Weekly email prompts - Day 3

I'm actually behind and skipped the actual Day 3 prompts but will come back to them when I feel like writing about them. Yesterday I wrote this one, so this prompt is a little late. And yes, I already screwed up daily writing exercises within the first week.
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Reflect on yesterday's events and identify moments that happened spontaneously. Explore how you felt during those moments.


Yesterday I was at a Memorial Day BBQ with Stuart's family. One spontaneous moment that comes to mind is when his aunt Judy was telling me that I'm going to the lake trip this year, that she needs me to go and that she had a wonderful time with me last year, "more than you'll ever know." My eyes started to water. She wanted to know why I was against going, and I told her it was because it's expensive and I have no way to help pay. She said that she understands that I'm not a person who expects others to pay for me, she knows I'm a good person and wants me to be involved in the family vacation. I felt so loved. This is a woman I've spent one week with at the lake trip last year and have seen not many times other than that, and she is willing to pay my way on the trip because she values my company. It makes me happy to know that my personality is so valued and that, even though she barely knows me, she realizes it's hard for me to allow others to pay such an amount of money on me. I truly love Stuart's family and I am happy I get to go on this year's trip, despite still wanting to figure out a way to help financially. I will most definitely be helping with clean up and everything like that, but of course I would have done that anyway even if I paid for myself, as I did last year.

Chantal & Nichole go to Solvang (and Little Tokyo)

The night before our vacation our company decided to let us know that most employees who make more than $10/hr will be getting a 5.5% pay cut that will be reflected in our March paycheck. So that was bummer news that caused me to drink a little more than I would have that night. I had some friends over and didn't end up going to sleep until probably 1am while I set my alarm for 6 am.

Usually when I drink I end up waking up early, but this time was a little ridiculous. 4:45am is when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up and started packing in the dark so Stuart could continue to sleep. I even half assed-ly did my makeup with the low light of the rising sun behind the curtains.

Chantal came to pick me up, we stopped at Staters so I could get some orange juice and another beverage to hold me over for the 3 hour drive that included chits and chats and me playing my CD's for Chantal.

The first thing we did in Solvang was eat. We parked right in front of a damn sock shop and I was freaking out because socks are my weakness (a bond Kevin and I share) but I was able to tell myself there would be time for socks after sausage. We had a pretty yummy sausage and meatball lunch with red cabbage and mashed potatoes and gravy.

We stuffed ourselves and headed to the sock store where we spent like 20minutes and I bought one pair that was $13. :( Why do super cute socks have to be stupidly expensive? I also dropped a few bucks on these items:

Sweater (matching, Chantal has one too).

This is a purchase I was excited about because it's apparently a $60 sweater that was on sale and lowered even more because I did that 'text this number and get $5 off' deal and got this Izod sweater (big deal according to Chantal) for less than $6.

Shoes (that match the sweater, great $3.50 find)

That's Stuart's big foot. I took this the day after I came back from the trip.

Scented candle (no photo needed, boring candle)

Three inspiring key charms and a key ring holder thingy-ma-bob

After all the walking around and shopping we went to a small wine store and did some wine tasting. I had some sweet desert wines. Decided it was time to go to our hotel but made a stop at some plant/garden/accessories for Chantal (which she called her mom to tell her about the place they've never been to before). Then we made a stop at the emu/ostrich farm.

Oh that was fun. :D I think Chantal was still feeling her wine tasting because she was pretty giggly. We fed them with a big plastic bowl that was glued to a metal dustpan which we were told to hold tightly to the handle with both hands because, and sure enough, the emu would bite the bowl and try to take the whole thing away.

It was here that we chose to take our Facts Around the World photos that we hope will go in the newspaper. I like how our vacation was in Solvang but we take it at the emu farm. :P

So we both took turns feeding them and taking photos. I even stole some extra food from one of the feeders where there were no emus so we could keep feeding them.

I ended up buying some Ostrich jerky and a cute purple bow headband with what I'm assuming is an ostrich feather on it.

We then went to our hotel, checked in, found information on a close wine tasting vineyard, I looked up directions on my laptop and we set off on a 20min drive only to find out that we were too late. :( They close at 5 but the last wine tasting is at 4:45. DOH! We were like one minute too late.

