Evan's Homemade Halloween Costume 2008

My sister always does an awesome job with Evan's costumes... I think this year was mainly handled by my brother-in-law, who did a great job! My sister is a hard act to follow after the first homemade costume in 2006 and 2007. After those gems, I waited with baited breath to see what Evan would be for Halloween this year....

And the verdict was...

A sad, sad mime...

I can safely say that I handed out candy to 1,000 children on Halloween night and did not see a single kid dressed up as a mime... My nephew is unique and I love him!

Personal Assistant

I've been contemplating the idea of hiring a personal assistant for a while. I even kinda softa offered the job to my former co-worker, but that didn't really work out. I've been really busy with work and as a result, some of my personal matters have just fallen by the wayside.

A couple weeks ago, I bit the bullet and put an ad on Craigslist for a personal assistant. I didn't want to pay a ton, so I put an ad out to pay $10 an hour thinking that I might get a few responses. Imagine my surprise when I received a dozen replies in less than eight hours, from people as far away as Culver City and Northridge! I turned those people down immediately just because it doesn't make sense that someone would drive 30-45 minutes to make $10 an hour for a few hours.

When I saw that someone applied and they lived right around the corner from me, I called her immediately and scheduled an interview. She came over, was fabulous and I hired her on the spot! I had her file all my bills that have been piled up for the last six months, call the vet to make an appointment for Evie, make a few phone calls that I'd been putting off to insurance companies and had her drive with me over to the body shop to take my car.

When we were at the body shop, I asked her if I could move some stuff from my car to her car because I thought I'd be leaving my car there so they could fix it.

When I moved a big bag of games I had in my car from the games day the past weekend, she asked if I liked board games and I said, "Yes!"

She said, "I have some friends who are really into that too..."
I said, "Oh really? Who are they? Maybe I know them..."
and then she said, "Do you know Lincoln & Nikki?"

I said, "Seriously!?!?!" I guess that's my one-in-a-million for this quarter... Turns out she worked with Nikki for two years at the hellhole company and she's still friends with them!

Her name is Danielle and she's working out great. I think the next project I have for her is to rearrange my game closet! It needs it!

White Water Rafting Update

I never gave a recap of the white water rafting... In one very short sentence: It was awesome! It was freezing cold, but awesome.

Saturday was Bridge Day, which happens every third Saturday in October and it's the only day that base jumping is legal in the US. We rafted down the New River and that was OK, not too exciting. However it was great to watch people jump off a bridge over a gorge that's 876 ft above the river and freefall or flip and then toss their parachute into the air. It only takes eight seconds from bridge to river, so they don't even bother packing the chute because there just isn't enough time for it to deploy!!

Sunday was the best. There are two entries in the book "1,000 places to see before you die" for West Virginia and I've now hit one of them. We did the Gauley Marathon, which is the entire Gauley River - covering 23 miles and eight class five rapids. It's impossible to describe, but I'm hoping to get a picture posted soon. I haven't developed my film yet. On the way down to the river, the guides kept saying, "Be nice to us! Today's the last day of the season, so just remember.... we can't get fired!!!" And then the bus erupted into laughter! There was a lot of rubber cock talk going around too because one of the guides carries around a rubber chicken to be his boat mascot. It was hilarious!

I should add that when we woke up on Sunday, it was 30 degrees and we had to melt the ice off of our windshield. Yes, COLD. FREAKIN' COLD. Here's what I was wearing... under my wetsuit!!!
I know it's hard to tell, but I'm wearing TWO layers of long underwear, topped with a SmartWool sweater, wool socks and later, a cap under my helmet! Did I mention it was chilly? On top of all that, I put a farmer John wetsuit and a neoprene jacket & booties. Brrrrrr!

Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
With our river guide for the Gauley Marathon.... Leif!
And with our crazy, enthusiastic kayak-happy videographer... John Petro

BTW - I'd highly recommend our rafting company... If you're looking to do some beautiful white water rafting in West Virginia, call Ace Rafting. They were fabulous! All the guides were cool and had a lot of experience. When they sent me the online survey, I was only too happy to fill it out with glowing reviews. I'm not sure if it was that OR the tip that prompted this note from our guide...

I was completely surprised that he wrote that note and touched. I had a great time hanging out with him all day and you could tell that he had a great heart.

