Huntington Run/Ride.

The other day my brother and I were browsing Instagram. Particularly, lurking around the profile of our cousin, Rachel, who is currently making her way through Italy. "Look at this!" Nolan said, regarding a gorgeous photo of one of the canals, "Can you imagine how amazing it would be to live there?" I sighed longingly at the picture. "I bet the locals take it for granted," I replied. I didn't mean it in a skeptical way, but I think many people stop acknowledging beautiful things in life once they've experienced them frequently enough.

Example? Nolan and I had this conversation on a gorgeous, 70 degree, sunny day in January.

We are clearly not immune to a lack of appreciation for our home. 

Now, don't get me wrong. California is no Italy… But it has it's moments. 

And sometimes, it hits me how much I love it here and I try to take advantage of what my home has to offer.

A couple weekends ago, Weston and I went down to the beach for one of our favorite pastimes - he runs, I ride my bike to keep up, and we rack up a few miles together. The sun set as we rode on the nearly empty trail - a path with sand on either side. The sound of the ocean and salty air in our faces.

I Am Thankful For Cold Weather.

Today, Weston asked me why I don't post here very often anymore. I told him it's because I don't really do that many interesting things these days : work, doctors appointments, riding my bike, there's an occasional girls night spent in somebody's tiny bedroom, sometimes I stay up past 10 and watch movies if I'm feeling particularly wild... So, I'm busy, but nothing I'm doing lends itself much to being photographed or talked about. And I like to pretend we've got quality standards here at Yellow Paper Dress, so I just haven't been posting as much.

Weston then, basically told me that I am making excuses and that I need to get my tush over here more often to say hi. So.. hi! :)

How is your November going? Up until this week, things have seriously been wayyyy too warm here, but yesterday things cooled down majorly and I've been breaking my family's strict  (not kidding - this is actually a really sensitive subject)  rule about ABSOLUTELY-NO-CHRISTMAS-MUSIC-BEFORE-THANKSGIVING. Yep. I've totally been blasting those jamz in my car for the last couple days haha. Sorry, mom! I'm just too excited to wait this year!

We hiked today and it was cold and gloomy, which made it nice and cozy when we got home afterwards and cuddled up to watch The Office.

I think I mentioned here before that my doctor has me exercising my buns off. And to be honest, I'm actually not really minding it, despite my previous, lifelong hatred of physical activity. There were so many months over the last couple years that I was stuck at home, unable to stretch my body out or stand on my own. Now I can bend and bike and run (or jog.. okay, walk.) and do all these things that are ordinary, but that feel really liberating. Even if only for a few weeks at a time. 

I'm on top of the worldddd! ;)

What have you been up to lately? Any fun plans for Thanksgiving coming up?

How are you endo-girls feeling these days?

Hope you're all well!

Perseid.

I realize that to many of you, these blurry, out-of-focus, star pictures are not going to be so interesting... but for someone like me, who has grown up under smog and light polluted Southern California skies... starry nights are so exciting!

The Perseid meteor shower is at it's most visible tonight and tomorrow morning, but since I work on Monday, Weston, Nolan, Nicole, and I stayed out way past our bedtimes last night to catch a glimpse of the meteors a little early.

And although I only got one picture that shows one of the "shooting stars" (right below!) we saw lots of them! 

The last time Weston and I went to see the Perseid shower, I was too afraid to get out of the car and sit in the darkness in the middle of nowhere (um, can you blame me?) but since there were four of us this time, we felt safety in numbers (kind of.. we were still a little jumpy haha) and sat in lawn chairs off to the side of a dark road, reclined and bundled up, with our eyes on the sky.

So magical.

I've taken a handful of astronomy classes in college and one thing I find so interesting is that when you look at stars, you're really seeing what they looked like millions or billions of years ago, depending on how far away they are and how far it has taken the light to reach us on earth. When stars burn out, sometimes we don't know for years afterwards because the light is continuing to reach us from all the years before. So awesome, right?

I'm pretty sure that's something that you can figure out without having to take an astronomy class, but it's something that had never crossed my mind prior to that lecture, so maybe you've never thought of it either! It's one of the things that has stuck with me the most from those classes. That, and the time my professor quoted MIA before a test, saying, "Live fast, die young, high mass stars do it well." Hahaha, oh man. That one's stuck with me too.

Cinespia @ Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

We didn't do such a great job of documenting this little outing, but it was a good one, so I think it's worth sharing anyway.

Apparently, Cinespia screenings at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery used to be a thing that only locals knew about, but nowadays, it seems you can't read a "Best of LA" list without it appearing somewhere and it's earned quite a following.

Showing up at dusk with a picnic dinner and a blanket, walking past the graves of Hollywood icons and setting down on a grassy field inside the cemetery to watch a film projected on the side of the mausoleum - something hundreds (even thousands, apparently) of people come out to enjoy on warm, summer, Saturday nights. Including us, last weekend.

I've been wanting to attend a screening for a couple years but kept putting it off until finally, a movie that I couldn't miss appeared on the calendar. So we snagged our tickets, packed our picnic, and spent a beautiful evening under the stars watching Audrey Hepburn in one of my all-time favorites, Roman Holiday.

The crowd was wonderfully diverse. We sat with a family and their children to our right, some quiet,  beer-drinking, beanie-wearing, teenagers in front of us, a twenty-something birthday party to our left, and two older ladies sharing a bottle of wine behind us. Something about that kind of broad audience is always sort of magic to me. 

