Instagram Worthy L.A.

If you’ve ever been to Los Angeles, you know it’s a place where the creative juices flow and where one of a kind experiences can be found. Whether you’re into food, art, or music; there is something for everyone in L.A. I’ve been to L.A. a million times since it’s only an hour drive from my house, but every time I visit I always discover somewhere or something new. A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and I both took a Friday off of work and decided to visit some of the most Instagrammed places in L.A… Keep in mind that it takes AT LEAST an hour to get from place to place, so we did our best in the little time we had!

Our first stop was a trendy and very PINK coffee shop called Carrera Cafe. You might have seen this insta-famous coffee shop that is known for their latte art. What makes their cafe so unique, is the endless latte designs that they offer. You are able to send in a picture of your choice and they have a fancy latte design printer that can actually print a copy of your photo into the latte foam…. mind blowing I know… I thought I’d go with “Boss Lady,” while Andrew went with the classic Louis Vuitton pattern. Overall I’d give this cafe a 10/10 on the uniqueness scale and recommend that everyone goes and checks it out if they ever get a chance!

Across the street from Carrera Cafe is the famous PINK wall that everyone and their mothers have visited. It makes for a perfect backdrop to take pictures in front of with your trendy latte in hand. 😉 I even got Andrew to take a few in front of it!

After all of this adventuring around, we worked up an appetite and found an amazing restaurant called Commissary. This restaurant is located on the roof of a hotel in a greenhouse. As soon as you walk in, you are completely surrounded by plants in this trendy glass room. The service was great and the food was unique to the restaurant. It is definitely a restaurant to add to your bucket list because I have never been to somewhere quite like it.

Now that we had some food in our belly and energy flowing through us, we decided to visit Beverly Hills and drive down Rodeo Drive to check out all of the high-end shops that they are known for. As we were driving around and figuring out where we should go next, we drove past The Beverly Hills Hotel and I immediately made Andrew pull over! I feel like this hotel is such a staple to Beverly Hills and you have to at least visit it once in your lifetime. Everything in this hotel is PINK and palm tree print. You feel like you’re in Barbie’s vacation dream hotel. I don’t know that I’d ever actually stay at this hotel, but it was cool to say that I’ve been there!

At this point in our day trip, we started to get pretty tired, so we decided to get one last treat in before we headed back to Orange County. We heard of this ice cream shop that is known for their trendy ice cream colors, flavors, and toppings, so we obv had to go! We stopped by BAE, which is located in Little Tokyo and decided to get a black and white swirled cone with gold flakes on it. To our surprise, the black ice cream was pineapple flavored which gave this treat a nice twist. After our late night indulgence, we decided to head home and call it a night.

There is SO MUCH to do and SO MANY places to visit in Los Angeles. You definitely can’t do all of L.A. in day…or a week.. or even a month, so stay tuned for our next visit to the city of Angels.

Love Always,

Shell

I QUIT!

Some of you may or may not know this, but I quit my job this past week. I’m sure some of you are wondering why… and if I have another job lined up.

The answer is no, I don’t have another job lined up. The reason behind this is because I have a different plan for myself and you’ll see exactly why. But for starters, I should probably tell you the reason to why I made this abrupt decision.

It’s about to get real personal FYI…

For the past couple of months, I’ve been struggling with major anxiety. I’ve always had general anxiety like most people do when it comes to money, jobs, relationships, and other life responsibilities. It didn’t really start to get bad up until a couple months ago. I experienced my first panic attack, which was a really scary experience, to say the least. This panic attack came on out of nowhere and I didn’t really have a reason to be having one. It was just my body’s way of reacting after dealing with a ton of stress for months on end. It freaked me out, but since I’ve always been so mentally tough, I just ignored it and decided to keep pushing through.

After constantly suppressing how I was feeling, it hit me like a bag of bricks and I completely broke down. I felt so out of control of my own body and I didn’t know what to do next. I attempted making appointments to see a therapist, but it was impossible with my work schedule. It came to the point, where I was crying every day after work for no particular reason. After seeing this happen day after day, I spent some time analyzing what the root of my anxiety was, and I found my answer. I wasn’t in the position I wanted to be at in work. I felt like I was losing my creative touch that I spent so many years embracing in school and I wanted to grow and learn exponentially as a young professional.

