Skokie says we never talk anymore. Apparently, replying to tweets & pinterest comments isn’t talking! Ha. I love that when we do talk, we speak in New Girl quotes.

If you have chemistry, you only need one other thing. Timing. But timing’s a bitch.

I picked the luckiest red envelope at work today! In other news, I’ve forgiven the white elephant gods for my booby prize.

1. Find a new home. A new apartment, a new house, maybe a new city… No one is keeping me here but myself.
2. Pay off my credit cards. I just paid off my car, but my credit card debt is seriously cramping my style.
3. Find a new job. It’s been over four years since I took this internship as a “stepping stone” towards my dream job. Two promotions and seven interns later, I know I’ve reached my full potential here and exhausted my stay.
4. Learn how to cook. According to Skokie, it looks like I’m getting better at not burning things, so I must be halfway there! I’ve pinned a ton of recipes to try here.
5. Conquer the elusive French macaron. I’m going to bake a perfect salted caramel macaron, and it will be glorious.
6. Try new things. The same old is getting old. I can’t remember the last time I did something for the first time.
7. Travel more. Go somewhere I’ve never been before for more than just a weekend.
8. Appreciate what I have. I’ll try not to lose any sleep over the nine couples I know getting married this year. Yes, I said nine.
9. Procrastinate less. If being stuck with no gas at Anthony’s during The Great Blackout of 2011 taught me anything, it’s that Anthony uses Aveeno Skin Brightening Daily Scrub. And that I shouldn’t wait until my gas light is on for two days before filling up.
10. Take better care of myself. Eat better, exercise more, get regular checkups. Losing my aunt to lung cancer last year coupled with my mom’s painful battle with pancreatitis def put my health in perspective.
11. Be more organized. My dad once told me that guys like girls who are more organized. I used to think it was just something that he said to get me to take the half empty bottled waters out of my car, but now I’m not so sure.
12. Go to more music festivals. Outside Lands in SF last year was amazeballs. There are so many other festivals… Coachella in Indio, Lollapalooza in Chicago, Bonnaroo in Tennessee, SXSW in Austin… Where should I go next? Who’s coming with me? And most importantly, which festivals will Young the Giant be at???

Since I didn’t instantly turn into a little old troll under a cave when the clock struck midnight on my 30th birthday, I abandoned my original plan to hide under my bed all weekend and celebrated instead:

• Pink champagne to toast my dirtieth at work, courtesy of my boss
• Pammie’s CMYK balloons made my little design nerd heart race
• European Cake Gallery cake with a message from Gloria from Modern Family! Ha. It was just as good as last year’s message from the cast of Saved by the Bell.
• Pizza and beer at Blind Lady Ale House to celebrate Anthony’s, Christine’s, and my birthday week! The only sausage I had that night was the chorizo on my artisan pizza, Shirley May =P
• Moscow mules at El Camino and a Seau sighting at Lucha Libre with Christine, Pammie and Jessie
• I made a wish on my creme brulee and practiced my indoor voice at Donovan’s for Restaurant Week with Pammie, Chel and Shi.

I made it through my 30th birthday relatively unscathed with a little help from my friends and a lot of liquor ;) Thanks for a great weekend, loves ♥

Dear Anthony,

Thank you for taking me out for beers on your birthday. I was one beer away from jocking you hard into a half mouth kiss. LOLOL. That’s so ugly. My stomach hurts from laughing all night. You really are a beacon for lost souls, if only my own. Happy birthday, friend!

I don’t know what’s sadder—that I spent my last weekend in my twenties at yet another baby shower, or that I won the dirty diaper game by identifying 10 out of 10 melted candy bars (some without even having to smell them).

It’s all downhill from here.

11 Things to Know at 25(ish) via Relevant Magazine:

We watched Mayer Hawthorne at The Cosmopolitan while taking swigs of vodka from our disposable flasks Friday night. We’re some real classy broads.

More videos from the show here.

It was my last NYE in my 20s, so I thought I would go out with a bang. Today, I woke up in Las Vegas sore as hell and $300 richer! Sadly, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds.

RUXIN: Because of that HR asshole, I have no computer access to league activities. So I’m using my old personal email address—
KEVIN: herdsman@earthlink.net?
RUXIN: No.
PETE: yaya@yahoo.com?
RUXIN: If you must know, it’s the_ruxtor18@hotmail.com.
PETE: I can’t tell what’s funnier—is it that you chose “the ruxtor,” or is it that you have an actual Hotmail account, the official email for foreigners and poor people?

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love Pete from The League. I knew I wasn’t the only one who judged others by their email provider!

