Early Thursday morning I was woken up by a phone call from my aunt letting me know that my grandma (on my mom’s side) passed away just a few hours before. I guess it’s because I was still half asleep but I lay in bed in a total daze. I was stunned. It wasn’t until I woke Rob up to tell him that it really hit me. It’s like it wasn’t real until I shared the news.

My grandma lived with my parents and me growing up and she practically raised me. She introduced me to the Lakers (I know, can you believe it — that wasn’t Rob’s influence), soap operas (the ABC soaps were our favorites – One Life to Live, General Hospital), and books — all still some of my very favorite things. I’m not very good with words and it’s even harder for me now to express how much she means to me. I will miss her very, very much.

I’d still like to share my original Happy Things post — I write so infrequently nowadays that I can’t let it go to waste…

1. Dinner with Friends. Last Saturday night, we had a few friends over to watch the Lakers/Clippers game — Rob made gumbo, I made rice krispies treats, and our friends’ brought over alcohol and 50 McDonald’s chicken mcnuggets for appetizers. There were only 5 of us and we managed to eat ALL of the nuggets before dinner. LOL. For the record, I only had 2. Possibly 3.

2. The aforementioned rice krispies treats. Even this non-cook can’t mess them up. Nommy.

3. Belated Christmas celebration with BFFs. Lunch, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and the Golden Globes. Super low key and easy. And I can’t forget the presents! I am so spoiled…

4. Going to a basketball game at the Staples Center for the first time. Thank goodness for job perks because we had AMAZING lower level seats. Too bad it was a Clippers game, LOL (hopefully someday I’ll get to see the Lakers!). It ended up being a pretty boring game (they were playing the Dallas Mavericks and both teams seemed a little low energy) but it was a lot of fun to watch a game live.

5. My blog turned 10! TEN!!! I’ve been blogging at this domain since 2002. WOW. Happy Blog-iversary to me.

Hope all of you are well! *HUGS*

Since this seems to be the picture part of the meme, I’m going to post another one…

BWAHAHAHA. This is my cousin Riz and me (I’m on the left) in the Philippines in December ’83. This was the first time we met (she lived there at the time)! We already look like troublemakers.

My Dad’s birthday party last weekend was a hit. He was totally surprised — I thought he was going to start crying from the emotion of it all! That’s pretty amazing considering that he is NOT the type of person to outwardly show what he’s feeling. Awww.

And then this past weekend was my AWESOME bachelorette weekend. It was definitely what I needed after a terrible Friday at work. I really have the best girlfriends ever — they completely surprised me with the activities and events they had planned throughout the weekend. I am so lucky to have such thoughtful friends in my life. *sniff*

Rob’s going to be in Vegas this weekend for his bachelor party so I’ll be sure to take time out of working on wedding tasks to share some pics of these recent events with all of you.

So in my last entry I mentioned that I had my bridal shower last weekend… it was awesome! I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. Not to mention the most wonderful Maid of Honor (aka my cousin Riz) ever.

Look at what she put together for ME!

The FOOD! All prepared by my cousin and my aunt. I did help a little with the grocery shopping.

The FAVORS! These consisted of chocolate lollipops in the shape of daisies and a variety of truffles. YUM-O! My cousin also made these candies from scratch. She is crazy.

GIFTS! It was a loosely themed “recipe” shower where the ladies were supposed to bring a recipe to correspond with their gift. I received lots of fun kitchen gadgets… I am hoping to put them to good use. EEEK. I am definitely not very good in the kitchen. :/

My cousin and me at the end of the day.

And yes, I realize that was the third time I wore that blue dress in the month of June. HEE!

Fast forward to this weekend. I had 4 whole days off from work. So awesome. You don’t even know. My best friend Carmen came to visit and rather than go out and do 4th of July activities, I held her hostage in my apartment and put her to work stamping wedding favor tags, adhering labels, and gluing the menus.

BWAHAHAHA. It was so productive!

Now I’m looking ahead to this coming weekend where I’ll be in LA AGAIN for my dad’s big 60th surprise birthday party. PHEW. So much stuff going on right now! And no, I will not be wearing that blue dress again.

1. 3-day weekend. Thank goodness for Columbus Day! Though I think I’ll probably be doing a little work from home anyway. There’s too many things going on that I really can’t afford to be swamped when I get back to the office on Tuesday.

2. My birthday is on Thursday! WOOT. The big 2-8. Damn, I’m old. :/ I told Rob I want cupcakes from Tea Cake Bakeshop. Hopefully he remembers. Mmmm. I’m salivating just thinking about it.

