shaka de shaka, amen.

whenever i see my car twins driving on the street

i always try to make eye contact and give them

a friendly hello shak, sometimes a double texas longhorns,

sometimes a peace sign, sometimes a classic wave...

this is how many times i've received one in return: 0

really cool, people. really cool.

this is how many times i've walked up to another white prius 

in a parking lot thinking it was mine: 3

and every time i stand there dumbfounded like, 

say whaaat? why didn't it unlock? oh shoot, this isn't my car... awkward.

better check my phone for some nonexistent texts/missed calls

 and walk away like nothing ever happened. 

really cool.

the schwinn varsity

i used my mom's bike all through college, 

best and cutest (and heaviest) bike at USC

never got stolen, thank god + st. christopher.

pretty soon we're gonna put it away in storage i guess,

 so i had a moment with it today...

thanks bike, loveya,

the white prius will never be as fuel-efficient as you are.

st. francis spot

it's the place to be.

chig-non

in an attempt to ignore how early i have to wake up

how much traffic is grating on my nerves

how all i wanna do is walk/sprint claddaugh with my mom

how i just want to drink coffee and read into the gloss

how i should've embraced last week when i didn't work at all

how i am still my kindergarten self not wanting to go back the next day

i am puttin up some photos of chig-nons

which is how i wear my hair to work

chic always, even in figure-flattering navy blue scrubs 

and hot pink nikes

st. joseph's

because it's not where i am, it's...

my cream come true

if you know me well enough

you know i'm all about my serums, cremes, creams, moisturizing oils...

the list of fancy synonyms for lotions could go on.

in the past month, because i was trying to be "thrifty" 

and plebeian about which day face creams i use, 

(in addition to the fact that the moisturizer i was using was discontinued),

i tested three different drugstore daily moisturizers.

surprise, surprise they STUNK. 

first one is not pictured - it was eucerin something rather with SPF, $8.99 - 

it turned my face white as a ghost. that's a no.

so i bought the boot's no. 7 "beautiful skin" SPF 15, $13.99 - 

which was the replacement product for my discontinued boot's advanced hydration.

too much fragrance, no dew-factor, not thick enough, 

and the packaging was cheapo plastic - no "beautiful skin" here!

so i bought burt's bees sensitive skin night cream, $14.99, for the daytime (novel idea),

thinking it would be richer, heavier consistency, more moisturizing...

wrong! that stuff's like milk! like water even! i can't have that.

long-and-pointless-story short,

i finally got fed up and purchased the product i knew would work the whole time:

l'occitane shea protective face cream SPF 20, $42

- aka my cream come true -

it's thick, it has SPF, it smells clean, it's dewy, packaging rocks, it's perfect.

i returned all those other sub-par ones to their respective CVS or target;

yes i kept those receipts because i know myself too well,

at some point i was gonna cave and get the one i wanted

i do realize no one in the world cares about this at all

except maybe the ladies and gentleman over at my favorite, into the gloss.

¡I'm lOsINg iT!

yes, i karate chopped my own mom in the neck today.

i'll admit that it was not my proudest moment, however, let me explain.

we went to the mall together and as we were power walking through the main part

to get to merle norman to browse the cremes and lotions,

we were stopped by some men who work at those..."kiosks"

i was being nice by obliging, yah yah yah steamer now the shirt's not wrinkly wow

i'm telling him sorry sorry we gotta go, we have to pick the kids up at noon

he's unrelenting,

i look to mommy for support...

she says "just buy it"

i think to myself

"eh wharves, she did mention that she needed a new iron yesterday, 

she's gonna pay me back"

i won't mention how much it cost

but it was WAY too much 

and enough to cause me to enter into my first rage blackout.

as we walked away i said "so you're gonna pay me back for that, right?"

mommy scoff-laughed at me, "NO! why did you just buy that thing?"

when we got in the car, mommy said:

"ha, just imagine how many weeks of gas that would've been!"

and as she tossed her head back in laughter

i said: I AM GOING TO KARATE CHOP YOU IN THE NECK!

and i did. right in her tiny adam's apple.

omg i was pisssssed!

i yelled (cussed*) the entire way home,

 i don't even remember how we got home.

but according to the mpg's on the prius - i was not keeping it in the eco zone.

so now we have a "kiosk" steamer in our house

and i am forever erasing the word "kiosk" from my word bank.

i will NEVER stop for those people ever ever again. amen.

side note: the steamer is non-refundable, of course.

sick like audrey hepburn

you go girl

de aqui

we are waiting

- this one's been a long time coming - 

i've been hoarding these images for-ev-er

and tonight when emma asked me some question

to which my response was the face squints is making in the last photo,

i knew it was time

to the corinthians

i wouldn't say no

blanca monrós gómez jewelry

my kinda jam

carmel weekender

home for the weekend

say hi, jack!

the weekend crew

going for a saturday morning hike-walk

around point lobos

peek-a-boo

congrats to mr. and mrs. bayless on your wedding!

pretty pretty

beautiful vista

we all had to take a photo in front of it...

this is my and jack's newlywed photo

this is our iconic best friend photo - 

i can imagine my grandchildren

pulling it out of a dusty tin box in my cobwebbed attic;

it will be pretty flimsy and faded,

the corners will be appropriately tattered and possibly burnt:

"oohh this must be grandma tessa's best friend, katie!"

then we ran through some corn

they called it a "corn maze"

but i would have called it a

corn maize

get it?

then we pretended to be that girl/boy in

the disney channel original movie

motocrossed

katie would have taken the gold

and i would have given up because i did

such a relaxing and fun weekend

can't wait to go back!

genius

wonderful long weekend in carmel

- pics tomorrow most likely - 

got home and remembered that i changed my sheets 

before i left!

genius move, tessa

the faster i go to sleep

the faster i get to have coffee in the morning

(please no last minute jobs tomorrow, jesus)

arizona

go-to car song of the week

and it's the very first one on the list of kol songs

so it's easy to navigate the iphone and drive at the same time

why are my brothers at school together!?

i'm so ronery

where is liam?!

i need to make him laugh at my pathetic jokes/stories

slash my jokes of stories that sound like they're going to be good

and then they aren't

...it's so cool i get to drive over these bridges like wooooooooo...

crack coffee

katie and i had intelligentsia coffee for the first time
and it was like crack -
we rearranged our lives in order to get it again, ASAP!
it's quite the process, this "chemex method"
it would be fun to do on a sunday morning

the video above is very well done
intelligentsia has their own 
which appropriately, made me feel like i was on crack when i was watching it
i think their coffee is worth a try
although i'm partial to my starbucks mermaid