There must be something in the air in California. When I go there I feel at home. It is where I want to be. I see myself living there long term. The main area we visited was Santa Barbara. I love the atmosphere, scenery, being near the ocean, all the bike lanes and the open-mindedness that the locals have. I still need to visit some other major cities and states before really deciding 100% where I'd like to stay long term. Heck, part of me dreams of moving overseas somewhere. For now though we are stuck in Wyoming. It was a bit depressing to come back home after being somewhere we didn't want to leave. Here are a few photos I took around Santa Barbara....
I love the building that this Starbucks was in..
Bike shop in Santa Barbara
After visiting California and dreaming of living in a place like Santa Barbara, it left me feeling like I need to make some changes in my current life. One thing I realized was how stressful my job is and what silliness it is to put myself through it day after day. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. I'm hoping things will calm down and I can stay there the next few years. Things could be worse, but life is too short for nonsense! :) For now I try to put a smile on my face and carry on.
Ponytail because of bad hair day. // After ponytail: Complete craziness!!
After being somewhere with high humidity and having a week full of bad hairs days, I'm sick of dying it. I miss having normal healthy hair. It's been probably ten years since I had "normal" natural hair. I just had my hair cut to "clean it up" a little bit. Also, my hair is apparently wavy when I let it dry on its on. I currently blow dry it and straighten it daily. Frankly it's gotten old and I'm ready to simplify my daily hair routine. Any advise on how to style wavy hair? Help! I am planning to dye my hair a darker blonde so that I can start letting it grow out. I will miss my platinum blonde, but it will simplify my life. That is exactly what I am seeking!
Back to my thoughts on Santa Barbara: I want to live there. How though? We actually straight out asked someone how they afford it. The response we got was, "Move here, then worry about it." The gentleman who told us this also said that he had to run up some credit card debt while he was out of work for a few months. Well since I don't believe in credit cards, that won't work for me. Moving to a place that has a very high cost of living may seem out of reach for us, but I believe if there is a will there is a way. I am perfectly happy with living in an RV, on a houseboat or renting a piece of land for a tiny house on a trailer to sit on! My new slogan is, "Mortgage free is the way to be."
On a positive note, Cody and I may be able to get out to California with the Air Force. We would be an hour from Santa Barbara, which would be affordable and better then being 1200 miles away from the ocean like we are now. If we are plan things out right and save money, I think our dream of living in California can and WILL come true.
What do you think of California?
I find people either love it or hate it.
I am currently working on getting all of my photos organized from our vacation. I will be sharing our whale watching experience, our trip to the Grand Canyon, cute photos of Muffins and Chloe at the beach and many other things. Stay tuned! You can view all my posts about California by clicking HERE.
If you have been following me for awhile you know that I lived in California last year and LOVED it. If you new to my blog, welcome, and be prepared to hear about California fairly often. I love California because I think it's gorgeous. Mountains, rolling hills, trees, wild flowers, the ocean and green grass everywhere. It's perfection to me. :)
Last year when I posted pictures of Santa Barbara, I didn't post very good photos. They were tiny. I decided to go back and revisit my photo collection to post some more images that I love.....
Photos taken May 2011
We drove by the Betsy Johnson store and I snapped a photo from the car! I didn't have the heart to drag Cody in there. I don't think he could of handled all the girly pink stuff. I knew I couldn't afford anything anyways!
One of the cutest pictures of Muffins EVER! She was so happy in California.
See the cute little guys above that lived in the rocks. I loved them. :)
Maybe next time we'll ride one of those! I am sure it would be fun!
Dear Palm Trees, I love you. jessie
We hope to take a road trip next year and Santa Barbara will be part of that vacation!
I want to take Muffins to the beach again and go Whale Watching!
Oh how I love California. I dream about living there again everyday!
See my original Santa Barbara post HERE.
You can see all my California related posts HERE.
Last year when we lived in California I blogged about a little town called Solvang a few times. I wanted to post more photos that I took while we were visited this small danish town. I love it because I love photographing the scenery and buildings.
It's a great town full of small shops, great food and windmills!
I had the best Chai Latte EVER at the Bulldog Cafe.
You can learn all about Solvang, California by visiting the town's official website {HERE}.
View my post of Solvang, CA from last year {HERE}.
Over the weekend I finally had some nice enough weather to bust out my spray paint. I couldn't wait to start working on my photo collage wall. When I started this project I didn't know what colors I wanted the frames to be or even what pictures were going to go in the frames! It all started when I designed a cute California print...
