Daily Affirmation

I don't often follow viral YouTube videos - but when a friend showed this one to me, it put a big smile on my face :) Since then I've found myself blurting out my own Jessica-esqe daily affirmations (car rides are my favorite place to do so!)

Here's the video if ya haven't seen it yet...


And here's a little daily affirmation of my own...
Now… my whole life is great. I can do anything good. I like my job, I like everything, I like my housemates, I like my family, I like my car, I like my car club, I like my skirts,
I like my ideas, I like my city
I like my whole community (clap!)
My whole community is great. I can do anything good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do anything good.

I've been working on switching over computers and so looking through the gobs of older pictures (which is always so fun!) And I just love this one, so I thought I'd post it. Taken with my best friend, Kim, after getting my bird tattoo.



Kim does have a tattoo now though, but not on her shoulder. If you're best friends for someone long enough - I guess you do grow together in some ways that you might not have imagined. I like that :)

have yourself a merry little Christmas...

I always love Christmas time. Maybe I'm still wearing tank-tops in LA - but it's Christmas none-the-less. Below are some picture highlights of my month!

My new roomate, Danielle, and I got all dressed up forties-style to attend "It's A Wonderful Life" shown in the historic downtown "Million-Dollar Theatre". Such a good movie. Such a good time.
Afterwards we got our little tree and decorated it...tree-trimming has always been one of my favorite things.
This past weekend, Kim and I got all dressed up in vintage(the dress I'm wearing was my great-Grandmother's!) and attended the LA City Ballet's "The Nutcraker Swings" at the Orpheum Theatre. The outfits were fantastic...the ballet seemed more like a dance recital. But fun none-the-less.
The next day, Kim and I did our annual Christmas baking. This year we downscaled to 3 recipes. Which sadly enough didn't turn out as good as usual. The gluten-free molasses cookies crumbled to pieces (I'm hoping to salvage this into a cobbler or pie-crust or something) and the toffee is a little bit off. But the fudge turned out yummy. I'm really looking forward to doing some baking with my neices on Christmas Eve!
Other than that I've been busy doing some nesting (finally got pictures hung!) and lots of various crafts. I re-visited pinstripping after awhile and was very pleased with the results. Pleased enough with my skills that I embarked on putting the first stripes on my "pinstripping toolbox!" I've also been doing mending and fixing up old vintage clothes, making little hair things, painting, and getting the beautiful lamps below done!
Aunt Pam gave me these lamp bases from a Montana auction-sale. At the time they were creme colored with some light-blue accents...blah! I painted them gloss black and found these matching newly-made, vintage-styled shades on Ebay for a very reasonable price! The results are splendid...and just the lamps I've always wanted for my family room!


















That's it for December! 2010 is looking like it will be quite an interesting year...I really have NO idea what's around the bend...but I'm pretty sure there might be some surprises!

When life give you chocolate chips...

...make pancakes!
I love food. Particularly breakfast food. Now that I've been gluten-free for a year now (!) I can only indulge in pancakes at home, when they're made from non-wheat flours. So when a girl is in need of a little comfort food, what could make one feel better than chocolate chip pancakes?! Delicious. Why comfort food you ask?? Well, to begin with, keep reading below!

Yes, I am in a new house. Some say its because the house owners were foreclosed upon. Others speculate that our house was being taken over by giant flies, fleas, and cockroaches. (Seriously though, can you believe the size of this fly!? It must have been sleeping, because I was close to touching him and he didn't buzz off!)

It actually isn't a house, its an apartment. My household of 7 people is now going to be an apartment of 2. Which is a slightly odd but welcome change, I think. In the past months my housemates and I have sought to buy something, but that's not working out at the moment. And when we began looking for a rental to hold the 9 of us (we're growing) it was very clear we weren't going to find such a place within the mile of our house that we were looking. So for the time being we're segmenting into 3 households (while continuing to pursue our idea of "intentional community"). We'll begin looking to buy again in the new year.
On other news fronts, I made my first TV filming! It will probably be Februrary when it airs though. It was tons of fun and they loved me! They found my GreaseGirl blog and wanted me to teach a lady how to do some basic car maintenance stuff - like change a tire. We used Studebaker during filming, which makes me very proud. However, when we took her tire off I noticed the inner rim had worn all the way down to the wiry part! No bueno (I'm also attending a spanish class at community college this sememster)! I had sworn to get this checked out first thing the next day - but on my way home from spanish class later that night, a tire blew! Everything was okay. But as I waited for the tow truck on the embankment where the 101 & 110 freeways meet, watching my Stude on a very narrow pull-out, I couldn't help but laugh.
For now, I'm safe and sound. But its good to know that chocolate chip pancakes are always a possibility...

A little glimpse into things I'm thinking about all the time.
Wouldn't a chiropractor office seem innocent enough?? We need to retrain our eyes so as to not let injustice pass by right in front of us.