Burning the Candle at Both Ends

One thing about my husband going out of state for a while is that I always do this.  I love keeping my own schedule, eating and sleeping when I WANT TO – not when I HAVE TO.  What a difference that makes.  Unbelievably, I usually get a lot accomplished too although many times I wish I had more time.  I don’t think I’ve crawled in bed before 3 AM the whole time he’s been gone.  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s almost finishing something and having to stop to go to bed.  That drives me crazy, so I’ll stay up the extra hour or half hour to get finished and then go to bed when it’s up to me.

Rotisserie chicken on a bed of spinach with tomatoes, green onions, carrots, celery, cranberries and toasted almonds - Yum!

I’ve been craving salads since I’m only making dinner for myself.  The salad I had the other night was so yummy and fit for a king.  I had to take a picture of it.  Usually on an ordinary day I find myself fixing two different meals (or I should say side dishes) because my husband isn’t as fond of veggies as I am.  In fact, he downright hates veggies and accuses me of making his salads too big.  In my book – he needs something green and nutritious.  How can people survive without that?

In addition, I can eat this salad at 9 PM, 10, or 11.  There’s no one here to tell me not to and to keep me on track of a “normal” person’s schedule.  And a salad, or any other meal, wouldn’t be as nice without my glass of chardonnay to top off the day after the blasted heat and slaving away on my projects.

 Chardonnay

I’m trying to make headway of organizing for the move and also taking advantage of the schedule I set out for myself daily.  Wouldn’t you do the same thing?  I really wish this situation would last ten weeks instead of ten days.  But I guess I’ll need to be saved from myself after ten days.  After all, how long can you survive on three hours of sleep a night?

A winter getaway to southern California was perfect

Clip Art - I couldn't resist posting this because palm trees are EVERYWHERE!

Okay, I know there are different places all over this country that some people prefer over other places, for whatever reason.  That’s great because as humans we’re all different and that makes life so much more interesting.

But tell me where you can get 78-80 degree temperatures with the doors open in January, unless it’s maybe Hawaii?  I love this place.

I lived in southern California for twenty-five years before moving to the desert nine-and-a-half years ago.  It’s such a nice place that I wonder why I ever moved, even though I know the answer to that.  There’s a lot of traffic there and lots of illegal’s, as well as other facts, things like higher expenses for about everything.  Nevertheless, it will always be one of my favorite places.  I would still be living there now probably if it weren’t for my husband’s pushing to move.

Naturally, this trip came at the perfect time because it’s been so cold here.  We’ve been setting records.  I was more than ready to get away to that California sunshine.  Don’t get me wrong because it is sunny much of the time here, just way too cold.

 The famous Beverly Hills sign.  This has been here forever.

We visited friends in Beverly Hills first.  It was fun to see the old Beverly Hills sign again.  It brought back old memories from my first time there when I was sixteen.  My grandmother lived there at the time.  I swore to myself back then that I was moving to California one day and I eventually did many years later, via a detour of two other states first.

The Hollywood sign was too far away to capture with my camera, but it was there on the hill gleaming white in the sun.

I did capture this Christmas decoration on Wilshire Blvd.

 Mall we visited on Santa Monica Blvd.  They had trees and flowers spread out everywhere.

 

 This is a shot of the mall from the second floor.  They had coffee shops and lots of outdoor seating areas with fire pits.

Our next stop was north San Diego County where we used to live.  We stayed with a friend there and visited other friends the rest of the trip.  Of course, we had to drive by the old neighborhoods and hangouts too.  Some things have changed, but many are the same.

 This is the new hospital from my friend's house.

I was able to get a few pics from the hill our friend lives on.  She has a view of the big new hospital they’ve built and the surrounding hills.  And of course, we loved her adorable animals, a dog and three cats.  We felt right at home and all the cats eventually warmed up to us.  The little one was very friendly and played his heart out until he would collapse on the floor to catch his breath.  He’s only eight-months-old and a male Ragdoll.  We wanted to smuggle him home, ha!

This is Fiero, the Ragdoll kitten

 This is Domani (it means tomorrow in Italian)

 This is Garage Key - a rescued stray

This is Bubba

Naturally, we ate Mexican food and let our hair down drinking wine while watching football playoffs.  But that was a lot better than politics that’s usually always on at my house.  The wine drinking ended up in my friend breaking her toe on a chair leg one night.  It was no big deal to her.  She told us it’s happened before.  Ouch!  I’m not sure how she got up early to attend a seminar the entire next day.  Once home, she went out to water plants on the hill behind her house afterwards, and then we went to eat out.  Her toe was black and blue, but she said she was okay.  I guess she’s stronger than I am.

We had so much fun laughing and talking.  I hated to see the trip end.  I also didn’t get to see all my friends this time, so I phoned them instead.  I promised my husband I wouldn’t write the schedule as tight as I did when we visited there last May.  I wore him out running around.  However, he’s usually ready to quit by nine PM and I’m the night owl.

This is me and my friend, Kara.  We met for breakfast.

This is Scott - my husband's old business partner

 Of course, we looked at property in different places and saw some open houses to get an idea if moving back there is even in our price range anymore.

The worst part of the whole trip was the six-and-a-half hours through miles and miles of desert.  That’s not to say the white-knuckle time driving through LA isn’t nerve racking and a close second.  But it keeps you on your toes.  When the scenery is boring, that’s when I tend to fall asleep.  There’s nothing to see but sand, Joshua trees, and sagebrush.  If we do move that way again, my husband is not crazy about me driving because when we were moving here, I ran over curbs and off the road and didn’t even know it.  I guess we’ll have to stop more often for coffee next time.

This is what much of the six-and-a-half-hour drive looks like.

The next trip will be to Texas to check that out.  It’s not as if I don’t know what that’s like, but he wants to be at least an hour from my family because all of us talk too much.  We’ll need to check prices there on many things and see how affordable that is.  I’m not sure yet when this trip will happen.  Actually the sooner the better because it makes me anxious not knowing where we’re going and what size house we’ll end up in.  That might make getting rid of things easier.

So at the moment that’s our two options, southern California or south Texas.