Sightseeing! (Part 1 of 3)

(Side note: This and the next 2 posts will be fun photo updates from my birthday weekend... in September. Better late than never, right?)

I finally got to go on my first CA sight-seeing adventure the weekend that T was in town for my birthday! I definitely do think that the entirety of where I live is absolutely gorgeous, thus I hadn't noticed that I had not left it during the first three weeks that I was here. Hence it was unexpectedly really fun and exciting to get out and drive up the peninsula. The first part of our adventure involved driving across the Big Bridge on our way up to a national park (that'll be post 2 of 3), which was SO COOL. Not only was it featured in the opening credits of Full House, but it also used to be the world's longest and tallest suspension bridge. Plus you can see practically the best view possible of downtown from there.

Here's the view from the car as we were driving up to the bridge (T was great and drove so that I could take pictures and look all around!). Sadly there was a big bug smeared on my windshield, which kind of hurt the pictures, but here it is anyway.

The view looking up as we were driving under the first pillar going north.

And while the view to the right back at the city was amazing while we were driving across, all the security bars (that keep you from falling off the bridge from the sidewalk) got in the way of my pictures! I couldn't get a picture of the city through the bars but I did manage to get one of The Rock:

Once we crossed the bridge, the scenery was beautiful. Ever since moving here, I'm continually amazed at how amazingly gorgeous the natural beauty of California is. Seriously.

When it was time to drive south across the Big Bridge, I finally got that picture of downtown that I couldn't get before.

(I still might like the Big City skyline better...)

I also managed to get the picture below, which is probably my favorite of all the Big Bridge ones! Granted, all of the pictures were from a moving car. I definitely want to go back sometime soon and actually walk across the bridge (or at least halfway and back) and hike around in the hills on both sides of the bridge in the parks. Anyone want to come visit and go with me?

Freeeeeeeeedommm!

That's right. I was Bravehart for the "Revolution" party (if you remember, the theme was "dress to represent freedom"). I even had a sword! I had a blast putting together my costume with some plaid Walmart fabric and blue face paint. I was joined at the party by E supporting the women's working revolution, shark J, Besty Ross-inspired flag R and many, many more incredible costumes, especially M dressed up to look like Willie Nelson.

*In case you're curious about the shark costume and how it represents freedom, please watch the clip below. The shark costume (sewn by E) represents J's freedom to be obsessed with the movie "Eagle VS Shark." (Well, and sharks in general.) Please watch the trailer... it looks hysterical!




And... drumroll please.... the highlight of the evening was most definitely getting the first ever triple-Jennifer picture! Here we are in all of our freedom-ified splendor:

Hopefully we'll get another three-way Jennifer picture sometime soon when I don't have a blue face...

Thoughts on life in the CA.

That's right. The CA. As in "the 5" or "the 101" or "the..." (insert any highway or interstate number here); that's apparently how we roll out here.

Maybe that's why the tv show was called "The OC" !!

Random, interesting (to me, at least) things have happened here recently.

First, I finally broke down and canceled my Verizon cell phone. I figure since no one's accidentally called it in the last week or so other than my dad (please change your speed dial!), everyone got the memo that I got a new number. I am now officially an AT&T-only cell phone user. The whole 2-cell phone thing was wearing -- I'm not sure how Spencer does it (The Hills, anyone?)

Second, I saw a car with a license plate that was only 6 numbers higher than mine!! For those of you who don't live in the CA or know its license plate scheme, it's 7 characters in a number-three letter-three number pattern. They assign them as sequentially as possible, although since they hand you the plates while you're at the DMV, they can't be exactly sequential down to the second you applied for CA plates. Anyway, I saw a car that had the EXACT SAME license plate number as mine, plus 6. I don't know why that was so fascinating to me, other than that it meant that person was probably at the same DMV as me on the same day.... but it was really exciting at the time. (Heck, I still think it's kind of cool.)

Third, the weather here has been absolutely crummy lately! I mean, one day, it looked like this outside while I was biking to work...

... and it stayed like that for a whole HOUR, misting on me! I mean, seriously... isn't life in the CA supposed to be ALL sunshine and palm trees? That being said, it legitimately is cooler here than I thought it would be. I got a Stanford hooded sweatshirt right when I got here, thinking I wouldn't wear until November at least -- I've worn it approximately every other day since I've been here.

Fourth, I've switched almost exclusively to gChat and away from IM. gChat is like IM but feels significantly more "grown-up" to me than the IM that I associate so clearly with my first year of college when you would hear the dings of messages being sent back and forth as you walked down the hall to the bathroom. gChat. Just do it.

Last, I'm going to a party on Saturday night where the suggested/required attire is "Dress to represent Freedom." Any suggestions?

Happy birthday to me! (~2 weeks ago)

(In the continuing spirit of catching you up with my life.)

My birthday was 16 days ago, and it was an eventful day! I passed my Big School Quals that morning, and then T came into town that afternoon for the weekend. It was definitely one of my favorite birthdays thus far. Here's a picture of us from the weekend:

Did you notice my necklace? It's new! It was my birthday present from T, and I love it! I think I've worn it every one of these past 16 days. Seriously. In case you can't see it very well, here's a close-up picture from the website.


