I feel so sorry for Soula and Kevin right now.  They are still waiting.  Not much has changed.  Soula’s cervix is still only dilated about 1 cm and her contractions, which are lasting about 1 minute, are about 3 minutes apart.  Kevin sounded exhausted when I talked with him a few minutes ago and he said Soula was extremely tired and just wanted everything to be over.

They will be injecting her with the drug to induce labor within the next few hours and will make a decision (probably in the early hours of the morning) as to whether the labor is proceeding as planned or whether they need to do a caesarian.  Kevin will call me when they decide.  I’m keeping the phone right next to my nightstand so that I can get the call no matter what time it might be.

PS – Check the link for Soula’s website at the right.  She’s actually blogging while in labor at the hospital!

Just spoke with Kevin (11 am, Saturday).  Soula will have the baby either today or tomorrow.  They have given her something to cause her cervix to dilate.  This medication takes up to 24 hours to work and it started at 10 pm last night.  She has begun having contractions that are about 3 min apart, but the baby has not yet dropped into the birth canal although his head is in the downward position.  She is being medicated for the high blood pressure and is being hydrated intraveneously.

If all this goes as planned, they will induce labor sometime tonight or tomorrow.  If there are problems (who knows what that means…any number of things with either Soula or the baby), they will do a c-section.  Regardless of what method, Kevin and Soula will have a son by the end of the day tomorrow…and I will have my first grandson!

Soula is in the hospital.  She went for her doctor’s appointment today and they sent her to the hospital.  As of now she is being monitored closely (baby heart rate monitor plus all the normal equipment they hook you up to in the hospital) and I expect some kind of a decision will be made either tonight or tomorrow.  The options are to keep her there for a few days or until the baby is born, send her home for continued bed rest, induce labor or do a c-section now.  And, that last option of inducing labor or doing a c-section could be held off on for a week or two.

The baby seems to be fine at this point.  Soula, however, is still having problems with erratic blood pressure as well as a low amount of amniotic fluid.  She is also having a lot of pain in her back and other parts of her body–pain that is not contractions (neither the real thing nor Braxton-Hicks).  So I am glad she is in the hospital right now.  That’s better than laying around at home worrying.

Now I’m the one at home worrying!  When I thought they had a month to go, I was still fairly calm.  Now that it’s possible this little boy may be here sooner, I’m very nervous and anxious and excited.  I haven’t seen Soula since she got pregnant, so all of this having a baby stuff has kind of just been talk.  Had I been around her and seen the baby growing, I think I might have gotten excited earlier.  But now, it finally seems real.

I last talked with Kevin this afternoon, so have no news for the past 4-5 hours.  I tried calling, but no one is at home.  Will update as soon as I have anything new to report.

It’s Thursday and I feel as though the week has flown by and I’ve gotten very little done at home or at work.  Oh, I’ve accomplished a few big projects at work, but I have sooo much remaining to do between now and next week before I leave for a week off.  It’s hard to decide what to do at this point since I still have tons of stuff remaining for the audit as well as regular items that I need to have finished before I leave for Seattle next month.  Will probably work on audit things since the auditors will be calling next week wanting to come in to get finished.  He/she who has the loudest voice wins.

Home is a different story.  I have mountains of things waiting to be tackled…and just not enough time from what I estimate.  Julia and her boyfriend will be here to stay sometime after the 18th of the month.  I hope it’s quite a while after the 18th!  Think I can get everything accomplished if they don’t show up until the middle of the week, around the 22nd.  But the earlier they come, the worse it will be as far as getting things done.  Oh well, they may just have to put up with a few messes.  I thought I had until the 23rd (when Brian and his girlfriend are due in) and that would have given me plenty of time.

Thought about heading up to Seattle to help Kevin and Soula get things ready for the baby, but it was just too expensive to fly there for only a few days.  I checked all sorts of airlines and flight possibilities, but paying double (or more!) for a weekend stay just didn’t seem practical.  And with as much as I have to do around here…well, it just wouldn’t be practical for that reason, as well.

Soula is going to the doctor tomorrow.  They may decide to put her in the hospital until the baby arrives or just have her continue with total bed rest at home.  She saw a decrease in amniotic fluid when she had the ultrasound on Tuesday as well as continued sporadic blood pressure spikes.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if the baby arrives early.  She’s far enough along in her pregnancy and the baby is big enough (about 5.3 lbs) that it shouldn’t be a problem if they decide to induce or do a caesarian earlier than her due date of 9/11.  I don’t think they were looking forward to that birthdate anyhow.

