It's hot!

It is really hot here in Southern California. Something like 92 degrees. I know you Tennessee people are laughing at that but that is really hot for here! Not having air conditioning in our house doesn't make for great sleep at night. Poor Riley is just laid out on the floor not moving. Shana, Chris and I are going to Crystal Cove Beach today. We have wanted to check Crystal Cove out for a while because they have these really cool cottages you can rent. Whenever we want to take a day trip we almost always go north--Santa Barbara. I have to make myself not go in that direction! I have really only been to Orange County and San Diego a handful of times and today will be one of them. We'll probably eat dinner in Laguna. I'll post pictures when we return!

Our First Anniversary

Today Chris and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary. I will do a separate post on how we celebrated the weekend but I wanted to dedicate a post to this day. Almost 8 years ago I met Chris when I had just moved to California and little did I know that I had met the man I'd marry! I have truly found my best friend and even though we are different in a lot of ways, we complete each other perfectly. People told us that the first year of marriage can be tough, but its been the exact opposite for us. It's been wonderful. Coming home from work every day is so exciting knowing that I get to spend the rest of the evening with the same person, every day. We knew each other so well after almost 7 years that there were no surprises or anything once we got married. That was key to the first year of marriage being so great. Here's to many more years!!

Guest Blogger

I have been asked to be a guest blogger on Southern Wedding Style Magazine's blog to share some details of our wedding. There will be more posts to come but for now check it out at www.swsmag.net

We're celebrating our 1 year anniversary this weekend!

A special visit

My best friend, Shana, is coming out to visit next Tuesday.  She has been to visit me many times over the years and we've done a lot of "mini trips" each time she comes.  We've been to Hawaii, San Francisco, Vegas, Big Bear, Santa Barbara and San Juan Capistrano to visit the mission there.  I'm trying to figure out what to do this time since she'll be here for a much shorter period of time (5 days instead of 14 or so).  Any suggestions?

At Hanauma Bay on Oahu:

In Vegas:

At the Marin Headlands in San Francisco.  Too foggy to see the city as usual:

At Jalama Beach, my never ending quest to see the lighthouse at Point Conception:

Shana, I need more pictures of our adventures!  I'm a picture fanatic!

Chick-fil-a


I had Chick-fil-a today! The closest one is pretty far away and a big pain to get to. It's in a mall (no free standing ones out here). No one goes to the mall in LA. Well I guess maybe 14 year olds, but thats about all, and I think they were all at this mall today in the South Bay. They have a new "chicken strip recipe" and it is not good. They shouldn't mess with perfection! From LA, you have to drive all the way to Kingman, Arizona (5 1/2 hours) to get Cracker Barrel and to Phoenix, Arizona (6 1/2 hours) to get Waffle House! So it's nice to have a treat that reminds me of home at least within the city of LA! At least I can have In-n-Out or Roscoe's anytime I want!

Forgiveness

I hope for the day that the story of a victim's family forgiving the accused isn't a front page story.  We all should strive to be more like this man's family!  Read the story here.

The Cat Stalker

That's Chris' new name for me. I love animals. We are doing something very exciting for our anniversary that directly correlates to me and exotic animals (hopefully exotic felines!) and I'm very excited about it. More on that later.  Those of you who know me know I love Blue Tick Coonhounds!  I really want a Smokey of my own but I'm not going to do that until I have a lot of land for him to run on.  Speaking of hounds, there is a man in our neighborhood who has a BLOODHOUND! Everytime I see him drive by I jump up and down and point at his truck yelling "Toph!!! The Bloodhound!!!!!".  The guy must think I'm crazy. One time he was walking on our street on the opposite side and I got so excited I was yelling to him "I love your dog!!" Unfortunately, he never understood what I was saying. The other day I saw him running down the road with Bloodhound behind him, no leash, jowls going up and down in a way only a bloodhound could do. The dog was barely recognizable because his skin was just flailing everywhere. I about ran into a parked car watching that dog run. I'm sure the guy would think I was even more odd if he knew I was blogging about him...

