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Pfeiffer beach at Big Sur, Sunday, May 28, 1:30pm PST.

Although we would have been quite content to stay home, watch TV, and ponder the intricacies of the rubik’s cube, we decided to take advantage of our three-day weekend and see the sights.

We got up mega early on Sunday (8am) and hit the road. We took highway 101 down to Gilroy and then cut over to Monterey via hwy 156. We had never driven this way before and it is SO much better than going through Santa Cruz. Taking hwy 17 to Santa Cruz is a clusterfuck. Never again.

Once we got to Monterey, we, or I, immediately pissed off the state parks service by getting in the wrong lane to enter the scenic (and pricey) 17-mile drive. We have no pictures of the lovely, historic, scenic, blah blah blah 17-mile drive because A: I was annoyed that we had to pay an $8.75 toll to basically drive around some rich folks’ neighborhood and B: I had to pee and was on the lookout for a free restroom. We found one at the end of our journey at the Pebble Beach clubhouse (so chic!).

Next, we cruised down hwy 1 and checked out the scenery. Although I’ve been down hwy 1 north of Monterey a few times, none of the beaches or cliffs looked quite as dramatic as those of the Big Sur region. Maybe it was the sunlight, maybe it was the absence of much traffic on a Sunday morning, but damn if it wasn’t pretty. We drove for about 45 minutes until we hit Big Sur proper. Big Sur isn’t as much of a town as it is a series of inns, state parks, and small shopping centers sprinkled along a wooded highway. We stopped at one just past the entrance to Pfeiffer state park. We picked up some sandwiches and planned our next stop.

Since there is so much to see in Big Sur, we had to choose our destination wisely. I knew beforehand that we wouldn’t have time to see everything, so I thought we’d hit the highlights while we were down there. After lunch, we found the nearby entrance to Pfeiffer beach. We drove down the winding, 1-lane road and passed many swimsuited hikers heading down to the beach. “What idiots!” we thought as we cruised past them. Didn’t they know that it was 2 miles to the beach and that they’d have to hike back up the hill when they were done? Tsk, tsk. We pulled up to the entrance and the woman at the gate told us we were lucky: even though the sign at the top of the road had said “lot full” (huh?), there were a few spots open. We paid our $5 and happily parked in one of the few spots left. So THAT’S why those idiots were trekking down the road. I guess our cluelessness paid off.

We changed into our shorts, applied sunscreen, ditched our shoes and headed down the path to the shore. The path leading down to the beach became rocky once we got closer to the shore. We had to step over some stones and little slivers of driftwood to get to the water. I cringed as I stepped on a particularly sharp piece of wood. The pain subsided and I decided to walk it off. A few minutes later, I could tell there was something stuck in my foot. “Dammit,” I thought. I had a splinter or something wedged in my foot. I looked down and, under the clump of sand, I saw something clear sticking out. What the hell was it? I tugged on it and felt a twinge of pain. Whatever it was, it was stuck tight. Then I realized that it was a strip of skin I’d scraped free of my foot. Eeeew! It didn’t hurt and I wasn’t bleeding but man, it looked nasty. I kept that foot out of the water and stepped gingerly. I was fine. It just looked nasty.

We hung out on the beach for about an hour. There were lots of families there with little kids. Someone had set up a volleyball net and some girls were playing lacrosse. Lacrosse? Anyway, a fun time was had by all. It was a bit chilly though. We found an out of the way spot and set up camp. Then, the drowsiness set in. After about 20 minutes, we decided to get up and walk some more. The cold air woke us up a bit and we decided to head back to the car. I cleaned up my foot, dusted off all of the sand, and then drove back up the coast as the sun sank lower toward the horizon. We got home around 5pm, showered, and I crashed. At least we had Monday to fully recuperate.

I slept for 11 hours last night. Aside from having some really traumatic nightmares about one of my exes, my excessive amount of sleep was a good thing.

Danny and I have the really bad habit of not getting to bed until 1am or later. Since I get up at 7, this leaves me with roughly five and a half hours of sleep. Add this up over the week and by Friday, I’m pretty worn out. Lately, I’ve been sleeping very very late on Saturday, into the afternoon in fact. I don’t wake up and then go back to sleep. I just sleep and don’t wake up until after 11am. Then I close my eyes and when I reopen them, it’s 12:30. I just can’t get up. On Sunday, I barely get up in time to shower and make it to church by 10:30. Granted, I don’t go to bed early on Saturday night either, but the point is that I really catch up on my sleep on the weekends. While I love to sleep in, I need to adjust my habits so that I’m getting more sleep during the week. Plus, if I sleep too late on the weekends, I feel groggy for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow, we’re getting up really early (for a weekend) and driving down to Big Sur for the day. I’ve never been there and I figured this weekend was as good as any to take a road trip. I know that holiday weekends aren’t the best times to travel, but maybe the traffic won’t be as bad on Sunday as it would be on Saturday or Monday.

I don’t have a specific agenda for Big Sur. I just want to drive the scenic highways and stop off at a nice beach or two. We might pack some lawn chairs and an ice chest and just see where we end up. Seeing everything at Big Sur takes a few days, so we’ll have to pick and choose what to do on our day trip. I just want to enjoy the scenery on a sunny weekend without committing to an overnight trip. Danny is up for whatever so we’ll see where we end up. There will be plenty of new pictures though, I promise.

Speaking of pictures, we got our professional wedding photos in on Thursday. I’ll have those posted sometime soon. The files are huge so we need to resize them first.

