Pictures as promised!

So here are the pictures of our trip to Solvang, CA as promised (even if they are a little late)!  Jeff and I had an amazing time up there, so I highly recommend you check it out if you get the chance - especially if you love wine!  

We stayed at a little place called the Wine Valley Inn & Cottages - a beautiful little place that looks like it came right out of "Once Upon a Time."  

There was even a clock tower!  

 F&^%king beautiful, amIrite?  

While we were there, we went to several wine tastings and checked out a few of the local tourist traps attractions such as the Pony farm......  

Look!  It's where they make "Lil Sebastians"!  

 ....and the Ostrich farm!  

Mean lil S.O.B.s these Ostriches....! 

On the drive back, we stopped off to see Jeff's cousin, who goes to school at UCSB.  He showed us around the college campus & a couple of the sights like the Laguna Labyrinth!  

Here's some more pics of me:  

And this big dork right here.....!  

So it's come to this....!

It's beginning to look like I can no longer blog from the office because of how busy (& stressful) my work has become.....!  

So I'm writing this post on a Saturday to break one of my cardinal blogging rules:  I'm gong to tell you how frustrating and seemingly pointless I find my job.   

For some reason, the workload has just been pouring in, non-stop, for the past four months and shows no signs of slowing down.  I am up to my ears in work and am barely staying on top of things thanks to some late hours and continuous help from the rest of my department - especially my boss.  

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously considering quitting despite all the 'well-laid plans' the company has for me to succeed my boss when she retires.  I just don't know if I can take it for much longer.  I know I'm not the only one - everyone who works on my floor seems stressed and cranky all the time.  

To make things worse, I am not even sure if my job will be around for much longer.  My department has managed to avoid company lay-offs for a while, but I think our time might be coming soon.....so why the hell am I working so hard?  

Jeff's been amazingly supportive throughout all my 'coming-home-from-work' bad moods and 'bitchings about work' and thinks I'm due for a change.....

....but I dunno if I can bring myself to abandon everyone at work.  Everyone there is stretched thin enough as it is.  

Also - I haven't had to look for a new job in *years*; sheer luck landed me the one I have now and my job skills are pretty darn "specific"; database management for a system most people haven't heard of isn't exactly a hot commodity right now....!  

But it doesn't hurt to see what my options are. They say the best time to look for a job is while you still have one, so that's what I'm doing.  

In the meantime, Jeff & I are taking a quick vacation this three-day-weekend (MLK Jr, I could kiss you!) to a Bed & Breakfast up in Solvang (wherever that is) to celebrate our three-month anniversary.  (Telling you, I don't deserve that guy - xoxo)  I'll have to find time to write a post about it next week sometime.  

Now where did I leave my resume?  

Happy 2014!

Happy New Year, everyone!  (Yeah, I know.  I thought I gave up blogging, too)

But as I'm sitting here, eating a mish-mash of coked veggies and tofu before they all go bad (while, according to Facebook, my boyfriend is eating pizza somewhere without me), I figured I should do something "productive".  

And writing in this blog was the best I came up with!  

So I guess Life updates are the first order of business.....I journeyed home for Christmas and New Years again this year; a total of two weeks of vacation & quality time with my mom and brother.  Got to see all the renovations that mom did to the house and the new car my brother bought......and watched a lot of TV! 

Soooo...much....TV.  

Now I should explain that the majority of my "couch potato" ness was due to my mom coming down with the flu and me feeding her tea and making sure she got a lot of rest.  

But I still managed to find time to get out of the house and catch up with all my friends from high school.  I felt more nostalgic than usual this year....probably has something to do with being in my thirties now.  

It finally hit me how old I am when I realized that most of the characters I watch on TV are younger than me.  

Wrapping this up now because I don't really know how to sum up the last couple of months without rambling, so I'll just say that it was a great vacation, but I'm glad to be back in Los Angeles - two weeks, no matter how great they are, is a *lot* of quality time together.  

Hopefully I'll find time to blog more often in 2014. Hope to see you around!