Anyway, cats. I've met a lot of a lot of cat haters.  Come on people, they're soft and cuddly and you can hold them (I even like to hold my 50 pound dog if that tells you anything)!

Chris has pretty bad allergies. Years ago he would come over and have to leave after a bit because Riley would really irritate his allergies. Chris has grown somewhat of a tolerance to Riley. He can now cuddle with him and barely even sneeze. Cats are a different story. He can't be in a house with cats and carpet for more than 30 minutes without going into a complete allergy meltdown. I want a cat so badly but I know I couldn't do that to Chris, but I still bug him about it for fun:) I take pictures of cats all the time.  There is a man who owns an African Serval in the neighborhood just north of us and I see him walking the cat on a leash once a week or so. Everytime I see the African Serval I call Chris and tell him.  I'm sure that really thrills him.  Here I am blogging about another person in our neighborhood.....

Anyway, here are pictures of cats I have "stalked" recently:

Penny, our neighbor's beautiful cat, who Riley would like to nibble on:

A cat on top of a car in Orvieto, Italy:

A cat on the Palatine Hill in Rome:

A cat at San Galgano, Italy:

Cats galore in Rome!

I'll even take a picture of a cat through a metal door:

Bad Breath


Chris thinks Riley's breath smells so he put toothpaste in his bowl. He didn't want it which I think marks the first time that Riley has not wanted to eat something presented to him. Chris proceeded to shove the toothpaste in Riley's mouth.

He missed and got it on the outside of his mouth...

And this last picture is for Stacey. Riley really can't keep his eyes open when I have the camera too close (which is often)...

Stuff

Riley's foot has almost completely healed.  He never got used to that cone though:)

I'd like to blog regularly but I just can't think of many things that I'd like to blog about.  I got the idea to do a day by day trip review of our honeymoon to Italy.  It'll take up 12 days worth of posts which would be a record for me.   I'll start working on it.  I have another secret project I'm working on that will take up 6 days as well...

Philadelphia making a smart choice

Philadelphia is giving $10,000 a year in municipal tax credits to companies that hire former prisoners and provide them tuition support or vocational training. Read the article here. This is the right step to slow the rate of recidivism, which is now at about 80%*. People coming out of prison need education and vocational training. We can do something about this. These people are human, just as we are. Yes, they've made bad decisions in life but God has forgiven them, hasn't he?

In April, President Bush signed the Second Chance Act which authorizes more than $330 million over two years to help government agencies and nonprofit groups lower recidivism.

Dr. Mimi Silbert, who started the Delancey Street Foundation, is one of my personal heroes. The foundation is a wonderful organization who trains and educates ex-convicts to prepare them for life on the outside. The foundation has never accepted any grants or money from the government, running purely on money generated by their moving companies, restaurant, furniture making business and Christmas tree lots to name a few. There are no paid employees of the foundation as each member "learns" the trades from members who have lived there longer than them. The residents earn at least a GED and learn three marketable skills to use when they graduate the program (the minimum stay is 2 years but the average stay is 4 years). It is amazing to think that everyone from the accounting staff to the janitorial staff is an ex-convict, learning their trade from another. If you live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Greensboro, North Carolina, New York or New Mexico, please consider using Delancey Street as your movers if you are moving or buy your Christmas tree from their lot. They also have an amazing restaurant on the Embarcadero in San Francisco as well as a bookstore. I have used Delancey Street Movers many times and they have been some of the most professional men I've ever been around. They are truly grateful for your business and I cannot begin to explain to you the feeling of knowing you've helped one of these people. If you'd like to know more about the foundation, please ask me. I'd love to tell you more about it.

Now the graduates of Delancey will have an easier time finding a job.


*This number is from a book I read that is a few years old. The number could be a little different now.