A year ago today!

A year ago today Mr. Pilot-Man and I broke up for the first time (read all about it here), sadly it was on his birthday (who does that to someone else?), oops!  I seriously cannot believe that it was just a year ago, it seems like 5 years ago, so much so I hardly ever think about him (really, only when I see an airplane fly over my house, cause he used to fly over it all of the time and he would always tell me, I just flew over your house), I guess that means you are truly over someone when you do not think about them at all.  Anyways, I guess this post is to reflect on how my life has changed in the last year and that good can come from bad and that life will and does go on.  I am not going to lie, life sucked, it sucked big time, I was so sad/bummed/disappointed, it was the beginning of the holiday season and I so wanted to spend that time of year with him, but instead I was all by myself.  Thankfully I had many distractions, work, Gracie, cute Christmas shows to go to, my mom getting the stomach flu so my sister and I had to cook Christmas dinner (selfishly, it kept me from being sad), etc.  But in the last year, I would never thought in a million years I would be doing the stuff I am doing now.  Had I still been with Leo, I would probably be living in a far off land all by myself with no family around, Gracie would probably be living with my parents (yep, they sure are glad I did not move), I would of never laid a hand on a paddle, still would have no idea what an outrigger canoe was let alone be the member of a club, there would be no surfboard hanging in my garage, no bike rides, no OC-1 adventures for sure and I would of never met the people I call my friends today, time sure flies when you are having fun.  It is crazy how life works itself out, and how true those sayings like "when one door closes, another one opens" or the dreaded "everything happens for a reason" and so on.  But in the spirit of being thankful, I have an awesome family (soon a new little cousin) and great friends and I could not ask for anything more!  Thank you to everyone who has made this past year of my life a lot easier to get through then I ever thought it would be.  

One more left!

I officially have one more car payment, I cannot wait until December 21, to say "peace out" to my car payment.    I have worked so hard to pay it off early and I have succeeded by paying it off six months early.  It is kind of crazy cause I am so close to it being paid off and I plan on keeping my car for as long as I can that I am totally freaked out that someone is going hit my car and I will have to get a new one.  It is a nightmare I live almost everyday watching all of the crazy people on the road (xanax anyone?) and lets just say I will not be one of those graceful  people who says "accidents happen", if an accident occurs cause I will be a raging loon, demanding their license, registration and proof of insurance!  I almost feel like putting a sign on my bumper that says "keep back 200ft".  Then the other day I get a phone call from Norm Reeve's Honda in Huntington Beach, let's just DO NOT EVER buy a car from them unless you want to talk to them often.  They used to call me all of the time for misc. crap and I was so sick of it I told them in no uncertain terms to NEVER call me again and they sort of listened.  Anyways, this gal from Norm Reeve's calls the other day and this is how the conversation goes......

Gal:  Hi Erin this is ______from Norm Reeve's and I noticed that you have 9 payments left on your 2008 Honda CRV.

Me:  Umm, no I have 2 payments left

Gal: Oh!  Well the reason why I am calling is cause I have people here interested in buying a used 2008 CRV and we would like to talk to you about trading yours in.

Me: That is great but I am not interested, I have 2 payments left and I do not want to buy a new car.

Gal:  Well, we have new CRV's with a lot of new features that your 2008 does not have.

Me: Ya, well I plan on keeping my car for at least 5 more years, I am fine with the features I have on my car.

Gal:  That is great, but you do know that you will soon start to have to pay more repair bills than you have had to pay in the last 4 years cause you know as cars get older they need more work.

Me: Thinking in my head "please do not talk to me like I am stupid"

Me:  It is only 4 years old.  It is a Honda, it will run forever with the proper maintenance that I already do.

Gal: But

Me: So you are saying that you want to buy my car back so you can sell it to someone who can then incur a lot of repair bills?  Gee, that is nice of you!  Why would I want to buy new CRV when you are telling me in 5 years it will break down?  If this is how you are going to sell new cars to current owners than my next car will be a Toyota. Thanks for calling, CLICK!

For reals that lady was a treat, did she really think I was that dumb?  I feel like sending this blog post to the sales team at Honda and tell them that their trade-in tactic is all wrong and it makes them look kind of shady.    But for the record I love my car and I really truly have no desire to buy a new car anytime soon and if I was forced to, I would probably buy the same car again.  And just to show how much I love my car, here is a picture of the only "features" I need!