3. My cousin is visiting for my birthday. And I’m taking next Friday off of work so we can hang out in the city. I’m dragging her to a couple of bridal salons. Hey, she’s my Maid of Honor! She has to help me with wedding stuff! I’m sure she’s looking forward to that, hehehe.

In other news, I have decided to take up scrapbooking. I have no idea where the heck the inclination came from but there you go. I even went out and bought some patterned paper, cardstock, stickers, and a paper trimmer today. I honestly don’t have a creative/artistic bone in my body so this is going to be interesting.

I just downloaded Britney’s single from iTunes. I didn’t like it when I first heard it but it’s totally grown on me. You should download it too!

Yesterday was my rubber stamping class at Paper Source. It was so much fun! I learned about the variety of ink available, what works best on different types of paper, embossing, masking, etc. I think I’m going to attempt to make all my holiday cards this year. YAY! Let’s hope I don’t look back at this and curse myself, hehe. If you want a holiday card from me, leave me a comment and I’ll email you for your info.

I also watched the Emmy’s last night. I thought it was a disaster. (Not the winners or anything — I’m pretty indifferent to the actual awards). I hated the round stage, didn’t care for Ryan Seacrest, and the whole production just seemed so… amateur-ish. I DID enjoy the Family Guy intro (Stewie’s awesome) as well as the moment when Steve Carell went up to the stage to claim the Lead Actor in a Comedy series award (BWAH! Hilarious). Otherwise, it was pretty awful.

In other TV-related news, the Television Without Pity redesign is weirding me out.
Hmm… I thought I had more to blog about. I guess not. :/ I’ll be back once I’ve watched the Prison Break premiere!

My cousin and her boyfriend are driving up here from southern California as I type. The two crazies decided to start a 6 hour drive at 9:30pm. Which means that they’ll get here at around 3:30am. And I’ll have to wake up to let them in! And then I’ll have to wake up again just a few hours later to make it to work by 7:30am for a meeting! I really should be in bed by now. Oh well. It’s not like I ever get enough sleep.

Anyway, it’ll be fun to have my cousin over for a few days. I haven’t seen her in months so we’ll get the chance to catch up and I’ll finally get to see if I approve of her boyfriend. Hehe.

I also have to think about my Halloween costume for the party that Rob and I are attending on Saturday. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in AGES. Probably not since my freshman year in high school. That was 1993. !!! Geesh. It’s been a loooong time. I was actually thinking about being Hermione (from Harry Potter) but I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the right robes and stuff. I’ve never been original when it comes to costumes anyway so I’ll probably just buy the first cute thing I see when I head to the Halloween store tomorrow night.

And because I need something mindless to do right now… a meme I stole from Linda…

First job: Cashier at my university’s student store
First screen name: CooKie01 (still is my AOL screenname, actually)
First funeral: My grandfather in 1984. I was only 4.
First pet: Dog. A lhasa apso that I named Tramp. I miss him. *sniff*
First piercing: A hole in each ear. My mom had them done when I was just a baby.
First tattoo: None. And I don’t plan on getting one either.
First credit card: Wells Fargo student credit card back in 1997 when I started college.
First kiss: Huh. I should remember but I don’t. Must not have been very memorable. Heh.
First enemy: I don’t remember this either. I don’t think I had any real enemies. ??? Or maybe I just don’t like to think I did.
First favorite musician: Debbie Gibson
Last car ride: About 3 hours ago with Rob coming back home from Target
Last kiss: Uhhh… a few hours ago when Rob picked me up from work
Last movie watched: Another one I can’t remember. Maybe Bourne Supremacy?
Last beverage drank: Coke
Last food consumed: pizza
Last phone call: My cousin Riz
Last time showered: This morning
Last CD played: Jamie Cullum’s Twentysomething
Last website visited: GMail.com

Rob’s grandmother passed away — so he went home to Southern CA to be with his family. I feel awful that I can’t be there with him. ::sigh:: But honestly, I don’t know what I would do if I was able to go home with him. I wouldn’t know what to say or what to do — I’d probably be more of a hassle than anything else. I just want him to be okay.

Anyway, I have to work at a Fourth of July festival tomorrow in San Jose — woo hoo. (That was supposed to be saracastic). It’s for the radio station I used to work at — I normally enjoy working at community events like this one but I have to work 2-11:30pm! That’s insanity. Not to mention that I have to act happy and enthusiastic the entire day. ::rolls eyes:: Plus, after last year’s event, I was left with a bad case of heat stroke. I was bedridden for a few days. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.

Oooh, I just got PhotoShop 7.0. Rob’s friend Jimmy (thanks again!) burned a copy onto a CD for us to install. It looks so confusing though! Well, at least I have the rest of my weekend to experiment with it.