The weather has been warm, but not unbearable.  As a result of that (and working late almost every night this week) I’ve kind of let the watering of the yard and plants fall by the wayside.  Tonight I spent the evening getting caught up, giving my plants and yard a long refreshing watering.  I’ve lost a bunch of plants (all annuals) and need to do a lot of weeding and trimming.  A lot of that (especially the trimming) will have to wait until the inside of the house is finished up.  I’m probably the only one who notices the outside chores that aren’t done, so that stuff isn’t a major priority.  Given the choice, though, I would much rather do the outside work…which is why there’s so much waiting to be done inside!

We had a 4.5 earthquake early this morning just before 1 am.  I was sound asleep and didn’t feel anything.  It must not have been too strong here ’cause nothing seems to have moved or fallen.  We were just talking not long ago about how we haven’t had any strong earthquakes in a long time–over 10 years.  Hope this isn’t a precursor to a big one happening sometime soon.  The weather has been so screwy this year with no rain, hot weather in June and mild temps in August, so I wouldn’t be surprised to have a big earthquake hit next.  We’re supposed to have all kinds of unusual things happening in August (a lunar eclipse, meteor showers, etc), so an earthquake might very well happen as a result of all this combined with the strange weather.  Who knows.

Vanessa spent part of yesterday and last night here.  She came into the LA area to visit with family as well as to attend a business meeting today.  I invited her to sleep over here and leave Pixel (her dog) to hang out with Murphy while she ran around for all her appointments.  I wound up not getting as much accomplished yesterday afternoon as planned, but enjoyed hanging out with her for a few hours.  And I got to introduce her to some of my favorite shows on HGTV!  Now she’s all set with a wealth of info (and a website for new ideas) to begin decorating her new apartment.

Soula is still experiencing high bp, even after being prescribed a beta blocker.  Don’t know how long meds take to do their thing, so it’s possible that after only a few days they haven’t yet kicked in.  She saw the doctor today and her bp wasn’t as high as it’s been at home.  Tomorrow they go in for an ultrasound and the doctor will discuss what their options are at this point.  She (the doctor) told them today that she doesn’t think the baby will go full term.  Meanwhile, Kevin is putting together the crib tonight and they’re stocking up on diapers, bottles, etc.

Burning Man is once again on the horizon.  Next weekend Patrick and his friends will be hanging out in my driveway repainting the travel trailer that Patrick purchased earlier this summer…provided he and his buddies are able to move the trailer and get it hooked up to his truck tonight.  He’s planning to take it to an RV place tomorrow to get some routine service done.  This will be the first time he’s moved it since we originally moved it back into the space behind his apartment, and that was total craziness since none of us knew what we were doing.  I haven’t heard any cries for help, so I’m hopeful all went well with the move.

Work is going well this week…so far.  Found a bunch of old records that I’ve been trying to track down for months.  They were down in the office building basement!  Yes, it’s just as nasty as you might expect it would be for a building that was constructed back in the 20’s.  Tomorrow I’ll be wearing old clothes to work in order to start going through all these old files that were pulled up and put in a large room for sorting.

So, it should be an interesting week with lots of stuff happening.  And I still have bunches of stuff to get done to have the house ready for visitors towards the end of the month.  I anticipate the month of August will fly by and then it will be time to head off to Seattle.  I’m getting exhausted just thinking about all this!

At least I’ll be off work during the week of August 20th, giving me a few days to finish up the household chores.  Guess I should start in making some lists tonight so I don’t wind up having everything yet to do at the last minute.

As I looked at the windows in the family room today, I decided they (along with the curtains) needed cleaning.  Washing the windows and curtains didn’t seem like too daunting a task, so I took town all 14 panels and started a load of wash holding half of the curtains.  Then I began washing the windows.

While I’ve washed the windows many times before, I never cleaned the vinyl trim previously…and it really needed cleaning.  What a job that turned out to be!  I finished up all four floor to ceiling windows at the back along with the sliding door.  Tomorrow I’ll do the windows at the side of the room.  Thankfully they don’t go all the way to the floor!  And the curtains are hung at the back of the room, so at least the sun won’t heat things up too much in the morning.

