I’m off work today…yay! Got to take off 4 hours for comp time from going to church last Sunday and this Sunday for the Annual Meeting. Took off the remaining portion of the day to work on my annual performance evaluation. This needed to be done by next Monday and I needed to do it uninterrupted, not something that could happen at work. I started on it last night at about 9:30 pm and finally went to bed around 1:30 am. I did a bit of refining this morning and sent it off to my supervisor at noon today. There was a total of 6 pages of questions/evaluations/writing that had to be completed. Am so grateful to have it finished.

The weather is finally getting to be wonderful. Temps are in the mid-70’s today and I’m planning to spend part of the afternoon out in the yard. The rest of the weekend should be equally as nice, so I will have to fight off the temptation of being outdoors if I want to get anything done inside. At least I’ll be able to open windows and doors while I’m working inside.

So gotta go for now ’cause sitting in front of a computer doesn’t allow me to enjoy this great weather!

My day at work did not go well. Nothing I had planned to do actually happened. I wound up entering all the journal entries (57!!!) that the auditor came up with. As I knew would be the case, the resulting balances in many accounts didn’t match reality. So now I have to find out why and that means a total review of all the accounts to determine what we’ve done over the past year that affected her adjustments. Just what I don’t need. I’m going to just go ahead and get my regular work done and then deal with the audit stuff. Seems like this has resulted in far more problems than it has solved.

Not sure whether I am happy with the election results from yesterday. I’m certain I’m not happy with McCain being the GOP front runner, but not sure I’d be all that much happier with any of the other Republican candidates. Obama didn’t win the California popular vote, but he seems to be running neck and neck with Hillary in electoral votes so far. So I guess I’m not totally dejected with those results. Still had hoped he would have done better here.

I arrived home tonight to find the driveway gate to the backyard wide open…again! The pool guy keeps leaving it open and I’ve had phone calls at work from a neighbor across the street for the past two weeks letting me know she had to put Murphy back in the yard and shut the gate. Fortunately Murphy was still in the yard when I got home. Either he didn’t know the gate was open or he got out, ran around, and then went back inside the gate himself. I don’t understand how this guy can’t figure out how to keep the gate shut when he leaves. Next week he’ll get a note along with his payment and, if it continues, I’ll have to find a new pool guy. I don’t really want to do this as he’s the best I’ve had in the 20+ years I’ve lived here. But he’s got to shut the damn gate!

I’m getting real tired of nothing but reality shows and reruns on TV. Even the majority of the shows on HGTV are reruns that I’ve already seen. I’ll be grateful when the weather warms up and Daylight Savings Time begins again in early March. I’m ready to be outside at night. I’ve tried spending time in the evening reading, but, after non-stop work all day, I wind up falling asleep every time. It’s much easier to read in the summer for some reason. Maybe it has to do with having the doors and windows open. They say the writers strike may be over this week. I really hope that’s the case.

Finally, Vanessa called tonight to update me on her mother’s condition. Apparently the chemo is working at reducing the fluid in her abdomen but is not killing off the cancer cells. Thus, the prognosis is not good. She’ll continue with the chemo but that will only allow her to survive for slightly longer. Without the chemo she would probably be going into hospice care right now. What do I say? I wish there was something I could do but I can’t seem to come up with anything. *Sigh*

Someone at work decided this should be Super Monday–the day in between Super Bowl Sunday and Super Tuesday. Why not? So happy Super Monday to everyone!

I watched the Super Bowl off and on but just wasn’t into it. Probably because I really didn’t care who won. Some of the commercials were kinda cute, some were kinda dumb. I guess I’m just not enough of a football person to really care enough to do the whole Super Bowl thing. It rained most of the day yesterday, so I was pretty much stuck inside and just wasn’t motivated to do a lot. At least I got to the grocery in the morning–which I had been putting off.

