It’s TUESDAY FOLKS!!  

I don’t know if you realized, but last week … I kind of dropped the ball on my 5TT post. I just didn’t have it in me. I mean, I had an idea of what I wanted in my post, but I had like no energy to get it out there. 

And well, I suck. And I just didn’t write one. I’m sorry. But it’s OK.

It had a good theme though. A GREAT theme actually. It was the 1 Year LA-Versary post and I was going to write about the 5 things I like most/am blessed by here in LA.  

I really had to mull over it for a week.  So here it goes - 5 Things I LOVE about being here in LA:

1  MY COMMUNITY GROUP - The first one is a given. People make or break a place. Hands down. And I have been incredibly blessed to have found some of the most genuine, loving, hilarious, fun people in the midst of this crazy city. And they love the Lord. And they’re normal. And they’re all around my age and in the same stage of life as me. 

It’s pretty much amazing. And I’m so so so thankful the Lord brought me here.  

*BONUS: can’t forget about a few other special people (Beth from RELEVANT, Danny & Rochelle, lunch dates with long lost cousins, Andrea from Mimi’s/ORU, the Lampes). All of these people have definitely enriched my CA life as well.

2  MY LOCATION - To be honest, I didn’t do much planning when I moved out here. I kind of winged it and roomed with a friend who eventually moved to NYC. But if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have landed in West LA. It’s pretty much the best area, central to the beach and Beverly Hills. Full of great eateries and not too far from the essential shopping areas. Most of all, I feel safe and at home where I am. 

Seriously - I live only a few miles from this (even though I’m not much of a beach person, but I’m learning):

3  PHOTOGRAPHY - Dude, I get to legitimately pursue photography here in LA. I honestly could not do it in the same capacity anywhere else that I have lived. LA just seems to have much more opportunity for it. And it’s so much more denser. There’s just more people, more companies, more aspiring actors, more ways to do different things with my camera. And that’s exciting to me. 

4  DISNEYLAND - I love that I have an annual pass to Disneyland and that 7 of my friends also do too. This way we can all keep each other accountable to get our money’s worth out of it and actually live up to the magicalness of it all.

I love that we can enjoy each other’s company while there and not feel like we have to fit all the rides in.  And that we can spend an hour in line waiting for a ride and talk the entire time and play games. (I’m a big quality timer and I think this may be the best part about Disney).

And I love the challenge of getting awesome snapshots in like this (she’s holding her Bible!):

5  ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD - Ok, one of the other things that I love about LA is that I’m still star-stuck about the fact that celebrities live here, that movies are filmed here, and that Oscar nominees go to places like In-N-Out. My mind is still blown by stuff like that.

And I love that I’m surrounded by people who either love TV as much as I do (like we can have an in-depth discussion on the greatness of Friday Night Lights or break down the story arcs and character development on other shows) … or be around people in the industry (either makeup artists or people who work on trailers or are an executive producer on a show). This industry fascinates me a whole lot.

I also love the fact that someone like me can stumble upon a gig that allows me to shop around the prop department at Universal Studios. It’s so crazy! There were just aisles upon aisles of props! An entire section would be devoted to phones or lamps or sports equipment from all sorts of different time periods. Other sections would be dedicated to all sorts of machines guns, weapons, or armor that were actually made out of foam.  

I’m still amazed that I was there today.  How did I get here??