Old Towne Orange Vintage Food Walking Tour...

So - for Xmas I got Taylor an Old Town Food Tour!  I did one a while back with my friend Tianna which you can read about HERE.

1st of all - Food Tour.  Food.  Um in.  Also it's always super fun to be a tourist in your own town.  Taylor is one of my favorite adventure buddies so what better presie to give him for Xmas!  Yay! 

Tianna and I did the one, so Taylor chose the Vintage Tour.  FYI there's 3...so I think I need to do the 3rd one at some point! :)

Today was a perfect day!  Beautiful weather, a lovely tour guide and treking around Old Town with one of my favorite humans eating!

The tour started at Streamliner/Ruby's which I actually don't really patronize because of a really bad experience awhile back...but I'm starting to get over it.  Well today was lovely - Kimberly gave us a lovely history lesson about the trains, how they started, bringing produce in and out, Orange used to be a big farming area, and how the Ruby's here is different from all the other Ruby's because they kept the building to be like the old train depot.  I do love how Orange keeps stuff the way it used to be with a modern twist!

Kimberly giving us the intro

Learning about the train depot

This was also our 1st food taste!

After this we wandered over to what is apparently the oldest park in Orange County.  It's right outside Ruby's and a really cool Veteran's Memorial.

Quick Selfie moment

We stopped by the The Potting Shed- which I love - and got free little succulents!  Yay!

We then wandered over to the Farmer's Market - which FYI is way bigger than it used to be!!  Curses that I'm moving right when this damn thing has become awesome!  I'll just have to make some trips down here!

Farmers Market

There was a lovely moment where the tour guide handed out raffle tickets.  She had 3 loaves of bread to raffle off from one of the Farmers Market Vendors.  One was a sourdough loaf. I love sourdough and that's really all I should eat.  I almost bought a loaf so this was a sign!  I turned to Taylor and said "I'm going to win the sourdough loaf!"  The 1st name was drawn and she took the Marble loaf.  2nd number was ME!!!  So I took it !!!  Totes pissed off some preppy dude with this uncomfortable girlfriend cuz they wanted it...but....I WON!  Yaaaaaaas!

We then headed towards the Circle but stopped at the German woman's home which is is this beautiful home that everyone knows and she even came out and said hi!  She also gave us flyers for her Spring Boutique.  She has 2 a year and all proceeds go to CHOC.  How rad is that? 

Such a pretty home!

After this we wandered over to Rutabagorz.  We rallied inside and were served their yummy iced tea and vegetable/chicken soup.  Yum!!!  She also pulled out an original menu from the 70's that was decoupaged on!  So rad!!

Showing off the rad old timey menu

Dude

Delish

We then went next door to the Dragonfly Shop and got a free cute coaster!  My mom loves this store!

Next foodie stop was Zitos!  I really shouldn't have eaten pizza but damn it was so freaking good!!!

So good

We then headed into the Circle part of the Circle.  She chatted about the history of how Orange started by...oh...FYI...a bunch of WOMEN that said "Hey...we need to make this cool".  Cuz yeah...WOMEN GET SHIT DONE. 

Snack

Happy Xmas T!

Next up was a couple of Vintage Stores in the Circle.  Now...this is always the parts I don't super care about in the food tour, shopping.  I'm on a FOOD TOUR.  Feed me bitches!!!

We then landed at Wahoos.  Literally just had lunch here Friday...which I have almost every Friday with dad.  But of course yum!  I also didn't take a pic of the food, but they gave us rice/beans and a bit of pork.

Wahoos Decor

We then went over to Taco Adobe.  Apparently the place is too little to get us all in there, so we ate street Chix Tacos in the alley.  Kind of random but delicious none the less.  FYI - Taylor and I were pros...ate that gloriousness and didn't spill.  Everyone else was making a damn mess.  Seriously people...STREET  TACOS.

Amateurs.

Then we were given yummy little candies.  OMG my gramma used to have these out for us to eat all the time!!!

Last stop was the Hilbert Museum.  Not too exciting for me...Um I work at Chapman.  But our Tour Guide was adorable and it was a super fun day and I totally learned a few more thing about Orange I may have not known.

Taylor and I then landed at Provisions because there was not booze on this tour (WTF) to grab a couple of drinks and maybe some more food (Fatties)

Cheers to a perfect day!

It was a perfect day with one of my dearest and had so much fun!!!  I'm stuffed and happy and so glad we did this!

Oh just another blog on geocaching...

Because I love documenting my finds!

Here's some more!

Pat and I went to a wedding in AZ that you can read about here.  On the way we stopped at Chiraco Summit and I looked up a Virtual Cache there!  We stopped and ate at the little restaurant there and right next to it is the General Patton Memorial Museum, which is where the Virtual Cache was.  The museum doesn't have to be open to complete this task so a quick little walk over, answered the questions - BOOM.  Logged.

