"I don't rely on mirrors, so I always take polaroids."

Am I the only one who does this? Do other people take pictures of themselves to see if they look cute? I know Cher Horowitz does, but does anyone in real life? For some reason, looking in the mirror just doesn't let me be objective enough. I blame the instant gratification of digital cameras/cell phones. Tonight I was taking pictures of my hair. Just my hair. To see how blonde it actually looks. That's not normal, is it?!

Also on my mind, any tips for this? If I mess up a nail (which I almost always do, considering I'm convinced they're dry enough for me to change clothes/do my hair/fix a necklace.. and they never are) I have to take the polish off that finger and start again. I have no clue how to fix it without doing that, it never works. Does anyone actually do their own nails anymore? I know some people who only ever get them done or don't do them at all.

I've got to try to go to sleep soon. I've scored an invite to Princess's volleyball game, which means I'll be leaving my apartment at 7:30am tomorrow. Ugh. I mean yay, I'm doing something on a weekend!

xoxo
Mandy

The "D"-List

Okay, everyone has been doing this lately. I asked Heather for a letter and she gave me "D". So, I present to you 10 of my favorite "D" things:

1. Disneyland

I love all things Disney and Disneyland truly is one of the happiest places on earth. I've been to the one in California, Florida, and... Hong Kong. My dad thought I was crazy to 'waste' a day on my Hong Kong vacation to go to Disneyland. I reminded him that it's not my fault - the first time I was taken to Disneyland I was 3 months old. Then 3/6/12/16yrs old... My parents got me hooked.

2. Dr. Seuss
I love reading these books to the children I look after. I've never met a kid who didn't love the stories, and they are so fun and challenging to read aloud!

3. Driving

Call me crazy, but I adore driving on L.A freeways. I do hate it when traffic is bad though.

4. Diet Soda

My favorite is Pepsi One, but Diet Coke is fine too. Non-cola? My favorite is Diet Sunkist.

5. Dryers

In Australia, most people hang their clothes outside on the clothesline to dry. It's environmentally friendly, sure, but it's so much easier to stick them in a dryer and pull them out all warm and unwrinkled.

6. D12's "Purple Pills"/"Purple Hills"

Censored or uncensored, it makes me smile. This song reminds me of the summer it came out and car-dancing to it with my friends or the girls I babysat.

7. Drawing

I was always the girl who said "I can't draw" so I never tried. When working with disadvantaged kids, I realised I didn't want to teach that kind of thinking. So I tried, because the 7 year old would beg us to draw him pictures. And you know what? I wasn't too bad.

8. Dark Chocolate Covered Grahams from Starbucks

I hadn't eaten a graham cracker in 3 years (we don't really have them in Australia) and had no desire to eat one again, but I stumbled upon these and they are delish! I couldn't find a picture of the ones I've tried, but these with mint look even better.

9. "Dollhouse"

I don't know if this show is any good, but I've got a strong feeling it will be. C'mon - Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku?! I'm so excited for it to premiere on Fox on February 13th.

10. Delta Goodrem

Delta is a young Australian singer/songwriter who has released 3 albums, the most recent of which has been released here in the U.S. I think she's awesome. She was signed to Sony at age 15, was on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, recorded her 4th music video (below) in between rounds of chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Lymphoma and she dated my favorite tennis player Mark Philippoussis.

If there's anyone out there who hasn't already done this, and would like to.. comment and I'll give you a letter!

xoxo

Mandy

Some kind of fairytale: Part II

(To read Part I, click here.)

After her year with Princess, Mandy felt a need to move on and out of her job. She decided that after the hard time she had always given her father, it was only fair that she give his homeland a try. After recharging her social batteries by spending a month back in the land of Oz with all her family and friends, Mandy made the 20+ hour journey to the United Kingdom. It may have been a kingdom, but there were no princesses there. Only one very spoilt 12 year old Prince, whom Mandy catered for for a few months before escaping to London Town. There she spent the rest of the year doing a job that took no energy or intelligence, but making wonderful friends. This was her much missed college experience, and she shared it with some great roommates. But overall, her father’s homeland was cold, wet and gloomy. And Mandy decided that she could never feel at home in a place that allowed 16 year old children to smoke cigarettes.

