“may” i offer you another photo dump?

yup.  another recap of an entire month in one post.  because it’s easier, and because not every little bit needs its own post, and also because why not?

we kicked off the month of may with a quickie weekend getaway for me and the hub.  it was work-related for him, and also marked the first time we left the bean home alone for more than a few hours.  the destination was a familiar one - the lodge at torrey pines in la jolla.  yes, the very place where we had another fun weekend almost 20 years ago…when we got engaged.  awwwww.

because we stalled so much, we didn’t get down there till well after midnight.

to be fair, the rooms aren’t really anything special.  but they’re spacious and comfortable and quiet, and in this case…free.  woohoo!

the next morning, the hub had an early wake-up call for his golf game while i got to sleep in and relax and basically just veg out.  i didn’t even have to leave for food - i ordered room service.

and then later that evening, we got dressed up and joined the work group for dinner.

the next morning, we checked out and headed into solana beach for some brunch.

one weekend, the kids and i headed to the fairplex in pomona for the l.a. county fair.

this year, they had a category in the culinary competitions for “working professionals” which i technically qualified for since i sell my cookies for profit.  but i wasn’t really feeling it, and instead submitted a few of my crocheted creations and a couple of bags for consideration.  i was pretty stoked to find that all four of my pieces won ribbons:

and then even more so to find that the hot dog on a stick kiosks had brought back the deep-fried cream cheese on a stick:

as afternoon turned into evening, it cooled off pretty nicely and i ended up snagging a new sweatshirt from one of the official fair merchandise booths.

as always, the bean hit up cathy’s cookies for a bucket of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

and then we stopped to see the farm animals.  there weren’t as many animals this year, i’m not sure why.

and then we went home to our own animals.  they’re always happy to see us (despite teddy’s side eye in this photo).

we celebrated the old lady’s birthday with the traditional “shitty cake mix” strawberry cake:

and presented her with a super fun gift basket full of a bunch of her favorite things.

on mother’s day, the bean set me up with this sweet snacklebox full of all my favorite sweet and savory treats.

and the hub hooked us up with some delicious steaks on the grill.

the old lady and i hit up the ‘land for a fun morning together:

while i struggled with conflicting feelings on him (and the old lady and the bean refused to go see him with me), i went to see justin timberlake on his current tour with one of my barre besties and her husband (more on that later).

the annual l.a. yarn crawl weekend snuck up on me, and i only had time to visit one shop this year.

the bean and i had heard of this “fried chicken ice cream” months ago, but never could bring ourselves to pull the trigger on it.  being in california, the only way we knew of to get our hands on some was by ordering it from goldbelly - and you would get ten pieces shipped directly to your door packed carefully with dry ice to keep it frozen to the tune of $150.  eek.  and so when i came across an instagram post from yama seafood in san gabriel that said they were going to have it in stock on a limited basis, i decided to make the drive out and grab some.

no, it isn’t actually chicken, or even chicken flavored in any way.  this is made of waffle-flavored ice cream with a chocolate pretzel “bone” in the middle, dipped in caramelized white chocolate and rolled in crunchy cornflakes.  and while that all sounds like a lot - it’s amazing.  i loved every bite of it.

the bean and i headed to the wiltern theater to see the “good mythical morning” tour (more on that later too).

and then to close out the month, as crazy as it sounds…the bean finished their sophomore year of high school.

i cannot believe that my child is now a junior.  like…they’re halfway through high school now.  and we’re looking at SAT prep courses and planning college tours and discussing different majors and omg. i cannot.

three months all in one post

oh hey!  is anyone still here?  i guess i wouldn't blame you if you'd all left me forever.  it HAS been a whole ass month since i posted anything and even worse...i just realized that there was a whole list of like 500 comments that had been sitting in a folder awaiting moderation.  so a couple of years ago, i realized that i was getting a shitton of spam comments (some of which were REALLY inappropriate, yuck) and the only way to keep them from being published was to turn on comment approval.  out of that whole stack of comments, i found maaaaaybe five that were actual comments that i clicked on to publish (and they were mostly super old, so i apologize you if you'd sent one of them!).  the spammers continue to this very day, and so moderation will have to stay on.

i'm going to just recap the rest of the year from the bean's birthday through new year's eve in a quickie photo dump because why not?  and there are a few things that i'd like to go into a little further detail in separate posts, so i'll try my best to get to those soon so that i can be up to speed again and make myself blog more regularly again like in the good old days.  and even if this is just for my own amusement because no one is reading blogs anymore (let alone mine, ha), so be it.

so as soon as the bean's birthday bbq was over - and i mean literally, like an hour later - i headed out to meet up with lilcee and dailygluttony for something fun and silly:  the only los angeles stop on peloton instructor extraordinaire cody rigsby's book tour.  we had a blast and giggled the whole time, and capped it off with delicious korean bbq for dinner afterwards.