Yep, that is right, my OC-1, bike, surfboard and snowboard can all fit either on or inside the car and still leave room for myself, Gracie and a friend or two!

Black Friday & Cyber Monday Update

Just a quick update to my previous, I went to the Mission Viejo Mall today cause it is close to my house.  Sometimes I can be a mall snob and only shop at South Coast Plaza, but I prefer a couple stores at the Mission Mall vs. South Coast Plaza, so that is where I wound up.  I hit the Gap, J.Crew, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch (so weird, I have not been in there in years) and Ann Taylor LOFT.   I had mentioned previously that I was doing all of this so I would only have to stand in line and collect my savings on Friday, actually I said Thursday, but you all know what I meant, cause of course I will be stuffing my face on Thursday, so therefore I will be busy oh and minor details the mall is closed on Thursday, duh Erin!  Anyways, back to my reason for the update, a lot of the stores I hit are already doing their Black Friday sales, so there is really no reason to go to the mall on Friday.  Get this, I went to the Gap today and saved $92.57, it was awesome, I bought 7 items and averaged right around $10 a piece, I saved more than I spent.  Here is a picture of what I bought, just some basics, cause I have none and yes, I might of purchased the same shirt in three different colors (don't judge), I also bought a pair of pj's cause I think the pants will fit nicely under my snowboarding pants, so they were a totally justifiable purchase as well.  The striped sweater was from Banana Republic, it is so soft and I loved the other two I bought a few weeks ago that are similar, I just had to have another plus it was on sale.  The off white sweater (yes mom, I still hate that color most of the time) is from Abercrombie, so not on sale, but I really liked it and I have been eyeing for awhile (it has been in the window of the store), so I bought it.  And for the record I was able to squeeze myself into a size 8 pair of jeans today, they were tight, but I could zip them up and button them, so therefore I say VICTORY, I did not buy them cause they were not a great deal and I could buy them at that price anytime.

Ann Taylor Loft and J.Crew were a total bust, but that's ok, I am out of $$$.

So, the point of this post is go shopping now and avoid the craziness on Friday!

Black Friday & Cyber Monday Tips!

I was planning in participating in Black Friday this year (at midnight when the mall opens, going to try and power through the food coma), I even went to the mall yesterday for a little bit to scope things out and see if there was anything that I wanted and where to find it, I decided a plan was the best way to get through all of the madness.  Then I got to thinking last night, why not go and purchase all of the things I want when it is not crowded and then take my receipts back and have them do a price adjustment, genius I KNOW!  So instead of fighting the crazies for the last sweater in my size or digging through piles of chaos and getting annoyed with the people who brought their small children and have forgotten to feed them due to their bargain hunting, I am going to go in peace today, shop till I am broke (oh wait, I am already broke) and then go back on Thursday and just stand in line and hand them my receipt and watch the dollars credited to my account.  After that is all done, if I need to too, I will be sitting on my couch in my stretchy pants with my laptop loading up my online shopping carts while waiting patiently till cyber Monday.  

You can thank me later for these great shopping tips!

TMI?

For eight months now I have been putting off some dreaded lab work (hanging my head in shame) for my kidney's, ya they have been acting up for awhile now (they leak blood, no biggie), but so far all of the tests have come back normal even the "I am going to pee my pants" bladder ultrasound. Oh my that was funny, I brought a change of clothes and a plastic bag cause I was convinced I was going to pee my pants.  Anyways, I finally remembered (I had to fast) to do it today, they took nine vials of blood, the girl who did it was AMAZING, she hit a pumping vein, I did not feel a thing and I was sent home with this........

Yep, I have to do 24hour pee collection jug, AWESOME.  So for the next 24 hours I get to pee on my hand into a cup as I collect it, TMI?  And the best part.......wait for it......I get to store it in my refrigerator, how gross is that?  Anyone want to come over for dinner?   I will be bleaching the frig tomorrow after I drop it off at the lab.  So I am sorta home bound for the day as in her words "it is very important that you do miss an opportunity to collect".  

I am so excited to do this, said NO one ever!  

The good news is that on December 21, at 9:20am they will tell me everything is fine and I will never have to do this again, Go Me!

End of the week Tales!

I think I finally completed the recap of last weekends events, yes they are totally out of order but I think I covered everything worth covering!

