First and foremost, let me just say thanks to everyone who responded to my last post. I really appreciate all the support. You guys are great!

I've been doing much better since I last wrote. In fact, today I feel great! I had a wonderful day with my friend Arianne. We decided since we don't live so far away from each other to meet up for lunch, since we both had the day off. We met down in Hermosa Beach, and had lunch at an awesome restaurant called Club Sushi. It wasn't very crowded at all, so we had our pick of booths! We talked and laughed and shared some really amazing sushi. There's nothing like sharing good sushi with good friends!

Afterwards, Arianne introduced me to this really cute shop right up the street called Splash. There were so many good smelling bath products in there that I wanted to just eat them! There were banana and mint and citrus flavors, as well as one called spice cake, and I seriously could not believe how much that last one smelled edible. There were also very cute rubber duckies and rubber orcas and rubber turtles, as well as many other adorable bath products (stuffed tiger loofahs!). I managed to pick out a few things, which was difficult when faced with so many options. I chose a soap named orange roughy (all the soaps had very interesting names), and some kind of fig bath bomb. I've never used a bath bomb before, so it'll be a new experience. Ooh, the suspense!

We left Splash with our new goodies (including lots of free samples!) and headed to the coffee shop across the street. Note to self: The reason people lose weight eating sugar free, fat free muffins is that they don't taste all that great, so you really don't eat them! Plus, I was kind of full from lunch. But anyway, the two of us found lots of cool stuff to talk about and laugh about and had a fabulous time. Pratt called while we were there, too, and it was really great talking to him. He is so cool and kind, a good friend. It's so great that I have several new friends from JournalCon now! It really was a friendlier and more bonding JournalCon than ever before, and I love it! Arianne said the same thing, and we had fun reminiscing, even though it was only a few weeks ago. (It seems like much longer, somehow.)

Arianne and I said it would be cool if all of us lived in the same little town (or as Minarae put it, "Let's all start a commune!"). Then I wondered aloud if that would mean none of us would read each other's websites anymore, since we'd all already know what happened. "Yeah, I know we had eggs at that restaurant for breakfast - I was there!" Hee.

After we filled up on juice and tea and whatnot, we walked down to the beach. On the way, Misti called me, and said she just needed a Meg fix and called to hear my voice. I was amazed at what a sweet gesture that was! I love my friends!

It was so nice walking down to the water and hearing the sound of the waves again. I haven't been to the beach in far too long, and couldn't have felt happier to be there. I'm so excited to have yet another ocean-loving person to share beach visits with! I love the beach so much, and I really need to go there more often. Especially since apparently the year still has plenty more sunny, warm days left to spare! I can't believe I wore a sweater. I could have worn a tee shirt and been perfectly comfortable. In November! I love Southern California. Of course, yesterday I was in a long sleeved shirt and jeans and was freezing. So, there you go.

Southern California - Where you never know what the weather will do next (but you can bet it'll probably involve either sunshine or rain)! I guess that is a little too long to be a good slogan, huh? Damn!

We made sure to tread carefully on the beach to get as little sand in our shoes as possible. On the walk toward the water, we saw a pretty white star in the sand. I picked it up and it was just a piece of styrofoam. Ew! But it was still kind of cool. Once we got up to the water, we saw lots of little shells, but they were weird. They had like these weird strands of something coming out of them. And they looked like rocks, because those little seashells you usually find? They looked like two stuck together. It never even occurred to me that they might be little halves of a whole, or part of a sea creature or something. I'm still confused about it, actually. It was so weird!

We took pictures and videos and had a blast laughing about the whole thing. We discovered we're both into taking cute pictures of ourselves! That was funny. "We're so cute, quick, take another pic!" we'd say, and felt adorable every time the little digital camera viewer showed us smiling brightly with hair wisping in the beachy breezes.

Then we walked back off the beach, not before pondering the random and apparent demise of a scarecrow on the beach. Very odd indeed.

And somehow, the time flew by super quick and it was time to go. We walked back to the parking garage where we had parked almost right next to each other (!), and said good-bye. But it was not a sad good-bye, as we talked so much about seeing each other again soon (with hopefully more JournalConners, as well!). I am so happy I had such a fun day with Arianne. It was great seeing her again. And I'm so happy I got to talk with other friends, too. It was a day of being reminded of how awesome it can be to just hang with people, and be out in the fresh air and sunshine, all of which I really needed. A wonderful day!

I totally stole these from Arianne! (Shh...) --

Except the scarecrow, I took this one...

The rest of the pics are at Arianne's entry from today!