Hahahahhahahahahah...

I love that my new apartment is "donut-shaped"... I walk to another room when Lulu's kind of watching and when she gets up to follow me, I sneak behind her the other way and surprise her!

I'm not sure she's enjoying this as much as I am.

Weekend Recap: Memorial Day Holiday!

Yay for long weekends! This one felt extra-long since I had a half day on Friday and also it was my first real weekend without moving tasks so it was nice to relax and enjoy the new neighborhood.

Friday
On Friday I left work at 1:30, yay half day! It was super-trafficky coming home though. I was struck with hunger pains and stopped by Taco Bell on the way home. They discontinued the Beefy Cheesy Melt, so sad. :( After getting home we ran errands and ended our day of shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond where I exchanged my handheld Dyson for a full-sized one:



I've had the handheld for months and months but I was sneaky and saved the box. We were able to return it for full credit without a receipt (even though we used a 20% off coupon to buy it) as long as we did an immediate exchange. We ended up going with the Dyson slim which was $70 off for the Memorial Day Weekend AND we got an additional 20% off with the coupon. Good deal.

We vacuumed our bedroom carpet + area rug for the first time and it picked up 2 canisters full of new carpet fuzz. The dyson is ridiculous. :)

After enjoying my new vacuum, Vina came over and we headed to CCC for a chicken dinner. Then we went home and watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets on the AppleTV, since the cable guy isn't coming until Saturday. I love these historical/conspiracy theory movies and books.

Saturday
On Saturday morning, we woke up to the cable guy coming in early to install our cable and cable internet. Finally, some live TV! I was kind of excited because this is the first time we've had HD service -- we didn't have HD with Dish Network before. We had some bagels and eggs while waiting for the cable guy to finish up. After he was done, we realized we needed a wireless router! What the? I haven't bought (or even thought) about wireless routers in years it seems. So off we were to Best Buy.



I really wanted to get the Apple Airport Extreme but with moving costs as high as they came out to be, the additional $100 for something Apple branded just didn't make sense. Instead we bought this Linksys router which was on sale for $79. It sucks and it's not as pretty as the Apple. Boo.

Since we were in Westwood, we picked up Mongolian BBQ on the way home -- when was the last time you had THAT! :) I have to say, they changed the bowls to smaller bowls or something because I was not able to get as much meat/noodles as I used to.

We came home to find Vina napping on the couch, which I'm guessing will be a regular occurrence now that she has keys to our place, and she joined us for dinner. After watching some TV, I had the unnatural urge for Boba (seems to have replaced my Pinkberry cravings) so we went to Volcano Tea. Also stopped by Happy Six which made me realize I think I want a Tokidoki Fanny Pack to go bicycling with. :)

Sunday
Our first day of cycling -- and a full one! We headed out to Cafe Montana in Santa Monica for Brunch. We took Montana Ave all the way down which had a pretty spacious bike lane so it wasn't so scary. It took me a while to adjust to "cycling" like a car yet handling the bike like a cyclist. At first I was stopping at every intersection until I realized I had to kind of go along with traffic so that meant full stops at stop signs and going straight through green lights. Scary!



So after an eggs benedict, we decided to be brave and continue out west... to the beach. The plan was to check out Adidas/REI while at 3rd street and come back home. The ride wasn't bad. We walked our bike across intersections that were too busy and made it there with a lot of energy to spare. Since we were so close to the beach, we decided to bike up and down the bike path to Venice.

After coming up from Venice, that's when the fatigue started to hit. My legs were burning, I was out of breath, and the thought of going uphill to get home was unbearable. We took it slow and finally got home. By the time we were back on Montana Ave, we were taking breaks every other block so that I could catch my breath!

I collapsed into a nap at home and didn't even have the energy to shower until 2 hours later. We wrapped the day up with dinner at Chabuya. (We drove there, didn't bike!) I didn't realize it then, but I saw Vina every day of the weekend so far!

Monday
On Monday we had lunch with some of my co-workers at Happy Family in San Gabriel. One of our beloved QA folks is leaving this week for Chicago so we treated him out to some vegetarian Chinese food, since he's always eating so healthily.



After lunch I showed them the ways of us Chinese folks and took them to feast on Beard Papa's cream puffs. I think everyone was in a food coma by the time we departed.

