Good friends

One of my favorite days in California was last Friday. I was able to be part of a great surprise for Alex and his roommate, Tom! Dave, one of their good friends, planned a surprise visit from Baltimore. We had been secretly planning this trip for a few months now and we pulled it off with great success! The boys obviously had NO IDEA that Dave was going to be here. I picked Dave up from the airport and asked Alex and Tom to meet me for lunch in Venice. When they arrived, I was at the table by myself. After they sat down I text Dave to let him know they were here and he came out to our table casually and asked “is this seat taken?” It took Tom and Alex a few seconds to react. They didn’t understand what Dave was doing in California, especially without them knowing about it. It was a great surprise and their reactions were priceless. It made me so happy to be a part of! When you move across the country, it is SO nice to see a familiar face from home, especially one of your best friends. I am also glad to see a guy doing this for his friends! I wouldn’t be surprised to see girlfriends doing this for each other, but I don’t expect guys to do the same. While the reality of Dave being here set in, we had some lunch and drinks at waterfront cafe. Unfortunately, Alex had to head to work but Dave, Tom and I headed to Venice Ale house for some more drinks. It was a great Friday afternoon!!

The initial surprise

 

We’re from Baltimore and we wear sunglasses in bars. We’re cool!

 

Friday got me thinking about how lucky we are to have such awesome people in our lives! Alex and I both value our friendships so much and that’s one thing that we really love about each other. It made me so happy to see that Alex was happy to have his good friend around. And it really made me miss all of my friends at home! It made me look forward to when they all visit me! (which you all will at some point!) We’ve all had such a great week together and I am so looking forward to when MY best friends come!! (Kate, Kelly and Chris will be here in a few short weeks!!)

Sorry I have been absent for over a week, we’ve been busy doing all kinds of fun stuff including going to San Diego! I will be back as soon as I can with updates. As for now, I have work the next 6/7 nights.. yay.

TGI(t’s almost)F!

 

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My Original Dream Job

It’s safe to say that I definitely don’t LOVE my job out here. Yea, the hospital is nice, they treat their travelers well, and the people I work with are all really nice and helpful. (I know, that all sounds great!) Buttt, I strongly dislike my floor/specialty. That is something I learned coming out here.. I had it easy at Mercy! These patients are sick sick sick! Work is soo stressful! I have never dreaded work/had anxiety about work before this job. I remember one time my friend, Johanna posed the question: on a scale of 1-10, how much do you hate going to work everyday? Everyone’s answer at the time was 8 or higher, some people even ranked 11/12! I was in complete shock! I worked at Mercy at the time and I rated it a 3! I didn’t mind going to work at all. So that just goes to show ya, this hating going to work thing is completely new for me!

The one definite conclusion I’ve come to is, when I am done traveling I am going to change my specialty. If you know me, you know my mind goes a million miles a minute with 30 different thoughts at once. So trying to decide what that field may be when I ‘settle down’ again has not been easy so far. I think I’d like the emergency department, peds or labor and delivery. I wanted to do ICU for a long time, but I think I’m reconsidering that one. 

Anyway, all this analyzing my job and my career and my life got me thinking. My ORIGINAL dream job from the time I was a kid was to be a housewife! Since I’ve moved to California  (and am no longer depending on my mom to cook and clean for me) I’ve realized how much I really would love that! I even brought it to Alex’s attention the other night, he agreed I’d be awesome at that job. I recently had off for 6 days in a row and I loved every second of it. I love going to the grocery store, I love to bake and cook. I even don’t mind cleaning most of the time. I did all of these “tasks”, multiple times on my days off! I even like doing laundry. And on all those 6 days off, I never really got bored. One time I got bored, so I decided to go to the grocery store and bake something! It made me so happy. And once again, when it came time to go back to work, I was dreading it! 

I think I grew up in the wrong era! I’d be perfectly fine with not having a job and being a house wife/stay at home mom. With that being said, I am glad that if I ever did have the option of being a housewife, I at least have a career to fall back on!

Just a fleeting thought, I’d let everyone in on! Looking forward to my next 6 days off, starting tomorrow.. woo!!

Have a great weekend! 🙂

Weekend

 

I finally had an entire weekend off since I’ve been here and it was great! Friday night we went out on Main Street again.. Apparently it is right on the border of Venice and Santa Monica. (we called it going out in Santa Monica this night.) The bar we went to was called 31 Ten and it was pretty sweet inside! Lots of lights and a tropical feel. The only downside for me was there was no dance floor, but you know me and Alex, we found a place to dance anyway. We went out with Alex’s roommates Tom and Kat.

Kat, Tom, Alex and Me

 

Saturday night, I went out with my roommates. (background:) I forgot to tell you about last Saturday. We volunteered at an event called beerfest. My roommate Mandy is good friends with a guy Dan who made the company called ‘Eat Drink Play.’ He/his company host drinking events at cool venues. Beerfest is one of those events and it is done in multiple cities (including DC.) He does other events but those are only in the LA area. So back to Saturday night.. he wanted to thank us for volunteering  (although I felt like we should be thanking him for letting us do it cause it was so awesome) by taking us out to dinner. We went to a really nice place called the Strand House in Manhattan Beach. My roommate Mandy and I went for drinks before dinner then stayed after dinner for some more drinks, we had a blast! It was a great night to get to know someone new and to get to know my roommates better. And the food at the restaurant was DELICIOUS!

