Sunday, September 23, 2012

Dan's 33rd Birthday


So it is that time of year again in the Team Squeen household...birthday season

Dan woke up to some fresh and tasty old-fashioned donuts at his bedside. In case that wasn't enough birthday sweets, I made him some brownies to take with him to work. In the UK, you are supposed to bring in treats to the office when it's your birthday. Dan insisted his be of the homemade variety. His coworkers said he was lucky to have such a nice wife :) 

Dan spent his birthday at a baseball game with some friends on Friday night which he said was loads of fun. On Saturday, I cooked him up a lasagna dinner and gave him his present: a gift certificate for bass lessons. In the next few weeks, I am expecting a little less air guitar and a little more real guitar in this house.

The Dan celebration continues next week. Yeah, this guy is also getting a birthday party. He is awfully lucky, isn't he?

(Oh yes! Everyday Ham looks different! I am playing around with a new look and feel. I expect I will be switching it up a bit until I find a design I like. Don't mind me.)

Monday, September 17, 2012

I did it!



This weekend, I did a two-day Photoshop class for bloggers called Blogshop. It is run by two girls including one of my favorite bloggers, Bri Emery, who writes DesignLoveFest

I have been wanting to do this class for like two years now (these girls travel all over the world doing these things). My blog looks like it's straight out of 2007 and definitely needs help.

In a cool white studio filled with super chic women, I drank a mimosa and learned all kinds of Photoshop tricks and techniques like making a banner, creating a mood board, softening wrinkles, and all those kinds of things bloggers should know about. We got a goody bag filled with cute cards from minted.com, fake tattoos, a striped iPhone case, a jewelry tray and bkr water bottles. Plus, we got to meet Joy Cho, blogger extraordinaire, who just wrote a book on the subject. (We got one of those, too). She was very pretty.

With this animated gif I created all by myself (which doesn't seem to work in all browsers), I think I have a real chance to go viral. What this means is that Everyday Ham has almost made the big time. (almost!) It's everything I've always imagined, but more.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Everyday Beach?

Pretty cool coincidence: Our friend Julien's work transferred him out here to Southern California, and now he lives 45 minutes north of us in Malibu. On Saturday, we drove up there for an overnight visit, which was some of the best fun I have had in a long time. Julien is a pretty funny guy, we enjoy his friends and best of all, he lives in a rustic place on top of a hill in the middle of gorgeous nowhere....that just happens to be a 10 minute drive to the beach. It's pretty great.

We spent the day playing on the beach:

 Dan redeems himself by taking a better picture of me.

Ever the modest one, Julien shows off his guns.

We played lots of games including a petanque tournament, which is sort of like bocce. Dan and I came in last, but I was surprisingly good at it. Then Dan and Julien began juggling the heavy balls, and one clonked on Julien's nose, breaking it for the 14th time in his life. He didn't seem all that bothered. That's Julien for you.

We drove up the PCH to this cliff to watch the sunset.

 We couldn't see the sun, but the view was still pretty dope.
Eva and her sister, who was visiting from France. It was pretty cold by that point!

 Julien telling Dan about all the colors in a sunset.
True Malibu love.

We headed back to Julien's pad.  We ate a whole lot of food: a delicious dinner prepared by Hoa and Julien and dessert by moi. We sat under the (many) stars, listened to the crickets and drank wine until we were too tired to keep our eyes open anymore.

 View from Julien's place: the morning after. Yes, that is the ocean over there.

We headed back early the next day because I was hosting Ladies' Club, which is a monthly get-together of the girls in our circle of friends out here. Every month, we have a different activity planned by the host, and being that I am the only one who lives on the west side of town, I planned a beach day. We had a small contingent of us (Suze, Emily, Sandy and June) come down to Santa Monica to eat some Bay Cities Italian sandwiches, dip our toes in the water, suntan and catch up.


 Suze, Sandy and June

This weekend kind of rocked. I mean, I felt like I was on vacation the whole time, but no, this is basically my life now. I can live with that!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Labor Day Weekend


Friday: Kayleen came to town, so we gathered up Valerie, Tim, Julien (who moved to Malibu this summer!), Hoa and Eva for some unlimited garlic knots and ginormous platters of pasta at C+O.

