The Breakup and the Rebound.

If a blog was a real touchable object, than at this very moment I would be picking mine up and blowing the dust off. Underneath all the layers of dust would reveal a glimpse of a life I had 18 months ago. A life that brought a smile to my face and a pang in my heart as I read my very few blog entries posted. It brought back laughter and teary eyes and reminiscent memories. It's like a relationship that I was in, that I broke up with, and did not have anything to do with for 18 months.

My last blog in LA (oh how I am LA homesick!) …it was supposed to be the beginning of my blogging about the next chapter of my East Coast life. How am I ever going to update this blog with all that has occurred in the last 18 months…I didn’t even update about our cross country trip! Geez, I surely threw this blog relationship to hell. I am utterly disappointed in myself and I must be a disappointment to whoever, in this vast virtual world, is actually reading this (because in my hopeful mind I have at least 1 imaginary reader :) ). But even if there are no readers, than I am doing this for the pure reason of exactly what happened to me just now: I was able to catch a moment of my life a year and a half ago, during those last few months in LA, and be able to read and relive that moment a year and a half later. Just like a photograph of an ex…but this photograph I cannot rip up and this photograph are actually words...

Speaking of photographs… I do have a few memories that I would like to document here, right now. My beloved Die Happy Design is becoming more and more into an actual business! So even though I neglected this blog relationship, I rebound with an actual company! Here's how we met: when I returned to NYC, I joined with D and we formed a boutique. It’s not an actual store front, but a traveling boutique and now it will evolve into an online store. And boy did he grow. During this past year, dhd grew from one single table topped with exotic pieces of jewelry I collected on my travels, to taking up half the area of our rented show spaces filled with both accessories and apparel! And now since this boutique is becoming its own entity, I’ve decided to branch it off into its own company apart from Die Happy Design. I am now in the process of searching for the perfect name for my new man boutique. And dhd will get it's own brand:

DHD's logo outline - Mockup A

DHD's logo pink - Mockup B

 While I work on my boutique of apparel and accessories, Die Happy Design will remain all about design. It has a domain page that is under construction and I’m hoping that soon it will be an actual fully functioning page. The site will concentrate on my resume of architecture & interior design projects; both that I’ve done on my own and projects I’ve worked on for firms (Live Happy). It will also feature its own future Die Happy Boutique which I plan on using to showcase furniture pieces, home goods, and creations that I actually designed and made. Cause Happy will be reserved for philanthropic or charity work, assuming that Die Happy Design will become successful and enable me to participate in and contribute to. This ability is one of my lifetime goals.  And finally a new commitment in my life...Vision Happy, which will be the link to my photo blog. If the Die Happy Design blog is about what I think and create than the Vision Happy Blog will be about what I see. As of now it will be here on blogger: http://visionhappy.blogspot.com/ Vision Happy is all about looks and visual. It's a second relationship I formed...only I do not feel guilty of cheating :)

And so now, assuming that I actually stay committed to this beloved blog....my blogging will be a mix of backtracking the last 18 months of my life and what I am living in the moment, today. And boy oh boy, is there a lot to tell…so Hello there Virtual World! I may be ready to commit to you again...let's see where this relationship goes.

 

PS. On September 11, 2012,  I drove through Manhattan from the Willamsburg Bridge to the Holland Tunnel, and the city was covered in a unity blanket of somberness and melancholy. It brought back the memories of 11 years ago, as I stood along the Hudson River on the Jersey side with my sis JMD, watching the entire events of that day unfold before our actual eyes and feeling utterly helpless...it's still heartbreaking and heart wrenching. 11 years ago it still feels like yesterday. May we never forget 9-11...the heroes, those who we lost, and their loved ones. God Bless America forever.

  

Two More Weeks Left in Which I Can Brag About LA Weather During Wintertime on Facebook…

Forgive me blogger for I have neglected you. It has been 1 month since my last blog. These are my excuses: First excuse, well…after I returned from the holidays in NJ/NY, I had two weeks left of school and have OFFICIALLY completed my MBA! I finally am an MBA graduate! So, that’s a good excuse. Second excuse, a week later was my birthday and I had four friends from the northeast come celebrate with me…we partied like rockstars so I had to recuperate another week after that.  That’s a very good excuse! Third excuse, we have been preparing for our move back EAST!