Otherwise, didn’t really get a lot done over the weekend. In between the raindrops on Saturday I was able to do a bit of yard work in the backyard. I trimmed all the roses back there and pulled some weeds. Weeding is really easy when the ground is saturated! And I was amazed that there isn’t a whole lot of work to be done out there. Having the gardener do all the trimming of bushes and shrubs is really saving me a lot of effort. Last year I spent almost every weekend working in the backyard and this year it’s almost ready for planting and I’ve only spent a few hours out there! I’m going to put in mostly perennials this year and that will hopefully put an end to the annual planting craziness. But I’m not ready to start in on that until early March…maybe when Daylight Savings Time begins since it starts early this year.

Am very excited about the primaries tomorrow. I’ve decided to vote for Barack Obama. I’m so against this crazy war in Iraq and I think we stand the best chance of getting out with him as president. I think I hate this war so much due to experiencing first hand the Vietnam war. I knew too many friends who were killed in Vietnam and what came of it? I see the same thing happening in Iraq. So I hope Barack does well tomorrow. The race between him and Hillary is too close to call right now, so it may be a long night.

Got some excellent news from Vanessa…her mom is responding well to the chemotherapy! They will likely be releasing her from the hospital sometime this week but Vanessa isn’t sure whether she’ll be going back to the assisted living facility where she was previously staying or whether they’ll have to make other arrangements for awhile. Nice to get some good news for a change about someone with cancer.

Robin is growing like crazy and is starting to do all sorts of fun baby things. He laughs, giggles and babbles in the background whenever I call to talk with Kevin and he’s beginning to grab things with his hands. I expect he’ll be doing even more when I get up there to visit at the end of March. I can’t wait to see him again! It’s going to be so much fun!

Had a good birthday yesterday. Vanessa took me to dinner at Houston’s, a really, really good steakhouse here in Pasadena. We had a wonderful evening together and I am happy I have such a great friend. Thanks again, Vanessa!

Received some funny cards from Sally (Thanks!) and got home last night to find a message on my voicemail from an old friend from Akron. I’ll give her a call this weekend when I have some time to chat.

Today my supervisor, Christina, took me to lunch at The Athaneum at Cal Tech. The Athaneum is a private, members only restaurant that serves absolutely fabulous food. I had a wonderful crab cake salad and a very pleasant time talking with Christina away from work. It was nice being able to spend some time with her not focusing on work.

All in all it was a really nice birthday this year. Thanks to all who sent good wishes and gave of themselves to make it so pleasant.

PS – Thanks also to Kelly for the DVD (can’t wait to kick back and watch it) and to Tom for the phone call. A weird thing that Tom mentioned is that I turned 61 on the 29th and his daughter, Betsy, turned 16 on the same day. So how often does that happen?

It’s still raining. I’m not complaining though. It’s not been all that bad since I didn’t have to go anywhere for most of the weekend and it was rather pleasant staying indoors and watching the drops fall. Being on a hillside (and not having to deal with the repercussions of the fall wildfires), I had no rain related problems here at the house. The only thing I had to deal with was convincing Murphy to take advantage of the breaks in the rain to go outside for a pee break. He’s done relatively well and it seems like the rain has ended for now. There may be a bit more tomorrow, but I think this is it for awhile. BTW, Kevin, they just announced on the news that LA has now officially received 2.5″ more rain than Seattle since Jan 1st! I think the difference between us and you is that we get inches at a time where it’s just an ongoing sprinkling with occasional sunbreaks in Seattle.

Went out to breakfast this morning with Patrick and Veronica for an early birthday meal. Robin’s Restaurant down the street from us is now serving breakfast on weekends, and it was fabulous! I had lemon-raspberry pancakes and sausage and some really good coffee. And, of course, we had to start off with a big order of sizzling ‘shrooms for all of us to snack on before our meals arrived. Thanks again, Patrick and Veronica, for a wonderfully delicious Sunday morning breakfast.

Spent the rest of the weekend talking with friends and family on the phone, watching tv, doing a few tax returns and some cleaning…and, of course, playing Animal Crossing on my Nintendo DS. I am totally addicted to this game! The word is out that Animal Crossing for the Nintendo Wii will be released sometime in 2008. OMG! As soon as I know the release date, I’ll be buying myself a Wii.

Am also spending lots of time reading about the upcoming election and all the primary election results. I’m started to get excited about politics once again and was thrilled to see the Kennedy endorsements of Obama.

