Friday/ Saturday

Yesterday was a wild ride. The owner of our building (and pretty much all of Belmont shore) came over while I was running errands in LA, and told Steven he would not only give pay for the $3,500 floor we wanted (and were going to buy no matter what), but that he would pay for the $6,500 floating floor that we REALLY wanted. You just don't have landlords like this anymore, and we KNEW it at the time. When everyone was telling us to wait a year, that we would find another space, we knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Hes also going to rip the weird tile border that's on part of the wall, and do crown molding on the ceiling for us as well. We are beyond stoked.
Then I got an email offering me a 5 city engagement at anime conventions across the country and Canada. I think I'm going to do it. Free travel to cities I haven't been to, and another voice actress I know, Anndi, will be going as well. A little escape is always nice.

I'll also be seeing anndi tonight, as Ive got a bachelorette party, and shes invited as well. The mutual friend is Georgina, also a voice actress, who I worked with on The Sims game. She's tiner than me, and the sweetest thing ever.
 I haven't been in the mood all week for a bachelorette party, but as of today, I feel ready to go. Steven is being awesome and driving me, which makes my life so much easier. We're doing the cahuenga corridor, which isnt really my scene, but fuck it. I don't have many nights in Hollywood left, and I can count them all on my hands to begin with.
I somehow end up on Hollywood blvd on a saturday night about once a year, usually for birthday party or some such thing, and tonight is the night. I don't mind growing old. But seeing all the young kids out and looking for prey has the ability to make me feel old. Although, theres nothing wrong with not being young, aimless, and wandering Hollywood looking for tail. always feels so bridge and tunnel to me, and tonight, I join the ranks. But isn't that the point of bachelorette parties? Being a bad cliche can sometimes be a lot of fun.
This is I think my 4th bachelorette party, although I've been to probably 10 wedding showers. Surprising to me that most women I know my age haven't been to that many, if any. That's all about to change however. I can already feel that the next 5 years are going to be wedding centric.
My favorite bachelorette party?
Camping up north and white water rafting down the California river. We got thrown out of a bar in a town of about 1,000 people.

Oh! And I think we also found steven the PERFECT assistant. She came in yesterday to drop off a resume, incredibly cute, well spoken, great hair. She had been a stylist a few years ago, then became a cosmotologist and want to get back to hair.
The kicker is that she took a vidal sassoon cutting class, which you dont take unless youre very serious, as the cost is 7k. So far the other assistant aplicants fresh out of beauty school (which is typical) pale in comparisson to her. She comes in next week for a second interview. All signs pointing to yes!

New Lights!

More before and after salon stuff. This time it new lights! These were a huge deal for us, and made us feel so much more legit. The old lights were just so....cafeteria.

BEFORE:

AFTER

Next up is finding staff, and installing our floor and our art! We've been dragging our feet on getting other hairdressers in here, we've finally found a rhythm, and its been nice having it be just us. But now that we've got all the stations up, we've got to fill them. The real journey is about to begin.

When You're the Boss....

Our last client (and friend) of the day, said that her horoscope told her to "pretend it was friday night".
There might be vodka in that cup.

When you're the boss,  you also get to deal with this when you were just supposed to get your pipes snaked:

Hope you weren't eating.

Bad? We had to reschedule a client and flooded the kitchen design shop next door. Bonus? We got new pipes!

A New Station In Life

Stations stations stations!!!
Yesterday we got our stations and our mirrors! It felt like a miracle. All the blueprints we had to do, and redo, moving of the electrical, all the hours, we really thought it was going to be a challenge to put them up, and we were fully expecting for something to go terribly terribly wrong.
But they went up seamlessly and look phenomenal. Our product rep also delivered our hair products yesterday as well, and by the end of the day, it looked like a real salon. No more steven working in the corner with a sad little station (which has now been moved to my dressing room at home and looks awesome) and mirror. Today is our first day working in the salon, and its really phenomenal.
We've still got our floors, which are on backorder, and our lights left to do, but heres progress so far....
Please excuse the cell phone snaps:

One of the only "before" photos I could put my hands on right now:

Tomorrow we've got a cute, cleaned up version of Amy Winehouse coming for her second interview to be stevens assistant. This time steven will be judging her on her ability to shampoo and blowdry, guinea pig being me. Its been rather fun, the few interviews we've had. I wont lie, its very nice to be in the power position.

Before/After Bench

So its been a while since I updated on my "bench project". Even though it was finished a couple weeks ago, I hadn't removed the old pot yet. Steven and I have just been all consumed. My friend greg stopped by for a one martini lunch today (the joys of being your own boss), and I put him on it. The original pot was fused to the cement, so after we emptied out all the dirt, he took a shovel and just hacked away at it.

BEFORE:

AFTER: