Yard Sale

This past weekend Rene's mom had a yard sale to get rid of a few things. She was mostly selling old clothes, Vivi's old baby furniture, and odds n' ends collecting dust in the garage. Intrigued, we came over bearing items we were no longer using (and also taking up valuable space in our condo).

We should've showcased our goods earlier in the day because there was more traffic. By the time we got there it was close to 11 a.m. and beginning to get hot. I did manage to sell a pair of jeans, a bra, a laptop bag, a pair of shoes, and two sheets for a baby mattress. I made $11 - woo hoo!

I gained a lot of satisfaction from having people buy things I no longer needed, and for a $1 per item I was practically giving it away anyway. The money was an added bonus. I will definitely participate in future yard sales.

J Crew Eat Your Heart Out

In honor of the new J. Crew fall catalog that I got in the mail yesterday, Chuy and I decided to have a little photo shoot to show off his preppy side. I think Chuy needs to have his own line of preppy dog clothes - J. Dog perhaps?

Lemme See Your Grillz

You wanna see my what?!

Yes friends I got my bottom grillz - aka braces - this afternoon.

About six months ago I got braces for my top row of teeth and was under the assumption that the bottom braces weren't coming on. After all, my top teeth are so big that they dwarf the bottom row when I smile. Turns out I was wrong! My orthodontist promised me great teeth, and that applies to the whole mouth. Check out the results!

I actually had braces from ages 10 to 12. My teeth were worse back then, with some facing each other and some in odd angles - it was not pretty! The braces worked wonders and I was very grateful to get them off my mouth after years of suffering. Maybe I was too grateful, to the point where I rarely wore my positioners (a plastic mold of your teeth when they are perfect that you bite into for an hour a day - yeck) and even lost them after we moved to LA in 1992. Needless to say, teeth continuously shift and late last year I made the decision to have my teeth straightened - AGAIN. I've made a promise to myself that I will wear those retainers until the end of my days.

Over the Hump

Today is Wednesday (Hump Day), meaning we have finally reached the middle, nay pinnacle, of the week - yay! In no time at all we will be looking at our favorite day of the week (or at least mine): Friday.

Today is moving along at a glacial pace. I have things to do, and have already done a bit today, but have an itch to go - go home, go walk my dog, go for a hike, go to Timbuktu - infinite possibilities, none of which I can explore at the moment. I wish I'd won the lottery already (lottery gods, can you hear me?!); it would make this blog waaay more interesting. I can already imagine myself posting entries from all over the world: from a sun-soaked beach in the Carribean, from a chateau atop the Swiss Alps, from a dive boat in the Great Barrier Reef. There are too many cool places to visit in the world!

There's No Heat Like Desert Heat

Like every other place in the southwestern US, Phoenix was very hot this past weekend. How hot, you ask - according to weather.com, it was 100 degrees farenheit (38 degrees celsius) with a severe weather alert for the area. In reality it felt more like 120 in the sun and 100 in the shade.

Despite the heat we soldiered on and visited the Desert Botanical Garden and Hole in the Rock (part of Papago Park) on Saturday. There were no other people at the botanical garden, and very few at Hole in the Rock on account of the heat. We must've taken a break in the shade every five minutes to keep from melting. We also wore sunblock (except for Rene), hats, and drank water whenever we could. All this made the day a bit more bearable but we explored that garden with the speed of a snail. We.were.so.slow!

At the garden we saw ocotillos, palo verde, and tons of cactuses thriving in the desert heat. My favorite was the palo verde, with its green trunk and delicate green leaves. It is amazing to me how such a beautiful tree can thrive in such a harsh environment.

I also liked the prickly pear cactuses, if only because I had eaten prickly pear fruit in the past. However, I discovered during my trip that the prickly pear sold at the supermarket is NOT the same kind that they grow at the botanical garden. I swiped one that looked ripe and found that a) prickly pear have tiny spikes that embed themselves in your skin and are hard to take out and b) it tastes like a watery plant despite the promising purple color. It wasn't an altogether bad taste but the little spikes in my hand reminded me never to try it again. The fruit sold at the market is sweet and contains no spikes, thank goodness.

After our visit to the botanical garden, we made our way to Hole in the Rock. A hole in this rock formation was used by the local Indians to distinguish between the seasons in the year. It was not a very big rock, and only took a few minutes to climb. The rock had a great view of the city and airport. The rock was also a great place to take pictures with my mom and sister.

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped at a dinosaur park in Cabazon, CA near the outlets. There are only two dinosaur models that make up the park: a brontosaurus, which houses the gift shop in its belly, and the T-Rex, which houses the museum. We only visited the gift shop since the museum cost $2 to enter; with such a small facility to house the museum (aka T-Rex butt and tummy) I doubt there was much to see anyway.

Chuy's Haircut, Take Two

Today Chuy went to see his groomer, Merri, for the second time in two days to fix his haircut. What do you think of the results? This haircut reminds you of:

a) a little lamb
b) a little lion
c) something that used to be furry

I think he looks like a little lamb on account of his soft fur. Who knew Chuy was so little underneath all that fur?

Santa Barbara

Last Sunday Rene and I made our way over to Santa Barbara with plans to see the botanical gardens and to hang out at the beach.

To our surprise it only took about an hour to get there and the weather was beautiful – sunny but not hot and humid. On our way to the botanical garden we passed this beautiful old church, which ended up being Mission Santa Barbara. I remember learning about the California missions in third grade and can even recall the sad excuse I turned in for the project – a 3D map of California. Well, it was either my 3D map of California made out of play-doh and painted with watercolors or a 3D model of my favorite mission, Mission San Carlos, with was next to impossible. I ended up getting a “C” on this project for effort and feeling disappointed with my grade. I felt that I deserved a “B” because it took more effort than the results showed, oh well.

Seeing this beautiful church so soon after my trip to Italy only deepened my appreciation for it. Despite being a simple, humble church (and I only say this in comparison to St. Peter’s Basilica) it is beautifully maintained with an adjacent park and rose garden. Unfortunately it was too late in the day to organize a tour of the church so Rene and I didn’t have a chance to visit the chapel and took pictures of the exterior instead and visited the rose garden. My favorite variety is called “peace” and it is light yellow mixed with pink and lavender at the edges. It smells heavenly. We promised ourselves to visit again with our families. Next stop: the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.

The Santa Barbara botanical garden was established in 1926 (the same year our tour guide, Will Brown, was born) by Anna Dorinda Blakesly Bliss as a memorial to her father. The garden is entirely composed of native California plants and also serves as an educational facility and nursery. Rene and I saw a few plants “engineered” by the garden’s horticulturists and got to hear about how plants are brought from the wild to the nursery. Apparently, you can’t just uproot a native plant and stick it in your garden due to ecological and botanical reasons, so it is best to purchase native California plants from the nursery. The plants from the nursery are supposedly hardier and are bred to withstand elements they don’t experience in their natural environment. The Santa Barbara Botanical Garden has also re-introduced certain plants back to their native areas. It’s funny how we take it for granted the wild things that grow in California and never think about how they affect our environment. I also never noticed how beautiful some species are – for example, the live-forevers. Yes, that is the real name, and my favorite variety is the Santa Barbara live-forevers.

After touring the garden, Rene and I stopped by the nursery to add some more native plants to our collection. We ended up buying four plants, two for our collection and two for my Mom.

After visiting the mission and the garden, we made our way to the outlets and visited a few stores. Thankfully, the roads were clear by this time and we made it home safe and sound.