Then I decided I wanted to just frame pictures that I took in California....
I decided to just stick with white and silver frames. Most of the frames were black and I spray painted them glossy white. I used Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Primer, I highly recommend it! I decided to put scrapbook paper in the 12"x12" frames and just tape a photo printed out as a 8"x 8" on top of the paper.
I am pretty happy with how it looks. Cody even loves it! We really love California, so the pictures really trigger some happy memories! My other project over the weekend was my $4 Kmart Frame. It got a pretty in pink makeover!
I decided to put some photos from our last Disney Vacation in the frame. We really had some funny pictures taken. I used my TJUSIG rack from IKEA to set my Vinylmations on. I just took the hooks off of it and it became the perfect shelf for my figurines. It is nice finally seeing some things on my blank walls...
This was a fun project! I may do another frame collage on the wall you can't see in the photos! We'll see....
This post is about how I have changed as a person this year. If you missed Part 1 you can read that first {HERE}.
Immediately following my goodbye with Cody the talk of me moving to California started. I already had a love for California and so does my friend Dan. Dan travels a lot and in the past has drove across the country many times. He was able to tell me the route I would take and it really got me pumped up about driving it. I am the type of person that once something is planted in my head, that's basically it. The decision has been made. I follow my gut and after a night of sleeping on any idea, I am good to go. Part of me has always wanted to live in California. It is just so beautiful. There is so much to see and do in California. Dan and I had a long drive back from Texas to Ohio. I had plenty of time to talk myself into the idea of just jumping in my car and going to be with my husband! So, that's what I did!
I thought, why the hell not? I wanted to be spontaneous! I wanted to just GO and live life. I wanted to be with my husband. What if this was the only chance I would ever get to live in California? It was like, "Okay, Cody + California = Right Decision!" I stayed in Ohio for 2 more months, quit my job and packed all my stuff into a storage unit. I was off!
What a trip and experience. I know not everyone will have the same "life changing" experience that I did just from driving in a car. For me it was an emotional thing. I felt so alive and free. I grew up in Ohio all my life! There isn't Mountains, rolling hills and rock sculptures. It changed me. It made me realize how much more there is to this life. How you just have to get up and GO DO STUFF. You have to experience MORE. Make the most of your life! JUST DO IT! The most breath taking part of my trip was around Flagstaff Arizona! AMAZING! Most of my drive was on Highway 40. If you ever take a road trip, I highly recommend it. The scenery is breath taking! I didn't even stop and sight see, so I can only imagine how beautiful the rest of Arizona and New Mexico are! (Can't wait to go back!)
There was a stretch of highway that was very windy through some mountains, I do believe in Arizona. I drove so much that I forget! It was so beautiful and fun to drive. I brag to Cody about it all the time. When your out there by yourself and no one else is around you just realize how precious life really is. You just feel so alive. You feel one with your surroundings.
The west has forever changed me, and I honestly don't know if I will ever be able to live anywhere else. Living in California for 3 months was such a great experience. Cody and I really enjoyed all of our time there. We miss it already. I felt so happy there, like I belonged. It just felt right. Something tells me that Cody and I haven't seen the last of California.
See my posts about Driving to California: Day 1 {HERE} Day 2 & 3 {HERE}
There is a whole other point to this entirely way to long blog post.
It is something that I have gone back in forth with myself about, wondering if I should share it with my readers or not. If you have followed my blog for awhile, you may know that I used to post about watching movies a lot. I would rate them and let you know if I hated it or loved it. Well over time I pretty much watched everything on Netflix that I wanted to. When Cody was gone, besides watching Roseanne I watched movies. Lots of movies! Then I started to watch television shows instead. This started when I moved to California. Are you wondering where this is going, why it matters if I share this? Bear with me here. I hadn't had television cable in years. Needless to say I didn't know half the shows that had been on TV for years! I started watching a series called DOG TOWN. Dog Town is a show about the Best Friends Animal Society in the state of Utah. The show is amazing! It really shows you the behind the scenes of how many animals are neglected and abused in the world. Something I really knew nothing about. The Best Friends Animal Society takes in all types of animals and nurse them back to life so they can be put up for adoption. I would cry and cry watching some of the episodes and seeing the abuse. Most of the stories did have happy endings, which was also emotional to watch at times. Of course now that I was living with a roommate who had cable in her house, I would watch TV during the afternoon.
