Oh, happiness

I have to say, life is grand. The new job is coming up shortly (I got my offer on April 2, and James and I went out for margaritas that night to celebrate), and I'm scared and nervous and excited. Assuming all of my paperwork goes through ok, I'll be starting April 21. It's going to be tough at first, I won't know what I'm doing and there will have to be an adjustment at home since I won't be able to do all the cooking and cleaning like I've been doing. But James is great and tells me that once I start he's very willing to split chore duty with me (he'd do chores now but I get them all done during my long boring days at home).

Last night, Steve, James and I went to the farmer's market in town and had dinner. And crepes!!! MMM, hot nutella crepes. And James bought me gorgeous roses and a whole mess of strawberries, which I want to make into a pie this weekend.

My beautiful roses!

Tonight, James and I are going horseback riding up in the Hollywood Hills. I'm wicked psyched, I love horses and I haven't ridden in ages. Ages and ages. Yaaaay horsies! I'm so so excited. Can you tell? Will be sure to take lots of pics and post them on facebook, complete with giddy, horse-loving captions.

Since I'm starting a new job, I went to Target and bought myself some new clothes this week. Very necessary. It has to happen every once in a while, and I haven't bought any new warm-weather clothes since last year (and warm weather clothes see an awful lot of usage out here), and it was a lot of fun and I got a lot of things for not too much money. I want to be sure to look good at work and not be wearing the same thing all the time or be forced to wear older, worn-out-looking things. Aaaand I got a pair of silver ballerina flats because they were too cute not to. But it's okay because I'll have a job soon and I'll actually be able to afford it!

Last weekend, James and I wanted to go horseback riding but because of brutal traffic we couldn't get to the stables in time. So we ended up going to Pink's for dinner. (Pink's is a very famous LA hot dog stand that specializes in making lots of crazy-topped hot dogs with everything on them from bacon to pastrami to onion rings.) It was fun and I'd been wanting to go for a while. We last went in October. There's always a huge line, it's this whole experience. Good times.

Also last weekend, we went to see the George Clooney-John Krasinski-Renee Zellweger feature, Leatherheads. It was cute (JK was definitely cute) and amusing, but not great. And we went on a bike ride up to Marina Del Rey and had dinner up there on Sunday, which was lovely, at a rather fancy Italian place on the water.

What else. In the cooking department, I've made my very first ham, which I baked with a molasses-pecan-bourbon glaze. That was some goood ham. And I cooked the bone down into some super yummy split pea soup. Hooray for kitchen adventures!!

Other exciting news: last night, James and I bought the TimeWarner cable-internet-phone package, yaaaay!! No more stealing borrowing the neighbor's unsecured wireless, no more using precious daytime minutes for local calls, aaaand it should be a lot easier to call Norway when I won't have to use minutes. Yaaay! And of course, glorious glorious television. The Office started back up last night, I'm so psyched. Aaaand we bought tickets to PA for the week of the 4th of July, yay!! We'll be visiting with my parents, possibly (hopefully!!!) getting up to Laporte, and looking around PA for places we'd like to settle.

And the most exciting news of all: James and I are planning on taking a trip to Hawaii in August for our one year anniversary! Eeeee!!!!!!

Updating the old blog

(As requested by my sister, I will now be cross-posting entries from my Livejournal here, so that everyone can comment.)

This is going to be totally random and stream-of-consciousness. Deal with it. :)


1. Car - My car was parked on the street over Easter weekend while James and I went up to Porterville (more on that later) and someone sideswiped it or backed into it or something. Anyway, they didn't leave a note, and the driver's side door and the panel over the driver's side wheel are both bashed in. I haven't taken it in for an estimate yet. Bonus: my insurance won't cover anything. Yaaayy.

2. Bikes - speaking of breaking things, I had a cheapo bike that I bought on Craigslist that was too small for me and too hard to pedal, so James gave me his old bike. We've been going on bike rides down at the beach. Then I broke the bike by shifting going up a hill and the little sproingy sprocket thing on the back wheel that moves the chain bent up and around and somehow got lodged in the spokes of the wheel. It's completely busted. BUT when we were in Porterville we told his parents what happened and his mom gave me her bike!! Oo, I need to write a thank-you note for that! Anyway, the bike rides can continue, yaaay!

3. Easter - We drove up to Porterville for Easter, but James was fighting an awful cold. He slept most of Saturday. It was nice to be up there and visiting with his family, but it was a bit odd to be mostly by myself at his house and keeping myself entertained by reading and listening to my ipod. I went out to lunch with his brothers, which was really nice. They're good guys, and lots of fun. And interestingly enough his mom let James and me share a room rather than having me across the hall from him. (The room has two twin beds.) His brothers didn't want to sleep with his snoring/sickness, so I did. I wonder if that'll happen again or if it's a one-time thing.

4. Sickness - James got really badly sick from this cold, he had to take last Monday off and he's still fighting it off. He's even on antibiotics and ear drops for a nasty ear infection. I got it too but not nearly as badly. I only had one real sick day and it didn't even matter since I'm not working. The worst couple days James took care of me by taking me out to dinner so I wouldn't have to cook or wash dishes or anything. Isn't he a sweetie?!?

5. Job - I had to fill out another application online for Raytheon, this time about all my employment history for the last ten years and agreeing to urine tests and stuff. I got a call today asking if it was done yet so they could send me my offer. I finished it today (remembering every little job I had at BU and in college was really annoying - especially tracking down all the addresses and phone numbers aaaand even remembering peoples' names) soooo I should be getting my offer soon.

6. Hike - yesterday James and Steve and I went on a hike with some of Steve's UCLA friends. It was a lot of fun and really great to be outdoors in the sunshine, but the hike was a bit more intense that we'd expected. Since James and I are still recovering from our cold, we fell behind on the hike pretty quickly. The path was very steep for long stretches as we climbed up these hills that rose above LA, up near Malibu. It was lovely, though. There were lots of wild flowers. Afterwards, we all went to a Mexican restaurant and had second lunch/dinner (it was about 4 pm). Mm, margaritas. I want to go out with James and get margaritas after my first day of work. Which shouldn't be too far off!!

7. No more baby - the neighbors next door with the baby that cried every morning at 5 AM have moved (YAY) and we got new neighbors. I made cupcakes for them but I need to frost them! And then give them. Yummmm, homemade vanilla buttermilk cupcakes.

I think that's about it for now...