Healthwise, I’m feeling great once again. Had a few days at the end of last week where I experienced day long headaches, but all that went away this weekend. We’ll see how I feel once I get back to work tomorrow.

Meanwhile I’m relaxing for the next hour or so before bed. All in all it was a wet but good weekend.

We never seem to get just a bit of rain. It’s either all or nothing. It’s been raining for three days straight. It started on Tuesday and isn’t supposed to stop until next Monday. A week straight of rain. Wouldn’t be bad but it’s been coming down in torrents! This afternoon we also had hail and the snow level is so low that I can see the snow in the foothills just above my house! So far we’ve had 2-4″ according to the news reports and they are predicting another 7″ or so this weekend. The Grapevine (I-5 north of LA) has been closed for over 24 hrs due to ice and snow and they are predicting snow showing up as low as the 2000 ft level this weekend. It’s also c-c-cold!!! Well, cold as far as So.Cal goes. Seems like my office at work as well as my house never warm up. And going outside is out of the question. I spend as little time out there as possible!

Murphy stood out in the rain yesterday like a fool while I was at work. He was totally drenched when I got home. I guess he finally got it today ’cause he was completely dry when I got home. He has a nice dry house outside that is protected from rain under the breezeway, but he sometimes just doesn’t seem to understand that he won’t get wet if he stays under that area. At least he doesn’t mind going out periodically to pee even when it’s raining. The wind and thunder scare him, but just rain is ok. Maybe his thick coat of fur acts like a built-in raincoat.

Work is slowing down a bit. I still have plenty to keep me busy, but everyone is letting up a bit on demands. I guess my hospital visit scared them enough to realize that I can’t keep going at that frenetic pace. My chest has stopped hurting but I had a headache all day today. I considered coming home early today, but had too many things that had to get finished. We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Seems like even when I think I’ll be able to leave early it never happens. I get wrapped up in something and the next thing I know it’s 5:00. At least I’m sleeping well with all the rain pouring outside my bedroom window!

Went to the doctor today for a follow-up after my hospital visit on Saturday. Seems I’m OK. In fact, I’m very normal. All my tests showed no problems whatsoever and the doctor thinks all will be fine. We’re still not sure why the pain in my chest started, but I’m trying to eliminate as much stress as possible since I think that’s probably the cause.

So I stayed home from work today and did nothing. I laid around, watched a bit of tv and napped. I’ll go back to work tomorrow and try not to stress out about all the mail that is stacked up waiting and all the phone messages and emails.

I was really motivated yesterday to get going with the cleaning out of closets, dressers, etc. I got started in my bedroom and made great progress in my closet. I removed clothing that’s been hanging there for years and hasn’t been worn for just as long. I also found some clothing I had completely forgotten about! So I made a huge stack of clothes to be donated and piled them up in the back bedroom. I planned to bag up everything on Sunday and haul it off to Goodwill on Monday. But, you know what they say about the best laid plans…

I decided to take a break Saturday night and play a little Animal Crossing. That’s when the pain started in my chest. It felt like someone had punched me as hard as possible in the middle of my chest about 3″ above my breasts. I didn’t know what was causing the pain so I decided to soak in a hot tub which usually helps with any pain related to my muscles. That didn’t help. I was a bit scared so took some aspirin ‘just in case.’ I laid around watching tv for a few hours and then went to bed with the pain still there. As I laid in bed in pain I decided I wasn’t ready to go just yet and needed to have someone check this out. I was scared of what this paint might be.

I called Patrick at 11:30 pm and he and Veronica came over and took me to the hospital. Thankfully it wasn’t crowded at Glendale Adventist so we got right in. After 2 EKG’s, some blood work and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I was NOT having a heart attack. Whew! They gave me an injection of morphine (which has totally wiped me out today), a couple of Rx’s for motrin and vicodin and told me to follow up with my GP. The diagnosis was a problem related to the lining of my chest. It can come from a viral infection and/or stress. I vote for stress. I’ll call my doctor tomorrow and see what he says.

