LoveRundle

 So the Porter Commune packed up there bags and headed towards the Mojave Desert. They wanted to see the Joshua Tree National Park . <-- click for photos. Emory and I got a picture right in front of those trees. They are pretty when they bloom but they look prickly and not very pretty for most of the year. I found a Joshua Tree Distillery. How fun! Maybe we'll go. I'm looking for things to do out here in California and do the touristy thing for a while because who knows when we'll pack up our bags and leave again.  We are going to spend Sunday with a Meetup group at a Wine Bar down in Los Angeles. I hate driving down there because you have to use the freeway and the freeways out here freak me out. (Literally gives me nightmares that the freeway splits and I end up in downtown Los Angeles). Anyways, there are only four people going so far and it's on Sunday from 3pm-5pm. Emory and I both agreed we're only going to drink a small glass of wine and spend the time tal...

 Spending the holiday with at the communes! We went to one commune for coffee. I had a gift for Farmer Bill this year to thank him for everything he's done for us. I thought it would be a busy trip, but it really wasn't. We had a lot of people to see, but it was all crammed into a few days and then we ended up having to drive back to California because Emory has a new job right now.  I didn't win the ugly sweater contest at work. I think the homemade sweaters do a lot better than the store bought ones, but I'm not that creative. My creativity lies in writing. OMG! My best friends made me and Emory a wood puzzle piece that can hang anywhere, with our initials on one side and the "Puzzle Couple" initials on the other side! They are so creative. One year, they made us drink mug/wine glass with our initials on it.  I think the funniest, but very practical gift we got this year was a headlamp because Emory and I walk at night and a few times the cars turning have a...

 Holy Cow! Emory took on temp work right now and the company he works for threw a huge party for the workers. He got his fill of vegan burgers, chips and humus. He brought home a super cute blanket which I love! and he brought home gift cards which we need because our coffee machine broke and we need to be careful with how we spend our money, so just shopping is out of the question, but with gift cards, we're lucky this time.  We went to a little festival this weekend with the commune. It was real small and Emory and I got vegan donuts and Sue bought something for the house that's going to be a surprise so we had to sneak it back to her car. She also bought a Christmas Spider for Steven since he's not fond of spiders. He has the same reaction towards spiders that Jeffrey has towards scorpions. One glance and he's gone! So we told Sue we'd take it out for Steven to open.  Emory and I found flowers and a tiara on the sidewalk but it's not a place that has a lot of...

 We went to Redondo Beach for the weekend and watched the Christmas boat parade. It was small but adorable and from the spot at the condo, we had a great view without having to leave the comfort of our space. We had dinner and drinks and watched the boats. Emory took a few pictures to send to Darlene because she was out boating in Ventura and wanted to see what the Redondo boat parade was like.   It got hot last weekend. It's supposed to be hot again and then it's going to be raining. I hope it doesn't rain on us when we do the meetup. We decided to meet new people again. Just for a little bit of conversation since we exhaust the same topics with each other. I'm sure there is only so much we can say in a day, though I do talk right through the best of television and puzzling.  I would love to do a meetup with puzzlers but the only thing I found was a puzzle swap. I told the communes to get their puzzles ready for swapping and I'll take all the puzzles up to the swap...

 Christmas Woes! Since Steven isn't much younger than me, if I find really cool things I like, I send pictures to him as well to see if he likes them. Well, for Christmas, people keep asking me what Steven would like so I gave them the list of things I had liked for him. I never thought two communes of people would get him the exact same thing! I was speaking with Ann who talks with only one commune and she said, "Hey, so-and-so already got it for him." and I speak with the other commune and I'm like "Crap! So-and-so also got it for him." So I'm officially going to stop giving lists.  On the bright side! I know what Emory is getting for Christmas and I'm thrilled. I think he'll love his surprises. He loves anything people give him, but the thrill of the gift giving is always the best! We're still waiting to see if we can go out for Christmas to Arizona. We have Mozart trimmed and ready but our usual hair salon won't take Typo because of h...

 The commune had a lot of food left over from Thanksgiving. They collected a lot of things prepping for a huge dinner and didn't need as much as they thought so Sue is bringing me over some unopened cans of green beans and corn. She also has a few unopened boxes of mashed potatoes (which I hope are vegan because they are so much easier to prepare than homemade mash potatoes).  My coworker told me she wanted a $200 bottle of Chanel perfume from her boo (I don't think they are actually dating yet). I like the fruity scents personally and the most expensive bottle of perfume I own is about $55.00. I got it on the border a while ago but the perfume still smells super nice. Anyways, she said hell-no to my personal taste and I told her for $200 that perfume better smell like food. She was a little confused so I told her the old saying: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." She didn't find that funny, but when I told Emory about this conversation, he lau...