When we got home, Vina and Yusuke came over to go biking in Santa Monica. Learning our lesson, this time Steve and I drove our bikes over. :) Vina and Yusuke rented a tandem bike and we went up and down the bike path as far south as Venice. It got really, really chilly so we headed back after about 2-2.5 hours of riding. Their total came out to about $10!

After cycling we went home for a couple of rounds of Mario Kart. Vina kicked all of our butts whenever she used the old controller. Then to satisfy her craving for crab, we ate dinner at Hop Woo -- the closest "authentic" Chinese restaurant on the west side.

Vina: I want crab.
Yusuke: Well, what else do you feel like for dinner?
Vina: Nothing else. I only want crab.

The DVR List

Ah, it's time to get over the losses of the Fall TV season (Big Shots, Cashmere Mafia) and start planning the new DVR. I have switched over to TimeWarner cable and will have a bigger variety of channels as well as HD for certain channels.

Here is my current list for the DVR:

24

America's Best Dance Crew

American Idol

The Big Bang Theory

Bones

CSI

Desperate Housewives

Dog Whisperer

Gossip Girl

Grey's Anatomy

How I Met Your Mother

Law & Order: SVU

Lipstick Jungle

Numb3rs

The Office

So You Think You Can Dance

Seems sparse, what am I missing???

Amateur.

We biked to dinner last night! Went down to the Pho place on Wilshire. It would have been a quick ride down Bundy/Wilshire but those streets are so busy we took the looong way wrapping around Montana Ave, Westgate, Granville, then walking our bikes on Wilshire. Heehee.

I think we both probably look pretty silly with our bikes. We're in full gear with helmets, riding very wobbly and for me, mostly on the sidewalk. Whenever a car passes me, I pull to the side to let them pass. :)

Anyways it was a nice ride down. With gas prices at $4.55, I think we'll bike to dinner as often as we can!

After dinner we took a break from dinner and enjoyed the fruits of stealing the neighbor's wi-fi and watched a bunch of shows I downloaded.

And now, a slightly more livable apartment.

Still unpacking in the living room. This is what it looks like as you're walking out of the apartment/facing the door. Yay for plants to liven up a room! The walls are actually beige so our white furniture/decorations are contrasted against it.


My bookcase even after donating about 50 books.


Yup, that is Spiderman taking a cue from Totoro and hiding from the sun under a leaf.


Sitting on the couch, facing the TV area. Lazy dogs. My "Dr. Seuss" pen on the fireplace.


Our little "office" area. I'm planning on putting the iMac on the blue table and the printer on the white stool next to it. The chair is the same one from the old place, I just put a white canvas cover on it. (On sale at Ikea for $7)


Behind the office area is our bike rack. We didn't want to put the bikes outside so instead it hangs from the wall as "art in motion".


Our dining table is actually too long for this space, but it doesn't look half bad pressed against the wall. We may end up keeping it.


The bedroom is cool and collected. We had to buy a new wardrobe (back right corner) to attempt fitting in our clothes. Even after throwing out 5 trashbags worth of clothes, I fill up a full closet.


Lulu's favorite spot, the cool marble in the bathroom. She lays in the dark all day and all night. Too bad that entire floor will be covered with a floor mat soon.

New Apartment!

Here are some pictures of the new apartment, before I moved in!


Tree-lined street in the quieter parts of Brentwood. The blue awning makes it easy for guests to find the apartment. As long as they know what an "awning" is.


I don't really like that the awning says "Luxury Apartment" on it for two reasons - it's missing the "s" and also it's not accurate since this is the least luxurious building on the street. I do like the little fenced off area near the entrace since there is a bench off to the side and me and the dogs can sit there and watch the street.


This is our garage space, we have the empty spot to the right. Everyone in the garage has a VW -- Jettas and Bugs galore. The parking space is not gated though... they had a problem with someone locking themselves in the gate with no cell phone or garage opener so now they leave all the pink gates open.


The magic door to Unit #2


The entrance goes straight into the kitchen. Kind of awkward at first but you get used to it after a while.


This is the living room, facing the door. There are skylights all over the apartment so it's really bright.


This is the other side of the living room, a little greenroom/nook that we are going to use to set up the "office".


Next to the green room is a small dining room.


Everything wraps back around to the kitchen.


Pretty excited about the fridge... ice-maker!


