Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! So I never thought I would become one of those dog owners that dresses up their dog....who knew?!?! (Actually, Holly came home with this costume for Bella). This is a picture of Bella last Halloween, when she was 4 months old. I wish she was that size again! Unfortunately, they do not make dog costumes for 73 lb. dogs, so she has no costume to greet the tricker treaters this year.

Crazies out last night!

There were some crazies out in RSM on Saturday night! My friend, Christi, and I went out for cocktails, and look who we found....Chris Farley...or at least a Chris Farley wannabe. I couldn't believe this guy's costume - so I had to take a picture (with my camera phone - sorry for the poor quality). Unfortunately, he was not allowed in the bar.

Fire update - Wednesday night

Eric and I drove to the top of the hill by my house on Wednesday night to see how the fire was looking. It was the same exact spot as I was standing the night before, but it is amazing how far the fire had traveled in just a day. The picture on the left is how the fire looked at 10pm. An hour later I was leaving Eric's house and noticed that the glow in the sky looked a lot brighter. I drove up to the same spot, and the fire had expanded to the picture on the right. Crazy!

All is okay now, the fire is 50% contained and there were no more structures burned. It is in Cleveland National Forest. It's supposed to be completely out by Tuesday. My thanks go out to all of the firefighters that protected the community!

Smoky Air

I woke up this morning to this view of the sunrise. Kind of a cool panoramic photo - the sky was very colorful due to the smoke. Except this smoke is from a new fire...the Camp Pendleton fire. Apparently for a while, the I-5 was shut in both directions. I think it's contained now.

As I was watching the news this morning, one of the reporters for KTLA was reporting on the Santiago Fire. She showed footage of an area of homes yesterday, still safe and being protected, and the same area of homes today, with no homes in sight as they burned to the ground overnight. So surreal.

Even though I've kept every window closed, my house still smells of smoke. Bella is inside all day today. During my commute to work this morning along the toll road, I saw just acres and acres of charred black ground.

More photos to come after work today......but for the time being, here is the view from my balcony of the Camp Pendleton Smoke and the sun.......

More fire photos

Fire, Fire Everywhere

Sunday night I was informed there was a fire nearby. I didn't see much news coverage (everything was focused on the Malibu fires). I watched the news Monday morning before leaving for work....again, no news about the so called fire nearby...all coverage on Malibu again.


So, yesterday morning when I left for work, I thought I would be fine. Wrong! The normal route that I take to work was closed due to the fire. It took me 45 minutes to get to the freeway (it usually takes 10). There was a ton of traffic.



Yesterday in the office, we lost power for about a half hour. I then headed up to LA for a conference. I knew there were fires happening, but since I was in downtown LA, all I saw were blue skies.



As I watched the news last night in my hotel room, I saw them reporting from the local shopping center, showing flames across the street. WOW, this is really happening. I mean, in high school there were a lot of fires, one getting really close, but it's just weird to see places you know on tv. They reported that as of last night, the fire is 1/2 mile from the historic local biker bar, Cook's Corner and this beautiful mansion, Rancho Las Lomas, where I had my senior prom and have attended numerous weddings. I am coming back to town tonight, not knowing if those places still exist.



I got a text from Eric tonight, "You can see the flames clearly from your balcony now." Uh oh. He assured me I wasn't in danger and I feel better because there are a lot of structures between me and the fire.


But when I drove home tonight from LA, it was like driving into the lion's den because I was driving directly towards orange skies and heavy smoke. The toll road was open again, and as I drove along it, you could just see "hot spots" along both sides of the toll road with areas of flames still burning. As I drove to my house, I looked to my left and just saw hills on fire. Wow, this is really happening.



I jumped in my car and drove to the top of the hill, where I took the pictures that are shown. This is the Santiago Fire. This is a really good interactive map to show the area of the fire. My house is just to the left of the words "O'Neill Regional Park" and my parents live where it says "Trabuco Canyon." The area between the fire and Trabuco Canyon is all dry brush. If the fire heads that way, my dad's house could be seriously threatened as he is backed directly up to the canyon.


I just checked, and it looks like the fire is 30% contained and the good news is that the winds are calm.



The sad thing is, this is nowhere near the devistation of the San Diego Fires. My friend's brother lost his house in the fire. So sad....


I think Wednesday morning's drive to work is going to be a wake up call to me, as I see everything in the daylight....



I will keep posting updates and photos of the Santiago Fire.....

