Vegas!

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas! Vegas is one of my favorite cities; I have a ton of great memories of going there with my family while I was growing up. I’ve probably been there more times before I turned 21 than after! Of course, going to Vegas as an under-21 is quite different than going as an over-21!

My boyfriend and I made the 5-hour drive on Friday. We checked into our hotel room at the Luxor (a hotel that I’d always wanted to stay at but never had) and then walked around the area for a while. I seem to recall that those foot-long maragaritas had been popular a few years ago; you’d always see people walking around holding enormous plastic things in various shapes filled with margarita (actually, having gotten one of those myself during a previous trip, I’m not entirely convinced that it’s real margarita... maybe just the mix. It wasn’t so great.). This trip, however, I noticed that jello shots were much more prevalent! Every corner seemed to have a table or booth selling little shots of vodka, rum, or tequila jello for a dollar or two. Needless to say, we sampled quite a few jello shots during our stay there.

On Saturday, we went to the Bellagio to see the Cirque du Soleil show, O. It was pretty awesome! There were so many amazing acrobatic stunts, and the entire stage area, which could change from solid floor to water rapidly, was beautiful. I’m a teeny bit afraid of water (with the whole drowning potential and such), so seeing the performers underwater so much was truly impressive.

For one of our meals, we ate at the Burger Bar at the Mandalay Bay. I had this amazing candy cane martini, because I love peppermint. It even came with a candy cane garnish!

We had a champagne brunch buffet downtown at the Paradise Garden Buffet at the Fremont Hotel and Casino. I love a breakfast buffet because I love breakfast food, and unlimited amounts of it is the perfect amount. There was almost limitless champagne, which was also pretty great. Tiny little glasses, but it was never less than half full thanks to roaming waiters with bottles of champagne. We had planned to do the zipline across Fremont Street, but after all that food, it seemed like a less than ideal situation.

On the drive back to LA, we encountered snow!! Not a lot of it, and not pretty fluffy snow, but even slush on the side of the road is more than I've seen in many years!

Reusable

I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m turning into my mother. Growing up, my mom always saved EVERYTHING. I have memories of having to open my birthday presents ever so carefully so that she could save and reuse the wrapping paper! This is evidently a hereditary thing, because I can also remember my grandmother washing and reusing plastic bags and tin foil.

Which brings it around to me... I recently found myself looking at a lightly used plastic bag and thinking, “I could totally reuse this.” And I did! And I’ve done it many, many times since then. Other things I save for reuse are tissue paper (for gifts, just like my mom!), gift bags, grocery bags, loose screws and nails. And why?! It’s not like any of these things are terribly expensive and can’t be replaced! And I find it slightly odd that I will be frugal in this area, and yet splurge on a pair of heels. Maybe that’s why I do it - to have a few extra dollars to pay for those shoes!!

Simon's Cat

Simon's Cat

Simon’s Cat is the cutest cat since Garfield. This animated fluffball gets into a bunch of trouble, and then innocently says “Meow” with his cute big eyes wide.

Making Soap

For my job, I sometimes have to plan events. Not big ones, just little things to invite a handful of clients to and give them a good time. Last week, we had one at the Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica, a really cute craft store that offers a bunch of different crafting classes. The one I planned for our clients was the glycerin soap making class. We didn’t make the mix from scratch, rather, we used a hot glycerin mix and then personalized the soaps we made using different shaped molds, colors, scents, and mixed in elements like oatmeal! It was a lot of fun choosing from all the details to make your own special soaps. I must have made around a dozen soaps in all different shapes, colors and scents!

I think everyone had a good time. We also served food and drinks, and of course, everyone was able to take home the soaps they had made! The Urban Craft Center was so great. I’m looking forward to taking some of their other classes on my own sometime.

Fruit Ninja

10 Real Life Lessons of Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja is one of my favorite game apps! This article about the 10 real life lessons that you can learn from it is surprisingly insightful. My favorite is number 5: that which is critical is often random, referring to the fruit that you slice that turn out to be worth more than the others. It comes out of nowhere, looks like all the others, yet gives you 5 times the point of any other fruit.

Lord of the Rings marathon

Over the weekend, I attended a Lord of the Rings marathon at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. They screened all three movies (the extended versions!) from 6pm to 1am. LOTR is one of my favorite movies (well, trilogy of movies) of all time. I could watch them over and over again and never tire of it. You’d think it would be difficult to sit through so many movies all in a row, but to me, they are so enjoyable that it was very easy. We made sure to get good seats: up in the balcony, right next to the ledge - plenty of leg room as well as a place to put your feet up. We also brought snacks, energy drinks, and plenty of water - essential to being able to stay energized and awake til the very end! They gave us 20 minute breaks between films, which was just enough time to go to local convenience stores and restaurants to get something to eat quickly and stretch your legs.

The movies just flew by, to me. I never once felt bored or antsy. In my opinion, it’s because the movies are just that good - so engaging and beautiful that, despite the fact I could probably recite dialogue along with the characters, I still enjoyed the experience of seeing it yet again. An added bonus was that I never actually saw the first two in theaters, so it was great to be able to see them up on the big screen.

Frenemies

Frenemies are usually a bad thing, but I've found the exception: The Frenemy. This chick is my new lady crush. I am ridiculously envious of her hilarious and unique writing style. It's like she takes my inner monologue and makes it more funny and less pathetic. She makes me believe that I'm not alone in this weird subset of modern 20-somethings: we are not teenagers anymore, but we're not married olds with kids. We're somewhere in between and we are confused, malcontent and a little bit drunk. I LOL at every post and usually save them so I can quote them to friends later on.

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

For Thanksgiving, I went down to Murietta, where my culinary school trained cousin cooked a very yummy turkey. Ramona and I did some Black Friday shopping, beginning Thursday night. Toys R Us opened at 10pm, so we got there a little after 10, only to find that the line to get in stretched waaaaay across the parking lot. We stood in line for about an hour (in the freezing cold, with Ramona wearing a t-shirt with flip flops), and barely moved forward at all, since they were only letting a few people in at a time. We decided to give up and head over to the 24-hour Walmart, whose deals started at midnight and at 5am. The main things we were looking for there were DVDs. They had all the stands shrink-wrapped, so that they couldn't be accessed until they cut them open at midnight. People were literally draped over the stands, and once they were opened, starting grabbing handfuls of DVDs and throwing them on top. It was kind of a madhouse.