final west coast holiday.

Holidays are very nostalgic. At least for me they are. I always seem to make it a point to either discuss or make a personal mental note to myself of what exactly it was I was doing the year before on whatever holiday it is I'm celebrating. Where I was. What I was wearing. How I was feeling. Who I was with. Who I wasn't with. The reflections are often tender, as for me, I've found myself in places quite different from one year to the next.

Last year, for example, I was hiking in the Laguna Canyon with my friend Kendal. We ended up walking a good five miles post hike to get to what I thought was the nearby beach (ha, my sense of distance can be so terrible.) I remember I took a long nap after that, and then just hung out at home by myself for the evening. Sounds sad, but it was actually quite nice. A gentle calm before the storm to come in the months after. At the time, I was getting ready to move out of my beloved college Irvine apartment into a home in Dana Point to be closer to my restaurant job where I had been recently promoted to management. It was a month filled with stress, fear, and excitement. My college era was over, and I was starting a new chapter in my Orange County adventures: The one where I was a full-time working CAREER WOMAN! I had high hopes. And at the time, I thought it was exactly what I wanted for my 24 year old.

Until I realized it wasn't.

It took a few months for that realization to show up, and then a couple more months to act on it. But ultimately it got me here. Back in Ventura. And basically, it's just crazy how much can happen and change in one year.

I have no idea what next year's Fourth of July will look like. (Or all the days leading.)

But this year's was great. My last real holiday on the West Coast and I spent it with my sister and her friends. We drank and we laughed and we ate candy. And we hopped a barbed wired fence to climb a mountain, for what was definitely the best spot to catch the fireworks show. (total rebels, I know.)

I missed my own friends in LA & OC, but hugging Ventura+my family as tightly as I am in these final hours.. well, it only seems right. I'm going to miss this little home town of mine.

And I couldn't be more proud of myself for the brave distances traveled from the last fourth to now.

I hope you all had a nice holiday as well! See you tomorrow at Blog Brunch? Say yes.

living in the in between stage. with no make up & an old pair of P.E. shorts

Lately, I've been leaving my house in sweats, no make up, and greasy hair from the gym last night. It's a hot look for me, and I love how sweet fate is to have me running into people I haven't seen in years at Peet's Coffee to catch just how hot that look really is.

And then just when I think I've managed to side swipe the embarrassing small talk that usually goes like this: "yeah, I've gotten WAY hot since the last time you saw me circa 2005, I know... I mean check out these pajama bottoms.. and oh yeah, this is an old P.E. shirt... I'm still rocking the 'ol high school pride, how about you?" "And yeah, I'm just in Ventura temporarily as I plan my move to NYC this summer." "Yeah, no. I'm not going for a job or school or anything." "I'm just going for fun. To live." "Ok. It was good seeing you too."

Except in my head I'm thinking... It was annoying to see you. I look like a hung over monster and I wasn't even drinking last night.. this is just how I look cause I woke up five minutes ago (at one in the afternoon/so what) and didn't feel like putting normal clothes on... or my face. 

Eh. At least I brushed my teeth.


And oh shit, I didn't even ask what you've been up to. What a jack ass. I mean. Do I really care? No. But I should at least remember to be polite and act as if I do. Lord help me. I'm a terrible person. With no make up on. 

Just when I think I've managed to side swipe all of that, I don't. It really goes down. And apparently I love it. I love it so much I allow for it to keep happening. Like three times a week or so.  

Welcome to the current life of Punky, returned home to Ventura temporarily as she gets ready to move to NYC, to her current status of caring less and less about her appearance in public, her social life, and making an impression on once upon a time high school peers. To her new trend of talking in third person.

Which she will end now.

I'm back in Ventura and it is strange. After being away for a good five years frolicking in other parts of Southern California, it's strange to be back now and living in this place again. Not that anything feels unfamiliar.. in fact, everything feels remarkably familiar. Almost like I never left. And so the strange-ness lays in the feeling distant and far removed from the last five years of my life, where I was living and breathing an entirely different life elsewhere. It's like those times in LA and Orange County didn't even happen, even though they were the most recent phases in my life. Kinda like two major life chapter relationships that I broke up with recently and blocked on Facebook, to forget forever. But I don't want to forget them, and the intention was never to block them at all. I just left and as hard as it's been to kind of let those places and those times go, I have. I have because I'm preparing for the next big thing. And it's bittersweet. It's bittersweet to be saying goodbye to one chapter in my life and hello to the next. I feel incredibly excited for all the new, brilliant and wonderful people I will meet, and sad for all the brilliant and wonderful people I will miss.

 I miss so many of them already.

I'm back in Ventura and it's been more than strange. It's been hard.

It's been hard trying to plan a move as big as this and not being near my closest friends who I have really come to know the past five years. I just want to spend as much time with them as I can before I leave. But most of them, if not all of them, live two hours away from where I sit now. And taking multiple day trips to the OC is just not practical or in my financial budget at the moment. And quite frankly, I've over that ugly and taxing drive. Six words when I leave California: Peace the F out 405 Freeway.

