Author: The Mesa Maven

Well, today’s news is going to make it really difficult to see #costamesa365 through to the end of 2019. It’s exciting news, but a really big change… both for me, and for the project. I hope you’ll be excited for us, too. As of next week, we will be winding down coverage of Costa Mesa and ramping up a new brand iteration: I Heart Los Angeles!

My relationship with rainy days is… complicated. Some mornings, I throw open the blinds and welcome the soggy sight with a big AHHHHHHH, I LOVE RAINY DAYS! I crack the window to listen to the pitter-patter. I celebrate all the good the rain can do. After years of drought and miserly watering schedules, it’s nice to watch my grass grow emerald green, fueled solely by Nature’s sprinkler…

I named my microphone. He’s “Mike the mic.” Not very original, I know, but he makes me smile, anyway. Our photographer, Brandy, wants to get him a little tuxedo and bow-tie. We brainstorm…

I *heart* small businesses. The courage, the hard work, the moxy it takes to go out on your own and start something – or even to buy someone else’s something and run the ball further down the field. I also *heart* the makers, the side-hustlers, the volunteers, the coaches – anyone stepping up to do just a little more than expected. Neighbors taking their art, their community, their city just a little bit further than it might otherwise have gone.

Of all the things I’ve had to adjust, modify, restrict or remove on my quest for #costamesa365 – my kids’ extracurriculars aren’t one of them. That’s because both my girls have gone full thespian and seem to want to sink their teeth into as many scripts, productions and performances as possible. (One of my daughters proudly wears a “Theater Is My Sport” tee-shirt, to illustrate the full scope of devotion.) Thankfully, we live in the City Of The Arts, y’all…

I don’t like conventions. I don’t like board games. So, of course, it’s 9:30am in the morning, and I’m due to spend the next twelve hours at a board-game convention. All I can say about that is: The things we do for our kids!

Last year, my extended family – the parents, the siblings, the nieces, the nephews – we all piled into a vacation house on the Central Coast. At dinner, one night, we pulled out our Table Topics deck – a game were you pull a card, ask the question, and then go around the table answering it. It’s a great prompt for sharing stories and perspectives that might otherwise never come up in conversation. The kids also learn a lot by listening to how adults of different generations answer various queries…

Some days, I wake up and my life doesn’t feel real. I go to work on I Heart Costa Mesa and can’t even believe this is what I get to do with my day. So honored. So humbled. So blessed. Our team shows up to a neighborhood place for an interview – or welcomes a guest into our podcast studio at The Music Factory – and it feels too good to be true. How is this real?

Over the holidays, my husband and I got totally hooked on the Orphan X series by author Gregg Hurwitz. Very “spy-thriller” genre – with clean, punchy writing, good suspense and refreshing character depth and development. So we collectively blew through books one through three and were so excited when we heard book four, Out Of The Dark, was coming out in late January…

I am haunted by Stonefire dreams – obsessed with finding a Costa Mesa-based alternative…

Earlier this month, I connected with Madison from FitNFlow. It’s a new app she’s created. A sort of “Uber for yoga” here in Southern California. With FitNFlow, you can order up a yoga instructor to come to your home, office, backyard or other outdoor location and flow with you. I was intrigued! As a die-hard runner, I don’t really know my “down dog” from a hot dog…

I caught my kid’s cold. It’s been going around the family and has finally landed on me. I’m home, shuffling around the house in sweats, blowing through kleenex like nobody’s business. I’d like to have something more exciting for you, today. More beautiful. More profound. More #costamesa365…

I tied one on for my birthday. I didn’t mean to do it. Things just got out of hand as things sometimes do. So, if you remember yesterday’s post, hubs and I were at Two Bit Circus in DTLA’s Arts District (read it here) and then he had dinner reservations for us at Church + State – a beautiful bistro within walking-distance from the arcade…

I want to fly. Not in an airplane. Not in a jetpack. Not in my imagination. I literally want to FLY. Shoot up into the air merely of my own ability. Soar amongst the clouds and birds with nothing but air rushing past. Swoop and cruise, just me and my powers of flight…

My 10-year-old woke up one day, a couple weeks ago, and decided that she absolutely, positively MUST OWN BLACK-AND-WHITE CHECKERBOARD SLIP-ON VANS THIS INSTANT OR SHE WILL DIE!!! And with that one request, everything changed. GONE are the days when any old hand-me-down Crocs will do. GONE is the convenience of just sheathing her feet in whatever random thing was on clearance at Kmart. It’s over. Because now? She CARES.

Yesterday found me chaperoning a field trip to the ENC – or more precisely, the Environmental Nature Center. I personally love chaperoning field trips because I find that, by tagging along with the students, I actually learn so much I didn’t know. When it comes to hands-on learning in the fields of conservation and the natural sciences, the ENC is really second-to-none. Their facility is literally located right next-door to Newport Harbor High School – near Irvine Blvd. and 16th – just across the southern Costa Mesa border…