I hope some of the pictures I took on the Lower Gauley turn out well because I took pictures of the fall foilage. It was gorgeous!! I've never seen anything like it!

Boyfriend Update

Greg came out to visit last month and we had a good visit... Much too short, but fun. We've both been really busy over the last month, so since that visit, we haven't been talking as much as we were a couple months ago. In theory, he'll be finished with one major obligation after this weekend and that should free up his weekend time quite a bit, at least compared to the last month!

Maybe then we'll be able to talk about something other than how tired we are and how busy we are! We still have our book of questions to go through and I feel like there's much more to learn about each other. It's as if this last month of dating doesn't even really count because it seems like we've talked SO little. Ah, well... He told me more than once while visiting that he's working on changing his schedule so he won't be so busy and he'll have more time to spend with me and I believe him, otherwise, we wouldn't still be dating.

I'm currently planning to go see him for Thanksgiving... I'll be heading there straight from BGG.CON. Once I come back from that, I'm not sure when I'll see him again. There's been talk of me going to see him for Christmas, but since we've hardly been talking, I want to see how everything is going before & after Thanksgiving before buying a ticket for Christmas.

We have very different communication needs. I could talk to him pretty much every day, even multiple times a day (which I know is probably overkill and not for everyone), while I think he could get by with a couple times a week. He's been making an effort to call more often, which I really appreciate because it says to me "I want to make you happy," a message I am glad he's sending. As a result, I've been patient about these last few insanely crazy weeks. Which I've taken as an opportunity to grow because God knows that patience is NOT my strong suit!! But I swear, I'm getting better.

I think the biggest challenge for me is that it's hard for me to feel connected to someone with whom I have very little contact (without having a pre-established super-strong connection like I do with some of my friends who I don't talk to for years at a time and then we do and it's just on...). So, an unfortunate side effect of all this non-contact over the last month has me feeling less connected to him now than I did when we first started dating. Not exactly the trend I want to see in my relationship, you know? It feels like we're going the wrong way. However, I'm doubt he feels that way, based on our very different communication needs. I've been trying to be optimistic about the future though and I hope that we can continue to tweak this so that we're both happy with how much communication we have. We were doing better before the last few weeks when he's been super-busy.

I'm very happy that we have a "date" scheduled for this Thursday night! I'll have him all to myself and get to talk to him about everything I've been saving up over the last week. He is a wonderful person and I love and admire many, many things about him. I want to feel a stronger connection to him, so I hope that once things settle down, we can get back to talking more often and hopefully, growing our relationship. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

My Poor Car...

Greg came to visit the second weekend of October and while he was here, we went to see Davebo's son in a play out in Thousand Oaks. When we were done, I asked Greg what he'd like to do and he said, "Let's go to the beach!" Well, he didn't have to suggest that to me twice! I love the beach and have been out of town so much, I haven't really had the opportunity to take advantage of the beautiful natural wonder that is the Pacific Ocean.

So, we headed down the 101 freeway and exited on 23 and headed south going through the canyon. We were meandering, taking our time because we had about an hour or so to go before the sunset and we were enjoying the views. I commented on how the road had a speed limit of 25 because it was so curvy! I think I was even going below 25 as to not make us both car sick!!

As we approached one leftish turn, a car from the opposite direction came screeching over the line and while I swerved to get away from him (but not too much as we are on a frickin' mountain), he hit me. And my poor car. He hit my driver's side back door and quarter panel. This is my poor car...



Last week, my new personal assistant (that deserves a post too) Danielle took me over to a body shop (finally!) to have an estimate done. They estimated it would cost $4,500 to fix, not including any possible suspension damage that there may be.

I got a call this morning from State Farm's Total Loss Unit. Yep, my car is a total loss. We reviewed the condition of my car and she's going to get back to me with updated numbers, but the preliminary numbers are:

If I want to keep the car, they'll cut me a check for $5,244.04. If I want to get rid of the car, they'll cut me a check for $6,599.58. Choices, choices... I think I'll probably keep the car while I figure out if I ultimately want to keep the car. My sister really needs a car, so I could give her the car and let her fix it. She works for a school district and her office is on the same campus as their continuation high school, so they have a body shop on campus and they'd probably fix it for her cheap! Or, I could keep the money and keep the car and just drive it around with a big dent in it.