This is the bedroom... the carpet is actually beige not pink. The bedroom has skylights too -- so it's bright in the morning. It's very long and narrow and has only ONE closet. For the ENTIRE apartment! :(


Very pink bathroom with granite counters and marble floor/walls. The weird thing is that it's mirrored all around so that's kind of a weird effect while you're in the shower. =/


Yay toilet and sink.

Bad Tofu!

Stress ><

I stayed home from work today to sleep. I slept for 12 hours. I am so physically and mentally exhausted from moving it's killing me. And making me lose weight. :)

Well, I would say we are 85% done so we're almost there!! I just have to make it through 2 days of work (it's been pretty stressful at work too -- enough for my jaw problems to come back) and then we have a looong weekend including a half-day on Friday and a day off on Memorial Day, yay!

Last Friday we stayed up to get the house as ready as possible for the movers. We didn't get to finish packing as much stuff as we wanted since we didn't have enough boxes but we got to a good start. The movers came on Saturday morning at 8:45AM. They moved for about 6 hours straight while Steve and I did some last minute packing and started moving smaller boxes, stuff we wanted to take over ourselves. The movers also lent us some wardrobe boxes so a lot of our time was spent packing those up and unpacking them at the new place.

After a long (hot!) day of moving and monitoring things coming in and out of the truck, we tried to clean up the new place as much as possible to make it liveable. I think the dogs were confused because both apartments were such a mess. They were still really anxious about the new place and felt more comfortable at the old place even though it was empty. We dropped the dogs off at Roxbury (since they were too barky at the new place) and went to Ikea. We bought a wardrobe, computer desk, hall closet and a shoe storage system. It was 110 degrees in the valley and by the time we carried everything out and packed the car, it was pretty late in the afternoon. Then we went home and Yusuke and Vina came over to help make some of the furniture.

That evening Steve built the bed (not an easy feat, that thing is huge and heavy!) and I went back to the old place to do some laundry, bring some more stuff over and bring over the sheets.

On Sunday we continued on with furniture making and I started unpacking. Then we went to Target to buy some stuff like contact paper for the kitchen and some screws/tools we were missing. I've forgotten how complicated and difficult Ikea furniture can be. Mark my words this is definitely the last time I'm buying Ikea furniture. I also put new contact paper on all of the kitchen shelves/drawers which took a good 2 hours.

Yesterday I left work early to go home and check on Lulu. She has been barking so much at the new place that we had to get her a static collar. :( I was scared leaving her alone at home for the first time wearing the collar so I came back around 2. So I worked from home for a few hours, then when Steve came home we finished building the rest of the Ikea furniture.

We took a break around 8pm when Elaine came over to practice some Wii bowling. We ate some Ralph's chicken (been eating Ralph's chicken all weekend!) and she left around 10pm. Since the wardrobe in the room was finally built, I unpacked the rest of my clothes, jeans and bags and started putting them away. I can't believe how much clothes I still have, even after putting 5 TRASH BAGS aside to sell/donate to Goodwill. Steve went to Roxbury to pick up our bikes and then we brought them up to the new place. We finally went to sleep around 3AM.

Ahh, I guess it's no wonder I woke up today with extreme exhaustion. I slept til about 2PM. Tofu kept trying to wake me up to play but Lulu and I ignored her. At about 2:30 I was feeling very awake and energized and decided to take the dogs for a walk around the corner to get something to eat. Not the best idea. The dogs were so excited and pulled the leash so much it took what energy I had left to control them. When I went home, I took another nap.

Now it's almost 6PM and I'm preparing myself for another round of moving. When Steve gets back we're going to eat at Soup Plantation (just 1 block away!) and then going to Roxbury for another round to pick up all of our kitchen stuff. It's been so hard living half and half like this... my clothes are here but my makeup is there. Our dishes are here but our silverware is there. Our TV is here but our computers are there.

I really, really, really can't wait until we're done moving! I swear after this we are moving into a permanent house and never moving again. Takes way too much energy when you have this much furniture -- I don't know how Mommy did it when we were growing up! We used to move so often.

Oh and I took some pictures, just gotta go to the old place and find my camera cable so I can start uploading them. :)

A New Obsession

I'm a biker (cycler?) now! Or at least I will be tomorrow, when we pick up our new bikes! After days of research and going back and forth from Cynergy Cycles, Helen Cycle's and Performance Bike, we finally chose our bikes and bought them!