Super Mom and I went to lunch together today, we usually hit up the same spot (Cinnamon Productions) when she comes to RSM, however as she was getting out of the car I noticed my boss and our city manager where going to the same restaurant so we quickly aborted our entry, jumped into her car and drove off, it was one of those Ikea commercial moments when the lady runs to the car screaming start the car start the car, except I was not screaming.  We ultimately ended up in Foothill Ranch and ate at Mustard’s Café, I am actually kind of glad the way it all worked out, I have been wanting to try Mustard’s Café for a while now and I have to say I look forward to going back there. 

Last night after work (gasp, going out on a school night) I met up with some of my peeps for a little birthday dinner for Sheila at Southof Nick’s in San Clemente.  Oh my goodness I love all of my new friends, 

they are so great!

A few were not pictured, but are loved as well!

I have thought of a few more things for my Christmas wish list.

-A roadside emergency kit for my bike.

-Gift card to Banana Republic, I am really digging their clothes lately and have picked up a few essentials over the past few weeks.

- A red flag for my OC1, since it is really long and I do not want anyone running into it! Click here

I was going to go to Mammoth this weekend but decided not to at the last minute.  I was going to have to take Gracie with me but the weather report says snow and I was not sure I could handle all of that time inside with Gracie and make sure she was not driving everyone nuts.  I have a baby shower to go to on Sunday for my friend Marisa, funny I have not seen her since her last baby shower, but I am glad she sent me an invite because I really enjoy her company, I think I am going to invite myself over soon for dinner or something like that, so I can chat with her more and soak up new baby snuggles!  And, there are a few paddling things going on this weekend that sound like fun, so I will be sure to keep busy.

I am off all next week for work since I had planned on being on the slopes, but instead I will be staying in and doing some crafty type things, so I am PRAYING for rain so I won’t be tempted to go outside and play.  I am hoping to take my OC-1 out a couple times next week in order to fulfill some needed recreation/exercise requirements and yes, I realize praying for rain and wanting to take my OC-1 out really do not mix, maybe it can rain after 10am!  

I came home from work today to find this......

Yep, some of the stuffing from her bed, Oh Gracie!! 

My "man"dals (yes, they are very ugly) have been sitting in my kitchen sink for the past two days, I need to wash them, but just have not gotten around too it.

And this is how I cooked tonight, leftovers, fancy I know!

And the best part of the week is that I just realized I am on VACATION till the 26th!

Woohoo!

Saturday Night!

Saturday night we celebrated the Parent's birthday's, my mom's is on Halloween and my Dad's was this past Friday, we all gathered at their house for dinner, presents and cake. The evening started off with the family Christmas photo and let's just say each year we credit the difficulty of taking the picture due to the kids ages,  but I am starting to think this will not be an eassy process till they are 16 or so, I really wish I had pictures of my sister jumping around behind me to get them to smile!  Super Mom made her good lasangna, salad and garlic bread, we all gobbled it up especially Cole, it is funny how the kids think my Mom's food is the best ever and eat like champs when they are over.  Here are some out takes of the night, holy moly are those kids cute.

Mari and Cole, always close by to help unwrap presents!

Yes, Dad you are AWESOME!

Yep, not gonna get a great picture!

She looks scared!

Happy Birthday to the GREATEST parents out there!

Sunday

Ok, so I guess posting backwards is not my strong suit since I already screwed it up.  There is a good chance I was confused with what day it was yesterday since it was a holiday and I had been off since Friday. Anyways on Sunday myself and a huge group of my paddle friends helped host/volunteer at a Wounded Warrior event down at baby beach.  About 20 families came out and got to go out in the canoes, try stand up paddling and race around in a two man.  It was awesome to hear the stories of these men and women who have had huge obstacles thrown their way and have been home bound for months and worked up the courage to come out and join us down at the beach.  The OC Register was there and  wrote about this event  here.

These are just a few pics I took, I had to put my phone in the car since we were going out on the water. I wish I had it with me, there was a service dog that looked just like Lucy except this dog was a lot bigger then her, but you could tell they were related.  It is neat to think that Lucy's breed is smart enough to be a service dog, but then I think so is Gracie's and look what I got a dumb dog who eats grass and chewed up gum all of the time.  Anyways it was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time, we cannot wait to do it again next year.  