It was made by a friend who has a jewelry-making business. In case you're in the mood for some pretty jewelry (or just "window" shopping), check out her site! Everything there is gorgeous.

Quick update.

1. Sorry if my "Unpacking/Unpacked" posts below are kind of confusing. I'm about a month behind in posting pictures and things like that, which I could've explained more clearly. Hence, yes, my roommate is here (and has been for almost a month), and she's great. Several other belated posts with pictures from my birthday weekend will be coming soon.
2. While I definitely think that my scratchy throat this morning was due in part to my fan being on "high" last night, it came back later this afternoon along with a feeling that I might be getting sick. Awesome. Time to mainline some OJ.

When will I learn?

Living in a new place means figuring out all the little things.

Like what level (low/medium/high) to put the fan on at night. I don't have A/C, so all of my cooling comes from outside. Interestingly, there's also less humidity here than there was in the Big City, and I've learned that if my fan is on too high, I wake up completely dry, with a sore, scratchy throat. Thus I've been playing around with my fan levels to see if I can find the level that gives me good noise (there's also a picnic area right outside my open window where people tend to congregate) but that doesn't dry me out.

I realized last week that the "low" setting of the fan was perfect. The outside noise was drowned out, and I then wake up refreshed but not dry.

However, ever since realizing this, I continue to accidentally put my fan on "high" about every third or fourth night. Like last night. And then I wake up dry and with a scratchy, painful throat. I know it'll go away during the day... but still, when will I learn?

Unpacked!

Alright... I'm back.

Believe it or not, I did manage to get all of the boxes from the previous post completely unpacked and put away by the end of the day on that Sunday. It was no small feat, and I took these "victory" pictures once I was done. Imagine that you're standing in the middle of living room and rotating counter-clockwise.... and this is what you'd see:

Look at my comfy chair and how well my pillows match the provided couch:

I also managed to find a temporary home for my window:

Our kitchen doesn't have nearly enough cabinets, so I had to be creative about dish storage:

And look! This is the same kitchen as before, believe it or not:

I also got my bedroom completely unpacked:

It feels a little bit ridiculous that I brought my big dresser with me, but I managed to fit it into my room...

And that concludes your final tour of Jennifer's Brand New, Teeny-Tiny apartment. I hope that you enjoyed your visit and that you are amazed at my incredible, rapid, mad unpacking skillz.

Hahaha.

Just kidding!

Overall, I'm just really, really happy that everything managed to fit into the place. There's still some creative organizing that needs to be done to figure out how to make the most of every single spare square inch we have, but we're working on it. Oh, and I still have one last box of random stuff from my hall closet in the Big City that I still need to unpack. Maybe this weekend?

Happy Thursday to all.

Unpacking!

As promised, I'm finally posting pictures of the last few weeks here in California! I figured the best place to start would be the crazy, hyper-speed process of unpacking. My roommate "moved" in on Sept 7th (a Friday), but thankfully she just picked up her keys that day and wasn't actually moving in until the following Monday. As Murphy's Law predicted, my stuff didn't arrive until the very last day of my promised delivery range -- Saturday, Sept 8th. I had forgotten the following truth until they started lugging my stuff up to my 3rd floor apartment:

I have a ton of crap.

Not that I mean any disrespect to any of my stuff, because it's all nice and perfect for me... but I have a lot of it. It didn't seem like a lot in my old apartment in the Big City because I had cleaned out almost half of it and had twice as much room. But once all the boxes were moved in, I could barely move around to get stuff unpacked!

See here's the living room:

... and the view into the kitchen:

Yes, it was a little bit (um, ok, LOT) out of control. I agree. And if you're wondering what this space looked like with nothing in it, please see this post for pictures.

I also used the then-empty 2nd bedroom to stage all of the boxes filled with stuff for my bedroom and the various 57 boxes filled with books while I unpacked/organized them:

I'm not sure if you can tell, but those boxes are easily neck-high on me. Seriously.

After a late delivery on that Saturday (the movers left at 4pm, and I hadn't had lunch yet that day), I did actually manage to get some stuff unpacked Saturday night with a lot of help from a new friend from church. By the end of the night, my kitchen was at least "unpacked":


Curious as to how I managed to fit everything into the apartment? Especially considering how everything needed to be unpacked before my roommate showed up on Monday?

To be continued....

Please stay tuned for the next installment of this crazy life.

With hope.

There's a beautiful, emotion-filled, poignant Steven Curtis Chapman song called "With Hope" that was written with the intention of comforting several families his local community who lost children all around the same time. This song is all that I can think of when thinking about the strong, courageous, raw faith of the Farley family who just lost sweet baby Copeland.

In their latest post, Boothe and Conor graciously shared not only the letter to Copeland that they read at her memorial, but also the video below that includes a song written by a family friend the same night that Copeland became whole in heaven. Watch it. It's beautiful.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy 26th birthday to T!

If only all days involved endings like this...

... but at least you get to start all of your days with this!

Hope your day is amazing.