So we went to dinner at the Anderson's Pea Soup restaurant (I ordered veal which I wasn't pleased with, it was quite bland) and then back to the room to drink some alcohol she brought from home and watch television in bed ... at like 8pm haha. I was pooped from lack of sleep.

At this time an amazingly funny thing happened. Chantal revealed to me, and herself, a 13-year blonde moment had be realized. A Kay Jewelers commercial came on and ended with their slogan jingle - 'every kiss begins with Kay.' Chantal said "I've been kissed plenty of times and I've never gotten jewelry!" I told her 'so kiss doesn't begin with K' and after a silent pause she had her 'aha' moment. Kiss DOES begin with the letter K and that's the play on words that the slogan is founded on! Hoorah! Everyone give Chantal a pat on the back. :D We laughed for a bit. Good times. It deserved a laugh.

So the next morning I felt so bloated and gross and I realized it was because I hadn't farted at all the day before because Chantal doesn't like natural bodily functions like that. I was burping the night before but that's because I had a bubbly Mike's Hard Lemonade. Hard not to burp. But I wanted to point out to her that I didn't poop in her presence. I pooped at the restaurant and didn't fart. And I was bloated with gas! Lordy.

We went back to Solvang for some Ableskevers and coffee and headed out on the road back.

We had planned to stop in Little Tokyo on the way back so I could let her experience something new. We had lunch at Shabu Shabu, a restaurant where they provide you with thinly cut slices of beef and some veggies and noodles and a bowl of boiling water where you cook the food yourself.

It was better than the first time I ate here because I was able to put some hot spices on my beef and that gave it some nice flavor. This place is always busy. We waited for about 45minutes to be seated.

We also went shopping in my favorite Little Tokyo store, not sure what it's called, but they have lots of cute little things and I picked up some stationary, panda cookies and ramune.

Before leaving we also got a pastry snack. The name I do no know but it is basically a red bean paste in the center of a fluffy pancake batter num-nums.

The only other time I've eaten this was at the Buddhist temple I went to a few years ago in CA and I loved it there too.

And that was the end of our adventurous trip!

BTW, Walmart doesn't have 1hr developing anymore and I'm sure no place does. I took my camera in to get it developed and it will take a whole week so I'll update this post with more photos when I get that back.

EDIT: Here's more photos!

Furloughs... again

NOTE: I seem to have unlearned how to color code my damn posts.

This is either the second or third time we've had to do a quarter of furloughs. This one is the worst though. This time it's a total of 10 days. But the bright side of this is that we can choose to take unpaid furlough or paid holiday for those 10 days. 'Furlough' automatically gives off a bad vibe because people associate it with a business not meeting goals, so naturally quite a few of my co-workers (me included) were upset.

But then we started thinking about what to do in this time and we realized how great it will be. Unlike the last time we took furloughs under the reign of my old boss, this time I will feel comfortable asking for multiple days off at a time. When Dobbs was the managing editor, I took pride in being so depended on to get my job done, but since I didn't really have anywhere to vacation (and no money to vacation with), I didn't care about taking multiple days off at a time. The one time I thought about it, I realized it would never happen. But now that I work with people who know how to do my job (granted, at first I was pretty terrified that it meant that I was going to be replaced), I feel like my job will get done without me.

So, a few things planned: a Sunday outing with Chamie, Joy J. and possibly Kevin on this sky tram thingy that we got a coupon to earlier in the year, a few day visit to Sulvang (Sulvane?) with Chamie, possibly a visit to AZ to meet a friend I have only talked to online for over 4 years (she loves karaoke) and an hour drive from there to visit my cousin and her significant other whom I haven't met (her and I have been talking more because of FaceBook - thanks social networking!). There is another trip I might take, but I'm waiting a bit more to really think on that one. As of right now I'm slowly gathering information about a round trip ticket to AZ and car rental.

I'm currently working on my final business project (well, not at this moment of course, because here I am blogging). I need to write a blog on some items I purchased on Etsy recently as well as updates on projects from kickstarter. I will soon. For now, back to that project.