A special thanks to all of the men and women who fight to protect our freedom!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Saturday Afternoon

Day three in my recap of the weekend, see I told you it was a busy one!  Saturday, was a busy day with some ups and downs.  I woke up early loaded my boat on the car and drove down to baby beach, but with a little misscommunication, I missed meeting up with my friends and since I cannot unload my boat myself I was stuck, so I headed home, went for a bike ride, went to Home Depot for a new filter (it was freezing in my house so it was time to turn the heater on), walked Gracie, showered and headed over to my cousin Katie's baby shower.  Katie is 36 weeks along a ready to have lil Miss Ava Lynn any day now, it was fun to spend the afternoon with Katie and her family and friends and I cannot wait to meet her new little bundle of joy at Christmas.  

Congrats to the Carbajal Family!

Monday!

I was lucky enough to have a four day weekend this past weekend and it was a great weekend so much so, I cannot remember what I did on Friday besides go to the mall, now that is kind of scary, sign of old age I guess! Anyways the weekend was jammed packed with different things I think I am going to start with today and work my way backwards with several different posts this week.  

I met up with my paddling peeps bright and early this morning to take out our OC-1's, the weather was perfect and the water was flat; perfect conditions for us who are just getting used to paddling our new/used/borrowed boats. It was tons of fun as we paddled north to the red buoy, about three miles out and such a good workout, I am currently yawning as I type this, I think the paddling wiped me out.   

I thought this was a fun picture of all of our boats strapped to the tops of our cars, you cannot see Marcia's as it blends in with the black truck, but it is there!

I also took my Christmas card photo today, I think it is going to turn out great and show a true depiction of who I am!  I will post the photo(s) as soon as my cards are mailed out.

Please note that this is November 12 and it was sunny and warm, so sunny it required sunscreen, we are sooo lucky to have great weather like this.

Pictures!

 Just a few pictures from the Dam Race that I kindly borrowed from facebook and fellow paddlers!

Getting ready to launch!

Our boat crew!  Meegan, Melissa, Me, Sheila, Josie & Maddie.

Our favorite novice guys!  Greg, Andre, Buck, Joe, Jeff & Hoover

The start!

All of the "Dam" paddlers!  Go Dana!

They Say it's Your Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dad!

I hope your day is as awesome as you are!  

Thank you for EVERYTHING you do for me and our family, you are the BEST Dad EVER!!!

I LOVE you soooooo much!

Love this pic of you!

Sleigh Bells will be Ringing!

That's right folks Christmas is just around the corner and it is time to work on my Wish List for this year.  I don't really have any big ticket items on the list so far, but things could change!  

I could really use something like this for my bathroom, I am having a drawer crisis.

Click here

                                                                                                   
                                                 

Click here

I lied, this is a big ticket item!

                                                                           Click here

Some of their stocking stuffers are cool!

Additional Items:

-Light for the front and back of my bike.
-Step stool(s) from the Container Store and yes I would like two, but one would be great!
-Name for my OC-1
-Gift cards
-Dream Scent from the Gap (perfume)
- A paddle or $$$ towards a paddle
- A bag of dog food for Gracie
-A day at Doggie Day Care for Gracie (best gift ever)

Midweek Maddness

Yesterday at work a little old lady closed her arm in her car door and got a nasty cut on her arm, she got really upset and felt light headed so naturally we called in reinforcement from Station 45.  My my has the staffing level changed a bit, looks life they got some young good looking blood running through there instead of the old guys, no complaints from me!  Looks like our victim did not mind either as she pranced around with one on each arm after they fixed her up, I hate her!!!  I was so ready to fake an injury, so I could have one on each arm as well, never in a million years would I thought I would ever be jealous of an old woman, so not fair.  

They were holding hands just seconds before (that should be me)!

Look, she is totally grabbing his arm and checking out his muscles (that should be me again)!

Then she went after Cody, total cougar!

I needed to add a hole to my belt, I used these tools to get it done........