The day came and I called it quits. I worked for a really great company, but it just wasn’t the right fit for me and I wanted to pursue something bigger and greater for myself. It was such a relieving feeling to be able to do whatever I wanted without anyone telling me I couldn’t. What I’ve realized the past couple of days is that you have the power to create whatever kind of life you want. No one is standing in the way of it, except yourself.

Unhappy with your job?
Quit and find a new one that makes you look forward to getting up and going to work every single day.

Insecure about your body?
Start over and become the person you have always wanted to be. Change up your eating habits and be religious in the gym and you will see results.

Unhappy with your relationship?
End it or find a way for the both of you to work through whatever issue you may be having.

Not enough hours in the day?
I’m sorry, but we have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce so STOP MAKING EXCUSES! jk 😉

As humans, it is easy to get caught up in this thing called life. But in the end, you have the power to do ANYTHING you want. Your mind is such a powerful tool and you deserve to be happy in everything you do in life. The hardest part is getting started, so just do it (like NIKE would say) and create the life your future children and grandchildren would be proud of. I know I’m on the track to be doing so. Until next time..

Love Always,

Shell

 

Wild Fire

So, I know its been a hot minute since my last post and I totally had a different blog idea for this time around, but some things happen unexpectedly and this was too crazy to not share. Over this past weekend, I was out celebrating my sorority sister’s birthday in San Diego. We ended up renting this cute Airbnb with a bunch of friends in the downtown Gaslamp Quarter of S.D. We all made our way to Pacific Beach and hung out at some of the local rooftop bars, such as El Prez and Mavericks.

While I was out and about having drinks with friends, I had two missed facetime calls from my mom. She eventually facetimed my boyfriend Andrew and when he answered, my mom had her phone camera facing the canyon in our backyard and all you could see was SMOKE! I immediately jumped on the phone and my mom was freaking out telling us that a wildfire had started in the canyon. To give you a better mental image, our backyard backs up against a huge canyon, called Wood Canyon. It’s absolutely beautiful, but this canyon has perfect fire hazard conditions. There is a ton of dry brush and this day happened to be one of the first hot days we’ve had in a while… also the wind that day wasn’t helping at all.

At this moment I was a little concerned but saw that the firefighters responded very quickly and were already strategizing to put out the fire. There were helicopters dropping fire retardant and water to contain the blaze. I was wanting to head home, but there was no possible way I could drive with alcohol in my system and all access points to my neighborhood were blocked off anyway. I had to rely on my family sending picture and video updates. I tried to not think too much about it and not damper the mood of the birthday celebration we were having. I definitely put on a happy face to not take away any attention from the birthday girl… I was fine until an hour or two passed by and I had a ton of friends and neighbors texting me if my home and family was okay.

After receiving those texts and phone calls from friends, I tried getting ahold of my family members and no one was answering so it started to freak me out. The worst thing I could’ve done is check the news and sure enough, they were saying that the fire was rapidly spreading, and home and structures were threatened. There was 0% containment at this point. After an hour of not hearing from my family, I finally got a phone call from my mom and she said, “an officer came to our door, we have to evacuate now. What few things do you need me to grab from your room.” At that moment, I realized there was nothing of real value to me other than my family and animals being safe. I told her to grab my laptop, pillow I had from when I was a baby, and the dress that I’m wearing to an upcoming wedding.

Once I got off the phone with her, I left everyone at the bar and ran into the restroom so I could give myself a minute or two to cry out all of my worries. I knew everyone was going to be safe, but it still made me sad to think that the home I’ve had all my memories in, could be gone forever and there was nothing I could do about it. Once I let it all out, I pulled myself together and continued on with the birthday celebration. I felt guilty being down in San Diego partying, but my mom reassured me that everything would be okay and to enjoy my time down there because they had everything handled at home.

Long story short, after hours of the firefighters battling the fires, the evacuations were lifted and my family was able to return home. We are currently on day six of the fire and as of now, it is contained. I’m so beyond thankful and have a whole new respect for the men and women who saved the homes of many. I’ve always had a huge respect for our first responders, but until something happens to you personally then it completely changes your perspective and makes you even that much more grateful.

Facts about the Aliso Viejo Fire:
-Burned 175 acres
-No buildings were lost in the fire
-About 3,500 residents in Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo were evacuated
-More than 500 personnel were working the Aliso Fire Department
-Three firefighters sustained non-life-threatening injuries
-Cause of the fire is still under investigation

Love Always,

Shell