It was kind of nice looking this afternoon with all the curtains down.  Wish I could have just the windows with no curtains, but the heat is too much in the summer…and then there’s the privacy issue from the two story house behind me.  When the day comes when I want to sell the house, though, I will most certainly take down the curtains to show off the windows.  When I watch all those shows on HGTV, I often wonder about the heat issue with all the open windows…but I suppose most of those houses have central air which I don’t have.  One of these days…

Chrysoula has developed high blood pressure.  On Tuesday she went for her regular doctor’s appointment and they noted her blood pressure was elevated.  When it was still high today she went to the birth clinic and had blood/urine tests done.  The results are that she needs to take it easy and keep herself hydrated.  The baby is ok as far as they can tell.  She’ll be visiting the doctor again on Friday.

It seems that some jerk has targeted our neighborhood for burglaries.  So far this year 11 houses have been broken into compared to 3 in all of last year and none in 2005.  All of the homes burglarized so far have been hit during the day when the people living there were not at home.  Fortunately, Murphy goes crazy barking whenever anyone he doesn’t know comes near the house so I doubt my house will be hit.

An article about the burglaries was on the front page of the local news section of our newspaper yesterday.  Last night a guy from ADT was going door to door trying to sell alarm systems.  When I told him I wasn’t interested, his comment was “I can’t believe you’re not interested in protecting your home.”  I hate it when someone like that uses this kind of a situation to try to make a quick buck.  He’s just as bad as the burglars.

I sat and watched a Dodger baseball game tonight.  They were playing the San Francisco Giants.  I really didn’t care who won the game, but thought it might be kind of cool to actually see Barry Bonds tie and possibly break the HR record.  Didn’t happen and I turned it off when they put in a pinch runner for himÂafter he was walked on his last at bat.  I must say, though, that Vin Scully is by far the best baseball commentator I’ve ever heard.  He gives so much information that you aren’t sitting there waiting for something to happen.  He keeps the game interesting continually and somehow he just makes the game sound the way baseball should–sort of like it used to be when all you had was baseball on the radio. It just seemed more like summer with a baseball game on.

Yesterday was Mata’s memorial service.  It seems like all this happened so long ago, yet it also still seems unreal.  The service was a very nice, traditional Jewish memorial.  The rabbi, whom Mata and Ken had known for 35 years, had an absolutely beautiful voice and sang quite a few Jewish hymns.  After the service we went to the home of the president of their congregation for a reception.

I met up with numerous OM/DI folks who came from all over the state as well as some of Mata’s coworkers from Plummers and friends from around Pasadena.  It was great to see all of them, but sad it had to be for such an occasion.  Things finally ended around 6:30 and I said my goodbyes to Mata’s sister, Billie, and her family.  They are off to Kansas City today.  I hope to stay in touch with Billie as she is a very sweet person that I really like.

I was extremely grateful to get home last night and was so ready for bed.  And I was very ready to get back to work today and try to get back on track.  No doubt I’ll be ready for the weekend, but it’s good to have the diversity of work to occupy my mind right now.

Yesterday was Soula’s baby shower.  They got many really nice gifts and seem to be ready for the baby.  They still need to stock up on all the disposable stuff like diapers and baby wipes, but otherwise I think they are just about ready.  I’m starting to get excited and can’t believe Soula’s due date is only 6 weeks from tomorrow!  Time certainly goes by faster when you’re waiting for your first grandchild than when you’re waiting for your first child.

By the way, the gift I got them that I couldn’t mention earlier was an adorable little pirate suit!  Very appropriate since the game Kevin has been working on (that will be released sometime this fall we hope) is Pirates of the Burning Sea.  I can’t wait to see that little guy all dressed up in it!

Vanessa called to let me know she got the keys today to her first apartment in Los Osos.  Saw some pictures online and it looks like a great place.  Vanessa has been waiting for years to finally have her own place where she can try out all those ideas from HGTV.  And I can’t wait to go visit her and spend some time along the coast up north…and maybe take a short drive to Cambria!

Vanessa came over for dinner (nice big green salad full of fresh-picked tomatoes from my garden!) last night–a welcome respite from a week filled with shock, stress and tears.  We sat around talking for hours after dinner.  She needed a break from a work project and the noise of the city and I needed a break from reality.  Thank you, Vanessa.  Somehow you and I know when it’s time to connect with one another.

