ch-ch-ch-changes

happy fantabulous friday - we've got a nice, long weekend ahead of us! although we don't really have any plans, it's still awesome to have an extra day off.


there is so much good stuff going on right now, i can hardly think straight. aside from payroll getting effed up, resulting in our first-ever direct deposit transaction being delayed till TUESDAY (laaaame), life is good.

i finally made an appointment to get my 'do reshaped this afternoon. it's long overdue - check out my shaggy mane as of this morning:

i don't really know what i'm going to do with it, but i need something, even if only a trim. i still haven't decided whether or not to cut it short again or attempt to grow it out a bit. we'll see.

in my gmail this morning:

eeeeexcellent. i'd ordered one online, but the ship date wasn't till june 3rd. and you know me - i'm all about instant gratification, dang it! not to mention, wan-derful women's expo is next weekend and i was really hoping to have it by then. thinking positively, i'm planning to use it to place sales orders online immediately, rather than go the OG-route and have to write out paper order forms.

we've been making great progress in the potty-training department with the bean. last wednesday, i got a bug up my ass and decided we needed to get serious. so when i got home from work, i took her diaper off and put her "big-girl" panties on. she did really well, remembering to tell me when she needed to go, and holding it till i got her onto the toilet. yay! she's been spending most of her time at home sans pampers (except for nap and bedtime, and rides in the car), and she's starting to get the hang of it. now, that doesn't mean that we haven't had any accidents, but it's a start. countdown to zero diapers continues!

the teen has less than two weeks of school left. holy shit! seems like school just started, and here we are, staring right in the face of summer. pretty crazy. my baby's gonna be a sophomore soon...yikes!

our quest to move out of the thimble and into a bigger space of our own is moving along nicely. i don't want to jinx it, but things are looking up.

the hub and i are going out tomorrow night to a cool restaurant on the west side for date night. i snagged a fab discount from bloomspot for an eatery i've been wanting to try for a while, so it'll be even better. food's almost always better when it's free or cheap, ha!

the lakers are still in the running for a repeat of last year's championship. they hung on by a thread at the end of last night's game, but still - THEY WON. hell yeah! 5 to go!

and lastly, if you read my tweets or facebook status updates, you'll know that work has been increasingly frustrating for me lately. i haven't exactly been quiet about it, although when am i quiet about anything? anyway, i'm stoked to report that i received a super duper fun job offer a few days ago, discussed it with the hub and the teen, and happily handed in my resignation letter yesterday. i haven't decided yet whether or not to talk about specifics here, because the mere mention of where the new gig is makes me REALLY easy to find. seriously. although it might actually do more good than harm to publicize it at some point, so stay tuned.

in any case, the new job has so much awesomeness to it, it's almost ridiculous. i'll get to dress casually every day, work in a super fun environment, located in a really great city, and most likely get to take over handling the company's social media accounts.

how much fantastic stuff can one girl take at once? but i love it. more, more, more - bring it on!

total gleeks

the teen and i were stupid excited for our evening of gleeking the eff out. not to mention, we already knew exactly what we wanted to have for dinner, thanks to many many previous trips to universal citywalk -the very thought of grub from versailles made our mouths water like mad.

so you can imagine our supreme disappointment when we excitedly ascended the escalator, stepped onto the upper-level food court, and found this:

we were the saddest people on the entire planet when it sank in that there was to be no garlic chicken or beans and rice in store for our bellies. the teen remarked that we must've looked insane, standing there forlornly taking pictures of a restaurant that was apparently long gone.

so we ended up hitting up our backup plan - crepes. ha! still good, but it sure wasn't versailles. boo. afterwards, with plenty of time still to kill, we strolled through sparky's to look at their wide variety of hello kitty-themed goods and other fun novelty items. they'd done some remodeling since our last visit, and now half the store is occupied with a mini-donut shop. and check it out - a cotton candy machine!

too bad it wasn't ready for business yet. story of my life.

the store was playing music from glee, and there were tons of folks walking around sporting glee shirts (there was a matinee show earlier that day), and so we were super duper fired up and excited for the show. as we headed towards the entrance to the ampitheatre, we smirked at this chick, obviously a hard-core fan, dressed as "rachel" from the mid-season finale:

concession stand! we paused for a minute to see what prices of souvenirs looked like, and it was pretty comparable to other concerts we've been to. $35-$40 for tees, a hoodie sweatshirt for $70, programs and tote bags for $20, posters and light sticks for $10 and soundtrack CDs for $15-$18.

the box office was advertising other upcoming shows, too:

we found our seats pretty easily, and they weren't awesome, but not bad either.

the teen is a sucker for light sticks and ponied up $10 for one.

gleeks!

"the other asian" is part of a dance crew called LXD - the legion of extraordinary dancers. heh. t they were really good, very entertaining, and yeah, okay - a few of them were super hot.

the lights came up again after they exited the stage, and the "mckinley high school" logo was projected onto the curtain. and then a few minutes later, there was much hullaballoo as a line of cheerleader uniform-clad "cheerios" sashayed out. they were mobbed within minutes as they handed out something that looked like...barf bags. huh?

when "sue sylvester" appeared on the screens, spewing her typical humorous venom, it all made sense - because according to her, the show we were about to see was so bad that we'd all be sick to our stomachs.

i'd already seen a tweet that told me that "mr. shue," played by foxy matthew morrison, was at the yankees game in NYC. damn. i was hoping he'd make an appearance at some point, but it was not to be. instead, i had to settle for his pre-taped mug on the screen along with sue.

the teen and i had a bet on what the show would open with, and while she was convinced it would be "somebody to love," i had a feeling it would be "don't stop believin'." and i was right!

