surprisingly... christmas

we had an early xmas and much to my surprise, there were surprises.

we decided rather last minute (just days ago) to host a really small dinner party and just invited a few friends who contacted us to see what we were gonna do. it was a nice party as a whole; i made my moms famous meatballs that went over quite well, we also had lots of great nibbly things to pick at including fresh fruit, and fine cheeses thanks to charles and kara.

i should back up ... the first surprise came with me on a spur of the moment urge to run down to the jc center of downtown to pick up a little charlie brown tree. its cute in a really sort of pathetic kind of way... tim was at target doing some last minute shopping so i asked him to pick up some lights and decor to spruce up this little cute tree.

all was set, the food out and yummy and people started arriving, though a couple didn't make it and that was a little dissapointing but it was ok, the other guests were all there and enjoying eachothers company when the second suprise happened. apparently the words, "small" "intimate" and "close friends" don't mean anything to a certain someone who was sharing the party planning with us. the phone rang and she was down at the door letting in four random, "frat boys" in thier 2os? through my door - i actually wouldn't have minded if they were all gay, but straight boys are really beastly and i just can't get along with them. they were the type of kids that when i went to high school i hated and never got on with. after some uncomforatable exchanges and maybe about 30-45 mins later they found their way out thankfully. i seriously have to reconsider sharing planning of parties in my home with people. i don't like not having control of who walks in my door. i'm pretty sure what scared them away was when tim switched the tv to sweeney todd (the johnny depp version) and nigel and i started singing.

with the random strangers gone we could begin now exchanging presents - chris tim and i were gonna wait til actually christmas day but at the last minute decided to not!

first came allison and nigel. i need to go back and explain; since they'd been dating nigel could never surprise allison with any xmas gift. she always knew what she was getting, even wrapped under the tree it would be ... 'monk box set' or 'oh thats a buffy dvd' etc. a few weeks ago, though, we took a trip to the city to see Repo the Genetic Opera, and they found a store called Obscuria which sells one of a kind and antiques. allison fell in love with a ouija board there from the 1800s' apparently the first of its kind. the problem was it was a lot of money and she coudn't get it right then and there, but she was obessing over it. she did research and called / emailed every place she could to find out about it. forward to a couple weeks ago when nigel, her friend lori and tim decided that'd be a great suprise for allison so tim went and picked it up - he had to really plea to the shop owner that it was for allison cos she had called and put it on hold LOL

forward to last night. tim made a sign in a picture frame and wrapped it - gave it to allison, it said "LOOK UNDER THE COUCH". when she did there it was wrapped up. we all played along like "ohh what is it?" :0 I havce to say i've never seen her so genuinely happy. wow she was really loving it and excited. im so dissapointed that nigels gift hadn't shipped to me cos i think he would have been so jazzed.

Chris Tim and I had been out shopping for eachother just days ago, we were all being sneaky but i dont think anyone expected what we had in store for eachother. sparing the details, i got the camera i wanted, tim got the nano he wanted and tim and i got a Wii for chris (and us) surprise, surprise surprise. lol

after all the guests left, tim chris and i stayed up til 4am playing the wii. man its so much fun and i can't wait to get more games on it.

i love my new coolpix camera :) can't wait to take it everywhere w me. it's 10 mega pixels and they got me a four gig card to go with it. i wish i had it the day of the duran duran show in montclair when i had that once in a lifetime chance with pic with the whole band and the flash didn't fire on my camera. - boo.

the next few days are gonna be sort of hectic too with food prep and planning dinners, clearing out the apt. closets, etc... lots of little projects i put off because i never have time. ugh...

new mexico adventure

Day 1 - We landed in New Mexico at about 12pm and since we couldn't check in until about 4 Kree and i decided to hit the ground running and dive right into exploring on our own after picking up our rental car, (which is a red no frills 08 Chevy Aveo with really decent gas mileage)

It only really took about 40 mins to get to the city and our first stop was Albuquerque old town; as the name suggests its an old "fashioned" western town filled with mostly shops and restaurants but a few interesting fixtures. after some walking around we ended up spending about two hours over at the Albuquerque museum of natural history. there was a really awesome display about all the early computers. we spent a lot of time looking over all the old equipment! there was also really great dinosaur bones and interactive displays about the atmosphere, volcanoes and the evolution of the early life on earth.

We ended up getting to the resort and checking in by 6 or so and after falling in love with everything about this place. its so amazingly beautiful. its a pueblo style building with so much to do like walks through the cottonwood forest, huge courtyards and patios, walk to the rio grande river, three pools, a spa with full amenities, and horseback riding. our room over looks the golf course. we're not in our room for more then ten minutes when as we are looking out on our balcony to see two coyotes! one thing we notice as we're walking around the place is the great amount of wildlife that resides on the premise - like walking around any day you can see toads, rabbits, hummingbirds, sparrows and various insects like huge moths, and beetles and even lizards. i nearly forgot to mention how remote this place is. its actually a 10 min or so drive out from the entrance to the actual resort. its in the middle of nothing. its wonderful! its also located in front of the sandia mountains which makes for really awesome picturesque views of sunsets at night.