Well, the happy sunshine theme from earlier has changed over the last few hours. For some reason tonight, I just felt really really moody and anxious. It could be PMS or it could be my anxiousness at not knowing exactly what will happen this summer. I think everything will go smoothly, but for right now, I’m waiting. I feel bad because I hung out with some good friends tonight and I felt unhappy. They are really cool people, but I just didn’t feel right. Maybe it is PMS. Maybe I’m still bummed that my coworker got canned. Maybe I’m just grouchy for no reason. Anyway, the point is that I’m anxious and moody and it isn’t just going away. Exercise usually helps, but I don’t feel like doing yoga or going for a walk right now. I feel like drinking. Hmmmm…to be continued.

Memorial Day kicks off summertime. Kids are getting out of school, graduating, moving on. I’m ready to move on mentally. To have a break. I really haven’t been too too stressed lately, but basking in the laziness of the wedding aftermath has been therapeutic. I’m ready to do something exciting. I’d like to take a mini-honeymoon since Danny and I won’t have our real honeymoon until Christmas, when we have time to go somewhere for 10 days or more.

I’ve been doing some cleaning lately. I took the time to go through the piles of mail that have accumulated over the last month. Aside from gathering up a two inch stack of mail to be shredded, I culled through the ads and flyers and found a 1.5 year old gift certificate to Amazon that my cousins sent me for xmas back in 2004. It is set to expire in early June, so I decided to just spend it on whatever I wanted. I usually try to spend gift certs on useful items: appliances, books, etc… This time, I used it to buy two soundtracks from the show The O.C. I don’t watch the O.C. but I feel that A: soundtracks can have some fantastic music, and B: they connect me to current pop culture that I miss out on bc I’m wrapped up in my cable TV shows or friends’ blogs. Lately, Danny and I have been saying that music on the radio is crap. I get so excited when one of the local radio stations has a 90’s weekend. Am I old? Has it been 10 years since I graduated from high school, when I cared about going to concerts?

My high school reunion is next weekend. I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s because I’m staying busy and still trying new things. I haven’t resigned myself to a life or a job or even a geographic location. I can’t take full credit for my circumstances though. I’ve been given lots of opportunites not to mention the support of Danny, my family, and my friends. I feel like I can walk into my reunion and say “yes, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.” I never thought I’d be able to say that but I can. And I am very very very lucky and blessed. I have the confidence to move forward, but I wouldn’t have it without the hundreds of little pushes and catches from so many supportive people. I guess my point is, it’s not all me and I’m saying thanks. So, thank you.

One of my coworkers, my best friend at work, got canned yesterday. He and I both knew it was a possibility, but it still sucks. I think he’ll be better off in a new office, a place where he will be appreciated, but I’ll miss him. Just last week, I showed him some of my wedding pictures and he told me all about how he and his wife met and their wedding. There are other folks I can talk to, but he was my lunch buddy and those aren’t always easy to come by.

Okay, pity party over. It will just suck when I’m at work tomorrow and everyone comes by and asks where he is.

I was out of cream or milk this morning so I thought I’d try some plain yogurt in my coffee. Know what that got me? Yogurt chunks at the bottom of my cup. Ughh….gross.

Today is Danny’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!!!!

We went to On the Border for dinner tonight and we are still stuffed to the gills with pseudo-TexMex. Hey, at least they have queso. It was good but now we are painfully full and neither one of us wants to deal with work for the rest of the week.

Since Danny buys gadgets and new toys often, I had a hard time thinking of something cool to buy for him. I took him out to lunch and to a movie this weekend, but I wanted to give him something to unwrap on his birthday. I got him these:

The Labyrinth. No, not this one.

THIS one.

This. Is. Hard. I saw it and knew Danny had to have it, at least so I could play with it. Selfless: that’s me. One of my Jr. High teachers had one and I spent hours trying to get that damn BB around the track.

We played it for a while and determined that no human without super skillz could get the ball all the way to the end. Okay, so we gave up after five minutes, but it’s impossible!

I also got Danny a rubik’s cube. He is low on desk toys (he has none) and he needs to raise his level of “desk play” to that of his coworkers.

I also bought him a mini rubik’s cube because the regular one is impossible! Do you see a pattern here? We’ve both played with the mini-cube and have determined that it is just as cantakerous as its big brother. If it is doable, we feel even stupider-er.

Finally, here’s a game we can’t lose: Rubik’s snake. You make shapes. Bam, you’re done. However, many of the “shapes” are questionable. If you can guess what this is, I’ll give you a cookie.

I just finished reading “The Nanny Diaries.” Ugh…. Just ugh. Don’t get me wrong, I was completely engrossed in the story, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I just wanted to reach in and shake the nanny. WTF are you doing? Get out! I know, that wouldn’t make a very exciting tale if she came to her senses and bailed on the horrible family midway through the book, but I do think that this book was written specifically to give the reader stomach pains. I kept going, kept hoping for some sort of resolution or divine justice, but nothing. Just more heartburn.

I’m tense. In fact, I’m wound up and not in a good way. I took a shower after reading the book. I just felt dirty or something.

This is a great book for a plane ride, but if you’re going to read about a sadomasochistic boss, just read “The Devil Wears Prada.” At least the ending is decent.

Oh yeah, and this book makes me never, ever want to have kids. I’m sure my mind will change eventually, but just…………ugh. *shudder*

I added about 70 more pics tonight. Have at ‘em!

Check the gallery.

…..that is all.