The Before Shots

So, yes, I'm here in New York City. I live in a closet that was super nasty dirty when I moved in. And it comes complete with its own funky smell (I'm working on that one as well). Anyway, here are the before shots. Stay tuned for me to get some time to put the new IKEA stuff together and to get settled for the after shots. Imagine me here right now as I type this out. I'm lying on the bed.

That floor sure looks comfy--it'll soon be all ready for guests. Okay, make that guest.

It's All About Me

It is a well known fact that I love my birthday. All those who know me also know that I continually try to turn the event into multi-day extravaganzas to celebrate my greatness. And finally, I also love cake.

This year was no exception. I had been anxiously awaiting my birthday since November when I purchased one special occasion cake at the annual Berkeley University ward's sub-4-santa auction. The lovely Sister Pat Hogan (proud mother of a daughter who recently celebrated her 60th year) makes wedding cakes and donated one. Awesome!!! That's right, I bought my own birthday cake. It was for the children. As the year progressed, my birthday party soon became my going away/birthday party. All the more reason to celebrate.

In the two and a half years that we lived together, Courtney and I have thrown several wonderful parties. It was the people that made the parties so spectacular so don't start thinking I'm bragging here. However, one of our finest achievements was the Mackenzie/Alisa birthday party of 2007. It was scary themed so the menu consisted of: questionable cheeses, overly ripe fruit, half-priced sushi, mystery meat, brightly colored mystery drinks, etc. We went so far as to only have used napkins available. It was awesome! I'm pretty sure that no one appreciated our cleverness quite as much as we did. However, we knew it was going to be difficult to beat the ingenuity of the previous year.

So, as with any great party, we waited until the Sunday before the date to start making invitations during Sunday School and Relief Society and then distribute them after church. Earlier in the week we decided to do a black and white cocktail party. This would make it easy to decorate the cake as well as be fancy since I'm a fancy gal. I'm not going to lie, there was some concern about people dressing up in cocktail attire. We're mormons. We don't go to cocktail parties. We don't get dressed up. The invitation said cocktail dress strongly encouraged, so we just had to hope for the best. Everyone dressed up!!! (well, except Dustin) I was so happy that everyone dressed up. Truth be told, not everyone wore cocktail attire, but everyone put thought into his/her ensemble to make sure it went with the black and white theme (again, Dustin excluded--please notice he is in purple and blue, like a bruise).


I had a lovely time at my birthday party. I'm now officially 29, which is great and weird. Just yesterday I was mistaken for a freshman in college--18 year old--so that is pretty exciting. I didn't have my camera with me for most of the evening because someone else was "taking pictures" for me. I think my battery died or something because I don't have a lot of pictures. If any of you took pictures at my party, please send them to me. Please. Here is what I have:

The Bakers! Oh, I do miss living so close to family.



Me celebrating my amazing lung capacity. 29 candles. 1 breath.
(again, please note that someone else took these pictures. I just discovered them on my camera)


Courtney at the bar.


The spread.

A Stolen Idea

This came from Renee's blog back in June--the lack of structure has gotten me behind in a lot of things. Everyone knows I'm a joiner, so here is my mosaic of me based off of other's pictures.



If you would like to create your own, here are the rules:
1. Type your answer to each of the following questions in Flickr Search
2. Pick an image from the first page.
3. Copy and past each image's URL into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (Kid version: favorite animal)

Now, when you copy the pictures in to the mosaic maker it will create the credits portion so you don't need to add that extra step into the copy/pasting mantra--learned that lesson the hard way.


Photo Credits:
1. Alisa the sniper 2. improvised bread pudding 3. Week 4: Tuscaloosa County vs. Hillcrest 4. purple sea snails 5. Celebrity sighting #2- Aaron Eckhart 6. Coca Cola Classic 7. Evening Rain at the Duomo 8. bread pudding 9. She's Happy 10. My friends......ROCK 11. Hilarious 12. Caro y la llamo

Wikihow, I'm a Fan

I'm also a fan of iGoogle and the fact that it gives me new Wikihows everyday. So, yesterday, I was minding my own business reading my Google horoscope (also located on the iGoogle page right next to the countdown until school starts) when I noticed that the Wikihow for the day was doing a running front flip. Awesome.

I read the article and then proceeded to watch the instructional video. While doing this I had two thoughts come to me.

#1: I'm pretty sure that I would pop my air mattress that is currently my bed if I were to try this. Must find a gym to pratice.

#2: I could make an instructional Wikihow video.

Mid-instructional video my mind began to wander. What skills could I teach via video via youtube? I was therefore no longer paying attention to the instructional video and will therefore not need a gym to practice in since I only know the first two steps which I can do in my own living room sans mats. I've been pondering what instructional wikihow I should create. These are my ideas:

#1: Pretending you aren't singing at the top of your lungs in the car when in fact you are singing at the top of your lungs in the car.

#2: Kicking an attacker in the shins.

#3: Launching candy necklace candies at the unsuspecting.

What do my two readers think? Who is willing to help? I need a video camera because my camera only does short film and I'd like this to be top quality. I'll also need some actors and stunt doubles. Let me know who wants to help. Or share you own wikihow instructional video ideas here.

I do not apologize

That's right! I'm not sorry that I've abandoned this little blog or my two readers. I have no excuses. I've just not blogged. That's it. Stuff has happened that I could easily share. More importantly, stuff is going to happen that I will have to share. Big stuff.

Where I've been:

So, since I last blogged I have learned to love the life of the unemployed. Seriously, why did I ever think having a job would be a good idea? The life of leisure is fantastic! FANTASTIC!! I highly recommend it to all if circumstance permits. Plus, the last 3 or 4 months haven't even been enough time to do all that I could have done as an unemployed menace to society. Just keep that in mind as you all plan future bouts of unemployment ahead of you. I forsee no more of this wonderful life in my future; and therefore, I mourn.

No, I haven't spent this non-blogging time mourning. I've spent it sleeping, watching Buffy, visiting family, visiting friends, hanging with the sticky and the noisy generation (neices and nephews), preparing for the move, touristing all around San Francisco and the beautiful bay area. I've lost all routine and structure, and I love it. I sleep as late as I want. I jog along the beach whenever I want. I go to movies in the middle of the day, by myself. I'm not restricted by deadlines and duties. Anyway, no one feels bad for me or my circumstance. They therefore cannot comprehend why I do not blog. No one realizes that this loss of structure is the reason that I have been unable to blog. Time? Yes, I've plenty of it. Routine? Gone. I don't even read the blogs of those I love anymore. Or the blogs that are funny and provide me with hours and hours of wild entertainment. These were where the ideas and the need to blog came from. Without them, there were no blog entries. Do you see, dear reader? I needed the structure in my life. I need you all and your blogs, your wit, your anecdotes to make mine happen. So there it is. I left the world of the weberspace and the blogosphere during my unemployment months because my world did not have blogs.

Where I'm going:

Now, I'm on the cusp of re-entering civility. I shall gain structure and deadlines and routine in my life. And with that, I plan on re-entering the blogging world. I've got adventures to tell you. At least, I hope I will have adventures to tell you.

I'm moving to New York City!! Yes, I'm trading in my relatively high rent and cost of living in the bay area to move to a closet in Union Square that's more rent and a greater cost of living. Everyone who reads this knows this already. Not a shocker, I get it. However, one (read: me) can hope that she has blog stalkers (read: not the creepy kind) out there who hadn't heard yet and may be interested. I fly out on the red eye on the 17th of August. Take my diagnostic tests on the 18th. Pre-term starts the 19th. And I'm officially a first year MBA student at New York University. A little Felicity-esque, I understand. However, I'm not following a track star out there, and I don't plan on falling in love with my RA.

I kind of feel like a grown up. You'd think the full-time job, benefits and a 401K plan would have made me feel like a grown up. But this is more grown up-y. Trust me on that one. New York is a big city. This equates to more grown up-ness. Don't ask me to explain it, it just works that way.

So, here it is. A boring return to the blogging world. No pictures. No jokes. And not a classic anecdote. I've missed you little blog.