser in 2 weeks!

Tomorrow: Running -- we are moving up to Week 5 in C25K tomorrow.... even though our 5k is NEXT weekend! But I am at peace at walking part of it. My major goal is MAY 8 for the Revlon 5k. I really want to run the whole shebang. I also need to start thinking about taxes tomorrow. We had to pay quite a bit last year, and a refund would really come in handy right now. Tomorrow night we are also hanging out with my great friend, Jenna. Jenna is a receptionist in our building and occasionally I would do reception with her. One day we discovered that we were both Christians, and I invited her to church. The rest is history! She's loving Ecclesia as much as we are, and I love having a buddy at work.

Sunday: there's no such thing as a free lunch? Not the case with Matt and me on Sunday! Some family of Abilene friends are coming to LA for their son to look at Pepperdine, and they offered to take us out to lunch after church. Yes, please! Now we just have to decide where to go... hmm. Then on Sunday night, we're headed to the Robin Hood British Pub to celebrate our friend's birthday, who just so happens to be British.

Did I mention that we're still raising money for Haiti? Click HERE to make a donation!

Hope everyone has a great, sunshiny weekend!

Oscar Party

Last night we held our 2nd Annual Oscar Party. Last year we mostly invited people from my office. This year, it was our friends from church, LAFSC (Matt's film program), and from WipeOut. We also used this festive event as an opportunity to promote our upcoming 5k, which we are running for Team World Vision. We are currently fund-raising and everything we raise will go to World Vision's efforts in Haiti.

{Btw, have you read this article regarding WV? It really is fantastic. Read it now, and then rejoin us here.}

As part of the WV team, we are supposed to raise funds. I think typically this means sending out letters/emails to our friends and family asking them to support us. So many people have already given so generously towards Haiti, and we just felt a little strange about asking people out of the blue to give more. So we decided to use our Oscar party to help us reach our very small goal of $250. We invited almost 50 of our LA friends, with hopes that at least 10 could come. In the end, I think we had around 25 stuffed into our tiny apartment. We had $10 buy-in for Oscar predictions and came up with some pretty sweet prizes, if I do say so myself. We must have had 16 people play, because we raised $160.

Here are a few pics from the party:

This was early in the evening. The event started at 5:30pm PST, which is awesome, because everyone was gone by 10pm.

Later in the evening...

Yes, the party even carried over into the bedroom. We have small TV in there, so we added some folding chairs and enjoyed the view from a comfy bed.

Prize corner! Everyone who played got a prize, with the winners choosing first and then working our way down from there. The winners chose 2 movie tickets w/ 2 free drinks. Other hot items were movie posters, a signed concert poster (w/ Oscar-winner Ryan Bingham's signature), restaurant gift certificates, skin care/make-up products and homemade cookie "IOU"s from me.

We're so grateful to all of our friends who supported us last night and shared encouraging words for our marathon... which I gently reminded them was just a 5k. :)

If you would like to lend your support, you can visit this website. {Katie & Matt's TWV page} 100% of the money raised will go to WV's work in Haiti.

Couch to 5k

Have I mentioned that Matt and I are running in a 5k in two weeks?

Did you know that 5k = 3.11 miles?

Did you know that before January, I couldn't run .11 miles without keeling over? It's true.

When I told Matt that I was signing up for LA Marathon's 5k, he told me he'd run it with me. I said, "But you don't have time to train." He said, "I don't need to train, it will be easy." Then I gave him the death look.

WHY am I doing this? Just because. Because I've never been able to run more than a block. And because I just always thought that "I can't run." And because I watch Biggest Loser and see people who are WAY overweight becoming runners and then running marathons, even when they've still got the extra pounds on them. I decided I had no more excuses not to at least try.

As I started developing my plan for this effort, I consulted the pro-runner in our family- my brother Will (also known as William, Willie, Bill, Bother of a Brother). He wasn't so much of a bother that day, and was very helpful and encouraging when I told him of my idea. He told me of programs called "Couch to 5k" that gives you a running schedule, gradually adding more running each week.

Last May I walked a 5k at the Revlon Run/Walk that benefits women's cancers. I walked in memory of my friend Kerri Lane and was really moved by the experience. I decided that I would RUN the 5k this year instead, and run in Kerri's memory again. William, however, thought that I should shoot for the LA Marathon 5k held 6 weeks earlier in March. He told me it was ok if I didn't run the entire thing. So I immediately signed up.

My plan was to start training January 1, but due to a certain number of events (rain, stitches, etc), I didn't start until the end of January. Six weeks later, I am actually still in week 4 of training. I was moving right along, but when I came to week 4, I really struggled with it. I am about to finish my 3rd week of week 4, and I'm doing much better. One more run on Saturday, then I'll move on to week 5.