Today reality is back.  I’m off to the florist in a bit to order flowers for the memorial service on Sunday.  Just talked with Sylvia and it looks like I’ll be doing all the schlepping of food, drinks, etc for the reception on Sunday.  It’s been hard to convince Mata’s family that this is the time they should step back and accept some help.  They were planning on picking up everything themselves on Sunday and delivering it to the place where the reception will be held.  They just don’t realize the added stress they are thinking of putting into a day that’s going to be stressful enough.  I just stepped in and told them no.  So I’ll wind up doing a lot of running around Sunday morning.  Better me than them.

After a day of on and off tears, contacting lots of friends and family, talking with Mata’s family and trying to get the payroll done at work (please, no mistakes), I am drained…and still in a state of shock.

Mata should not have died today.  She was not ready…and I am not ready to say goodbye.  For the next few days (until Sunday) I can pretend ’cause nothing is different.  Right now she’s still at the hospital.  We haven’t had a memorial service.  No formal goodbyes have happened.  But she’s in my head and on my mind all the time.

I remember vividly all our phone calls and can still hear her voice and laughter in my head.  I was never at a loss for jokes or inspirational stories, ’cause Mata would send me scores of emails almost every day.  And I felt as though we were sisters as we shared all the ups and downs of our kids and families.  I don’t know how I would have gotten through the weeks after Mike’s death had it not been for Mata being there for me whenever I needed someone to talk with–and I needed her a lot during those days.

I never really had to read a book, see a movie, or watch a tv show ’cause Mata was able to give me all the details dare I mention any of the above.  She had a great memory and was extremely intelligent.  I was always amazed to hear her descriptions of minute details of some of the most obscure movies going all the way back to the 30’s and 40’s.  She read everything and anything all the time (sorry you had to miss Harry Potter #7, Mata) and went crazy emailing once she got a computer.  She didn’t know much else about computers, but she sure knew how to email.  I remember yelling at her (actually at the computer) when I would get those emails that she sent at 2:30 am!

She was always amazed at the remodeling things I did around my house and we always said that ‘someday’ I would help her refinish a cabinet in her dining room that belonged to her mother.  Seems that ‘someday’ went by and we missed it.

Mata and I spent tons and tons of time working with the Gifted and Talented program in the Pasadena School District and that turned into massive amounts of time volunteering for the Odyssey of the Mind program.  We coached kids, we trained coaches, we judged at the state level and we put on tournaments locally.  I finally quit the program a few years after Patrick graduated from high school, but Mata couldn’t give it up.  When Odyssey of the Mind split into two programs, Mata took over as regional director for the new program, Destination Imagination.  She was still heavily involved with DI up until late this past spring doing trainings and judging.  She just couldn’t give up working with the kids.

The most wonderful day of her life was when her dear grandson, Lucien, was born.  She couldn’t get enough of that little boy!  Last night I told her she wasn’t allowed to leave us until she was able to meet my new grandbaby in September.  While I know in my heart that she would have chosen to stay around till then, it just wasn’t to be.

I’ll think of her every year when I purchase Christmas wreaths.  It didn’t matter that she was Jewish, she was still going to get a wreath for her front door.  I’ll think of her whenever I see an ad for the Harvest Festival or the Decorators Showcase House.  And dinners at Robin’s Restaurant will always bring to mind the three-course dessert meal with her sister, Billie!

And so, like it or not, the time is coming when I will have to say goodbye.  I know that her friendship has made a big difference to me and she will never really be out of my life–especially when I remember her laughter.  My final thought–and the one for which I am most grateful–is that I have had the privilege for all these years of calling Mata my friend.

My dear friend, Mata Plumb, passed away early this morning.

My friend, Mata, is in the hospital.  She’s been there since June 26 when she went in for back surgery to repair disks that had collapsed and fused together.  She was supposed to be there for about 2 weeks.  Things started to go bad when she developed an e-coli infection in the incision.  They had to reopen the incision and flush out the infection.  There wasn’t enough tissue remaining to be able to stitch her up again, so they had to wait for the tissue to regrow.  They were finally able to close her up about a week ago and everything seemed to be progressing well.

