Movies and MORE Movies!

One great thing about living in the land of movie-making is that you definitely get your eye full of movie and television posters. A couple of new movies coming out that I am excited to see are ones that I have seen multiple posters for already, some even 15 stories high. Check out these previews for Disney's A Christmas Carol and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I love movies!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 1

Well, here it is, the start of our epic road trip/move from Cincinnati, Ohio to Los Angeles. I finally was able to figure a way to load pictures onto Michael's computer because his IPhoto is not cooperating but here they are. I'll break this trip up into parts as to make it easier to view. Long blog posts make me antsy.

Michael and I left on a Tuesday morning at 1 am, after cleaning our house for the very last time. (It is still on the market so send good moocha our way). We packed my car full of everything we could fit and after getting rid of so much stuff we had a little room to spare, hence the spices and the bottle of Midol, thanks Dee Ann and Sheri

for pointing that out. Our two cats had plenty of room behind the front seats but their favorite place to sleep was on top of all of the boxes.

After driving about 18 hours through the night and the following day as well as through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, we made our stop in Wall, South Dakota. There wasn't much to see there but we were able to get a good night's sleep and wake up early to see The Badlands National Park. It was absolutely amazing! I think it was one of Michael's favorite stops. The Badlands are located in the middle of nowhere and when you come upon them all you see are canyons and caverns and what look to be mountains. It was very cool to see. I was still pretty tired from our drive the day before so while Michael took a little hike up one of the "mountains" I decided to take a little nap.

Next, we drove to Mount Rushmore which was about 2 hours away from where the Badlands were. It was amazing how much the scenery changed from rolling prairies to green mountains in just a matter of hours. We decided to only stop and see Mount Rushmore rather than park the car and hike close to it, mainly because we didn't want to spend the $15 charge. It was really cool to see. Michael kept saying that it looked a lot smaller than he expected it to, which I agreed with, but I was happy to see it because it really is amazing.

The final place we visited in South Dakota was Devil's Tower, about an hour and half from Mount Rushmore. It is known as America's first National Monument and it was huge!! Apparently it is this gigantic mountainous rock in the middle of nowhere. We stopped and looked around and I had some ice cream while Michael sketched. It was pretty crazy to see, and Michael kept telling me about how it was in the movie "Close Encounter's of the Third Kind," which I've never seen.

Anyway, more of our journey next time in part 2!

Great Read

I decided once we moved to LA that I was going to join a bookclub through meetup.com, so that I had a good reason to read some really great novels as well as meet new people. The first meeting is on the 19th of this month and the novel we selected to read is called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I borrowed it from a neighbor and hoped that I would have it finished by the bookclub meeting date, but it was such a great read that I finished it in about 3 days. It is such a compelling story and I couldn't put it down. Michael is actually reading it right now. He picked it up last night as soon as I finished it and he actually only has about 30 pages left to read. For anyone looking for a great novel to read that you will fly right through, you should definitely pick this one up.

I was also excited to see that they have made a movie of it and it will be out next weekend, the 16th. For anyone interested here's the trailer. If you read it

or end up seeing the movie, let me know. I would love to hear what you t

hink of it.

28 on the 29th!

Since Michael has already had school take over his life, I decided to go to Disneyland this past Tuesday to take advantage of their Celebration special, Free Admission on your Birthday! I had an awesome time there which started with a pleasant ride down to Anaheim from LA with NO TRAFFIC at 9:30 am. I was given a button that said "Happy Birthday! Jayne" which was kinda cute and I didn't care that they had spelled my name wrong on it until the 2oth time that a worker shouted out "Happy Birthday, Jayne!" The only reason I didn't take off my button was because they were kind enough to give me the best seats on the rides when I wore it!

Because I was only able to go to one park I decided to go to the California Adventure Park since it has more of the thrill rides that I like such as the Tower of Terror, which I rode three times, the California Screamer roller coaster, which I also rode three times, and the Maliboomer, which I rode a couple of times. Overall my birthday was pretty great.

Michael and I were supposed to go to dinner that night, but I ended up getting a really awful migraine from all the rides and came home sick. Not the greatest drive home of my life which consisted of a target shopping bag which I kept handy right nest to me just in case, but the fact that I didn't have to wait in line longer than 15 minutes for a single ride while at the park was awesome!

Michael and I will be having a "do-over" birthday for me tomorrow since I only got to enjoy about half of my original birthday, but I'm looking forward to going to Santa Monica and enjoying some time at the ocean.

Los Angeles, We are HOME!