After doing some recon, and checking out the resort we wanted to explore more of the city so we drove around and ended up having had a dinner buffet at santa ana casino. the casino was ok but the buffet was just average.

Day 2 - We visited the petrified forest / painted desert today and also got to experience how truly awesome Warrior gas stations equally as awesome their home made breakfast burritos. On the way back we saw an amazingly queer rainbow and sunset. i was in love.

Day 3 - Sky City / Acoma pueblo tour - tried fry bread - yum. made friends with an Indian jewelry maker who wants to barter his wares with us for parrot feathers. I'm not joking. got to see a real sacred indian burial ground, mission church and had a really peaceful moment at the top of a huge mountain looking around at all the beautiful untouched land.

We also went to the ice cave, banderas volcano crater / trail, and sandia casino buffet. we went to two of the pools at the resort then hung out over in the 103 degree waterfall outdoor jacuzzi. nice. we also did a drive through tour of this park with the massive sandstone bluff, lava flows, that had the collected pools of water up at the top with guppies in it - el malpais

Day 4 - up early for a nature walk , had breakfast at santa ana cafe in the resort. we had 1030 reservations at the spa for custom massages and add on head /neck rubs! after we unmelted we then went to sandia peak and took a tram ride up one mile up the mountain and had lunch in this really cute restaurant situated in the mountain. Later, went looking for petyroglyphs monument but the park closed before we got there so it was another round of chilling out by the pools and then hot / jacuzzi where i got to practice my Portuguese with these visitors from Brazil. after a very uneventful search for a late nite mexican 'nice place' to eat we ended up at the santa ana cafe again. this place is really nice and make excellent food. had a couple drinks and now exhausted. we were delayed by another amazing sunset so i didn't mind.

Day 5 - we're off to Santa Fe. We're ridiculously sunburned and i love it. We started out wandering around the plaza in the city center visiting the oldest church in america. it was so beautiful i didn't want to touch anything! As we went exploring the city we saw lots of cute one of a kind shops / restaurants / art galleries. i was so close to finally committing to purchasing that squash blossom necklace but it was not to be. i had a really hard time parting with 300-700 dollars for it even though i know they're the finest quality and is really is an investment! we had lunch at the Cowgirl BBQ which was so awesome, did some shopping at the Indian Market, visited a handful of galleries including the Chuck Jones gallery and checked out the great selection of Dr. Seuss art and sculptures they had there. we liked it but it reminded us so much of SoHo here in NYC - only the Southwest version of it i guess.

Day 6 - so as usual we're up super early and decide to take a nice last long 3-5 mile walk around the resort in the Bosque and Cottonwood trail to the Rio Grande River. during the tail end of our walk we noticed two coyotes again... who knows if it was the same two as on our first day but we kinda took that as them saying good bye the same way when we checked in they greeted us. it was just kind of a special connection / moment we had.

We both had the most awesome and relaxing time - we now know why Chris' mom just can't stop talking about the beauty of the Southwest and why its really called the Land Of Enchantment. We can't wait to plan our next trip there to see the other sites we missed this time.

Some photos from our honeymoon/vacation can be found here :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/medazzadoll/ hope you enjoy the photos but honestly, they don't do the landscape any justice - you should see it for yourself in person to get the magnificence of it.

Dreams and Supernatural

Last night I dreamt of my online portfolio, how it should look, be laid out and what was on it. It was really odd and I remember thinking "no one will know where to click, but is that cool"? Maybe I shouldn't have art conversations with Tim about my favorite surrealist painters then eat a heavy meal before going to bed.

Do you sacrifice yourself too much? If so, why?

24 July 2008

You are likely to have to take a little break from your daily routine today, dear Leo. Of all the signs of the Zodiac, yours is being singled out for special attention. Your present introspective mood is likely to focus on these questions: Do you give yourself enough freedom to express yourself? What role do you play in your emotional relationships? Do you tend to be too self-effacing? Do you sacrifice yourself too much? If so, why?

/laugh

Monday, July 7, 2008

Aug. 14th - Leo
You can see the good and the bad nearly everywhere you look, yet it's hard to share your feelings when they aren't as clear as you like. Although it might be easier to fantasize about what you want than to actually go for it, it may be healthy to have a few secrets now. Some things are better off left unsaid until the time is right and some things are just better off not shared at all. - Tarot.com

minor acheivement

i bought two pairs of low rise jeans two sizes smaller then my current jeans!
its only a minor achievement but its making me feel really great about myself!

just wanted to share and smile again for a while.

