Search: Awesome.

I love it when Google customizes its home page and this is one of the best I've seen, in honor of Jules Verne... It's interactive and the undersea imagery is beautiful, plus there are narwhals!

Things That Have Made My Week

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

~ Isak Dinesen

Sunset Cliffs on a warm January day

Finally, No Strings Attached on the third try!

A new rehabilitation regimen for my sprained ankle and the prospect of walking properly in San Fran next weekend

A weekend visitor, my little shadow

Amos Lee, No. 1 Album on iTunes!!!

Being spoiled on a "San Diego Vacation Weekend" with my family

Free Table Score!

In the 2nd floor lunch room at my work there's a table that has been deemed the "Free Table" where co-workers leave any unwanted items they think someone else could use. Usually this includes a range of coupons and random books & magazines, but every once in a while there's something really good. Walking by the kitchen/lunch room on a regular basis, I generally take a glance at this table right after checking out the table where people leave free food (Lunch meeting left-overs? Homemade brownies? See's candy with a butterscotch square still in the box? Yes please!). That quick glance has earned me savenger's rights to a host of interesting items:

• A hand-stitched leather satchel/briefcase, only missing a strap connector
• Various DVDs, including the Music Man (stocking stuffer for Mom!) and Sideways
• Trail mix packets (no chocolate in the mix, but they did have dried cranberries and pepitas!)
• French vanilla hot chocolate packets in a festive Christmas tin
• Large burlap coffee bags to be used for some unidentified craft project (tree skirt?)

Yesterday we were having the kick-off meeting for this quarter's Wellness Program Focus, Exercise & Fitness. There were already a decent amount of people in the lunch room signing up for their pedometers and enjoying healthy goodies and Vitamin Water when I walked in. I did my typical scan the room, check out the free food, glance at the free table routine, when I was struck by the large Bed, Bath & Beyond on the free table. Sitting inside was a George Foreman grill, complete with built-in bun warmer, drip trays and three pronged scrapers. I couldn't help but exclaim, "Wait, is this free??" to anyone who would listen.  How was it possible that with all the people in the room, no one had claimed this?!  Surprisingly enough, since usually the free items are claimed without really knowing the giver, the co-worker who had left it on the table responded.  Amy M. explained that her and her husband had just gotten a large grill and didn't really use this.

So excited, I immediately walked it back to my office, smiling the whole way. My mom had just told me a couple days before about how they enjoyed the yummy George Foreman grilled sliders my dad had made on Saturday so much that they bought a refurbished one from the Grocery Outlet, a.k.a. "the Rainbow Store" (only my parents) for the beach house. At the time I had been slightly envious of their two GFGs... but now I have one of my very own! And it was FREE! Score!

With this and all the other kitchen items I've received from work friends, I can't wait to actually be able to use them in my own place :)

An Invitation to the World of Technology

Who: Me and all the other patient believers
What: Proud ownership of a smart phone
Where: The nearest Verizon Store
When: Available for pre-order February 3rd

The announcement I've been waiting on for what seems like forever has finally come--the Verizon iPhone 4 is here! While I'm thankful that my reliable little Motorola flip phone has held up for almost three years now (even with extensive front screen cracking and a creative patch job), I am beyond excited to finally be entering the world of smart phone technology.

Make your own animated GIF!

I think I first became fully aware of my flip phone embarassment on my trip to Chicago in November. Glancing around at the other airport patrons, El riders, fellow travelers and Windy City residents, I couldn't help but notice how many people from a wide spectrum of age and [apparent] finanical status were on their smart phones, texting away on their virtual keyboards as I single-double-triple typed out my letters... 160 characters shouldn't take this long!! Verizon and Apple really needed to play nice, be friends, and get their act together on an iPhone collaboration.

With months, years even, of speculation, "it'll be here this quarter" or "at the end of that quarter," Verizon has announced the arrival of iPhone 4. I'm looking forward to a time when I'll actually be able to keep up a game of Words With Friends without getting periodic "where are you?" messages, browse the internet at will, and swype to my heart's content.

Something meant to be...

So I've figured out that the hardest part about starting a blog is the feeling that I have to get the first post just right. That I need to come up with something enticing and definitive that sets the tone of posts to come. I've also figured out that while perfection is something nice to strive for, in theory, sometimes you just end up disappointed. So this post is going to be centered around the idea that spurred my blogging interests in the first place... the deal-of-the-day!

From a decent sized globe for $16, to a 50 cent fold up handbag hook discovered in a pile of junk jewelry at the swap meet, there was a period of a week or so in December when every day something struck me as a particularly awesome deal. I would exclaim "deal-of-the-day!!" with such enthusiasm that I started to feel like they were good enough to share. These weren't deals of the Groupon variety* (which in name and theory means that a multitude of people are taking advantage of them), these were hunter-gatherer instinctual deals that you snatch up because you recognize that this is a one-time find that someone else will take advantage of if you don't.

On Sunday evening I decided to scan Craigslist just to see what kind of furniture was for sale, since I've decided that once I find and actually close on a condo I'm going to need to become the ultimate scavenger/ DIY diva in order to not go completely broke and still live comfortably (which in my case is synonymous with "stylishly" in my own funky collector crafts-person kind of way...). I found an ad for a Z Gallerie velvet bench, $100, call Natalie. Sent it to myself, initially questioning a $100 purchase of a bench without an official home. After reassuring words from two of my favorite advisers, I decided to go for it. Posted on Saturday, I thought it would have for sure been claimed when I called Monday afternoon...but as luck would have it, I was the first person to have called and it was mine if I wanted it! Picking it up at 8 pm (only minutes after I had learned that another offer [cash!] was accepted on the condo I had put an offer on Sunday morning), it was even larger and nicer than I had expected.

The color goes perfectly with a piece of art I bought a year ago (on sale!), which I envision will belong in my living room.

The bench is also the more practical, economical version of a fainting couch I found and fell in love with on some design site (most likely Apartment Therapy) and saved in my ever-evolving "condo ideas" PowerPoint (not so much for presentation purposes, but more as an easy way to assemble and easily arrange design ideas/photos... I'm not that much of a geek!)

While it seems the Bancroft Street condo wasn't meant to be, I guess my new luxurious velvet bench was! Something to keep me smiling through the emotional rollercoaster that is condo hunting :)

*Don't get me wrong, Groupons are pretty sweet when a good one comes along...as long as you actually remember to buy it!