Daily in L.A.

... in sunny Southern California.

It was pretty cold over the holidays here in Los Angeles.  Out highs were in the mid-50's F most of the time.  That's cold for us.

This week's forecast:



I like warmer weather but I will being able to wear my beautiful cashmere sweaters.

I love, love, love the Genius feature in my iTunes.  It introduces my own music to me.

A Borders near me is going out of business.  I ran in and bought $116 worth of books in about 30 minutes.  Yikes.

A creativity book
Some about personality disorders
Some Christian books

I'm going to go browse them a little more slowly now. 

:-)

I had an awesome moment on Friday.  I was buying two high-ticket items from a home goods store.  I got in line to buy my two items and the customer in front of me walked up real close to me and said "Are you buying these two things?"  "Yes".  "Only these two?"  "Yes".  She walked away, went digging through the bag in her cart and came back with two (not one, but two!) 20% coupons for me to use!  What a blessing.  I was so happy and so humbled by her generosity and I saved a bundle of money.  Awesome.

I am taking an art class beginning next week.  It will be Mon - Thu from 12:30 - 4 for six weeks.  Full immersion.  Wheeeeee!  :-D

I walked out to my car this afternoon to drive to my parents for a New Year's Day visit.  I went to the usual spot where I park my car on the side street but it wasn't there.  I don't always remember where I park so I continued wandering around, carrying several things, many of them which are heavy, and a drink, trying to find my car.  Minor panic set in, the sort that you get when you're looking for your wallet in your purse and think for a moment that it's been stolen or left at home until you finally get a flash of it.  I walked to the street behind my street but it wasn't there either.  Then I thought "Oh, it's a holiday, I probably parked in front."  I remembered that I was on the phone when I parked my car the day before so I was not completely paying attention when I parked.  I turned the corner to the front street, silently praying that my car would be there.  It wasn't.  I walked back to my place, unloaded all my stuff and retraced all my steps.

I called my dad.  "Dad, I can't find my car.  I think it's been stolen".  He offered to drive 45 minutes to come pick me up and told me to call the police in the meantime.  He said it in a way as if he knew I was in shock and he wanted to be sure I had solid instructions I could follow.  I was thankful for his guidance.

I didn't know if I should call the insurance company first or the police.  I was feeling pretty mellow about the whole thing but very disappointed to think that my neighborhood is one in which people steal cars.  I began thinking through the process of buying a new car and was thankful that car prices are down right now.  I decided to call my insurance agency first.  They give me a claim number and told me an adjuster would call the next business day and that I could get a rental car tomorrow.  Next I called the police and said I wanted to report a stolen car.  The officer took my license plate number and said "I have good news and bad news, which do you want first?"  Yes!  They have my car!  I thought perhaps they recovered my car but it was in bad shape.  He said "Your car was not stolen.  But it was impounded."  What??!!  How can my car be impounded, I have no outstanding tickets, it has not been abandoned!  After looking up the info he told me my car was towed because I was blocking a driveway.  Ugh. 

The long and the short of it was that I was able to pick up my car from the tow yard after paying $240.  Ouch.  And to add insult to injury, my car had a $50 parking ticket on it for blocking a driveway!  Ya, thanks, I kind of figured that one out.

Lessons learned: 
1) Don't be on the phone when I park my car.
2) Call the police first before the insurance agency.

So that was the exciting part of my day.  :-)

I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night trying to get the last of my Christmas cards prepared.  I went to the post office today to send them and the mail box inside was so full that all my envelopes wouldn't go down the chute.  I grabbed the envelopes that were sticking out and took them to the outside box.  That one was full, too!  Lots of people are going to be getting Christmas cards in the next couple of days from people in my neighborhood!

Working on my Christmas letter.  I did one a couple of years ago with lots of pictures in it.  It is now a tradition.

No matter how early I start getting ready for Christmas (this year it was in October), I always seem to have last minute things to do!  But it's all really fun.  :-)