Meanwhile, today has been a total loss. I’ve had no energy whatsoever and have spent a good portion of the day sleeping. The only meds I’ve taken have been Tylenol and my regular bp meds and tegretol. The pain is letting up so I’m hopeful some rest will do the trick without my having to load up my body with vicodin. I don’t like to take that stuff unless I really have to. Thankfully I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, but what a waste of a day off. At least the news was good all the way around. Maybe this will convince the people at work that I can’t continue at the crazy pace I’ve been working over the past year.

His first appearance….but no doubt not his last. Check out the news story of the Flying Labs launch party for Pirates of the Burning Sea:

http://potbsvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=68

The full version of the game will be available on Tuesday, 1/22. Support Robin! Buy this game!

That’s right. Up the stairs. I headed out of the parking lot at work this morning and wasn’t paying attention as I headed up the stairs. Somehow, I wound up falling ‘up’ the stairs. I still don’t know how that happened. I scraped up one of my fingers but, otherwise, I didn’t get hurt. I did feel like a real dork though. What a great way to start off the day…

Amazingly, the rest of the day turned out quite good. I worked on the December bank reconciliation and, for the first time I can ever remember, everything was entered accurately and the bank statement matched exactly with the general ledger. That is an unbelievable accomplishment. Only have a few more year-end entries and I’ll be finished with 2007.

As I sit here writing tonight there is an unbelievable wind storm blowing outside. I won’t be surprised to see either the fence or the tree from the house next door down on the ground tomorrow morning. At least I expect tons of branches laying in my driveway so I need to be sure to get up early enough to clear a path so I can get to work. Hopefully nothing will hit my car…or my house. It’s been a long time since we’ve had winds this strong. The noise is scaring the crap out of all the animals. Murphy thought he needed to pee until he stuck his head out into the wind. He’s decided to hold it.

I’ve been watching shows on PBS tonight. The first was Antiques Roadshow (always a favorite) and the second is a documentary about the Kennedy assassination. I used to watch shows on PBS all the time, but somehow got distracted by network television. Now that there is so little in the way of new shows on the networks due to the writers’ strike, I remembered PBS once again. And I’m glad I did. There are new and really good shows on PBS…and there are very few commercials, an added benefit.

Got all my Christmas stuff packed up this past weekend, finally! Patrick came over yesterday and pulled down the remaining icicle lights around the edge of the roof and also helped me haul the packed up crates out to the garage. I was very ready to have all of it packed away. I cleaned out quite a bit of decorations that I didn’t use this year (or for the past few years) and will be contributing all of it to Goodwill. I still have tons of decorations and won’t miss any of the stuff I’m contributing.

Now I’m going to get busy on a major housecleaning. That includes cleaning out closets and drawers, getting rid of stuff that’s been stashed away for years and years. And then the garage awaits. Once I’ve cleaned out the house, I’m going to start bringing boxes into the house so I can go through one or two each evening. I’m motivated to get rid of stuff so I’ve got to get going while the motivation is still there.

Have spent every evening this week hanging out with my buddies in the game Animal Crossing. I fish, pick fruit, earn bells, buy furniture and pay off my mortgage. Mostly I am vegging out with this game.

I have been so stressed at work that all I want to do is veg when I get home at night. Today is only January 11th, yet I was asked to have all the year end journal entries completed today. During a ‘normal’ month I have until around the 20th of the month to finalize all the month end entries. Yet I was asked to have everything completed for month-end and year-end today. Do you see a problem with this? Additionally, I had to set up all the new payroll deductions to start off the new year, get payroll sent off yesterday, review it today and make sure all the W-2’s for 2007 were accurate before distributing them today. Plus I had to close out the time clock program for the year and run a multitude of reports which took 2-3 hours. By about 4 pm I knew there was no way I could finish up the journal entries. So I decided to say no. And I decided not to bring the work home with me this weekend. I just need a break and the powers that be at work need to understand that this needs to be done the right way, meaning I must take the time necessary to be certain everything is accurate. I know they want to know the final numbers, but there is no sense providing numbers that turn out to be wrong.

