14 posts tagged “oakland”

figured i should write a quick update on whats been going on in my life!

will and i are planning to move out to oakland at the end of august/beginning of september. we will have approximately $17,000 saved by then so i'm hoping that is a big enough cushion for us to get back on our feet. people have been saying it will take around six months to find a job in our fields so that should keep us going for at least six months unemployment. i'm hoping it doesn't take that long to find a job though...i have not been without a job since high school so it is an adventure that i am both really looking forward to but also dreading! i just don't like having that much uncertainity in my life.

the plan is to ship most of our things to oakland where they can stay in storage until we find our apartment. and then the other stuff will be coming with us when we drive across america! we are stopping in d.c. for a couple days to visit will's mom and then going to west virginia to visit will's dad. we will probably drive through the dakotas but i am hoping to stop in oklahoma to maybe visit my cousin and his wife. we really don't have a set plan yet - it's really all up in the air at this point!

in other news, my eldest sister brianne is getting married to her girlfriend in six days! my mom and i are making her wedding cake so i have been up to my elbows in frosting these past few weeks. i am looking forward to seeing my family and friends but i am NOT looking forward to actually making these cakes! my mom is insisting on baking them from scratch but i fear that they will not rise or break apart and we might have to just buy a bunch of cake mixes! luckily will's mom (who is a caterer) is coming up on friday so she will thankfully be able to help us out with the preparation. other then that, i am just praying that it doesn't rain on saturday!

i am mostly looking forward to seeing my aunt sherri and my cousins jenny and kathleen who live in seattle. i have not seen them since i was in 8th grade - that was almost 13 years ago!!! we keep in touch on myspace but it will be so much better to see them in person. and of course, i am SOOOO excited that my best friend sal is coming up from florida for the wedding. he has not been back to connecticut since he moved almost six years ago. he is doing everyone's hair for the wedding and i know we are all gonna look fantastic after he's finished with us!

the only thing that i am truly worried about though is my health! i have had a nasty cough for the past two weeks that doesn't seem to be getting any better. i'm going to see the doctor's this afternoon and i am PRAYING that they give me some actual drugs instead of telling me to "treat the symptons" with cough drops and sudafed. i don't want to be wheezing through the ceremony or on the dance floor!

hope all you voxers are doing well and loving life!

Show us a baby animal.

this is the newborn baby bunny that i met at the oakland animal shelter when i visited my sister in california. he's so tiny and adorables!!!!

Bunny1

Bunny2

i thought of more resolutions as i was driving around on my errands today (i do my best thinking when i'm behind the wheel).

17. eat more of a variety of vegetables and fruits, and eat LOTS of them!
18. buy a volcano
19. cut back on toking
20. go back to reading more and watching less t.v. (i was so much better at this when we didn't live at my parents - they can afford waaaay too many channels!)
21. start my novel (i'm not even going to attempt to finish a novel next year...just coming up with a premise and starting is hard enough for me).
22. grow a garden when we move to oakland so we can grow our own veggies, herbs, fruits AND herbal refreshment.
23. create more popsicle recipes...perfect the popsicle recipes i already have.
24. write a cookbook
25. drink more water
26. wear sunscreen more often and use eye cream daily & nightly

ok i think that is it for now! i don't think i should write anymore or else i might feel a little too overwhelmed by all this improvement! 

What's your New Year's resolution for 2009? How did you do with 2008's?

the only resolution i made last year was to join a gym and lose weight and i definitley accomplished that! in january 2008, i was tipping the scales at 178 and now i am back down to 155. i didn't diet or anything like that but i became so much more active and i think thats why i dropped all that weight. i would love to lose 5-10 more pounds but i'm not worried about it. i wish more people would make new resolutions to become more ACTIVE and make healthier choices then to just generally say LOSE WEIGHT. its all about changing your lifestyle and not about crash dieting and exercising until you reach the point of exhaustion or watching the scale religiously. i tried to go to the gym 2-3 times a week and i didn't weigh myself until september! i wasn't freaking out over a number but i did start to feel better which is what really matters.

okay so i'm officially going to make some resolutions for this year because i have a lot of things i want to accomplish in 2009!

1. start working out at the gym again (i haven't been since sept!)
   
2. put more money into my savings account for our move...stop spending $ on frivolous things like ebay, clothes, restaurants, going to the movies, groceries that we don't eat.
3. help out more at home...take the initiative before my mother or will has to ask me to do something.
4. bring lunch to work more...stop going out to eat.
5. stop limit my intake of fast food (dude you *know* its impossible to give that shit up entirely!)
6. no more corn syrup...drink soda only once on weekends. eat more quality food - foods with less then four ingredients in them, more fiber, organic products, and no added stuff like msg, natural flavors, sweeteners, chemicals, etc.
   
