Progress

Our living room three weeks ago.

Our living room one hour ago.

 For the amount of time and effort we have been spending to get our home in order (every second of the last three weekends), it sure doesn't look like we've accomplished much of anything.  We've been here for one month, and it's still a disaster zone. At least we got internet/cable connection today. But alas, no television yet to enjoy half of those benefits.

Our living room after I cleaned it (aka pushed all the boxes to one side).

We're having our very first visitors this weekend. Our friends Brad and Holly are in town, and they are staying with us for two nights. Don't worry, we picked up an  air mattress so they don't have to sleep on the floor (or in a box).

I made these to distract them from the fact that there is no place for them to sit.

Oh, wait! There is one place.

No kitchen table, no TV, no dressers to put away our clothes or anything like that. Just some outdoor furniture. Yeah, we've got our priorities in place.

Green House

No more Flamingo, we're changing the name of our apartment to the GREEN HOUSE.

Room 1: Green!

Room 2: Greener!

Room 3: Greenest!

Room 4: BLUE!

After we painted our bedroom, Dan goes, "Not sure how I feel about the blue. Kind of wish it were green." We did not paint our bathroom, which is cream.

Coming from white-walled, no-paint-allowed apartments in New York City, having color on the walls is something new to me, and I am so in love.

The past two days, I have been visiting all the rooms in my house and basking in their prettiness. I remember when I was little my grandmother and mother used to do the same thing anytime they painted, bought new furniture or changed a room around. It always seemed so silly to me at the time, but now I completely understand.

I am so grateful for the help of my in-laws Susan and Henry who came down from Visalia for the weekend to help us paint, build some Ikea furniture, scrub the kitchen floor and treat us amazing dinners along the way. 

It was a lot of work, but it was all worth it! Our apartment feels more like a home. Now, we just have to get some furniture!

(Sorry for the crummy iPhone pics! It doesn't do the paint justice! You'll just have to come visit and see!)

LA Notes

Rain Days

The weather here is always the same. About 70 degrees and sunny. But once in a while, you get something called “rain.” There is a lot of anguish about this rain. People are like, “oh, it’s going to rain tomorrow” and they say it in a gloomy voice.

What ends up happening, from my three months here, is that it rains for about an hour overnight, and by the time you are ready to start your day, the sun comes out and then it is like every other day. Only the city seems crisper and prettier because the rain has washed the smog away.

Since I have been here, there has only been one legitimate rain day where it actually rained all day.

Weather Woes

The girls at my office are freaking out today because it is 60 degrees (cold) and windy outside. “I am NOT going out there,” one announced. Guys, I promise you. It’s going to be okay.

This is my office building in bad weather. It is cold, windy and rainy today.

Sunglasses

The sun is stronger and brighter here. I used to wear sunglasses only in the summer (when I remembered) and now it’s everyday.

Clothes

People don’t dress up to go to work. All the girls in my office wear jeans and blouses. One day, I actually saw someone in a sweatshirt. This is odd for me. I worked in women’s magazines for the last 10 years. I am used to work being a fashion show. Now I am the one who is the most dressed up.

Where I come from, there are winter clothes and summer clothes. Here, my winter clothes are too heavy and my summer clothes too light. The temperature fluctuates during the day so it’s cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon and cold at night. Layers are key. I am not good at layers.

When it is very sunny, I feel like an oddball wearing black. BLACK. My basic color. But when is it appropriate to wear white? Memorial Day to Labor Day seems limiting since it’s always so warm here, but pulling out a white “summer” dress seems strange in April, too. Then again, you see people walking around in wool gloves and scarves when it is a "freezing" 60-degrees out.

Work

I work on the 21^st Floor and can see the city of Los Angeles from my desk. You don’t need to get too high for a good view of this town.

View from the office

Easter

We spent Easter in Visalia, my first time.

Believe it or not, but not everyone eats Polish Ham at Easter time. We had American Ham.

We had a pretty good meal though – scalloped potatoes, asparagus, pasta, and other things, plus a strawberry tart. That means the ratio was that there was one dessert selection for everyone, not one dessert selection per person. Everyone was happy and it all turned out fine. (Mom, take note).