So I’ll be spending the weekend finishing up putting away my Christmas decorations, cleaning house, doing laundry and maybe playing a bit more Animal Crossing. I will not be doing anything related to work and will try not to think about work. The weather is going to be beautiful so I may do a bit of yard work, my absolute favorite way of destressing. As long as it isn’t related to my job, it doesn’t really matter what I do.

Get your presale copy while you still can! I bought mine last night while Vanessa and I were at Best Buy…and Vanessa bought two!!! Since Vanessa couldn’t find a copy of Animal Crossing at Best Buy, we went next door to Game Stop where we found one. While Vanessa was waiting to pay I asked the clerks if they had any computer games, specifically the presale of Pirates of the Burning Sea. When they said yes we asked if they knew anything about the game and proceeded to discuss it with them. I told them my son was the lead designer of the game and they were super impressed….so much so that they asked if they could get a copy autographed if they bought the game when it was released. Of course I said I could take care of that.

Kevin was a bit surprised that someone wanted his autograph! So I’ll be making arrangements for my soon to be famous son to autograph some copies of his new game when it is released towards the end of January. Pretty damn cool.

It’s only been a few days since New Year’s Day, but it seems like that was sooo long ago. Work has been absolutely brutal with everyone wanting everything under the sun completed yesterday. In addition, my administrative assistant has been sick (again) all week. He only took off a couple of afternoons, but that’s only because he has so little sick time remaining since he was off an entire week+ in December. I pray I didn’t pick up any of his germs as he wandered the office coughing, sneezing, and blowing his nose! The big problem is that I *really* need him to be there working for me at this point. I am totally overwhelmed with work in January and just can’t afford for him to be out sick. I hope he doses himself up with meds and stays in bed all weekend.

Vanessa left this morning after being here since Wednesday. She’s been dealing with her mom’s medical issues as well as working with a few clients here in LA. After getting an unexpected past due payment from a client, she and I went shopping last night for her own personal Nintendo DS and the game “Animal Crossing.” Yay, ‘nessa! She and I can now visit each other’s towns even when she is up north in Los Osos! How fun!

And, yes, we were out shopping during the unbelievable downpour that hit LA yesterday. I think it was just raining while we were out. Once we got home (around 9-9:30), it hit with a vengeance! We saw the level of water in the pool rise 3-4 inches over the evening! The rain came down heavier than I’ve seen it rain since back in the El Nino days. The late news reports showed street flooding all over the area. Fortunately we didn’t lose power, nor did we have any wind damage around here. And it seems all the hillsides have stayed in place after the fires this fall. The rain has stopped for now, but 2 more storms are expected this weekend. Once we got home, it was nice just to stay inside (where it was nice and warm and dry) and watch the rain fall. The animals weren’t happy about it, though, and we wound up cleaning up a few poop drops around the house since they were *reluctant* to venture outdoors to do their business.(Are you crazy?! Do you really think I’m going out in that?!)

I had hoped to take down all the Christmas decorations this weekend, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. I’ll try to take down as many as possible and pack them away, but everything outside is totally soaked and I’ll have to let them dry out before packing. So I’ll try to strip down the bushes of lights and lay them on the front porch until next weekend when I can put them away. Meanwhile, there are plenty of decorations inside to be packed up.

Finally, it seems Barack Obama came out at the top in the Iowa caucuses! This pleased me immensely and I’m so happy Hillary came in third. I’m hopeful he will continue to do well and that a victory by Obama will result in an end to this disgusting war in Iraq. I am so looking forward to a change from these past 8 years.

Enough of all this…I need to get busy or I’ll still have Christmas decorations scattered around my house on Valentine’s Day!

Hope everyone has a wonderful new year. Just finished watching the Rose Parade for the first time. It’s on TV all day here. Will watch the Rose Bowl game later this afternoon as I wait for my pork and sauerkraut to finish cooking. Patrick and Veronica will be here later to enjoy our first dinner of the new year…and to have a belated birthday celebration for Patrick’s 28th yesterday.

And then I’ll spend the evening relaxing before beginning work tomorrow. It’s been a great 10 days or so of vacation where I’ve done very little other than hanging out around the house. I’m ready to get back in the swing of things once again…but will probably be more than ready for the MLK holiday in a few weeks!