The movie was perfect, as always, and it was nice to sit with such a respectful crowd who laughed at all the right moments and only had an outburst of cheering when Anne and Joe finally share a kiss. :)

Ended the night with gin and tonics at The Well and singing loudly to this album on the way home.

Hope you had a beautiful week!

How are you spending your weekend?

Riding and Running.

In between yummy crepes for breakfast and the firework show at night, Weston and I went for a little run around the lake on the 4th of July.

Well, let's be honest - Weston ran around the lake. I tried to run with him once before, but keeping up was impossible. This time, I borrowed a bike. And although for the most part, somehow, he was still faster than me, I was able to keep up much easier than last time.

When I arrived at his house that evening, he had made a really yummy pizza for dinner. I'm going into week 3 of my allergen-free diet and although I've had a lot of help finding recipes and preparing food, so far, it's been more difficult than I expected. My mom has been amazing about making meals that can be modified to suit my dietary needs and she's also really careful about what she eats in front of me, which helps tremendously.

Weston has been really encouraging too, but totally threw me for a loop Thursday when he said he is going to follow the same food guidelines as I am to provide me with extra support. He's crazy for doing it, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not completely flattered and appreciative.

Anyway, yummy pizza. Didn't break any rules. Awesome boyfriend. Fun, sunset, lake adventure.

I'm going to have to stop lusting after dream-bikes and find one that I can actually afford

 so that we can do this together more often and I won't have to borrow one! 

Any suggestions?

Palm Springs.

Back in January, I shared about how I'm learning not to really mind too much when plans fall through. There's not much I can predict or control about my health, so that is bound to happen and I'm sticking to my guns when I say that many times, alternative plans end up being pretty good too.

Another thing I'm learning is that when there are good days, I have to seize them for all they're worth.
Even if that means not planning anything until the last second.

On Friday morning, the pre-school babies had a little graduation, got their diplomas, and became kindergarteners. (Talk about bittersweet - So proud of them, but man I will miss them!) Friday was also my second consecutive day of no pain meds in two months! So in an attempt to make the most of a "feeling-good" day and the official start of summer, we made a last minute trip to the desert.

We stayed at a tiny little hotel in Palm Springs and after arriving, we wondered how we had gotten so lucky! We were greeted by one of the owners, who informed us that we had arrived right during happy hour, and handed me a (free!) pomegranate margarita before showing us around.

It was just about sunset so the weather was perfectly warm, without being overbearing under the desert sun. We sat by the pool with only one other person on the deck, looked into restaurants for the night and I eventually took a little dip... Even though someone I know was "too hungry" to swim with me. Not going to name any names...

On Friday night, we looked to see if they had any rooms available for Saturday too, so we could extend our stay but they were all booked. To be honest, though, it ended up working out because Saturday was not as much of a "feeling-good" day as Friday had been, and I ended up having to break my 3-day-pain-med-free streak. :(  But we enjoyed our last few hours before being sent off with more complementary soft drinks by the owners and promising to come back soon. And we meant that promise whole-heartedly.

Hoping for more little adventures, good days, and longer stays during the rest of the summer.

Good & Gloomy.

Yesterday was a sandwich day.

Beach. Lunch. Beach.

As you can see, it was gloomy. 

And it got a little bit chilly towards the end of the day, but it was perfect. 

I was so happy to be there, with Weston, watching the surfers, and just being away from the house.

Getting a chance to breathe and relax and not have to think about anything crucial.

And being away for a while on such a gloomy day, made coming home and curling up on the couch  that much more cozy and inviting. So we watched Arrested Development until way past my bedtime.

Aka : 11 pm. 

I am an old lady, okay?

the postal service @ the fox theater pomona.

Last night, Weston told me that the first time he ever heard The Postal Service, he was in middle school, sitting at his grandparents house, watching the TV guide channel. And in the top corner, where they were always playing something to distract you during the channel scrolling, they were showing The Postal Service.

I don't remember the very first time that I heard them,
but I do remember having Such Great Heights as my profile song on MySpace.
(holla for my top 8, what whaaaat)

And more than anything, I remember listening to them in the car on my first date with Weston.
Which is a top 10 favorite memory for me.

I was completely elated that we were able to grab a couple of tickets to their show in Pomona, especially considering how quickly they sold out! And I was even more happy when the day arrived and I was feeling well. :) Little victories!

The day before the show, I found out that my cousin was going to be the stage managing that night and he was able to snag us a couple wristbands for the pit! It was suuuuper nice just showing up when we wanted, without having to wait in line forever and still getting pretty close to the front! More little victories!

I was so happy that Jenny Lewis performed with them and I was so happy that they sounded just as wonderful in person and I was so happy that they played every song I'd hoped to hear and I was just so happy about everything.

Be still my heart....

b&w.

yesterday, we went adventuring at one of our favorite places.

home of our earliest dates and many summer afternoons in the years since.

and it was blustery as could be, but still beautiful.

we brought a camera and i tried to fall back in love with documenting life that way...

but mostly i just fell in love with weston a little bit more instead. haha oops!

but i mean honestly..

how could i not?

hahaha what a psychopath.

anyway, we're alive and well.

hope this is a beautiful week for you!

the last day of december.

things to love about california:
you can go to the beach on the last day in december.
and you can pick up little rocks and try to skip them on the water. (and fail miserably many times)
and you can leave after sunset, unable to feel your feet due to cold, but otherwise feeling so vibrant and alive that you think you might overflow with happiness.

and at some point you're able to get a rock to skip on the water more than once.
and few hours later, a new year is upon you.
and everything just feels like it's settling into it's rightful place.

my favorite day of 2012 turned out to be the last one.
but i hope for many more like it in 2013.