Hello From Sunny LA!

Hello All!

It’s been the better part of a year since I posted, and there’s decent reason for that, I moved across the country last May for work. It has always been a dream of mine to live in Southern California. I tried for a few years to find the right job that would bring me out here, and last May I found it. The entire transition happened so quickly that it is a bit of frantic blur now.

What an adventure it has been so far too, and so much fodder for writing, it’s like a literal goldmine. I took the job in early May and by the end of May I was an Angeleno. I loaded up my car and drove across the country with my King Charles Cavalier and myself. We drove across the country to go ahead and start the new job and find a place for my family to join me. I rented an adorable Airbnb in Studio City and lived alone for the first time in my life while I looked for more permanent accommodations. I found myself in a new job, a new city, and a new living situation all at once. I look back at it now and I cannot believe I made it through one of the most difficult and transformative periods of my life so far.

Adjusting to life in California has been interesting, complicated, and wonderful. I consider myself to be so blessed to be able to drive down to the ocean just about whenever I want, or hike in the mountains. Life is totally different out here, with it’s own quirks that I am still learning. The seasons are very strange to me, as someone who comes from the midwest where there are four distinct seasons.

I am learning so many wonderful things, like green juice, I am obsessed! I love how easy it is to eat healthy out here. The weather is incredible, and it seems that a couple of times each week I have to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road as i drive through the mountains on my way to work, they’re just so beautiful!

Despite all of that beauty and newness, I’d love to say that I’ve been writing like crazy, but until recently I went though a little bit of a dry spell. I finished re-editing a book for resubmission to a potential agent. I’ll send that off shortly, and that is exciting. L.A. has been a strange spot for inspiration but it is finally starting to flow and I am so grateful.

I have so many unique experiences at my disposal now through this transition. I actually started a project about a woman who moves from Chicago (different circumstances) and her celebrity crush falls for her! This has been so much fun to write, and some of the scenes are based on my real-life experience with celebrity sightings. This project has been so much a blast to work on!

It is my hope that as I now venture out of the transition phase of this journey and settle in, that writing will continue to go well, and that it can resume as the significant part of my life that it is. I am hoping to dig back into the writing community, on Twitter (or what’s left of it) and get back to writing.

Below are some of the photos of life in California from this Chicago-girl.