Michael, Bethy, Alex and Me before the MTV movie awards

Sunday night, we went to the MTV movie awards! No, we didn’t get to walk the red carpet, but we did get some pretty sweet seats close to the front. Tom, Alex’s roommate, works for a company called 1Iota which is hired by producers to fill seats for their shows. Their slogan is “free seats for fans.” So, thanks to Tom, we were able to go to our first award show! (Even if it was just the MTV movie awards.) We got to see pretty much the entire Jersey Shore cast up close and personal. Also, Selena Gomez and Taylor Lautner walked right past me. (obviously at the time I had no idea who they were until I saw them on stage or Alex filled me in.) The only “celebs” I recognized on my own were the cast of Jersey Shore. HA! And we saw Will Ferrel accept the comedic genius award and he was hilarious. Not to mention Revel Wilson who kept me laughing out loud the entire time, I thought she did awesome! We had a great night and I’m happy to take advantage of every opportunity to do something that we can’t do back in Baltimore, so it was def worth it!

 

After the award show we went out for some awesome and fairly cheap sushi! We were starving and ate like very hungry wolves. It was great to get to know some people from Baltimore even better. We had such a great time and had a lot of laughs. Hopefully I can get this same bunch to go to The Price is Right!

I don’t know what it is about California but days always feel reallly long. I am not complaining AT ALL! It is so awesome. But right now, for the first time in a while, I am feeling a little bored! I think I might go bake something. I hope everyone had as awesome a weekend as I did!!

p.s.- Prayers to Boston! What a senseless tragedy. 😦

 

My life this week and a bucket list!

Based on other people’s suggestions and things I already know about the area, I have come up with a bucket list of things to do while I live here! I’m also going to try to add a tab next to ‘about me’ so I can keep my bucket list in one place. Currently, I have a few lists that I’ve been keeping on my phone, a paper towel from work and a post it note. So it will be nice to keep one master list in one place. As I complete them I’ll let you know and most definitely be writing a post about them. The list is kind of vague right now, but this is it.

• Go to San Diego
• Go to San Francisco
• Camp at Yosemite National Park
• Go skiing at Mammoth Mountain
• Go to VEGAS!
• Go to price is right taping
• Get picked as a contestant and win something on Price is Right
• Go to LA prime (a rotating bar/restaurant in downtown LA)
• Hike Runyon Canyon
• Swim in the Pacific Ocean
• Go to a King’s game
• Go to a Clippers game

The List is kind of short as of now, but I am sure I will be adding to it! In addition, I’m also going to add a books tab so I can keep track of some books that I want to read. I am getting sick of post it notes!

I haven’t worked a night shift since Monday and it has been awesome! I worked Sunday and Monday and had two 4 hour hospital orientation’s on Wednesday and Thursday. Don’t have to work again til Tuesday and I’m pumped to have the weekend off! After Wednesday’s orientation I rode my bike from my house to a beach town a couple of towns over called Manhattan Beach. In total it was an 8.8 mile bike ride! I was pretty proud of that. 

Last night, I went out in Venice. I have been to a different part of Venice one time before when I visited Alex last time. But this time I went to a bar on Main street which was super fun! Met up with some other awesome people from Baltimore, which always makes me feel good. Saw some hilarious stand-up comedians! Tonight, I’m gonna head out in Santa Monica. I have never been out in Santa Monica before so I will def be back to update you tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Finally..

..My room feels like mine!! My room is actually clean AND decorated. A first since I moved here! My parents brought most of my stuff for my room so I was finally able to make it feel like my own with pics and art. My mom also got me that sweet reversible bedspread for Easter  so I didn’t have to buy one. YAY! The other side is sunflowers, it definitely brightens up the room! I am so glad to have my pictures here. I get to see my favorite boys and my best friends right when I wake up everyday! I told you I’d update pics when it was complete so here they are.. 

What you see when you first enter

wall with closet

open closet.. GREAT storage!

desk/end table

my only dresser.. thank God for the great closet space!

 

Kind of plain and nothing too crazy, but it’s def cozy!

Hope everyone is having a great week! I’m jealous of the weather in Baltimore.

Who says California’s not cheap?!

 

 

After moving to California I made 2 really awesome (and cheap) discoveries! The first is by far my favorite.. the 99cent store. EVERYTHING there is 99 cents, some stuff is 59 cents. It is kind of like a dollar store but way better! This place is HUGE! Way bigger than any dollar store I’ve been to. They have pretty much everything under the sun from housewares to a produce section! And yes, everything in the produce section is 99 cents. I was skeptical of the fruits and veggies at first, but I tried them and they tasted fine and were fresh. Where else can you get a 10 lb bag of potatoes for that cheap?! The other things that shocked me was a 24 case of water bottles for 99 cents, and big Gatorade bottles for 59 cents each. Anddd they have a candy aisle that you WOULDN’T BELIEVE! That is obviously my favorite part. Other perks include: it is walking distance from my house (I’m talking maybe a 2 minute walk) and it is open way early. I can stop in when I get off work, before 8 am! I go at least once a week and I can never just get what is on my list.

 

 

The second discovery is a liquor store out here called Bevmo! 3 times a year, for about a month at a time this place has their 5cent sale. Buy one bottle of wine get the second bottle for 5 cents! That’s crazy! I have never heard of anything like this before. And the selection is pretty big! You can get any kind of wine from champagne, to blends. We got a total of 8 bottles of wine for around 50 bucks!

 

 

When everyone thinks of California they think of how expensive it is. And I will admit some things are more expensive. But some things are cheaper too! And no, the gas is not 5$/gallon like you hear. (at least not where I live.) Last night we got gas in Hollywood for $3.99/gallon, now that’s a steal!

Ok, it’s 70 degrees here, I’m gonna get off this computer and go lay by the pool!

Happy hump day!