The real question is, what kind of car would I want to get? I'll probably just stick with that for now while I decide what to do.

So, State Farm called back and the new numbers are:
If I want to keep the car, they'll cut me a check for $6,323.32. If I want to get rid of the car, they'll cut me a check for $7,678.86.

I'm definitely going to keep the car, it's just a matter of what I do after that.

The Financial War Within

I try to be good. Really I do. I want to save money. Heck, I do save money. But I know I could be saving more. Much more. If I was more disciplined... If I didn't travel to see friends... If I didn't have a boyfriend that lived across the country... If I didn't get talked into eating out all the time...

The problem? I haven't been disciplined enough about money. I've been thinking for months that I should make a budget and stick to it so I can save more money than I am now. That's why I'm happy to be focused for November with Ramit's "Save $1,000 in 30 days."

I am going to BGG.CON this month, so what I'm focusing on this week is not going out to eat. I go hiking almost every Tuesday and we usually go out to eat afterwards, so I'll probably do that, but other than that, I'm going to reduce how much I go out to eat. I haven't decided if I should pick a dollar amount to stay under or adjust the frequency? I think I'll aim for less than $40 this week. We'll see if that's doable! I think it should be. I don't have any plans to go out for lunch this week and other than hiking, so far, I don't have any set plans to go out for dinner, but I'm sure something will pop up on Friday or Saturday...

NaBloPoMo 2008?

I will try, but with my schedule lately, I don't know if I can guarantee a post every day, but it's a worthy goal. I've been meaning to post anyway. It should be interesting because I'm also trying to do Ramit's "Save $1,000 in a month" challenge! So, if nothing else, I can post about how that is coming along.

I encourage you all to check out his posts on the topic. If you haven't read his blog, it's definitely one of the more enjoyable personal finance blogs out there. Speaking of, I should probably update my blog roll...

Weather Update from Beckley, WV

While I'm happy to be having the opportunity to go white water rafting for the first time... I didn't count on the high to be 52F and the low to be 31F. At least the high on Sunday's supposed to be a balmy 61F!!

Sheesh! It'll be fun! I'm psyched!

White Water Rafting This Weekend

I've been very neglectful lately on the blogging. It seems I've barely had enough time to sleep lately, much less blog! Hopefully that will change by next week. I'm going on a trip this weekend, but after that, I'll be home for a shocking four weeks in a row! I'm really looking forward to a few weeks without flying off somewhere. It'll give me a chance to start thinking about Christmas! I feel like Christmas is right around the corner. Where did this year go?!

I'm a bit nervous (and excited) about my next trip. I'm heading out to West Virginia this weekend to do some very chilly, white water rafting. I've never gone rafting before, but it's something I've always been interested in doing. Whenever I've imagined it, I've pictured myself in my bikini, drinking beers on a toasty day on the river. I certainly didn't imagine wearing wool long underwear to keep warm because the water is in the 40s! My friend who went last year said she had a great time, so I'm keeping focused on that! I am already anticipating the sheer exhaustion that will undoubtedly come along with class four and five rivers. I'm just glad I'll have a helmet and a personal flotation device. My goal is to survive!

And as a related side note... On Monday, I made my first trip ev-er to REI. That place is a money pit. I bought some SmartWool long underwear and a sweater. The sweater retailed for $140!!! But it's super-cute and I can wear it hiking on Tuesdays and I love it. They gave me a coupon for 20% off, but even with that, I spent more on clothes than I did for the actual rafting trip. On the plus side, I'm stocked up on all the winter clothes I'll probably ever need for the rest of my life!


Quick update: Here's a video they sent out that shows (in warmer weather!) where I'll be this weekend. Also, I forgot to mention that this weekend is Bridge Day and there will be base jumpers hopping off local bridge that crosses the gorge. We'll get to watch from the water below!



More blogging to come next week... I'm sure there will be a boyfriend update in there somewhere! Until then...

City Race LA

I'm getting excited about City Race LA!! It's this Saturday and I'm signed up to run around with Chia, Travis and Ron! I have no idea if we'll win, but I'm ready to have some fun! I'll have a full report this weekend! I'm a little concerned because it's taking place in downtown LA and I'm not quite familiar with the area...

According to the website, we'll get a packet of clues that range from very easy to very difficult, along with a list of scavenger hunt items. The team that finishes in the three hour time frame with the highest score wins!