Happy New Year!

What a bummer. Patrick called a little while ago to let me know that the Albertson’s Grocery (where I do the majority of my shopping) was on fire. He went to the store to check it out and seemed to think the store didn’t suffer much in the way of damage. However, there are 3 or 4 other small stores attached along the side of Albertson’s that were burned. They had a brief piece on the news tonight, but didn’t really give much info other than the stores all being evacuated. This will be a real problem for me and lots of other people if Albertson’s isn’t open. I just don’t know where stuff is in any other store.

It’s actually been a pretty good year. The best part, of course, was the birth of my wonderful grandson, Robin. I think the only thing that will ever be better than that is the birth of another grandchild! No rush, though…I’m content with Robin!

Other good things included a visit from Julia (Patrick’s friend from Canada) whom I hadn’t seen for 5 years. And how fun was all the Burning Man prep and the big send off party the night before everyone left for a week in the desert!

I also have a new office space and an enlarged family room after Patrick helped to clean out all the ‘leftovers’ after moving out in the fall of 2005. I repainted the room that used to be Kevin’s bedroom and it is spectacular as an office/library. And the family room seems huge after getting rid of all the bookcases, filing cabinets and my computer.

At work we finally finished our first audit ever! It was brutal but, now that it’s finally over, things will be so much better and it will be easier each year as we go through regular annual audits. An administrative assistant was hired to work for me, meaning I have much more time to get my work completed. While January/February will still be busy for me, I expect things to be a bit more relaxing this summer–a welcome change from the past few years.

Still couldn’t have a year with nothing bad happening. My best friend, Mata, passed away in July from complications of back surgery. Unfortunately, it seems there’s at least one death a year among friends or family as I get older. Guess that’s something that will continue, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Frankly, it sucks. I could do with a few years off.

We were lucky here in Pasadena not to be affected by all the wildfires that struck Southern California this past fall. It was unbelievable as we seemed to be surrounded by one neighborhood after another going up in flames. How grateful I am that none of the fires came close.

Meanwhile, I’m beginning to look forward to 2008. I’ve already made reservations for my first trip up to Seattle in ’08. I’ll be flying up at the end of March after all the year end craziness is completed at work and will be back in time to handle all those last minute tax filers who’ll be calling. I got a great deal with Southwest ($99 each way) and can’t wait to get up there and see that baby again.

The game Kevin’s been working on for the past 5 years (Pirates of the Burning Sea) will be released for sale at the end of January. A real milestone for him and I’m extremely proud of his success. Patrick is starting off the new year working for Dreamhost at their downtown LA location and I couldn’t be happier. He can take the Goldline train to work everyday, resulting in a huge decrease in the amount of gasoline he needs to put in his truck each month. All in all both boys are doing well and are happy in their jobs.

I’ll be spending New Year’s Day watching the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game (on TV) and eating the traditional pork and sauerkraut. We’ll probably celebrate Patrick’s 28th birthday that day as well since Patrick will be spending his real birthday on New Year’s Eve with Veronica. And then 2008 will be underway. I hope it will be a good year for all of us. It seems to be starting off well.

I got Patrick a really spectacular digital camera (Canon SD800 IS) through Amazon for his birthday. I gave it to him early on Christmas Eve so that he could take Christmas pics. After using it for only an hour or so, he discovered a dead pixel in the display screen that also appeared on all the images downloaded to the computer. Disappointing, but not terrible in that I assumed I could just return it to Amazon and have it replaced. When I tried to do this, Amazon sent me an email saying they no longer had this camera in stock and would instead issue me a refund. Now this wouldn’t have been all that bad since I could find the camera somewhere else….except I got an unbelievable price from Amazon–55% off retail!!!

So I decided to do nothing for a few days. Today I checked back on Amazon’s website and there it was! They had it in stock once again! I called them and they agreed they could replace the defective one and a new one is being shipped as we speak. Patrick is thrilled and I am extremely grateful I don’t have to try to find this camera somewhere else. And I’m very happy I won’t have to spend any additional money and can still enjoy getting such a good deal.