So over holiday break I basically just ate and drank myself to almost 10 pounds of extra weight.  But that's what you're supposed to do right?  Well one of the days I had to drag my ass out and move.  So my friend Stacey and I decided to do some geocaching!  I looked on my map for somewhere there may be a bunch and there was some off Cannon Street in Orange.  It's a nice hill street so we'd get a little bit of a work out in as well.  We found 3 out of 4!

Check out the trick rock!

I loved these little blue flowers

This one was rad!  You have to fill it up with water and the cache floats up to the top.  You'll see below the hole you have to plug while you're pouring the water in.  So fun!

One of my best caching buddies

Left a little swag in this one!

On New Years Day I wanted to earn the Hello 2020 souvenir since I totally forgot to get the goodbye 2019 one.  So Pat and I took a walk on the beautiful New Years Day in Yorba Regional Park and found 3 out of 4!

The biggest damn squirrel was not happy I was geocaching in his hood

This one earned me my souvenir!

A boy and his dog

Geese

Sunburst!

Clever

I'm getting good at these!

I threw a wedding here once!

Another day - my "hubs" and I went and did a Scavenger Hunt at the Getty!  You can read about that HERE.  There was an Virtual Cache I wanted to hit up.  It led you over to these little cactus and gave you a knowledge on what they're called!

He's always up for an adventure!

Barrel Cactus...FYI

I'm also in the process of doing The Artist's Way - which if you're really bored you can read about my journey HERE and one of the things you do is go on Artists Dates.  I decided to walk down to the Orange Circle one morning and remembered there was a cache in front of City  Hall.  I'd looked once before but it was kind of busy, so this was a perfect time as it was so friggin quiet!  I found it!  Sadly I forgot a pen so I couldn't sign, but I did log it!

You're around here somewhere

OMG could it be that obvious?!

It sure can!

Another morning I got me a pedicure and knew there was a cache around the corner so BAM!

Been wanting to grab you for a while!

My little adventure group landed at La Brea Tar Pits - another read about HERE if you wanted.  Well there was 1 actual cache and 2 Virtual ones!  So of course I had to hit them up!

I left one of my dragons!

Teaching Jack about caching

We learned some stuff!

Another Artists Date landed me wandering Handy Park - right behind the old Elementary School I used to go to!!  There's a new cache there!!  I was also hell bent on getting one because I earned myself the Palindrome souvenir!

Hi new cache!

New souvenir!

And the last official cache of this blog was a new one at The District in Tustin.  Easy Parking Lot Grab after Happy Hour with a girlfriend!

Happy Hour Cache!

I can't get over how much I love doing this!!!  I'm sure more of my Artists Dates are going to be caching.  I'm also really hoping to hide my 1st one once I get settled in my new place!  It's right across from some trails so I think I can find a great location!!!!!

Happy Caching Friends!!!!

Artists Way Week 3...

There was a fun little list this week:
My favorite child toy was:  Probably a stuffed animal - I always loved them.
My favorite childhood game was:  Wiffle Ball - we'd play in the street.
The best movie I ever say as a kid was:  I loved the Aristocats.
I don't do it much but I enjoy:  Coloring.
If I could lighten up a little I'd let myself:  Be less OCD.
If it weren't too late I'd:  Change Careers.
My favorite musical instrument is:  Drums.
The amount of $$$ I send on treating myself to entertainment each month is:  Too much.
If I weren't so stingy with my artist I'd buy her:  An art room.
Taking time out for myself is:  Easy.
If I had a perfect childhood I'd have grown up to be:  Someone who went to college.
If it didn't sound too crazy I'd write or make:  A book
What makes me feels weird about my recovery is:  Am I doing it right?
My most cheer up me music is:  Happy Music - I have a list.
My favorite way to dress is:  Comfy.

There was a lot of other questions after this - things from your childhood, bad habits, friends who nurture, people I admire, etc.  I'm considering writing thank you notes again to the Nurture folks.  Maybe send a letter to the folks I admire.  This is a possible Artists Date in the future.

I missed 3 days of morning pages this week.  Friday had a work retreat so had to leave early, then Sat was at a hotel and today was just a lazy ass.  I promise I'll get back to them tomorrow.



My Artists Date is going to be a 2 parter - I took about 20 min or so and went to grab a Geocache at Handy Park.  I then strolled around a bit and took a little trip down memory lane!  This is where I went to Elementary School.  I then plan to pamper myself tonight with bath, mask and pedi to myself. 

