8/52: A Year of Little Resolutions

yay I'm back!! This week was really REALLY hard! My plan was to take the week off from blogging, twitter, and facebook. I didn’t update, although I wanted to many times. I tried to stay off the internet as much as I could but by the weekend it was a little tough. I really missed you guys!  I’ve decided life without blogging pretty much sucks! The one good thing was that I was super productive during the week. Here’s what I was up to..
Researched florists and I think I found our guy! Tulips have always been one of my faves. 
Scored an amazing tweed Ralph Lauren blazer for $12! And it was in my size! best.find.ever.
With Matthew out of town, and my parents out to a play, I decided to make myself a fancy little dinner. I thought I’d just order pizza but with all the Food Network I watched this week I decided to go all out with aglio e olio pasta, asparagus with lemon zest, grilled garlic bread, salad and lemon water. I even pulled the chair out for myself!
On Saturday it hailed in LA! There was ice all over my car and it was the strangest but coolest thing ever! I'll be honest, I was dreaming about sledding down my street and building snowmen. Unfortunately it didn't last long and the next day blue skies abound.
Ate a copious amount of Girl Scout Cookies. My weaknesses are Samoas and Tagalongs, what about you? I may or may not have scarfed down a whole box in the first day, plastic tray not included.
And of course, I redid my blog design with the help of the amazing and wonderful Kelly Ann! I've been planning on doing this for some time. Kelly  took my ideas and made them into something way more perfect than I could have ever come up with! She is a super talented designer who now works with Freckled Nest. She’s also just one of the loveliest people in the blog-o-sphere! Go check out her blog and get ready to be inspired! Thank you so so much Kelly!

This week my resolution is to be a little more fearless. Sometimes I get so concerned with what other people might think that I let that negatively affect me. Especially when it comes to my blog. When I first started blogging I didn't tell anyone about it, not even close friends and family, because I was worried about what they would think. Of course now they all know and they're super supportive, but there are some people out there, people who I have called friends in the past, who just happen to like putting people down. I see the good in them, but then I also know about their "mean girl" side.  I'm going to try this week to be more confident in myself and not let these worries affect who I am.

I'm so excited to be back and I want you all to know how grateful I am to have you here as readers! 
You've sent me the sweetest emails, and left the kindest comments, and I am more thankful than ever
to be a part of this great blogging community!
xox
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i love your smile

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unknown + weheartit

and i wonder, do you remember me after all this time?

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unknown

We grew up in the same neighborhood. We never hung out because our neighborhood groups never seemed to come together. I only knew you as one of the neighborhood boys. It wasn’t until high school that the way I saw you changed. I was a sophomore and you were a senior. I don’t know what it was. Your height? You always towered over everyone. Or how quiet you seemed when you were hanging out with your friends during break? I used to make my group of friends stand near your group, that way I could sneak glances at you. But I wasn't slick. You’d catch me staring and when our eyes would meet, my heart would skip a beat and my cheeks would burn. Then after months of always staring from a distance, I was in desperate need of a ride home because my sister had to go to ballet practice and I didn’t know which school bus went to my neighborhood. So, you offered. And the whole ride there, I stared out the window, paralyzed with fear. Fear of how I felt. Fear of saying something utterly ridiculous and ruining any tiny chance I had for you to notice me as more than that girl who lives in the same neighborhood. You asked me vague questions. Isn't your sister _____? What kind of music do you like? Is this radio station okay? When you dropped me off at my house, I quickly said 'thank you' and ran inside. We never talked again after that. Never acknowledged each other in the hallways or at break. It was like it never happened. But my feelings still remained.

You and my best friend had the same class. I would wait for her to get out so we could go to our next class together. I would make sure I never looked your way because I didn't want you to think I was waiting there because of you. One day, I was waiting and suddenly my best friend comes running out of class, grabs me and drags me away from everybody. She tells me that she has something to tell me but I can't freak out. At this point, I assume the worse. You know and you've told everybody that I'm a pathetic lower classmen who's in love with you. Was I that obvious? But my best friend tells me to relax; the news is good. She tells me you came up to her in class and asked about me. Were her and I best friends? Was I cool? What was I like? Did I have a boyfriend? I don't know how I didn't just drop dead right then and there and float off to heaven after hearing that.

I started noticing you notice me. I'd catch you staring at me more than you'd catch me staring at you. But still, I never did anything. And you never did anything. I was sure you asking about me meant there was some interest. I'd dream that one day you were going to come up to me in school, in front of everyone, and ask me out. Or you'd ring my doorbell and be there on my porch. It neared the end of the school year and I'd try desperately to muster any courage to talk to you but I couldn't. I was sixteen, not confident, and utterly in to you. I didn't want any other guy, period. Essentially, you were my Jake Ryan and I was Molly Ringwald, pining for you.

You graduated and I never saw you again. It's been 8 years and I still think about you. Sometimes I think I'm crazy to hold on to my feelings for you. When it comes down to it, I don't even know you. We talked once in all the years of existing around each other. So why do I still want you? Why do I still want to get to know you? Is it because there's the possibility of 'what if'? Is it because you're a fantasy I can sometimes revert to when I'm feeling sad and lonely? You have a hold on me that I've tried shaking for years.

And I wonder, do you remember me after all this time?

Cool old Pics!

I found these really cool old pictures this weekend. They look like from the early 50's the same couple guys appear in a couple diffrent pics riding indian scouts and pre-unit triumphs and even an early knuckle, hill climbing and flat tracking and a few sweet pose ones. These guys really got to live it when it was fresh and real...
































is it too late for me?

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unknown

I've always been a free spirit. I am constantly looking for something fun and new. If I get bored or restricted, I run. I've never thought of myself as a slut/whore, but someone who likes to do what they want when they want with who they want. I rarely think about the consequences and like to go with what I feel at the time. I never go out looking for trouble, but trouble always seems to find me, and trouble always comes in the form of a boy. I have no problems attracting attention from the opposite sex. It's just that it's never the "right" attention. A typical night out would be my friends and I at a bar/club and a cute boy buying me drinks and dancing with me. For me, it's all about chemistry. It's either there or it's not. Unfortunately, the initial spark between myself and a male always just leads to sex and nothing more.

Looking back, I have been with many guys and unfortunately none of them have been meaningful. I never have usually hooked up with anyone for more than a month or so. When I do develop feelings, I try my best to hide them in fear of being rejected (because most guys don't want relationships). I have been told by several guys that I've been with that they like me because I'm a girl who just "likes to have fun." I am a fun and easy going person and that's what people like about me, but does this mean that I can't be in a relationship?

I am scared that I will never love or truly be loved. I have been in one relationship where I hurt my boyfriend of the time very badly. Perhaps this is karma. I was young, stupid, and selfish. I just turned 23. Recently, I have been feeling more alone than ever. I have great girl friends, but none of them seem to really understand what I feel. Guys that I'm attracted to and who I also in turn attract are always those who are never emotionally available. One guy that I was hooking up with for awhile that I started developing feelings for a couple years ago even told me that I am not "girlfriend material."

Perhaps I am evolving and I do want something more stable, because I've never been a part of something real. I know I stopped myself before from liking/loving someone because I have a fear of them leaving me or hurting me, but now I am even open to that possibility. Is it too late for me? Everyone already sees me as "the fun girl" so how do I change? How do I attract the right type of guys who are willing to love me for me?

-E

how do you stop punishing yourself

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weheartit

We've all been hurt. i'm just like everyone else. typical story of girl meets guy they get on amazingly. Guy has girlfriend, Guy cheats on Girlfriend with girl.
Girl and guy become best friends. Girl falls in love with guy. Guy promises to leave girlfriend for girl but it's all false promises. Girl gets hurt.

This happened to me. But i don't want to talk about that. I'm over him. What i want to know, now that i'm over him when do i get over what he did to me?

It's almost been a year now. a since i stopped thinking about the guy, josh. Its been almost a year since i met sam.

I met Sam one night through a friend, we spent the whole night together, drinking, laughing the usual. He was clear from the start, he didn't 'do' relationships.
I was ok with this. I still wanted Josh but it was becoming clearer and clearer as our friendship was fading more and more that it was never going to happen.
This continued to hurt, so i thought why not have some fun on the side with sam.

As i got to know Sam, we became closer and closer. We spent some amazing nights together, some full of passion and some where we would spend hours talking
and getting to know each other. I was growing to really like Sam and Josh barely ever thought about.

Sam and i talked about past relationships, he had no shame in telling me about how he's cheated and doesn't like being tied down.

I fell in love with Sam. By this point it'd already been admitted that he was in love with me and was just waiting for me to reciprocate the feeling before we
considered a relationship.

It was only about 2 months ago that i realised how much i loved Sam. It was the scariest relisation of my entire life. The only person i had ever loved like this was Josh
and that truly destroyed me, i never realised just how much until now.

Before i explain, i just want you to know that i know how utterly ridiculous i'm being but i just can't help it.

I simply cannot trust sam. and it's hurting me, not him, me. I keeping waiting for him to turn around and realise he doesn't want me, the same way josh did.

After we hang out i keep thinking, that's it we're over or we wont talk for months because that's how josh always treated me.

If Sam does anything slightly wrong, I get so emotional, i believe that its over and he's deliberately trying to hurt me and i sometimes cry for hours, over something which
turns out to be absolutely nothing. It's all because of josh, because i showed him everything and if he didn't like it and could discard it so easily why would anybody else want me.

This isn't meant to be a self pity story. i just want to know how do you stop punishing yourself, for what someone did to you?

7/52: A Year of Little Resolutions

I hope you all had a great three day weekend! I've decided to take a little break from blogging this week. I think it's good for me to take a break every once in a while just to refocus and get offline. I've been so busy recently and it's finally catching up to me because now I'm sick! I hate when that happens.  I think I just need to take some time for me. I was really productive over the weekend, though, with wedding crafts. It seems like things are coming together.. yay! I'm going to miss you guys but I'll be back Sunday! 
Have a wonderful week!
xox
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you are lovely


icanread

an alarming unhappiness


unknown

It started out as a fairytale. Even in hindsight, I won't deny that. We met online, though we were three thousand miles away, and tried to pretend we were just friends, but soon we were falling. I had started talking to him just two months before I was to head off to France for a seven-month contract, but I was starting to fall in love with him and the way he told me I was beautiful and that he loved talking about language with me; I wanted only him forever. I told him I liked him and I insisted that he either tell me his true feelings or lie and say I was disgusting and that he'd never want to be with me, because that would make it so much easier to get over him.

But he decided to tell the truth, even though he had just gotten over a big breakup - one that to this day he's not over - and of all fortuitous chances, I had a layover on my way to France in an airport four hours' drive away from him. He knew, and I wondered if he would come. I spent that first flight agonizing over the uncertainty, but giddy with a degree of sureness that he would be there.

And he was.

I lugged my bags and my guitar to the front of the airport, where he was waiting, for the hour-long layover I had between flights. His whole body was shaking, and he held my hand, leading me to a sunlit, secluded alcove under a big escalator where he laid down a blanket and gestured to the picnic he brought. He told me how much he liked me, and how much he would have regretted it if he hadn't come to meet me for the first time in person when he had the chance. I played him the song I had secretly written for him on my guitar, right there in the airport, with my back to the rest of the travelers, not even meeting his eyes because I didn't know how any of this worked.

He gave me my first kiss and waved to me as I re-entered security and made my flight just in time. That flight across the ocean really felt like I was flying, like I had sprouted wings and was high on the excitement of being wanted and feeling the potential of this perfect relationship whose start was so beautifully fresh. Then I was in France, and we talked every day online, he was charming and kind and supportive, and everyone I met was wowed by the romance of our story. Our story, I thought. I would tell it to people for the rest of our lives and it would be the sign that it was meant to be from the start. Imagine - my first love, this perfect!

He even came to visit me for a month over the winter holidays, three months after the airport. We overcame so many challenges in that brief period - my hostile roommate kicking us to the curb and leaving us to fend for ourselves, dirty replacement accommodations without heating or a functional bed frame, more rude people than I can count, the utterly insulting high prices of everything in Paris, my trip to the emergency room for a bad cut on broken glass... We survived all this, and he made me love him so much through it all. He was there for me every second, and I was grateful for that but also felt so guilty to be dragging him through my crazy life.

The day before he left, I said what I had been wanting to say for months. I said what he later told me he's not sure he can ever say to me. I don't regret it, because it's how I felt and how I still feel. Every good memory we had made during his stay - wandering Montmartre, kissing in the metro station, him lifting me up in the kitchen and smiling warmly at me, every ounce of desire he had for me that I returned - all those good things made me overlook the bad. But everything changed after that day, after that sunny morning on the mattress of the borrowed room we were in, when I told him I loved him as my heart raced and I lay pressed against him. Whether all the changes were due to my words or simply happenstance, I don't know.

But I cried so much after he left, I felt as if he had died or left me. He had a new job back home that left him no time or energy to keep in touch with me, and I felt completely alone. I moved into a new place, since I had been kicked out of the old one during his stay, and although everything there was good, great even, I couldn't feel relieved. I felt empty without him, and emptier still after realizing that I'd spent an entire month neglecting my own well-being while I tried to keep the two of us afloat in a country where he didn't know the language and didn't have the financial resources to help me out when I was in need. The good memories helped me remember how much I cared for him, and I tried to keep him aware of my affection by sending emails and offline messages, because we talked so infrequently.

I even came back to America for a little while, and we were able to talk on the phone again. But he was never the one to call, he felt too stressed about my being upset and my wanting to talk about the relationship and the need I have for there to be an end date for the long-distance part of all this (which there still isn't). And in his indifference, his unwillingness to take five minutes to send me an email or call to say goodnight, I have gained perspective. All the hurtful things he said without thinking, all the discrepancies between our needs and personal interests... And then he managed to say the thing that has been stewing painfully in my heart for the past four days: the crushing confession that he might not ever be able to love me.

I blame his ex-girlfriend. I blame his upbringing. I blame so much, and I had resolved this year to eliminate blame from my life. But the way he is, is not good for me. It's maintaining an alarming unhappiness in me that I need to get away from to feel whole again. Ending this will break my heart, and his too if I'm to believe him. The fairytale was so promising, so beautiful, so achingly beautiful that I don't want to give it up. Neither of us realized in the beginning that we were fools to think this would work. We gave it up by starting it in the first place.

A

you and me, everyday.

Marcus's going away PArty

My right hand man Marcus is leaving the valley of the sun back to Cleveland. He graduated MMI on friday so we Had a little going away bbq for him. I will truely miss MArcus we got to do lots of good stuff together he has become my little brother and part of the family over the past 16 months. My heart and the shop will have an empty space in it. It is going to be hard not seeing his toothless face everyday. I have been able to teach him as much as i know and he has done the same to me. He and his beautiful girl collete are gettin hitched soon we wish you guys the best of luck and will see you on the road soon enough little brother love jeremiah

MArcus killin it on the spongbob

Benji's 1982 Shovelhead for sale

Benji's 1982 Shovelhead is up SALE!! He is movin up to an almighty panhead. This bike is a real sweet runner with loads and loads of power. The motor is a 1982 stroked to a 93" cubic inches. It will pop wheelies and do burnouts all day long if you like. The frame is an early paughco with 4 over 35mm fork tubes and a 21spool ip front and a 19 on the back. The bike speaks for itself it is all business If you want a bike to do the distance and look good doin it benji's shovel is it. It has a few scratches and dings on it from being ridden but mechanically she is real sweet. If you are interested email me @ pies_sucios@hotmail.com the bike is currently in South Florida.









recipe: heart shaped shortbread cookies

For Valentine's Day I made these yummy shortbread heart cookies for my family. I loove shortbread because it's like eating a piece of pure butter. For reals! I used this recipe but decided to make half with dried cherries and the other half with dried blueberries. I'm so glad I did because I'm sure a fan of dried blueberries now. They tasted a little bit like currents but sweeter and they're small so I didn't even need to cut them up. I'd definitely recommend making these for someone special..or yourself!

I used this recipe but changed and added a couple things, which I noted in bold

Dried Cranberry Blueberry and Cherry Shortbread Hearts
{Makes about 1 1/2 dozen 1 3/4-inch hearts}

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped dried cranberries 1/4 cup dried blueberries and 1/4 cup dried bing cherries
  • orange zest

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.with a rack in center. Combine butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Beat with a wooden spoon until combined but not too creamy. Stir in dried cranberries fruit. {I used an electric mixer but was careful not to overbeat. I split the dough in half and added dried blueberries to one batch and dried cherries to the other}
  2. Pat dough evenly into an 8- or 9-inch-square baking pan. Bake until just beginning to turn golden, about 20 minutes. Place pan on cooling rack until cool enough to touch, about 20 minutes. Run knife around edges, remove shortbread, and transfer, right side up, to work surface. Use 1 1/2- to 2-inch heart cookie cutter to cut out cookies. Use a paring knife to trim stray bits of cranberry from edges. 
  3. I guess I should say I adapted this recipe because I decided to roll out the dough between two pieces of waxed paper, cut the hearts and then bake for 20 minutes. I thought it would be easier this way, especially after reading some of the comments. Cookies will keep for 5 days at room temperature in an airtight container.
  4. Enjoy! 
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Phew thank goodness it's Friday! I was starting to feel a little stressed out yesterday thinking about all the wedding things I need to do but luckily my best friend is coming up to LA for a major craft session tomorrow. I'm getting excited thinking that in a few weeks some major things will be checked off the list I made a couple months ago. We're supposed to get some of our winter weather back this weekend so it will be easy to stay indoors and craft it out! 

I hope you all have a super, great, awesome, wonderful weekend!
xox
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i want us back


weheartit

You know there's not really much anyone can say... I've heard all the typical things you would say to someone- "it gets better", "give it time", "you deserve better" etc... To be honest nothing helps. Even if it's happened to you, we can't compare ourselves. Love between two people is different, so heart break between two people is different. How it feels to you is different. It's been a month and my wound still feels fresh, it still feels like i have a gaping hole in my chest. I still think about him everyday, every minute, every second and the scary thing is I actually believe that I will never get over him. He is and will always will be my first love, the one i fell so hard for I lost myself in the process and rotated my life around his.

I met him almost 3 years ago, we were an awful set up by two of our friends in an attempt to find me- the sad lonely one- a boy. He didn't seem like anything special and to be honest I wasn't looking for him to be anything other than my first kiss. At 15 I wasn't looking for anything else. I remember that night very clearly, the awkward eye contact and avoidance... but what i remember the most was the feeling that he was different than anyone I'd met before. For awhile after that night we talked, got to know each other, became more than friends, but being 15 and so naive our 'relationship' wasn't real. We broke up and didn't talk for 5 months. What he doesn't know is that I can remember every single time in those 5 months I saw him, I wasn't over him but I wasn't about to let him know that, so I pretended to live my life. The next time we talked to each other would be at a friends party and from then on, he was about to be everything to me.

I fell in love with him. I didn't even know what love was but I think I figured it out, that feeling took me awhile to name but I felt it.I still do. We shared everything, we shared the best parts of our teenage years, and now being forced into adulthood we've changed. He doesn't want me anymore, he said he needs to figure out who he is and I'm stopping him. I've blamed myself, i still do. I'm full of so much regret and guilt and it never goes away. We're still 'friends', we talk and I'm not going to lie and say we haven't had those nights before. The sad thing is I still love him and although i know you're supposed to distance yourself to try to move on, I can't, I'm holding on to him with everything i have. Our relationship lasted almost two years, but what we had, I know it will never leave me.You can call me naive and too young but to me love doesn't have an age restriction. I'm not over it, I don't know if I will be.

I just miss him so much, i miss everything. I hurt all the time, I break all the time, I want him all the time. He left me an empty shell, wounding me so much I physically hurt.I'm not sure what to do anymore. I lie in bed for hours just thinking, just hurting. I want him back. I want us back.

Teddy, i miss you.

-K

look book: fancy schmancy

A couple months ago I bought a Groupon for Drybar, which is a salon in LA that washes, shampoos, blow drys and styles your hair. Basically everything but the cut. I was saving it to use for a special occasion and since I was too late to book for New Years Eve I decided to do it for  our early Valentine's Day dinner on Saturday night. I'm not that good at hair but when I'm feeling a little fancy schmancy I like curl it with a curling iron. The problem is that it takes forever and I always mess up the bangs area. Do you flip out, flip under, leave them how they are? I have no clue. So it was especially nice to just show up and have a stylist do it for me. If only I could have someone do my hair every day!
 blouse Queen's Wardrobe, skirt Urban Outfitters, belt J. Crew, shoes Michael Kors

I love getting dressed up for nights out with my fiance! Whoops almost wrote boyfriend. I'm going to have to get used to a whole new term in a few months! It's crazy how quickly time is going by. eek!
Hope you all have a happy Thursday!
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