The bike obsession first started with beach cruisers. Last summer we went to Santa Monica Beach and rented cruisers for a couple of hours and rode down to Venice. We thought it would have been awesome if we had cruisers and could do this whenever we wanted. We could just get a bike rack on my SUV and drive down to the beach to cruise. I was especially enamored by the Hello Kitty one below. Beach Cruisers are about $300-$350 so we had to do some careful thinking.



Turns out bike racks are not for beach cruisers, but for "real" bikes. So we started looking around at real bikes. I found one I liked at Helen's Cycles that was on sale for $370 from $470 because it was last year's model. Who knew bikes were like cars! It was by Trek and a specialized "women's" bike because it had a low... forget what it's called but basically you can step over it easily to get on. It has 21-gears and a suspension fork for a smoother ride. Well, of course I didn't pay too much attention to that -- for me it had to be the right color combination. :P



But anyways, it turns out that bike did not have the conventional frame either and could not be stored or transported on a bike rack.

I went to Cynergy Cycles in Santa Monica and fell in love with the Specialized bikes, especially the white Vita bike with stenciled butterflies on them. Okay, enough of the girly stuff, this was a more serious bike, made for commuting longer rides in the city. If I'm going to be biking from Brentwood to Santa Monica, then possibly down to Venice Beach for Omelets, I'm going to need a smooth, comfortable ride. I really liked the ride on the Vita Sport, but it didn't come in white. And in either case, they ran out of the Small, which was my size.



But since I wasn't willing to wait 10 business days for them to order/build my bike, I settled on the men's version of the same bike, the Sirrus. The frame is not specialized for women but at this size, it still fit me pretty well. The ride was very smooth, and this one came with carbon fiber forks for a smoother ride. (Super bike talk right there) Anyways it's a sleek bike and handles really well. They are adding a kick stand and a rear tray (I need to strap down my purse somewhere) and it'll be ready to pick up tomorrow. It's a $830 bike but with my smooth talking I talked them down to $710. Actually, that was a combination of the "two-bike" discount and they also had the price on the tag wrong so had to honor the old price. Steve got the exact same bike in silver.



I can't wait to ride my new bike around our new neighborhood! Yipee!

Some extra details:
Ergonomic Fitness/Commute
FIT MEETS FAST Every Sirrus® offers the speed and agility of a road racing bike, paired with enhanced ergonomics and the control of a flat handlebar. A simple, light and worry-free choice for anything from fitness-based training to commuting and event rides.

Inside Tech
The front end of our Sirrus models has "user-friendly" written all over it: flat handlebars give you more control and easy maneuverability, wide-range gearing ensures confidence in varied terrain, BG Comfort grips reduce hand numbness and a proprietary FACT carbon fork with vibration-damping Zertz™ inserts smoothes out your ride.

Technical Specifications
FRAME Specialized A1 Premium Aluminum, fully manipulated tubing, compact design, FACT carbon seatstays w/ Zertz inserts
REAR SHOCK N/A
FORK Specialized FACT carbon, bonded carbon legs, Zertz inserts, fender mounts
HEADSET Specialized Mindset, 1 1/8" integrated threadless, sealed bearings, alloy 40mm cone
STEM Specialized 3D forged 6061 alloy, 31.8mm bar clamp
HANDLEBARS Specialized Event, A1 Premium Aluminum alloy, 580mm width, 31.8mm
TAPE/GRIPS Body Geometry Comfort II, triple density gel, alloy lock-on feature
FRONT BRAKE Cold-Forged 6061 alloy, 85mm linear pull w/ cartridge pads
REAR BRAKE Cold-Forged 6061 alloy, 85mm linear pull w/ cartridge pads
BRAKE LEVERS Shimano EF-50, EZ Fire, integrated w/ shift lever
FRONT DERAILLEUR Shimano T301, 31.8 clamp, bottom pull
REAR DERAILLEUR Shimano Sora, long cage
SHIFT LEVERS Shimano EF-50, EZ Fire
CASSETTE FREEWHEEL Shimano HG-50, 8-speed 12-25t
CHAIN KMC Z-51, 8-speed
CRANKSET Sugino XD, five arm, polished arms w/ chainguard
CHAINRINGS 48x38x28T
BOTTOM BRACKET Sport cartridge, square taper, 68 x 113mm
PEDALS Composite body, alloy cage w/ toe clips and straps
RIMS Alex S500, 700c, alloy double wall, machined sidewalls
FRONT HUB Specialized forged alloy, 32 hole, double sealed bearings, QR
REAR HUB Specialized forged alloy, 32 hole, double sealed bearings, QR
SPOKES Stainless 14g
FRONT TIRE Specialized All Condition, 700x28c, wire bead, 60TPI w/ Flak Jacket
REAR TIRE Specialized All Condition, 700x28c, wire bead, 60TPI w/ Flak Jacket
TUBES Specialized standard presta tube
SADDLE Specialized Sonoma, 155mm width
SEAT POST Forged alloy, 27.2mm
SEAT BINDER Specialized CNC, alloy, 31.8mm clamp
NOTES Chain stay protector, chain catcher, clips and straps, derailleur hanger, clear coat, owners manual

