New Horizons Ahead!

Life is such an amazing thing! It still amazes me how quickly life can change in such a short period of time. In the last 3 weeks I turned 22 years old and definitely have a different outlook on life than I used to. People say that you grow and learn things with every year that you age. I never really truly believed this until I looked back on it.

Who I was at 18 and 19 years old is definitely not who I am now at 22. I can't say that I am done aging or learning. Life can be earth shattering, exciting, extremely sad, and filled with love if you allow it to happen (and sometimes when you don't want it to). Most of all life is the only thing that is guaranteed to change every single day. The definition of insanity is expecting to do the same thing and expect different results every time.

Anyway, with all of that being said, I have new ideas and horizons ahead of me. I met an amazing person on my birthday that has literally flipped my world upside down in the most amazing way possible. I am happy and for the first time in my life I know it's right.

I am starting up a new fashion blog that will also eventually open up into my online boutique! Keep your eyes open and ready for some amazingly cute and AFFORDABLE clothing/shoes/accessories for all you fashionista's! I can't wait to open it up. I have been obsessed with the thought of everyone adapting the latest trends into their own style and I do that everyday! This being said I am going to open up my online store for people to do this on a budget. I will still be posting my daily rants about personal experience and life on here though! Online shoppers beware....this could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Keep your eyes pealed for urbansmooch.blogspot.com and urbansmooch.com it will be launching this fall!

Catalina's Fabulous Bridal Shower

OK so as promised I wanted to post all of the pics from our beautiful and elegant event this weekend. I hosted a Bridal shower for Catalina (my future sister in law) this weekend. The theme was Breakfast at Tiffany's. This is my all time favorite movie and the wedding color is Tiffany blue so it worked out perfectly! The event went off without a hitch and we catered the food from a family friends restaurant called Tommy V's. The food as always was delicious! Hope you enjoy all the photos!

Above is Catalina the bride to be with her array of decorations and food set up by my mother and me!

 Candy Buffet!

 The cake pops!

 Our Bloody Mary bar!

 Mimosa Buffet!

 We made a Prize table for people to choose from for winning different games!

 We made Catalina's chair special by labeling it Queen for a Day!

I left fake RayBan sunglasses on each place setting for everyone to have that "Holly Golightly" look

 Non Alcoholic beverages

Gift table

 My brother Erik came for gift opening at the end so they could open their gifts together!

 Erik also came to cut their beautiful Breakfast at Tiffany's cake. (For practice for the wedding of course!)

 Me and my future sissy in law. Love her.

 Far away shot of all of the tables set up in my backyard! and below is a photo of my beautiful mother, Catalina, and I!

 We decided to play some games in between all of our eating and conversing! The funniest and most eventful game was definitely the toilet paper wedding dress game. The guests were paired into three teams and asked to create a wedding dress on one person on each team. The trick was they only had toilet paper to make it out of! This was a great game to get everyone laughing and having fun. We had judges to judge who was the best dressed and of course the Bride won!

Event Planning Addict

So if event planning and filling up every minute of every day was a drug I would be an addict. I am currently in the process of getting all of the last minute details done of Catalina's (future sis in law) shower! The shower is Breakfast at Tiffany's theme. We are doing so many etsy/pinterest inspired ideas I'm hoping people will repin our stuff like crazy! I have some fun games planned and we will of course be playing the hit movie Breakfast at Tiffany's for background noise during the entire event. I've always wanted to throw a Tiffany's themed party and this was a fabulous opportunity to do so! There will be full pictures of the event up after Saturday! I would love to make a career out of event planning. I am addicted to the stress during the event and the happiness and reactions I get when the event is followed through perfectly. It always turns out exactly how I wanted it in the end and I love that! We have some adorable things set up and even Milo our regular mascot is ready for it as you can see....

I'm baaack!

I'm aware I completely abandoned my blog posting after my rough time of learning of my friends passing. Almost two months have passed since I last wrote a post and I finally feel comfortable writing again. When someone you love and care about passes it really does flip your world upside down.

This being said, I decided to go on some amazing travels all through the month of July (along with some amazing company of course). I am lucky enough to say that I can juggle my work life and my outside world life and travel without worry. 

In the whole month of July I went to San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New York City. These trips were amazing and really eye opening to make me appreciate living in paradise, or as some refer to it as San Diego. I went to San Francisco for my dad's 50th birthday. Hard to believe that he is 50 because when you look at him he still looks 35. Las Vegas was for my future sister in law's Bachelorette party! Talk about a lot of alcohol and adult games and activities! New York City always captures my heart every time I am there! There is just something about the city, nightlife, amazing food and interesting people!  I am posting some pictures from my ventures in Las Vegas and San Francisco below and I hope you all enjoy them! 

