1 Year 1 Week 1 Day

I hate to brag, but I just can't help but feel so warm and fuzzy inside with my new Tiffany's ring and AJ deserves some credit! He wasn't able to get my anniversary present earlier, so we made time for him to take me out to get it. He took  me to South Coast Plaza and we wandered around forever before he led me into Tiffany's. He had the saleswoman pull out the two different rings that he had narrowed it down to to let me decide. He said I could look around and pick out any one I wanted if I liked something else better, but I wanted to take one of the ones that he had in mind for me.

I almost cried, because it was just so cute and so sweet and it was Tiffany's (lolololol) and I felt like Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama when she gets taken to Tiffany's and told to pick out her engagement ring, only not an engagement ring and we were the dollar store version hahahaha but hey, still Tiffany's.

Because I am still obsessed with my Atlas collection ring 

(You can even relive the first time it entered my life here) I chose the Sterling silver ring from the newest Tiffany T collection that I thought would complement the Atlas ring really well!

It was the cutest, sweetest, most romantic gesture and evening! This is how I've been sending AJ pictures of myself ever since too:

While we were waiting for the saleswoman to find the correct size and polish it up, we went wandering around the store and found ourselves in the diamond section. We leaned over a case and I said aloud to AJ "Hmmm, I don't know. Do you think they have anything... bigger?" lolololol I crack myself up.

Snow Days

While the East Coast was being buried by Jonas, and my East Coast friends were texting me telling me how lucky I was to be out of the snow... I was in Big Bear in the snow.

AJ and I had been wanting to take Anana up to the snow for a long time. She is a snow dog meant for snow days. She used to live in Canada with AJ and loved the snow and hadn't been in it in forever. She loved to eat it too.

It was so much fun to play with her up there! The lake was frozen over which was kinda crazy, and yes we walked out on it and yes I did make music videos!

We drove up with some friends that we dropped off to go snowboarding, then we all went down the mountain together and got pho mmm so warm and delicious!!

And above is me hanging out with Casey on Sunday.

FIN.

Platz da für Mazda

Anja taught me that old German slogan for Mazdas, meaning "Make way for Mazda!" So with that to herald in the post, please welcome to the world Vynz Jeremy!

If you'd like to refresh your brain on my last car purchase (the only one I planned to make for the next decade until I ran it into the ground - yes, I loved it that much) take a look at the post from that time in November 2013.

And if those pictures ring a bell, wait til you see these.

Signing on the dotted line!

Writing out the check

Sitting in it for the first time since owning it

Jeremy helping me set up Bluetooth

Feature overview

Keys to the car thanks to Jeremy

And that's not all... my last Mazda 3 was purchased at a VW dealership that my mom drove me to late at night... and this Mazda 3 was also purchased at a VW dealership that my mom drove me to late at night. When I went to buy my first one (Richard Richard), Shannon had just come into town from England and came with us... and Shannon is coming into town in like 4 days, so we just missed recreating that... that would have been wild. But it's better that something is different, I don't need this one ending up totaled from a 16-year-old while parked outside too.

So, Vynz Jeremy is two years newer than Richard Richard, with 44k LESS miles, with power locks (yesssss...!) and Bluetooth. I have arrived in the 21st century!

As for the name... well, AJ and I had been going to a few different dealerships in Orange County when we came across one in Santa Ana where our salesman was a very young kid named Vince that must have been in community college, and his age definitely showed. Riding a hoverboard around, trying to act like our best friend, telling me to gun the car on the test drive (past a CHP office...?) and then telling me he can't get caught again or he'll get a ticket, and making jokes like "Are you sure she knows how to drive stick?" Ummm yes, thank you. I didn't really mind because I knew we wouldn't be buying that night. I had a mind to tell him that look, I'm fine with this for an hour, but you need to shape up if you really want to be a successful salesman, but I didn't care enough. When we asked to see the Carfax of one of the cars, he ran off to print it and AJ nudged me and pointed at the guys' business cards. His name was actually spelled "Vynz" and had no last name. I was cackling with laughter at the whole picture of this character and as we left I told AJ, I don't care who sells me whatever car I end up getting, my car will be named Vynz.

And of course, since Jeremy at the VW dealership was great, helped us the seal the deal, and also wore suspenders a la Richard in Capistrano, this Mazda gets a middle name!

