I kicked off my Thanksgiving vacay last week with the girls and JT in the OC!

It wouldn’t be a Justin Timberlake show without Christine almost getting into a fight! Ha. The image of Christine with half of her body hanging out the car window as we drove off will stay with me forever.

Thanks to Pammie for risking her life to take these awesome vids!

I can’t promise this blog won’t devolve into a Paul Walker tribute site. Fair warning.

Oh my Milo. Mob City has arrived.

Queen Bey at Staples Center last night! She dedicated her final song to Paul Walker ♥
I may or may not be sobbing uncontrollably in the background. More videos here.

• Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of enough chinese food to feed a small village plus a turkey (which a chinese restaurant deep fried for us for $25). Ha. Is it weird that I’ve never had stuffing before?

• Bingo, bitches! Now I know where I get my competitiveness and foul mouth from… I’ve never heard my grandma curse so much in my life!

• The Debutante @ The Haven. Good beer and good pizza with good friends.

• I haven’t been home in a while, and Rocky clearly misses me! I found this cuddle bug in my old bed every night I was in town.

When my sister woke me up from my food coma to break the news of Paul Walker’s untimely death yesterday, I thought I was dreaming. But then it became Facebook official, and everyone started texting me to make sure I wasn’t hanging from my shower rod.

On a scale of 1 to Dawson, how ugly is my cry face right now???

We had more dessert than actual food on Thanksgiving, and this chocolate croissant bread pudding I made tasted like a slice of heaven! I’m pretty sure I saw the face of Jesus while eating it. This will probably happen again for Christmas.

Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Ingredients
3 extra-large whole eggs
8 extra-large egg yolks
5 cups half-and-half
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
10 chocolate croissants (I used a box of 10 from the Vons bakery)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, egg yolks, half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. Set the custard mixture aside.

Slice the croissants into 1-inch cubes. In a 10 by 15 by 2 1/2-inch oval baking dish, distribute the cubed croissants evenly. Pour the custard over the croissants and allow to soak for 10 minutes, pressing down gently.

Place the pan in a larger one filled with 1-inch of hot water. Cover the larger pan with aluminum foil, tenting the foil so it doesn’t touch the pudding. Cut a few holes in the foil to allow steam to escape. Bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for 40 to 45 more minutes or until the pudding puffs up and the custard is set. Remove from the oven and cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

My Epicurious Thanksgiving Feast pinterest board won first place and an All-Clad Stainless Roasting Set just in time for the holidays!

Now if only I could figure out how to roast a turkey…

Homemade chicken sopas + Netflix. This pretty much sums up my entire weekend.

I had dinner plans on Friday and Sunday, but I was too sick to go to either. Now the inside of my car is clean for no reason! Ha. Just don’t look under the blanket in the trunk. Nothing to see there…

If people want to let you go, just let them do it. They may not understand who you are. So don’t play around with fire; don’t give them their cake and let them eat it, too. Here is your rule of thumb: they either commit to you or get none of you.

28 pounds lighter and $175 richer!

This was me winning second place at my work’s weight-loss challenge last Friday. It’s a good thing I didn’t win first, because you wouldn’t be able to handle those dance moves!

I lost to some corporate lawyer who donated his winnings to a children’s hospital. Way to make me feel like an asshole! Ha. I already spent my share on Young the Giant tickets!

Nothing says “I live in Manhattan Beach” quite like drinking pressed juice for lunch. All I need are some Lululemon pants and a jogging stroller.

Palomas @ Cinco. They use mexican soda here, so this is obvi my new favorite drink!

Monday mani + Elliott Smith.

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Drink up with me now and forget all about
The pressure of days, do what I say
And I’ll make you okay

Happy 55th birthday to one crazy broad! At her birthday dinner last weekend, our waiter thought that my mom was my sister. He also didn’t card me when I ordered my vodka. #1 How dare you? (I have the face of a goddamn minor!) #2 I hope I look as young as my mom does when I’m in my fifties!

