Total Slacker

Hey there!

I have been such a bad blogger lately! Things have been pretty busy around here.  I turned the big 2-5 on Sunday (Easter) and had a great birthday.  On Saturday night, we went to dinner at my new favorite place, Chaya in Venice.  OMG, so good!  We had Beef Carpaccio, Spicy Shrimp Sushi, New York Steak wrapped scallops, Lamb Chops, and Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding- everything was amazing.

On Easter/my birthday, we went over to our friend's house for their annual Easter picnic. It was a lot of fun, there had to be about 120 people there, tons of food, a full bar, and desserts!  Here are a few of the famous faces that we got to spend the day with- I made Seth sneak a picture :)

Roast Master Jeffery Ross, Jimmy Kimmel, and Adam Carolla.

For my birthday gifts, I got a sewing machine, gardening stuff, flowers, a gift card, and really cute tapas dishes!  You know you're getting old when these are the things you get excited about :)  Thanks so much for all of the birthday love!

I got all of the supplies I need to start my own square foot garden.  If you don't know what that is, you should check it out- pretty awesome.  I am so eager to start growing all of our veggies and some fruits.  I'm hoping to get started this weekend.

We have been working on a few other projects I will post this week!  I am also currently on the hunt for a job.  I have always had really good luck finding amazing opportunities and connections on Craigslist, but right now I am having no luck... I had one phone interview this afternoon (wish me luck!).  If anyone knows of any job opportunities in the West Los Angeles area I would love to hear them!

Hope everyone has a great weekend  I will write again soon :)

With Love,
Deanna

A Very Venice Weekend

Hi y'all!  Well, I've been back in California since last Tuesday and we've been busy, busy.  On Wednesday, I got to watch Seth hold auditions for a short film he is shooting in a few weeks.  That was fun!  It is really interesting to watch actors/actresses behind the scenes and auditioning (the very few times I have gotten to).  It's surprising that some of them think so highly of themselves--especially at this level.  Being out here you do start to realize how many people are out here trying to make it big.  The odds have to be horrible.

Anyway,  we just went to The Magic Castle in Hollywood Friday night.  It was a lot of fun!  It is an exclusive club of magicians and to get in you either have to be a member, or get on a member's list.  We were lucky enough to meet a magician when I first moved out here, and he offered to put us on his list on a night he was performing.  It is an old castle-looking building on the top of a hill and you can go watch magicians perform throughout the night.  We got to catch 3 shows and we really enjoyed them.  If you ever get the opportunity to go I would recommend it!   It's crazy some of the stuff they do, I can't wrap my head around how it is done.  We happened to go on the night that David & Dania from America's Got Talent was performing and we really enjoyed their show.

Sorry the picture sucks, they have a really strict picture and video rule...

Saturday we spent the day hanging out in Venice.  It was a beautiful day and so much fun!  We went shopping/browsing on Abbot Kinney (GQ named, "The Coolest Neighborhood in America") which is just a few blocks from us.  I have recently become obsessed with succulents and was so inspired walking down Abbot Kinney to start growing some as well as start gardening.  Check out some of the pictures!

                             These are beautiful cake stands in one of the fun little shops.

 Here are some pictures at one of the pop-up shops on Abbot Kinney.  They had all kinds of gardening goodies.

We just finished our guest room headboard and made progress on our collage picture wall so I will be posting those pictures soon.  I also started a really pretty doily runner I will post pics of!

Have a great week!

With Love,

Deanna 

Howdy From Texas Y'all!

Hey Y'all!  I'm trying to savor my last few days here in Austin.  This week has flown by!   I have been trying to make my rounds and see everyone, but there is just not enough time to really hang out with everyone as much as I would like to! I have gotten to see most of my family, but not all :(.   

It is so strange being back in town.  It definitely feels different.  I love this city and really miss everybody.  It is nice to spend some time with the friends and family...even though I really miss my husband and furbaby!  

Speaking of the hubs...Go check out his new short film that he just completed!  
The Hard Way Home

I coordinated my "last" wedding in Texas last night in New Braunfels.  It was a beautiful wedding and went smoothly.  Yay!  Congrats Callen and Clayton!  The bride looked beautiful and the wedding went off without a hitch.  The couple had a super cute pie bar, delicious BBQ, and a gorgeous setting.  Thank God my awesome sister-in-law, Kevyn, was able to come along to assist me.  

We stayed the night in New Braunfels so we didn't drive back at midnight and we had fun shopping at the San Marcos Outlets today.  It was a great time, I love her!  I bought 6 shirts, 2 skirts, and a dress all for $125.  I love awesome sales.  I am so cheap...I don't like cheap stuff, just good deals :)   Everything we got was at the Banana Republic and Express outlets and so cute!  I figured out tonight that I saved $345 shopping at the outlet store verses the regular store.  So crazy!  