Tonight I received a call from her daughters letting me know she was in ICU and that I needed to come to the hospital.  Somehow she developed 2 blood clots–one in her lungs and one in an artery.  They are trying to stabilize her and she is completely sedated with tubes in her mouth, nose and veins.  She is currently on 100% oxygen.

Mata has been my friend since Patrick was 10 years old–almost 18 years!  I’m extremely worried about her.  She really looked bad tonight, not at all like the vibrant little lady I remember.  I tried to be upbeat for her daughters, but it was really difficult.  If you have space for an extra prayer or two, please try to fit one in for Mata and her family.  No matter how things go, they will all need lots of prayers, good thoughts, white light or whatever you might care to send their way.

I had tons and tons of plans for this weekend, so how come they didn’t all get done?

Last week was totally exhuasting at work.  Not sure if it had to do with side effects from the tetanus shot I got last Monday or just a busy week.  Whatever, I got home on Friday and just crashed.  After resting a bit, I spent an hour or so trimming roses and that was it for Friday.

On Saturday I spent about half the day on the phone with family getting caught up on all the family news stuff.  Then got started on laundry.  One of Patrick’s friends (Brett) gave me a ton of baby clothes for Kevin and Soula.  After washing all of them, I sorted, folded and packed them up for shipping to Seattle.  Patrick and Veronica showed up at dinnertime with steaks, chicken and margarita fixings.  We grilled and enjoyed a relaxing dinner out back.

Today I cleaned off the front porch and redid the wreaths and hanging planter, changing from red, white & blue flowers to a mix of summery stuff.  Started cleaning the kitchen when I realized I needed to go shopping for Soula’s upcoming baby shower.  Went to a store I had never visited before, but Kelly has been bugging me to go to–Kohl’s.  OMG, what a great store!  I bought tons of new clothes as well as lots of baby stuff!  Wish I could describe all the cute baby things, but don’t want Soula knowing what I got.  Suffice to say I am unbelievably excited at the cute stuff I found!  Can’t wait for Soula to open the gifts, especially one in particular.  I’ll tell all about it after the shower.

And so now I’m wiped out.  Putting out the trash was about all I could handle tonight.  I’m so ready for bed right now and so I’m off.  Just wish I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow…but I guess that’s how I feel most every Sunday night.

Got a call tonight from the woman who took over for me with the private client for whom I worked for 3 years.  Not surprisingly her computer crashed.  And, of course, she had no backup for all her data.  She upgraded to a new computer and can’t find any of the data on her old hard drive to be able to restore.  She’s got someone working with her who seems to know what he is doing, but I have a bad feeling about this restoration.  I recently upgraded my internet explorer and got a message when I tried to open QuickBooks Pro that it was not compatible with Internet Explorer 7.  I was still able to open the program, but I think she’s going to have a problem since she’s switched to the Vista operating system.  The software I gave her is from 2004 and probably will have to be upgraded to a newer version.

Things at work have also been crazy.  Today was filled with interruptions resulting in far less being accomplished than I had hoped.  I was trying to reconcile the bank statement this afternoon and found a bunch of deposits from credit cards or from our website for which I had no backup info.  Massive confusion on the part of many coworkers has resulted in this lack of info to me.  Many of those involved in the website contribution system don’t understand what is needed to record these transactions as well as how contributors are given credit for their donations.  The crazy part is that I have never been asked for input regarding any of this–crazy since I am the ONLY one who has ever dealt with online contributions and the ONLY one who has a clue as to how this works and how to record the donations!

My left arm is still extremely sore and swollen from the tetanus shot on Monday.  I’ve also been extremely tired for the past few days with absolutely no energy.  Turns out all of these are common symptoms of this shot.  I knew my arm would be somewhat sore, but I never had swelling like this in the past when I’ve gotten this shot.  And I had no idea about the tiredness and lack of energy.  I’m hopeful all these symptoms will dissipate by the weekend.

Speaking of the weekend, since I got little accomplished last weekend after spending the entire day Saturday at my friend’s house, I have lots planned for here at home.  Mostly it involves cleaning and getting rid of ‘stuff.’  I’m staying home all weekend and only doing home things.  I expect to be exhausted and completely not ready to go back to work on Monday to face the craziness of the audit beginning once again.  Yuk. 

