photography

New Year, New Perspective.

January 10, 2018January 10, 2018by MelissaLeave a Comment

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Happy 2018! For many, including myself, 2017 was a difficult one. But then again, doesn’t every year bring some form of struggle? I recently heard the phrase “things happen FOR you, not to you.” I thought it was a fresh reminder that what you can control in life is your perception. When you see life through the lens of continual growth, what seems to be difficult times turn into perfect opportunities for development. The last two weeks of 2017 were filled with complications that have actually contributed to the formation of my goals for 2018. Ah, the beauty of perspective.

I have deemed 2018 as the year of “Melissa, The Grown Up.” Sounds pretty cheesy typing that out and I definitely have mixed feelings about it, but it really is a goal of mine this year. 2017 was the year of learning more about myself and exploring my interests. 2018 is going to be a year of focusing on strengthening my foundation as a young adult in as many ways as I can. To some, it may sound like boring “adulting” stuff, but I’ve realized that in order for me to achieve my ideal lifestyle, this is part of process (and maybe it can be fun). This means taking full advantage of the benefits my job offers, developing an investment portfolio, continuing to prioritize and pay off my student loans, and so much more! With all of that i mind, I want to approach these goals with an air of balance. I’m going in with a plan and aiming to maintain flexibility through it all.

What are some of your favorite self-help quotes, books, podcasts that have benefited you recently?

New Year, New Car

Excuse my feverish, puffy face. On top of everything that happened, I was also battling the flu.

One of the first forced steps into this new year of “adulting” was having to deal with experiencing my first major car accident last month. Long story short, I was rear ended on the 405 freeway, which then forced my car into the one in front of mine. My car was deemed totaled and I defined this situation as the universe’s way of telling me to stop putting off a much needed purchase: a reliable car.

This experience, although through non-ideal circumstances, catapulted me into the process of insurance settlements, CHP reports…and of course, buying a new car. It has been a great learning experience for me. A stressful, but helpful learning experience. All of this has been a whirlwind, dealing with multiple insurance carriers, the DMV and car shopping. As I’m writing this, I’m still working on closing on a settlement agreement with the responsible party’s insurance carrier. On top of that, I got a case of the flu that knocked me out for three days just after the accident . In this time, I’ve had to discover and sharpen a number of skills in order to get things done in as timely as a manner as possible. The universe putting me through the ringer. I had to earn my way to 2018! lol.

Here are 5 mini lessons I encountered from this experience:

Do your research – Go in knowing what you want and armed with specific tactics to ensure you achieve that
Get your finances right – Prioritize saving in case of emergencies. You never know what will happen! It’s good that I had already been saving for a while. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to independently buy myself a car, let alone the one I wanted.
Ask as many questions as needed – You can’t make educated decisions without information. Ask until a concept is clear and understood. The worst answer you can hear is no, but at least you can say you asked.
Take your time -There’s no harm in starting again from the beginning if it’s going to lead to a better overall decision. My dad reminded me that ultimately, I can say no if there is anything about a deal that I’m not happy with.
Keep accurate records – Organization of important documents as they come will help avoid unnecessary stress when the time comes to dig them up.

New Year, New Clarity

After having some time to recover from post-accident madness and a bad case of the flu, I was able to properly ring in the New Year and take much needed time to reflect. I took a mini retreat to the Huntington Library in San Marino with my older brother and cousin this past weekend. We walked through a few gardens and eventually found a spot to sit and journal. But of course, we couldn’t leave without taking a few pictures 🙂

Details, details, details at the Chinese Garden

Rose garden runway

Oolong tea

Beautiful magnolia tree

My older brother

My twin cousin

It was refreshing to step away from familiar surroundings, dedicate quality time to discuss how the past year went and what we are looking forward to achieving in 2018. The day left me with a wave of gratitude for my family’s support and their trust in my opinions. It makes me happy to know that we are each other’s forever team. I forget how good it feels to be surrounded by people that are rooting for each other’s success.

I’ll wrap this up with my hopes that you’ve entered this new year with a clear mind, a sense of adventure and the determination to make change in your life for the better. Let me know what your goals for 2018 are!