Sure, I used to be YummyMAYANaze@hotmail.com. And maybe on AIM, too. And okay, before that I was GUMMYI3EAR@aol.com (yes, that “B” consists of a lowercase “i” and the number 3). I’m obvi still yummy and I still like gummybears, but you don’t see me bragging about it on my GeoCities website!

(I’m really dating myself here, aren’t I?)

I was doing everything short of bending time and space to get these damn flans out of my supposedly nonstick brioche pans when my aunt turned to me and said, “It’s so hard being Martha Stewart, isn’t it?”

It really is.

Not only did I receive a reminder from Anthropologie that I’m turning thirty next month, but I also got stuck with a “family” frame (for the husband and kids I don’t have) at the white elephant gift exchange at my office today.

If only I had picked the booze that Jesse brought so I could drown my sorrows.

I’m pretty sure this is Jesse’s way of saying that he no longer appreciates hearing me blast Young the Giant in my shitty earbuds all the livelong day.

Merry Christmas to us both!

I was sitting in Grantville Park on my lunch break with my rolled tacos in one hand and my iPhone in the other wondering how the hell I was supposed to eat my Taco Fiesta AND watch episodes of Happy Endings at the same time (and in case you were wondering… yes, my wallet’s too small for my fifties and yes, my diamond shoes are too tight).

My friends and I are doing another Elfster gift exchange this year, so I’ve added an iPhone Moviepeg to my wishlist. The list is really more of a loose guideline. Like if you were to get me a KitchenAid Stand Mixer in Imperial Black even though I clearly wished for Onyx Black, I would still accept it.

See more videos from the best day of my existence here.

Awesome gifts come in awesomely designed packages ;)

I officially have one month left to make some bad decisions. Where did my life go???

I always wish for two things during the holidays:

1. A KitchenAid Stand Mixer
2. Starbucks’ seasonal Cranberry Bliss Bars

I figured out how to make my own bliss bars, and now I can have them anytime I want! These were good, but they would taste even better if they were made with a KitchenAid stand mixer ;)

Greg Laswell – This Woman’s Work

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Give me these moments back
Give them back to me

My co-worker Jesse just sent me this right now. Apparently, he couldn’t help but notice that my soul died a little more than usual at work today.

DAVE: You’re really going with the coupon books that no one wants again this year?
ALEX: People love my coupon books!
DAVE: Nibble your name into a cobb of corn? Who wants that?
ALEX: You know you want it. Pick a font, baby. Don’t be shy.
DAVE: I do not want that in Helvetica.

Alex from Happy Endings is my spirit animal.

I think it’s safe to assume that no one watered my plant while I was out of the office.

(It probably didn’t help that I never watered it while I was here, either.)

Cakies is giving away a cozy GOODKNITS crocheted doily blanket, and I’d love to win one for the most stylish mama I know :)

Click here to enter the giveaway!

Gandhi said that whatever you do in life will be insignificant.
But it’s very important that you do it.
I tend to agree with the first part.
Don’t postpone what you want.
Don’t leave anything misunderstood.
Make sure the people you care about know.
Make sure they know how you really feel.
Because just like that… it could end.

I battle my obvious love of Young the Giant on a daily basis.

As someone who relies on a Magic 8 Ball app to make my life decisions, it’s no surprise that I’m all about this wishful thinking crap.

And so today at 11:11, instead of wishing my usual wish that I won’t mention (partly because it won’t come true if I do, but mostly because it’s frowned upon), I wished for the speedy recovery of my best friend’s dad who suffered a heart attack and had quadruple bypass surgery yesterday. And for a miracle to happen for my mom’s sister who is back in the hospital and losing her battle with lung cancer.

This week was def a reminder that life is short.

incenses:

I think you could fall in love with anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. Like if you followed them around invisibly for a day and you saw them crying in their bed at night or singing to themselves as they make a sandwich or even just walking along the street and even if they were really weird and had no friends at school, I think after seeing them at their most vulnerable you wouldn’t be able to help falling in love with them.

I really hope no one was following me invisibly tonight, because they would have seen me in bed watching Remember Me while sobbing uncontrollably, and then watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show while regretting everything I’ve ever eaten in life and trying to suck in that little pouch where I keep my extra cookies.

Nobody needs to see these things.

Sleeping At Last – Turning Page

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I’ve waited a hundred years
But I’d wait a million more for you
Nothing prepared me for
What the privilege of being yours would do

I don’t know if it’s the holidays, or my period, or the fact that I’m turning 30… but Jesus, I got emotional.

I may or may not have cried during this scene when I watched it for the first time at the theater on Friday. And again when I watched it on Saturday. And a third time while watching the bootleg I just downloaded today.

