Hmm look at that... 2017 didn't suck that much!

I found this post I started to write in the beginning of the year... Seeing that this year is about to end, I finished my draft and post it before I forget it again....


I was checking through my drafts and realized I only posted one thing in 2017 - an upset rant about the injustice towards singles. Great...
That made me rethink the last year. And I gotta say, it didn't even suck that much.
I won't get into certain changes, people have been complaining about, because I can't hear it anymore!
I was looking at my personal year. Apart from some things that were super inconvenient and terrifying, but turned out to be the kick in the butt I needed (and was long overdue), it was an "okay" year. I don't want to say it was great, because I definitely had better years, but it was still okay. In some cases even awesome.
Since I was not in the mood of posting last year (not even on facebook), I neglected some experiences that I think are worth mentioning.

The following is a super personal view, so if you don't know me aka you're not a friend or family member, this is going to be flat out weird. You might want to consider stop reading right now!
Honestly, I think this post is more just a recap for myself than for ANYONE else... 😅

So without any logical order, here it goes:

Snow in Tahoe - Tobi's first snow

In the beginning of every year my sister and her family like to go to the snow. Sometimes I come along, other times I stay behind with the dog. Either way I always get some quality Tobi-time!
In early 2017 we went all together and I've never experienced that much snow before. It was just awesome! And watching Tobi run through the snow like a happy bunny was just the cherry on top.

Then a few of weeks later my amazing friend Mattea got married.

That wedding was special to me because for the first time I was the Maid of Honor and the photographer for the day.
The wedding was at the city hall in San Francisco.
The night before we were going to stay in the city to get drinks but last minute the guys decided not to come with us.
Prepared as I am, I already ordered all kinds of bachelorette party items weeks before and we spontaneously turned our classy drink night into a super fun and slightly stereotypical bachelorette party.











The next morning we had to do the bouquet and the bride's flower crown with quite bad hangovers. 😁
However both turn out so much better than we had thought.
After a pretty rough morning, the rest of the wedding day was just incredibly beautiful.








Music-wise I experienced a little out of both my worlds that year. I like to refer to that time as "The return of k-pop into my life".
I hadn't really listened to any k-pop in years but I was getting a little tired of my regular playlists that's why I randomly started to listen to Big Bang again.
YouTube introduced the show Running Man to me. And through that I found new awesome bands like 2PM, GOT7 and BTS.
To round it up, I got to see the king himself, GD, live!
It was the most expensive concert ticket I've ever bought but it was so worth it. 🤩

Speaking of music, I also finally got to see Simple Plan live for the first time.

That was a super spontaneous idea because the concert was in Sacramento in the middle of the week. And we almost ended up in the middle of a big highway accident. Luckily we made it to Sacrament and the concert was great. It was the 10 year anniversary of their first album which was cool. But I like "Still Not Getting Any" and "Get Your Heart On!" more.



New Years resolution

Like every year my New Year's resolution was to work out more. To actually make it happen I set a goal to work towards - a Mud Race in October.
I also got a fitbit which changed a lot of my daily routine.
We have (what I call) a Fitbit family - meaning: We all have Fitbits and are in constant competition with each other. I can't help but brag... Since I walk everywhere, I'm always on top of the list.
I started working out every other day and went to yoga and a hike every Sunday. I got fit really fast, proving to myself that it's really up to me how in shape I am. My new found love for exercise made me experience some awesome trips. First up:

Mission Peak

In May, Mattea and I decided to change up our yoga-hike-brunch routine by hiking Mission Peak. We didn't have any idea what we were in for. It was a spontaneous decision that was rough and great at the same time.
Since we didn't do any research (we thought 'it's just another hike') we didn't bring energy snacks, sun block or hats but instead I carried my leather backpack with a bunch of my gadgets in it.
Luckily enough we brought a bottle of water each.
We started the hike early in the day while it was still foggy.
The hike is just about 2 miles per direction which is not a lot for me since I used to walk 5 miles every day to work and back. Well that's what I thought... I did not account for the incline which is basically like climbing stairs.
We took a couple of breaks to catch our breaths but in the end we climbed up so fast that I got altitude sickness and started to get nauseous.
When the path ends you have to climb up the rest to get to the top and the totem pole.

And even though I got nauseous, exhausted and had a pretty bad headache, the view was worth the trip. 

We managed to have the perfect timing because the fog sheltered us from the sun on our way up. Once we arrived we were higher than the fog so it looked like we were above the clouds and by the time we went back down the sun had evaporated the fog and we had a clear sky. 

The way down was super fast but it's pretty hard on the knees!

In the beginning we thought the hike would take up maybe 2h of our time and we could still make it to yoga afterwards. In the end it took us over 4h and by the time we arrived back at the car I was so exhausted that I passed out on the way to the lunch place.

After our little energy boost I took care of some more errands and in the end my fitbit results for the day set a couple of new records for me.

The other cool trip we did was MuckFest. 
Doing a mud race had been on my to do list and we got ourselves fit enough that we had no trouble with any of the obstacles.
I even had to face one of my fears and jumped off a ledge into a big pillow 10m below.

Getting dirty while crawling through the mud is just too much fun. I can't wait to do it again!

One of my highlights of 2017 was ComicCon! 
I covered the event for Eventseeker (see full coverage here) I took some great photos that day. But seeing certain guests was the best thing!

Being a huge Flash and Harry Potter fan, seeing Gustin Grant and Tom Felton close up was awesome.
The two of them have funny chemistry.
Easy one of the best panels I've seen so far.

Another huge highlight was to see Buzz Aldrin. 

His panel was funny and incredibly inspirational!
Despite his age he still pushes for more achievements and manages to find new adventures.

Since a few people have acted strange after I mentioned him, here a little explanation:

Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the first two humans who landed on the Moon.

Since I had a press pass for the event, I even got invited to a special Techshow the day before the convention. And there I 'met' the co-founder of Silicon Valley ComicCon and Apple, Steve Wozniak. 

Apart from ComicCon I also visited the Heroes and Villains FanFest again. I liked the first one a lot more than a bunch of other conventions I covered so I was pretty disappointed in that year's edition. The panels were no longer in the same room as the sale exhibition and artists and once they closed the doors there was no way of checking out the panels not even through screens on the outside.

Aladdin Musical

I haven't seen a lot of musicals but that year we went to see Aladdin. We got the tickets super early and heard so many good things about it that our expectation and our excitement were pretty high.
And we did not get disappointed! The musical was incredible. I think I liked it even better than Lion King.

 In the fall I did a couple of weekend trips.
First I went to Malibu with a couple of friends.

We hiked Point Dume Trail which is pretty cool and I would recommend it to anyone asking for a beautiful trail around Malibu.

Afterwards we went to walk around at Venice Beach.

And even though all of us had been in L.A. quite a few times we even found something none of us had visited before - Venice Canals. All in all, a great trip

Universal Studios in Los Angeles

 A couple of weekends later I went to L.A. again. This time with my family.
Instead of having a party my niece asked for a trip to Universal Studios; Potterland to be precise.

Since everyone else wasn't in the mood for roller coasters and I just happened to start liking them the year before, I went on all the rides my niece wanted to try.
She was super brave and she said some of the most adorable things while on the ride.

The light show at Hogwarts is definitely worth watching!

 Random stuff from the year 2017

I figured out how to do origami.
Little side note, it's not as relaxing as you might think!

In fact it can be straight up irritating...

Well, at least I managed to fold our dog.

I colored my hair burgundy for the first time. And even though I wasn't sure if I liked it. Everyone else seemed to love it and I got used to it.
Even I liked it after a couple of days and I did it a few times afterwards again.





I always got annoyed when I wanted to see, try or go somewhere and nobody was interested in the same thing or too busy to do it. To not miss out because of others I started doing the most random things by myself. It's an empowering experience and I even prefer doing certain things on my own now.
That year I crossed another thing off my list:
I finally went to the movie theater all by myself.
I watched Thor Ragnarok with only two other people in the movie theater. I felt a little bit awkward cracking up by myself but after 5min I didn't even think about it anymore. I had a great time! 😁


My best friend Sarah and my brother also gave me something for Christmas I've been meaning to buy for the last 12 years - a blender. And instead of just getting me any of them - they gave me the one I've been wanting to buy since the first time I used it - a Nutribullet! YAY!! (I'm actually not getting paid to mention certain things! These emotions are real)

I'm pretty sure there was more random stuff that happened that year but 2019 is around the corner and tooooo much happened this year (2018) to make me forget the small stuff from the year before.


However in the spirit of keeping it real, the year hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. Here are some personal negative things that also happened to be in the end of the year, making the ending slightly grim.

I spend a night in the worst hotel I've ever been in. It was in downtown San Francisco and it was ridiculously expensive. As an example: I had to stand on a chair to reach the 'light switch' hanging from the ceiling. 

I had passport trouble which kept me from visiting my family and best friend in Europe.

The wild fires in Sonoma were just terrible....

