"the leaves are falling back east ..." (ben folds)

hello blog world!

i spent the weekend up in LA, it was a good weekend. it was nice to be away and to spend some much much needed time with my best friend, alana. there's nothing like spending time with your best friend. it's really just an easy perfect kind of feeling. don't really have words for it. saturday was her birthday and we had a fabulous time that night singing karaoke for a crowded room full of friends and strangers. i hope people took good pics because it will make an awesome scrap page or two or three or perhaps a mini book is in order to celebrate the awesomeness of the birthday bash.

sunday evening when we got back home to san diego we were lazy lazy. i made two pages though - i'll have to scan them - both are using pics from the conejo photo shoot, since alana had printed some of the pics out i have lots to work with! (and lots more to print). i'll hopefully have a productive/creative week. i need it.

i'm still really consumed by the whole work thing - i'm becoming increasingly unhappy with my current situation and am desperately looking for something else. unfortunately, the economy sucks and the job market is quite pathetic. i'm reaching out - i'm racking my brain of people to contact. i need out of my current job. i don't want to drive myself insane.

this week, thursday, marks Yom Kippur ... the second of our High Holy Days ... and I have to say, I have definitely been feeling quite reflective since Rosh Hashanah. Thinking about where I am in life - where I want to go. The relationships I have - which ones are no longer healthy. I need to start thigs year with a fresh outlook- I need to purge myself of the unhappiness, the stress. I need to focus on the positive - I need to surround myself with people who inspire me and make me smile and laugh. I am going to work hard.

I realized on Rosh Hashanah how fitting it is that our new year comes during this time of the year. Fall is a time of new life - of shedding the old, of starting new. Fall embodies these characteristics and I'm finding it comforting that it is the beginning of this new year. It comes at a time when I'm really feeling the weight of the past year ... the weight of guilt and saddness and feelings of being lost. Things that I needed to feel and get through, but things that I'm ready to leave behind.

Here's to new beginnings ... xoxo, dain