And the funniest thing of all was this noticed posted on my door, looks like they really do listen to customer feedback and they do not want to be slapped with a $25 doggie daycare bill, read bullet point #4.  Yep, they showed up unannounced last week and I could not leave Gracie at home cause she would bark all day, so I took her to camp and then informed Pilot Painting (see nothing good ever come from a Pilot) that they owed me $25 for doggie daycare since they gave me no warning they were coming and I cannot get another barking dog letter.  After some haggling, I told them they could paint my front gate for me and we would call it even, they agreed and all ended well!  Well, I came home to this and it appears as if Gracie can bark her little head off all day Thursday and all day Friday and we cannot get in trouble, AWESOME!  But really, they HOA needs to pick the final color, cause I am sick of moving all of my crap so my unit can be the test unit, hmmmm, I wonder if somehow I can negotiate the moving of all my stuff somehow?

That's it for now, happy Wednesday!

Jis Sayn!

My brother Ryan sent me this yesterday morning with the question "is this your car?".  

Pretty funny that he would see a car on the road that is so close to my blog name!

The Greatest Thing Ever!

Putting these jeans in the donate pile and saying goodbye as I dropped them off cause they are way to big!  

High-Five!

No more size 12, size 10 you are on your way out and size 8 I will see you soon!

A "Dam" good time!

Good news, I made it home from Parker, Arizona in one piece after paddling "Another Dam Race"!  Us novice crew that went had such a fantastic time this past weekend and we all cannot wait for this race next year.  The weekend started on Friday with the four hour drive to AZ, we were really lucky to not hit any traffic on the way there, we arrived right around noon, grabbed some lunch at the Cantina (not the best place to eat) and headed to River Lodge where all of our canoes were waiting for us to be rigged.  We rigged the canoes, hung out by the river for a little bit and then headed back to the Blue Water Resort & Casino to check in.  Once we were all settled in we met in the bar for a little something something and after perusing Yelp and my Verizon Navigator app, we found a really great restaurant (Strokes) not to far from the hotel to have dinner at!  Now this is where the fun really began, 13 of us loaded into an RV that part of the team rented and cruised down the highway to dinner, OMG, I have not laughed that hard in a long long long time. Lets just say we were packed in there and it was totally unsafe, the RV was probably bouncing down the road and it is not a good idea to have 12 backseat drivers, a special thanks to Jeff for driving and acting as if he had done this a million times minus the part where he could not get the windshield wipers to turn off.  Sheila We walked into Strokes with drinks in hand where they kindly greeted us and took them away, I played decoy while Sheila we drank up before handing the glasses over it was hilarious.  We proceeded to walk in so loudly that I am sure the ENTIRE restaurant heard us and quickly ate their food to get away from us.  We ate, drank and were so merry, it was awesome. The RV ride was freakin hilarious, Buck was the entertainer/DJ and lets just say when I laugh hard I start to cough and I coughed the entire ride back and in the morning woke up coughing, he was that funny.  After we got back to the hotel, it was time to put our swimsuits on and head to the water slide (cause it is only normal to be 30+ and ride on the water slide after dinner).  I am so bummed I did not get pics of the pool, it was really neat, plus it was really awesome that they threatened to bill you $50 if you took a pool towel home.  

Just a glimpse of the fun!

Saturday we headed up river to the race start line, it was a beach start and it was nuts.  First off, I was not anticipating my boat to take off like it did, so I had to run after it and once I got to the boat it was deeper then I thought and I could not get in the way I planned so I had to hurl myself in, yes it looks like I got beat again.  Our boat did great with the exception of me who steered us into some chaos and cost us third or fourth place, total fail, oops! All in all we had a great time, we paddled well and it was nice to have the help of the current. After the race we loaded the boats, hung out at the Cantina for awhile and then headed to the ampitheater for the raffle, awards and lunch.  It was such a nice day hanging on the lawn in the shade (it was 90 degrees out) and enjoying everyone's company.  Once all of the festivities were over we headed out onto a Pontoon boat and cruised up the river to Roadrunner's for a couple cocktails and some greasy food (dude, I am still paying the price for all the onion rings I ate).  Let's just say that we kind of exceeded the weight limit for the pontoon and at one point the front went under and started taking on water, no bueno.  It kind of freaked me out, as in how was I going to swim to shore without getting my phone wet (the important things people), anyways after redistributing some of the weight we made it there dry but had to take two boat loads of people back to the hotel.  

What a pretty sunset!

Sunday it was time for all of the fun to come to an end, we put our "Dam" shirts on, packed our bags and we headed back home :( , talk about a great way time!  I cannot wait till next year!  I am so stoked that now I can say I have paddled to Catalina and down the Colorado River. 

Thanks to all that organized this!