After getting the camera replacement taken care of, I decided to go visit Kohl’s and spend my gift card from Patrick and Veronica. Of course I wound up spending more than the gift card, but it was a great shopping trip and I got a ton of new clothes. How fun it was knowing I was getting all kinds of discounts! In addition to the gift card, I had a $10 cash coupon and another coupon for 10% off my entire order. I ended up getting about $75 off the final total. How cool is that! I bought 4 sweaters, 1 sweatshirt, 3 long sleeve shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 1 nightgown, a Christmas table runner, some bibs for Robin, a kitchen towel, and 2 Hallmark Christmas ornaments for Robin for the next two years. Whew! After this trip I won’t need to buy any clothes for myself until summer…..or until Kohl’s sends me a discount card I can’t refuse!

No matter what anyone says, I absolutely LOVE getting gift cards! I got so many bargains today and I got things that I really wanted. Keep the gift cards coming, and thanks Patrick and Veronica for a great day of shopping.

And now tonight I’m going to play some Animal Crossing on the Nintendo DS that I got from Kevin and Soula. So far I’ve paid off the first mortgage and enlarged my house. I’m planning to do a bunch of fishing tonight for all those big fish in the ocean so I can start filling my house with lots of cool furniture. Thanks you guys for giving me a fun way to occupy my time….instead of dealing with all the stuff I brought home from work!

Well, it’s over. Seems like it was only yesterday that I was busy preparing for all the Christmas activities and now it’s come and gone…and I’m exhausted and ready for relaxing for the next few days.

On Saturday Patrick and I went shopping for Veronica’s gift (he got her a new laptop!) and I went to Albertson’s and Ralph’s to pick up all the Christmas food. I had already picked up a ham from the Honeybaked store on Friday, but still had to get all the snackie stuff for Christmas Eve and a prime rib for Christmas Day. Decided on the prime rib after mulling over numerous choices including a ‘turducken’ that Patrick and Veronica tried to order but found the cost prohibitive at the last minute. Hours later I finally had everything put away and the kitchen in relatively good order with the fridge overflowing with food and drink.

On Sunday I went to the cemetery with Patrick to visit Mike. We took a really nice wreath that I decorated with a beautiful gold bow and some small gold poinsettias. Also took a live red poinsettia. Forest Lawn was it’s usual gaudy self with miniature Christmas trees, tinsel and a balloon or two. It’s not as bad as it used to be since they’ve put up signs regarding sizes and types of decorations, but I still don’t understand why people bring some of the outrageous kinds decorations to a cemetery. If you’ve never been, it is certainly an experience to see!

Spent the rest of Sunday at home shampooing carpets and furniture, doing laundry and generally getting the house in order. I thought I had plenty of time for doing some baking and gift wrapping, but all of a sudden it was 10 pm and I was still cleaning! Oh well, at least I felt confident the house was in good shape for guests and there would be no lingering pet odors. I fell into bed around 1 am, exhausted.

Had planned to get up early on Christmas Eve, but didn’t make it up until 8:30-9:00 am. Started in on the cookie baking and organizing the kitchen for the evening gathering. Also managed to do some last minute cleaning of the bathroom and gave Murphy a bath so that he smelled nice when he jumped into the laps of all the visitors! Vanessa and Rick arrived early in the afternoon, dropped off Vanessa’s dog, Pixel, and headed to the hospital to visit with her mom before returning for the party. And then, all of a sudden, it seemed the house was full of people! We had a great Christmas Eve gathering with 8-10 friends showing up on and off throughout the night. The ham and all the assorted side dishes and snacks were delicious (thanks for the yummy cheese ball, Amanda!) and we ate (and drank) our way into night, chatting and dancing to Christmas music.

Christmas morning was quiet with Vanessa, Rick and myself rising late and enjoying coffee and cinnamon rolls before opening our gifts to one another. The day itself was absolutely beautiful–the sun was shining brightly and the temps were in the 70’s. I opened all the doors and windows as I picked up the residue from the night before. Started the prime rib roasting in the oven and prayed it would turn out ok since I had never roasted one before. Vanessa and Rick left to have dinner with her dad and Patrick and Veronica arrived in the early afternoon. We opened gifts (more about that later) as we waited for dinner to finish cooking.