Mandy travelled back to Oz, via Princess’s house for a month long Cali-Land summer visit. She participated in a wedding (not hers) and underwent a frustrating search for a ‘normal’ job. She eventually gave up on that search, and landed another childcare job. This job evolved into something Mandy had never expected and something that was both immensely challenging and truly rewarding. She took care of children whose parents were incapable of doing so. She learnt how take care of little people with huge, often uncontrollable emotions. She learnt how to supervise play and homework, cook and clean, role model and discipline. In short, she learnt how to be a part-time parent. Mandy worked hard, recording 120 hours of work one week, and over 70 hours many others. Dreaming, saving, and planning her return to her mother’s homeland. The faraway land that she had come to truly think of as home.

Despite the ugly, scrunched faces that the people of Oz gave her when she would announce her intended destination, 20 months after landing back in Oz, Mandy left it again. She still cried when she kissed her cats goodbye, but she left with the conviction that she was going to make this work and that she was headed to the place where she would live for a very long time to come. Now Mandy lives in the City of Angels, though she hopes to one day soon live adjacent to the City of Angels. After some more short travels, indecisions and false starts, she is now focused on winning a decent paying job providing the luxury of nanny service to the people of L.A. Until then she fills her days with a balance of the reality of job searching and the escape of music, movies, and television.

Some days Mandy feels down, not having a job to get up for in the morning or friends to meet up with in the evening. She misses the good people of Oz and her friends in the Kingdom. She struggles with the fakeness and flakiness of so many of the Angelic people who have fluttered past her. She hopes to eventually add some more people to the number of local friendlies she can count on one hand. But she reminds herself that she is indeed living her dream, though it is still a work in progress. And when that doesn’t work, she surrounds herself with the love and childlike optimism of Princess and the support of Princess’s family. She still smiles when people ask her where she’s from, or compliment her accent, as she is proud to have come from the land of Oz. But she frowns when the Angelic people assume that she is not an American and does not live here. Because, you see, she always has been and she finally does live here in this faraway land, where she is finding the way to her happily ever after.

The End.

Some kind of fairytale: Part I

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Mandy. She lived in the marvellous land of Oz with her mother, her father, her brother, and her cats. She was close to her father’s family, who had all lived in her hometown since her grandparents arrived on the ship from England with Mandy’s 3 year old father. She visited her mother’s family in a faraway land called U.S.A every 3 to 6 years. The people in that land spoke differently, like her mother. Young Mandy’s voice changed often, day by day sounding like she was from a different land – her mother’s, her father’s, or her own. She would proudly tell anyone who would listen that she was an American. Mandy’s school teachers would always hand back her schoolwork with circles around words such as “color” and “organized” and she would be told that the correct spelling was “colour” and “organised”. This made Mandy determined not to correct her spelling, defiantly certain that different did not mean incorrect. One day, while on holiday with her family, Mandy got into an argument with her father when she called their boat Dynasty and he corrected her, insisting it was pronounced DINasty. Mandy used to defend her mother when she was playfully teased for the way she spoke. When her mother one day decided to stop saying “ant” and start saying “aunt” because it just made everything easier, it made Mandy sad. She continues up until this day to argue with her father over pronunciation of “Dymocks’, a book store.

You see, Mandy thought her mother’s faraway homeland was so much more exciting than Oz. She planned to live there one day and resented the fact that she hadn’t been raised there. Mandy wanted to do the wonderful things that the kids in books and on television did in her mother’s land. She wanted to go to the mystical place called Elementary School and be served food in a cafeteria on a tray with a carton of milk. Mandy dreamed of going to summer camp and graduating not only from Elementary School but also from Junior High, where there would be a hallway lined with lockers, students who got to wear their own clothes, and another cafeteria filled with tables to sit at with her friends and her carton of milk. She wanted to be a high school cheerleader, or at least attend pep rallies in between classes called ‘Algebra’ or ‘Calculus’. She wanted a High School graduation with caps and gowns. Mandy dreamed of what it would be like to go away to college and live in a dorm room with a roommate. Oh yes, in Mandy’s eyes life would have been so much more exciting in that faraway land. But Mandy lived in Oz, so she wore a school uniform, sat through “Maths”, had “Christmas Holidays” instead of “Summer Vacation”, and attended “University” in her hometown. Yet she still wrote “color” and “center” and smiled when people she met asked her where she was from and told her that they couldn’t place her accent.