I made bourbon pumpkin spice whoopie pies for Thanksgiving this year. They’re filled with cream cheese, love, and that mini bottle of Maker’s Mark that I keep in my purse.

I love baking with booze… and sometimes I even put it in the food ;)

It was a Saturday night, so I was in bed eating Phil’s BBQ beefy ribs (don’t judge me!) and listening to an audio book, when Christine called me and said that Diplo was having a free show downtown for the America’s Cup World Series. I’ve had this weird crush on Diplo ever since I saw him in that Blackberry commercial, so I finished my ribs got ready and was out the door by 7:30.

I had dessert and drinks with Christine at Karl Strauss, walked to the harbor, fist pumped to Diplo’s set, met up with Jessie, had one too many moscow mules at El Dorado, ate late night tamales at La Fachada, and got home at three in the morning.

Today, I woke up with a headache and a half eaten burrito next to my face.

Boys, try not to fall in love with me.

Dude, check out what we’ve been working on all afternoon.

I’m supposed to be finishing the last book of a certain love saga that shall not be named so that I can watch the movie today with the girls (if you know what I’m talking about, I will judge you, but I’m already super busy judging myself, so don’t feel too bad about it).

Instead of reading, I’ve been staring at this animated gif from Happy Endings all morning. I laughed so hard during this scene that I scared my dog!

Know when to give up and have a margarita.

There’s this Chinese hole-in-the-wall that I order food from whenever I’m feeling shitty (so like… every Wednesday), and they used to give me four sets of plastic silverware, because I clearly ordered enough food to share with three other people.

And then there was a period of about a week where I ordered takeout from them like three or four days in a row, and they started giving me just one set of utensils for all that food plus extra fortune cookies (to feed my pain, I’m sure). Actually, this was last week.

The New Girl is my favorite new show this season! I just want to put Jess in my pocket and keep her forever. Also, I’d like to take Nick down to Chinatown and slice him off a piece of this pumpkin pie!

(L-R) tomato sauce/alfredo sauce (Shi’s, obvi), pepperoni and pesto, chicken alfredo

Over the weekend, we had our way with all the DIY pizzas we could eat and somehow lived to blog about it.

An SD Beer Week bar crawl earned me Yelp’s Big Night badge Friday night with Christine, Shi and Anthony. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty epic!

• Favorite Beer:
  The Lost Abbey’s Lost and Found at Neighborhood
• Favorite Bar:
  The Tipsy Crow—they had my least favorite beer but my most favorite eye candy (priorities!)
• Favorite Accessory:
  Anthony’s douchetastic Movember moustache
  Christine’s disguise
• Favorite Quote:
  “You’ve been recycling a lot of ex’s lately. Trying to keep your numbers down?”
  “I’m going green!”

So please don’t come to me on my dying day
Just let me go in peace
With all the things that I forgot to say
Racing through my mind

Sold out City and Colour show with Jessie and the hipsters last night! Is it just me, or does Dallas Green’s voice fix things in the universe?

Not only do I teach my interns how to polish a turd in photoshop, but I also encourage them to forego their grad school scholarships and follow their dreams.

Somewhere, right now, Angela’s grandma is giving me the stink eye.

City and Colour – Northern Wind

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

YTG had 99 comments on their status update, and mine was the only one they “liked” ;)

I don’t know what’s sadder—how easily I recognized an In-N-Out secret menu order, or the fact that this was the highlight of my weekend.

Low blood sugar is not a good color on me.

I find that my feelings toward work this week are best expressed through animated gifs. In addition, I really picked the most inopportune time to lay off the booze.

No lunch break at work, an hour of unpaid overtime, and a Chargers loss. Is my pet’s head gonna fall off next???

You said it, Rivers…

True story. I’m not sure why I have a Google+ account. Most of the gmail contacts they suggest to me are people that I know, but deliberately choose not to be friends with, and the rest of them are craigslisters I’ve risked my life meeting for casual encounters concert tickets. And so I’m left with 7 friends in my circle. I’d ask them what they’re doing for Halloween, but I really have no idea how to use this thing.

After watching Justin Timberlake’s dry humping scene in Bad Teacher, I thought I could never love him again.

I was wrong.

Add a tub of ice cream and you’ve got my Valentine’s Day plans for 2012.

Laying out on the beach with the girls in a belated attempt to get a tan this year. In other news, it’s snowing on the east coast. Try not to be too jealous.

Happy birthday to my BFF at work! I didn’t come in an hour early to post-it bomb just anyone’s desk ;) My appreciation for you runs deeper than your secret love for Hootie and the Blowfish. And I think we both know just how deep that is. Ha!