7. use products with no parabens in them.
8. MOVE TO CALIFORNIA!
9. quit my job
10. enjoy unemployment for awhile before stressing about being unemployed
    
11. get an awesome new job that doesn't drive me crazy or kill my will to live and pays more then what i make now
    
12. talk more gently to my partner and other family members
13. have more patience and understanding with everything and everyone
14. buy will a keyboard piano ;-)
    
15. launch my new blog/business (still working on the name of it...)
16. go sledding whenever there is snow out
    

the good news: i just bought two tickets to see britney in boston on march 16th!!!!! they are not AMAZING seats but they are not bad either. i am in the lower level seating near center stage. pre-sales went on sale this morning at 8AM! i can't believe i even got tickets because i checked my email at 8:16AM and its fucked up cause they sent the email out AFTER 8AM. seriously, why didn't they announce the pre-sale tickets earlier so that people had fair warning about getting tix??? i had to dip into my savings to even be able to afford them. i looked for tickets at mohegan sun but they were all on the upper level. there's no way i am paying over $150 each for upper level seating. so i looked at the boston page and they def had better seats available so i snagged some up.

i am so very excited for this concert...but it is also bittersweet. i haven't really been talking about my personal life on the blog lately so i guess now is a good time to talk about what is going on with me. most of you know that my boyfriend and i decided that we wanted to move to oakland, california. we made that decision at the end of july...which is also about the same time that all this "recession" stuff started happening. we were shooting to move out there in january but i just don't see it happening right now.

i am just soooo scared to give up my job because i am really afraid that i won't be able to get a new job in california. i read today that california has a 8.2% unemployment rate now, the highest they've had in the past 14 years. both my boyfriend and i don't have THAT much work experience that would guarantee us a job out there. i have secretary work under my belt so i could prob always do that somewhere...but i'm just really afraid to take that chance right now. it sucks because in my gut, i'm pretty sure that i could get a job. but my brain keeps telling me to be patient and wait it out.

i'm just really disappointed in myself and disappointed with the whole situation. everyone keeps talking about the recession and how we are in the worst depression since the 30s...but yet no one can give me a straight answer on what i should do. my parents think i should wait until june to move out there...i have other people telling me that i should wait too. but then my two sisters tell me that i shouldn't worry so much and to just DO IT. it's really frustrating because i have all these different people chirping in my ear about what i should do and what i shouldn't do. it's hard to know what is the right decision to make.

i wanted to move out there by february because my sister was gonna give up her apartment and started looking for a house for us all to rent together. but i guess since i just bought these britney tickets that i am going to have to wait until march to move out there now. i think postponing our dream for two months isn't so bad. i just hope that we don't have to postpone it anymore. :-(

i have such conflicting feelings! my heart hurts to leave my sister in california alone but then my heart also hurts whenever i think about moving away from my mom and dad. i wish i didn't have to make this decision at all. i want to move to california for so many reasons but there are so many obstacles in the way...and most of those obstacles revolve around the turmoil that i am feeling inside. i really didn't want to be in connecticut for another cold winter...but mostly, i am just really sick of my job and i need a fresh start. i just feel like such a failure...like i set this goal for myself and then i didn't reach it. and i feel like i am really letting my sister sara down. but on the flip side, my mom is really sick with a skin condition and i know that she could use my help right now. so maybe that is god's way of telling me that i need to stick around a little longer.

two months longer really isn't so bad...i just hope that we won't have to postpone the move again!

i hinted at it a couple weeks back but i don't think that i have made the official announcement yet that i am INDEED moving to oakland, california!!!!

so here's the story: the lease on our apartment runs out at the end of september. both will and i had to seriously contemplate whether we wanted to live another year in connecticut. will has been itching to move out since we graduated back in 2006. he has only been in CT for college but i have lived here since 5th grade - so going on 15 years here. thats the longest i have ever lived somewhere (my family moved around a lot before 5th grade). i am near the end of my rope with my job here and the thought of going on job interviews to just get another lame job in CT was weighing on my mind.

randomly my sister sara suggested that we move to oakland. this is not the first time she has suggested it - but this time i actually started to seriously think about moving. i talked it over with will and within one day, we were making plans to move across the country!

