Iron + Wine and Other LA Adventures.

So last Tuesday night was the night of the Iron + Wine show at The Wiltern. It was one of Philips Christmas presents and we were so excited to go. Our good friend Danielle lives in LA and we had planned to stay at her house after the show.

That was the extent of our plan. Tickets were bought, our place to stay was "booked", we had the next day off to enjoy, and we left Patrick with my parents. It sounds so simple, but of course, that's not how it went.

On Tuesday, I worked pretty early (remember, I work at Starbucks) and worked a full shift.

NOTE: That's normal to me, but I went to bed SUPER late the night before. On Monday night, I did the same thing on practically no sleep. So those hours were adding up quickly.

After work, I tried to be really productive by cleaning and getting errands done (what I should have done was take a nap). On top of this, I hadn't eaten anything all day.

NOTE: My friends and family know that this is the worst thing for me. When I snap at my husband out of nowhere, he says, "Do you need to eat something?". I've learned that I shouldn't let myself get to that point. If I do, I have to communicate when I'm super hungry or just eat something asap for the sake of people around me- especially for my sweet and patient husband.

After getting the car packed, not taking a nap, and not eating all day, I drove to Philip's work where I had a crying breakdown. I was so exhausted and worn out. I was also upset because we thought the show started at 6. It was 5 and we were in San Diego, had to drop Patrick off at my parents (30 mins north), and make it to LA in an hour. NOT going to happen! When traffics bad, it takes up to 3 hours to get to LA from where we live. When Philip got in the car, we went straight to Subway, and headed up to my parents. I downed my dinner and slept in the front seat.

When we got up to where the show was, we drove around looking for parking. Apparently, in LA, all parking garages are cash only. We weren't prepared for this and drove around for a long time looking for somewhere to leave our car. It was after 7 at this point and I had accepted the fact that we weren't seeing the opening artist.

When we stopped at the ATM to get cash out, I opened my wallet for my debit card and found just enough cash for the parking garage! I forgot that I got my tips that day- otherwise, we never have cash on us. We rushed back to the parking garage were we were quickly met by the valet service. This was a surprise to us, so we quickly grabbed the tickets and my purse. On the way in to the show, Philip realized that he didin't have his phone. We were bummed because we wanted to take videos.

When we got inside, everyone was standing around or getting drinks- no one was on stage. We just assumed that we had missed Laura Marling (who we were really excited to see) and that Iron + Wine would be playing soon. Philip got us drinks from the bar and I saved our spot on the floor.

When Philip got back with the drinks ($25 for two beers- yikes!) he said that the opening artist wasn't supposed to go on until 8! We hadn't missed any of the show- we made it just on time! We also realized that Philip had his phone the whole time. We got to take videos and entertain ourselves in between sets with blogs and facebook.

Laura Marling was so fantastic live! We hadn't heard many of her songs, just the few that pop up on our Pandora stations from time to time. She was great! I would love to see her again. She was so sweet and soft spoken between songs, then she started singing and we were blown away.

Of course, Iron and Wine was fantastic as well. While we were driving in the car, Resurrection Fern was playing and I said, I hope we make it, I want to hear this song live. Of course, that was the first song that they played and it was soooo good!

Everything turned out perfectly and there was no need for such a stressful journey. Is there ever? Stressing wouldn't get us there faster, or make the show start later. I've been better about not letting things like this effect me, but that day was a huge exception.

We're still working on getting the Iron and Wine videos off of the phone. Here's a little snippet of Laura Marling. The second video is Danielle's dog- so happy to be outside.

These are pictures of the next day with Danielle. The company that she works for is in Venice on Abbot Kinney. It's such a cute street with so many shops and restaurants. It was such a great day!