I have just a couple days left here and I am hoping to get to see everyone I haven't gotten to see yet, so I hope I'm able to do it.  If not, they will just have to come see me in California or wait until Seth and I come back this SUMMER!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

With Love,
Deanna

A House into A HOME!

So exciting!  This week we made so much progress on the house.  We got our brand new FLOR runner for the hallway…so cute!  If you haven't heard of FLOR, you should check it out, especially if you have pets.  They make single carpet tiles to design your own rugs and they are easy to pick up a clean instead of replacing an entire rug.  We now have 2, and love them!

Look how pretty!

We also went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and got some new lamps.  And finally got to pick up a picture that I took a while back and just got it framed for the guest room.  We are making the guest room have a Texas theme…trying not to go over the top, but I think it's turning out pretty cute.

                                 This is the banjo and cactus in the guest room! 

                        This is the ALMOST finished headboard for the guest room!

                                                  The guest room progress!

We will hopefully be finishing up the guest room shortly after I get back from Texas, and then we will almost be done! Thank God!

We bought some guitar hangers to finally hang up our guitars.  We have 6. They look so good on the wall now and off of the floor!

It is fun to decorate together and make everything homey, but it's also a lot of work and adds up quickly.  Fingers crossed I will have success trying to find a job when I get back from Austin.  I am ready to start working…I think.  It's hard for me to not work.  I haven't been jobless for very long since I was 15.  I am just the type of person that has to work and be busy.  It's also pretty difficult to not work when Seth works so much…gets pretty boring.  

 I will keep you posted about the Austin trip!

With Love,

Deanna

Keep Venice Somewhat Normal

This past Monday marked my 1 month as a Californian! 

It has flown by.  I thought I would share with y'all some of the interesting things/people I have seen out here during my 1st month.  It's pretty interesting when you move from somewhere that the motto is "Keep Austin Weird," yet you see way stranger things when you come here.  Let me just say, Austin seems very, very normal in comparison.  

We went out on a photo adventure this week, but didn't have very much success.  It is much easier to find fun things to photograph in Texas then it is out here.  I guess because of the gorgeous weather, the homeless population is humongous here.  Definitely way more than in Austin.  They're everywhere.  It's sad, but also makes you a little nervous about walking on the streets alone. 

Pretty interesting people around here...don't you think?

I will be taking a week long trip to Austin on this coming Monday!  It will be so nice to see everyone, but I will miss my boys for eight whole days!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

With Love,

Deanna

Family Time :)

So the other night we went to visit Seth's sweet cousin, Beth, and her family.  She has some of the cutest kids ever!  Seth isn't a big fan of kids, but he absolutely adores Brooklyn, Beth's daughter.  She is 3 and I'm pretty sure you will agree with us that she is freaking adorable.  She definitely has Seth wrapped around her little finger.  Check out this really cute video of her!  I promise you'll love it.  

We don't plan on having any little ones for many years so it's a good thing we love these kids so much!  

The nice thing is getting to play with them and being able to give them back :) 

Below are a few family photos of our little family we decided to take of ourselves the other night! Haha we like to sit 3 to a chair on a regular basis.  Cowboy loves to be cuddled and has to always be touching someone- he's lucky he's so cute and not one of the huge, obese bulldogs!  Also, while you may not see his tongue out in some of the pictures, it is hanging out about 95% of the time.

With Love,

Deanna

Office Space

Hi Y'all!  Today I thought I would share the progress of our office.  We are still working on the details and final decor, but it is coming along :)  So exciting!  We found Seth's new desk on Craiglist for $130.  It is an antique desk and we LOVE it.  When we were out shopping at the furniture stores, we saw so many desks similar to this and they were between $250 and $450.  I love Craigslist.  The first picture below shows the new desk without Seth's stuff, and the 2nd shows with. It is actually a perfect setup.  The computer cords are all in the closet and it's not cramped.  He also doesn't have to worry about a glare on his screen when he edits now.

The 3rd picture is the wall opposite of my desk and it has a cabinet with most of our art stuff in it.  The REALLY cool old wooden box on top is an antique toolbox we found on South Congress in Austin.  I am using it to store scrapbooking stuff :). 

The 4th picture is my new office setup.  I am still planning on hanging shelving and the chalkboard and frame on the wall above the desk, but haven't gotten there yet!  The drawers have more scrapbooking and art supplies in them.  This desk I also found on Craigslist last year for Seth.  It is custom made out of wood and gas piping and I LOVE it.  

The last picture is our wall of books.  This is probably my favorite part of the office.  Can't wait to completely fill it.  We're almost there.  

As you can tell, we love the collected look.  We like the mixture of the old and new.  There is something so cool about collecting pieces and not buying everything from Pier1.  It has taken us longer to get everything decorated because we are so particular about what we want.  Right now, aside from the collage wall we started, we only have one picture on the wall (a 5ft picture of a homeless man that Seth took).  I am so excited about finally getting things on the wall, but what is going to be so nice is that is will be pictures we have taken or artwork that we have created- not a generic painting or photo that you can buy in the store :) 

I hope to be finished with the office very soon, so I will post the final product soon!!  

With Love,
Deanna

Done With the DMV!

Hola!  I can't believe it's already been 5 days since my last post...sorry guys!  I have been a little busy.  Big news!  I got my California Driver's License!  I was actually really nervous that I wasn't going to pass the written exam... I didn't really know how different the driving laws were from Texas.  Fortunately, I passed and only missed 3 out of 36!  Yay!  

The DMV was surprisingly not too bad.  It was pretty funny though, the test was given basically on a scantron with a pencil.  It definitely seemed a little behind the times. 

In Austin, when I took my test (almost 10 years ago) I took it on a computer.  However, the last time I went to the DMV in Austin, I waited 2.5 hours just to get my license renewed.  The DMV in Austin does not let you make appointments and likes to have like 2 people working even though there are 10 windows.  In California, I was able to make and appointment and was in and out in about an hour, and took a test.  I will gladly take a pencil and paper test rather than a computer test if I can wait half the time! 

My picture on my license however will be my worst one ever!  So annoying. The lady was rushing me and it is WAY too close up.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  

Now, I am officially Deanna Wimmer, everywhere!  I was almost, Deanna WILMER, because the DMV lady kept making mistakes when entering my information... 

We are making so much progress on the house and found a desk for Seth's section of the office (the closet) :)!  I have tons to share so I will be posting away this week! 

With Love,
Deanna

Oven Lovin'

       Hey Y'all!  I hope everyone is having a great week!  I woke up feeling a little sick this morning :( My throat is pretty sore.  Ew.  I rarely get sick so hopefully I'll get over it quickly!  I haven't been up to much, aside from playing house.  I have been cooking and baking and cleaning, I've got to keep up with my housewife duties :)  I will be sharing some of the delicious meals I've been making soon, but today I wanted to share my Blueberry Banana Bread I made yesterday, it is SO good!  Seth and I ate one whole loaf of it yesterday haha.  It's so moist, you don't even need to add butter before you eat it or warm it up...YUM!  

So here it is...

                                                            And here's the recipe...


Blueberry Banana Bread
(Yields 2 loafs)

2.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

1/4 C shortening
3/4 C Butter
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tsp Almond extract
2 tsp honey
1 C sugar
1 C brown sugar
3 ripe bananas
4 large or 3 extra large eggs

Beat wet ingredients well. Mix in dry ingredients. Don't over mix. Fold in 2 Cups of Blueberries.

Pour half of the batter into each well greased loaf pan, then add a layer of cinnamon sugar, then pour remaining batter on top of the layer of cinnamon and sugar.  Top both with a good amount of cinnamon and sugar and bake for about 35 minutes at 350. 

I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think or how it turns out for you!  Please let me know if you have any questions!

I will be posting more recipes soon.  I am going to attempt to get my Driver's License on Friday!  I have to take a written test, so let's hope I pass :)

With Love,
Deanna

Keep Your Eyes on The Road

        So I just went on my very 1st solo outing to Staples, Radio Shack, the gas station, and Smart and Final.  It was actually not too bad.  I feel all grown up!  The thing about driving around here is that the traffic always sucks and the pedestrians and bicyclists that randomly cross the street.  The nice thing is that there is a million different ways to get anywhere, so you can kind of avoid most of the traffic. I made it safely without getting honked at and without getting lost!  Big achievement!  

      Driving here you realize, you can't have road rage because people are crazy.  In Texas, I may or may not have flipped a couple birds on a regular basis and said many choice words to the other drivers who could not hear me, but it is too scary to do any of that here.  I guess I will just have to get some patience and leave a lot earlier.

Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the harder things you're going to do in life.

~Mack, Grand Canyon

        One of the other scary things about venturing out alone is the sketchy people.  I've always hated going to gas stations alone because for some odd reason it seems to be where all the creeps hang out.  I swear someone always stares or yells things at me and it freaks me out.  Today however, the gas station was fine (besides me not knowing my zip code for my credit card...couldn't remember which zip code! Oy!), it was the rest of the places that were sketchy.  I had a really creepy guy following me around Staples and yes, I am positive he was following me.  Scary.  Then when I was leaving Radio Shack I had 2 guys walking behind me start yelling "Hey Miss, Excuse me Miss!".  I obviously pretended I didn't hear them, but since I was parked on the street, I had to wait for traffic to slow before I could get in my car while they were right behind me!  I don't know if I am overly afraid, but I don't care.  I've watched enough shows on Discovery ID to know not to trust people...especially in this city.