On Saturday I went to my friend, Mata’s, house to help her family get it ready for her return home from the hospital.  Her daughter let me in the front door and I saw their cat sitting on the floor to the side of me.  Mata’s daughter started to lead me back to the family room where we would be starting when suddenly I felt an unbelievable pain on the back of my left leg.  Jake, the cat, attacked my leg and sunk all four of his incisors into my calf!  I was wearing shorts and it seems Jake doesn’t like bare legs.

The blood flowed heavy duty as we tried to clean the wounds.  Bandaids were applied and most of the blood flow let up and we got busy cleaning.  Jake continued to approach me but I was ready for him the rest of the day.

Later that night after going home, I removed the bandaids prior to soaking in the tub and the blood flowed again!  The long and short of it is that the wounds are healing, but one of the four seems to be red, swollen and infected.

Decided to go to the doctor on Monday, just to be on the safe side.  He prescribed antibiotics and gave me a tetanus shot even though the chances of getting tetanus from a cat bite is very slim.  So now I have a sore left arm in addition to a sore left leg!

I have always been a bit standoffish with dogs that I don’t know, but never worried about cats.  While this bite was probably not as severe as a dog bite, it’s bad enough that I’ll always keep my eye on any unfamiliar animal.

…and sooo grateful I don’t have to get up at 7 am tomorrow morning!  What a grueling week this has been.  I have lots I want to do at home this weekend, but at least I don’t have to get up early, put on makeup, do my hair, and drive to work…and then deal with work problems.

I am going to a friend’s house tomorrow to help get it ready for her return from the hospital in a week or so.  She had back surgery and needs to have a hospital bed moved into her family room during her recovery.  So we need to do some massive rearranging of furniture to accomodate the bed.

After that, I’m coming home to start in on some major cleaning at my own house.  The only rooms that are what I’d call clean are the office and family room.  The rest of the house went to hell during the redo of the office and I have been too exhausted all week to even consider cleaning.  But it absolutely MUST happen this weekend.  I can’t take it any longer!

Patrick and I drove out to Santa Monica last night and picked up Kevin after the E3 conference ended.  We drove back into LA to go to dinner at Cantor’s Deli.  I had never been there before and it really was good food.  I had corned beef and cabbage which was unbelievable.  I had half a head of cabbage on my plate!  After visiting over dinner, we took Kevin to the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City where he was staying–what a snazzy place!  The visit was short, but it was nice to get to see Kevin again.

The drive down Santa Monica Blvd was unbelievably long, though.  I am so glad I don’t have to drive in that godawful traffic on a regular basis!  It took us over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  It was so nice to get back to Pasadena and I have no desire to head back into LA anytime soon.  Outside my house all I hear right now is crickets.  It’s quite wonderful.  Sorry Brian (my nephew), but I won’t be doing the tourist thing with you when you come to visit in August if it means driving anywhere in LA!

Vanessa came over tonight and brought me dinner (Zankou chicken–yummy!) and we spent 3-4 hours visiting.  It was a great way to end the week.  Thanks, ‘nessa!

That’s how long I have until my next week of vacation begins.  I hope the time goes by quickly ’cause being back at work is exhausting already.  While my new assistant is doing a relatively good job, I am finding I still need to do a lot of overseeing of his work.  He has no accounting/bookkeeping training and doesn’t understand the difference between statements and invoices.  I’m sure I reviewed numerous items with him last month, but he doesn’t seem to remember a good chunk of what we went over and I’ve had to go over much of the same stuff today.

I think I gave him too much praise at the start, resulting in him thinking he knows all there is to know already.  Then my supervisor gave him some bad info/instructions last week while I was off and that resulted in me having to clean up things he did incorrectly as well as make journal entries to correct mistakes.  Good thing I was only gone for one week.  Hopefully he’ll have a better understanding of the job six weeks from now.

I can’t believe how tired I’ve been for the past two nights after getting home.  I wasn’t nearly as tired last week and you would have thought I’d have been more tired after all the physical labor.  Perhaps I need to immediately go for a walk or do something physically taxing when I get home rather than watch the news or check emails.  Somehow I just can’t get motivated to do much else.  Maybe next week after I’m back on a more regular routine again.