Wild Dream

I had a strange ass dream last night that i was dating Marilyn Manson and he sent me to go get a full body wax and massage then

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

There is a delicate balance between following your heart's desire and choosing a path of service. Altruism is a noble reason to help others, but it can also hide more selfish concerns. Remember, grand gestures that demonstrate your big heart can peacefully coexist with your need to take care of yourself. Don't deny your own desires to make yourself look magnanimous. You're good enough as is.

By Rick Levine

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I feel like I just survived a car crash

chris and i had the hugest fight with a coworker that lasted most of the day and i was just in tears all day.

then at like 730 or so chris went to talk to him and he screamed at chris in front of everyone on the other side of the office. we were supposed to meet w my boss today about stuff - i was so pissed off i packed my office. theres no reason that we should be treated like this - we do damn good work here.

im gonna tell my boss- i can't work like this - this coworker's demanding we do things for his project only.... he never told us we had to encode three videos (which takes a good chunk of time, especially when he tells us NOW with not even a weeks notice on a non-priority band that he needs it asap and its not planned in the sched.) but we just got done with this major project for him (creating a whole epk from raw footage) and updating this microsite, creating a player with five songs and making a eblast that links to everything... that all took time! meanwhile i'm the only one here and i have to push back every other project to work on this one..

its as if he's expecting me to manage his projects and blaming me for not - i dont have these kinds of problems with any of the other pms

My boss should be overseeing my projects but is instead too busy with meetings, door shut, out on the road with band, etc

it is a very frustrating situation - so this coworker sends "great you just wasted three hours of my time" in an email - pretty ballsy after i just spent three days and both computer resourses on his project and put all the other pms on ignore

plus after chris spent two weeks - and also another co workers time on working on that epk too - thats all time we had to juggle other shit to work on his stuff

since they dont have a big budget for outsoursing then in that case, sorry then you'l have to wait for us to do it
i mean seriously... he complained that that epk took a month to do! ok lets break that down - we had a new machine and didn't know we were missing software and didn't know we were gonna run out of space until we got into using it - so ok we lost a few days of mac time - then we had like a week or so learning curve trying to learn the new software ... ok... so really we spent like two weeks on that epk - working at it daily... and a certain pushy coworkers going to complain about that? it would have cost him at least 10k in editing / studio time to do what we did

its ungrateful of him to shit on our hard work

i really dont know what he wants anymore other then to bully us - i just hate the way we get treated; as if nothings ever good even though we always go above and beyond.

im not going to cry over it like i did yesterday anymore. i am going to get mad now and be indifferent and if they dont appreciate what i do then i'll go find another job that will - plain and simple

Since when am I this?

This is my new pic

Stretch Armstrong.

Between everyone at work needing something done from me, be it a full project down to the minutia; Stress at home with taking care of every day things (cooking cleaning and feeding / picking up after everyone who enters and squawks), Taking care of my elderly Mom and the burdens of possibly serious future 'grown up' things that I have to take care of to help her and add to that the strain of trying to maintain my own sanity and personal life and keeping my side projects up to date - I have a feeling my head is going to explode.

I'm tired. I had a nice span of Drama-Free time and it was lovely. Now it seems that theres more drama then I can even dream up.

Midnight... It's raining outside yeah...

Chris and I -- thanks so much to Kara and Risa and their graciousness and AmEx cards -- will be at both YAZ shows in NYC!!!! whooo hoooo

Heres my fave video by them - the very 'goth' "Don't Go". I'd be lying if I didn't say this made an impression on me and my love of creepy Goth stuff :)

x

My Life V.7.01

I feel like a whole new person.
The new 'lifestyle change' is going great; i've been cooking more plus the vitamins and supplements are awesome - I feel so energized and alive again. I'm even trying to have more fish which normally I can't stand :)

It was all kind of kickstarted by a super wonderful long time friend of mine who actually said - 'WAKE UP MARY - GET OVER IT' ! He's actually the only one of the couple people who'd I even let talk to me like that - and only cos I have known him forever and that he's been there before!

I'm officially done with the one year mourning and have a great new outlook on things including a calmer, more relaxed attitude and less sort of gloom and doom. Even though workstuff is still unstable I think I'm so ready to take on whatever gets thrown at me.

On the one year of my Dad's passing I 'told' him that its enough now and that while he will always be in my heart and i love him dearly i am moving on to go be a better person. I needed to do that. I can't tell you how much it helped.

People around me have commented that they have been noticing a difference for the better so I must be doing something right. I think after all the drama and false starts I'm on the right path.

I have some arty side projects lined up that I will be compensated for - thats always good news. I hope to really start booking photo projects - sooner the better. I think i'm finally ready for it all - can't wait to see what the next few months hold for me.

xo

So Emotional

This Thursday will be one year since my father passed. I feel like all the joy has left me - i'm slowly rebuilding myself and hopefully i wont be so sad and miserable

Jo Jo In The Stars

Strong Bad Discusses Death Metal