Busy, busy.

What a long, frustrating week. I had the worst work episodes and am so exhausted from it all. It's finally the weekend!

I watched Iron Man last night, it was pretty darn good. I had absolutely no history on Iron Man and knew nothing about him (obviously not the case for Steve) so I was delightfully surprised that a great storyline coupled with (somewhat) believable technology was executed in a light and sometimes humorous manner.

I am just trying to kill time to leave at 6pm, since people tend to swing by my cube and call me with questions if I leave a minute earlier. I am off to Brentwood tonight to sign our new lease and take pictures and measurements of the apartment. Since we get our keys today, we can start furnishing (new stuff, anyway) this weekend and will start majorly packing up our old place.

I think I'll be overwhelmed soon with moving, just kind of the calm before the storm now. I mean I have to go through and cancel my dish tv, internet, phone and electicity service and start all of the above at the new place. I have to change my addresses at all of my financial accounts and update everyone and their mothers with my new address and phone number if we decide to hook that up. We'll have to start introducing the dogs to the area/apartment so they don't get traumatized by an immediate move.

I'll have to update things like my Menu folder with new takeout/deliver menus for that area. We're going to have to buy a vacuum since the bedroom is carpet and scope out other new furniture like a dining room table and a shoe rack.

Yeah, busy weekend ahead.

Planting Around

Ah, everyone knows I'm always a sucker for a new hobby. Maybe I invite all of this drama and complication into my life on my own because I'm restless or a "monkey" as my mom puts it. Well... last week I got really into buying a new bicycle to ride around my new neighborhood, but I sensibly put that aside until we secured an apartment.

This decision was not as smart.



Steve has always wanted to buy more plants to accompany his lonely money tree, but I always warn him that plants always seem to die around me. Well, last weekend at Ikea we decided to get a few anyway because there were some really cute plants and pots and such. Now we have the grand task of transferring all of these heavy plants to the new apartment. =/

My favorite of the group is the little elephant topiary -- although it doesn't look much like an elephant yet. We spent our Sunday night repotting the plants... okay actually I spent my Sunday night watching Steve repot all the plants. Did you know you're supposed to fertilize house plants every 2-3 months, which essentially requires repotting and replacing the soil in the plant? I did not know that. In fact, that is probably why all of my past plants have died.

FAIL.

Remember the bright idea of getting a second puppy so that Lulu will have someone to play with during the day while we're at work instead of sitting around waiting by the door waiting for us to come home?

FAIL.

We found a place!

*Cross Fingers*
*Don't Jinx*

We found a 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment in Brentwood. It's not in that busy part of Brentwood where parking is impossible... it's actually on the other side of Bundy, right next to the country club I used to run around in the mornings!

It's a quiet apartment complex and there are two units available. They're both 1b/1ba and have the same overall size but have just enough trade-offs where we're not sure which one to take:

$1750: First floor -- easier to take the dogs out. Lots of closet space (should be enough for our stuff) + balcony. However, the entire unit is carpeted. (Bad for doggie tummy-aches) Also, our white furniture won't look as cute against carpet as it does against wood.

$1850: 2nd floor, hardwood floor, no balcony but bigger living room (to put our computer desk) but NO closet space. There is literally one sliding-door closet in the entire apartment. (Bad for Sheena's wardrobe)

The layout is a little odd, you walk straight into the kitchen and the bedroom/bathroom is on the left, and the living room is on the right. I -AM- excited about getting a gas stove again and there is a small fireplace.

Decisions, decisions... we need to decide by this evening!

Sample photos of the $1850 one: