A Beachin' Life

We finally unpacked the last moving box over the weekend - yay!



Now that we're almost officially moved to the place, I can happily say we're quite enjoying living at the beach in San Diego. Last time we lived in San Diego, it was in the area known as Pacific Beach (known to the locals as PB). While I adored PB, it is a bit congested and to get to my place from the freeway it took a good 15-20 minutes depending on traffic and time of day.

That's why this time around we looked at other beach towns. Ocean Beach (OB), Del Mar, La Jolla, and Solana Beach were on our list -- lord knows I didn't want to travel any farther north than Solana Beach, because once your up that way, it takes sooo long to get anywhere else. We ended up falling in love with Solana Beach, and found a place that takes pets that was in our budget.

One of the best parts about where we live is that at the end of the main drag is a dog beach, which makes Xander a very happy puppy indeed. (Technically, it's the Del Mar Dog Beach, but we live right on the dividing line between the two towns.) We spend most of Saturday and Sunday mornings with him there, where he happily chases other dogs and steals their toys.



That is, until his puppy ADD sets in and a different toy catches the corner of his eye. Then he drops the one he has and takes off after the other one. Needless to say, John spends much of our time at the beach retrieving other people's dog's toys and walking them back to their respective owners, mumbling, "Sorry about that." The best part is that the whole process tires Xan out so much that he collapses when we get home and takes a good, long nap.

I got my iFaux-ne!

I love my Mac to pieces, and Apple in general, but I will not -- WILL NOT -- leave Verizon and switch to craptastic Cingular (now the new ATT...) just to get the damn iPhone.

So imagine my delight when Verizon announced their version: the LG Voyager.

So of course I pre-ordered one. It arrive today in all its shiny new goodness, and I'm referring to it as my iFaux-ne. Merry early Christmas to me!

An Idyllwild Weekend #5, aka I'm Selfish

John, Xander and I spent the weekend in Idyllwild, California.



I loved that all week when people asked, "What are you doing this weekend?" I got a puzzled look from them when I replied, "We're going to Idyllwild."



"Where's that?" was the typical response. Yay! I love that most people don't know! That means we can continue to be selfish and have it all to ourselves.

I started going to Idyllwild back in 2000, when I decided to treat myself to a getaway for President's Day Weekend. Being new to San Diego at the time, I called AAA and told the nice lady I wanted to get away for the weekend, but didn't want to drive more than three hours. She suggested Idyllwild, and for four years I went every February.

I have my traditions when I go. After checking in to my cabin, I walk into town and go to the candy shop:



This place is a must-see, because they have ALL the old candies we used to eat as kids. I usually browse the counter and get one or two of anything that catches my fancy, then spend all weekend eating gobs of chocolate. It's decadent. Then it's off to the market to get groceries for the weekend:



The town itself is small, which makes it perfect for a quiet getaway weekend. It's got everything you need, but it's so quiet as well. The town center is a small shopper's haven nicknamed The Fort:



We're also usually good to catch a movie at the little theatre in town. During one of the weekends I spent up there, my dear friend Amy came up to visit me and we caught whatever Mission Impossible movie was out at the time. Unfortunately, this weekend's show wasn't something I wanted to see.



Xander enjoyed Idyllwild as well, as there were a lot of dog-friendly areas for him to walk in. He did not, however, like the fake horse outside the Pet Nutrition Center:



All in all, a relaxing weekend. Idyllwild is the town that time forgot, and that's a good thing.

Xander's Big Day

I'm happy to belatedly report that both husband and dog made the 3,000 mile journey safely from Philadelphia to San Diego. They arrived on Halloween, with Xander sporting a little black dog costume. Very authentic looking.


Xander's first day in California

We spent two hours on Saturday and Sunday at Dog Beach in Del Mar with Xander, much to his amusement. He's been quite the happy puppy since he's now allowed to sleep outside the crate at night. Happy because he takes his 74-pound body and stretches across the bed between John and I, leaving us about 6 inches of bed each to sleep on. Apparently he's very happy sleeping in bed with us, because about three times a night, he comes over and licks us awake to show his gratitude.

Until yesterday. When our stuff arrived from ABF. Since our house is now full of stuff, that means there's a whole new world of trouble for Xander to get into. (Courtesy of ABF/Upack.com - I highly recommend them to anyone who doesn't want to pay for a moving company but also doesn't want to drive a truck. Much to my surprise, both little guys fit into our parking spot at the new place!)


Our two cubes and the forklift on the ABF truck


Maneuvering our parking lot

Our nephew Kyle moved most of the boxes out of the cubes in the afternoon, then five friends come over last night to help us finish unloading the big stuff. It was sooo nice to see my stuff again!


Positioning the cubes in our parking space

Now we have our 1-bedroom, 1-bath, 825 square foot condo packed with all our things from our 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,400 square foot house in it. Needless to say, there were a lot of things for Xander to sniff last night.

We're going to puppy-proof the house tonight. Maybe. Maybe not. It sure was nice sleeping in the bed by ourselves last night.

Wildfire Donation Email Scam

Since I know most of you (11 readers) check this blog to hear about how the fire is affecting us here in San Diego, I'm passing along this story about a forwarded email that's making the rounds on the Net.

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A New E-mail Scam is Using the Recent Wildfires in California to Prey on People with Generous Hearts

The Internal Revenue Service is warning Americans about an e-mail hoax that claims to be from the tax agency and asks for donations for wildfire victims. Anyone who clicks on the donation link is taken to a fake Web site that asks for the person's bank account numbers. Instead of using the numbers for charity, the scammers can launch a number of identity theft ploys.

If you receive one of these e-mails, please delete it immediately.

For more information information regarding legitimate relief efforts, read the MSNBC Story on the scam.

Cowboy Chachi Loves You Best

After the stress of the fires and selling the house, I needed a laugh. Enter Girl, one of my lovely college friends. Care of her kick-butt blog, I came across this little gem of an article. It's a must read over at 15 Minute Lunch.