All I want in life.

Beach House – Take Care

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I’ll take care of you if you ask me to

These randomly generated Bitstrip comics of me are 100% accurate.

Not gonna lie, I peed a little when I saw Lorenzo at work today.

City and Colour – The Golden State

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Why’s everyone still singing about California?
Haven’t we heard enough about the Golden State?
I guess if you like sandy beaches and blue ocean water
There’s something about it, to which I cannot relate

City and Colour and vino.

Ugh, this week.

Give me a reason to stay alive

I love that Anthony answers my butt dials while he’s out protecting our homeland, even though I don’t answer his intended calls while I’m having a netflix marathon working! Ha.

Happy birthday to my favorite hipster ♥

Oh, my love, you don’t know what you do to me

Dallas Green’s voice still fixes things in the universe, FYI.
More videos from last night’s show here!

City and Colour – Un-Thinkable (Alicia Keys Cover)

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This is exactly how it should feel when it’s meant to be
Time is only wasting so why wait for eventually

Dallas tonight ♥

Partly to fund my Amazon addiction, but mostly because I hate myself, I picked up some freelance work designing eblasts for a cooking website during the holidays. I can feel my stomach eating itself looking at all this food porn right now…

Donuts help you realize what’s important in life.

If Anthony thought I was sleeping with someone every time I deliberately missed his calls, I would have screwed all of Manhattan Beach by now.

Morgan Tookers is every guy I’ve ever been with.

Unusually heavy traffic made my commute home from work today a whopping 7 minutes. Life’s rough sometimes.

All I see is ‘wonton soup’. God, I’m so hungry. And Asian.

I fear for Rick’s life.

Caroline Pennell – Anything Could Happen (Ellie Goulding cover)

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I’ll give you everything you need
But I don’t think I need you

Rocky’s doggy stairs have been out in the hall since he doesn’t need them to get on the bed anymore. I think he just uses them to stare at himself in the mirror now.

Cheers to my pops! He turns the big 60 this week. I challenged him to a shots-off, but he passed out after two beers. For shame.

I followed this gluten-free banana bread recipe, but I cleaned it up by subbing coconut oil for canola oil and agave nectar for sugar. I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth (ignore my contradictory donut post below), but this was def worth writing home about.

My coworker brought in Randy’s Donuts this morning because she wants to ruin my life, obviously.

Bryan Cranston got my fan letter attracts the crazies.

Even though I just started watching Breaking Bad last month, I still feel like I’ve lost a friend. A brilliant, sociopathic, meth-cooking friend.

I just happened to be the 98th texter. No bigs!

Two Door Cinema Club – What You Know

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These mini mushroom pizzas satisfied my cravings!
No more Valentino’s for me…

The Naked and Famous – Hearts Like Ours

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Same.

Just Adam Levine being the light of my life as usual.

Just came back from my low fat, low carb, gluten-free lunch to this email from the cafe at work. HOW DARE YOU, SKECHERS.

Sometimes I think about how much I love cronuts, and I cry a little.

Local Natives – Ceilings

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Thinking of what we’d give
To have one more day of sun
One day of sun

Obsessed.

My work is hosting its third weight loss challenge this year, and I’m joining for the third time! It ends the week before Thanksgiving… just in time to gain some holiday weight go shopping with my winnings ;) I’ve also decided to go gluten-free during the contest! Yikes. Thank yeezus for gluten-free vodka! I’m gonna need it…

Clearly, my dad has been using my netflix account.

And the years go by
And the years go by

End of summer with my loves! Now I can stop trying to get that summer bikini body and focus on my fall sweater body.

It sure does! So much love with Christine and Jessie last night ♥

You should be watching Orange is the New Black, if only for sound advice from Yoga Jones. (She was the voice of Patti Mayonnaise if that helps sway your decision at all.)

All health is about to break loose.