lets get some things straight - i am *NOT* a city girl. i was born in alaska and grew up in maine - i feel more comfortable spending my days in the woods then bouncing around on the subway. but when will & i visited oakland last year, we fell absolutely in love with the city and atmosphere there. i knew that if i HAD to live in a city then the bay area would be where i would make my home. the weather is beautiful, the people and the laws are relaxed and according to my sister, oakland is really blowing up right now.

our tentative plan is to only live in oakland for a couple years, maybe get our masters there and then move out to the country and build our dream geodesic dome home. that may or may not happen but its the only way i could agree to move to a big city...if i knew that i would somehow make it back to the woods.

i am both excited and really scared to move away. the thing i am most scared about is leaving my parents. i have never lived more then twenty miles away from them. i am really close with both of my parents and even thinking about leaving them for one second brings tears to my eyes (i am tearing up just typing this). i think it would be differently if my parents were younger but my dad is 68 and my mom is 63...my greatest fear is that i will move away and one of them will either become sick or god forbid, pass away. i could never live with myself if that happened. i know that its not a rational way to live - always thinking that something bad will happen to your loved ones but i really can't help being this way. this probably stems from my parents own relationships with my grandparents. both of my parents moved away, like REALLY FAR away from home when they moved to alaska in the 70s (my parents met each other & got married in alaska). my mother constantly talks about how little she saw of her parents during that time and the regret she felt for moving away. i never want to live with the same regret that my mother lives with. when we lived in maine, my mother could not afford to go to both of my grandparents' funerals which took place in seattle. this is another regret that she carries with her and i guess she has passed that burden on to me.

even though my dad is REALLY supportive of us moving, my mom is not 100% on board. she has not started with the guilt trips yet but i know they will be coming. even without her guilt trips, i already have enough guilt of my own. oh yes, did i mention that me & will are moving out of our apartment and in with my parents until we move in january 2009? we want to save up some money before we move so my parents are graciously letting us live with them for a couple months. i'm hoping that this temporary situation will finally give me the strength to pick up and leave. i love my parents - but living with them is another matter altogether. i know my mom is gonna drive me up the wall so hopefully that will make it easier to leave here come january.

so yeah, that is what i am dealing with this days - guilt trips, packing boxes and figuring out what the eff i'm gonna do when i actually get to cali.

there is an 80% chance that me & the boyfriend will be moving to oakland, cali in less then six months...

Okland & me

Grand Lake Newswire - “Closets are for clothes, not for seniors”

http://grandlakeguardian.org/index.ph...

Hoping to “revolutionize senior housing,” three openly gay housing specialists announced today the opening this fall of one of the country’s first urban independent-living communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) seniors—in the historic landmarked Lake Merritt Hotel.

i have a feeling most of my friends will be moving to oakland when they retire, haha! 

but in all seriousness, this is amazingly good news. i posted an article a couple months ago about the mistreatment of gays and lesbians in their senior citizens communities and nursing homes. this gives me hope that things will start improving for them. hopefully other cities and towns will take a page from oakland and start their own nursing homes to cater to the glbt seniors.  

Show us a picture of where you'd like to live and tell us why you want to live there. 
Submitted by Warhead.  

Oakland

past posts on my california trip

my sister lives right next to lake merritt in oakland. it's a large tidal lagoon which may seem out of place in the middle of oakland but it makes that part of the city really beautiful. one night, we decided to walk around lake merritt and go to a cool diner to get some munchies.

Lake1

the lake has a "necklace of lights" that stretches all the way across the lake - if you look closely, you can see me and my sister near the water's edge.

Diner1

sara and brian at the diner

Diner2

looking pretty irie at the diner

Lake2

walking back home from the diner

another amazing night was spent at this fabulous moroccan restaurant called El Mansour Tanjia. the whole place looked like an arabian tent and they even had belly dancers perform during your meal. you had to eat all the food with your hands and they wash your hands between meals. you basically pay around $22 for a five course meal and every course was more scrumptious then the next. the highlight was this dish called bastela du chef which consists of duck chicken and vegetables and almonds packed in between phylo dough and then sifted with confectioner sugar and cinnamon. it's seems ludicrous to mix your savory tastes with sweet but it was purely divine! they also had delicious mint tea and served bananas fritters called King Hassan. it seriously might have been the best meal i've ever had in my life!

Morocco1

me and my sis...i hate this pic of me but i put it up anyways so you can see what the restaurant looks like

Morocco2

the "reserved" section next to our table and will trying to ruin the pic

Morocco3

we made brian and will sit on the floor

Morocco04

the pic is dark but you can sort of make out what the place looks like

Morocco4

blurry shot of brian giving the belly dancer a dollar

Morocco5

five course meal and two bottles of wine makes brian a very happy boy!