New Apartment

We’re getting situated in the new place. Every day we're pinching ourselves that we live in such a lovely neighborhood. We have no furniture to unpack our things, so we have been living out of boxes and shopping a lot. I haven’t cooked a meal yet, and the meals we do eat, we enjoy sitting on beach chairs. With no internet or TV, we end up going to bed early because we have no other way to occupy our time.

Paint the Town Green

This weekend, Dan’s parents are coming down to LA to help us paint. After years living with New York City white walls, we’re looking to add some colors….er….color to our lives. It seems like we want to paint nearly every room a shade of green. I am nervous that this is a bad decision, but Dan says, what difference does it make if all the walls are all white or all green?  

Final paint selections happen on Friday. We'll let you know how it goes.

The Flamingo

This weekend, we move.

SIGH. OF. RELIEF.

I am beyond thrilled. 

I feel like the past three months have been this fake life where I wear sweatpants everyday, eat junk food, gain 10 pounds (no joke), stare at the computer screen and wait for my life to start, in this strange alien place where it's 70 degrees outside and it's sunny everyday and it's winter or spring or whatever -- it all looks and feels the same.

It's starting this weekend, people! We stopped by the apartment the other day because our new mattress was being delivered, so here is a sneak peak of the new place.

We live in a pink triplex. I have decided right this second to call it The Flamingo. (Subject to Dan's approval). Our place is in the back, up the stairs. 

You walk into our living room. Dan may be in shadows here, but the room gets a ton of bright natural light, thanks to two windows.

Our kitchen has all new appliances, including my very first garbage disposer. (This may be funny to West Coasters, but I used one for the first time maybe a week ago at Ara's house. Dan totally yelled at me because I forgot to turn the water on. I didn't know! They are not so common where I come from.) Our kitchen is big enough to hold a dining table to seat four.

We're planning to use our spare bedroom as an office/library. But it also has its own closet and plenty of storage space.

This photo is not so convincing but our bathroom is actually white. It's small (about the same size as our New York bathroom), but the tub, sink and toilet all look new(ish).

We have a huge bedroom. This has never happened to us before, so we're not sure what to do with the all this space! Isn't our mattress pretty?

Our favorite part? The bedroom opens up to the pink balcony, which will be home to our grill, small table and two chairs and plants -- oh and our washer and dryer. It's out there, which is sort of weird, but hello, we have a washer and dryer! We are planning to cover it up when it's not in use.

Soon enough, this place will be filled with boxes, and I imagine we will be living in a messy state of chaos for the next few weeks (months?).

But at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, yeah, and I happen to start my new job on Monday. So I have some stuff going on. FINALLY! I've rested enough. Bring it on.

The DOM turns ONE

Last weekend, we went to Visalia for Dominic's first birthday party. Seems like just yesterday this little guy was born.

He's one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. He is always walking running around with a smile on his face!

Do you know what game Henry and Dan are playing? 

The theme of the party was construction. It was such a cute idea. The kids got plastic construction hats and tool belts to wear and tools to play with. We had build-your-own sandwiches and (my favorite) build-your-own cupcakes. I built three. And what is a party without a pinata. Here, Dominic with the help of mom Monica takes the first shot.

 I love the anticipation!

Michela gave it a shot, but she was sad that she couldn't break it. The honor went to the "big" girl in the green dress. (Meanwhile, Michela is pretty scared of Dan and me, and so she didn't really talk to us during the party. More like, she ran in the opposite direction anytime we looked anywhere in her direction. But the next day, we all became friends when we played bubbles together.)

SCORE!

My favorite part! The cake!

Tia (Kathy) and Tio (Jim) got Dominic the best gift of all. They gave him a yellow toy truck and concrete mixer that has been played with by all of the men in the family -- including Dan! Here they are admiring it, and remembering all the good times.

We'll be back in two weeks for Easter!

Good News

This is the week where things are finally coming together.

1. I got a job working as a senior copywriter at a start-up weight loss company. In my new role, I will working on rebranding the entire company -- the web site, all promotional materials, packaging, all of it. It sounds like an interesting project, and the people were super cool. This is my first full-time job in four years. We get half-day Fridays so hopefully that should ease my way back to working five days a week again. I start the first week of April. So happy for the security and routine that will soon be coming into my life.