Goodbye weekend

This was my first full weekend at home, where I had no commitments or obligations - I had the whole weekend to myself...literally. Eric was hanging out with his fraternity brothers in San Diego, and Holly is in Cancun. So it was just Bella and I. I have to say - I enjoyed the time at my house to organize, clean, weed my yard, and just enjoy being home. I know, does not sound like fun at all to you, but I enjoyed it. I'm not home very much during the week, so it was nice. I put off all of my work until tonight, so I've spent the last 6 hours working - yuck!

We had the Santa Ana winds this weekend - which made my soccer game miserable! There's nothing like running against the wind, having grit and dirt blowing in your face. I had a layer of dirt after the game. Unfortunately, we lost 2-1 (we were robbed - their second goal was scored by a player that was offsides - but I'm not going to complain about that....).

Last weekend was a much better game. We won 6-1. It was Eric's first DSFA experience...and I scored a goal! And this wasn't a pansy goal - it was a legitimate goal. I was left fullback, and it was our corner kick. I played a little bit up. The ball came back to me, and I sent it like a rocket to the upper left corner of the net. I jokingly told Eric that it's okay if he doesn't come to any of my other games because I want him to think that I play like that every game! :) After the game he had his first carne asada burrito from Alerto's - a DSFA favorite!

...and for you DSFA girls reading....the legend of George Glass has finally been proven real!

Finally!

It seems like it's taken forever to get here! I can't wait for the weekend!!!

A new way of thinking...

Eric and I just came back from an investment seminar given by Doug Andrew. Check out his website. It was a completely new way of thinking about investing for your future. I am still digesting everything that we learned tonight. Eric read this book, the second in the series, ahead of time.

The concepts are definitely not main stream, but propose a new way of looking at things:

1) It benefits you to have a mortgage. As long as you have a mortgage, you have the interest deduction and a greater tax benefit. It goes against the main stream thought of making extra principal payments to pay off your mortgage faster.

2) Leverage the equity that you have in your home. You cannot earn anything off of equity because it is not liquid - you do not benefit unless you sell your house. Therefore, borrow against your equity in the form of a home equity line of credit. A house is an asset. The cash you get from a line of credit is an asset. Therefore if you have a liquid asset in the form of the home equity loan, you can pay off the mortgage if you really need to. But you also have the option to re-invest the money you get from the home equity loan.

3) IRAs and 401Ks aren't the best retirement approach.

4) The most conservative and safest investment is long-term insurance contracts, that pays out life benefits as well as a death benefit. These are tax free.

So let's say you borrow $100,000 on a home equity loan at a rate of 6%, and re-invest it in long-term insurance contracts that pay interest at 5%. Most people would say that it doesn't make sense. However, since the long term insurance contracts are invested at a compounded 5% rate, and they are tax free, you end up making more than the 6% borrowing fee.

Okay, I know all of that probably sounds really confusing. And I KNOW that I didn't give the 2 hour seminar justice. I haven't signed up for anything yet, but it has definitely intrigued me to read more about the concept. I'll report back my thoughts and clarify the concepts.....

...by the way - I felt so "adult" being at an investment seminar!!!

Yummy!!!

So I should be working right now....but procrastinating is a great thing! I realized that I don't have stuff for breakfast for the rest of the week (and I don't have time to go grocery shopping), so I baked a loaf of yummy PUMPKIN BREAD. This is a great recipe, super easy (for non-cooks like myself), I always have the ingredients on hand, and it's relatively healthy.



PUMPKIN BREAD

Serves 8 (generously)



Ingredients:

1 box Spice Cake Mix

1 15oz. can pumpkin

1/2 cup water



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together in big bowl. Spray loaf pan with PAM. Bake for 60 minutes.



...and it makes the house smell so good too!

Let's give this another try

So I have been inspired by my good friend, Kelly, to blog. For those of you that have never tried it, it's wonderful! Although Kelly and I don't get a chance to chat very often, I feel like we have kept in wonderful touch because I look forward to reading her blog.

I tried this blogging thing once, and it didn't quite work. As you can see, I wanted to use it as a journal for my Europe trip. Well, time has passed, and I have since been to Europe, Australia twice, and most recently Puerto Vallarta (my passport has some nice stamps in it now!)

I don't know who is going to read this, but maybe it will be as cathartic as everybody says it is. I am off now to take Bella to obedience training. This will be her second time in this class (not second class, but she is a repeater of the whole program). She is a well behaved dog....but there's always room for improvement! Seriously, though, how can you get upset with this face?