In other news, I currently am in the process of planning my future Sister in Law's Bridal Shower at my house this weekend. Of course, because the wedding colors are Tiffany blue I went with the theme of "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I will be posting pictures and all the fabulous and glamorous details of this event as well after Saturday!

It's funny...something that I learned from my friend passing and my grandfather who was a major inspiration on my life, is to always look at life in positivity. I've always been a positive person, but now I look at life with a new perspective. Tomorrow is never promised and embracing the time we have is all we can do. Even after these amazing people are out of my life they are still teaching me lessons from beyond. 

<3

View from above

Today I got one of the most incredibly sad phone calls of my life. I found out one of my near and dearest friends from back in Chicago had passed. The sudden shock of how he passed is just as sad as losing him all together. Writing this blog post isn't making it any realer than I thought it would be. I had the great pleasure in knowing him for roughly 8 years of my life. 

Unfortunately life works in mysterious ways. Sometimes to teach us lessons and sometimes to only teach us that life is truly unfair. I will never know why the world took away such a phenomenally sweet and kind hearted person like him and I will never be able to bring him back. I do know that I will always have the amazing memories that I shared with him. 

Life has a horrible way of working sometimes and I can genuinely say I have never been so confused on how it works. I know that he is looking down at us and having the time of his life up wherever he is. I'm sure the view from up there beats the hell out of whatever views we have down here. I have never been a religious person but believing in an afterlife is really the only thing that is getting me through a tough time like this. 

I once heard an amazing quote that has stuck with me forever. "Death is a scary thing, but not living your life is even scarier." Life is such a fragile and short thing. My good friend was only 23 when he passed. The last time we spoke we joked about how "old" we felt being 22 and 23 years old. In retrospect, we are clearly not old. Either way, living my life to the fullest is all I can do after hearing such terrible news. I will always love and miss my good friend Bryan Christian. He touched the lives of so many people and my life would never had been the same had I not met him. 

Video Post's coming soon!

I will be posting Video Blogs of my personal opinions on things soon! Keep your eyes open for these!! I would love any questions to answer on my video blogs relating with life, relationships, and love!

Talk to a stranger

I started this blog with intent to always post my opinions and feelings and express them without guilt. Within the last year I really realized that you learn more about yourself and life by speaking to a stranger. My parents along with most throughout the world have always taught us not to talk to strangers...because this could possibly be a danger.

 I have always respected the opinion that not talking to a stranger was my safest bet. As I have become an adult I have realized that being safe is not only boring but dangerous as well. Maybe not dangerous in the sense that my parents were thinking...but in the sense of staying sheltered!

I have met some very interesting people just from having random conversations. I met one of my closest and best friends as a stranger. Everyone is a stranger the first time you meet them! My best friend and I met sitting outside on a picnic table outside of a community college. I walked up and started talking to her about her top and we sparked up an interesting conversation about Chicago (where I'm from) and how long I had been in California (2 weeks at the time). It has now been four years and we are still as close as ever!

Within reason, having that random conversation with an elderly person, young adult, even a young kid really could change that persons, or your life forever.

I met an amazing elderly man outside of campus, when I was attending FIDM. My car had been towed (a whole different story) and I was sitting on the curb waiting for a ride to come and get me. He came over to me and asked me if I was okay. I was so surprised by him coming up to me seeing as I was in LA and you don't generally come across people concerned for your well being. I told him that my car had been towed and he asked me the type of car it was. I got into a long discussion with him. He eventually asked if my boyfriend was coming to pick me up. Seeing as I was single, and he was about 75 years old, this did not weird me out so I told him that I was single.

He proceeded to tell me some interesting advice that has stuck with me ever since. He said... "never settle for less than you deserve and the most important relationship you should have, is with yourself.  Once you stop caring everyone else does." It took some time for this advice to set in, seeing as he was missing a few teeth and was most likely homeless. I never asked him why he was homeless but I did ask if he was okay and if he needed anything before I left. He said "honey...you just made my whole year with this conversation."

Meeting a stranger is not always going to change your life and be an earth shattering moment, but sometimes you meet one person that touches your heart. That one conversation with that random person could really be the drive and advice you need to better yourself. Never judge a random person on the street, a clerk, or any other stranger for that matter. Remember that to them, you are a stranger too!