The Countdown

Time has been slipping away from me so quickly. It seems not that long ago that I moved back to Los Angeles, became a waitress, quit being a waitress, got the babysitting twins job, starting religiously saving up money, found my future Italian family, and bought my ticket back to Italy.

Today is officially t-minus 1 week (7 days!!!) until I leave. My mind is constantly being filled with things to add to the never ending "TO DO" list, while my stomach is in a constant state of feeling like I'm going to throw up combined with that anxious feeling of excitement you get before going on an especially frightening roller coaster for the first time. I wish I could just sit down and relax, but whenever I try to my mind races on ahead of me worrying about anything and everything possible ("Do I have enough socks!?," "What boots should I wear on the plane?," "Can I fit all my electronics in my carry on bag?!," "What does one wear in the snow?!," etc. etc.)

In the meantime, I have been trying to do as much stuff that I've wanted to do before leaving the country for a possible year. I'm not even going to try to tackle information on everything but I thought I'd share some photos from the past months or so to try to sum up my adventures in good ol' US of A before I say goodbye.

Dressed up as Fionna from Adventure Time at Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo in Los Angeles. 

Time spent with friends - Ralph and I

Bowie and me at Amoeba

Days and money spent at Amoeba

Movie/show night with friends

Show included a debate between presidential candidates Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman

Halloween spent with the twins

My wonder twins

My baby

Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which was AMAZING)

The Unhappiest of all reindeer 

Love!

Fun learnings at the Natural History Museum with friends

Time spent with my best friend

My best friend is one supreme mother - Charlie's first birthday party!

This will most likely be my last update from Los Angeles, so here's to new beginnings! Next time I blog I'll be bloggin from another country! How crazy is that!? I still think over and over that I must be completely mad and totally out of my mind to have made such a life changing decision to abandon my American life in the way that I am, but hopefully at the end of it all I will look back on the decision and be confident that I made the right choice. 

My next few days will be spent at Disneyland, one last dentist trip (you can never be too safe when it comes to proper dental hygiene!), going away gathering with family and friends, and my last two days spent packing and trying to organize a year's worth of necessities into one suitcase.  

Not a totally happy camper

MONDAY (night):

After 6 years my trusty Brother sewing machine decided to royally piss me off by birdnesting a million times, so when Aaron came home to a very distraught me, he decided it was time for us to purchase a new one, but the ever hesitant money spender that is me, persuaded him to take my machine apart and see if we could fix it manually. 

So after he cleaned and did whatever you can do in such a big electrical mess, it still was not working. So I abandoned the tries and relaxed for the rest of the day. 

TUESDAY:

At 10 AM I left our apartment in San Diego and started my long drive up to Los Angeles. After 2 1/2 hours hours I made it to my college, magically was able to arrange an appointment to see a counselor and at 2 was able to meet with her (she was amazing and relieved me of so many worries). 

The whole reason I wanted to meet with a counselor was because since my move I have missed two semesters of classes and really want to get back into school, I feel somewhat lost without studying, so I was able to figure out what my options are for online classes with my old school and what school I think I'll be leaning towards down here in San Diego. Tomorrow afternoon when Aaron gets off work early we're going to take a drive down to the campus to check it out and see what kind of feeling I get. I'm hoping it'll be a good fit because going to one in San Diego will be so much easier than trying to only take online classes (which aren't many) with my old school, even though I'm so sad about leaving it. The life of a college student is STRESSFUL! 

But on the other hand I got to see my kittens, like Kirby (the ever elusive) here:

And the delicious dish my mother made with home grown zucchini:

WEDNESDAY (yesterday):

I had a very important dentist appointment at 10 AM and found out some horrible news. After so many years of braces and teeth surgeries I now have to have a whole different procedure to have a tooth totally replaced, a whole procedure that will take in total around 6-9 months most likely. I am absolutely dreading the whole experience, but as everyone keeps telling me, it NEEDS to get done, and that is what I'm going to do. Kicking and screaming the whole way. NOT A HAPPY CAMPER.

I left to drive back down to San Diego at 1, made it in town around 3, pretty good timing I do think. Aaron and I relaxed at home and went out for dinner and then headed over to one of our favorite places, the World Market and picked up a bunch of random stuff (blueberry scone mix that I'll probably make later on today, yum!) but while there I saw one of my favorite Italian chocolates (not to eat, just because of the funny looking boy), the bambino that is most likely old as all hell by now hahaha.

THURSDAY (today): 

Well it's still early, but I plan on trying to get my grandma's old Singer sewing machine up and running until I pick a good new (and hopefully cheap) replacement for my now dead Brother sewing machine. 

Ciao miei cari