no one believes you are in California till you post In-N-Out. Fact.

Keep going to this tab and seeing that I haven't written anything and then I go to another tab and then return and STILL no blog. Guess I gotta write something.

Another beautiful sunny day in Santa Cruz! Still wearing shorts. I pressed jerseys and cut some large sorta banners down. Another short day.

I got the two gift exchanges I'm in mailed off. Socks & stickers. I think my socks one is marked as shipped, so that's fun. And my Harry Potter one, which I thought I got stilted on.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I bought the stamps! No Neville Longbottom though. Come on!

feelin' good

Wore shorts to work today! It's shorts week! Everyone was in shorts. Go team shorts.

I taped screens and burned screens and cut a banner and brought in some boxes of stuff. I also folded shirts and boxed them as Ryan stacked them. It was a hot day, but hey! I was in shorts! It didn't bother me.

And it ended up being a short day.

So yay for sun! I made some new paper cutouts for the kitchen window. I did snowflakes for the holidays and hearts for Valentine's Day. Now I have a row of grass with a few flowers.

I finished Gone Girl. Pretty damn good little mystery novel! Really enjoyed it. Neil Patrick Harris is playing the role of Desi, so that'll be great.

I downloaded a ton of book samples onto my Kindle, and bought The Goldfinch because that's been sitting on my to read list.

Now I shall retire to bed! Reading a bit before sleeping has really got me going to bed in better rhythm, and I've been sleeping pretty well recently too.

A lot of anxiety has lifted from my shoulders due to my decision to leave Santa Cruz and travel. I do worry about leaving my job and getting a new job in the future, but a person can't just work and work and live in a place they are unenthusiastic about. My spirit was suffering, and when the spirit suffers what can be done about that?

I'm wearing shorts right now. It's that warm.

Got up and got my crock pot cooking with sloppy joes! Didn't take that long to prep.

Had a really good day at work. It was warm and everyone was positive and we got stuff done. I heat pressed some jerseys and shorts (still waiting on some decals to be cut so I can finish them). Then I caught these patches. Now we are one forth of the way through a massive shirt order! Feels good to print a massive order. It was an early day. It was also a very HOT day.

Got home and stirred my sloppy joe. It was a bit wet. Could have put more meat in it, I think. Or less fluids. Tara made a salad. It was our night to cook for the house meeting. I was facilitating. The sloppy joes turned out a bit more... meat mush. Though I guess that is the point? Oh and I also made a pot of green tea for everyone to enjoy. It was refreshing.

The meeting went really well! Good chats and stuff.

Now I think I'll retire to bed. I'm almost done with Gone Girl!

ankle damage ???

I want Wednesday to get here because the that'll be a day with no errands or obligations. Tomorrow is a house meeting, so I'll be going straight from work to dinner making to meeting. I'll be putting some meat in the slow cooker before work, and Tara says she'll get home at 3 so she can give it some stirs. Going to make sloppy joes with turkey! Here's hoping they turn out. Mmmm.

Work was all right. We ran a repeat job, and a small order of a new job. I broke down the press. I weeded some stuff. I folded shirts. Got tons of heat stuff to do over the next few days. 17 jerseys and 17 shorts!

Tara and I are cooking for the pre house meeting dinner. I..oh I already mentioned the sloppy joes. WELL I went to Trader Joe's and got fixings and Francesca was working the register, so we got to chat a bit.

My ankle is really hurting me these past few days. Maybe too much crazy dancing on hard wood floors? Guess I'll take it easy for a bit.

busy bee weekend & big announcement

Friday:

Camping! I’m in the woods. Big Basin Redwood State Forest Place Thing. Yeah. So I’m writing now and will post this when I get to wifi…later.

Today started pretty well. Woke up to my body clock and relaxed in bed for a while. Got up and had tea and cereal. I itemized my to dos for the day: get gas and add air to tires. Get stickers for sticker gift exchange. Get socks for sock gift exchange. Look at maps. So I went down town, and oh what a lovely day! My room continues to be 10 degrees colder than the rest of Santa Cruz, so I could have gotten away with shorts. I got a Discretion Brewing sticker yesterday, and I picked up two Santa Cruz logo stickers for my exchange. They said they wanted something cool for their laptop, so I got them some options. The sock gift was harder to 100% fulfill. Got them some hippo socks, and they said they liked hippos. They didn’t have any puggle socks, or pumpkin ones. But they had dogs with cones and these fictional animals being abducted, so I figured they’d like them. I got myself some seagull & fries socks. Because duh.