Kevin arrived in LA today to participate in a trade show in Santa Monica.  Patrick, Veronica and I will be meeting him for dinner Thursday night.  Because he’s in SM, it’s too far for him to make his way to Pasadena at any point.  While I’d like to spend more than just a few hours with him at dinner, it’s better than not seeing him at all.

…and what a day it’s been!

Finished up cleaning and moving furniture in the family room and it looks spectacular!  I can’t believe how huge it looks.  How I ever managed to squeeze so much into that room is amazing.  The only new piece of furniture I’ve brought in is the v-shaped desk that I bought for Patrick a few years ago.  (It was really too big for his apartment, so I took it back and got him a smaller one from Office Depot.)  Anyhow, all the furniture that I had in the family room is now spread over that room and my new office (Kevin’s old bedroom).  There is so much space available now in both rooms and it feels wonderful.

The second bit of news is that Patrick bought a truck today!  It is a 2003 Dodge Ram Quad Cab (meaning it has four doors and a front and back seat).  It is really a beautiful truck with all the bells and whistles you might find in a luxury car.  He got a great deal on it from CarMax and is well equipped to head off to Burning Man in August.

I thought I was ready to go back to work tomorrow, but I really am not.  It would be so nice to have another week at home, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have done so much this past week if I had known I was going to be off another week.  And it will be very nice to take off the next week in mid-August and I’ll be ready then to get going on another batch of projects.  But I’m still not eager to deal with using my brain once more.

Ah well, it will be quite nice to come home tomorrow night to my beautiful new spaces.

I finally finished all the painting and cleaning of my new office today.  Then Patrick came over after work and set up my new desk…and then he moved my computer and all the peripherals and got them set up in the new space…and then he moved the tv and all the electronic equipment to a new spot in the family room and got that all set up!  Thank you, Patrick!  You are great!

The new office space is going to be fabulous.  I still have to move 3 more bookcases as well as one more file cabinet, but I should be able to get that finished tomorrow.  Then I’ll start in on making the family room habitable which also should also happen tomorrow.

I’ve really let the house go as a result of all the work in the office, so need to deal with a lot of that before heading back to work on Monday.  What a great week off this has been!  Even though I worked almost constantly getting all this work completed, it was sooo worth it.  Manual labor is entirely different than what I do week after week at work.  It was so nice not to have to think about anything other than whether or not the paint was going on smoothly and whether I needed to touch up the edges.

I still have to paint the closet doors as well as a small bit of trim around the doors, but that wasn’t necessary to get the office moved.  So I’ll finish it up as soon as I get the house back in order–which probably won’t be until next weekend if I really want to get the rest of this mess cleaned up.  But for now I am quite satisfied with all the redo work from this vacation.

What I’d like to know, though, is how they get all that painting and remodeling completed on all those HGTV shows in just 1-2 days.  It sure seems easier and goes more quickly on tv than it is in person!

Patrick and Veronica (and Floyd, their pitbull) showed up around noon today for some swimming and hanging out around the pool.  They went to the beach earlier, but it was cloudy and chilly, so they figured it would be nicer in my backyard.  I finally got into the pool for the first time this year.  It was great!  The pool was warmer than it ever has been at this time of year, so it seems we’ll have a long swimming season.

They hung out until mid-afternoon and then I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney.  If that wasn’t enough patriotic music, tonight I watched A Capitol Fourth on PBS, Macy’s Fireworks Show on NBC and then the Boston Pops Fireworks Show on CBS.  About the only kind of traditional 4th of July movies I didn’t watch were Independence Day and The Music Man.  But I certainly got my fill of patriotic music!  I think I’ve heard all the standards at least 2-3 times today.

Kevin called tonight to give me a chance to experience his neighborhood where fireworks are legal.  A constant barrage of booms and bangs were going on the entire time we were on the phone.  Then the people across the street from him began shooting off fireworks in the center of the cul-de-sac.  It reminded me of how it was when I was a kid growing up in Dayton.  The 4th of July was one of the best holidays ever!

The only fireworks I heard here were the booms from the Rose Bowl for about 45 min tonight.  Other than that, there has been nothing…thank God.  Everything is so dry and it seems no one wanted to take the chance of starting another fire.

So the day was quiet and uneventful.  I did no painting or any other work type things.  Thought about starting on the trim painting tonight, but I just needed a break.  So will be back at it tomorrow.