So after graduating, Mandy set about making her dreams come true.. albeit a little later than she had wished for. Her mother’s homeland had so many facets that it was difficult for Mandy to decide where she wanted to live out her dream. But, while sorting through job offers from all over the country, Mandy recalled a conversation she’d had with her brother when they were young.
“I’m a New York City boy,” he’d said, “and you’re an L.A girl”.
He was right, and Mandy farewelled her family and friends, kissed her cats goodbye and cried as she left the land of Oz and travelled to sunny California. There she spent a year taking care of a 3 year old Princess. That year was one of the most challenging years of Mandy’s life. She rode as many emotional rollercoasters as she did physical ones. And that was many, considering how fond she was of Six Flags. She made a few friends, lost a few friends, but in the end the year turned out to be all about growing up and learning how to be a better person. For all the good times and the bad, life with her employers changed her. And for all the good times, Princess changed her, forever for the better...

Part II to follow shortly.

A few misc. things

1. This is crazy. I don't care if it was a legitimate plan and was going to raise some money for charity. Selling a doll of a little girl who has been murdered within the last 6 months is sick!

2. I got my order from ModCloth, nicely packaged and about a week after I ordered it (I think that's standard.. I'm just spoilt usually by having things show up within a few days as they often ship from California). I love the necklace so much! The earrings are even smaller than I expected, about half the size of the picture in my post or less. They're adorable but I hope when I wear them people will be able to see what they are!

3. Today I got an email in response to the craigslist ad I posted about a week ago. A family wanted me to work as a live out nanny for them for $800 per month. With the hours they were wanting, that is $4 an hour. DREAMING! I don't understand why people think they can pay someone that little, but unfortunately there are people who only charge that.

"Close enough to heaven if you climb up on a mansion you too can swing like a star."
- Semisonic

xoxo
Mandy

Musical Monday

I've seen this Monday theme on a few blogs, and I'm never one to pass up an opportunity to post about music!

This is one of my favorite songs right now by an artist I've only recently discovered. This video is homemade and kind of random, but stick with it at least until she starts singing!

Hello Saferide - "I Wonder Who Is Like This One"
People are like songs, it’s true
Some seem dull at first but then they grow on you
Me, I’m like ”Can’t get you out of my head”
Annoying at times, but I make you wanna dance
But you are the only one I’ve met who’s ”God only knows”
I liked you the first time I met you
And it grows and grows and grows



Another song I love by this artist is "Parenting Never Ends".
Mother, please make
my decisions
like you once did,
this time I won’t pester you about it,
I’ll surrender
There was no video on YouTube so if you're interested, check out the lyrics and amazon preview.

And lastly by Hello Saferide, a professional music video for "Anna"
You know, we could have had a daughter
And we could have named her Anna
And she would have been a sweetheart
But with punk rock manners



Now, 2 artists that I discovered quite a while ago and am loving at the moment. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton is beautiful. Emily is the lead singer of Metric, but I much prefer her own album, Knives Don't Have Your Back.

"Doctor Blind" was my first favorite song from the album
If the the dizzying highs don't subside overnight,
Dr. Blind, just prescribe the red ones



And finally... the song that inspired my blog title, with an adorable video that somebody made for it.

The Weepies - "Gotta Have You"
Red eyes and fire and signs
I’m taken by a nursery rhyme
I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home



What are your favorite songs/artists at the moment?

xoxo
Mandy

Written yesterday, without internet access

As I write this I’m dog-sitting at a friend’s house for the day. Yes, these dogs are so precious they need a sitter for the afternoon/evening! I was a bit surprised when I learned that it wasn’t even overnight, but that’s okay. I regret the timing though. I agreed to do this about a week ago, but last night I got a text from Princess’s Dad. Princess is playing volleyball and had a game this morning and he wanted to know if I’d like to watch. I did, oh I really did. I never like to miss out on an opportunity to see her, or hang out with her family who are like family to me. But my common sense just wouldn’t allow me to accept the offer. Getting up at 6am, leaving the house at 7am, driving 45 miles, watching the game, leaving 2 hours after I get there to drive 70 miles in the other direction, dogsitting for the day, driving 40 miles home...? No. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Just one of the joys of living in L.A. On the plus side, today there shouldn’t have been traffic. It once took me over 3 hours to drive those 45 miles to Princess’s house!

Instead, today I’m enjoying the change of scenery and the luxury of chilling out in a house. Boy I miss houses! I currently live in an apartment for the first time in my life. Okay, there was that 8 months that I spent living in a hostel.. that was kinda worse than an apartment, but different because of the social aspect. My apartment is the first time I have ever had my own place. It’s mine! All mine! And I love it. But I hate it. Let me say right here, I never want to buy a condo. When I buy a place it’s going to be a house. What is the point of owning a condo unless you live in New York City? I struggle almost daily with the noises that I hear from other apartments. Most of the time they aren’t too loud, just very noticeable to me who is used to living in a big house with a garden and a fence around it, protecting me from the neighbours conversations, music, door slams, etc. It’s just something that I have to get used to until I (hopefully) get a job that is out of the city and I can move to a potentially more independent duplex/house in a cheaper area.

"Apartments are cages, I still don't know what is permanent, permanent."
- Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton

xoxo
Mandy

The hits and misses of shopping online

I did something yesterday that I've never done before. I actually clicked on one of the website ad links on Facebook. It just looked really interesting and was for a store called ModCloth. And, I bought a few things! Very unusual for me.. I usually limit my online purchases to sites I know are reliable, such as amazon.com. I've had mixed experiences with using other websites. Some are great and prompt, others are not. For example, in December I ordered a cd from an artist's website and they forgot to send it. I emailed them when it didn't arrive and they explained and apologized and they sent it out to me by overnight mail. That was awesome, that they rectified the problem. Another website, that I ordered things from in December, Monogram Me, has not been so awesome. Over two weeks before Christmas I had an email from the woman saying that my order would ship that day. It never came, so I emailed her before Christmas and asked if it had been shipped and if so, could I have a tracking number. I had a reply from her a week before Christmas saying "I will check on that and get back to you" but I have never heard from her since then. I'm so disappointed, because I had wanted to give half the contents of my order away as Christmas presents for the people I had them monogrammed for. I've tried to contact her several times since then. I just sent out another email tonight.

Anyway, here is what I bought from this new, facebook-advertised store. Fingers crossed that they arrive, because the items are super cute!

Tiny silver umbrella earrings.. for the Mary Poppins in me. ;)



An Alice-In-Wonderland-esqe antique gold plated mushroom pendant

'Princess Toadstool' salt and pepper shakers. I have no idea why, but I love these!

xoxo
Mandy

Job hunting

I've been actively job searching for a few weeks now. Actively, meaning that I am ready to start working - more than ready in some ways! So I'm applying for jobs with the hope of getting something to start at soon. My first mode of attack has been to contact all the agencies in the area. And boy, there are a lot! I've interviewed with some, and others I've only spoken to. I still have a few more on the list to contact next week. The trouble is that there aren't a lot of jobs at the moment. So, even with the feedback I've been getting from agencies (which has been mostly very good), I haven't got any leads yet. I really wish I was ready to start working a few months ago.. well, a year ago would have been much better for the job market! But things were what they were and this is the position I find myself in now.

I'm not desperate yet, and I really do believe that there is a job out there for me that will come up soon. I have lowered/expanded my criteria for the job in few areas. But I'm not at the point yet where I feel I need to look at jobs with a lot lower wage. I had one person contact me last week from a job search website, and they were offering a part-time job and wanted to pay about $4 less per hour than I want to earn. So I told them I wasn't interested. The job sounded like it would have been great... if it had paid more or even if it offered more hours. I really need to take money into consideration in a way that I've never done before. I need to be able to completely support myself with the money that I earn, and I'd like to be able to save as well. This is not a time in my life where I want to take a job that doesn't pay well simply because I will like it.

xoxo
Mandy

December's Mix Playlist

I haven't been listening to a lot of music lately. Mostly just while I'm driving, so I've regressed back to cds (one of these days I'll get an easy-to-use ipod car system). It's almost time for a new mix cd, I think. I've been listening to the new Jack's Mannequin album - "The Glass Passenger", their old album - "Everything In Transit", and Erin McCarley's debut album - "Love, Save The Empty". Before that, however, I was rocking "Mandy's December Mix":