I swung by the Buttery on the way home and got some cupcakes to share with Ma & Pa, as well as a cheese pocket for me and a baguette. Oh ho ho. Baguette. (that is to be read in a French accent).

Mellowed at home, then heard Ma and Pa had arrived at their campsite, so I packed up and headed out. Traffic was bad getting downtown, but I found parking. I got three sandwiches from Zoccoli’s: B.E.L.T., the New Yorker, and the Avocado sammich. Graham Hill Road was familiar, 9 was winding, and 263/264/whichever it was, was very long and winding and near empty. The type of road that makes you hope you are on the right road. I went through Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek and other little cluster towns that have a lot going on for about a quarter mile and then it gives away once again to woods.

I accidentally went down a road to Little Basin, which was a part of this State Park, but not the campground that Ma and Pa were at. But I was back on track soon enough, and as the sun was setting I delivered the sandwiches to campsite 48. Dad and I split the meat sandwiches. Both were very tasty. We sat by the fire and ate cupcakes, once our appetite swung towards sweet. Now we shall pick a movie or a game and relax. It’s good to be in an old familiar place (the motorhome) in a new place (Big Basin).

Saturday:

I stayed up reading Gone Girl. It's really sucked me in! I'm almost done. I felt like I slept in, in the morning. But really I was up at a good hour. Dad made pancakes. We drank tea and planned the day. 

Parking down near the trail heads was tough, but we found some tucked in the back. I got some postcards and a patch. Ma, Pa and I took a ranger guided trail and learned about the trees and stuff. Mom knew all the trees he asked about. Madrona. Douglas Fir. Good mom!

After the tour, Nate showed up! Yay for Nate! We took a bit of a hike in the woods. It was a lovely day to go hiking. No rain, warm, but not too hot. Perfect. Only a section of the trail was hiked, as Nate had some stuff to do later on in the day. We had lunch back at the MoHo. Baguette with cheese and spread, cupcake, and Nathan opened his presents from Ma and Pa! He got a cool mug that Dad previously set on fire. And some jelly cups. And a hiking towel thingy. And Ma and Pa brought down the cool lamps Pa made for Christmas, but were unable to fly.

Nate parted ways at around 3:30. We three finished off the bread and played a couple rounds of Blokus. I won the second game. I got some practice in setting up this tent that was brought down to me. Collecting gear for the road! I got out of there at 5ish. It was a nice ride back. Got some time to relax. Eat some food. Watch some TV and catch up on what I missed by being in the woods (not much). I got to the third part of Gone Girl!

I went to bed at a reasonable hour because I was getting up bright and early to go to San Francisco!

Sunday:

Up oh so early. Even earlier because of daylight savings time. I packed up my car with screens and stuff and swung by McDonald's for lazy breakfast and I was out on the road at a bit before 8 (7am body time). I've been getting some really good traffic lately. As in, not much traffic on the road when I go on the freeway. 

Today was a helping Odd Owl print day, and it ended up that next Sunday will also be that day. I don't mind. I like getting out and hanging out. And I'll get some groovy prints when all is said and done and printed. I got my tea on, and Phil came over to help. I started by coating my screen for later use. We did the first color on the two color deluxe , then the second color & single color shirts. They've got a pretty good set up going on. Lots of inks for lots of potential colors. Phil used the heat gun to do the discharge activation on the tees. Carmen pulled prints like a champ. We listened to The National. Josh made salmon for lunch. Erin & Steven were staying for a bit till it was time for them to move to North Carolina. I'll be sure to visit them, they are neat people. Also Erin's baby is due in July! Baby! Adam & Vanessa had their son Xol. Yay babies...well yay other people's babies.

After lunch I exposed the screen and set that to drying, and we printed more shirts. Some of the shirts came out really boss looking. Just... great! We moved on to paper printing, and the first layer went well but the second will need some adjusting, so we set it aside to do next weekend. Probably won't take long. I left SF at 7:20ish (I stuck around to eat pie and help them fold shirts). 12 hours from leaving to leaving.

♠♣♥♦

SO! I'm leaving Santa Cruz in May. Don't know when in May. Early or late, but May. I'm putting my stuff into storage and I'm hitting the road. Going across the country. Big goal would be every day. Drawing, driving, seeing, eating my way to new places and hopefully old friends.

Santa Cruz has been fun, but it isn't the end all be all for me. I put in notice at work and notice with my landlord and I've told enough people that now I have to do this. Can't get an idea and then shirk from it and be okay with that because I told no one. NOPE.