The Salt Air

Lately, my life has been full of spontaneous and wonderful plans.  I choose "yes" because yes is more fun than no.  I texted my beautiful friend Franci to see if she'd like to get coffee or lunch and go to the beach with me.  We were both tired of the nearest beaches - Venice and Santa Monica.  They are often so dirty or so full of tourists.  I really enjoy the South Bay because it's full of laid-back people, decent bars, and it's always cleaner than Venice.  Both Franci and I are photographers (although she's about 100x more professional than me, as she actually studied photography as her major in college), so it's nice to hang out with someone who understands that I want to stop and take a photo every ten seconds.  We shared a nice lunch after taking a walk on the pier and in the lovely areas around Manhattan Blvd.  It was just so lovely to be outside, getting some color and enjoying Southern California.

Piers and Volleyball Nets

Last Friday, I put together an internal company party to celebrate our 25th anniversary.  I'm not going to be modest- it was awesome.  I hired an amazing steel drum band, ordered a very beautiful and very yummy cake, and after gorging ourselves on phenomenal mac & cheese (among other food), a small group of us went down to the beach to soak up the last bit of sun and play volleyball.  I'm not gonna lie, I didn't play for long (but when I did, I whupped some ass when serving) but it was mostly because I was itching to try out my new 50mm in a different setting.  I had so many more pictures but didn't feel comfortable posting pictures of my co-worker's faces so all you mostly get is a bunch of similar images of the pier and volleyball nets.

Heaven

I purchased a 'nifty fifty' last week and it was finally delivered on Thursday and today was the first real day I had with this lens.  It's a bit of an adjustment to shoot with a fixed lens, especially one in which autofocus does not at all work (after about 1000 photos, I had quite the headache- next time I will wear my contacts).  I have to sort through these photos for now, but for now, here's a picture of my joy.

The Strand

Keeping with my mission to visit a beach every weekend of Summer, I headed out to Redondo/Hermosa/Manhattan this week to soak in some sun and check out a venue that I'm using for a work party this week.  The venue is a members-only bar that my boss belongs to, which I think is kind of badass (but would never tell him that).  I don't have much to say other than that it was a really beautiful day and I enjoyed myself immensely- I biked along the strand for the first time and absolutely adored it.  I feel incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful state, so close to the coast- I don't think I can bear to ever be too far from the beaches of sunny SoCal.  Why would I when all I need to be happy is sand, ocean, and beer?

reminded me of college

I know I'm a creeper, but I thought this was sweet/amusing

a restaurant or shop had some amazing succulents outside

the members-only 900 Club