1 P!nk - "Glitter In The Air"
2 Butterfly Boucher - "Cinnamon & Chocolate"
3 Anne Murray - "Stars Are The Windows Of Heaven"
4 Lily Allen - "Womanizer"
5 The Black Ghosts - "Full Moon"
6 Fall Out Boy - "America's Suitehearts"
7 Everly - "Home Is Me - You Are Mine"
8 The Deer Tracks - "Christmas Fire"
9 Evan & Jaron - "Crazy For This Girl
10 Katy Perry - "Lost"
11 Paramore - "Decode"
12 Britney Spears - "Lace And Leather"
13 Everly - "Little Children"
14 Alice In Wonderland Cast - "Why Do People..."
15 Lily Frost - "Skating On The River"
16 Linkin Park - "Leave Out All The Rest"
17 Britney Spears - "Circus"
18 Shawn Colvin - "Never Saw Blue Like That"
19 Iron & Wine - "Flightless Bird, American Mouth"
20 Everly - "Stars"
21 Kanye West - "Coldest Winter"
22 Anne Murray - "Inch Worm"

Any suggestions for the new mix??

xoxo
Mandy

"it's easier to love somebody, it's easier than to be loved"

So true. But shamefully, they are the lyrics in the opening song of my second movie of the day.

- I know it's early days, but y'all have realised that I don't currently have a job, right? More on that later, I'm sure. But long story short, I am relatively new in town and have been travelling/settling in/job hunting for a while.

I love this movie. It's Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain. One of those movies from my early teen years that was taken out countless times from our local video store's weekly section ($7 for 7 videotapes - school vacation score!). It's also one of those few movies I loved that never got released on dvd. I used to have a VHS copy but it wouldn't have worked in this country so I threw it out. I recorded this a few weeks ago on one of the Encore cable channels..... not that I'm admitting that I actually signed up to add that 'channel tier' for $5 a month mainly so I could record that movie. Of course not... But doesn't everyone have those movies that they just loved as a child? So I'm watching it now for the first time in probably a year. I have to make sure I don't delete it, so I can show it to Princess one day. Princess is the name I'll use here to talk about the little girl I used to nanny for. She's so important to me, like a sister. She's the one who gets to experience all the things I loved as a kid.. until I have my own children!

xoxo
Mandy

Everybody needs good neighbours

It's always hard to know how to start a project like this. I expect that eventually I will do some sort of 'introduction post', but I'd rther begin by just jumping into something. Let's see....

I'm currently sitting in my living room watching Star! on my DVR. And the neighbours below me are playing super loud music as usual. It's always around this time of day that they somehow decide it's okay to blast music with heavy bass & drum beats. I'm all for music, and I understand that because I'm living in an apartment without good insulation I am going to hear noises from other apartments. But these particular people really do play it too loudly. It began about a month after I moved in (my theory is that they got a new soundsystem) and I made so many complaints to management after asking them to please keep it down, and although they turned it down that day it was back up to screaming loud the following day. Management originally seemed nice and apologetic about the whole thing and insisted that they had called the neighbours to tell them to turn it down. Rightly so, I thought, because what they are doing breaks the lease agreement, which clearly states that there must be "no loud music at any time".

Well, it turns out that management, although they said they'd called them, had never actually spoken to the neighbours about the noise. They had left them messages but never once did the neighbours pick up their phones or call them back. A few months ago, management basically gave up. They just said that I was going to hear noise because it's an apartment, and didn't understand me when I explained that this noise is significantly louder than the other 'regular volume' sounds that I hear from that apartment and others. So I've been having to put up with it, which is one of the biggest frustrations! This past week it has been every day that the music has been really loud. It doesn't last forever, but it's so frustrating because I never know when it's going to stop. Also, the fact that these people have been asked/told so many times that their noise is too loud and is disturbing me, and the fact that they choose to continue to make this noise is so rude!

Seriously, I am a nice person and I'm considerate (I have been so careful not to be too loud, since this is my first time living in an apartment and I'm overly aware of not bothering people) but if someone is inconsiderate or rude to me - these people have been both - I can't just ignore that!

xoxo
Mandy