In exactly two weeks I will be ending the chapter of my life in Los Angeles and starting a new series on the east coast. Yes, my dear reader, I will be officially moving back to my beloved New Jersey and the most fabulous city in the world, NYC! Though excited and anxious, I am hoping this will be a FRESH and NEW chapter in my life and not a stale rerun…although I will welcome the constantly humorous and eye-widening episodes that I can only experience with my friends back east…oh yes…we have plenty of “stories” lol. But after being away for almost 3 ½-4 years, I want no more drama, only comedy please!

In exactly two weeks…wow, I can’t believe my west coast life will end. It’s hard to explain the mixed emotions I am currently feeling. I am happy, yet sad. I can’t wait to be home, yet I’m miserable to be leaving this apartment I fell in love with (especially its plus-size storage space). I am motivated to nose-dive into my goals that I plan to fulfill back home, yet scared to leave the comfort zone I created here in La-La-Land.  But I do know comfort has to end sometime in order for changes to occur and lives to flourish… and in my case…these will be positive changes. I’ve relaxed and chilled long enough here in Cali...I have already started to flake on people and say “cah-fee” instead of “caw-fee”. It’s time to get my East Coast mojo back. I am convinced that if I just keep repeating that to myself…East Coast mojo, East Coast mojo…I will feel better about leaving.

Because most of the objects in my apartment are mine, I unfortunately had to be the bearer of bad work, and that is packing. I HATE packing. I am a bad packer. I absolutely would rather watch shark week on Discovery than effin’ pack and those that know me know I am absolutely petrified and hateful toward sharks. So to ease this dirty job, I started to pack two weeks ago. Each morning I have been packing a few things here & there. 

My fabulous wall-to-wall closets once held my clothes, now it holds boxes :(

I have been sweet talking my way around Target and asking for their boxes and wrapping paper for free, luckily stock boys are mostly that: boys. Little by little the apartment is becoming an empty pallet. I have been documenting the interior design that only this rental apartment will allow, but it’s a design that I am still proud of and still plan to reveal. Next weekend (our final weekend) we are having a yard sale which I am hoping to make some extra cash…maybe those guys from American Pickers will stop by…haha, who am I kidding…most of my things are from West Elm & Ikea.

What I am really excited about is that we are planning to drive cross country…LA to NY, there cannot be a better road trip than that! I slowly talked D into making this drive into an adventure. He had done the drive three times before so he just wanted to take the shortest & quickest route possible. But there is no way I am not NOT going to take advantage of this drive. This will be my first time ever driving cross country and most people know it’s a trip of a lifetime. So I headed to Borders, took advantage of their store closing sale & purchased Off the Beaten Path by Reader’s Digest. It’s “a travel guide to more than 1,000 scenic and interesting places still uncrowded and inviting.” Oh yea, those words talked me into shelling out some dough for this beautiful hard cover book that is way too big to carry around with me. But, at least it will look nice as a coffee book when this trip is done. I also pulled out my Haunted Places book about “ghostly abodes, sacred sites, UFO landings, and other supernatural locations.”  How can I NOT visit a haunted site!? 

My Roadtrip Guidebooks

Looking for hotel deals on Expedia...hmm, I think that NY ad is a good sign!

With those books together (along with expedia.com), I am hopefully collaborating a clever, well-prepared, and low-cost adventure that should be made into a documentary…and boy, do I plan on filming and photographing! Hopefully, D & I won’t kill each other during this road trip so that I will be able to really make this trip into a documentary…although drama does make good TV :)

So until then, I will be preparing for this trip and my big move. I will be saying a tearful goodbye to LA.

Sunset Photo taken from Griffith Park

 And as the sun sets on the West Coast…slowly it is rising in the East…