Sincerely,

Melissa Beee

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Adventure

Instagram Hot-Spot: Melrose Avenue

April 26, 2017July 13, 2017by MelissaLeave a Comment

Carrera Cafe – La La Land Mural

I recently went on a Los Angeles photo-taking adventure with my childhood friend Annie and her roommate Sicilia 🙂 Our main goal was to take pictures in front of the La La Land mural on Melrose Ave., after I came across it on my Instagram feed. I immediately thought of Annie because even though she lives in the OC now, she’s always down for adventures in LA, especially when photography is involved. She’s also a sucker for the movie just as much as I am.

Side note: Annie also has a blog and posts about her awesome photography, so you should check her stuff out HERE 😉

A few weeks went by until we were both free to make a trip, and we had it all planned out. I wore a yellow dress to sort-of match the dress Emma Stone wears in the movie and everything! (Don’t judge me). After the outfit-planning, enduring the usual LA traffic and struggle to find parking…we discovered that the mural was gone. At the time, Coachella was two weeks away, so the wall had been overhauled into a festival-themed Lady Gaga mural. 😦 Not that I don’t love Lady Gaga and no shade on Coachella…but we were just so excited to check out the La La Land mural! So sad. Here are screen shots from Carrera Cafe’s Instagram:

What we wanted to take a pic in front of

What was there when we arrived. Still a cool wall!

After we took a few moments to mope about the loss of our La La Land opportunity, we still made the most of our time at Carrera Cafe and grabbed ourselves cute lattes. The cafe is well-known for it’s awesome, meme-friendly latte art:

You best believe I got myself Ryan Gosling latte art to cope.

Paul Smith Wall

As we sipped our coffees next to the popular Lady Gaga wall, we noticed droves of people across the street as well, taking pictures in front of another Instagram-famous spot: the Paul Smith Wall (aka The Pink Wall). It’s a very interesting situation to observe, so I had a very good time people-watching. It’s literally a parking lot for the clothing store. Yet, an abnormal amount of people were hanging out in it with little-to-no intention of actually walking into the store. Their only intention was to take pictures. So odd…so fascinating…very LA. So,we joined the crowd to see what it was all about. Can you blame people for being attracted to a bright pink wall? Forget about the Hollywood sign that’s impossible to get to now-a-days, go to the Pink Wall instead! Haha. Jk…but not really.

Fred Segal Green Ivy Wall

After partaking in the Paul Smith wall hype, we continued to walk down Melrose Ave. and stumbled upon a wall covered in vines from top to bottom! It was such a pretty green so we made a pit stop. Even as the cars zoomed by, we had no shame in our photoshoot game. A few other girls actually picked up on the photo-op and asked if we could take their pictures too! I don’t think it’s on the typical list of “Instagrammable” spots in L.A., but we thought it was cute, so why not? Do what makes you happy! If you’re curious to know it’s location, it’s the Fred Segal clothing store building on Melrose and North Crescent Heights Blvd. (I definitely looked that up on Google maps right now)

Made in LA Mural

As we continued our trek down the street, we found a noticeable line (less hype than the Pink Wall though) in front of the Made in LA mural. I ended up not enjoying this one as much, maybe because I was getting hungry lol, the midday heat, or maybe because it wasn’t vibrant pink or green. I’ll never know for sure. A contributing factor could be the pressure we felt with the presence of a line of people waiting for their turn. It was also slightly difficult to capture the whole wall without having to be in the street…so we quickly snapped a few photos and headed on back to the car.

I’m positive there are plenty more “Instagram Hot Spots” down Melrose Avenue. But after the Made in LA wall, we headed back to the car to check on our parking meter. Definitely don’t want to get a ticket in LA! Then we headed to Arts District/Little Tokyo for some food. But that’s a different blog post 🙂

What “Instagram Hot-Spots” have you been to in LA? I’d like to know 🙂 We do it for the ‘Gram am I right?! No? Okay…lol. In all seriousness, do it for the memories people, not just for the ‘gram!