Here are the things that have helped me the most:

I rarely find athletic shoes that don't hurt my feet. I have wide feet (ugh) and when I wear tennis shoes for long hours, my feet inevitably hurt at the end of the day. Well, not anymore! I need to own 2 pairs of these New Balances. They are incredibly comfortable for running and for just hanging out. (Shout out to Jack & Jill for giving them to me for Xmas!!)

This is the plan I've been following. If you have an iPod touch or iPhone, you can search for the "C25K" app that I've been using. It is a-mazing!!! Once you open it, you can choose music from your own iPod to run to! And then it tells you when to walk and run. So when you begin, it says, "Ding, ding, ding, WARM UP", and then your music begins. Five minutes later, it says, "Ding, ding, ding, RUN." Then you just walk and run when it tells you to! This way, you're not having to pay attention to your time or a watch. So easy. You can also friend them on Facebook, and they update their page with really great articles for runners of all experience.

For most of my runs, I've been listening to music. I downloaded some Top 40 sorts of songs (yes, I had some Lady Gaga and Timbaland), because Bon Iver just wasn't getting me going in the mornings. But one day, I decided to listen to my favorite podcast- This American Life. It made ALL the difference with my run! I got lost in the story and didn't pay as much attention to how much time I had left. It also helped me with my pace, so that I wasn't running faster to upbeat songs and slowing down for other songs.

T-minus 15 days until the race!

Ta-da!!!

So?!? What do you think?? Didn't Sharon do an incredible job? I am so pleased and excited with the way our blog turned out. All I had to say was "Hatch Show Print" and she ran with it. If you are wanting a new blog design OR any sort of print design, I highly recommend Redbud Designs.

Jury Duty

On Thursday, February 18, I reported for jury duty. The only other time I've been called before was in Abilene, where I was dismissed after an hour. Not this time. Not only did I have to spend the entire day, I was there for the next SIX days. I was.... (Law & Order bum bum) Juror #2.

Now that the trial is over and the verdict has been delivered, I am free to discuss the case, the details, my opinions, etc. We were told up front that it was a domestic violence case-- the defendent was a man, the victim was his domestic partner. All of the jurors had a basic feeling where this would go. But after a week of witnesses and testimonies, we all agreed there was not enough evidence to convict this man. Did he do it? We all think so. Was there evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it and it wasn't self-defense? No. So we found him not guilty. The really cool part was that there was a former cop on our jury. And he even agreed that the police had done a very poor job of collecting evidence in this case. Basically these two people are both very violent and cocaine users. A dangerous combination. I hope they will stay far away from each other now-- but that is doubtful.

I found the whole process very interesting and enjoyed getting to know my fellow jurors. If you like people-watching, a court house is a great place for that. In my juror pool alone, there were some very strange people who had some crazy thoughts and prejudices. At first I had a bad attitude about serving. But then I thought that if I were on trial, I would want intelligent, fair, open-minded jurors contemplating on my behalf. Over all I had a great 7 days on jury duty. And now I'm very happy to be back at work. :)

Ooo la la!

Now that I have stated my thoughts about Valentines... how about some fun Vday goodies!

{Gift ideas}

Tom's Shoes

What gal (or guy) doesn't want a new pair of shoes? AND when you get a pair, a sweet child in Africa gets a new pair, too! Love it!

Life Is Good

Pretty much anything from Life Is Good, one of my favorite brands, is going to be a winner. But this runner's tee in particular would make a lovely Vday gift.

Kitchen Items

Perhaps you're a practical gift-giver. That's ok- I love practical gifts! That means I can use my own money on less-practical things. Consider these juice glasses- totally practical, yet super fun! Did I mention they match my kitchen?


{Fun times}

DIY Valentine Cards

If you are looking for a way to spice up your Valentines cards this year, this is an easy DIY project. I think you could really get your creative juices flowing with this idea. (And please send me one if you make them!)

Cookies!

When I was growing up, my mom would make THE most beautiful Valentine cookies! Seriously, I haven't seen anything in any bakery that compares to hers. And they actually tasted good, too! I hate when cookies don't live up to their decor. If I were your Valentine, I would accept a handmade cookie anyday. This particular design reminds me of the Sex & The City movie posters from last summer.

Art

Make your sweetheart some art! Or order a personalized piece from an Etsy artist. I think this one in particular is very cute.


***Guess what?!? I saw a sneak peek of our new blog design today... you. will. love it.***