will you see miss saigon?

if i still lived in salt lake, i would most definitely go see natalie hill in miss saigon.

natalie - if you're reading this - we're meant to be friends. i'm sure of it. :P

incidentally, i've followed her blog for a while now, and watched her interview for good things utah on her blog this morning. you know when you read a book and you imagine the characters a certain way? then, they make the movie and its not at all like what you imagined? that's kind of how it was watching natalie be interviewed - i've imagined her in a certain way and seeing her in action was totally different than what my mind created. how funny. she's even more captivating live.

photo by candice stringham

wish we were

visiting the hubs' home town.

riding the kamehameha highway through haleiwa and waialua, and stopping to get a bite to eat.

looking over kahana bay.

hubs - let's make it happen this summer!

my favorite things: alicia bock photos

the guest bedroom is almost finished. we need to put a few more finishing touches on the room, and then i'll put before and after photos up. in the interim, i want to praise photographer alicia bock. her "through the viewfinder" images inspired my design for the redecoration. if you haven't seen alicia's work, you must. and her printed images are even more phenomenal than you can imagine - the four we bought bought (different from those above) have almost a metallic sheen to them.

you know how i said that i didn't get all the hype about professional photos? i was soooo wrong. these are amazing. i wish i had ten more rooms to decorate with alicia's photos.

book worm

#21 on my 30-before-30 list is d-o-n-e. i finished reading vince flynn's mitch rapp series, the hubs' favorite. i thoroughly enjoyed all the clandestine action presented by flynn in these quick reads. the main character, mitch rapp, is a little too macho and a little too cowboy at times, but he's a very likable character.

the hubs just started a new series by brad thor, and thinks that this series might actually be his favorite, so i'm right behind him in reading each of thor's novels. i find the killing to be gratuitous at times, but for the action-spy-thriller genre, i'm satisfied.

in the works

i'm a little preoccupied right now . . . i have a couple of things in the works.

i'm planning on putting myself out there on friday . . . i'm also in the process of updating the business side of the house . . . stay tuned.

bj's

when the hubs and i first started dating, we both worked very long hours. when we got off work, the last thing we wanted to do was cook dinner - we just wanted to eat and crash. bj's restaurant and brewhouse was just a few blocks away from our office, so we ate there at least once every week. we fell in love over those dinners at bj's.



after our move to the northwest, we were bummed to learn that bj's didn't have any nearby locations. we learned to deal with the loss, and found other places to ingest an indulgent amount of calories, but bj's remained a nostalgic memory for us.

today, on the way home from visiting the sis-in-law, we saw a bj's. and we stopped. and we ate. and ate. and ate.

bj's has the best:

berry cider

wedge salad


deep dish pizza


pizookie (cookie baked in a deep dish pizza pan topped with vanilla ice cream!!!)

sis-in-law's new home

last night, our hilarious friend v was supposed to fly in from LA to visit us for the weekend. sadly, her aunt passed away just hours before she planned to leave, so she cancelled her visit. since the hubs and i had already taken today off, we took advantage of the sunny, crisp weather and made the two hour drive up to visit the hubs' sister. we wanted to see her new digs: she just bought her first house!! i sure wished my first place was this amazing!!

panic. attack.

i had a panic attack today. not the i-locked-my-keys-in-the-car freak out that most would chalk up to a panic attack. a tried and true panic attack. full of the oh-my-lord-i-can't breathe. i'm-about-to-throw-up. i-am-so-dizzy-i-might-fall-into-a-well. someone-please-stop-the-shaking. is-this-what-a-heart-attack-feels-like? (can you tell i'm hyphen happy today?)

i've been having panic attacks since junior high, but wasn't diagnosed until college. i thought it was normal to shake, have cold sweats, breath super fast, and melt down when you didn't know the answer to a question on your ap calc test. turns out, its not normal. who knew?? my attacks are much less frequent now that i get a little Rx help, but they do occur every so often. for oh-so-ridiculous reasons.

today, i had a very important meeting. very. very. VERY. important meeting. i put the address in my gps the night before and left extra early to make my appointment. but the gps routed me through the entire city, telling me to turn where there were no turn signs, and directing me the wrong way down one way streets. i finally arrived at my appointment, but couldn't find parking. anywhere. i circled and circled. i feverishly hunted for a spot. just one little spot. but every parking garage was "temporarily full." every prospect i stalked to their car just fed the meter. what gluttons.

that's when it happened. i started to shake. i couldn't breathe. i called the hubs, who immediately recognized my incoherent-attempts-at-forming-words, and came to my rescue. he's so wonderful that way.

i made my meeting. 40 minutes late. and it didn't go well. it has been a very. very. VERY. rough week, both personally and professionally. but the panic attack reminded me, as it always does, that stupid shit isn't worth falling into a frenzy over. and that no matter how frenzied i do get, i have a man who loves me and stands by my side.

k & a

#18 on my 30-before-30 journey will be fulfilled this june, when i will have the honor of being a bridesmaid for this beautiful couple. congrats, k & a. can't wait.

oh, i wish i was an oscar meyer weiner!

i have visceral hatred for bridges. the fear stems from my childhood: i vividly remember footage of people trapped on the bay bridge as it collapsed following the loma prieta quake of 1989 in northern california. 20 years later, i'm still incredibly uneasy each time i have to cross over any body of water. but yesterday, as i held my breath and drove over one on the city's many bridges, i saw the oscar meyer weiner mobile cruising along in front of me. its the first time i've seen the weiner mobile on the road, and although i can't say that i was overly excited by the site of a giant hot dog on wheels, i was momentarily distracted from the fact that i was on the bridge. instead, i found myself smiling and anticipating the barbecues we'll host this summer. i could almost smell the smoke wafting from the grill, and taste the fresh corn-on-the-cob. before i knew it, i'd completed my journey across the bridge: it turns out that oscar meyer really does have a way . . .