Well, it has been a crazy, fun, exciting, (add more adjectives here) past two weeks! This post is pretty much to let those who've been wondering or worrying (sorry mom and dad) about our getting to California, but we now call Los Angeles home. We have spent the last few days since we got here looking for an apartment, enjoying a free comedy show, getting lost a few times, finding an apartment we loved, signing a lease and moving in! We now have an honest-t0-goodness address here in West LA only four miles from UCLA so that Michael's commute to and from school isn't a total headache every single day.

We've also gone furniture shopping at IKEA, restocked kitchen supplies and organizational supplies from Target for our tiny closet and at the moment I am doing our laundry at Sparkling Laundry down the street from our new digs. We're doing great, loving the sunshine in September and finding our way around this huge city. More to come about our cross-country trip as soon as we get internet access in the apartment tomorrow. :)

Kids are GREAT!

Rest In Peace Patrick Swayze

Dirty Dancing will be watched by me again very soon...

Update!

So, as of now we are at my best friend's house in Bountiful, Utah (which also happens to by my parent's house because Martha and her husband Taylor have been house-sitting while my parent's have been on their mission in Germany.) We have had such a great time on our road-trip so far and have gotten to see SO many sights on our way here. We still have The Narrows the hike in Zion National Park here in Utah on Thursday and we still have to make it down to LA but we have really enjoyed our move. I'll have pictures and a post up once we officially moved to Los Angeles this weekend. :)

Thank Goodness for Technology

Michael and I have finally broken down and bought a GPS for the big move to the west coast as well as for finding our way around Los Angeles once we arrive in our new city of living.  I used to be so proud of my use of Google Maps until it got me lost last week and I can just imagine Michael and I coming across such intersections as this with Google Maps as our companion on the 36 hour drive.

 Sorry Google Maps, you've done your part but now it's time to move over for the new Magellan Maestro 3100 which will now be taking your place, (and of which I got a killer deal on Amazon for, too!)

FOR SALE!!

Okay, this is my third post of the day, but it is the one I am most excited about! Our house is finally on the market! It is well overdue since we move in less than a month, but because Michael and I are the worst procrastinators in the world better now than later I guess. Anyone interested? :)

By the way, I ran a poll on the blog about 2 years ago about what color to paint the front door and might I say that the red turned out GREAT!! Thanks everyone for your votes and help. Love it!

I have a dream...

My parents have had a few homes built over the years (around four that I can remember) and would often buy catalogs filled with house plans from many different styles: victorian, florida-spanish style, one-story rambler, craftsman, etc. For as long as I can remember, I would grab one of these catalogs and lie on my stomach and imagine myself walking through the houses, locating great little corners to read books,deciding whether a bathroom was too small to be shared between two bedrooms, and imagining if a back porch was large enough to enjoy in the middle of summer. I love houses. I love the way they make a family complete, they give a sense of safety, peace, and serenity as well as ownership.

Now that we are selling our house I have been thinking about my dream of one day taking a sad dilapadated house and restoring it to something beautiful, charming and warm again. I want to take something that is full of history and make it into something that everyone can enjoy and I would love to take that house, preferably Victorian, and run a bed and breakfast in it. I would love to share it with others and show the pride I have in accomplishing something that was hard, time consuming and inevitiably worth it just to take one house off of my "Oh it would look so beautiful fixed-up" list that I have in my head.

Since we have done so much in the 98-year-old house that we have been living in here in Cincinnati for the past five years, I thought I had had my fill of fixing up a house, but now I know that was only a small taste of what I have been dreaming of.

We have done so much, or atleast I have with the help of a lovely, if not sometimes cranky and unproductive husband. I've not only painted EVERY room in my home (sometimes twice) but I have also installed tile in the kitchen with my mom's help on the floors, countertops and backsplash, (THANKS MOM!!!!) put crown molding up in the living room and dining room, put chair rail in the dining room, painted the floors upstairs, retiled and regrouted the bathroom tile, painted my front door "Posh Red" and a million other little projects that have taken me to Lowe's sometimes three and four times in a day.

My dream is still there in the back of my head and I know there is that pretty victorian house out there just like this one that is waiting for me to show it some TLC. Now the only thing left to do is find it and convince Michael that it is worth the time and money.

Cross Country

Well, Michael leaves today for Utah. He will be taking his car the 24 hour drive to make it in time for his 10-year High School reunion and wow, did I have a fun time packing it up for him. It only took me four hours, a major headach and a messy house to pack his car full of everything we won't be needing until we move to California.

He's going to leave his car at his mom's in Utah and then fly back to Cincinnati so that he can turn around and make the 36 hour drive with me to California in a about three weeks.

So, he'll be gone for a few days enjoying himself and performing his stand-up routine at his reunion (yes, Michael if you didn't know performs stand-comedy a little on the side) and I'll have the lovely task of cleaning out the garage and getting our home ready for an open house on Sunday. I guess him driving roughly 6o hours back and forth across the country makes me feel less abandoned. :)