And on a more personal side:

I had to find a new place to live. My former house mates were going to sell the house we were living in and I had to move yet again.
I was super nervous about the move but in the end everything turned out perfect. I found a new place within one week, I loved the new place and I'm was now super close to my family and my office.
So even though it seemed bad, this actually turned out for the best. Even though I did have a couple of crazy house mates. But luckily they only stayed for a couple of months.

Towards the end of that year I also thought I might lose my job. It was super scary and I can't describe how worried I was. But again, it was for the best.
Even though I was able to stay on, I now had my resume online and I had recruiters contacting me. I absolutely loved my job but I couldn't reject the final offer that came in. It was a work fairytale. 

I guess the constant complaining and whining from everyone around me made me think that it was a completely terrible year. But looking back on all the great things and experiences, it really wasn't that bad. Not at all! 

Overall it was actually a pretty good year. 

#tahoe #weddingbouquet #GD #simpleplan #missionpeak #fitbit #muckfest #SVcomiccon #GustinGrant #TomFelton #BuzzAldrin #SteveWozniak #heroesandvillains #Aladdin #Malibu #Universalstudios #potterland #origami 

L'Oreal® Paris Colorista Semi-Permanent Hair Color Review

You can find a lot of different opinions about this product online. Good and bad ones. And honestly all facts I read up on are accurate. The only thing you have to decide is how important the individual facts are to you.
I used the Burgundy20 color three times so far and I really like it.
I usually don't really post selfies but for the sake of visualization I dug deep into my phone archive to find some pictures I usually only send to my best friend.  

Spring 2017

Fall 2017

Summer 2018

Here are my four key points:

1. It's really easy to use. 

Unless you're trying some complicated technique, the color is easy to use. It comes ready in a tube and you can just smear it into your clean hair. Make sure you do it evenly though!
Tip: If you stain any skin or surfaces, nail polish can help you out!

2. The color is super vibrant.

I usually use the color when my regular color starts growing out. My hair is multiple shades of brown with some really light blond highlights. This provides a great base for the product because you'll get all kinds of different colors. And it's going to look like it was done by a professional.

Before

The final result will have all different shades from red to purple. I never get more compliments for my hair than with this color. I actually had people on the streets stop me to tell me how much they love my hair color. And I always like to point out that it's my brothers favorite color on me.

After the first wash

After

3. It can take a while to wash out.

For the first few washes, there will constantly be a stream of colored water in the shower. To make it last longer use color protection shampoo. The color can stay in for a very long time this way. After a couple of weeks the vibrant color will change into pastel (I don't have a photo for this). But since I had some colder colors in my hair this time, it looked a little metallic.

4. The hair turns green or blue later.

This is one of the facts most people don't like about the product. I experienced the color change as well. My hair randomly started to change into different colors.
The last two times I tried the color it was turquoise or green. This time it went to blue first and later to turquoise.

subtle blue highlights

turquoise highlights

Since I intentionally colored my hair teal before I didn't mind the extra color in my hair. It even became a running gag in my office that my hair changed it's color depending on my mood.

And since I usually use the color before I go back to my professional hairstylist, I don't mind having colorful hair for a while. But that's just me. My stylist get's the color out later (although this time around she had a harder time getting rid off the turquoise and I think I can still see it shine through a little).

On that note. I never tried out the reset shampoo, so I can't say if that would take out the color.

In conclusion

If you like trying out fun colors with your hair and don't mind your hair doing it's own thing afterwards, I would definitely recommend to try this out. I will keep using it for sure. 

Embrace Change - Don't Fear It

Half a year ago I wrote this piece and I feel like it's overdue to be shared:

In the beginning of the year I changed jobs and it was another proof for how scary and amazing change is.