Cannot tell you how excited I am to be living in a city where I don't have to drive or have a car to get around.

Since I've moved back in December, I've been spending a lot of time alone. My closest and only friends have been my sisters (no complaints there), along with one high school friend I've managed to reconnect with and am so happy about (Hi Sami, we should hang out a few more time before I leave please!) Other than that, my friends have been you guys, my readers. And it's been really nice. It's been really nice to wake up every morning and feel connected to others just through a simple tweet or comment, and well, I don't want to go into the whole being really thankful for blogging thing again, but too late. I'm really thankful for this whole blogging thing, and how much it has saved me since I've moved back home. Cause as liberating as it has been to spend this much needed time with myself, reflecting and planning, and going to bed without another body beside me, it's also been at times, a bit lonely. And you guys have helped remind me that I do exist, I am cared for, and most of all, that I'm not alone.

And well, I don't know where I was even really going with this post to begin with, but I guess I just wanted to say thank you for thats.

And that maybe, I should care more about how I look when I go outside my home. But for the first time in my life I don't. Which in itself, is a liberating feeling too. I mean, yeah I hate myself for it when I gamble the odds of running into people I got rejected by to the Backwards Dance in high school and lose, but you know what? Whatever.

I'm moving to New York in less than 50 days, bitches!

With all that being said, let us dance! (In our PJs.)


p.s. small talk with anyone can bite me. I hate it.

Spring Time in the Beach Town.

Happy Spring, babies.

I woke up to a beautiful day and decided that I was going to put on some real clothes.. some make up even and go outside. I brought Michelle with me.

We decided it would be kinda cute to get all nostalgic and visit some of our past hang outs. So guess what. We did!

Our little journey started at the epic Arroyo Verde Park where we spent our summers ice blocking and attending cross country practice. (We enjoyed/reflected more heavily on the former.) Here's a few snapshots. Isn't this park huge and amazing? It's even bigger than it looks in the photos. Awesome hiking/running trails and grassy knolls for dayssss.

Had to hit up downtown of course---because that's what you do on a sunny day in the 805... you go DT Ventura and enjoy all the fine shops and pastel colors it has to offer. I think our city council is made up of people who believe in Easter colors year round. This speculation hails from the fact that 60% of our city's buildings/houses is painted as such. I do not object. At all.

(Can you tell we are seesters?)

Considering it had been awhile since I'd been up to the Cross, I said, "letsssss gooo!" To which Michelle said, "ooooook!" And so up we went! Brought back a lot of memories of burrito picnics and ex-boyfriends. Good memories on both accounts !

I'm pretty proud of these shots. I have to say thank you to clear skies and Instagram for really making me feel like a talent today.

We had to pick up Shannon (sister #duex) up from work shortly after we left the cross, so while we waited for her to end her shift at the mall, we decided to cross the street and pay our middle school campus a visit. Wow, was that a flash back. Strange how long ago that feels, that very awkward time where I attempted to play the oboe in the school band, and wore the same Hurley sweatshirt everyday, to not match my multi-colored fat shoe laces on my beloved pair of pink adidas. That time when, all I wanted was to be cool and popular and liked, and secretly (but not secretly) admired by boys named Jordan, Wesley, and Stanley. Jordan especially. That kid had nice hair. I have no idea where in the world those characters of my youth exist now, but in my memory they return to me so vividly. Ah, middle school. It was a time filled with P.E. numbers, arctic freezes, lip sync contests, weeples, seagull poop, G.A.T.E., slam books, hundreds of notes in class and really just no idea what was yet to come in this little 'ol life of mine. And still, who knows what is yet to come. Life is really something, ain't it.

Ballin' artwork! Always loved our very colorful campus.

We picked up Shannon and brought her back to partcipate in this very important Sobel sisters public announcement:

Can you tell that I'm not joking around?

Somedays I really do go back and consider being a school teacher just so that I can take care of all the little ones that get picked on. Boy oh boy, would I love the heck out of them. And protect them like no other. For real.

After Anacapa, we migrated to Thousand Oaks to grab some dinner, purchase some Apple products for Michelle's new macbook (lucky biatch) and to also touch a bunch of shoes at Nordstroms we all wish we had the money to buy right now (Oh hey Oxfords...FIND A MAGICAL WAY TO GET INTO MY CLOSET, WON'T YOU/THANKS.) We would have taken more photos, but......our phones died. Ha. Poor us, we had to look at each other's faces not through an iphone lens, and actually talk to one another! Who does that anymore these days??

It was a wonderful, beautiful day spent with wonderful, beautiful sisters :)

And Ventura---You are a wonderful, beautiful place to call home. I'm sure gunna miss ya when I leave for the city. That's all I gatta say.