Dinner turned out great! The prime rib was delicious and all the side dishes (salad, roasted red skin potatoes, and green bean casserole) made for just the right amount of food. The fresh thyme (from my garden!) and red wine au jus was the perfect sauce for the prime rib that was very, very tender and juicy. Even the dogs enjoyed munching on the big rib bones after dinner–something they haven’t been able to do in the past when we had turkey. Now that I know what I’m doing with the roast, I think prime rib might become a regular on the Christmas table.

My gifts from everyone were wonderful this year! Kevin and Soula got me a Nintendo DS (hand-held gaming system) with the Animal Crossing Wild World game! I spent a few hours last night setting up the game and learning how all the moves work using the stylus pen on the touch screen. Probably stayed up too late, but what did it matter since I knew I wouldn’t have to get up for work this morning! Patrick and Veronica gave me a beautiful Christmas centerpiece filled with red roses, carnations and greenery, a t-shirt that says Pasadena on the front and two books showing old pictures of Pasadena in the early days. The books were ‘bookmarked’ with gift cards from Kohl’s, Bath and Body Works and Starbucks! Yay! Thought about going shopping today, but have pretty much decided to wait until tomorrow when I would guess the crowds of people returning gifts are a bit less than today. Vanessa and Rick got me a cone-shaped Dirt Devil hand vacuum that is perfect for those little spills that don’t warrant getting out the big vacuum cleaner. It doesn’t look at all like a vacuum, meaning you can keep it plugged in and sitting in a corner where it is readily accessible for those little cleanups. Thanks to everyone for coming up with such great gifts!

The final (and best) gift I received was the video of Robin that Soula made with their new video camera. He is jabbering away and looks absolutely adorable! I can’t believe how much he has grown and changed since I saw him in September. I’m going to be spending some time online over the next few days trying to arrange my next trip up to Seattle. I can’t wait to see him again! If you’d like to view the video, go to the link for Soula’s website on the left of this page. He is such a cutie!

So that was Christmas. All in all, it was quite wonderful but I’m glad it’s mostly over. I don’t have to go back to work until January 2nd and I’m grateful for that. It’s nice knowing that I have very little that I ‘have’ to do over the next few days. Right now I’m going to relax, enjoy the beautiful weather, and maybe play a little bit of Animal Crossing! Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as I did. Happy holidays to all…and to all some good rest now that it’s over!!!

I can’t believe that Christmas is almost here! I finished up most of my shopping tonight with only a couple of small gifts to go. I’m taking off work early on Friday and will stop on my way home to finish up. Almost everything that I ordered online has already been shipped so it appears there will be gifts to be opened by all on Christmas Day. I am so glad to have this shopping part over. I stress out over the shopping more than any other part of Christmas.

Had to stop at Target yesterday to buy a gift for myself–a new vacuum cleaner. I began vacuuming the carpet in the family room on Sunday afternoon when the vacuum quit moving. Then I noticed smoke pouring out of the back. Uh….time to turn it off. The vacuum is over 10 years old so I guess it was time to put it to rest. Fortunately, Target had a deal on a Hoover Wind Tunnel Cyclonic (the bagless kind) and I was lucky enough to get the last one. It was pouring down rain last night so I didn’t even try to bring it in from the car. I’ll bring it in tonight and hope it doesn’t take too much effort to put it together. I can’t wait to see how much cleaner the floors will soon be. My house will be sparkling for Christmas!

I haven’t started baking yet but have plenty of time this weekend since most everything else will be done. I’ll be spending part of Friday and Saturday cleaning, but don’t really have that much to do since I did a lot of that as I was decorating.

And then I’m off work until January 2nd!!! Not sure what I’m going to do all that time. May just veg out. Or I may do some painting. Still have to paint the closet doors in my bedroom and office so this may be a good time to work on that. I’ll be bringing home some work so that I’m not totally overwhelmed when I go back to work on the 2nd. But it will be nice to be able to work in my nightgown and robe, knowing I don’t have to go out anywhere all day.

Well, gotta wrap a few things to take to work tomorrow.