Saturday:

Yvonne: Hey Dan, can you take a picture of me for the blog?
Dan: Sure, I'll take the most unflattering picture of you that's ever existed.
Yvonne: Right on!

We went to our beach for a few hours, and I looked that good.


Sunday: Henry and Susan stopped by our place en route to LAX. They were about to embark on a four week vacation to Italy. (Retirement sure sounds awful.) We show them the Venice boardwalk; in return, Henry hung up our kitchen lamp.


Monday: Dan and I biked from our place to the Ballona Wetlands, one of the top birdwatching joints in town. (Did I tell you I got a bike? I love it!)

Afterwards, we drove to the Valley to celebrate Ara's (belated) birthday with some Mexican food and frozen yogurt.

It's really a shame we had to go back to work on Tuesday.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Yes, THIS happened





And yes, it was magical.

Would you expect anything less from anything that involves eating chicken legs with your hands?

Friday, July 27, 2012

Missing Summer

When we were living in NYC, Dan used to tell me that the weather in Los Angeles was "overrated."

"What are you talking about?" I would say, thinking this was just one of Dan's crazy notions.

People, the weather in Los Angeles is overrated.

It is July, and I am freezing. I am wearing clothes I would normally reserve for wintertime. While most of the country is sweltering in 100-degree heat, it's too cool for school here. Sure, it's nice. Low humidity. Imagine a nice April day in New York City. Pleasant, but you still need a sweater.

While that is awesome in January and February, now in July, I kind of miss real summer. I want to wear tank tops and sundresses. I made watermelon strawberry ice pops this week, but have zero desire to eat them. Don't you love a popsicle when it's scorching hot? Yeah, never gonna happen. (Note: If I chose to live 30 minutes east of where I live now, I would have a different tale to tell.)

I can't tell you how gleeful Dan is that he was right (for once!) He never rubs it in my face though. Come on, do you really believe that?

Despite this, my farmer's tan grows worse and worse. It just happens here. You don't even have to go outside. No amount of SPF lotion can stop it. Women's magazines have brainwashed me about the effects of the sun damage. I have been vigilant about sunscreen for the last decade, but it's no use now. People, I am turning into a giant wrinkle. In my farmer area.

In conclusion of my rant, I would like to discuss the yoga class I went to last week. It was at the famous studio down the street with a BIG DEAL yoga teacher. BIG DEAL meaning I actually own one of her workout DVDs.

I should have known I was in trouble when I asked my neighboring yogi on the mat next to me if she had taken this instructor before.

She answered, "Oh yeah. She is amazing. She's the ultimate goddess."

I kid you not, we spent the first 20 minutes of class playing maracas.

The actual yoga part wasn't so bad. They had live drumming (of course) and the teacher talked about air, water, fire and earth, and the 100 people packed in the room were in a deep trance, sweating buckets. That's when the goddess decided we should work in partners. Does anyone else think that working with a partner in yoga class sounds horrifying? Look at these pictures if you are unsure.

I can't remember exactly what was asked of us, but it was something along the lines of having one person go into crow pose with the other person standing and straddling the person's head so the crow person can better balance and straighten their leg? Something crazy. All I know is that I barely do crow pose and if I did, I wouldn't want some stranger's sweaty thighs helping me do it. When the class was extended from an hour and a half to a two hour class(!), I got out of there. Fast. I got stuff to do. And it's not maraca playing.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

4th of July

On the 4th of July, Dan and I did a morning hike at Temescal Canyon in the Pacific Palisades. It was a varied and hilly trail filled with flowers and greenery and people...lots of people. I am thinking we were not the only ones who came up with the brilliant idea to hike on our day off. Unfortunately, the spectacular views of the ocean were covered by fog...or as people out here call it, "marine layer." Still, the misty canyon tops were pretty in their own right, and we still got a look at some multimillion dollar homes. Pretty cool that this place is only 15 minutes away from our apartment, right?









Afterwards, we went to the Nowak's house for a BBQ. With the help of Chris' famous key lime pie (which lived up to all the hype), we managed to eat back all the calories we burned hiking the trails. The perfect 4th!