          As of today, I have officially been here for 2 weeks.  It still feels like vacation...minus all the housework  :)

With Love,
Deanna

Picture This

        Hey Y'all! I haven't had too much going on this week…but I'm trying to stay busy!  Seth and I have been trying to do some shopping for the house this week and we've been a little unsuccessful.  We are trying to find a new dresser for our master bedroom--apparently we have a lot of stuff and can't fit it in the closet or the current dresser.  We are specifically looking for a white lacquer dresser that is at least 5 ft. long, 2.5-3 ft deep, and 3-4ft. tall.  Apparently no one else wants a cool dresser like that because we can't find one.  Boo.  We have found some contenders that might work, so I'll keep you posted when we decide!  We are also looking for a desk to put in the closet, yes, the closet.  My sweet husband has decided that he will put a desk in the closet of the office for his computers and "stuff" and I can have the main office for my desk, scrapbooking, and craft stuff :)   I cannot wait to get the room finished!  We currently have an entire wall of floor to "almost ceiling" bookshelves and they are almost completely full of books.  We LOVE books.  

           Ahh I am so anxious to get the office finished….and all of the other rooms too.  I keep seeing people posting pictures of their homes and I can't wait to share ours.  

            I am so anxious to share, I have decided to share with you the current project we have started.  This is our new collage wall.  The pictures on the wall are all going to be black and white or sepia family photos.  We are so in love with vintage things and we have been so lucky to find all of these old photos of our family members.  We will also include a few photos that we have taken on our photo adventures.  All of the frames we have also collected over the past year from antique stores, garage sales, and family.   I will be sure to post pictures when we are finally complete!

I will start posting progress more regularly so be sure to check back in!

With love,

Deanna

Love in LA

     I have officially been a resident of Venice for 1 week and 1 day!  It has been quite the productive week.   I have unpacked all but 2 boxes!  Yay me!  I have reorganized the kitchen to make everything fit… we have a lot of crap…and by crap I just mean stuff :)  The most difficult part has proven to be squeezing both of our wardrobes into one closet.  Yikes.  The problem with Los Angeles is that there really isn't any seasons.  It's pretty much always 60's-70's and FREEZING at night.  Yes, FREEZING.  When you come from Texas, anything under 80 is cold.  We live about 7 blocks from the ocean and the Pacific Ocean is so cold that it makes a big difference in the temperature outside.  I'm learning to layer.  It's a little disappointing that people back in Texas keep posting about the 80 degree weather and going to the pool when I'm so cold here, but I know summertime will be better here- and it's not like it's snowing here... just cold. :/

       I have already been driving around, only twice by myself, but I'm getting comfortable!  I do hope that I continue to be a nice driver, unlike the drivers out here.  I am learning that you pretty much need to just stay in the lane you want to be in because NO ONE will let you over.  Thanks jerks.  I also have terrible road rage, but am learning that you can't really make it out here if you don't remain calm haha.  

        Cowboy and Seth both seem to enjoy me being here and I am adjusting to the "housewife" role for now.  It is so weird not working, we'll see how long it lasts!  It definitely has not set in that this is my home now and I think it will take a while.  

         I will try to start posting some of our fun organizing and decorating as we make some progress!  For now, here is one of our newly organized kitchen cabinets.

With Love,

Deanna

MOVING DAY!

      Today is THE day!  I am moving. Across the country!  Wow, I have waited so long for this day.  Seth and I have now been together oven 3 1/2 years and today will be the 1st day we actually live in the SAME city.  It is so exciting and so nerve racking at the same time.  I will be moving into his house and am hoping to not overwhelm him with my OCD nature.  I am a little bit of a neat freak.  Not always, but most of the time.  So far, Seth seems to not mind it, I just hope it stays that way.  

      I am most nervous about driving in this crazy city.  Pedestrians and cyclists everywhere…even more than in Austin (hard to believe).  Not only that, but they cross in the middle of big streets ALL the time.  All of the street parking also makes it a little difficult to see if anyone is ever coming, either direction.  Wish me luck!

With Love,

Deanna

Farewell Friends and Belongings

      After today, there is no turning back!  All of my stuff was packed into the UHAUL and Seth's dad's friends left with it, towing my car behind.  So exciting!!  It's real… They are planning on being in Los Angeles by Monday, which will also be the day I arrive!  I ended up with 45 boxes total…which includes about 20 boxes of just wedding gifts.  I am so anxious to be unpacked and settled in.  We will see how long that takes me!

      Tonight I got to have dinner with most of my friends that I have known since childhood.  It was such a great time catching up and getting to see everyone before I left.  It's still hard to believe we will be so far away.  We went to a local hole in the well mexican restaurant that we basically ate at weekly throughout high school.  

      I will miss them and hope I will have some visitors out here soon!!

With Love,

Deanna