I would like to thank AJ for helping me check the car out, including test driving, negotiating and follow-up, my mother for driving me to the dealership late at night, and Jayna for putting up with all my bitching about my car hunt in the meantime!

Gauchos Locos

Thank God for Long Weekends. Don't tell AJ I said that, because he didn't get Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr Day. But we celebrated like it was a long weekend for both of us.

We went to Santa Barbara for the weekend to celebrate an entire year together! It was way too short. First of all, it was nostalgic as all get out being in Santa Barbara, and I couldn't believe how much I had forgotten - like the exit name off the 101 to Isla Vista (it's Los Carneros) or Tonic nightclub or Sandbar where Becca and I celebrated our 22nd birthdays on Friday before our joint parties on Saturday night. We spent Saturday afternoon in Isla Vista... I gave AJ the Kiki tour and then we went to Woodstock's to watch the Patriots/Chiefs game before going and checking into our Airbnb in downtown Santa Barbara.

We parked in front of the place, then decided we should pick up some drinks and went to CVS, where we got some snacks, some Jim Beam Maple, root beer and Santa Barbara shot glasses. Here's us on the CVS security camera at check-out.

I mention all of this because it ended up being a huge mistake! The Airbnb was a private-entrance studio attached to the main Victorian house, and not only was it cute, but the host had the kitchenette STOCKED with anything we could want! Fruit, water, ginger ale, coconut water, Vitamin water, beer (beer!), snacks, coffee, creamer, microwave meals, granola bars, chocolates... everything! Plus, a handwritten welcome note on the chalkboard and a gift of vintage postcards! (How did she know I collect those??) so basically we didn't ever need to go to CVS, except for maybe those shot glasses, and we LOVED that place. 

Plus it was a tempurpedic bed that had massage features and could sit upright so we could comfortably watch the Packers/Cardinals game from bed. Screw Lasik, I need one of those beds!! We took a nap and then looked up a place to go to dinner. AJ found a cajun restaurant with good reviews and good location and I said "That reminds me, I think Santa Barbara used to have a nice cajun place..." well we show up to Palace Grill and I realized that that had been one of my top 3 favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara!!! I love cajun food, and I was/am obsessed with New Orleans, which it is made up to look like, and they have this amazing cajun martini that I loved, and I had even tried to reserve that place for my graduation lunch but they were booked up. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about it!!! I'm getting too old.

The next day we had to check out (huge sadface) and first order of business was to visit the mission. I had really been here a million and three times (legally and otherwise... cough sorority hazing cough) so there was nothing new, but it was nice to show it to AJ. The best part is that the real life main character from Island of the Blue Dolphins is actually buried here.

We were also very excited to press our own pennies at the mission gift shop.

After that we went down to State Street and had a few minutes to spare so we walked to the harbor and down the pier before making it to the Santa Barbara Brew House for Steelers/Broncos game. 

If you watched that, you know how devastating that was. Steelers were winning the whole time, albeit barely, so it was very tense and stressful, then there was a fumble, and the Broncos win within the last 6 minutes or so. We left after that and it was very sad. We went to AJ's mom's house in Hermosa to spend the night. AJ had to get up early for work the next morning, but I got to sleep in and have breakfast and coffee with his mom and the dogs and then I went to meet Anja! Remember I went and saw my German friend Anja doing her PhD in London who was at a conference in Phoenix in February last year? Well now she's in LA for awhile and we went to Santa Monica for lunch and the afternoon.

I didn't get home until about 8p. I had to stop off and buy Khaleesi food and coffee creamer and I was so exhausted it didn't really feel like it had even been a 3-day weekend. I'm having a hard time landing on my feet this year. I wish I were a cat.

Puzzle & Rickman

One of my Christmas presents this year was a puzzle, because I love a good puzzle, (and am also a super cool person). Kathleen and I started this puzzle after Christmas and she got the entire border. Since then, AJ and I would work on it over breakfast or if we were hanging around my place, and then I got pretty much the last 4th all on my own, which by the way was incredibly hard because it was simply sky or water and you didn't know if it was the "real" part or the reflection.

December 26, 2015 - January 12, 2016

Can  you guess the movie on the TV screen?

And Alan Rickman! That was a huge shocker, and so sad! When I went online this morning, I was sad to see that the main stories were about the Powerball winners, and Alan Rickman's death was a small link on the side. Him and David Bowie both died from cancer and they were both 69. In the words of Labyrinth's Goblin King in David Bowie's voice... "Such a pity..."