I am sooo happy that this weekend is FINALLY here.  No one is coming to visit.  I have no where that I have to go.  I only will be doing what I choose to do.  While I will be making a lot of choices to do a lot of things, they will be my choices.

I can finally clean the house the way I want to do it and at my own pace.  I’m going to start in on the kitchen and then work my way into the dining room, living room and my bedroom.  Not really a lot to do, so it shouldn’t take too long for that part.  Next I’ll do the floors (that will take a while after the parade of people in and out of here over the past few weeks) and then the main bathroom.  Finally, I’ll finish up with my bedroom and bathroom.  My goal is to have the house nice and clean before leaving for Seattle–and also so that Vanessa comes into a clean house.  In between all that I’ll be doing lots of laundry so that I’m ready to pack Wednesday night.

I have a few errands to run so that I’m not going nuts every night next week after work.  I’ll probably wait until Sunday to do the errands so that I’m able to devote an entire day tomorrow to the cleaning.

I chose tonight not to attend a 60th birthday party for a woman from work at the Altadena Country Club tonight.  The past few weeks have been so intense and stressful and I just needed to have a night off to myself.  While most of the work parties are nice, after spending an entire week with these people I find it difficult to give up my Friday night for socializing with the people I’ve been around for the past 5 days.  Don’t get me wrong, I like most of my coworkers.  But I also like getting away from them and everything associated with work when Friday night finally gets here.  And so I made the choice not to go to the party.

And it appears I was rewarded for choosing to stay at home tonight.  As I ventured into the family room a few minutes ago a wonderful sweet scent was coming in through the open windows.  That’s right, the night-blooming jasmine is blooming!  I’ll have five more days to enjoy it before leaving to head up north.  And I hope it’s still blooming next weekend so that Vanessa (who will be staying here for a week) can enjoy a bit of it as well.  Be sure to go out back when it gets dark, Vanessa.