Christmas in LA

It's almost Christmas! We are sad that we don't get to go home to see family and friends, but still excited about Christmas. It will be our first Christmas as a married couple and we have our own Christmas tree and stockings! We definitely need to start collecting some ornaments with a bit more character though...

On Friday, we attended my company, Greene Broillet and Wheeler's annual Christmas party. It was at a beautiful hotel and resort on the beach in Santa Monica called Shutters. It was fun and I was glad that Glenn had the opportunity to meet the attorneys and my co-workers. Also, I won a $200 Best Buy Giftcard in the raffle!

Glenn has his last final exam on Tuesday, December 18th and then he is done with his first semester! I just finished my first month of working at GBW and it went by really fast (that's a good sign :-) )

Next weekend we will be going to Disneyland! (The original this time---not California Adventure) We have been planning on going near Christmas since October because they have lots of special Christmas decorations and such.

Aimee Mann 2nd Annual Christmas Show

The Aimee Mann concert was awesome! Glenn rode the bus to meet me at my work in Santa Monica at 5:30, so I showed him around the office and introduced him to a few people who were still there at 5:30 on a Friday. We ate dinner at a fast food Mexican restaraunt called La Salsa at the 3rd St. Promenade before we got on the road. We were afraid that the traffic would be terrible as it is always terrible on Fridays and it had also rained all day...which is not something that people in LA are used to! The highway was pretty packed, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Aimee is incredible! She came out on stage and we were so close that I could see that her eyes were really watery and wondered what was wrong. It turns out she was "sick as a dog and high on dayquil" but you would have never known when she opened her mouth to sing...it's almost disgusting that someone can be that talented actually...

Her first guest was JACKSON BROWNE!!!!!! I almost peed my pants I was so excited! He sang a couple of songs (not his own) and was incredible...I can't believe he was there and didn't sing more though!

Aimee sang a lot of the songs on her Christmas album, and then also sang some of her non-Christmas songs. She also brought out several other guests including comedian Paul F. Tompkins, who was hilarious, Grant-Lee Phillips, Amos Lee, comedian Morgan Murphy as the Hanukkah fairy who rapped about the story of Hanukkah. She also showed a short film in 3 installments throughout the show that involved her asking celebrities to be in her Christmas show and finally just getting Paul F. Tompkins to do it.

It was an incredible show and unbelievable to be so close. I took a lot of pictures!

I am Thankful for...Thanksgiving holiday! Oh and check out Glenn's new do!

Glenn and I have thouroughly enjoyed our days off for Thanksgiving! I got off of work early (at 2:00) on Wednesday and had holidays Thursday and Friday, making a nice long weekend :-) On Thanksgiving I cooked and it definitely made me appreciate my mom and granny's cooking because although I spent a lot of time cooking, it just didn't turn out the same. It was a nice day just to take it easy.

Today, we rode the bus a few blocks to the Westside Pavillion mall because we were wary of trying to park on "Black Friday." I bought some badly needed work slacks and a new pair of jeans and Glenn had a hair appointment. His hair looks SO sophisticated! I love it!

Tomorrow we are going to take advantage of my prime parking spot in Santa Monica and walk around the promenade mall and pier.

First Day and Today's Work of Art

I had my first day of work at GBW today. It went well! There is SO MUCH information for me to take in and so many people to remember, but I can already tell that it will be a great place to work. Everyone is so nice there.

I came home and did this graphite wash of my lovely friend and "sister" Kersten. I miss her!

Veteran's Day Outing to Venice Beach

Today, Glenn's class was cancelled in honor of Veteran's Day! I'm still kind of playing a waiting game as far as the job search goes, so I was free to spend time with Glenn today! We were going to go to the Armand Hammer Museum, but then we realized that they are closed on Mondays, so we decided to go see Venice Beach.

Venice Beach is a bit south of Santa Monica down the coast. We can really get to either beach in a matter of 10-15 minutes from our apartment, so we are very lucky. We parked and walked down the pier. Then we walked all the way along the coast to Santa Monica. There are all sorts of street vendors, street performers, restaurants and junk shops...it is like nowhere I've ever been in my life.
There are definitely a lot of colorful characters that you meet along the way! We saw many cute dogs, a cat on a leash, a giant iguana on a leash, and many semi-scary larry characters who were trying to make money of of their "talents". This man on homemade rollerblades decided to join us as we were walking and serenade us with his portable electric guitar. I made the mistake of snapping a picture of him, so then I had to give him a tip! I say it was worth it...look at him!

He definitely had enough knee pads...something tells me he might need them.

Obviously, we didn't need to pay admission to see the Venice Freaks of Nature...we definitely got a great show for free!

It was a fun outing! On the way home we stopped off at the Taco Bell between the beach and our house. We have yet to find a normal Taco Bell near our apartment...look at the sign! It doesn't even have a drive-through!

We ended our day by going grocery shopping (exciting) and making nachos! All in all a good day!

I've been productive

Here is the art that I have done this Weekend

The first one is a graphite wash of my pup Molly. I did it really quickly on Friday night and the picture I did it from was really hard to see (dark) so I think it turned out well considering...

This is a sort-of watercolor I did on Saturday from a picture I snapped of a cool looking palm tree in the courtyard of my apartment. I say "sort-of" watercolor because most of my art supplies are still at home in Texas and I only had a few colors of not very good quality student grade watercolor. This was also done really fast...I didn't even draw on the paper first because I didn't feel like it. I have been doing spur of the moment art lately...but that is good because it means that I am doing it and finishing pieces!

Art

I have been trying to push myself to draw as much as I can and instead of watching TV or surfing the internet (or draw while watcing TV)...it is much more fulfilling to create a piece of artwork than to just watch mindless tv! I am trying to brush up on my hand-eye coordination. It used to be great and since I haven't drawn very much in a while I definitely need some practice. (which is good anyway since my paints are in the process of being mailed to me!) Tonight I snapped a picture of Glenn and did a drawing from the picture...Here it is! I finally got to go to the Dick Blick art supply store that is a few miles away from our apartment. I had tried to go twice and never actually made it in due to various reasons. I bought a couple of pads of paper, but I have my eye on a small drawing desk and stool. Maybe it will be a Christmas present ;-) I will keep posting my artwork on the blog, so watch for more to come!