I really don't have too much to report this week.  Other than I had dinner one night with someone it looks like I'll be working with in the summer on an theatrical project!  I can't mention details now, but fingers crossed that will come to fruition.

I'm in the process of getting ready to move over Valentine's Weekend and that's been inhibiting this Artists Way Journey a bit.  I'm not quitting or giving up, but there may be a couple weeks I don't put as much time I'd like to into this, but I'm keeping at it.

I'll be getting Happy Hour with my friend whose doing this week me on Tuesday night this week so we'll be able to really chat about it so far which I'm totally looking forward too!

Onto Week 4!!

Artists Way Week 2...

Here I am   beginning week 2 like a good little student.  I have a pretty freed up weekend which is nice, so I had plenty of time this morning to sit down and start the Week 2 tasks.  I plan to check in with my other 2 friends doing this later today.

One thing I found interesting was I was to list 20 things I like to do then put the date of the last time I did them.  Here's the weird thing - I had a really hard time coming up with 20 things!  Why was that so hard!?  Do I not like to do 20 things?  I'm so curious what I wrote before, but I have no idea where my previous 2 times of Artists Way homework lives.  So - I want to list these things here because it was so strange to me that this was a hard list to come up with.  Now this is not the order I prefer - just a list of 20 things I enjoy:
Eating Out
Adventure/Scavenger Hunts
Hiking
Geocaching
Traveling
Sex
Blogging
Photo Play Days
San Clemente Stays
Playing Tennis
Doing a show I'm excited about
Sunbathing/Relaxing by water (Lake, Beach, Pool)
Cooking with someone
Hanging with Family/Boyfriend/Friends (This one is like my priority but I don't know if it's an "activity")
Wine Tasting
Halloween/Horror stuff
Seeing a show - music or theater usually
Enjoying a quiet morning drinking coffee
Going to a sports game
Taking a fun class

That should not have been as hard of a list to come up with.  I don't know what that says about me but I guess I need to really pay more attention to what brings me joy.

In Week 1 we were to list 5 lives we'd love to have, then this week it said 3 more.  I find some of my choices interesting:  A Writer, A Camp Counselor (Really?!), A Photographer, An Actress, A Lead of an Animal Sanctuary, A Teacher, A Sommelier, A Food Critic.    Hmmmm....I'm so in the wrong field of work but I don't know how to make money on any of these things and now I'm 43...so.....shit.

We then drew a pie consisting of Spirituality, Adventure, Work, Family/Friends, Exercise, Romance.  Where do you lack?  These were not surprise at all.  I need a new fucking job.

Then we list 10 tiny changes.  "I would like to..."  I'm not sure if mine were so tiny, but a lot of them are good goals to aspire too.  So we'll see where that leads.

I was supposed to do one of my 20 things I enjoy items and I knew I had planned to cook with Pat on Wednesday night.  We started trying to cook together when it started getting dark earlier and we couldn't hike after work.  We fell off it a bit but were going to get back on this week.  We had an appointment that evening so unfortunately it was rushed and we didn't have that moment of wow look at the neat thing we cooked together, but it was still nice.  I really do enjoy cooking with him and we were working together pretty well in my tiny kitchen.  Hopefully next time we won't be rushed.  If you're interested here's what we made!  It was yummy!
Shrimp with Spinach

I did notice something one night I wanted to mention.  So I have a Gratitude Journal I try to write in every morning.  It's got a bit pushed to the side due to the morning pages, but last night I found myself wanting to write.  To Journal.  I thought I'm going to go ahead and do a couple of pages in my Gratitude Journal tonight.  This went against my OCD nature (because that journal is supposed to be part of my morning routine!) and is the 1st time in a long time I found myself actually wanting to write out of the blue.  So there's something!  Let's see if it happens more often!

So for my Artists Date this week I got up early and walked over to the Orange Circle to have my own mini Photo Play Day.  Hey look - one of my 20 things I enjoy!  Got a great walk (7K steps!) and got to play with my camera.  You can see the results of that here.  I really enjoyed the morning.  It wasn't too busy down there and I just wandered.  I ended up really taking in the Circle since I'm going to be moving soon and won't be walking distance from here anymore.  My walks to and fro were slower and I tried to take it all in.  It really was a lovely date.

I did the morning pages every morning this week!  Yay me!  I only meditated though 2 days this week but I'm not going to get discouraged - will still really try to put forth a better effort there.

The only real revelations this week were I was actually really looking forward to my Artists Date and what I mentioned above about wanting to write.  So that's good!  Maybe there's a little ember starting to catch...oooooo let's hope!!

I'm hoping to hit up my Week 3 chapter and tasks tonight and/or tomorrow night.  Will also check in with my girls tomorrow! 

So Week 2 - Check!