2. Our move is scheduled for March 31. (That's right, moving and starting a new job in the same week -- shouldn't be too stressful, right?) We will be hiring movers to take our fifty-or-so boxes from storage (aka Ara's parents house) to our new place in Santa Monica. We have no furniture, so last week we went out and purchased the most important items for our home: a bed and shelves to store the vinyl.

3. We booked a vacation! Dan is taking a looooong business trip to London in May. We decided to take advantage of having one airfare already paid for, so I will be joining him for the tail end of his trip to make a week-long vacation during our anniversary. (We're both taking some vacation days so he won't be working the whole time). I studied abroad in London in 2000 and haven't been back since. This will be Dan's first time. I am super excited to head back to Europe (it's been too long!) I can't wait to show Dan my old haunts and introduce him to HobNob cookie rolls. Dan wants to visit the Downton Abbey home, but it looks like it's not open the week we're there. I am sure we'll find some other way to occupy ourselves. Let me know if you think there's anything we should put on our must-see list.

4. I am calling 2012 the year of the baby. Everyone I know is expecting. Our dear friends Nell and Adam welcomed Theo on St Patrick's Day, and Josie and Scott from Visalia had Luke, their second, on 3/20. Congrats.

That's it for now!

La Nueva Casa

And so it appears that our days living as gypsies is about to come to an end. We have found a new home.

Photo from Westside Rentals

Our apartment is located in Santa Monica, which for those of you who don’t know, is awesome. It’s kind of what you imagine all of Los Angeles should look like -- with palm tree-lined streets, cute shops and a beachy vibe. Everyone here appears to be in a constant state of shopping, surfing, jogging or bike riding. Yes, people are actually functioning outside of their cars, which is rare in these parts. Our place is about a half mile walk to Main Street, which is filled with plenty of boutiques, restaurants and coffee shops, and a block from that--the beach. That means the ocean is closer to us than Central Park was to our old NY apartment. Plus, everyone tells us that the temperature here is about 15 degrees cooler than the rest of Los Angeles, which makes for breezy, comfortable weather, year-round. I think I am going to like it here.

The apartment is small for California living--about 900 square feet--but will probably suit our New York City standards just fine. It has a sunny living room area, two bedrooms, one bath, a balcony, a washer/dryer in the unit and a kitchen with all new appliances--a huge upgrade from our old place back east and we’re spending $200 less per month than we did there.

Picking this apartment was not easy, as we found another great place on the very same day and couldn’t decide which one was better. The other place was much bigger and spacious. With two floors, it felt more like a real home. Not to mention it was even CLOSER to the Main Street/beach action. But it was at the top of our budget, a little dark, lacked the washer/dryer in the apartment and the outdoor space was a bit useless, and so we opted for the smaller, more affordable one.

Dan’s work is about 5 miles away, so hopefully it will take him less than 30 minutes to get there (we pray!), and I am now only looking for work on LA’s west side so I have a comparable commute.

There is still a little part of me that is disappointed we’re living in such a generic apartment that has none of the charm of the quaint Spanish style cottage with garden I was imagining before we moved here. Those apartments don’t exist on this side of town, or at least, not in our budget.  (It also didn’t help on the day we were making our decision that we visited a friend’s new apartment in Los Feliz that was pretty much EXACTLY what I was imagining for us--with a much bigger price tag, I do admit. Plus living in that part of town, it would take Dan over an hour to get to work each day).

However, I can’t deny the appeal of our location. Even driving around Santa Monica while looking at apartments, I immediately felt invigorated and revived, and I can’t wait to explore everything. I already know that I will be going to the beach at least once a week, walking to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings, riding my bike to the library and shops and running along the beach. I am going to sign up for a plot in the community garden so one day I can grow my own vegetables. (There is a waiting list that might take years, but maybe we’ll get used to this California lifestyle). I’ve already started dreaming about our home decor. I have named myself creative director of the project. Dan is finance manager. I am thinking a palette of ocean-like colors of turquoise, greens, tans, white...and of course, some yellow.

I am just not sure how often any of our friends -- most who live all the way across town -- will come visit us. But I imagine we’ll find something here by the ocean to entertain ourselves. And maybe our east coast friends will stop by for a visit (hint, hint).
 
We move April 1st.