OMG. it was SO. STINKING. FUN. of course, our typical luck at concerts was in full effect - there were a couple of old(er) ladies in front of us who reluctantly stood up with the rest of the arena, plugging their ears the entire time. and behind us? families with small children, who complained about the noise and whined that they couldn't see when everyone in front of them sprang to their feet. we scooted over in front of a couple of empty seats next to us (*gasp* it was supposed to be a sold out show!) in an effort to help the kids see the stage, and went on with our merriment.

"mercedes," played by the fantastic amber riley, did her thang with "bust your windows."

by far my favorite number of the evening - their take on lady gaga's "bad romance," costumes and all. we were both thinking of the bean the entire night, knowing how much she loves the music from glee - not to mention, "bad romance" is a favorite song of hers.

the bean also love, love, loves "rachel's" performance of "don't rain on my parade." and when lea michele appeared down in the audience and began singing that song, the teen and i totally grinned at each other as we imagined how much the bean would have loved it. i think we're both counting the days until she's old enough to come with us on our concert extravaganzas.

mash-up time! first, the boys:

and then the girls.

giving the cast a little time for costume changes, rivals "vocal adrenaline" came out to perform too.

and then the cast reappeared to further entertain us.

"like a prayer," complete with choir.

i have a video that i took of jonathan groff's "surprise" guest appearance, but i was too impatient to upload it. besides, my friend jess did the work for me. hee! check out her video-filled post and recap here.

although she never gets to sing solo, and isn't necessarily one of the "main" characters, heather morris as "brittany" is probably my favorite out of the cast. she delivers all those awesome one-liners perfectly (like when artie says he's getting cold feet: "can you even feel your feet?") and she's a fantastic dancer. i love her.

we were so bummed when the show came to an end - with "somebody to love," so the teen got it partially right - and filed out of the venue dragging our feet. we each picked up a t-shirt and i added the newest soundtrack CD for us to listen to on our way home, and that was that.

we both still have our ticket stubs in our purses, and the teen wore her shirt to school right away. oh, and the rest of the season on DVD comes out on september 14th - which is mollydog's birthday and only four days till the best day of the year, MY birthday. oh yeah.

guess i know what i'm getting from the teen this year!

(birthday) party like a rock star

my friend lilcee came to me about a month ago, looking for help in doing invitations for her adorable daughter's first birthday party. she wanted to incorporate butterflies and flowers and maybe throw in a little "alice in wonderland" as well. and of course, i was more than happy to do whatever i could. we met up at my beloved paper source to scope it out for ideas and to pick up the supplies, and it wasn't long before we found the perfect design and came up with this:

cute, right? i love that floral paper so much, and her cousin (a graphic artist) came up with the logo. she was pleased with the way they turned out, and i was glad i could help in some way.

i packed up the teen and the bean on the day of the party, and after a couple of wrong turns (because i never get anything right on the first try), we found ourselves at silk lounge.

the teen was amused at being at a "club."

typical lilcee - lots of cute details and personal touches all around. look at her hand-painted banner with the party logo!

it was a nice space - roomy, comfy, with lots of places to sit and, well, lounge.

more adorable decor.

i thought this was cute, too - an interactive guessing game to predict what the baby's future might hold.

of course, there was lots of yummy food.

our friend winnie had been tapped to capture the event with her trusty camera, and earlier in the week she'd asked if the teen would be willing to man the photobooth. she dangled a cash payment like a carrot, and it didn't take more than about 2.75 seconds for the teen to jump on the opportunity. as our dear friend tater and her husband set up the backdrop for the photobooth, the bean decided to make herself comfy.

my cousin r and her fiance were in town to get started on wedding planning, and had been so busy that we hadn't gotten a chance to see them. on their way to the airport for their flight home, they stopped in to say hello and drop off a birthday present for the teen (r is the teen's godmother).

of course, we had to test the photobooth for ourselves.

there were party favors for the kids. the bean checked it out and held it out to me. "go to beach, mommy?"

our friend nanette was at the party too, with her adorable baby em. it was funny - we'd both been there for almost an hour before she found us. the place isn't even that big! oh, well. the girls bonded for a minute as the bean watched mickey mouse cartoons on youtube, via my iPhone, and shared it with her friend em.

em quickly lost interest, though, and scurried off to check out what was going on in the next room.

after all that, i'm embarrassed to admit that i didn't get any pictures of the birthday girl or her mommy and daddy. we did pose for a few group shots in the photobooth, but the teen was taking the pictures with winnie's camera and in the shuffle, i completely forgot to ask her to take one with mine. oh, well.

it was a lovely party, and i grabbed a couple of packs of pocky to go. i needed a little extra boost to take me through the rest of the day - because in a few hours, we were leaving for universal city and glee live! more on that tomorrow.