Sincerely,

Melissa ❤

Life

2017 So Far: The Year of Yes

April 13, 2017March 9, 2020by Melissa2 Comments

With almost a quarter of 2017 come and gone already, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back on what I’ve experienced so far. I didn’t really make new years resolutions this year, but the one thing I decided was to make an effort to embrace more situations that scare me and make more decisions that make me happy. I purposely made these goals very broad, to allow myself to explore what it is that scares me and makes me happy.

Graduating from the Bunny Slopes – In January, I went on a semi-spontaneous snowboarding trip. It was my second time snowboarding and I was nervous about falling and shortness of breath from the altitude…not far off from the fears I experienced the first time I went snowboarding. Last time, I may have only gone down the bunny slope a total of three times before knocking out in the warm and cozy lodge while the rest of the crew went up the mountain. This time, with some peer pressure…I mean a lot of encouragement from my friends, I embraced the fear of falling and actually allowed myself the opportunity to learn! It was a lot of fun an I’m glad I did it. I also learned new phrases like “Shredding the gnar today bro?” lol.

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Taking on Public Speaking – I did not get into the public relations field because of increased opportunities to speak in front of crowds. It has always been my least favorite part of the profession because I always imagined myself as the person “behind the scenes.” Which, for the most part, is my role. Most of my job is outreach program development, which does require plenty of interaction with people, but on an individual basis. In the past couple of months, I’ve started leading meetings with other departments and making presentations at board meetings on a regular basis. I still struggle with the nervousness, but with every presentation that I complete, I’ve become a little more comfortable and confident in the way I present my reports. It also helps that I receive such helpful feedback from my colleagues.

Getting Back to My Creative Side – I’ve upped the activity in my DIY, writing and photography side of my brain. This is something that I neglected in 2016. Last year centered around establishing myself at my job, and with that came less trips to Michaels and JoAnns and more nights of unwinding with Netflix. Not saying I didn’t enjoy that, I just miss using my hands to create things! Now that I feel like I’m at a good place in my career, I’ve taken the past few months getting back into finding the time/place to express these creative urges…including maintaining this blog. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m trying! (I’m currently sitting at Barnes & Nobles on a Tuesday evening to force myself to get this post written). See below for a few photos I captured on some random exploration days I had recently in Los Angeles.

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Saying Yes to Travel – I travelled to Seattle, Washington for the first time in March! Going into the year, I didn’t have any set travel plans, I just knew I wanted to go somewhere. As opportunities to travel come up, I’m making more of an effort to work it into my schedule. I’m a big fan of taking advantage of 3-day weekends and turning them into mini-vacations. I’m also a working adult now that accrues vacation days…so that’s a thing to consider. Luckily, my boss is also awesome and encourages me to take these mini-vacation opportunities. She’s all about making sure the team doesn’t “burn out” and I appreciate that. Anyways, I’m grateful that I was invited to join my friends’ trip to Seattle because it’s been the highlight of my year so far! I’ve had multiple people tell me that they could imagine me loving Seattle, and they weren’t wrong. The only thing that I didn’t enjoy so much was the biting wind chill D: Such cold. Much freeze. I took so many photos in the city, so here are a few for you to browse through:

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Running Past the Pain – Second 10K down. Much more exercise to go. I signed up for A Better World Running‘s Spring Equinox 10K on March 25th as a source of motivation to get back into running. The training process was….hit and miss. I started training 6 weeks out (when I should’ve started 8 weeks out) and on the week prior to the race, I travelled to Seattle and spent that week prepping for the trip and not running. Surprisingly though, I had the best race experience I’ve had to date! Out of the 3 races I’ve done (10K, half marathon, then this 10K), I ran the furthest without stopping, I experienced my runner’s high at 3.5 miles which lasted to the end, I stopped feeling the pain in my shin and ankles at 4 miles, and it was great! We’ll see if 2017 brings another medal to the collection…I’m debating on signing up for another 10K this year.

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And…that’s been some of the highlights of my year thus far. I’m looking forward to doing more scary and exciting things and documenting them here 🙂 I hope you all are have had a productive first quarter of 2017 ❤ Let me know how your goals have been shaping up this year!

Sincerely,

Mez ❤