the day after that, we headed out to the mall so that the bean could do some birthday gift card shopping.  i was really amused to see a stop at build-a-bear included in the itinerary.

i just barely stopped myself from picking up a harry styles prayer candle.

the sophomore class retreat was a little later this year than last time.  the bean was quite thrilled to find that this year, they'd be in proper cabins instead of having to rough it like when they were freshmen.

and there's also this...lots of driving practice in preparation for testing for their first driver's license.  like much of gen z, the bean is not exactly thrilled to learn to drive but i'm pushing this one because let's face it...we live in southern california.  knowing how to drive is a basic life skill around here.

the eras tour movie was a must for me, lilcee and winnie.  so much so that they made the trek all the way out here to my neck o'the woods, where there were still decent seats available in the local AMC.

whenever there's a fun pop culture-related gimmick out there, you know i'm all in. and i roped in teddy and cocoa too...because they kinda didn't have a choice.

this year's theme for homecoming was "atlantis."  after some debate, the bean and i managed to find the perfect outfit - at kohl's, believe it or not.  i had to do some alterations to the pants, which was terrifying because while i'm a pretty confident sewist that usually applies to creating new items and not fixing existing ones.  anyway, it turned out pretty nicely and the bean was happy with their look once it was all done.

we had tickets to the anaheim stop for the jonas brothers' current tour (simply titled "the tour"), and when they announced a popup merch shop before the show i headed down solo because the old lady had to work and the bean had a commitment at school.

i hadn't realized until the week of the concert that i'd somehow managed to score some pretty amazing seats - right in front of what fans were calling the "b stage."  and so i'll be doing a separate post about the show because we got so many great shots and had such a great time that it just deserves its own recap.

i mean - look at this.  i didn't even have to zoom in for this shot.  amazing.

this was the bean's last-minute halloween costume.  heh.

the city of duarte rededicated one of the parks to my sweet friend tzeitel, so i headed out to be there for the unveiling ceremony.  it was lovely to see the turnout, and i just know she was watching and super stoked over it all.

lilcee and mini cee threw a fun surprise party for mr. lilcee's 50th birthday.

i took my handmade wares to a holiday market, hoping to make some christmas cash.  it was...not great.

the old lady and i attended a super fun charcuterie making class at my barre studio.  an evening of snacks, friends, meat and cheese.  what more could one want?

the old lady got us into a cast member holiday 5K at disneyland - my first race since 2017, and also one of my bucket list items.  only cast members and their friends and family are invited to this event, and it sells out just as quickly as all other rundisney races do.  it was lots of fun, and probably the only time i'll get to do it because the old lady swears she has zero interest in doing it again.  

i got to take a quick walk down memory lane one saturday morning as the bean practiced for a performance with their dance team.  the venue was adjacent to my old high school, and while they perfected their routine i slipped away to walk through the campus and do a little reminiscing.  i hadn't set foot on campus in thirty years, and while a lot has changed most of it was still the same and it was really fun to see all of the spots where i used to hang out with my friends.  and this is where i got to be a cheerleader - at least for a few months.

speaking of dance, i finally managed to get the bean into a class at the famous millennium dance complex in studio city.  my friend amber has been dancing here for awhile, and so it was really fun to see her and have the bean try out a class (they were awesome, and so now it's a regular part of our week).

i'm a terrible dancer and so didn't join in, but i was starstruck by the lineup of autographed photos that were hanging on the walls.  i mean...britney! n*sync! selena gomez! and...joe jonas!

while the hub fed the lonely masses at the lounge on thanksgiving, the old lady had to work and the old man headed off to his mom's, the bean and i headed out for sushi.

we did get together the day after to share a thanksgiving meal, and then that weekend hosted a friendsgiving gathering with some old pals.

we welcomed another member to the 50's club:

and celebrated wan-niversary #18.

the SFAMily revived an old tradition for the first time in years - holiday hoorah 2023!

lilcee and i lived out a high school dream, spending an evening with depeche mode:

the bean continued their tradition of dressing up as santa for the last day of school before christmas break.

the old lady organized a fun surprise for her hubby's birthday, gathering a bunch of friends and family for a hockey game with the local minor league team.

the hub treated the bean and me to a fabulous pre-christmas trip to NYC (sadly, the old lady and old man couldn't join us because of pesky work schedules).  i'll do a deep dive over a few posts shortly, because it was just amazing and also deserves much more attention.

matching pajamas and mountains of presents on christmas day, per usual:

and then we decided to try a re-do of our new year's eve party with some of our favorite friends.  the last time we did this was NYE 2019, and we all know what happened after that.

and there you have it!  all caught up, with just a few more recaps to get fully brought back up to speed.  i keep saying it, but i really do want to be better about keeping up with the blog posts again.  i won't make any promises that may not be kept, but hey...i promise to do my best.  whee!