I've been working for my old company for almost six years. I pretty much started there when I moved to the US and it was the one constant throughout all those years.
The job gave me a feeling of security. I knew I was appreciated and trusted and my bosses always made me feel special and gave me lots of flexibility.
When I thought I would be losing my job, I was terrified. I created job profiles and send out applications. Amazing enough my bosses kept me on. I was incredibly relieved. Since the future wasn't set I decided to leave my profile up, but stopped applying. Still companies reached out and apart from one opportunity - I was interested in, but ended up not getting - I pretty much refused all offers. I didn't care for more money or opportunities they offered, I loved my job and my company and I didn't intend to leave.
But then something amazing happened. The number one company I wanted to work for, but never applied to, because I couldn't find a job offer that fit my skills, reached out on their own. I got an interview, but even though it went great I tried to keep my expectations down. But then I got offered the position. It was like a work fairy tale.
I had trouble believing it. Even after I got the offer letter and went through the background check (there was nothing to be found but I thought maybe they'd change their minds in the meantime). The moment it really sunk in was when I gave my two weeks notice. Talking to my bosses and colleagues made me realize, this is going to happen now.
I started to realize the choice I had to make. I would have to leave my job... I was torn and even considered turning the offer down. But how could I...
"The best things in life come after fear" Thank you, Will Smith. Those words couldn't be any more true!
I was happy at my old job, I loved the people I was working with and I was incredibly comfortable. But I knew it was time to move forward.
I didn't expect to like the next job as much as the old one. Or the people as much as my former colleagues. But surprisingly enough all things I wished for came true.
I'm even happier now than I've ever been before. I embraced the change, instead of fearing it and it turned out to be a decision I didn't regret in the slightest bit.
Looking back at my work past, I realized it's a reoccurring pattern.
I'm always so happy and sad to leave. But the next opportunity is always a step up. And I always end up way happier than before. It was like that when I left the store to work at the airport, when I left the airport to work full-time as an editor, and now that I left that position to work for the company I always wanted to work for.
It might not always be this way. I know it can't keep getting better, how could it? But let's get intellectual for a moment and quote John Greenleaf Whittier: "Of all words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'it might have been'."
Don't waste your opportunities and spend your life wondering if something could've worked out. It's better to try and fail, than to miss out and wonder. And don't worry too much about failing. After all, failure teaches us more than success does.

However, I also realized that my view of the change made a big difference.
Even though I don't like change very much, I always try to embrace it.
I try to keep my expectations down while trying to look forward to learning something new and getting new and different experiences.

It worked well for me so far. I hope it will do the same for you. Just don't be afraid!

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Follow Thoughts

First of all, this is not a book review!
These are the things I thought about while listening to the audiobook. So, I guess the book fulfilled an important purpose: it jump started my brain. 

Here is a little background information:

I've noticed the book the last few months. I remember it showing up on Audible, Amazon and the display of every bookstore. And let's face it, the title is intriguing.
I kept on picking it up and reading the beginning when browsing through bookstores. Then my brother-in-law also told me that it is on his to-read-list. Shortly after, I saw someone I follow on Instagram also mentioning it (Thank you, Nichkhun). I was wondering why it keeps popping up.
Since I'm slightly paranoid and always show up way too early to absolutely avoid being late, I have a lot of waiting time. I usually spend it listening to my favorite songs over and over again (again & again?^^), but then I decided to use my accumulated Audible credits and get the audiobook.
I'm not a self-help book reader. I prefer reading about fictitious stories and even biographies and science sometimes, but the overall reaction to the book made me curious. Well that and the title.

I especially like the beginning of the book. I was actually cracking up (laughing) during the first couple of chapters because they were so on point and I was able to identify situations in my life and the life of people closest to me with it.
But then I started thinking. In general, the insights make perfect sense. Honestly, we might have already thought the same things ourselves, but why does it feel different to hear them out loud?

Have you ever said or hear someone say "I've never said this out loud..."? Well, my best friend Sarah just said that to me last week, that's why the thought popped into my mind.
We think a lot (well some of us anyway) but we don't always say it out loud. Sometimes hearing the actual words, makes it seem more real. It's probably a little superstitious. Well anyway, saying things out loud can make us feel better. It can be a release.
~~ Still try to select special individuals to open up to! I don't suggest saying deep personal stuff like this to a stranger, acquaintance or even work colleague. Don't serve your heart on a silver platter for everyone to stab at, because let's face it, there are a lot of horrible people out there.
So when in doubt, just talk to yourself (out loud). It's not crazy! Sometimes you just have to talk to someone that takes you seriously and gives great advice. Hehe. ~~

Anyway... That's why I decided from now on, I'll try to write about more honest things and maybe help somebody who is struggling through something similar. And - by using the book as an example - I'll try to embrace my imperfection a little bit more.
I feel like hearing what others say (if you can identify yourself with it), sometimes makes things easier, because you realize, others have similar experiences and that might change your outlook on (the seriousness of) your situation, or it gives you an idea on how to work through it.

I hope, at one point, my words make a difference for someone. Maybe even improve someone's life.

So from now on, I will try to be a little bit more honest about myself.
I will still post reviews and photos of events or concerts, but I feel like just posting these things makes my life seem more glamorous and special than it actually is. Even though, that was never my intention! I just wanted to share things that got neglected at work.
So, besides the things I assume are more interesting, I will throw some personal realizations in, every once in while.
I almost typed "I hope that is okay", but - thinking of the book - I stopped myself. Well, I still typed it, but with a different intention. I want to share some things and if some people don't want to know about it, well it's their decision to read it or not. That's one of the f*cks I'm not going to give and instead focus it on something more important!

Seriously, read the book. It's great! =)