Best of the Best

This month marked my tenth anniversary with a very important person in my life. This person has been with me through literal thick and thins in between and we know each other so well that we complete each other's sentences, know every minute detail about each other's likes and dislikes, and despite the fact that I only see/talk to this person every now and then, when we meet we always show up with the same outfit! 

Happy 10 year anniversary to my best friend Joyce!

 

It may seem weird that we know the exact date we met each other but it's not really. We met on the first day of high school as two girls who just moved to the suburbs, new in a school full of cliques. We've been through it all and I can honestly say she's really proven to me that she is the BEST BEST BEST friend I've ever had. She's always had my back, and she's never afraid to give it to me straight when I need advice (and even when I don't need it). If you know me, the things I value the most in a person is passion, loyalty, and nonchalant need to express the truth. Anyway, I've burned through quite a few frenemies, but I know Joyce will always be my best friend. She's proven that many times.

In 10 years, one can imagine we've pretty much done it all. Now that we're older, we decided to get fancy and celebrate at a nice restaurant. We went to Il Covo in Los Angeles, an inspired little italian restaurant with the cutest patio I've ever seen. 

I had the Grilled banzino, and Joyce had the squid ink pasta. My branzino (which is just a fancy word for European sea bass) was cooked well and came with a corn salsa with tomatoes and red onion. The corn salsa was amazing for having such simple ingredients. The squid ink pasta on the other hand.. well, let's just say I have quite the obsession for squid ink pasta now. It had generous chunks of crab in it, however the crab was kind of dry. It also had peppers which gave the pasta a nice kick. Highly recommended!

Il Covo
8700 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 858-0020  

Reservations recommended

inked.

There's a beauty in the simplicity of penmanship. I think these days we get so lost in the momentum of our fast moving lives and we forget about how little things like a handwritten letter from a good friend can make you feel. To be quite honest, I doubt many of us nowadays have given or received a handwritten letter in years! I can bet on that! With Facebook and email it's so much easier to keep up with your friends lives (whether they are aware of it or not).

I often donate to non-profit wildlife and environmental organizations and ever since I've been receiving solitications from environmental groups I didn't know existed until they started spamming my mailbox with complementary calendars, address labels, and greeting cards, along with photos of sad animals pleading for my donation. Pretty ironic, in my opinion.

Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look:

And this was just the address labels!

What a better way to make use of this 'free' cardstock then to treat my friends to a handwritten greeting. Lately addressing my friends consisted of more of keyboard strokes as opposed to pen strokes. It was therapeutic and quite the challenge for a young writer such as myself to refrain from smiley faces and "LOL"'s during a cordial greeting to get my point across.

Who's next?

Fall Back Into Routine

Alas, another summer has come and gone. Summer came and stirred up my life in familiar fashion, another crazy (almost 51/50), spontaneous (so down), and death defying (quite literally!) sunny season exponentially exceeded expectations in the midst of mini shorts, sunblock and the infamous uneven bikini tan. Yuck. And like clockwork, school is back in session. And like clockwork, here I am to tell you I'm back and I'm writing regularly and I'm never leaving again! We'll see how this pans out this year.. anywho..


In case y'all forgot, fall is quickly approaching. There's something so romantic about this time of year when everyone's had enough of summer and it's antics they start getting back into routine of things. Here's a couple things I look forward to in the next couple of months:

-lighting candles
-jackets, scarfs, BEANIES, dark nail polish, nice slacks and basically fall fashion en genereux
-HOT coffee and HOT tea
-crispy mornings (not so excited for the condensation on the windshield though)
-cooking stews and roasts that will warm the whole house
-baking cookies and pumpkin pies
-cooking again in general
-running outside at noon
-saunas and bikram yoga

Of course, I hope I'm not getting too ahead of myself here. After all I still live in California and even though it's been overcast a couple of days this week, it still somehow managed to pull about 80 degrees (F). Ick.


That's it for now!

xx, laura