Monday Update

Wow, I can't believe it's Monday. Okay, maybe I can. Either way, it's been a whirlwind.

As I mentioned in my last post, on Friday afternoon I got a craving for Santa Barbara. BoRyan and I made the decision at 10 AM on Friday to leave at 1 PM to drive up. The view of course is beautiful... and we saw lots of it while we were sitting in traffic.

Around mid-way through the trip, we passed by a big outlet mall. I'll be the first to say that I really feel outlet malls are a bit of a racket. I mean really... many of the stores carry different merchandise at their outlet store than at their normal store, and some of the stuff isn't even actually on sale. But I went ahead and stopped anyway. The thing is, I really haven't shopped much for clothes over the past 2 years and it's time to stock up. The concept that I haven't shopped in so long is odd... because I write about fashion for my business, and so I'm up on what's in style-- I just haven't been shopping for myself in ages. :-)

Anyhow, the outlet mall was a successful trip. In the two visits there (once on the way to SB and once on the back), I got a pair of pants, a sweater jacket, 2 camisole shirts, 3 dress shirts, and 2 sweaters-- for $200. I must say that I haven't lost my touch-- I know how to find a deal!

Santa Barbara was great! We stayed at a wonderful hotel in the center of the city and were able to walk around and look in all the little shops. We ordered dinner in our room, and watched Trans America with Felecity Huffman. It was great; amazing that they could make Felecity look like a man trying to look like a woman!

In the morning, we woke up early and ate in our room before heading off to the Santa Inez Valley. If you liked the movie Sideways, you'd love the Santa Inez Valley. This is the area where the movie was filmed. Here's a map of the trip that Miles & Jack take in the movie (beware: it's a PDF so it may slow down your browser if you click it): www.santabarbara.com/winecountry/images/sideways-tour-map.pdf

We visited 5 wineries in all. They were-- Rideau, Gainey, Foley, Babcock, and Lincourt.

My favorites were Rideau, Gainey, and Foley this time. I signed up for wine clubs with Rideau and Gainey, so I'll start getting wine delivered around once every other month from them. If you've ever thought of joining a club, it's really fun. While you're a member, you also receive free tastings for you and 1 to 4 friends. "It's free to join and you can cancel at any time." (This reminds me of Time Life books) Anyhow, if you want more information, I'll be glad to pass it along. (Keep me in mind when you fill out the "referral" line on your membership form - ha! :-) )

Oh yes, and one big perk for me is the free wine glasses they give you with the tastings. One vineyard didn't give us glasses, but in all, I made out with 8 new glasses! Half of them are Riedel, which is nice.

We came back late on Saturday evening and I fell asleep early. Sunday morning, we had a training session with Katie. Normally we meet with Katie in a gym, but because it was Sunday morning, we met in a park in West Hollywood. I've never done that before and I'm still hurting. For part of our workout, we ran around on a big path while Katie stood inside. She had a whistle and she would blow it to signifify to start running or to switch from a sprint to a jog. I guess I'm really out of shape because this whole thing wore me out!

Last night, we attended the Gotan Project concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a great show-- quite amazing. Unfortunately, I was SO tired from the rest of the weekend that I think I slept through about half of the show. I think everyone else enjoyed it-- we went with 6 friends, including a friend from Spain who was visiting us this week.

Today, I'm just wrapping things up here and preparing to make my big announcement...