At first I watched HGTV daily! I really had missed HGTV. Cody would come over on the weekends and we would try to agree on a channel. (Never HGTV.) We would watch Animal Planet sometimes, but mostly we watched shows like COPS. One night after I took Cody back to the base, I decided to not go to bed and just watch some TV by myself. I turned it to Animal Planet and a show called Whale Wars was on. I didn't know what it was and at first I had no idea what was going on. Each episode is an hour long, so of course I got sucked in. It was full of so much excitement and something was always happening that kept me on the edge of my seat. I started watching it in the middle of a season. Most of what was happening didn't make sense. I also didn't realize that what they were doing was so important. I am sure most people know about the show Whale Wars. I think its getting ready to go into its 6Th Season. Whale Wars is about a group of people called Sea Shepherd's that are trying to stop whaling and the killing of other wildlife. Well I was lucky and Netflix had Season 1 - 3 for me to watch. I got sucked in. Then I got Cody sucked in.
The reason I am hesitant to post about this is because I know not everyone may support what the Whale Wars show stands for. I am not someone to talk about any type of politics or religious things on my blog! It's a design blog!! I also don't because in my real life I have had life long friends stop talking to me because we didn't have the same beliefs and views. Agreeing to disagree wasn't okay with them. They decided it was better to just stop talking to me and end our life long friendship. I have seen what debating about issues does to people. The stress it can cause and the hatred. We all have opinions, that is part of being human. I don't debate with anyone. I rather be friends. I feel like no matter who you are or what your beliefs, stopping the killing of our Wildlife may connect us all. Going to California this year gave me the chance to see the Ocean up close and personal. It's so beautiful, along with all the wildlife that lives in it.
Of course, Muffins loved the beach!
The reason I am saying all this to you is because right now my heart is broken. I have been watching Whale Wars since May of this year. I started recycling this year because of Whale Wars. The things that I have seen on that show, other documentaries about the Ocean and the Sea Shepherd's have made me view the world differently. It hasn't changed my political views, it's just made me more knowledgeable of things that are happening in the world that no one knows about! You can love animals no matter how you vote. Animals will love you back and our wildlife is so important. It's a planet thing, it's about caring and doing your part to spread the word about things people don't even know about. Endangered animals being slaughtered for money is what I see. By watching these shows and movies I have learned the importance of these animals in the Ocean. How we need them to make the world go round. The world we all live in together. I had never even heard of whaling! A lot of people won't even give the show Whale Wars a chance, or they make fun of it. I don't think this is a fair thing to say if you don't know why they are actually out there or what they are doing. They are out in the ocean fighting the Whalers because no one else will. They are some of the bravest people I have ever seen in my entire life. It takes a lot of courage to risk your life to save Whales, or for any cause you feel strongly about. It takes compassion and bravery!
Two great films that made me love Whales even more! Lots of great information.
Every night I go to bed I have to fall asleep watching TV. A few nights ago Cody was super sleepy and was out like a rock in like 5 minutes. I decided to watch one of the last Whale documentaries that I hadn't watched yet on Netflix. The movie is called The Cove. I had never heard of it. It came out in 2009. I have to say nothing I have ever watched in my life made me cry this much. I had to pause it and go get Kleenex. Why was it so sad? It's raw footage of Dolphins being murdered. I don't know a lot about Dolphins, but do know more after watching this movie, The Cove. Dolphins are so harmless to people. Most people love them. You see a Dolphin and you smile. They are extremely smart and have been know to save drowning humans. Why am I telling you this? Because I feel helpless and frustrated that even after this movie was filmed that these poor Dolphins are still being killed every year in Japan. It's hard for me to swallow because the evidence of wrong doing is so clear in the footage, yet nothing is done to stop it. Whaling is so tragic and heartbreaking to me. I just want people like me, who didn't know this was all happening in the world we live in, to also know about it. I think it's important to spread the word. Like I said, its all about the animals and our planet. Nothing else. To see an innocent sea creature being killed pulls at my heart strings like nothing else in this world can. I didn't even realize it till I watched these shows and movies. All I want is to let people know about it and if they choose to learn more, they can. I feel like maybe if I say something, someone else will also care as much as I do. Then they will also spread the word.
