This past month.

So, for the last week and a half I have been telling myself "I need to update my blog..." So here I am, it's 10:30pm and I'd honestly rather be curled up falling asleep right now, but am going to force myself to do this now, or it'll never get done (I have a habit of forgetting I even have a blog). Things have been going well (and busy) lately. I've been working full weeks for the last....almost two months now and things seem like they'll continue this way. This is both a good thing and a not-super-wonderful thing. It's great because I'm working, debts are staying down, we're able to have a bit of fun in our off-time, and we're less stressed over financial concerns or if we can afford to do xyz. It's not-super-wonderful because, well.... Craig got a new job (that's not the bad part, that is wonderful!). He's working out of Irvine now and he loves the job/hates the drive. When he got the new job, I was still unsure about how long my job would last and we decided that if I were let go (again) that we'd move closer to his new work. This would allow his commute to be shorter and allow me to have access to more design jobs (Orange County has many more opportunities available, in a better job market). So that's the part that makes me still working not-so-great, I don't get to see Craig as much and when I do, he's worn out from his long commute home. I see him on the weekends and at a late dinner time until bed, it stinks. But I am very thankful to have a job, so for now we'll stick it out.
So what's been going lately? Aside from working, we've been quite busy. A few weekends ago (well, back in January) we went to help clean up my grandparents house. They haven't been able to do it themselves due to health issues so Craig and I hopped in the car and went to Santee for the weekend to lend a hand. My Mom and I tackled the master bedroom first while Craig helped move furniture, organize the hundreds of CD's that were strewn about out of their cases, he dusted and helped my Dad with a few things here and there. Once the bedroom was clean, we took on the day-long task of going through my Grandmas clothes. She had so many clothes that were out-dated, over worn, stained, brand new (complete with store tags), or that just didn't fit her anymore. We did not anticipate that it would take us the entire day to do this. We did manage to get all of her hanging clothes to fit into one closet (about 15' long) and eliminate the make-shift-rod hung from the ceiling in another room. I know it meant a lot to them and we hope to make it back down there again to clean some more and weed through their belongings.

That same weekend was Peter's welcome home party. The first time I ever sung in front of anyone other than Craig (in the car). It helped that I wasn't front and center on a stage with a spot-light on me and that everyone else was singing - that's what made it so much fun. Plus it's always great to see my friends and make new memories with them.
Not to get all mushy now, but for Valentines weekend we planned a trip to Solvang, California. I had never been there and have heard so many wonderful things about it so I wanted to go. I told Craig one night and he ended up booking the trip within a matter of seconds. It worked out perfectly too - President's Day turned the weekend into a 3-day (4 for some lucky people). We headed out on Saturday morning and made it to our hotel by about 1:30pm. I thought we would have gotten their earlier but no biggie. The hotel we stayed at was where they filmed the movie Sideways. I would not recommend staying there though. It was the Day's Inn, in Buellton and unfortunately we were stuck with a smoking room. I knew this ahead of time and packed a brand new bottle of febreeze, which I used about half of over the course of the weekend. It was your typical seedy hotel/motel situation with the bar across the driveway and a disco dancing room next to that (run by the hotel too). It wasn't a big deal to us though, we didn't go to Solvang to spend it in a hotel room and the price was worth while. Once we got settled, we headed out to Solvang to get lunch at Root 246 - a super up-scale, very well designed restaurant that was only serving off of the bar menu. The food was incredible and I had the best glass of wine for the whole trip there. The bill wasn't nice though - $78 after tip for lunch for two people off of a bar menu - oh well, we're having fun this weekend!!
After lunch we went to Sanford Winery - my boss and his wife told me about the winery and talked it up like it was the best one to go to, so I just had to go check it out. I wasn't impressed. We got there at 4pm on the dot and they had just closed, but allowed us to taste the wine - we had a free tasting coupon so in that respect the drive was worth it. I guess that area is known for it's Pinots and Chardonnays of which I am generally not a fan, so I didn't like anything from this winery. We headed back to Solvang and stopped at the Ostrich farm on the way - I totally loved this stop. It was such a child-like cheesy thing to do but it was fun and those birds are both ugly, pretty, graceful and retarded all at the same time. I don't know if that makes any sense but if you ever see an ostrich in real life, up close - you'll understand. We got back to Solvang to find that the little downtown area starts shutting down at about 5pm. Most of the stores were closed and the few that were open were getting ready to close. We managed to check out the leather store (way too expensive), a mosaic glass store (no need for any of that) and a chocolate shop (yes, we bought chocolate and a caramel dipped apple) and then headed back to the hotel where we spent the remainder of the evening.
The next day (Valentines Day) we had a scheduled wine tasting tour. We were picked up by a tour bus and shuttled around to four different wineries. The first was Kalyra, we enjoyed two of the wines from there - the Muscat and their Port. The next winery was Branard Cellars where we had some more tastings, had lunch, and took a ton of photos. We met a really nice couple there (Rob and Lisa) and ended up playing photographers for one another, taking a ton of pictures from this little tower window. We then went to Shoestring Winery, the only wine I enjoyed their was the Rose - but I did get some more great pictures in (that's what matters on a wine tour, right?). The last winery we went to was LaFond, and again I wasn't impressed with their wines (maybe I'd had too much to drink by then?) but we ended up getting lost in conversations with our new friends and ended the day taking pictures by the vines. All in all it was a great day, beautiful weather and scenery and great company. Once we were rested after getting back to the hotel we went to Pea Soup Andersen's for dinner where we both got stuffed!! So good!
Our last day on this trip we drove up the coat to Hearst Castle - I have to say this was definitely the highlight of our trip. Craig had been there once before when he was younger and I had never been. I had no idea what to expect. As we drove up to the base of the mountain I could see this small building out in the distance, it looked like a far away version of Balboa park. Once we got to the castle I was in complete awe. The entire time the guide spoke of the castle I just couldn't believe all of the history I was looking at. I imagined living there, in that time period and being a guest at Mr. Hearst's castle. Swimming in the pools, staying in the guest houses, having dinner in the Gothic dining room! Amazing!! Coming from an Interior Design background, having learned all of the period styles and finally getting to see actual period pieces was just amazing to me. To top off the tour, one of the guides had a small blue glass tile with gold leaf that he let me hold. I had a piece of Hearst Castle in my hand! I couldn't get over that! Craig and I decided that we're definitely going to make a trip to see Hearst Castle again - we'll stay closer to the castle and visit the area a bit more as well as take a few more tours of the castle - well worth it!! The long 6-8 hour drive home was actually not too bad. Craig drove but I don't think it was too bad for him either - not too much traffic and where there was traffic we navigated around it (which probably added more gas to the trip but made it more interesting). We got home about 11pm and went to bed as soon as we finished telling Craig's parents all about the trip. Immediately passed out when our heads hit our pillows and got up for work the next day....and real life continues...

I can tell that my brain is beginning to not function as time goes on this evening. I've corrected several typos and spelling errors and I knew I had more to say than what I've already said. Please forgive the bad grammar and if I've repeated myself I apologize. These sleepy eyes are going to go to bed. I'll see about updating my list progress sometime this week.