I have always loved animals but I guess I didn't realize how much till this year. I have always been into decorating and design. In high school I was an Art student. Art and design is all I ever really wanted to do. Earlier this year I had planned on going to college for Web Design. Well, design stuff has been put on the back burner. With the exception of my blog and decorating around my house. I am happy to announce that I finally got a job here in Wyoming. I am going to be working as an Animal Care Specialist. Not only did Cody joining the Air Force turn my life upside down, it has changed me. I am a true believe of the saying,"Everything happens for a reason." It did for me this year. I am still me. Just happier inside. I feel like I finally am going to have a job that matters. I feel like I am going to make a difference. If I had the guts to do what the Sea Shepherd's do, I would. I don't know how to swim and even though I think the ocean is beautiful, it is also one of my biggest fears to be out in the open water. Ironic? All I ask is that if you are an animal lover, take the time to research or read about some of the things I talked about. I feel like this is a way I can make a difference, by sharing it with others.
Thanks. This is all from the bottom of my heart. Love, Jessie
This weekend was spent getting my car ready for its next road trip. Cody helped me clean my car up and Muffins watched wondering where her mommy was taking her this time.
Today Cody and I had to say goodbye to each other. I was pretty sad all day. My stomach had a knot in it and I was full of anxiety. I felt like I did when I had to say goodbye to him back in March. This time isn't as bad, but I am a baby. I will proudly admit it. Cody kept trying to make me laugh, but I would just start to weep again. I know we won't be apart long, but any day without him is lonely for me.
Tomorrow I am off to UTAH. I will try to keep my blog updated, but I can't promise anything since I know I will be busy and super tired! (and I don't own a "smart" phone with Internet. lol) I hope everyone had a great 4Th of July weekend!
This weekend was what I would like to call a WASTE! It was beautiful weather and we hadn't gone and seen Pismo Beach yet. On Saturday we decided to head up there. Well it was super busy and we got frustrated trying to find parking. I don't really like large crowds either. I went to take pictures and walk Muffins. I didn't want a bunch of pictures with people in them.
Then we drove further down away from the main beach to the Pismo Dunes. Well, I sure as heck wasn't going to drive my Mustang on the beach! I don't think that would of been to smart. lol We ended up just leaving because we were frustrated. This is what happens with you sleep in and wait to go somewhere in California during the late afternoon. Then Sunday came. We had no plans again, but the weather was beautiful. We thought we would just go to Solvang California again to walk around. On the drive to Solvang someone decided to hit their accelerator instead of the break at a stop sign behind me. Now my car looks like this...
I couldn't believe someone was that dumb. I was pretty mad and jumped out of my car, while the person who just did it stared at me blankly. There happened to be a cop at the other stop sign and he pointed for us to pull over on the side street. This isn't the end of the world, but when you are stressed about 30 other things it just adds to it! I don't need to worry about getting my cars paint job fixed right now! Not sure what is going to happen, only time will tell. The main problem is I planned on leaving California soon and I know how repairs can take awhile. I just simply don't have time for this. Oh well!
So the day went on and I tried to keep smiling. We didn't stay at Solvang long because my mood was pretty much ruined. Hopefully things go smoothly with the repairs. Unfortunately the Saturn that hit me really messed up the paint job! My fingers are crossed that this will be a quick and easy repair. My main focus right now has to be finding a place to live in Wyoming and planning my road trip that is probably going to be next week.
This weekend we didn't do any site seeing around California. Cody had to work on the base for part of Saturday, so there was no reason to make plans. Instead we spoiled ourselves with Vinylmations. This is what happens when the Disney store has a sale...
One of the fun things about collecting Vinylmations is that they come in mystery boxes so you don't know what you are going to get! You will end up with duplicates, but then you can go to the parks and trade them. There are some Vinylmation Series that you can buy and you know what you are getting. Like the Nerds Series....
Most of the boxes I purchased were the Clear Series. I had bought them because they were on sale. I thought we would probably get lots of duplicates, and we would just use them for trading. It is a better deal to buy the ones on sale and use them as trades, then going to the park and buying them at full price. We did get some duplicates...
I had a sad face because we ended up really liking what the Clear Series looked liked and hoped we would end up with a full set. A full set has 12 Vinylmations in it. We did ended up with 9 and only 3 duplicates! That is pretty lucky. What isn't lucky is that I didn't get the hot pink one. I was pretty sad about that. It was the only one I really wanted! Cody and I had a friendly competition while opening the mystery boxes. We played the card game "war" to determine who would open a box next. (I know we are dorks! This is what we do on Friday nights! lol) Doing it this way kept us from opening the boxes in 2 seconds like a kid on Christmas morning!!! It made it more exciting. Here is a photo of what we ended up...
I ordered more Vinylmations from the Clear Series this morning before they sell out! We only have 3 more that we need to complete the full set! *fingers crossed* Also, it will give us trades for our next trip to Disney!
